With Fourth of July around the corner, I can't help but to search quick and easy craft ideas so I decided to share my favorites. Be inspired! And don't forget, you can always tweak crafts, like anything else, to fit with the supplies you already have on hand.

Two years ago I shared a bit of my fitness background story and my food and fitness routine. Back than my mindset was all about that number on the scale, I weighed myself everyday making sure that number didn't go up. Slowly I would skip some days and than eventually I would weigh myself every so often, I didn't do this on purpose it just happened with job changes and finishing my last semester in school.

Fast forward to the summer of 2015, I gained about 10 pounds back and a few weeks later we found out we were pregnant. I'm sure some of ya'll are all duh you gained weight, you were pregnant. Um no it's called eating junk food and having too much Dr. Pepper, I was only 6 weeks pregnant and you do not gain weight that quickly, you just don't. Obviously, I couldn't cut calories at this point but I could make healthier eating choices so I didn't blow up. I'd like to say I was perfectly healthy but we aren't perfect, if we were we would all have these amazing fit bodies but I did end up only gaining a total of 35 pounds during pregnancy and I am proud of that.

Back in January when we started our Bradley Method Birth Class I talked about doing a review once we finished our class but than decided to hold it off until after birth to give you a full review and if I thought it actually helped.

On Monday when I shared the latest of what's happening in Little Love's nursery, I mentioned spending the cash/check gifts to purchase her vintage French provincial dresser. And I thought I would share tips and tricks on what you should do with all those monetary gifts including gift cards.

Back in January I shared a small update of Little Love's nursery showcasing her crib and bedding and a few weeks ago, I shared a tutorial for the fabric kites hanging above Sophia's crib. I decided it was time for another update so today I am sharing all about the craigslist dresser I've talked about a few times and the pros and cons of our corner shelves.

I have had my Nikon Coolpix P530 for over a year but for the longest I always used it on the preset modes or auto mode. However, the last few months I have been reading tons of articles trying to teach myself how to shoot in manual mode. I have always enjoyed taking pictures even as a kid but now I'm actually loving the art of photography and when my sister asked me to take her family pictures (I was a little hesitant at first), I decided why not. 

We are halfway through the work week, hooray! I can't wait for this weekend mostly because I am excited for everyone to open their gifts. We bought Anthony's dad this shirt for Father's Day and I plan on making him this card to go along with it, we are gifting Anthony's mom a necklace similar to this one and earrings like these for her birthday and I made Anthony a gift based off this pin I found but I am unable to find the original source (please leave the link below if you know so I can give proper credit). I decided to show a tutorial in how I achieved the look for our frame.

Welcome back guys! I am kinda getting caught back up on my blog post schedule and I am excited for the weekend as always! Did this week fly by or what? Probably helped that it was only a 4 day work week for Anthony to seem so. What do you guys have planned for the weekend?

Before we get ready for a birthday party this weekend, it's time for the next roundup of my everyday style. Remember for real time feed follow me on Instagram (@stormieariel) and my outfits are always captioned with #stormiearielstyle and if you can't get enough of my Little Love she has her own hashtag #sophiamanuela

I think this month, I was definitely coming into my own and getting more comfortable with my style again. As some of you may know I was struggling with my style as a nursing momma but just pull up that shirt girl! You don't need fancy nursing tops to feed your child. You can still rock your normal wardrobe, look fashionable and feed the kid. Win, win, win for everyone.

Olive and black and white stripes are a no brainer and are always a go-to match in my book.

Hey guys! How was your Memorial Day weekend? I hope yall didn't miss me too much (or maybe I do) with my odd blog post schedule last week and taking the three day weekend off to enjoy with my little family. We were a little busy enjoying dinner Friday night with our besties, clothing/gaming thrifting on Saturday (but had no luck), surprise visit to the in-laws on Sunday since they couldn't make it to us due to back road flooding (they're country folk and don't do freeways) and lastly taking Little Love to the Downtown Houston Aquarium on Memorial Day. Although it was mostly for our enjoyment, there were a few moments where she just stared and followed the little fishies swim around in their tanks. And lets not talk about how the white tiger jumped on the glass wall and growled right in front of someone's face.

Now about today's post, after doing a book review last week on The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, I decided to do a more thorough book review on The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth. If you been around you will remember me briefly discussing this book as one of my pregnancy must haves.

