What I Wore Wednesday: Family Photos

As I mentioned last week our first attempt at family photos was thwarted when our photographer had her camera stolen. Luckily my sister works with a lot of photographers since she's an event and wedding planner and we were able to schedule another session.  We couldn't get everyone we had together for my Grandma's party but we were able to get photos taken with my sister and her husband by the crazy talented Tine Hoffman of TM Photography.

It was a gorgeous day up in Eden Park and despite Blondie Boy not always being the most cooperative subject we got some amazing photos.

I wore a purple vest I got at the Gap outlet and a Mossimo flannel shirt from Target. Blondie Boy's sweater is from Target and his pirate t-shirt from the J. Crew outlet. I freaking love American outlets and Target. We have outlets in the UK but they really don't even come close to comparing to the ones back home.

I'm so grateful we were able to get some photos for my Grandma and for ourselves. I love that photo of my sister and her husband and the ones of Blondie Boy in playing in the water fountain with NBH are just such fun! I'm really grateful we were able to get them done--how often do you get family photos done?

What I Wore Wednesday: USA Catch-up

I've been a bad, bad blogger. I managed to go a do What I Wore Wednesday for a full year (how did I miss that anniversary?) and only miss one week and then I went and missed two in a row. Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and that was certainly the case since I had plenty of outfit photos.  Unfortunately my Grandma ended up in the hospital and while she is home and fine now it meant I missed WIWW and then last week my flight was delayed back from London and I was exhausted when I got home and just couldn't pull it all together. So apologies! 

We had a great time at home spending time with family and friends and eating far too much. It was a great trip home and I'm so glad we were able to spend as much time in Cincinnati as we did. Three weeks went so fast! So here is our trip in round-up photo style.


This was the first year Blondie Boy picked his own Halloween costume. We asked him fairly early on what he wanted to be and his answer never changed so he was a pirate! I'm totally that Mom who dresses up to take their kid trick or treating so I was a pirate too!

We had this stuffed Blue (from Rio) already in the house so I sewed it on to the vest Blondie Boy wore to my sister's wedding last year along with the tux shirt, some striped PJ pants, a bandanna and his requested moustache and his costume was good to go! The only thing we bought were his skull rainboots which I'm glad we did because it was a wet and cold night.

For my costume I borrowed a white button down from my dad, tied my skull scarf around my waist and raided my Dad's attic (which is full of costumes) for the hat and jacket.

We went trick or treating with my friend Allyson and her son Parker again this year but I somehow didn't manage to get any pictures of the two of them! Parker was such a big help holding Blondie Boy's hand going up and down steps and was just really sweet. BB was a major trooper and stayed out the whole two hours! Apparently the "thing" in my hometown now is golf carts and I thought it was rather telling all the older children being driven around on golf carts while my two year old hoofed it.

The very next day by best friend Sabrina and her son Landon flew out to visit us from Maryland. I'm so lucky to have someone willing to schlep to Cincinnati for me and the boys had so much fun together playing with cars, laughing about burps and we even had a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo. I love the Cincinnati Zoo and it's ruined all other zoos for me because it is SO amazingly awesome.

BB, Me, Sabrina & Landon

When Sabrina and Landon left NotBlondeHusband, my Dad, my step-sister's boyfriend Drew (who you might remember from the Light the Night post) and I went to watch the UC vs. Syracuse game. Both my Dad and I are UC alums but I think we were all really excited for the game; it was crazy how much the campus has changed in 9 years. The weather was frankly awful, but our seats were AMAZING. When it started sleeting we decided to give up but the Bearcats won so all was okay!

Nippert Stadium- Home of the Bearcats!

NBH, Drew and I

We went immediately from the game to meet my sister and her husband and drive up to Dayton for my Grandma's 90th birthday party. Unfortunately I have no photos as the photographer on the day had her camera stolen. How crappy is that? I do have a shot of one of the cute cupcake toppers my sister made though.

