So, when we went up to Aracata for the shoot I had to pull the film crew aside and explain to them that I was a ‘tiny bit pregnant’ and if they were willing to do a little creative editing to make it seem like I was doing more than I actually was. HA! Luckily they were totally down (David Crowther and Casey Peterson you are the best!). I did end up climbing the tree a bit as you can see below, but then came straight down and they ended up doing a really incredible job editing it especially the zip lining parts which I didn’t do at all.

You’ll have to check it out again below to see what they did, and when I did climb it looked like I was a lot further up than I actually was. Yeah for fantastic video editing and perspective!
 

Hyundai Redwood Tree Climbing – Epic Playdate from Liz Stanley on Vimeo.
Keeping on reading to see how we tried to hide the baby bump and my massive weight fluctuation from the Old Navy shoots…

My poor photographer, Tiffany, from the Old Navy shoot a couple weeks ago about white jeans! She is so great to work with but she totally had her work cut out for her. Not only were we shooting in mid day sun, but I popped out kind of early (I think I was 12 weeks in the photos) and was NOT fitting in those white jeans. Plus I had to do a pretty serious suck-in job while trying to hold a natural smile which totally did not work, as you can tell in this image below we didn’t end up using:

There were a couple points where Tiffany asked me if I felt comfortable in the clothes because I looked like I was in pain, and I kind of was! I vowed after that, no more fashion shoots until after I announce!

Also, the first Old Navy shoot about the spring tees? Oh man I was sooo sick. It was right before I found a medication that worked but I was throwing up multiple times a day and down 11 lbs by 11 weeks of my pregnancy. I looked pretty sickly in the shoot (below) in my opinion. Three weeks later was the white jeans Old Navy shoot above and I had gained a whopping 15 lbs between these two shoots! HA!

I’m so relieved to be able to let my belly hang out now and not have to hid this pregnancy any more! Hooray!

(maternity shopping yesterday, 15 weeks)

First of all, I’m completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and excitement you all shared yesterday here on the blog, on twitter, on instagram, etc. Thank you so much for joining me in this exciting step for our family. I’ll still be nervous until I get this babe in our arms safely, pregnancy is the scariest! Yesterday was such a fun day and I teared up reading so many of your loving comments, and especially those that shared a snippet of your own journeys in infertility. Apologies if I didn’t get around to responding to each and every one of your kind words, but know I loved every one.

Next week I’ll talk a bit more about what we’ve been through and the emotional journey for me. On Monday I also have a fun post prepared about the behind the scenes of a few recent sponsored posts (like the Hyundai tree climbing video?)–and the extent to which we were trying to hide the pregnancy! HA! I’ve been wanting to share with you these funny details and now I finally can!

Anyway! It’s the weekend, hooray! Henry is having a sleepover tonight for all the kids graduating to kindergarten. After a graduation BBQ they’ll be playing flashlight tag, having dance parties, flashlight bug hunting, and story telling. Then all the kids will crash in sleeping bags with plenty of adults sleeping over as well. Henry ran in this morning and woke us up yelling, “Today’s the day of the sleepover!!!”. He’s a bit excited. I think we’ll be checking out the Maker Faire tomorrow as well with some friends from Palo Alto (she and I have the same due date- I love when things work out like that!).

Hope you’re up to something fun, Have a great one!

Babble links:

How NOT to dress like a tourist in NYC (love this post of Becca’s–made me laugh out loud! The fedora thing is so true…)

15 of the BEST picks from Ikea right now

All about white denim for summer

10 pretty wallets under $20!

10 clever spring cleaning tips

The most adorable baby shoes

Have a wonderful weekend, guys.  It’s peak strawberry season so today Henry and I spent the morning made strawberry freezer jam, strawberry butter (above- I shared the recipe on instagram), and plans to make strawberry fruit leather tomorrow morning which I’ll share next week. We also made my grandma’s homemade honey wheat bread as well while singing along to the Sound of Music soundtrack (somehow he’d never been introduced to it!).  I’d love to spend every morning like that with Henry. I’ll be a little sad when he starts kindergarten in the fall and I lose my mornings with him. Hope you’re up to something fun, and happy Mothers Day! Here are a few links to explore (Alt for Everyone winners at the bottom of the post!).

