Caitlin from To Be Determined sent me this skirt and as soon as I opened the package I knew I loved it (I guess I am continuing with the big bow theme this week!) I tired it on with like 5 shirts, all that I really liked but ended up wearing this kinda mixed match blue blouse from Forever 21. I liked the mixed matched patterns. I also love the bright blue of the blouse. The kids at school really liked the skirt as well. I got lots of compliments from them the day I wore this.

Well I hope everyone has a terrific St. Patrick’s Day!!

My question…
If we received the $7500 1st time home buyer tax credit on our 2008 tax return but sold the house in 2009, what do we need to do for our 2009 taxes? How do we go about paying it back? Do we have to pay it back? Does the repayment depend if there was a profit or loss on the sale of your home?

Any insight would be beyond greatly appreciated!!
Please email me at jenloveskev@gmail.com

I wore this to church and out to lunch with friends on Sunday. Our church is in a bar/concert hall called Revolution Hall. Its pretty sweet. There is the most Amazing Brewery next door called Browns Brewery. They have some of the best beer!! Mmmm. I love all the decorative beer taps for their beer in Rev. hall. Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s day and every year Brown’s asks our Pastor Ed to do a blessing of the bar. Its pretty awesome. Like 300 people come out from around Troy and Albany. The news is there, the Major and lots of bag pipes. I can’t wait!! I am just bummed I can’t have some beer along with everyone else. (Don’t worry little baby you are totally worth the wait to drink some again).

The Last nights dinner recipe will be posted late tonight. We had no power last night so we went out for dinner instead, so I am cooking it tonight for dinner. I am pretty excited. It has to do with maple syrup in honor this up coming Maple Weekend here in upstate NY. Mmmmm!!!

and all I have to say after taking the birth center tour last night is, wow we still have lot to learn! and oh yeah to private rooms!! We are getting more and more excited everyday. I love this little baby! As we were laying in bed last night Kev leaned over and said I am really excited about being a Dad. Hearing that warms my heart more than you know!! He is going to be the most amazing Dad ever.

I just want to say a huge huge Thank you to everyone that reads this blog and leaves such sweet comments. It really means the world to me and all the congrats on our baby news really touched my heart. So much encouragement- so THANK YOU!!! I may not always be able to write back or leave comments on everyones blog but I try and I def. go and check out your blogs and see what everyone is up too. You are all such sweet girls and it means so much to me that you read jenloveskev!

Did you have a good weekend? My parents came out on Friday night till Saturday to visit. It was so good to have them around. It was kinda crappy weather out but we still went and walked around the big Boat Locks in Waterford and checked out the Cohoes Falls. Then they helped us finish up some stuff in the apartment (shelves, pictures hung, etc…) It was sad when they left.

This necklace was sent to me special by Courtney of Dolly and Boy Jewelry. I had told her about how one of our wedding songs is a Mates and State song who’s chorus is “and I will be your anchor, drop my in the bay and I will hold you steady.” When I got my package and opened it to see the anchor and ship helm made out of recycled bullets. I was beyond excited!! I have been wearing it non stop since.

p.s. We are doing our first big baby thing tonight! We are going to an open house and tour of the child birth center at the hospital. I am pretty excited. haha is that weird? oh well. Its fun! We get to meet all the midwives as well. We have only had appointments with 2 of them so far.

My google reader has crazily been taken over by baby blogs. I love looking at baby stuff now and I also love blogs about young couples that have babies. Its super encouraging to read others stories and experiences. My starred section in my reader is now filled with pictures of nurseries for ideas. I love it!

Anyways here are some of my favorite things this week(only a few are baby related)

1. I love this girl- The first picture with the train blows my mind. One of the best style shots ever in my opinion!

2. I am excited for a boy or a girl but this little girls nursery is just so precious I can’t even stand it. I love the pale pink with the bright yellow. So gorgeous!

3. This video had me balling, even when I was telling kev about it I was getting choked up. Its not the fact that the baby is so cute (which she is!) but its the parents reactions and what she writes underneath it. My heart is beyond filled with love listening to them because I know that is going to be Kev and me in a few months and I cant not wait to feel so much love and joy as we can hold and play with our little baby.

4. How Sweet and Simple is this birthday surprise. Its so cute and I have stored the idea away!!

5. I have to say I think it is pretty freakin’ awesome that one of my favorite magazines is called LULA. I mean that is my last name!!! (in case you didn’t know, Lula is my maiden name. I am having a hard time letting go of it, whoops!) I think kev thinks its pretty cool that their tag line is “girl of my dreams” I think he would agree. hehe.

