Dressing my truth

This post might be a little strange, and will probably be quite long ... but here is a little about what's been going on in my own personal life since the middle of August. This post is just barely starting, and it's already feeling slightly awkward that it's all about me. I don't tend to focus on myself almost ever ...
Also, some of the photos in this post are not too bad, and others are not great ... not even close. The only reason I even put them on here was to try and show what I was talking about. Alright, here we go.

Just over a year ago, my mom and her friend Debi made a pretty noticeable change in their appearance. In July, Ber got married and I wanted to wear a chunky statement gold necklace to make my dress pop. I knew that Debi always wore chunky cute gold necklaces, so I asked her if I could borrow one. While I was over there, we talked about what her and my mom had done for the past year. She told me how she never felt feminine and confident in what she was wearing. She hated shopping and never thought she looked like she felt. A co-worker had gone through a noticeable change and Debi talked with her about it. (I'm trying to make a very long story relatively short). It ended up being a program called Dressing Your Truth.  It's more than just a makeover, it helps you understand who you are on the inside and it teaches you to dress to show your "inner nature". Another reason I was anxious to try it out, was I hoped that if what I wore on the outside complimented what was on the inside, my body might feel better about itself and I might be able to kick the postpartum depression thing a little faster and without meds. After seeing before and afters of my mom and Debi, it obviously works ... so I wanted to give it a try too.

Debi and my mom January 2012

My mom and Debi at Ber's wedding July 2013

The first step to the program is to read the book by Carol Tuttle called Dressing Your Truth, Discover your type of beauty. It explains a little bit about what she's trying to accomplish and then it goes into details about the different "Types" of people. There are 4 types and you read to book to figure out which type you are. After pondering about it for a while, I finally came to the conclusion of which type I was and then I took the challenge that end of the book. The challenge was to try it for 30 days and see how you feel.

I have always felt really awkward in front of cameras and I usually get really goofy to make it less awkward. I've never felt like a very photogenic person, so some of these pictures are quite painful to look at. Some are not too bad, but hopefully they show the point I'm trying to make a little.
Here are a handful of my "before" photos. Now that I've been doing the program for just over 3 months, I can see things in myself that I didn't notice before. When you dress in other types that aren't you, the clothes wear you instead of letting the true you shine through and show your most beautiful self. In a lot of these before photos, my eyes are squinty and really dark, my face seems to be pulled down toward the ground, I have a lot more red marks and blemishes on my face (which surprisingly cleared up quite a lot when I dressed in the way that honored my true nature!). I just don't look as comfortable in my own skin.

At Ber's wedding, two weeks after I had my baby:

I always wore black. It was what I thought I felt comfortable in. I always wanted to wear other colors, but had NO clue what colors I would look okay in.

Even though I wore a ton of black, I always wanted a color that popped with it!

This is a typical 'Kelsie doesn't feel comfortable with the camera on her' face

I thought that maybe if I grew my hair out long and made it curly and cute I would look and feel better, but it never worked. (I tried it lots of different times!) It seems to pull my face downward because my hair looked too heavy.

Alright, and now on to the "after" photos! Looking at myself, I see myself with eyes that are more open and that sparkle. My skin looks more healthy and has color and life to it. After I started, Mart told me I finally looked my age!

Overall, I have been really happy with the changes. Some of them were hard (no black at all, my metal color went from my very favorite silver, to a warm bright gold, and lots of bright colors that I was SO not used to!) My closet was very empty for a while, but it's slowly getting back up and I like it a whole lot more than I used to! I used to have a ton of shirts that never got worn, but now I seem to be rotating through everything and it's all getting used now which is awesome!

If you have been feeling less than confident with your outward appearance and maybe that something just doesn't feel just right. Maybe you change your clothes 5 times before you leave in the morning ... or you are just never sure what to wear. I recommend maybe thinking about giving it a shot! I mean, what have you got to lose? If you want to check it out, she has a free course about figuring out your type (without the book) on her website www.dressingyourtruth.com.

**On a side note, I will tell you that the program is pricey. It goes on sale quite often, so if you really decide that it's something you want to do, wait until it goes back on sale before you purchase it. I happened to be the same type as my mom, so I was able to just do her course which was awesome!**

Okay, I think that's quite enough pictures of me in one post. I think I've reached my quota for the year. *wink*. Now back to regular blogging ... :)

4 months!

My little lady turned 4 months right before Halloween. She had her check up the day before Halloween and the poor thing had to get shots. She did not react well the first time, but did much better this time around. 

