I've shared before that one of my secrets to getting out the door to work on time despite having two kids is to lay out my outfits the night before. It saves so much time in the mornings!
I'd actually had these outfits planned out for a week before I wore them. With sickness hitting the boys and a late night hospital dash, my week was thrown off and I ended up taking some time off. Thankfully everyone is better. I only made it into the office once that week, so I decided to wear a mood boosting dress instead on the only day I made it in, and saved these outfits for the next week. It was nice to finally wear them!
It's not the first time I've worn this peplum tank tucked into a skirt, but I think this is my favourite way of wearing it. I'd been looking for a plain black top to wear with this skirt when I saw this top and realised it would be perfect if I hid the peplum under the pleats. As I'd managed to catch what the boys had and wasn't feeling the best, I added a colourful statement necklace. A trick I often use to try draw attention away from my tired eyes! With all of the black, I felt that the loud statement necklace and printed skirt worked nicely together, although I wasn't sure at first when thinking up what to wear. I really liked the gold mouse flats with this too.
Despite not feeling 100%, and wishing a few times I'd been contagious enough to get the day off work, I did love this outfit and felt happy with it. A little more energy and voice would have been good though, ha!
I was so excited to wear this outfit a few days after the one above, as it was my last day in the office before a few weeks leave. However I was in a bit of a rush and grabbed this black blazer from the front of my wardrobe instead of the cream one I'd originally planned.
Instead of a plain black top like I had above, I picked my space dye black tee. I thought it was a subtle enough print that it wouldn't compete with the leaf print of the skirt. With the same blazer, similar skirt, statement necklace, Louis Vuitton neverfull, Marc Jacobs flats though...this looks incredibly similar to the outfit above. It's the same outfit formula, I just forgot to change up the jacket to make it look a little more different.
Loved this outfit as much as the top one, but for my last day before leave I think I was going to be happy no matter what I wore! Did have a mad last few hours trying to fit everything in and get everything done before I left, but otherwise it was a good day. This skirt always makes me feel good, even though being silk it doesn't get worn much at all around the toddlers! Perfect for the office.
A neutral like black is a nice choice to wear with a colourful printed skirt. The black tops and blazer work so well in these outfits as the skirts both have black in them too. Picking a colour from the print on the skirt and wearing that on top is another good way to go if you don't have any neutral tops that work. Linking up with Mix It Monday, Confident Twosday, On Trend, Turning Heads, Trend Spin, Style Sessions.
A good fail-safe wardrobe option for me is a grey tee. With all of the printed pieces in my wardrobe, grey tees are staple pieces I can always pull out when I'm not sure what to wear with something. With brightly coloured printed maxi skirts like the ones I'm wearing before, a grey tee is a simple choice.
I realised I hadn't worn this grey tee for a while and decided to give it a last wear. When I'm not sure about something in my wardrobe or it's been so long between wears, 'the last wear' lets me find out if I still love something and it deserves to stay, or if it needs to leave my wardrobe. I had such mixed opinions about this when I wore it though! Wasn't too happy with it in the photos, but it is so soft, comfortable and I felt great in it all day. It's staying in my wardrobe for now.
I want to try it with something other than this maxi skirt - as I've mentioned before it's a slightly too long thrift find that I just roll up and wear higher on my waist so it's a lot of bulk together with a slouchy tee. I will need to get this skirt tailored, I'm sure it's a keeper now!
Wore this to run a few errands with the boys. I've worn yellow and red together before, and again I really liked the combination. I think the mustard yellow micro Regan bag works nicely with the bright red of the maxi skirt.
Hat: Big W bow detail sunhat Tee: Spectrum basic v-neck tee in grey marl Bikini: Kiargo 'Captains Bridge' striped bikini Skirt: thrifted tribal print maxi skirt Shoes: slim gold Havaianas Bag: Louis Vuitton MM damier azur neverfull
Why I wore it:
Wore this for a much-needed relaxing beach day the week before Christmas. My first weekend after finishing up at work for the Christmas break, so some sun was just what was needed. I'd attempted no-heat curls the night before by plaiting my hair, but as you might have seen on Insta stories it didn't work too well! I ended up throwing my very frizzy and not at all curly hair up into a messy bun and hiding it under my sun hat at the beach. I got the chance to try out my new Tesalate towel at the beach too! They kindly sent me one, the 'this is love' towel.
