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Do you remem­ber me show­ing you my embell­ished shoul­der acces­sory tuto­rial & “So this is what I wore” post inspired by PS I Made it  ????

Well I have entered it into The Ulti­mate DIY Con­test and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE it if you could vote for me.

Just click this link RIGHT HERE. Click it NOW NOW NOW and then “Heart” or “Like” my project! I would be for­ever thankful!

And also while you’re at it could you vote for me in The Picket Fence blog direc­tory?

Thank you a bil­lion times over! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

*This is a sticky post so scroll down to get the most recent blog post*

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
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In case you haven’t fig­ured out yet how much of a huge fuck­ing dweeb I am I would like to recount to you the most recent badge I acquired.

So last month Shawn and I are in LA hav­ing a great time meet­ing the Jo Bro’s, dri­ving in a Lexus drop top, and hit­ting the fab­ric dis­trict. It was the hon­ey­moon we never, ever had.

On the day we are sup­posed to come home every­thing is going smoothly. We get to LAX like 2 hours before our flight, tasted Pinkberry for the first time (hello heaven!) and laughed and joked the whole time. But by the time we reached Char­lotte, NC for our con­nect­ing flight we were com­pletely burnt out and I think in the need of some dis­tance between the two us.

On the plane we kind of start bick­er­ing back and forth over what? I hon­estly couldn’t tell you. But it was a tiny & cold plane so we basi­cally just tried to ignore each other for the hour or so flight.

That day I wore this super cute strap­less dress from Tart that I got from Ideeli or maybe Hautelook, or maybe even Gilt I don’t quite remem­ber but you should click these links and buy stuff any­way (I get a nice kick­back if you do) and of course this dress required me to wear an awfully uncom­fort­able strap­less bra. So on the plane ride from LA to NC I decided to whip that lit­tle puppy off. I stuff it in the bot­tom of my big bag of fab­ric and told my hus­band to keep his eye on it.

Fight­ing, bick­er­ing, and pick­ing on the flight home.

That’s what we did. When we land we start bick­er­ing again and in frus­tra­tion I jump up as soon as we land to get off the plane. When I do I bang my head on the top of the plane and was so embar­rassed and annoyed that I grabbed my bags and walked off.

Stand­ing out­side on the tar­mac (some weird express plane that didn’t even pull up at the lit­tle accor­dion gate sky­walk) I’m think­ing “Oooo Shawn really burns my M-ther F-ing bis­cuits.” when he starts walk­ing down the stairs I fix my atti­tude because I’m really not in the mood for round 110 that night.

But as soon as he reaches me I turn around to start walk­ing into the air­port and  I hear some­one yelling “Hey! Hey! Your for­got something!”

When I hear this voice some­thing tells me to just keep walk­ing. But being nosy…I turn around.

Stand­ing on the steps is the tall blonde-Matthew McConaughey-surfer type Dad who sat behind us.

And in his hands is my DD flesh col­ored strap­less bra. A bra that has not been washed in a while and is so old it has those fab­ric balls on it, the bon­ing is pop­ping out of one side and a breast milk stain from my sis­ters wed­ding that won’t come out on the other.

In this mans hand is that bra.

When I see this I think “You have got to be fuck­ing kid­ding me right?” but I don’t imme­di­ately do any­thing because right to my left is a Dad with his two teenage sons and they are look­ing right at me. I fig­ured if I don’t respond it’ll just make this guy look like a crazy freak right?

But no.

My hus­band. The very one who should have been pro­tect­ing this enor­mous bra saun­ters over to the man to col­lect it.

I just start walk­ing inside and try­ing to laugh it off and I kind of start bitch­ing my hus­band out .

The entire time I am like lit­er­ally try­ing to run to make it to bag­gage claim so I don’t have to talk to any­one else. But I am imme­di­ately stopped when my hus­band says “Well, I saw it on the ground, but left it because I was mad at you”

I whip around and go “WHHHHH  AAAAAA TTTTTTT?!”

Do you know what he says to me? “Um, you’re embar­rass­ing me. Please lower your voice?”

Again I shout “W HHHHHHH AAAAAA TTTTTT?! You pur­posely leave my gigan­tic bra on a plane and you want me to lower my fuck­ing voice?”

I lit­er­ally could have died. Seri­ously. I steamed for days after this.

