vintage here, vintage there: boy edition

This week Rachel and I are sharing some vintage goods that the boy(s) in our life wear...

Ben has great style and I thought so from the moment I met him. I was seriously doubting that this cool 26 year old guy who had just moved from the east coast would even glance at my 19 year old self. God must have put a little spell on him!

Ben was in between jobs at the time, or so he thought (God had other plans), and was working at the GAP, which was were I was working throughout college. Yeah. We met at the GAP. I will never forget the image of him just strolling into work with his little red cooler (it held his lunch) and his sneakers and I thought he had the most confident strut. Even just thinking about those sweet first moments makes my heart get all giggly and wild.

I know most of you have asked about our story and I will share it sometime (here is a tidbit). There are so many parts to it that I don't know how to present it and of course good stories do come with a bit of drama as both Ben and I had just come out of relationships. One thing for sure is that God truly had a hand through all of it.

Back to Ben and vintage. I have mentioned Ben loves vintage and since I go treasure hunting while he is at work, I have a little sheet with his measurements (though I pretty much have it memorized now) based on his favorite vintage shirts, and always carry around a measuring tape. Last week, my sister and I went to a vintage shop and I scored 2 shirts that Ben loves and fit him perfectly! I was so excited that I brought home some winners for him!!!

Some of his favorite vintage styles are western shirts, flannels, and military shirts. They must always be long sleeve shirts because he likes to roll them up. I never buy short sleeves because he will never wear them unless it is a t-shirt. The other day, he tried on a short sleeve and it looked so funny, so we will continue to stick to long sleeves cause that is what this boy likes. Oh and my favorite color on Ben is blue, so it is his favorite too!

on ben: flannel shirt, vintage. jeans, diesel. shoes, new balance.

I don't have a little man to dress up (at least not that we know of yet and if we did, we aren't telling), but if we did I would have no clue how to dress him! I am so used to girls!!! Over the years though, I have acquired a few vintage boy items because I thought we would eventually have a boy, but we will see in about 7 months.

rad vintage things for boys: shadow plaid, 1960's short sleeve, wrangler western, lee riders, tan western

rad vintage for little boys: plaid seersucker, plaid button up, retro classic, little striped, western pearl snap

You must see what vintage the boys in Rachel's life are wearing "over there"! She has got a big and little to dress up!!!

vintage here, vintage there: week one

vintage here, vintage there: week two

vintage here, vintage there: week three, part one

vintage here, vintage there: week three, part two

vintage here, vintage there: week four

vintage here, vintage there: week five

vintage here, vintage there: everyday wear

vintage here, vintage there: outerwear

vintage here, vintage there: texas style

vintage here, vintage there: borrowed

vintage here, vintage there: family outing

vintage here, vintage there: what's in my bag?

vintage here, vintage there: handmade

vintage here, vintage there: shoes

vintage here, vintage there: love day

vintage here, vintage there: casual

vintage here, vintage there: vintage mama gisela

Today's vintage lovin' and wearin' mama is Gisela Diaz the curator of Bella Vintage. I have had the opportunity to meet Gisela and let me tell you... she is one cool mama! She doesn't even look like a mama at all! Her and her daughter Zoe look more like sisters!!!

Q: When did you start wearing vintage and why?

A: i started wearing vintage when i was 14. i was in 9th and just starting highschool in 1992. at the time the grunge movement was the trend and in my school if you were not wearing flannels and oversized pants vintage was the dress of choice. baby doll dresses were all the rage and vintage ones were my favorite. i walked into my first thrift store that year and it was love at first sight!

Q: What do you look for in a piece when you're shopping?

A: the first thing that immediately catches my eye is the fabrication and/or print. then i feel the hand of the fabric and look at construction. back when i was a teen i would were stiff poly pants, shirts, dresses because it had the coolest prints you can't find in retail. now the hand of the garment pretty much determines if i will buy it or not.

Q: Favorite vintage find to date?

A: ahh i have a few. i'll have to say it's a tie between a 70's 2 piece matching skirt and top designed by Halston which i have yet to wear! and a floral 80's Valentino dress, just beautifully constructed which has also been hanging in my closet for a few years!

Q: What is the one piece that got away or may have broken the bank?

A: way too many! i would say one that comes to mind was a beautiful 1960's slip dress from Christian Dior which was a mere $100 but for a single mom on a tight budget, at that time it was to much for me to part with that money.

