It has been awfully hot up here the last few days. In fact it’s been so hot that most days we get out of bed at 8:30 {I know, lucky ducks} and we reach for the air con remote. Today however it’s overcast and almost pleasant so I threw the kids in the car, turned the tv on and set off down the road to find a new spot to take a few photos for this weeks bump watch.

My helpful photographer would have much rather stayed in the car to watch the movie but I bribed her with chocolate once Violet was down for a nap and she happily got out of the car.

I’m feeling a lot better about things this week both mentally and physically, like I’ve found my centre again. I believe this due to a large chunk of relaxing thanks to Mum and Dad looking after the kids these past few weeks. The baby seems to have moved down a little and I can actually breathe again which is a huge relief as it certainly makes moving around a lot easier.  I had a really good, down to earth chat with my obstetrician last week and I came out feeling a lot better about what may or may not eventuate over the next few weeks and I’m 100% confident that no matter what road we choose to take everything is going to work out just fine.

We still have a few weeks until this baby is due to arrive and I’m already starting to feel a few little movements that have made me go “ouch” down below and I’ve never had that before. I’ve always had very painless labours until we were in full term labour and ready to rock and roll. So I have to say this scares and excites me at the same time. I guess only time will tell.

Just in case I purchased some clothes for the baby last week and some ugly underwear for me,  my bags have been packed and we finally made a decision on the pram & car seat which is due to arrive early next week.

Last weekend Mum & Dad took the kids away to the beach so instead of lazing around the house all day in my pyjamas, which would have been a much smarter idea I rang my hair dresser and scored a last minute appointment that day. I then drove to town and spent the next four hours at the hair dressers making myself feel beautiful again, with a new baby on the way who knows how long it will be until I next find myself at the hairdressers. Luigi rang me at 3:30 wondering where I was and make sure I wasn’t giving birth alone on the side of the road.

With the weather being so warm I’m fast running out of ways to dress my ever growing bump and I fear it’s only going to get worse. Due to having to take insulin four times a day I have officially given up on pants and moved onto shorts and dresses. I actually stumbled across this magnificent dress by Emerson just before christmas when I walked into BigW after a doctors appointment.

It’s not a style I would usually go for but it looked so light and comfy and it definitely had plenty of room to grow with me over the last few weeks of my pregnancy and well into those hot days when we arrive in Darwin next month. There was a few different choices so I picked up one and then two in a size bigger then I was wearing and left the more daring print for somebody a little braver.  This dress was a serious bargain at $15 and probably the best money I have spent on clothes this whole pregnancy.

It feels like the weeks are rolling by so fast now and everything {including my body is in over drive} the medical appointments have increased to weekly and I feel like it’s a constant juggling act shuffling the kids and getting in and out of town. It’s still incredibly hot here and I find when I’m getting dressed in the morning the only thing on my mind is comfort.

These photos are technically  a little late due to being in holiday mode and were actually taken last week at 33 weeks because tomorrow were graduating to 34 weeks. The count down is officially ON!

One item of clothing I’m loving right now is the six way dress. I have officially put myself on a spending ban until the end of my pregnancy and this little gift from fertile mind could not have come at a better time. I love that it can be worn so many ways and it’s just so comfortable for wearing in and out of the house.

Wearing:

Top: Emerson singlet $6

Skirt: 6 way dress

Necklace: A birthday gift from my sister.

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of people visiting my blog by searching school mum style. So I sat on it for a few days and thought alright, let’s do something useful with this information and make it into a blog post.

This was me on Tuesday. Violet was showing signs of the flu and I attempted to go to a friends Tupperware party and failed miserably so we came home instead.

Violet napped while I did my best to avoid unpacking the bags from our weekend away and we were just basically slumming around home for 99% of the day.

That afternoon we walked down the path to meet the girls at school and checked the mail at our local post office.  For us this was just an ordinary day..

It’s no secret that I’m loving the cooler weather and my exercise regime has hit an all time low which brings me to my little winter weight gain.

