Freshly Picked WINNER!!

Our Freshly Picked Giveaway is now closed! Thanks so much to everyone who entered here and on Instagram! I had so much fun looking through all of the IG pics that you posted, and loved reading all of your comments! Freshly Picked has the sweetest fans!

A BIG thank you also to Susan and Jodi at Freshly Picked!

So let's get down to business, shall we??

In order to chose a winner, I assigned each entry a number based on the time of your entry. I started with the very first comment here on the blog (#1), then the first re-post on Instagram (#2), and kept going in as-close-to-chronological order as possible!

I used the True Random Number Generator to choose a number randomly:

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:12Powered by RANDOM.ORG
So who is lucky number 12?? Are you dying to know?

The winner is.......

Here is the winning entry, from Instagram:

Congrats Corinna! Based on the sheer volume (and obvious enthusiasm) of your entries, I know you were dying to win!

Keepin' It Real

My friend Corinna did a really awesome thing on her blog yesterday. She wrote a post to show a side of motherhood that you don't often see from bloggers- the REAL side! You can find her "Keepin' It Real Mondays" post here.

Corinna wrote about the fact that as mama's, we tend to be hard on ourselves, and to compare ourselves to other mamas who we think have it all together. This is a trap I fall into all the time! It's so hard to remember that the writers of all of the beautiful blogs I read have hard days too. They struggle with things, just like I do. I look up to and admire so many mamas, and it's easy to build them up in my mind as so much better than me- more patient, more tender, more organized.. If I give in to these thoughts and compare myself to the idea I have in my head of what their day to day lives are like, it really brings me down.

So in an effort to counteract all of the comparing and unrealistic perceptions about motherhood, Corinna has started a Keepin' It Real series. Here's what she has to say about it:

"So, while there's nothing wrong with only writing posts about the fun and cool parts of our life, I thought in an effort to keep it real with you, and to show you a peek at the not-so-cute parts of my life, and to remind us mamas how we're united by the craziness, I'd do a weekly "Keepin' It Real" post."

I love her idea so much, so I want to jump on board! I'm hoping Corinna will do a weekly link-up, where all of us mama's can link our real life posts to share. So fun! If you have a blog and you'd like to participate, leave Corinna a comment on her Keepin' It Real post to let her know!

So, here are my real-life confessions...:

I posted this picture to Instagram the other day with the caption "Letting this happen right now so that I can curl my hair":

Emmett is super clingy in the mornings lately, probably because he knows I'm leaving him all day again and he hates it, so getting ready for work lately has been tough. I usually barely have time for a shower, then it's throw on some clothes, throw my hair up, and spend the rest of the morning with the baby. This day was Friday though, and there's just something about Fridays that makes me want to look nice. So, I gave the baby a few rolls of toilet paper to keep him entertained for a few minutes while I did my hair.

A friend commented that if it takes less time for her to clean the mess than the time the mess bought her, she's fine with it! I love that.

I sent this picture to my sister the other night:

I told her I haven't done laundry at all this week so I'm scrounging around Emmett's closet for PJ's every night. I found this little gem of a baseball onesie in the back of his closet just in time for his pre-bedtime chair sitting (he's obsessed with that chair), and it was pretty cute!

But the point is, I'm really bad at laundry. Like, I barely get it washed on the weekends, and then it sits in piles for days until I can't take it anymore and finally put it all away. Usually by then the clean pile has mixed with the dirty pile and I end up having to wash everything all over again. I won't even get in to how long it takes me to wash and dry a load because our washer and dryer are old and hate me..

Yesterday about halfway through the day I realized I hadn't rinsed the conditioner out of my hair in the shower that morning... Hashtag momlyfe.

Last night after Emmett's bath, I let him crawl around naked for a couple of minutes while I searched for clean pj's (see?). He crawled right out the door and stopped at our hall linen closet, stood up, and peed. All over the clean beach towels and the carpet. So now I REALLY need to do laundry.

So there you go. Life isn't perfect, and I am FAR from it.