But need­less to say we leave on the 9th for LA and I WON’T be wear­ing a strap­less bra this time.

Linked up at Mama Kat’s Writ­ers Workshop.

Also linked up is yesterday’s vlog, my open let­ter to Paris Hilton.

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
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Sheesh! Vlog­ging is a lot harder than I thought! Just sim­ply because I actu­ally have to put on decent clothes to do it!

Here’s my fee­ble attempt at vlogging.

This post will be linked up in Mama Kat’s Writ­ers Work­shop tomor­row.

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
If you like BTBW please vote for me daily! Thanks!
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Vin­tage white lace dress picked up from Grandma

Denim vest — H&M

Striped espadrilles from Nine West about 5 years ago

Hand­made bracelets all pro­ceeds go to sup­port Mercy29

Gold and turquoise hoops from Aldo (I think)

Glass beaded necklace

When I raided my grand­moth­ers closet a cou­ple of Sunday’s ago I found this gem and thought it would be per­fect as a summer/fall tran­si­tion. I envi­sioned it with some cow­boy boots and a denim shirt, but Sun­day the sun was being a total bitch and just was not let­ting up. I’m really not cer­tain if this was a night-gown or a dress but I really loved it. I had to wear a slip under­neath it and my lit­tle sis­ters were like “Did you actu­ally wear that?” Yes. Yes I did lit­tle girls. It was super comfy and even a lit­tle sexy with the lace band empire waist.

I can’t believe this post is soooo late today! Another day sleep­ing in until 10:30 will do that to you. I think I have com­pletely given up on try­ing to wake up any ear­lier. It just isn’t me and sim­ply can’t be done. Period.

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
If you like BTBW please vote for me daily! Thanks!
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Back in Feb­ru­ary I held my first give­away and intro­duced you to some favorite Etsy shops.

Among those favorites is a new spon­sor of  Before The Baby Wakes.

Julessa of JuJuBee Jew­elry designs makes beau­ti­ful pieces likes bracelets, ear­rings, neck­laces and even cus­toms pieces!

Right now JuJuBee Jew­elry Designs is hav­ing a great sum­mer close­out going on now until the end of September!

Start­ing in Sep­tem­ber Julessa is also going to be cre­at­ing projects  for the founder of Resin Obses­sion, Cindy Carter.

AND for all of you south­ern gals if you are in or around Sal­is­bury, NC JuJuBee Jew­elry is going to be at the South­ern Com­fort Antique Fall Fes­ti­val at the Rowan County Fair­grounds on Octo­ber 16th & 17th. This is going to be her big debut so if you are in the area I’m sure she’d love to have you stop by and show her some support.

Please take a minute and check out Julessa’s websites!

Etsy– JuJuBee Jewelry Design

Zib­bet Shop

If you are inter­ested in becom­ing an adver­tiser of Before The Baby Wakes or inter­ested in spon­sor­ing a give­away please email me at before­the­baby­wakes {at} gmail dot com.

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
If you like BTBW please vote for me daily! Thanks!
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Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Being thrown up on in the mid­dle of the night and car­ing more about the sick 18 mth old next to you to real­ize you are in fact cov­ered in vomit.

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Rolling over at 2 AM and grab­bing the other per­sons hand.

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

After being told to “hush your mouth” and to “not say those words” and being smacked in the face all in the span of 5 min­utes at the My Gym ball pit and still being able to kiss that tyrant 5 min­utes later.

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Leav­ing the TV on so the per­son next to you can fall asleep and then get­ting up your­self an hour later to turn it off.

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Being kicked in the side all night from a flip­ping flop­ping 2 yro

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Remem­ber to turn off the TV when a hor­ror movie pre­view comes on because your wife is a 12 yro tween who will then need to sleep with the light on.

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Watch­ing the same Handy Manny or Mickey Mouse Club­house episode for the 10th time that day and not throw­ing a ham­mer at the TV

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Shar­ing a tooth­brush when your hus­band leaves his in LA and doesn’t feel like run­ning back out to get one at midnight.

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Hear­ing some­one call me mommy

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Being able to sit in silence with­out it being awkward

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with a 2 yro and lov­ing every minute of it.

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Pick­ing out the toma­toes in your hus­bands food because he really hates them that much

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

These two.

Uncon­di­tional love to me is:

Not worrying about the brownie crumbs all over the floor but instead just being touched by the moment.