Tesalate towels are 'sand free', and I was surprised to find that this claim is actually true! I tried to take a video showing how easy it was to flick the sand off the towel, but with my hands full with two toddlers it didn't happen. Trust me, it is sand free. No sand sticks to it, even wet sand. It washed well too.
The only downside is that after we went to the kid's water play area and sat down on the grass to dry off, it accumulated a few leaves on the underside of the towel. So it's good for not taking a bunch of sand home with you, but watch out for leaves and twigs!
I picked the grey tee to wear as I wanted something easy to throw on over my bikini, it was perfect. And my Louis Vuitton neverfull is frequently selected as my beach bag. It's nice to have a big bag to throw everything in when it doesn't fit in the baby bag which is filled with all the usual things plus towels for everyone! (That's another bonus of the Tesalate towel, it folds up so small!).
If you have a printed skirt you're not sure what to pair it with, try a grey tee. It's a classic neutral that goes with everything. Perfect for a casual relaxed day at the beach, or a busy morning running errands.
Everyone repeats clothes at some point (even celebrities who probably have more clothes than they could ever possibly wear). In my quest to try and get more use from my wardrobe, I try to wear things a little differently now and then. Instead of completely repeating an outfit piece by piece, I'll take elements I loved and use it to come up with an outfit formula to follow to wear the same thing slightly differently. Like everyone else though, sometimes you just have to repeat an entire outfit head-to-toe!
When I saw these olive embroidered shorts, I instantly thought of wearing them with stripes. I decided to wear them with my foil striped tee, and loved it so much the next time I wore them I picked another striped tee. Same formula, slightly different results.
I wore this back in December! I'm usually a little behind with sharing my outfit photos on the blog, but nothing makes me feel more disorganised than sharing December photos in January, with the new year making these last years photos 😂
Delayed posting aside, I really liked this outfit! I wore this for our playgroup Christmas party which I overly shared on Insta stories. I've been going to this playgroup since Toddler T was a baby, he had his first Christmas party there and I always go snap happy taking tons of photos of the boys enjoying the massive picnic spread. There were chocolate eclairs this time, and so of course I have a fair few chocolate face photos!
I thought the metallic foil stripes on the tee and the Christmas bow on my wrist were nice nods to the Christmas theme without getting too dressed up, as there would be a lot of sitting on the ground and running around with toddlers. I did dress the boys up in their novelty Christmas tees though!
I liked the first metallic stripe tee outfit so much that I planned this one, again with the same shoes, although a different Rebecca Minkoff bag. I liked this resulting outfit much I wore it twice! Wore it on Monday, for some errands and a specialist appointment and then again a couple days later on the Wednesday. There was a bit of a stressful day or so in between with an unexpected overnight hospital stay for the little one, and some frantic rescheduling of planned appointments and work for me so that Baby Boy was taken care of.
To make things easier on myself, I just pulled on Monday's outfit again. Another doctor's appointment but also the opportunity to work from home while my mother in law looked after baby boy. An outfit formula is a wonderful way to make getting dressed easy, but there is nothing easier than repeating an entire outfit when you're too stressed to think of anything else!
Crazy backstory aside, I did enjoy wearing this outfit. Nothing really matches, with the navy stripe tee, olive floral embroidered shortsand mustard bag, but I do love the way all of the colours work together.
Nothing wrong with repeating an outfit combination you love! But if you want to change things up a little, try using the pieces that you loved from the outfit to make up a formula to follow to recreate a similar one with different pieces. This also works if you're inspired by an outfit you see but don't have the exact pieces in your wardrobe - identify what you liked about the outfit and see if you could create something similar based on that formula. Outfit formulas work well when you're pushed for time in the mornings too. You can use an outfit you loved for inspiration for a quick outfit another day, just by following the formula you create.