PS: Today marks 4 months since Corinna and her husband lost their sweet baby girl Celeste. Head over to Track 8 to read about Celeste, and please keep Corinna's family in your prayers, today and always.

PPS: My parents were married 31 years ago today. Go mom & dad! They are such an awesome example to me, and I love them so much! Check out my dad's blog to read more about our family!

PPPS: Don't forget to enter my Freshly Picked moccasins giveaway! It ends tomorrow evening!

Freshly Picked Moccasins Review

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but we LOVE Freshly Picked moccasins. Like, we really love them. We've featured them on the blog a few times here, here, and here. My mom bought our first pair for Emmett a few weeks ago, and we've never seen his little feet look so cute!

These are the Weathered Brown Genuine Leather moccs. These are sold out at the moment. 

So when Freshly Picked sent us a pair of their insanely cute, super-coveted moccs to review on the blog, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! We chose to review the Cobalt Suede Limited Edition Moccasins in a size 4.

Here they are on Emmett's feet:

Poor teething boy- those pouty lips are so sad!

The team at Freshly Picked hand-makes each pair of moccs to order, so they tell you to allow at least 10 business days for your moccs to be made before they ship. I received a shipping notification in my inbox 9 business days after we ordered, so they shipped right on time. They arrived about 4 days later, packaged in the cutest drawstring bag, complete with a little Freshly Picked logo button!
I forgot to take a picture when our Cobalt Suede pair arrived, but here is a photo of the Weathered Brown pair with the packaging:

So Cute. By the way, we ordered a size 3 in the Weathered Brown pair, but when they arrived, they were just a bit too small. They fit okay, but I knew he would grow out of them in no time so we really needed a size 4. I emailed Jodi at the Freshly Picked shop about an exchange, and she was so sweet about it! Because the moccs are made to order, they do not allow refunds, but they are happy to do exchanges. So, I sent back the 3's and received a size 4 in the mail less than a week later. Thank goodness!

There are so many things that I love about the Cobalt Suede moccs. First off, they are the cutest, most stylish baby shoes I've ever seen. I'm slightly obsessed with how cute Emmett's little calves and ankles look sticking out of them. It's almost too much. The color is so deep and striking, and the bright blue goes with so many of Emmett's clothes. They have hidden elastic around the opening of the shoe that makes them super easy to put on and take off, which is really rare with baby shoes! Big plus.

I love that they are soft-soled, so they don't bother Emmett when he's crawling around the house and learning to stand and walk. Ray doesn't like the idea of thick-soled shoes on his feet as he's learning to walk, but I really want him to wear shoes when we're outside. It's so hot here in AZ, so without shoes I wouldn't be able to let his little feet touch the ground. So, the soft, flexible leather is really perfect for us.

They are also surprisingly breathable. The leather is thin enough that it isn't constricting on his little feet, and there are vents on each side (another feature that makes them easy to get on and off) that allow air in to cool his feet. I assumed the leather might be too hot for Summer here, but they really aren't too hot at all.

The leather used to make both the Weathered Brown and the Cobalt Suede seems super durable, which is so important for babies. Emmett is a wild man who loves to destroy just about everything, and these seem Emmett-proof! I can tell they will last a long time, which is good because at $60 a pair I want to be able to pass them on to Emmett's future siblings.

I really only have a couple of criticisms of the Cobalt Suede moccs. First, and this is a really small one, it can be kinda hard to tell which shoe goes on which foot. There is a difference between the right and left shoe, but it's pretty slight. I can figure it out pretty quickly, but it would be nice if it was an instant thing that I don't have to think about when we're running out the door.

The other con that I've noticed is that the suede acts like a feather duster when Emmett's crawling around the floor in them. They pick up lots of dirt and dust, but it's not a big deal because it's really easy to clean them off. It takes a quick wipe with a dry cloth and then they're good as new. This isn't a problem at all with the leather Weathered Brown pair- they stay pretty clean.

We've had our moccs for about 3 weeks now, and they're holding up pretty well. The little tassels around the ankle curl up more and more as he wears them, which makes them even cuter, if that's possible! This is what they look like today:

Gah those shoes are cute!