Q: How do you style your daughter(s)?

A: well i LOVED the days when i could style Zoe with my crazy mix of prints of vintage / or vintage inspired clothes between birth and 5. now that she's older she's more of a laid back rock/surf type california girl. but she is dying to find two vintage items which we are still searching for; a really well fitted motorcyle jacket and a sailors hat like the one Blondie wore in the 70's. but in these pictures she brought in her personality and style and mixed it with a vintage item. in this case my mom's original 80's western snap button jean top & a 1960's mens vest.

shops i love to surf just to look at all the pretty things are adore vintage, mama stone vintage and bustown modern vintage on ebay. and as far as thrifting goes, my favorite place i love to thrift is my home town of Miami. a lot of retiree's with a lot of great vintage!

Thank you so much Gisela! You have such a keen sense of style and it is no doubt that Zoe is going be just as fabulous!!! If you are a vintage lovin' mama or have one you would like to see featured, leave us a link here! We love learning from and getting inspired from other mamas who like to give life to old things! And check back tonight as Rachel and I will be sharing what vintage the boys, in my case boy, in our lives like to wear!

***** vintage mama features *****

vintage here, vintage there: vintage mama heather

vintage here, vintage there: vintage mama karen

vintage here, vintage there: vintage mama james

vintage here, vintage there: vintage mama alix

vintage here, vintage there: vintage mama beth

vintage here, vintage there: vintage mama danielle

vintage here, vintage there: vintage mama stacy

week end

It is a rainy and gloomy here in southern California and I am loving every bit of it. This week has been a better week and energy levels seem to be climbing back up, though I did spend a few days just in bed. I did get some sister and friend hang out times in, which also involved leaving the house, so that says a lot for how much better I am starting to feel.

Though, I also do feel a slightly bit restless. I think Ben and I have just gotten so comfortable in where we are, that we are getting itchy. We know that as christians we aren't supposed to feel this comfortable. Really too comfortable. We aren't venturing outside of our comfort levels and we are more concerned with the here and now and later (older later), but not enough with the eternity later. I am really praying for God to direct these feelings I have been having. Don't mind me sharing this tidbit of my heart.

Our weekend plans include a weekend of working for Ben (boo!), a kid birthday party, more laying down, of course gathering with our church family (if you are looking for a church in l.a. please do come visit) and possibly my brother and sister coming over for dinner! Our parents have been out of the country with the middle sister, so my other siblings are parentless. They have been living off fast food and microwaveable meals. I think it is time we had them over!

Got any fun plans this weekend? I would love to hear about it!

greencraft magazine

One of my most favorite things I have ever made for a little project for Free People awhile back has also made it into GreenCraft's latest issue.

I am honored to be in their magazine once again (see another contribution here) and along with my braided tablecloth bag, you could find a plethora of other fun projects you can make just using things you already have lying around your house! GreenCraft can be picked up at any of your major bookstores like Borders and Barnes or ordered straight from Stampington.

Thanks Stampington Publications, it is always a pleasure!!! Most of all, thank you Lord for fun little things like this!!!

polaroid tuesday (on thursday): week eight

Superheroes and pajamas. That is what our days are made of.

a happy dinner

The days I know exactly what I want to eat are such good days. On top of that, if it is something we could make at home, those are really happy days! Yesterday morning, I had a sudden craving for one of our favorite salmon dishes to make. I happily emailed Ben right away telling him what I wanted for dinner.

He then came home with some groceries that included two bulbs of fennel. He showed me this recipe he was going to make for our vegetable dish that would accompany our fish. If you have never tried fennel, you must, cause it is just so yummy! Or maybe it is Ben's knack for finding recipes that make vegetables taste wonderful. Oh last night we had such a good dinner (except maybe the gas that ensued after eating so many vegetables, sorry if that was tmi)!

our favorite dry rub to put on salmon

1. gather all these dry ingredients: black pepper, paprika, cayenne, sea salt, crush red pepper, oregano, thyme (make to taste, sorry we never measure it out when we make it, but we like ours super spicy).

2. blend all the ingredients together.

3. rub all over your fish (sometimes we like to add a bit of extra virgin olive oil when we apply the rub).

4. grill or pan fry.

It is so, so good! Ben even put some feta cheese, parsley and squeezed lemon on top of his brown rice and he said that added an extra oomph, but this pregnant lady wanted her brown rice plain.

