Haute Couture-Baby Style

Some of my favorite clothes for our Baby Girl have been things we've found on trips. I have mixed feelings about this because I like her having cute clothes that are a bit different than everything else I see at home, but I also wish I had a little shop to just pop into to get them!

My first introduction of my now favorite brand was in London before Christmas. I spotted the brightest, most wonderful little dress I'd ever seen (in Baby Girl's short 10 week life) and snatched it up to bring home. I tucked it away in the 12 month section of her closet for the fall and didn't think of it again. Then in Vail the next month we were shopping at Kidsport (the BEST shop in Vail, hands down) and we picked up another super cute dress (and on the next trip two coats, a couple of hats, another dress, you get the picture). And would you believe when I tucked all of these beauties into her closet I realized they were the same designer as my London find?! So obviously I have a new obsession favorite: Catimini.  They're designs are fun, colorful and French. Need I say more?!

Why none of the sweet shops in my hometown sell this designer I will never know, but thankfully I can survive off the Kidsport website and bide my time 'til ski season comes around again to visit and stock up on another three seasons worth of sweetness! I mean, look at these bright colors. I can't imagine any baby or mama not being happy looking at this all day!

 Photos by Brandi Pitts Photography

Another Adorable Ride!

So as soon I posted about Baby Girl's sweet stroller, I thought there must be something out there equally adorable and perfect unisex or sweet baby boys. I immediately went to Amazon and Look!

It's a Beatle's Yellow Submarine "buggy"!!! Perfect any tot of a haute rock n roll mama and daddy! And not to forget those sweet little cold toes, there's a footmuff for this one, too!

Hmmm, how many strollers are too many for one little girl?

High Maintenance Baby's Juicy Ride

When my husband calls Baby Girl and me high maintenance, I (among others) usually point out to him there's a reason we're this way: him!

Last year on Mother's Day, he was so excited about my gift that he gave it to me at around 4 AM during one of the many preggo potty breaks I had during the night (he did the same thing this year, but that's another post).  We had been all over the place trying to decide on the perfect stroller for out sweet Baby Girl and I had been completely in love with the Juicy Couture for Maclaren stroller since well before she even existed. I had looked at it several times and been told by several that it was just "impractical". Oh how wrong they were!

First of all, just tell me this isn't the cutest stroller you've ever seen:

And secondly, it's SO practical! It comes a rain cover that snaps right on and totally encloses Baby Girl; leave it to a British company to include that. It folds up oh so easily and compact that if necessary, it can go in the floorboard of a backseat! And you can get this sweet little footmuff to keep her nice and warm.

We used this stroller, footmuff and raincover in both London and Vail in the winter and Baby Girl stayed completely dry and toasty warm. Why can't someone just get a clue and make one of these for mamas, too?!

And don't forget a bag to store the stroller in when traveling! This red one is bright enough that the airline shouldn't lose it! Hopefully!

Haute Memories

I know so far I've just really been talking about "stuff". But even a high maintenance mama knows that stuff is the least important part of having a sweet baby.  When she's long grown out of her nursery, her toys, her sweet little dresses only the memory of this time will remain. Well, the memory and the photos!

For this mama, the 40 weeks I was preggo with Baby Girl was the absolute most special time I had had in my life to that point. I'm sure it sounds nuts, but from the very beginning I absolutely couldn't wait to have my baby bump! After years of exercise and keeping it all "sucked" in, I couldn't wait to let my belly hang out at the beach. Couldn't wait until I could balance a bowl of popcorn on it. You get the picture! During my pregnancy, I felt the best I've ever felt and was just absolutely blissfully happy each and every day. All of this brings me to something I had so much fun doing and am so glad my husband and I took part in: bump pictures!

My hubby wasn't too keen on the thoughts of the pics and even asked to not be in many of them, but once her saw them, he was so glad we did them. Especially now, looking back, even though it was just last year, it's so nice to almost see how we were feeling at that point.

So obviously if I'm going to say that bump pics are important, you can only imagine my thoughts on baby pics! Oh yeah, we have LOTS of baby pics! We were so thankful to be able to have Brandi Pitts with us at the hospital the day Baby Girl arrived. We had already formed a good relationship with her from the bump pics and by the time the baby was here, she already felt like a friend so it wasn't intrusive at all to have her there with us.  She just kind of hid in the corner while we snuggled and cuddled our new bundle, completely oblivious to her even being there. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later when we were looking at our photos that I was able to remember some of those moments that I had already forgotten during the rush of Baby Girl's first few hours.