Bess rocking a Bikini back in the day

Next up was voting! I'm a huge political nerd so I loved being home for the election. This was the first time I ever voted in person in a presidential election; I've always voted absentee since I was living in DC for university or in Scotland. Since Ohio is a swing state we got upwards of ten phone calls a day at my Dad's house and I had a LOT of fun telling certain callers that I would under no circumstances be voting for their candidate.

Blondie Boy got super excited about voting but that might of just been because he got stickers and candy.

If you are wondering about the cookie every presidential election Busken Bakery in Cincinnati does a Cookie Poll and predicts who will win the election based on which candidate sells more cookies. It has never been wrong!

Since my Grandma ended up in the hospital we got to spend more time with my Mom (who lives in LA) then we thought we would which was nice although not the best circumstances. Luckily she got home quickly and got to spend some more time with Blondie Boy. She'll probably kill me for posting a photo of her without make up but I don't care I think it is super cute!

Blondie Boy and his GG Bess

My Mom, Sister and I

It was great spending so much time with my family and my Dad and my Step-Mom decided to have Thanksgiving early so we could be there! So we had a big family Fauxgiving the Saturday before we left. Blondie Boy had a great time playing with some of his (3rd?) cousins and we all indulged in too much amazing Thanksgiving food. I wish I could take credit for these photos but my sister stole my camera and took way better photos with it after a few minutes than I have all year.

My cousin Betsy and her gorgeous girls

My Grandma Jane and I

My cuzfriend (cousin+friend) Laura and I

I've just realized I have no photos of my Dad and I or my Dad and Blondie Boy. I'm honestly not sure how this happened! Sorry Dad! I went straight from turkey to go see a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friends Allyson, Dana and Candi. We went to see it at the theatre I first saw it at over fifteen years ago! I took advantage of the post Halloween sales and got a french maid costume to be Magenta.

Dana the Transylvanian and Magenta Me

Allyson and Riff Raff

You can't tell but I wore my flowered Doc Marten boots that I've had since I was 15 as part of my costume. When Dana saw them she was surprised they still existed because that is how much I wore them back in the day. I was going to spray my hair red but I had a big presentation in London in two day and I didn't want to risk accidentally staining my hair.

 We had a great night and it just reminded me so much of how you know a good friend when you don't have to see each other all the time but you can just pick up where you left off when you do see each other.

We had such a great trip home and three weeks flew by really quickly. I flew straight from Cincinnati to London for work and then Blondie Boy got sick and then I got sick and I'm off to London again tomorrow but I'm sure when things calm down I will get properly homesick. It was so nice being with my family and seeing Blondie Boy play with his Papa and Mimi and Aunts and just having a great time. Plus I really do love my friends and I hate that I'm so far away from them. I hope they know how freaking amazing they are and how much I miss them.  Don't get me started on Cincinnati food or I'll be here all day. I know we can Skype and Facetime and GChat but it's not the same as being face to face y'know?

Do you live near your family or do you live near where you grew up? 

What I Wore Wednesday: Honey Boo Boo Halloween

One of my favourite things about being home this time of year is that I'm home for the Halloween party my Dad throws! I decided to stick with my reality theme from last year after I saw this dress on sale in Glasgow and knew who I had to be!

The scary thing to me is that this is a real dress; like from a store where you'd buy clothes to wear in your every day life not a costume place! It screams Toddler and Tiaras to me so I paired it with a crown, sash and of course "go go juice" to be Honey Boo Boo Chile. I've never actually seen her tv show (it's not on in the UK) but I thought it was a fun costume! NotBlondeHusband was the Dude from The Big Lebowski because he wanted someone with a beard and long hair and didn't feel like going all out. 

My friend Dana was a spider with balloons on her back for legs which was really cool! We've been friends for almost twenty years which is just crazy to me! She's got two super cute boys and hopefully we can find time to have a play date for them and Blondie Boy.