We have one salmon steak left and I can't wait to warm that up for my dinner. This time I will be careful with the amount of vegetables I consume (being gassy wasn't fun)! Anyone else feeling a bit hungry now?

vintage here, vintage there: a casual day

I finally left the house on Sunday to go to church (I didn't go anywhere at all last week) and I was feeling so yucky that all I wanted to throw on were a pair of jeans and a tee! Thus, it was dubbed a casual "vintage here, vintage there" for the week.

Then, my prego mama brain went into overdrive and as were about to take pictures with my nikon, I realized I forgot to put the battery in, so we decided to do the pictures using hipstamatic app on ben's phone. Yup. This mama is definitely pregnant!

I feel like I am kinda cheating this week because the only vintage I am actually wearing is the kelly green cardigan. I found it thrifting in San Antonio over the holidays and totally thought it was polyester, so I stuck it in the wash. When I took it out it was a tad bit smaller, so I looked at the label and saw that it was actually pure virgin wool! Oi!!! It was originally a bit bigger, so now I like the fit a lot better, but washing it did give it some teeny tiny holes all over that I had to hand sew close. You can hardly tell the holes are there now and I still love it nonetheless. It is a lesson to look at the label before you throw it in the wash!

True was sleeping in the car, so I didn't bother waking her up because she was extremely tired and we noticed she may have the startings of a cold. My Brave and Soul were happy to be freed and able to roam a bit taking some pictures.

Soul's cowichan sweater is from oh, sydney and it is one of my favorite vintage things we have for her! I really wish it came in my size, but I think I could say that about a lot of the kid vintage stuff they have.

Brave's dress vintage dress is totally another style that I wish came in my size! Though of late, the idea of wearing a dress doesn't sound too pleasant to me. When I was pregnant with Brave all I wanted to wear was pants. Then when I was pregnant with Soul all I wanted to wear were dresses! This time around all I want to wear are pajamas!!! Do you think I could make it socially acceptable to wear my pj's out and about?!! Yeah. I didn't think so.

on me: jeans, seven. shirt, kohls. cardigan, vintage thrifted. scarf, some little shop in seattle. ballet flats, jessica simpson.

on brave: dress, lishyloo. shoes, siaomimi via gilt.

on soul: shirt, misha lulu. pants, forever21 baby (when it was around). cardigan, oh sydney. moccasins, freshly picked.

cute cardigans for the cool spring days ahead: sweet pink, beaded cardigan, robin egg blue, green and white, granny pink

little cardigans for the cool spring days ahead: balloon, chicken button, knit sweater, plaid letter, little red

Head over to Rachel's and see the super cute vintage housedress she is wearing and the little yellow dress we gave to Miss Ruby before she was even born! It is still cold over there in Missouri, but they are getting pretty excited for warm days ahead (keeping fingers crossed). I hope to be my normal wanting to get dressed up self soon... 2 more weeks until this first trimester is over!!!

vintage here, vintage there: week one

vintage here, vintage there: week two

vintage here, vintage there: week three, part one

vintage here, vintage there: week three, part two

vintage here, vintage there: week four

vintage here, vintage there: week five

vintage here, vintage there: everyday wear

vintage here, vintage there: outerwear

vintage here, vintage there: texas style

vintage here, vintage there: borrowed

vintage here, vintage there: family outing

vintage here, vintage there: what's in my bag?

vintage here, vintage there: handmade

vintage here, vintage there: shoes

vintage here, vintage there: love day

ebelskivers

Oh man, oh man... being pregnant and watching food network is a very dangerous thing! They should have some sort of warning along that bottom for us hormonal food avoiding and craving people. Sometimes there will be a particular dish showing and just seeing it makes me sick, so I run upstairs to avoid the nauseating feeling. Other times, I see something and instantly want it and those are the things that get me especially in trouble!

Last week, there were two things that got me instantly while watching "The Best Thing I Ever Ate". The first was the cannoli and now I so desperately want one! I seriously dreamt about it that night and it has made me want it even more. Since I didn't know where to get one, the next day I made Ben go to cheesecake factory and get me a slice of plain cheesecake. Yummity yum! I ate is very slowly of course, extending out over the next few nights because if I eat too much of something I get an adverse reaction and all the food ends up in the toilet. Not fun.