Since Baby Girl's arrival, we've had newborn, 3 month and 6 month photo sessions with Brandi. I truly feel so blessed to be able to keep up with the changes and milestones from each session. We will continue to have photos taken every 3 months until her first birthday. At that point, my husband says we'll do photos once a year, but I say that's still negotiable. I mean, I don't plan to have 96 month photos taken of her, but as long as she changing so quickly, I want these changes captured!

I suppose to this point, this may the topic I feel strongest about. You don't have to spend a ton of money or have your walls plastered with baby photos (not that that's a bad thing...our house is now a gallery), but at least find someone who knows how to work a camera well and take those sweet pics of your sleeping newborn, your smiling 6 month old, etc because believe me, when that sweet sleeping newborn is big enough to splash in the dog's water, crawl faster than you can walk and sneeze green peas all over the kitchen table you'll want to remember it!

This Mama's Sleepy Baby Must Haves

It didn't take too long at all after Baby Girl came along to realize that, although nice, it isn't lotions, potions or creams that keep a mama in good condition after baby. It isn't work outs, although they are wonderful. It isn't special diets or nice clothes. It's sleep! After a few sleepless nights in a row once we came home from the hospital with Baby Girl, I decided maybe we would test out a gift one of my husband's coworkers had given us, the Woombie. At first, I thought there was no way I could possibly zip my sweet baby into such a thing. But at 3 AM on the third sleepless night in a row, this mama was ready to do just about anything to get just a few zzzz's so I settled her down and zipped her up. And she slept the rest of the night. The next night, I thought maybe I'd try it from the beginning. And she slept for about 4 hours before waking up hungry. We never looked back, and I know it isn't typical, but my sweet Baby Girl has been consistently sleeping straight through the night since she was about 5 weeks old! Our very first 8 hour night came when she was 2 weeks 6 days old. I will never forget the sheer panic when I woke in the morning and saw first the clock then the baby monitor. Of course she was just fine, sleeping like a little angel and looking like a little gloworm!

Something else I learned nearly immediately we wouldn't be able to live without is our video monitor. I think it must be natural for all new mamas to kind of jump out of bed when sweet baby cries, always fearing the worst! For me, I just knew Baby Girl was wonder baby and had thrown herself from her crib into the floor at 4 weeks old or that someone had crept into her second-floor locked windows and was trying to steal her. I mean, who wouldn't want to steal the most perfect baby God has ever created, right?! It was and is still so nice to be able to just look over at the nightstand and see that she's okay without having to wait a whole 30 seconds it takes me to get to her nursery. I know there are several different kinds, but this is ours. I truly don't think I could live without it even now that she's bigger. It really is so much fun to watch what she's doing when she thinks only the bunny rabbit can see.

                                              

The last thing that I have found to be really useful is a thermometer in the nursery. Not because I can't tell the difference between hot and cold, but because everyone else likes to give you advice about the temp of the nursery. I can't count the number of times I was told her room was just too cold. Her grandparents complained, her great-grandparents complained and sometimes even her wonderful Daddy swore that I was keeping our house way too cold for a newborn. I didn't get it because I thought I was wrong, but because I was tired of all the chatter about the temp! Now I can just point to the little egg in the corner when someone shares an opinion on the temperature of Baby Girl's room. And sometimes quietly say "I told you so"!

Organic Baby's Haute Palate

As I've said before, I'm a high maintenance mama, but nobody's palate can be as high maintenance as my husband's! He has many thoughts on just exactly how good food should taste and he's never shy about sharing those thoughts. The same goes for Baby Girl's food!

Now that she's nearly 8 months old, she obviously on "solids" now in addition to milk. I homemade most all of her stage 1 foods from fresh organic veggies, but now that she's moved into stage 2 and more adventurous mixtures, I've found what I truly believe to be the perfect baby food.

Plum Organics are some of the most interesting combinations. Baby Girl love loves the purple carrots, blueberries and pears mixture as well as the spinach, peas and pears. She gets so excited when I bring our those pouches!

I love that they are all-natural organics with no artificial preservatives, which should probably be my biggest reason for loving them, but have you seen the adorable Boon spoons that screw directly onto the pouch? Hello wonderful! 

Not only are they super cute, but so easy to keep a couple of pouches and spoons in the diaper bag for picnics at the park, emergency meals in the car and so many other times!

I first found the yummy pouches at Toys R US. The Boon spoons are available at Amazon, as well as all of the Plum organics.

Transatlantic Travel with Baby Girl

My sweet husband and haute tot's wonderful daddy is British, which has been wonderful for my love of travel. This also means that the very first stamp on Baby Girl's passport was, of course, London when she was a mere 11 weeks old.