Link up for Mama Kat Writ­ers Work­shop

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
If you like BTBW please vote for me daily! Thanks!
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Being mar­ried to some­one who is in the music indus­try has all kinds of fun perks. Meet­ing famous peo­ple, free trips, insider gos­sip, tick­ets to award shows & par­ties, {hope­fully} free clothes {soon}, and being all around pretty darn cool.

My level of snark is all sar­casm. Do not worry. I don’t take it that seri­ous.

Last month we we’re in Atlanta for 11 days because Shawn had more Cody Simp­son music to record he was spend­ing a lot of time in the studio.

Pre-baby or trips where we don’t bring Phoenix with us I usu­ally hang out with him at the stu­dio. But now that Phoenix is, well, sim­ply put. A tyrant with a red afro me hang­ing out at the stu­dio smok­ing on grass Oh my gosh. Totally kid­ding. Don’t call CPS on me is over.

But in Atlanta Shawn spent a few days with Jer­maine Dupri used to date Janet Jack­son and begged us to go with him. So I did. But we only stayed about an hour.

How­ever, when I walked into his stu­dio (which was really freak­ing fab) I was imme­di­ately greeted by walls and walls of illus­tra­tions of naked women.…

Be warned these pic­tures are not par­tic­u­larly safe for work…

After I stud­ied (and I did study them, because I was pos­i­tively trans­fixed by naked car­toons) with my baby on my hip no less, I real­ized that I am so a mom now. I didn’t see some sexy car­toon lady star­ing back at me. Nope.

I com­pletely zoomed right into her nip­ple and busted out laughing.…All of the guys we’re like “What are you doing?” as I whipped my cam­era out and all I said was “I write a mommy blog and I think my read­ers would get a kick outta this!”

So moth­ers. What do those nip­ples remind you of?

To me they com­pletely look like the nip­ple shields you use when you are nursing.

And clearly the artist either was a nurs­ing mother who was lac­tat­ing at the very moment she was draw­ing these and all she could think about was going in a quiet room to pump or Jer­maine Dupri has some weird fas­ci­na­tion with nurs­ing moms.

So do you see the resem­blance or am I totally crazy?

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
If you like BTBW please vote for me daily! Thanks!
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Cal­son silk cream but­ton down shirt.….I raided my grand­moth­ers clos­est last Sun­day and this was one of my favorites. It’s very, very big but I kind of love it that way.

H&M lace shorts

Style­smith Mint green fas­ci­nator…you are going to be see­ing a lot more of these head­pieces on me because I am so in love with it.

Aldo hand painted heels.…purchased pre-baby, pre hus­band. These we’re my most prized pos­ses­sion at 17.  I paid almost $200 (huge amount for a 17 yro) for these and I loved them so much.

If there is one thing you prob­a­bly have picked up from me it’s that I am a huge pro­cras­ti­na­tor, eas­ily dis­tracted and I love to sleep. All 3 of those things com­bined make for long list of over­due tasks, unopened mag­a­zines, unwrit­ten blog post, unex­e­cuted ideas and untouched hobbies.

Dur­ing the course of a week I have so many things that need to get done. Work, Being Mom, Being a Blog­ger, Being a wife, and being Alex. I often go to bed either feel­ing like a big waste of space because I scratched 2 things off my list or I don’t go to bed at all because I am try­ing to get things done.

So Sat­ur­day I decided I was going to start today by wak­ing up at a decent hour. Read: Before 10 AM but not before 7.

I bought myself two white boards. One to use as a cal­en­dar to try to plan out my blog post, social media take over, and craft/sewing projects. And the other to list the weekly and/or daily task (I always lose my “task” paper or for­get to look at my Black­berry list) that need to be accomplished.

As I’m sure you fig­ured out its 5:35 and I am just writ­ing this post, so that means that I in fact did NOT wake up before 10:30. But I have good reason.

Phoenix woke up with a bloody nose Sun­day and last night I was so afraid it would hap­pen again, plus he had a ter­ri­ble, ter­ri­ble cough. Vicks {baby) Vapor Rub and Tri­aminic Thin Strips are AWESOME. So by the time I did a sec­ond dosage at 5 AM I was so tired I knew my new time-saving lease on life would have to wait until Tuesday.