The second thing that got me were the ebelskivers! I had never heard of those before, but they looked bomb diggity (um, Lin I am sounding like you)!!! I wanted some right there and while we were watching Ben tells me he saw an ebelskiver pan at the thrift store the other day and almost bought it, but didn't know what to do with it! Darn. Darn. Darn. The one that they were showing had banana inside a pancake type batter with a cinnamon and sugar coating. Thus, a few days later the craving was still there and I was still lacking an ebelskiver pan, so I made my own!

I made buttermilk pancake batter and thinly sliced up some bananas. Then on our griddle, I made a pancake and while it was cooking it on one side, added the banana on top, then folded it over like a taco (the banana was sandwiched inside) and kept cooking it until it was throughly cooked. When they were done, I coated them with cinnamon and sugar and voila! I had my own version of ebelskivers!

Now, it probably wasn't really the same, but I guessed it did the job (at least for now). My version wasn't bad and still did taste good, but now I am determined to get me one of these little pans (can I put this on a baby registry?!). I have grand plans of making some filled with nutella, custard, and basically anything that makes my baby belly sing!

Anyone have experience making ebelskivers? Any good recipes? Or maybe have a pan you want to get rid of. Please do share!!!

Hope your weekend was filled with a bit of dessert too!!!

p.s. my BFF made a really cool video (with her little sister) for their older sister's wedding and it is posted here. this is the video that inspired our little video announcement. you seriously must watch their video, it is so crazily cute! my BFF finally has a blog, so please head over and bid her hello!

the five of us (kinda)

Pretty much the minute we found out we were expecting, I called Christian and said we needed to take family pictures very soon. This is my fourth pregnancy and from my previous two pregnancies, I know my baby belly pops out the moment that test turns positive (my uterus has already been stretched out a lot). I wanted pretty pictures to mark this sweet season when we were just five (though I am actually 6 weeks pregnant in these pictures).

We loved all the pictures and I think Christian captured this season so perfectly! Can see tons more here.

I am heading into my tenth week of pregnancy, feeling as crappy as ever, but God is still oh so good! We are overjoyed by this blessing, though my initial feeling did include shock at the idea of having 4 kids, 5 years old and under. Can you believe it?!

I still have a couple more weeks until I am out of the first trimester and I hope that this vomiting, tiredness, nasty taste in my mouth, and constantly nauseous self will leave as soon as the second trimester hits! Hoping and praying. My house is a mess (as you have seen) and I lie in bed almost all day while the girls play around me. I hate being around food cause most of it stinks and I have made Ben do runs for barbeque ribs, in-n-out, wings, chinese food, strawberry ice cream, kfc, pollo loco, and whole lot of other things that I normally wouldn't eat. I miss being normal, but I am very glad for the baby cooking inside me!

This is for sure our last. We have no aspirations to go for a fifth (4 is it and we will make sure no more oopsies happen!). Emotionally, mentally, and physically four is all we can handle. I am going to enjoy this pregnancy (once it gets fun) as much as I can. I can't wait to officially look pregnant (the belly has no doubt popped) and not just look like I ate a lot of dinner. I can't wait to feel the baby. I can't wait to find out the gender. Most especially, I can't wait to have a name.

To keep things interesting this time around, only Ben and I will find out the gender, but we won't be telling until the baby is born! It will no doubt be a hard secret to keep. I know most think we automatically want that boy, but honestly we have no strong desire one way or the other. Ben was never one of those "I need my boy kinda guys" and actually the idea of a boy makes us nervous because it is uncharted territory. On the other hand, having a little boy that looked just like Ben would be quite dreamy. Ben was a really cute kid!!! Boy or girl, we are just excited at this new blessing!

Thanks for going along this journey with us. We are blessed by all of you and your very warm welcome at this new season of change we are going through. We know right now it will be a whole lot of crazy raising 4 kids so close in age. Their teenage years will look like this... 13, 15, 17, & 18 year old. Oh boy! It will be chaos no doubt, but it will be a whole lot of fun too! We will definitely need extra grace, extra strength, and extra patience, extra a lot of stuff, but good thing I have a God that freely supplies all of that!

and cause some of you have asked...

on ben: shirt, american apparel. bow tie, forage. jeans, diesel. shoes, kenneth cole. belt, vintage.

on me: dress, vintage from here. shoes, vintage. belt, thrifted. hair, my sister did it.

on true: dress, vintage. shoes, siaomimi via gilt. bow, my trim stash.

on brave: dress, vintage. shoes, vintage.

on soul: dress, vintage. shoes, vintage. hair clip, cakies.

props: umbrellas, vintage. cameras, vintage.