While I'm not a massive opshopper (thrift shopper for my American readers!) I do like browsing when I can and occasionally getting a bargain. Back in October, my local store had a 'fill a bag for $2' sale. I took the rare opportunity to leave the boys home with hubby and have some time to myself to browse. I didn't try anything on, just filling my bag with things that looked good and I guesstimated would work.
I've shared before that I sometimes wonder if it's worth buying less than perfect pieces at the opshop with the idea of spending more to get them tailored to fit. But with two of the thrifted pieces I'm wearing below I decided to go ahead and spend more on getting them tailored. They worked out at 67 cents each so even with the average $14 tailoring price for both they were still bargains.
This beautiful tribal print skirt used to be a strapless dress. It looked nicely made, but you could see where the fabric had been pulled from someone constantly adjusting it. I couldn't get past the gorgeous print and colours, it looked lovingly handmade too so I added it to my bag, reasoning I could wear it as a maxi skirt. When I got it home and tested this theory out, I realised it was going to need a bit of elastic sewn in to keep it in place as a skirt. Luckily my tailor was happy to do that for me. While it's not quite maxi skirt length, and is more an ankle grazing length on me, I adore it. I've never seen anything like this in the stores and being cotton it's sure to get a lot of wear over summer.
It's made me think about getting my red maxi skirt fixed up - it's a bit too long (#petiteprobs!) but I usually just get around that by wearing it higher on my waist.
Wore this out for an errand filled day with the boys, trying to cram everything in before a predicted storm was due to arrive. Thankfully it passed right by us. I did a little detour in the morning and stopped by the Jeanswest sale again, and picked up another little something which you'll have already seen in my November purchase post.
Both the tee and the shorts I picked up at the same $2 sale! The super soft tee was perfect as it was, so no alterations were needed there. I got it to replace my black tee which I accidentally destroyed by sticking it in the wrong wash cycle one too many times!
When I saw these shorts I was drawn to the colour and felt positive when I saw the size label was my normal size. I threw them in the bag. After having my colours 'done' pastels were one of the things suggested to keep away from my face, so I thought these shorts would be a nice way to add some pastels to my summer outfits.
I was disappointed to get them home and realise that they were either labeled incorrectly or a different sizing standard, as they were much too big. After debating if I could belt them, I decided to go ask my tailor if she could do anything. And she could! I felt pretty good about giving these shorts a new life, slightly tapered off by then seeing very similar shorts on sale for less than half the cost of the alterations.
The way I see it though, I supported a charity buying them in the first place (even though it was just $2...), and supported a local business with the alterations. So I don't feel too bad that there are similar styles available cheaper. $14.67 is a pretty good price for a cute pair of shorts!
Wore these out to playgroup, where the boys had chocolate chip cookies and of course my shorts were smeared in chocolate. Hopefully these light shorts will fare better next time I wear them!
It can be tricky to find your size when op shopping. While there are ways around things being slightly too big like belting or wearing skirts higher on your waist, you can always alter something to make it fit. If you're not crafty or are a bad sewer like I am, finding a local tailor is a good idea. They can give you ideas and advice on ways to change garments and make them work for you. Something to try when you love something so much you don't want to leave the store without it. (Tia is my local tailor who I recommend if you're in the Brisbane bayside and this post was not sponsored, she doesn't even know I'm writing it).
Do you buy things knowing they will need alterations, or do you leave them on the opshop rack and hunt for other treasures that fit?
In October we took the boys on their first flight down to Sydney for a few days. I'm sharing what we did and things to see in Sydney if you're travelling with toddlers. If you want to skip that, I've included my regular outfits too.
Toddler T is 3, and Baby Boy is 19 months. Both are good walkers. We took a travel stroller and I had my Ergobaby carrier. The stroller was great for carrying the baby bag, layers to wear and food and snacks for the boys but we didn't think Sydney was very stroller friendly. Sydney had daylight savings time but it was only an hour different from Brisbane so we stuck to Brisbane time as normal.