Hey guys! So I know I'm veering a little off schedule by posting on a Thursday and missing Wednesday but it's been crazy busy over here the last few weeks. Last week Sophia and I spent a few mornings attending my pre-k classes graduations and end of year parties. Our water heater broke (yay for cold baths, not), however it did get me out the house to go for a run. I was hoping I would sweat so much that the cold water would feel good, kinda worked, kinda not but thank God we have hot water again and I was finally able to shave my legs. And Anthony will be starting school again come this fall so things are gonna get more crazy around here while we try to figure out this parenting gig. But you know, life happens so quickly or at least it seems so now that we have Little Love. I mean come on how is my little baby already almost three months?!? I just can't deal right now so moving on.

I was initially planning to do a Memorial Day Inspiration outfit for today but the weather did not cooperate with me last Saturday so since I loved the outfit I wore to the Houston Blogger Union Meetup so much I decided to share the details in it's own post instead of waiting for my next edition of stormieariel style (check out my first roundup here). However, it rained Sunday as well and we were only able to quickly snap these photos on our porch.

About a week before the Houston Blogger Meetup, I started wondering what I should wear as I have seen on Instagram from other blogger events, bloggers typically dress to impress and since I typically stick to my mom uniforms, I will take any excuse to dress up when I can. But what is a girl to do when all her clothes are last season and she is still sporting a baby pouch and doesn't have the money to buy new clothes? Well, I went to my spring pinterest board to see what styles I have been loving and how I could recreate some of those looks by remixing my closet.  I knew I only had two options for pants unless I wore my maternity pants since most of my pants still don't button. It was either my white crop pants or my olive crop pants but knowing my white crops have a small stain I opted for the olive crops. Than came pinterest inspiration:

For as long as I could remember, I have always wanted a garden; filled with flowers, vegetables, fruit, you name it. I tried my first hand at gardening a few years ago when we were living in a tiny apartment. I bought lettuce seeds, jalapeno seeds and green bean seeds and I planted them in containers. My green bean plant was the only one to grow but I only harvested two green beans. TWO. That was it. To be fair, our porch of the apartment was very shaded with no sunlight at all so I gave up.

When we bought our first house, I was excited to carve out a place to garden and when my dog Olive died we made a remembrance garden with flowers but our other dog Bella decided to dig all that up so I gave up again.

Well now with this house, Bella hasn't been digging as much and Anthony decided he wanted to build something with some of the old fencing I have been hoarding. You can guess by the title of what he decided to build me, right?

So I'm gonna share the pictures and process he took to make me this little ol' box. There are no specific measurements involved as he made use of the pieces we had so you can customize this to whatever size you want.


Once he gathered all the pieces he planned to use for our box, Anthony cut down the pieces so they can be the same length, 7 long pieces (2 sides, 5 bottom supports) and 2 short pieces for the other sides.



Although Bella has already eaten the jalapeno plant and trampled over my basil but my cilantro is thriving!



Do your animals destroy your chance at having a successful garden?

Hey Guys! Who is glad it's Friday?! I know I am!! Not because we have plans but Anthony is off on the weekends and it's nice having more quality family time with him and Little Love. I love seeing their interaction with each other and he is so amazing in helping with her as much as he can especially after last weekend. I had a horrible crick in my neck that had me in tears. 

Hey guys! How was y'alls weekend? Ours was so relaxing, we lounged around most of the day Saturday and yesterday we got some chores done around the house as well as photograph this lavender lilac purple dress.

This post was created in partnership with PinkBlush Maternity but all thoughts and opinions are of my own.

I don't know about ya'll but I love Cinco de Mayo, when I was in school we actually celebrated the day by putting on a dance performance.  I also enjoy having an excuse to eat all the tacos and margaritas I want although this year I'll just enjoy tacos and an excuse to dress up!

So when I got the opportunity to collaborate with Pink Blush, I knew I wanted to choose something that would help me feel festive in a chic and fashionable way while being nursing friendly. Pink Blush offers clothing for all stages in a women's life from maternity to nursing to regular and plus sizes. This Ivory Embroidered Accent Tie Front Blouse isn't from their nursing line but that's what I love about Pink Blush, majority of their pieces are so versatile and can cross over into whatever stage of life you are in.



I love that this blouse has a button front closure, certainly makes nursing easier while out enjoying tacos but those tassels details are darling! Who else is loving the tassel trend?



So now onto the GIVEAWAY! Pink Blush was so nice to extend a $50 gift card to one of you lucky ladies! Enter to win using the widget below.  

Disclaimer: Please allow us 24 hours to verify all entries and choose a fair winner. If you have won a PinkBlush giveaway within the last 3 months, you will not be eligible to win, winners must wait 3 months before they are eligible to enter to win again. The winner will be contacted via email and will have 24 hours to respond to the congratulatory email before a new winner is chosen. May the odds ever be in your favor.

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