* all pictures taken by christian cruz (having a photographer dating my sister is kinda nice). he can take your picture too, he did danni's. her wedding is finally being shared on her blog and design*sponge.

a story you won't want to miss

If you are at work, just turn down the volume *wink*. Enjoy!!!

{the story of mommy & papi from rubyellen bratcher on Vimeo, song is ukelele hawaiian instrumental by tien}

p.s. video is inspired by a video made by my friend (who doesn't blog).

love day happenings

Yesterday morning, I woke up and saw one mirror with a special little love note, then slowly discovered, rather my little girls ran around the house discovering and yelling to me that every mirror had a message. It was funny cause at first they saw them and were really confused, then they exclaimed, "Mommy! Santa left us Valentines!!! He said, Happy Valentine's to True, Brave, and Soul!"

Actually, good thing they couldn't read all my love notes on all the mirrors because they were all quite spicy! The ones I am sharing here are the only tame ones I could share without making me or any of you blush.

Ben and I made a rule this Love Day to make sure we didn't buy any gifts and just make some homemade valentine's. I was telling him I wanted some doily hearts with cute messages. Well, he by far exceeded what I imagined and gave me the most sweet and racy messages ever! I loved every single one (they made me giggle) and will be sad when I have to clean them off, but really they aren't guest appropriate!

I had all my fun notes up, so Santa did make sure to leave a message just for the little ones on their very own mirror in their own room. It was extra special too because Ben came home with a flower for each little one and separately asked each one to be his Valentine. It was such a melt your heart moment. The girls were so excited to put their flower in their own vase and put it in their room.

The day was quite hectic, as I started off the morning working and had to make somethings for the Misha Lulu shoot that happened today. After I was done, I started making Ben's present. Once that was done, we ate lunch and baked some Valentine cookies. Then, we did some cookie eating and crafting. Then, I finished prepping for when Ben would get home.

On holidays you always want things to go smoothly, but it doesn't, especially when you try to jam pack things like I did, so I felt bad cause I did do a bit of yelling at the girls while I was stressed out trying to finish Ben's present. Sometimes, you just have to take a deep breath and move on. I love my girls so and by God's grace I am learning with how to deal everyday.

Back to the celebrating... we made tea cookies with jam. It was supposed to be heart shaped thumbprints like last year, but they didn't come out right so we rolled with the punches and just used a cookie cutter in the end (see, I was trying to calmly adapt!). It was still pretty tasty and that is all that matters to the taste buds of these little ones!

These little ones kept sneaking cookies all afternoon long! They were on such a sugar high right before bedtime.

You are probably wondering what it is I made Ben for his homemade Valentine's that got me all in a hissy fit when I was making it... well, it was a homemade teepee!

I thought it would be fun to spend a sweet, romantic valentine's night (or any other kind of night) inside cuddling and just loving each other a whole lot!

Call me crazy, or a procrastinator, but I cranked this crazy thing in two and a half hours. Note: I did have all the supplies ready, but I did all the measuring, cutting, and crazy sewing in such a short amount of time that made me a bit of a crank monster as I did so (my poor babies had to deal with me!). I used Rachel's tutorial as a guide, but also found other teepees I liked online and tweaked things around to get just what I wanted. Despite my crazy self while making this, I really like how it turned out and Ben really loved it too!

When Ben came home we gave him his little Valentine notes, one from the girls and one from me that maybe said something to the effect of cowboy & indian. Then, I brought him upstairs and he saw the teepee. He brought home some of our favorite food, so we had dinner with the girls and gave them some more little love day goodies, then we put them to bed and spent the rest of the evening enjoying each other...

We both didn't break any rules and made each other a homemade Valentine's (buying my supplies doesn't count!) and I really like these homemade Valentine's... it is quite fun! He actually got me another treat from somewhere else, but it didn't cost him any money either and I yelped when I saw it, but that is a post for another day!

Hope your love day was just as lovely!!! Really, I am so thankful to God for blessing me with Ben. We fight and do get on each other's nerves at times, but I really do love being married to this man a whole lot! I think we got a whole lot of spice!!!