Pretty breakfast in bed printables for Mothers Day

Giant popsicle pinata DIY for a summer party

Gorgeous red spring dress!

Hurry up and grab a spot in the Oh Happy Day Commission Project for Fathers Day

Additional 30% off sale items at J.Crew through the weekend!

Delicious Mothers Day brunch ideas

Love this pair of Madewell’s shiny coated jeans

Adorable DIY polka dot umbrellas

For a Mothers Day cup of tea DIY  on Julep

Also,

What to wear to the SF MOMA (part of the Coast to Coast Sister Style series!) and to NY’s MET

10 Beautiful Mother’s Day card picks

Decorating Color Crush: Aqua

10 clever spring cleaning tips!

And the five winners of the ALT for Everyone tickets are…

Congrats winners! Email me at liz (at) say yes to hoboken.com

Alt Summit is my very favorite conference for professional bloggers in the design/style/lifestyle genre. It’s the only one I go to every year. But I get it, conferences can be expensive to fit in your budget when you’re just getting started or when you feel like the income you’re making isn’t enough to rationalize buying a ticket/hotel/travel etc (I’d argue otherwise but I know how it is).
The great news is that Alt just announced a new online conference, Alt for Everyone, in two weeks: May 16-18 (thurs/fri/sat). It’s packed full of speakers that you can pick and choose from based on your schedule. They also just announced that Joy Cho of Oh Joy is keynoting (love her!). I’m teaching two classes- one on organization as blogger and one on getting started selling ads. Check out the full schedule here.

So if you haven’t picked up a ticket yet, we’re giving away FIVE tickets to Alt for Everyone here on the blog! Five of you will win a ticket to access all this fantastic info, the best of Alt Summit but without the endless outfit changes or travel/hotel costs.

To win: Simply comment on this post and pin an item from your favorite post on Say Yes. You have until Thursday night 5/10 10pm PST to enter and the winners will be announced next Friday. One entry per person.

Good luck!

Another great giveaway this week! ShoeMint is giving away a pair of shoes of your choice to one lucky winner. ShoeMint has a great selection of high quality real leather/suede shoes all priced at $79.98 with new styles coming out every month. They sent me a couple pairs to sample and I’ve been wearing them non stop like these Elizabeth ones above I’m wearing.

ShoeMint is also offering 20% off their first purchase (for first time purchases/members) with the code 20LUVUS if you’re too antsy to wait and see if you win!

Here are a few favorites, most are available in a selection of different colors:

(Top image from the Styling Tees post, photographed by Tiffany of House of Tong)

Details about the giveaway after the jump…

Details:

1. Check out ShoeMint, join (just enter your email, no obligation to buy) and leave a comment on this post with your favorite pair by Sunday night 4/28 10pm PST

2. I’ll pick someone randomly from the comments on this post  to win. The winner will be announced on this post the next Monday. Alternative winner will be chosen if you don’t claim your win within 3 days.

3. Giveaway is open to US and Canada only

Just an FYI I’m not paid to write about any of these services, I just have loved my experience using them and would highly recommend them to other bloggers/small business owners.

1. Freshbooks.

A about a year ago I started to grow my blog (more about my job blogging as a career here) into a team of paid contributors, you can read all about them on my about page. And I started feeling a little out of control with my finances. There were so many people getting paid and money coming in from different places- it all made my head spin and I couldn’t tell you in one given month what I was making or spending. It was nuts! I did a little research and decided for 2013 I was going to change all that. The biggest change I made was using freshbooks.  I seriously can’t believe I functioned without it.  I’ve only used it for 4 months so there are still lots of things I might not use/know but here are a few things I  love about it so far (ps there is about a $20 fee/month but totally worth it in my opinion):

1. It organizes all of my income coming in and out each month into pretty charts and graphs

2. It makes a really easy way to send and keep track of invoices (even when you’re getting paid monthly via snail mail check). So much easier than making a time-sucking/soul-sucking pdf with your logo and more professional than paypal.

3. I can track expenses for paying my team really easily and organize them so I can fill out tax forms in a cinch when the time comes.

4. If you work hourly it’s super easy to track hours and then just click a button at the end of each month to create an invoice for unbilled hours and send it. boom. So much easier than counting hours and making a pdf.