Allyson from Day in the Life was a pregnant nun which was funny because people couldn't figure out if she was really pregnant or not because they didn't know her. Plus when isn't it funny watching a pregnant nun eat alcoholic whipped cream? Note at this point in the night I thought it was "cute" to try and make Honey Boo Boo faces. I was wrong--it was not cute.

My friend Steve and I have been friends since we were 6. One Halloween many years ago he sacrificed me on the school playground to bring a mummy back to life. Don't worry it didn't work ;) Steve was Johnny from the Karate Kid. I've never seen the Karate Kid so I mostly enjoyed the costume because I had to staple him into it when the zipper broke towards the end of the night.

Did you go to a Halloween party this past weekend? What did you dress up as?

Transatlantic Travel Trouble

So on Monday we left the house at 7:30am and headed to Glasgow airport to get our first of three flights to get to Ohio. We checked our bags, saw Celtic as we went through security (Tony Watt is hot in person) and made it to the gate with plenty of time. Then we heard about the fog. Apparently there was some crazy, thick fog at Heathrow which meant our flight would be delayed as they'd restricted the air space. Great.

We were then told they were boarding our flight anyway just in case we could get an earlier time for traffic control. So we sat on the plane for two hours and then took off. We had the tiniest, dullest glimmer that we still might make our flight to Chicago. We ran with Blondie Boy to catch the shuttle from T5 to T3 and literally as the bus pulled into T3 we saw our plane pushing back from the airbridge. FLUCK.

We got through to a massive queue at the American Airlines desk and NBH stood in line as BB and I sat off to the side. At this point it was really hot and his eczema had flared up and he was not a happy camper. We stood in line for about an hour and about 45 minutes in BB fell asleep. The agent told us we could fly stand-by on the next Chicago flight BUT there would not be any connecting flights to Cincinnati. The same was true for any flights into the east coast. So we chose to get on the first flight out the next day and stay over night at Heathrow since the last time we got stuck at O'Hare overnight they refused to put up in a hotel.

So we booked a hotel that was 5 minutes on the shuttle and off we went. We got up to the room and I realized I'd left Blondie Boy's Cars2 backpack (with toys for the flight) on the hook of the luggage trolley at the shuttle stop. FLUCK. I tweeted Heathrow Airport for help and went straight back to the airport.

First stop was lost property (which is crazy far away in the depths of the basement by the Tube station randomly) who told me they couldn't help me until the item had been missing at least 24 hours. They suggested I try Excess Baggage. Stop 2, Excess Baggage were very friendly but told me no one had turned in a Cars2 backpack but why not try asking someone in a purple jacket at the information point. Stop 3, I met a lovely woman at Information who said why don't we try the trolley collectors. She and I walked around until we saw a trolley tractor and I dashed off to chase them down. Stop 4, Trolley Collector Marchin who phoned over to the other side who said they hadn't collected anything. I said thank you for his help and went to look by the shuttles again.

I turned around and Marhcin was still behind me and he said he wanted to try and help me. So he went to try and find the cleaners who might know while I checked around the corner. Stop 5 came when Marchin told me he found a cleaning lady but he couldn't understand her because she only spoke Spanish. ¡AY DIOS MIOS! (OMG!) I speak really shitty Spanish but my comprehension is actually mediocre. I managed to tell her "niños" "azul" "bolcheta pequeño" and she said something I didn't understand and then "juguetones" which is toys so I knew she'd seen the bag since I hand't mentioned toys. She said that George had it so another lovely BAA employee Gideon took me to see George.

Stop 6 we met George who didn't have Blondie Boy's backpack but did have all of his Cars toys that were in the bag in a plastic bag. SUCCESS! It took two hours and a lot of persistence and optimism but I hugged him I was so happy. Blondie Boy LOVES his Cars so it was amazing to see them all there.

