Fruit

There was a moment today that I realized my Whole 30 and national donut day will be colliding and nutrition is going to win. And I wanted to have a good cry because I'm on day 3 and I want out already. I miss cheese and I miss sour cherries, two of the best food creations known to man, and I love celebrating National days of utmost foodie importance. None of this qualifies as Whole 30 compliant.

I cannot make a blog called StyleSmaller entirely about food. Let's talk about something else, shall we?

Kids' style eh? Here's my cutie picking flowers like she does, in a dress covered in oranges. 

Photo by Pictilio

How much do I love oranges? Excessively. How much do I love fruit-covered clothing for kids {and myself, for that matter?} Also excessively. In case you love summer fruit prints as much as I do, I've gathered my favorites for you:

orange dress . striped tee . chambray dress . strawberry shirt . pineapple sweater . pineapple sweatshirt . 

So cute, right? I'm thinking Maggie would look juuuust right in that chambray number. So now I've created a post that has everything to do with small style and everything to do with nutrition, all in one. 

xoxo.

Breather

The breather from the internet was life-giving. You know how they say that people don't truly begin to vacation until they've been vacationing for about a week? Apparently our mind clocks have trouble turning off the responsibilities until they've been vacationing that long. Two weeks was a lovely bit of space away to swallow an excess of air and feel carefree. 

The last few days I've been feeling the pull back to writing, and I realized that that means I'm ready to come back to this space with a feeling of appreciation and enjoyment, rather than any sort of obligation. I've cleared my slate and tied most loose ends from my inbox as well, which is just altogether freeing. Inboxes when you first start blogging are like mailboxes for kids- it only brings fun things! After being in the game a bit, the inbox feels like a mailbox to an adult- full of deletables, responsibilities, and excess. Anyway, I had a chance to spring clean the inboxes in a sense, just before our official summer begins. Perhaps I will do this quarterly. 

I am also am embarking on a whole30. I read all the words about the cleansing of our systems from processed foods, from sugars, and from grains and dairy. I wholeheartedly want to be clean from processed foods, I half-heartedly want to cut sugar, and nearly none of me wants to rid the grains and dairy {aka my food lifelines}, but I'm giving it a go. Don't judge harshly if I do not make it, because- well- from what I've heard, it's incredibly difficult. Thirty days is a long time, full of baby showers, dinner plans with friends, and festivities during which I'll have to steer myself intentionally away from most delicacies. The picture above is from my first day of whole30, which included a stop at a street fair with every possible temptation in a one block radius. Chalk up a W for me on day one. One day at a time, friends.

We had a legit vacation while I was away also {old news to those who follow on instagram}. Disneyworld is a truly magical place when your children are 2 and 5 and gazing around with bright-eyed wonder. Before we left for our trip, we made a quick stop to a mall that had rides in its hallways, and Maggie said "are we in Disneyworld mommy?" The real deal obviously blew their socks off. {I mean, who wears socks in Florida, but you know what I'm trying to say}. They've caught the Frozen fever a bit more than I care to admit, but hey... I went through some crazy-train childhood days where I would shut the door to my room and sing and act out Ariel's soundtrack in front of a mirror at the top of my vocal lungs and imagine voice-over careers looming in my future. A little "let it go" fresh off an airplane from Anna and Elsa country never hurt anyone. All this said, it was a brilliantly warm and blissful time with family and now we're home and gloriously refreshed.

There you have it. I'm back and more longwinded than ever! Can't wait to type my little heart out again. xx

Rest

I decided I'm taking a bit of a blog vacation... SO if you've been wondering where I am, I'm not gone forever, but I am gone for a bit of rest and relaxation away from the internet. Follow me on Instagram and Pinterest or feel free to visit my shop- I'll be there! 

xoxo,

Kate

H O T

Pic from my instagram.

We're having heat wave #27 for 2014 here in San Francisco. 

This is a beautiful thing. I'm not complaining... but I will say that I've found new respect for those of you who have legit summers. Particularly if you're city-living without pools. 

It's like a reverse world around here. The tourists are dressed appropriately in shorts and tanks and look breezy and relaxed. Warm weather in San Francisco is what they were expecting, of course.

The locals are wearing their one and only pair of shorts for the third day straight {or is that just me that only owns one pair of shorts?}, and look like they're about to pass out while climbing city streets. Tees aren't even getting it done this week. It's tanks or bust. 

Maggie protested the playground yesterday, and sat under a play structure in the shade. Sophie told me we should probably stay inside the rest of today and all day tomorrow because we have just had wayyyy too much sun. 