But seriously who wants to go running when its cold and summers just a few months away.

I’m loving the colour of these purple jeans by Mix Apparel but sadly I’m not loving the fit. Even after six washes these jeans still feel a little stiff and no amount of leg stretching or sweet talking is going to fix em. I think perhaps this needs more research so don’t you worry I’ll keep going while you get some beauty sleep.

So tell me..winter style? 

So a few days ago I told you all about my trip to town to go shopping at Susan and you’ve been hanging around every since waiting toto hear the rest of the story haven’t you. Well guess what..the wait is over because today I’m going to show you what else I tried on. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then you better go back to start and read this.

One of the things that I really love about Sussan is that they do really great basics. You might pay a teeny bit more then some of the other stores but the quality is well worth it and their sales wall is always filled with bargains if your looking for something a bit cheaper. This shirt is the long sleeve high low top and it cost $49.95 but they had $10 off when I went into the store. As soon as I put it on I fell it in love with it. The shape was perfect and it was just so comfortable. This is a seasonal item so it’s not something they will stock all the time so if your interested make sure you go in and check them out. I’ll definitely be going back to grab a few in different colours.

I teamed this gorgeous shirt with a pair of nicola slim pants, they are not listed on the website anymore but they were originally $59.95 and I picked them up on the sales rack for $29.95. I think these are going to be a well worn piece in my wardrobe this winter. The chunky scarce was so warm and comfy if I lived in a cooler part of the country I would definitely have taken this home..it’s a bit of an investment at $59.95 but I think quality wise it would be worth it.

I spotted another lady take this horizontal knit tunic into the dressing room and she didn’t end up buying it so when she put it on the rack in the change room Effie snapped it up for me to try on.

I teamed it with ponte pant $59.95 and the multi strand necklace $14.95. I really loved the colour and this dress was so comfortable that I could see it fitting into my wardrobe so well but the sizing was wrong, this dress was an extra small and it was at least two sizes two big for me. I tried a few variation to make it work but at the end of the day I couldn’t spend $79.95 on a dress that didn’t fit like a glove. I did however walk out with the ponte pant which I will show you another time.

This last look is the high low pullover $69.95 and the slim jeans again in apple $79.95. It was just something that the sales lady brought into me while I was tidying up. One of the ladies in the store was wearing the same thing with a leopard print scarf, but I’m just not ready for leopard print yet. I really love the blue but didn’t love the shape, I just find I’m a little bit too short to pull off that fish tail kind of look but I noticed Nicky from Styling You wearing this in one of her posts last week so it must be a good buy.

So that brings us to the end of this segment. I hope you have had a lot of fun and found some pieces that you want to rush in the store and try on. If you want my top pick seriously go in store and try green tunic on, it was seriously comfy and it deserved to be loved!

I’m currently away from home on a little road trip so I don’t want to bore you all to death with these fashion posts so were going to go on a little break from these and I’ll be back next week sometime to talk about knowing your style, trusting your gut and I’ll show you a few of the outfits I tried on just looked, really, really wrong.

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When we moved from the city to the country a few years ago I found it really hard to step back and fit “my style” into the community. Out here the uniform for a stay a home mum is pretty casual, you slap on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt {stains and bits of food are totally acceptable} with a pair of thongs and your done.

Going to town meant that you might spice up your outfit a bit with some closed in shoes and a nice necklace but it doesn’t really go much further then that.

In the early days if I rocked up to playgroup in a dress people were like wow, you look nice where are you off to? I felt like I was stuck in this huge fashion whirlpool, I needed to step back but I just wasn’t sure how far back I wanted to step. It always made leaving the house so much harder then it needed to be.

This time around I have found it a lot easier to make the transition from the city to small town life. I know this probably sounds silly but I feel like I’m a little older and wiser since we first started this journey and I’ve found my own unique style that is comfortable and practical but also something that lets me express who I am and tells people that I care about what I wear out of the house each day.

