Shopping Tips and Ideas for Every Girl!
It’s that tanning time of year for some! If you use a self tanner, buff with baking soda. If you find yourself streaking (not glowing) after applying self-tanner, put some baking soda on a loofah, and scrub away the stripes.
*If you have a beauty tip you’d like to share, contact me at:
lisaw@cantstopblogging.com and title your email “beauty tip”
I’ll feature your beauty tip as well as mention who you are and link to your blog or website!
What is going on? There are babies being born everywhere! At first I thought that maybe it was just that time of my life where when you hit you late 20′s, people start having babies… but EVERYONE is having babies, I swear! One thing I love though are baby showers and luckily I love to shop for them too! I typically love to buy baby clothes but I also have been considering making one larger purchase, something like baby furniture as opposed to a bunch of smaller items. You too may want to consider spending more on one large item then spending less on a collective amount of individual items at Target or somewhere that ends of costing more all together then the one larger item. Perhaps I’m just more focused on the economic issues we’re all facing, but I still want to support my friends and help out as we all know that babies can be quite the financial burden for new parents.
So, fall is officially here. Yay! I love fall. The autumn season has always been a favorite of mine. It used to be that fall was something I associated with starting a new year of school, going back, something new, something fresh. But since 2000, I have happily associated fall with the beginning of my relationship with my husband, Daniel. We went on our first date on August 16th, 2000, but because he was leaving the area for his first year of college, I didn’t see him after August 22nd, not again until mid-September. The following year I took tour buses and trains out to Pittsburgh to visit him, and the year after that I moved with him to Pittsburgh. Oh, and two years after that our daughter was born. And lastly, the year after THAT we conceived our son. For those still playing along, that’s 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005. 
Alyssa is all ready for the fall. She really hasn’t grown too much since last year (just upwards!), so all of her pants from last year fit her just fine. She inherited my short legs, so at least this year most of her jeans won’t be dragging the ground. I seriously have to roll up the cuffs on 90% of her pants. It’s ridiculous!
Ryan, on the other hand, not so ready…. he has new shirts, about ten of them. But he needs pants. I wasn’t sure what size pants he had leftover from last year, so I decided to wait on buying new ones until I checked out his drawers. Well, I went through them yesterday, and he’s down to one pair of jeans and two pairs of cargo pants. Ridiculous! That kid grows too much. He was wearing 24mo/2T in the summer of 2007, here we are in the fall of 2008 and 5T fits him now. In comparison, Alyssa is wearing 5T loosely, and she’s almost two years older than him. Well, that’s my chunky baby.
So guess who has to go shopping for more baby clothes. Or should I say toddler clothes, since there’s nothing really BABY about a whopping 5 in toddler sizes!
Psst… anyone else who has a horse-sized toddler like mine, check out eBay for onesies. I found a bunch (new! in packaging!) by Gerber that are 4T! I’m stoked!
I think one of the most exciting things to shop for is a new pet or a new baby. I recently got a pug (four months old, female, beautiful, very well behaved and well mannered), and shopping for her was a lot of fun. But there’s only so much to shop for for a dog. A baby, on the other hand, requires a lot of preparation! Baby furniture is just the tip of the iceberg, and even that is a lot. Cribs, playpens, strollers, car seats, high chairs… then there are the optional things like slings, baby swings, cradles, bassinets. But the fun stuff, the REALLY fun stuff, are the baby clothes, diapers, bibs, towels, and accessories like pacifiers, diaper bags and diapering essentials, breastfeeding supplies, toys and musical CDs.
When you think about it, it’s amazing that there are literally thousands of items to buy for a new baby. I know we spent a decent chunk of change and time on new baby things for Alyssa. With our second child, we didn’t have to get the big things, but we needed a lot of new boys clothes, since we were having a boy, and obviously he wouldn’t look too good in pink or purple.
What was your favorite baby purchase?
I am sleepy. It’s only 11pm, but I could totally crash right now. A week ago that wouldn’t have been the case. That just goes to show you how much can change in just a few days time. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday were exhausting for me. I got a full night’s sleep last night, but tonight I’m not sure how things will pan out, because I have a lot of work to do.
In addition to work, I have laundry to finish up, and a desk to organize. I was going to fix my old laptop for Dan (weird driver issue), but Jason is over and is taking care of that for me (thanks Jason!). I also need to go through Alyssa’s drawers. She has a lot of fall and winter clothing in them from last year, and I want to try everything on her and weed out what doesn’t fit. Ryan has a bottom drawer filled with clean and in good condition baby clothes that I need to donate, but I’m waiting until I get Alyssa’s clothes sorted out. Then I’ll run everything over to a local shelter at once.