City dwellers around here have been using their monthly budgets eating out every night so they can enjoy sidewalk meals in shorts. It's felt like Friday since Monday. We don't want to cook {too hot}. We don't want to clean {too hot}. We don't want to walk {too hot}. 

We have been rendered embarrassingly useless in this weather... but we're smiling about it. With sunglasses firmly attached to our faces.

Not quite useless, actually. It feels good to say that- like we're a bunch of free spirit types that have no obligations, but we've been keeping busy. Nothing crazy, just this and that. I'm kind of trying to teach Sophie to read this week, because Brian says that as excellent as she is in crafts and being a masterful artist, she probably should have a tiny bit of a reading lesson before school begins... I agree, but I'm kind of lost with teaching her...

I actually have a question for you who are more experienced in this department: Sophie is heading to kindergarten in the fall, and I'm feeling like I should be doing something to get her prepped, like in a more official sense. She knows her numbers, she knows her letters and a good amount of letter sounds... but teaching her to read? Ack, we've tried and I haven't a clue where to start. When we open books to try, she says "okay, that's enough of this mommy," and we're both ready to move on. I'm a terrible teacher thus far. I'm so curious about SIMPLE strategies for teaching her to read, where she enjoys it! We have about two hours/day that Maggie sleeps, and if I'm honest: LeapFrog does a way better job than me... {I know, supermom strikes again!}. 

Blogs, websites, ideas, books I can order on Amazon, I'm open to any suggestions!

Okay, enough of the useful talk. We're off to eat popsicles. With sunglasses. Hot isn't too shabby. 

xo

Swiss Dot Jersey Dress | Chambray Shortalls | Jet Setter tee | Marled Romper

Dobby Shirt | Retro Sunglasses | Oxford Striped Shorts

Chambray Pocket Tee | Stripe Shift Dress | Graphic Beach Tee

Let's be honest with ourselves. The classic brand has been through some growing pains... gap is amazing, then not so much, then back to the top. This season, I cannot even list all that's on my wish list for the girls. There's so much good stuff! Maggie is my pastel girl, so the light colors are perfection. Sophie + chambray, whites, and greys are the best mixes with her olive skin tone. Fortunately - or unfortunately depending how you look at it - gap has it all right now. They've brought some actual style this year, rather than sticking to the safe {often unflattering} basics they've done in years past.

If you have some goods to stock for summer vacations, get yourself over there. If your closet and your children's closets need nothing, stay away! ;)

xo. 

*post isn't sponsored. contains affiliate links

Adjusting

Sometimes I lose my writing mojo.

I have so many words that want to be written. I write in my head. In my head I'm free to share my whole heart and my silly and mundane thoughts. When I come here to type, I begin to write- deep thoughts and irrelevant ramblings both- and then I stop. 

The people online who share their hearts are too often criticized. They're too often put down. They're too often treated unkindly. I know people think it would be the best thing to have a blog make it big. To have one where people are paid to put themselves out there daily. It's would be a massive privilege to have an audience for your writing... but it's not why I write... and I don't even know if I would love if I did have that.

I don't blog to create a massive audience. I write because sharing life and making connections is something I love. When I became a mother, there was an isolated feeling... a feeling that no one was really in the same stage as me. When I read blogs, I saw a plethora of people living the day to day like I was. It was such a nice connection, whether or not I was directly communicating with them {I wasn't. I've never been much of a blog commenter}... I had so much to say and so many ideas to share and so many thoughts to get out and it felt natural to create a space of my own. 

With it all came opportunities, collaborations, a juggle of emails to sift through and connect with what looks right. While kids' style and getting great products and styling "looks" are a total love of mine, reviewing products is not. It's natural for me to give product recommendations in real life, but only products that I actually feel are something I would buy. THIS, my friends, is why I started my shop. It's a collection of things I would actually buy or already own. 

In creating my shop, my whole purpose was to then create blog posts that get back to the root of it all- writing naturally about the everyday and the styles I see and love...

But somewhere along the way, I've become handicapped in the area of putting myself and my heart out there. Sharing enough vs. over-sharing. Knowing I'm far from eloquent in my words and letting it stop me from writing at all. I wish sometimes that blogging was in its grassroots stage, where people were sharing more freely, but we've come to a state where the fear of critics or obtaining big partnership seems to take center stage. I came to that stage... but I'm done with it. 

I'm writing this to put it all out there. To really just tell you that the blog will not always be pretty, it may not always be visual, but I'm going to get back to sharing life and what inspires me... telling real stories, being real about the good and real about the hard. And being okay with all of that being far from perfect. 

xoxo.