Now march to my own drum and I feel positive about my style.I’m not afraid to wear a dress to school drop off  or put some make up on in the middle of the day {you know, to take photos for my blog}, I wear pretty necklaces to playgroup and sometimes I even wear fancy shoes.

One of the things that has helped me to do this is re-arranging my perspective. I now buy over quantity and choose a few favourite pieces each season that I can work in different ways.

One of the stores I have really been drawn to the last twelve months is Sussan. When I was younger Sussan was never a store I would walk into but last winter I noticed a shift in their range and the thing that really drew me in was the beautiful accessories range in all different colours and this season they have won me over again with their gorgeous knits and their handbags, how great are the handbags. I’m thinking about putting this baby on lay-by for my birthday.

This season I really want to invest in a few core pieces that I could re-work and see me through until the end of winter. On my list I have a new coat, a new pair of jeans, a good quality jumper and a new handbag. That’s not asking much is it?

Last week the Sussan catalogue arrived in my mailbox and I spotted this gorgeous piece I knew I had to find a way to get to town and try it on before they all sold out. So yesterday when my husband walked in the door super, super early  I hatched an evil plan and before he sat down on the couch I begged him to let me run away to town {100km away} and go shopping.

Thanks to Susan’s I had $250 to spend on my new winter look and I wanted to get as much time in the change room as possible. I usually go shopping withViolet and she is at the age where she just isn’t very good at sitting still and she drives me insane so I really wanted to indulge in a little bit of “me time” so I could truly spoil myself. Effie came along for the ride to be my style consultant and my official photographer.

I walked into the store and left in love with all the new colours that were popping up this season. The store had such a warm cozy feel to it I just wanted to wrap myself up in knits and sit by the fire with my favourite book. Sadly that wasn’t going to happen any time soon and I knew I had to be practical. Winter time up here barely gets below 25 so there wasn’t really any need for me to invest in a lot of the huge chunky knits that were lying around the store..even if I really, really wanted them.

After we informed the staff of what we were doing and got to official ok to go a little wild in the change rooms Effie and I started pulling clothes off the racks like we had just won the lottery. Once we were inside the change room we spread everything out on the floor and worked out a few key outfits to try on and then it was time to start trying them on.

The first outfit I tried on was a total winner and it was one of the outfits I walked out of the store with. I had originally planned to wear this outfit with a different pair of pants but the shop assistant was wearing a pair and I think she saw me eyeing these off and rushed over with a pair for me to try on and I just fell in love.

I can definitely see myself getting a lot of use out of this cardigan this winter as it’s a classic piece that can easily be dressed up or down and the jeans are just the most perfect colour. I’ve been thinking about investing in a pair for well over six months and just never took the plunge, I think I am now officially addicted.

1. Salt + Pepper Cardigan $99.95 2. White Singlet from the sales rack $10 3. Slim Jean in Apple $79.95 Also worn in the photo is the Multi Texture Necklace $14.95 Total outfit cost: $204.85

I had so much fun shopping in Sussan, we played around with a lot of really fun combinations and colours and I got some really great, solid pieces that I can work into a lot of different combinations throughout the season.

In fact I had so much fun and took so many photos that I’ll be back sometime next week to show you a few more outfits that worked and didn’t work for me so stay tuned.. I didn’t walk out with a new handbag but I did walk out with the salt  + pepper cardigan and three pairs of pants for $269. I personally think that is an excellent investment and one that I will not regret.

I wasn’t paid to write this post but I was gifted with a $250 voucher from Sussan. I regularly shop in Sussan and genuinely love their products, especially the handbags. Shopping at Sussan is available in store and online, all orders over $150 include free postage and if your order is below that it’s $10. If you go to your local store right now…they have 50% off all of their sale items and there is some seriously good bargains to be found, I’m not kidding I almost walked out with a new wallet and I didn’t even need one. 

Don’t forget if Hello Owl is your favourite blog in the world you can vote for us in the top 50 bloggers competition and you could walk away with $5000. To vote just click on the button below..