I was looking forward to this day the most! I didn't have a lot of space as we packed light, mostly taking extra clothes for the boys. I still prioritised so while I wore the same Converse every day, I had room for a change of bag and instead of my Louis Vuitton speedy bandouliere I swapped out to this magenta Balenciaga day bag for our morning at the aquarium and spending the afternoon with my bestie. She has a magenta Balenciaga bag too so I had to wear this for the occasion!
Did wish I'd packed another jacket, as it was an overcast and colder day and this purple cardigan was the warmest piece I'd packed.
We landed in Sydney in the afternoon, and it was off to where we were staying for nap time. I will not be sharing the name of the place we stayed as it was the worst place I have ever stayed and if there had been other options available I would have demanded a refund and moved out.
After failed nap time for Toddler T, I took him with me on my bloggy date with Rachel from a Nesting Nomad. It was great to catch up with her again, after meeting her in Brisbane a while back. I followed Google Maps but failed to realise the route resulted in walking up a very long hill to get to the meeting point. Only slightly late. Sorry again Rachel!
We walked through Hyde Park to let Toddler T run around a bit, then met up with Hubby and Baby Boy once he'd woken up. We went for a walk around Paddy's markets and through Chinatown before going to Darling Harbour.
Tip: Darling Harbour playground is perfect for toddlers.
The boys had the chance to run around and play to expend some energy after sitting still on the flight. Lots of lovely restaurants nearby for dinner options too, although we went back to where we were staying and ordered takeout!
Day Two
A cold and dull day, it was supposed to rain so we headed to the aquarium as we suspected we might. We hadn't bought our tickets in advance, not wanting to tie ourselves down to anything much with two toddlers.
Tip: Buy your aquarium ticket in advance. The line to purchase was extremely slow.
The aquarium was worth the wait though, the boys loved it. Despite it being perfect indoors weather and a weekend, there was plenty of space for the boys to run around from exhibit to exhibit as it wasn't too crowded. There were roving staff members in a few rooms presenting and talking about things to see, as well as lots of helpful educational information near each tank. Made it easy to explain to the boys what they were seeing, even though they were a little young to read for themselves.
Tip: Take toddlers to the bathroom before you enter. The bathrooms are at the end of the aquarium which is not what you want to discover halfway round.
After the aquarium, we attempted to head over the Pyrmont bridge to get to the shopping centre for lunch. I have fond memories of walking along the bridge on holiday as a kid, back when the monorail was still there! So difficult to do with a stroller though. We'd walked past the lift a few times before we found it, and then getting the lift down into the shopping centre on the other side of the harbour involved getting out on the top floor, walking through the shopping centre, getting another lift down then walking back to go to where we wanted to eat for lunch. On our way back we just walked around the harbour in the cold rather than attempt the silly lift system again.
As the boys napped, my bestie arrived and I snuck out leaving hubby and the boys to rest as we went to the Lindt Cafe for some chocolate and a catch up. It might have just been the company, but it was easily one of my favourite meals in Sydney, as we shared the 'dome of decadence' between 3 of us.
Tip: Lindt Cafe might be a little too chocolate filled to be a good option with a toddler, but they do takeaway!
After an amazing afternoon catching up, it was dinner time and we just headed to the nearest McDonalds for a fuss-free meal, perfect for toddlers!
Day Three
The day Toddler T was looking forward to most - a trip to the zoo and a ride on a Sydney Ferry!
After a slight detour into the Rocks, we eventually made our way to Circular Quay and had the chance to take photos with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
Tip: The Rocks is NOT stroller friendly, don't even try it. Or you'll end up stuck looking down on the harbour realising the only way down is a very long flight of stairs with a stroller. Thanks again Google Maps!
I expected some excitement from the toddlers about the landmarks we'd been pointing out in books for weeks, but it was of course all about the boats! There was a big cruise liner docked while we were there which was exciting to see.
After buying our tickets we hopped on the ferry to go to Taronga Zoo. It's a short trip, just enough time for the toddlers to enjoy being on a boat and you to point out and take photos of all the landmarks before you arrive at the zoo.