Wish me luck. This is going to be hard. But Shawn gets back tomor­row and he’s such an early riser so I’ll be enlist­ing his help.

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
If you like BTBW please vote for me daily! Thanks!
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… I had a wet dream…

Gosh! Not that kind you pervs! I was like 10! What kind of blog do you think this is?

Let me pref­ace this with say­ing I have always been the weird­est sleeper you will ever, um, sleep with.

Again! Get your minds out of the gut­ters! Fam­ily friendly enter­tain­ment right here!

I had an inci­dent once I was about 18 (it was shortly before I met Shawn too) and I was an office man­ager and on Friday’s I was able to leave at like noon. But because I’m such a night owl totally writ­ing this post at mid­night and I love naps I would come home and sleep until like 6 or 7 and then go out. This one par­tic­u­lar time I get home I take a nap and at like 6 PM I jump up and I’m stand­ing on my bed freak­ing out because I thought I saw dinosaur car­casses lay­ing on my bed. And then just as quickly as I jumped up I started slink­ing back down because I real­ized I was indeed not lay­ing in some dinosaur grave.

That same night I roll over and the clock says 9:15 and it’s like pitch dark but I jump up and run out my room and start call­ing for my brother Troy to get ready so we could leave (I would take him to work in the morn­ing) and then I run into my par­ents room and I’m like “Why didn’t you wake me up!? I have an hour drive and I’m going to be late for work!!!” They just look at me and are like “Uh, it’s Fri­day night Alex” and again I look around kind of sheep­ishly and say “Oh” and slink back to my room.

There was also this time where I rolled over to Shawn at like 2 AM and said “You know Tony Romo is actu­ally pretty cute” and he responds “Yeah, he is.” and then I say “Wait…we’re sleep.” and we both lay our heads down and go back to sleep.

And just a few weeks ago I rolled over and said to him “Look I know we aren’t talk­ing, but I am seri­ous there is a white porce­lain owl up in the cor­ner star­ing at us…Oh wait. Ignore me. I’m sleep” and we fall back to sleep.

So you see I have always been a weird night time dweller. There was another time when I was like 7 that my brother (Troy) got out of his bed and started walk­ing around the house and my Dad (who is also a weird night time dweller) came bust­ing into my room and says “What hap­pened to Troy?! Who messed with him”. He asked this because Troy (who was about 3) was found in the liv­ing room with a brownie and his under­wear off (he really just took them off to pee on the floor). I woke up and said “Michael Jack­son did it!?” How’s that for foreshadowing?

But back to my wet dream. I was about 10 and I was sleep­ing one of my weird dis­com­bob­u­lated sleeps and I was dream­ing and in my dream my teacher said “Alex only white pee not yel­low” and yup you guessed…I just peed on myself.

See? Wet dream.

Linked up at Mama Kat’s Writ­ers Workshop

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
If you like BTBW please vote for me daily! Thanks!
Top Mommy Blogs — Vote for us @ TopMommyBlogs.Com!
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When I last left you on my whirl­wind romance tour Shawn and I had just shared our first kiss. It was epic. It was a kiss that gives me strength when things aren’t so epic. But more on that later.

So we’ll fast for­ward a few months after we first meet and jump right to when we got engaged.

We got engaged on Valen­tines Day 2007. Shawn had planned on tak­ing me to New York for Valen­tines Day because I had never been before.

But before we get there I should tell you that our rela­tion­ship pro­gressed extremely quickly. In case you couldn’t catch that recur­ring theme.

By the time we met in Decem­ber we had already talked about mar­riage. We just needed to first get all the for­mal­i­ties out-of-the-way. Like meet­ing each other and all.

I prob­a­bly don’t explain it well at all, but it was just one of those things that we just knew.

So by Feb­ru­ary we had talked at length about get­ting engaged. We had even already had a ten­ta­tive date picked out in Octo­ber. But there was no ring yet or offi­cial proposal.

Every time we talked I would beg him to give me hints to when he would do it and I always got noth­ing. But I felt sure that he would not be able to sur­prise me.

So it’s the day before Valen­tines Day and we head up to NYC in the midst of a crazy snow storm. We spend the night explor­ing the city and Shawn point­ing out to me all his old favorite places.

I’ll like you for­ever, I’ll love you for always. As long as I’m writ­ing my reader’s you’ll be…
If you like BTBW please vote for me daily! Thanks!
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