When I went back to get the shuttle back to the hotel I saw the cleaning lady again and went over to tell her "muchas gracias" and she then told me in Spanish that she'd seen a woman with his backpack who DUMPED THE ENTIRE CONTENTS INTO THE TRASH and then walked away with the bag! WHO STEALS A CHILD'S BACKPACK!?!?!?!?!?!? I'm so grateful to have his toys back but WHAT THE FLUCK.

So we have the toys back (and washed eww they were in the trash) and we leave the hotel at 5:30am the next morning. I feel like shite. As we are waiting to check in I have to sit down because I swear I'm going to puke. We get to the gate and I still feel rough. NBH is convinced I'm just really tired and I'll feel better once I sleep some. He and BB fall asleep and literally 15 minutes after take off I get up to go to the bathroom because I feel rotten. 

Of course both bathrooms are occupied and whoever is inside isn't shifting. I have to sit down and when I do I fill an entire barf bag. I go to the back of the plane to dispose of said bag and the sides start to split but luckily a flight attendant gets me a plastic bag and tells the other people waiting in line to let me cut in front of them.  I won't go into more details but lets just say food poisoning at 40,000 feet SUCKS.

Again I'm grateful to amazing staff, in this case the super thoughtful American Airlines flight attendant Heidi who kept checking on me and brought my cold towels and ginger ale and crackers from first class. I dozed on and off and was so wiped and weak she ordered me a wheelchair at O'Hare. Normally I would have said no but I was so exhausted and I knew there is a lot of walking between terminals.

It actually worked out for the best because since I had the extra assistance we went through separate, quicker customs and security lines. Although the guy at customs was super rude about Blondie Boy having two passports and told me he can only hold one blah blah. I let him know the embassy informed otherwise and he'd been flying on two since he was 5 months old but I'd look into it. Anyway we made it to our gate 5 minutes before the flight boarded so I was very grateful.

We arrived in Cincinnati and low and behold NBH's bag does not. Again the last time his bag didn't show up on an American flight O'Hare to Cincinnati it NEVER was seen again so it was a bit worrying. Luckily this time it arrived at my Dad's house 7 hours after we landed.

So while it was not the easiest crossing we've all made in in one piece and the weather is amazingly beautiful in Cincinnati but I don't have a What I Wore Wednesday post. I'm pretty sure none of y'all wanted to see me in two-day old clothes, post pukeage. So you get this long and rambling story instead. I promise to have actual clothes next week!

Easy Halloween Crafts for Toddlers

I LOVE Halloween. It is slowly getting more and more popular (or maybe just commercialized?) every year here in the UK which makes me happy. We are going to be in the USA for Halloween (yay!) but I still wanted to do some fun Halloween crafts with Blondie Boy before we left. It didn't make sense to carve a pumpkin since we'd be leaving and also since he's a toddler I don't exactly trust him with sharp knives. So we painted a Jack O Lantern.

The hardest part was my portion which was taping on the Jack O Lantern's face. I just took some masking tape, overlapped strips and made giant squares to then cut out the shapes I wanted. The eyes and nose were easy but the mouth was a little bit more fiddly.

Then I just let Blondie Boy go to town with some poster paints and he painted all over the pumpkin. Once it was dry I peeled off the tape to reveal the "carved" Jack O Lantern face. 

Blondie Boy is a boy after his Mom's heart and had me add some glitter to the eyes, nose and mouth. It actually kind of mimics the flicker of a candle so I think it turned out pretty cool.

He is so proud of it and always talks about "his pumpkin" when we pull in the driveway.

Since the pumpkin went so well we decided to make some hand Spiders that I saw on Kismet's Fate's Instagram. Again super easy but possibly messy--what craft involving paint isn't messy with a toddler? 

Paint one of your toddler's hands and have them make handprints on a bit of card stock or poster board. Then paint their other hand and make another handprint next to it making sure the thumbs over lap.

Let the hand prints dry and then cut around the hand spiders. It is quite curvy so depending on how good your child is with scissors they could do this themselves or you can do it. 