Tip: You don't need to travel round all of Circular Quay to get landmark photos with toddlers - just hop on the Manly ferry and take photos from the boat!
When we arrived at the zoo, as we had bought our tickets in advance we were able to take the gondola up over the animals to the very top, with amazing views of the harbour. Of course it was the animals you fly over that the boys enjoyed more than the view! Tip: buy your zoo ticket in advance, even if just at the ferry terminal. It gives you the ability to take a gondola up to the top of the hill and work your way down.
Starting at the top of the zoo made getting around with the stroller very easy, no need to push up any hills. While we didn't see all the animals (we skipped the aquatic section after the aquarium the day before, and the line for the tiger experience was too long for a toddler's attention span) the boys had a great time running around and getting up close with the animals we did see.
We had lunch at 'The Fish Stop' which does have non-seafood options, and was less busy than the central 'Food Market' although it does have less choices. It was so easy to get food and then sit in one of the many picnic areas right next to it, with incredible views of the Sydney city and the harbour.
Tip: Grab a bite to eat at 'The Fish Stop' or bring a picnic and sit back on the lawns for an amazing view out over the harbour!
While the monkeys were the favourite animal of the day (and it was incredible watching one of them mesmerised by my teething necklace!) there were so many to choose from. There was a lovely playground in the farm animal section. Although it was geared towards older kids the boys really enjoyed playing there for a break from animal-watching.
The walk back to the ferry was a really nice downhill stretch, and while you do have to go through a gift shop as you exit the big shark tank and presentation that was on around the sharks meant the boys were nicely distracted as we left, souvenir free. If only that had been the case at the aquarium, ha!
Once we got back to Sydney, we headed to Helm Bar for dinner. I'd looked up a few places online for food and Helm bar was highly recommended, but seemed like a noisy party bar every time we passed it before. Having no luck finding anywhere else open on a Sunday night in our price range, we went there as it was listed as wheelchair accessible. While there's no easy way to get a stroller up the stairs to the bar, there is a lovely beer garden you can sit in and order food and drinks. It was perfect for families.
Food was so well priced, especially for Sydney, and the boys loved their kids meal. I'm still sad we tried it on the last night so I couldn't go back for another schnitzel burger - definitely will be next time I'm in Sydney!
Day Four
This was our travel day, we didn't do much other than pack up, prepare another lunchbox full of snacks for the plane trip home, and make our way to the airport.
Top Tips for Travelling With Toddlers
Have transport options
The toddlers can walk, and we had the stroller and Ergo Baby carrier for babywearing so there were options when the boys didn't want to walk any more.
Be flexible
We had a general list of the sights we wanted to see but didn't buy any tickets in advance so that our days could change if necessary, and we weren't feeling rushed as we didn't try to do too much each day. One activity or outing is fine, and just wing it for the rest of the day.
Pack snacks
This works for the plane flight too, but when you're in a new place you might not know how far away the next kid-friendly place to eat is, so having snacks with you for the toddlers and yourself comes in helpful.
Take lots of photos
The only regret I had in Sydney was that I didn't take a lot of photos (a few hundred over the 4 days instead of my usual couple of hundred I take a day when something exciting is going on!).
Would we do it again?
Not until the boys are bigger and the stroller isn't needed - it was a real pain trying to fit the stroller in places - even though we packed a small umbrella travel stroller instead of our usual big one. Sydney definitely felt a lot more cramped and less stroller friendly than Brisbane.
Unlike the outfit above, I actually found it too warm to wear the cardigan on this day and wished I hadn't brought it! We took the boys to see the Harbour Bridge and Opera House at last (our third day in Sydney...) and hopped on the Manly Ferry over to Taronga Zoo.
The benefit of wearing the Ergo Baby carrier in the back carry position (you can just see Baby Boy's little foot peeking out in the pic!) is that it's easy to wear a cross body bag, and my Louis Vuitton speedy bandouliere was perfect for keeping my camera close by for walking around the zoo.