5. I can also add expenses, track receipts and time track hours from a freshbooks app on my phone.

5 . During business hours I can just call a number and ask a nice person working for freshbooks a silly question about how to do something (life changing! I hate having a system I don’t know how to use well). This might be one of my favorite things! I’d definitely be frustrated without this. There are all kinds of video tutorials as well but I’ve found it’s so much easier just to pick up the phone and ask a quick question.

Keep on reading for a couple other organizational tools I’ve found…

2. Hellosign/Hellofax.

Okay, so about a year ago I was complaining to my sister in law Jordan of Oh Happy Day about the annoyance of signing contracts. Having to print it out, sign it, scan it back in, blah blah blah it took forever. She was like, um why aren’t you using hellofax (they’ve since split into hellosign and hellofax but they still work together the same). HELLO! Maybe I was the last person to know about this but it makes me happy every time I use it, thinking about how much time it’s saving me (and paper!).

Someone sends me a document to sign (pretty much any format- pdf, doc, docx, word). I save it, and then open it in hellosign and sign it right here. It saves my signature so I can just plop it in wherever and you can also add text and dates, anything you need. Then I just add in a phone number (to send as a fax) or email (this is usually how things are sent) and push a button and it’s done. TWO SECONDS. I’ve noticed that my ad network, Federated Media, even started using it a few months ago.

Plus I’ve never paid a dollar in the last year for using it and I probably use it at least once a week (I think if you fax a lot you might have to pay at some point but for just uploading, signing, and emailing back to someone I haven’t had to pay anything).

3. Google Calender.

Might be a bit of a no brainer, but I recently I started really diving into the color coding option for google calender and it has made such a difference. I now have a bunch of different ‘calenders’ (as you can see from the image above): Blog Editorial (just posting schedule),  Julep editorial (the Minted blog I manage),  Misc blog (anything other than editorial schedule- mtgs, calls, to do items, deadlines), Family schedule (trips, playdates, dr appts), Liz personal (mostly to-do items, reminders). Seems simple but it gives me anxiety just thinking about living without it. Also I love that I can add items directly from my phone or the computer (you just sync your calenders to your phone).

Also, a few other random ideas:

1. Private pinterest boards for editorial inspiration and brain storming ideas with the teams I work with.

2. Keeping electronic lists of topic ideas for different categories (I have lists for fashion, diy, food, misc).

3. Whenever I get paid anything, I always move over 30% of the total amount into a separate account for taxes so I don’t get screwed come tax time! With deductions, it’s not usually as much as we have set aside but I’d rather have extra than not enough. Also, we use Turbo Tax and really like it.

5. I just started using Shoeboxed which keeps track of receipts and is connected to Freshbooks but I’m still wrapping my brain around it. Anyone use it?

I feel like I’m just getting started here, anyone else have genius organizational tools as a blogger/small business owner?

Excited to introduce to you a new sponsor on Say Yes to Hoboken.  Tea Party Ribbons is great resource for all kinds of ribbons including grosgrain ribbons, satin, sheer, decorative, etc. They also produce custom ribbons which is a fun option and I love all the metallics as well. In addition to offering a huge variety of ribbons from some of the best manufacturers they’ve also started to design their own grosgrain prints. I use ribbons all the time not only in wrapping gifts but crafts as well, seems like I can never have enough! Check out the Tea Party Ribbons site and show them a little love!

And for Say Yes readers, they’ve offering a 20% coupon code of SAYYES20, good for a one time purchase.

Sponsors and sponsored posts are what makes things run smoothly here at Say Yes to Hoboken so I can produce more quality content for you. Thank you for your support of these companies!

Interested in sponsorship at Say Yes to Hoboken? Email me at liz (at) sayyestohoboken.com for current rates 

Remember last month where we had one whole morning where Henry and I did a bunch of crazy/messy/loud things we don’t usually get to do? We had so much fun last time we had another morning like that on Friday. This time I wanted to get into messy art projects since I’ve noticed that he’s gotten timid about getting his hands +body dirty. I wanted him to enjoy the mess (because, really, those are the best kinds of projects!)

First up was a large scale finger painting project!  Clorox has a funny list of ick-tionary terms to define all those messy, icky moments in parenting (car-posting might be my favorite: when a piece of food left in the car starts to compost. ha!).