European airlines are reportedly phenomenal for traveling with infants and children, and it was quite easy for me to find information from them. Our airlines in the States, however, weren't nearly as ready to provide details about the amenities available on Transatlantic flights. It took several phone calls to various airlines before I realized that there may or may not be bassinets on the plane. That's the answer I received over and over again. We finally settled on US Airways as we've always had good luck traveling through Charlotte and are big fans of their Dividend Miles program.

We booked two tickets in row 1 of the Envoy (business class) cabin planning to hold Baby Girl in our laps. Upon booking, the agent over the phone was able to tell me that there are usually basinets available in the bulkhead row of economy class, but she was unsure if they were available in business class. This seemed a bit silly to me, that the lower cost cabin may have an amenity the business class did not, but when she said she could at least request one, I was happy because that's probably all they could've done in economy, too. When we checked in, we reiterated our request and were told we would need to ask at the gate immediately before boarding the plane, which we did. Something I immediately liked was that they invited families to board with the business class passengers. I will be honest, this once annoyed me because I always wanted to board quickly and get comfortably in our seats when traveling business class without having to wait for children. I will now publicly apologize for this because after standing with baby on hip for ages on other airlines (Delta, American) I understand how difficult this is! But, back to this flight...

We fully expected terrible looks and mutters from other business class passengers and flight attendants as we boarded, but we were welcomed with sweet baby comments from all around. One of the attendants even held Baby Girl for us while we settled in our carry-ons, etc, at which point she told us that most Transatlantic flights have 2 bassinets available and as soon as we were airborne they would set it up for us. Oh how thankful we were for this news! So, as many had advised, we fed our sweet baby during take off and just as she finished, the bassinet arrived complete with pillow and blanket (I just said "thank you", didn't mention these could be deadly for my darling as I quickly stashed them in my own seat). It sat securely on the floor in front of us with flaps that folded over and zipped so that in case of a few bumps, she wouldn't "bounce" out of it. We swaddled her up in her trusty Woombie (yet another post), laid her into her bassinet and settled in for our dinner. And can you believe she slept right up until we finished breakfast? It is true! At that point the bassinet was put away for landing as I fed her during the descent. Could a first flight have gone any better? I think not! And we were just as lucky on the return trip with all the same treatment again. Not sure that all the airlines have them, but that bassinet was truly a God send for us! I'm guessing the next Transatlantic flight won't be quite as easy as the bassinet is only for babies less than 22 pounds and I'm certain that once a baby can roll over and sit up it wouldn't work so well.

I hope this little tid-bit of traveling with your own haute tot is helpful!

Welcome to Haute Tot & Mama

Here's the long and short of it: I'm a shopper. I'm a traveller. I'm a web surfer. I'm a wife. I'm a mama. And I'm high maintenance. My husband (and whole rest of my family) calls me that and I just honestly can't deny it!

Before Baby Girl came along, shopping and traveling were my favorite things to do. My favorite bags were Gucci, shoes were Jimmy Choo and vacay spot was Paris. Now that I'm a mama, nothing has changed! I still love pretty things, pretty places and now, our pretty baby!

My sweet baby girl is nearly 8 months old and since the moment we found out we were having a baby after 4 years of marriage, I started scouring the web for the best of all things related to baby. I searched endlessly for cribs, diaper bags, clothes, strollers, baby bottles, travel ideas, you get the picture. I am in no way an "expert" after being a mama for 8 months, but I've decided I want to share everything I've found over the last 18 months in hopes of helping other moms become haute mamas with haute tots!

Literally two years before our pregnancy, I knew exactly which diaper bag I simply had to have when I finally became a mom. I'm not kidding about my love of Gucci. My husband proposed in Italy (on a gondola, bliss). Although the proposal was certainly the highlight of the trip, a stop in Gucci to pick up my first Gucci bag & wallet was definitely a close second and so my love with Gucci began. Obviously when it finally came time to need that diaper bag, my hubby knew just where to go!

Have you ever seen such a beautiful diaper bag? This particular one is no longer available, but there are a few variations available on the Gucci website as well as Gucci boutiques and fine department stores.

Gucci Messenger Diaper Bag

I can tell you first hand that this diaper bag is fabulous! Not only does it look so much more chic than they typical diaper bag, it has multiple pockets for organization and can really hold all of Baby Girl's "stuff"! And maybe my favorite aspect of all are the strap snaps for attaching it to a stroller. It looks great with both our Juicy Couture Maclaren stroller and our Bugaboo Cameleon, too! I'll save those for a later post!

Please come back and see what other haute finds I have for haute mamas and tots!