Then glue on googly eyes. I found it was a lot easier for Blondie Boy to glue on the larger eyes so we used them so he could do it himself.

We stuck them all over Blondie Boy's bedroom door to make it extra spooky and he took one to his Grandma's house for her bulletin board. Have you being doing any Halloween crafts?

What I Wore Wednesday: GFBW Fashion Show

Last Thursday I attend the Glasgow for Business Week Fashion Show at Prince's Square and it was amazing. There is so much fashion talent in Scotland and it was really showcased on the catwalk. Some of the designers I knew but a lot of them were new to me. If you follow me on Instagram you'll know I did my best to tweet photos but damn is it hard to take a photo of a moving model! So here are my best shots:

William Chambers Millinery

William was "Accessory Designer of the Year" at the Scottish Fashion Awards and makes the most amazing hats and headpieces.

Rebecca Torres

Rebecca makes gorgeous colour blocked body con dresses. You might recognize her dresses as one of the "Basketball Wives" wore it on their reunion show.

Gilda and Pearl

Stunning Vintage inspired Hand-finished Lingerie 

Obscure Couture

I knew them for their amazing custom acrylic knuckle dusters but now I'm coveting their edgy but feminine women's wear.

Iona Crawford 

Iona's prints were earth and ethereal and oh so Scottish.

There were also gorgeous dresses by Marc Ross (I wish I'd gotten better photos of the ultimate LBD), amazing coats with just the tiniest hint of sparkle by Lyndsey McNeil, impressive knits by Di Gilpin and many more. One of my favourite was Euan McWhirter's couture jewellery collection. Euan was kind enough to send me these photos from his collection: 

I love his chunky and colourful pieces and how freaking amazing is that punk Victorian cuff? I'm a sucker for anything that sparkles and has studs---stunning! Euan also does bespoke fine jewellery that is drop dead gorgeous  I have two words for you- OCTOPUS RING. Click the link because honestly words don't do it justice.

I showed up to the show knowing no one and the lovely Mairi McDonald, who's a women's wear designer herself and a trendspotter for The Herald, was so nice and let me sit with her during the show. It was a bit unnerving showing up and knowing no one but everyone was so lovely. I had great time and wound up heading for drinks afterwards with Euan and William who were both so inviting and fun. Also some how we ended up drinking with a guy who was in Braveheart and Wanted so that is me one degree closer to Mel Gibson and Angelina Jolie apparently!

So what did I wear. I ended up wearing the first outfit that popped into my head when I heard I got offered tickets to attend. You see in life sometimes you have to go big or go home and I thought if I couldn't go over the top at a fashion show when could I? So after almost a year I finally wore my amazing Versace for HM fur vest:

Black Dress-HM

Black Fur Vest with Gold Buckles-Versace for HM

Black Studded Bag-Versace for HM

Gold Studded Black Leggings-New Look

Black Folded Chain Trimmed Ankle Boots-New Look

Black Platinum with Model's Own Ibiza Top Coats

It is not something I'd wear every day obviously but OMG did I love wearing it. I tend to lean towards the edgy side so the studs and fur all just gave me some crazy confidence. Also I'm not obsessed with Model's Own Glitter Top Coat especially over black. I took it off this weekend but am contemplating putting it back on already.

I went for a smoky eye (when do I not?) and rocked a red lip. I'm normally not a red lip kinda girl but is really growing on me. Of course it doesn't hurt that Mairi said I was channelling Gwen Stefani who's style I've coveted since her dip-dyed Galliano wedding gown. Anyway I digress; it was really hard to get a good photo of the outfit so I've put together the outfit on Polyvore too.

I was so inspired by these amazing Scottish designers and hopefully I'll be able to attend many more Scottish fashion events. It was a great night and thanks so much to Glasgow for Business Week for having me attend! If you are in love with Scottish design as much as I am please do click through the links and support these designers--most of them ship to the USA as well as Europe!