I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends...

My maternity wardrobe is largely thanks to some very generous friends. I'm not much of a fashionista so it's not like I love the excuse to go buy a whole new wardrobe. And furthermore, I'm quite frugal so that also keeps me from wanting to spend a bunch of money on stuff I will wear only a few months and then NEVER AGAIN as this is my last pregnancy.

I had a few things of my own from when the weather was cooler. And then my friend Ember, who I had loaned my clothes to, returned my same clothes with a bunch more stuff she'd added. My good pal Kelli also loaned me pretty much all her stuff so I was doing pretty well for the not-too-hot time of year.

However, I was starting to fret about summer. And how I had just two pairs of Ember's old capris and zero pairs of shorts. That's when Molly came through...she sweetly packed up all her old summer stuff and shipped it off to me. Only, before anything arrived, she got a letter from a "mail recovery" warehouse saying a piece of package with her address on it had ended up there...but the pacakge was no longer intact. :( Can you believe it? She had to fill out some paperwork listing every single article of clothing in the hopes of recovering it, but so far...nada. Big bummer, eh?

Well then April (Jacob and Sam's mom) offered up her old stuff. But the week before I was supposed to come over to pick it up, her sister called and is pregnant with her first baby. Naturally, she gets dibs.

When all that happened, I put that "complaint" up as my Facebook status and two more pals came through for me! Karissa (who I've never even met in person!) sent a bunch of summery stuff my way as did my lifelong pal Tonya. And now I'm all set for shorts for the rest of this pregnancy. In fact, as Ember is packing up her house to move across town she also dug up two more pairs of shorts for me. Not only am I set, I might not even have to do laundry! ;)

I am so so thankful to have such sweet and generous friends willing to help me out. Other friends (like AJ) have offered stuff as well but at this point I'm truly all set for shorts! :) I'm not even sure I have enough tops to mix and match with all of them hee hee. Nah, I'm mostly kidding...I'm not soliciting more clothes.

What I've found amusing is that I now have duplicates of a couple of things...

These khaki shorts from both Ember and Karissa are identical down to the size.

As are these flowy blouses from Tonya and Ember:

Again, same size and all! :) What's nice in this case is I can wear the one from Ember (who is done with babies) and save unneccesary wear and tear on Tonya's who might have future needs for it.

And Karissa said that I should post pictures...I'm sure I'll pop up in them from time to time, but here is a shirt from Tonya paired with a pair of the Karissa/Ember shorts seen above:

I'll have to try to stay away from Target when I wear that combo lest fellow shoppers think I work there. :)

This outfit is actually courtesy of myself...I bought the top at my favorite second hand store and I'll admit, when I tried it on I loved it so much I exclaimed to Easton, "Oh, how cute am I???" :) I just love it though.

The shorts I bought on clearance at Old Navy for $3.99 back when I was barely pregnant with "Pearl". This time I made sure not to buy anything or even get out the maternity clothes until closer to when I was really gonna need them.

I was going to wear this for jury duty but it turns out my number wasn't called and I didn't have to report. But I felt like looking spiffy anyway (shirt is Karissa's):


And here's a few more combinations I've dug up that I happened to snap pictures of myself in for this very purpose :)






Clearly I'm upset about something...I'm thinking that's supposed to be a full panel that doesn't stay up on me:


The only "problem" I'm finding is that my belly seems extra big all out front so many many many tops aren't long enough on me. I know I'm tall but I really think I have a normal length torso and all my height is in my legs (36" inseam!). Jason is 5 inches shorter than me and neither of us have to adjust the rearview mirror in the car when we switch drivers. That tells me our torsos are nearly the same (his inseam is only 28"). Anyhoo...whatever the reason for my deformity, I'm bummed that some stuff doesn't work well because I can't keep pants up high enough or shirts down low enough leaving an unsightly gap. There's some really cute stuff I haven't been able to wear for this very reason. Perhaps once Wabie is out and I still need to do maternity for awhile but my belly will be somewhat deflated (I hope!) I can wear some of them.

Anyway, thank you so much to my pals for coming through for me like this! And thanks for letting me be a dork model for you...this collection of pictures is from June and July...just so you don't think I put on outfit after outfit and posed. :)

Ta ta!