I created my own ick-tionary term, marssy, for these messy art projects we did. The only instructions I gave him for this marssy was that he couldn’t use brushes and he had to cover the entire poster board with paint (don’t worry guys, washable paint!). I rolled out a huge sheet of brown kraft paper and he dropped paint onto paper plates for his artist palette.

At first he only used one itty bitty finger like the house trained city boy he is, and when I told him to try putting his whole hand in, he looked at me a little skeptically, but then went for it!

I also straight up suggested he could wipe the paint on his old jeans if he needed (what??), I think he first thought it was a joke- then when I insisted he was completely delighted! He even ended up finger painting on himself in the end (I still had to give him permission though).

Cleaning up was fun too- he wiped off the spots on the floor that were splattered with paint (there were surprisingly only a couple) and we wiped off his body a bit with a wet towel. We threw the pants in the washer and rolled up the kraft paper once dried to use again for scrap paper.

Why don’t we do more marssy projects like this? It was so much fun both for him and for me to watch!

Keep reading to see our messy art project, marssy #2…

_______________________________________________________________________________

This post is brought to you by The Clorox Company. I have partnered with them to spread the word about Clorox’s Ick-tionary program. To share Ick-tionary terms and real life messes, visit www.icktionary.com. All opinions and stories are my own.

_______________________________________________________________________________

When shopping for Easter goods last week I spotted some colored bubbles and thought they would be really fun to use in a project (and totally easy to make yourself)!

First we mixed regular bubble solution with food coloring of our choice, about 5 drops in each bowl. Because food coloring is a little more permanent I had to be a bit more careful this time, but it still was super easy to clean up afterwards.

Then I instructed Henry to blow bubbles onto the paper and when they popped they left a beautiful colored design! Both the bubbles and the dripping solution onto the paper was really pretty.

We never get to blow bubbles in the house, especially not colored bubbles! They popped and splattered all over- Henry was giggling the whole time.

Pretty Easter colors too! I love the result. It was fun for me to try as well.

I’d love to hear: what ick-tionary word can you think of to describe your daily messes that you can laugh about afterwards? Here’s another favorite to get the wheels turning: What the flu?: When someone unexpectedly  sneezes on you (the worst!)

We are having some friends over on Sunday for an Easter feast and a kiddie egg hunt in Golden Gate Park. Henry has been practicing hiding and finding eggs all week so he can be certain to fill his basket to the brim. Ham and scalloped potatoes are on the menu for sure, plus I might try this orange poppyseed cake. Hope you have a wonderful weekend, here are some links to explore:

Aren’t these fruity Easter eggs from The Alison Show so pretty? (image above)

Homemade grapefruit donuts (yum!)

Floral spring dress + floral blazer

Mini bunny pillows for Easter

Cute + simple sharpie eggs

A waffle wedding cake?

The prettiest Easter egg pinatas around

This summer dress looks beautiful and so comfy!

Also by me,

Spring Scarves: East Coast (by my sister Becca)

Spring Scarves: West Coast

10 last minute egg decorating ideas

10 spring shades under $15

Gender neutral kid rooms

Hooray it’s the weekend! We’ve got a lot going on. Jared is leaving on a week long back country ski trip with my father and two other friends, my mother is coming this week (yeah!), and my brother, his wife and their most adorable baby ever are visiting as well. I’ve been helping them plan the perfect SF area itinerary which includes a couple night stay up in Point Reyes. Hope you have a great one, here are some links to explore:

The most beautiful gold leafed eggs (image above)

Cute Easter photo booth masks on Julep

Printable Easter egg stickers

This seems like the perfect stripey spring dress!

Beautiful snippets of childhood on You Are My Wild

Spray on jeans at American Eagle. HA!

Gorgeous calligraphy tattoo eggs

Lovely spring green tunic

Adorable bunnies made from washcloths!

Mens shirts turned into sweet little dresses

These zoo book images are hilarious

An amazing before and after living room

Image of kids around the world with their most prized possessions

Also by me,

10 Plastic Egg Craft Ideas

11 awesome spring crafts for kids

Would you try any of these denim trends for spring?

Beautiful spring bags

Putting together the perfect gallery wall