 

 
 Stats:


Height: 25% or 50% (I can't remember which ... whoops)
Weight: 10%
Head: 10%

Jade didn't lose weight, she just didn't gain very much. She dropped from 50% to 10%. Honestly, I wasn't concerned at all. She didn't look unhealthy, she was eating, she seemed totally fine to me. Maybe because I was used to Lincoln at that point, who was always at like 3% for weight.
My doctor was concerned (He forgot to ask me this time around [he asked me when Lincoln hit 3%] if my husband was small) so he told me to start feeding her solids and maybe the extra calories would help. I thought she was too little and she wasn't going to eat enough to actually get a whole lot of calories anyway ... but I bought a couple small jars and decided to give her a taste.

 

She wasn't sure about the solid food, and had a hard time eating it, so I decided to hold off for a while. I would periodically give her a taste to see if she seemed like she was ready. 

Because it was Halloween, we had to dress her up!

And now for her 4 month photos. I have had the hardest time getting photos of her, every time I pull out the camera, she just completely ignores me and looks the opposite way! Silly girl.

Some things about Jade at 4 months (if I can remember ... I'm doing this a little late)

*She is starting to get teeth, so she is turning into a drooling monster!

*I think her eyes are officially hazel

*She is still wearing a size 1 diaper

*She is wearing size 0-3 month clothes

*When she smiles at me, it melts my heart! I love her!

*She LOVES her brothers!

*She is working toward sitting up alone, but it'll still be a while

I love this little lady! I can't believe she's already 4 months old!

School Pictures

I have a lot of catching up to do, so here we go!

I was crazy nervous to send Ethan to kindergarten. I finally adjusted to that, and then found out that even in kindergarten, they take school pictures. Ethan does not generally cooperate in front of a camera. For a week or two leading up to pictures, I kept trying to practice smiling with him, and telling him not to be a goofball. I kept anticipating that his pictures would look something like this: 

Or maybe this ... (this was his practice face for a couple weeks leading up to pictures. It was better than other ones he usually pulls, but not my favorite)

Or there's always this one:

Or this one:

Yep, or one like this.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled out his packet and saw this cute face shining through!

What a cute little toad! It's still so strange to think that he's big enough to be at school and taking school pictures!

Halloween

This year we were hoping to try and do a matching or theme for halloween, but my boys were not going for that idea. Ethan was dead set on being an Aquabat (Jimmy the Robot to be exact) for Halloween, while Lincoln really wanted to be Jake the Pirate from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Jade, well, she didn't get a choice. :)

Ber has made our costumes for the last few years, but this year she had a lot going on with school and work and I didn't want to put added pressure on her to make more, so I only had her make Lincoln's vest and shirt for Jake. I found a costume that I loved for Jade online and I was determined to make it the exact same. I also tried to make Ethan's as easy as possible and I think it turned out great.

The boys were so excited for Halloween and were counting down the days and playing "trick or treating" for weeks leading up to the actual big day!

Thank goodness that Ethan was not disappointed with his costume. He LOVED it!

Mr. Lincoln as Jake the blonde pirate! Ahoy Mateys!

Miss puffy cheeks Jade the cute owl! I love her! I was so happy with how her costume turned out. It was exactly how I wanted it!

My three cute Halloween bugs!

The boys went with Mart right after Ethan got out of school to Lee's and the mall while Jade slept. We wanted a happy baby while we were out and about. It started getting late and Jade was still sleeping (she had shots the previous day and wasn't feeling well) and I finally woke her up. The boys were getting antsy and were ready to get going!

After going around our new neighborhood, we headed up to my Grandma Erm's house to meet up with Ber, Kace and Tyler to go to the robot house! Somehow when the robot moved, Lincoln got shuffled or something and ended up trapped in their house behind the robot! He was so confused on how to get out and was getting nervous. The lady of the house was confused why he was back there too, but we finally got him out. Silly boy.

My big boys loved going house to house by themselves and trick or treating!

Our group for my Grandma's neighborhood! Silly kids. Every single time I look at this picture, the look on Lincoln's face seriously cracks me up and I laugh for about 5 minutes straight!

Tyler (Batman), Ethan (the Aquabat) and Lincoln (sadpants Jake) had a great time and were so worn out! Lincoln was literally on his last ounce of steam.

Jade was sleepy too!

We got home and in pajamas and I think my boys were out within about 2.3 seconds. They had a blast and absolutely LOVED halloween! They are definitely our children. :)

Oh yeah ... and happy getting engaged exactly 9 years ago on Halloween to this guy! (See, told you we liked Halloween.) :)