6. I think this outfit was one of my favorites of Jessica’s. Her Alice themed outfit was just perfect! how cute is she?

7. Drooling over these TBA dresses for Urban Outfitters UK! How precious. That first dress with the peter pan collar and beaded detail is beautiful! I can I have it please!

8. This girl is beyond California cool. I mean look at her! Even her laid back days are crazy gorgeous. I love those shoes!

9. I think other than the mixed matched rugs and pillows Kev would kill to live here! That book shelf is amazing!!!

10. I love these wall hangings for the babies room. Could be really awesome since we can’t paint (or can we?? hehe jk kev don’t worry) I think I could make things like this in objects we wanted. Hmmmm. Idea stored.

Happy Weekend Everyone!!

On to clothes! I recieved in the mail a couple weeks ago the new LOFT lookbook as well as some of their spring goodies including this beautiful scarf and gold cuff. I was pretty excited to open the package and find out what as inside. The scarf is so so pretty. Perfect for spring! I couldn’t wait to put together an outfit to wear with it. I wore my orange pinstripe button up and some wool brown shorts. It’s still chilly out so I wore some brown tights and then added my favorite shoes. I got them at platos closet a couple months ago. I have loved platos closet for a while now but the other day made me want to boycott them.

I decided to clean out my closets because they were becoming a jungle. I filled 2 garbage bags full of lightly worn, brand name clothes (just like platos closet says) that I was sure they would take all of. I dropped them off and came back 3o mins later to find out they were only going to give me $30bucks and could only take like 5 things. I honestly was a little pissed. Their exucses were so lame and then were like do you want to donate the rest of the stuff to the goodwill. I of course said yes because I really didnt want the clothes back. As I was driving home I was convinced that is the game they play because of course people are going to donate clothes and then I bet they sell the clothes anyways now that they didnt have to shell out cash for them. Ok thats my rant. Sorry for being negative.
Lets look at how pretty the scarf is…

Thanks to all my sponsors!

Our apartment is in an old old mill building and right now there are like 100 loft style apartments. One of which we live in. Anyways, the building is giant and there is still more than half the building that is run down. They just started a second phase and are making another 100 apartments, a pool, and park area outside. There are lots of cool places to explore when the workers leave. Lots of things torn down and lots of old rooms exposed. We went for a walk on sunday to check it out and to take some pics. We were having a good time until Kev stepped on a nail. Doh! That is why you dont walk around construction zones. Whoops. He is ok- now worries. We did take a picture of the nail though.

Totally losing my balance and afraid of nails…

BB Dakota Dress: Courtesy of Modcloth
Sweater: Banana Republic
Necklace: Forever 21
My Pet Octopus Cuff: Courtesy of Modcloth
Shoes: Thrifted Dexters

I am totally diggin’ thinking about dressing for spring. I love spring coats! My favorite and a classic is the trench. It’s funny how no matter what you are wearing underneath as soon as you put a trech over top you instantly feel chic. Well at least I do. I pulled this plaid shirt from Kev’s side of the closet and wore it over top a pair of Jeggings (did i really just use that word?) and then pulled out my peeptoe flats that I thrifted when we lived in Hawaii. They have been hiding away since last fall. I love this early spring look!

I like ice cream but I have always been a smoothie girl over ice cream. I just love fruit. So I decided to use some of the black berries to make a smoothie as well. I always keep the freezer stocked with frozen fruit to make smoothies. Let’s just say this dinner was AWESOME!!! Kev woke up this morning and even said “I just have to say dinner last night was soo good.” I think we were both wishing this morning that we could be eating the waffles again for breakfast- as I quickly chugged down a breakfast protein shake. Blah!

1. Mix flours together in a bowl. Add flaxseed, and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk.

2. Combine milk, butter, and eggs, stirring with a whisk; add milk mixture to flour mixture, stirring until blended. Mix in mashed banana.

3. Preheat a waffle iron. Coat iron with cooking spray. Spoon in batter and cook until your desired crispiness.

4. Place on Plate and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top, banana slices, blackberries and real maple syrup.

Smoothie:
Ingredients
Frozen Blackberries
Frozen Strawberries
Banana
Orange Juice (our hand pineapple juice in it as well) MMmmm!

1. Add all ingredients to blender. Blend to desired consistency. Top with Fresh blackberries.

We are super excited and of course a little nervous!! It has been super hard keeping it a secret for so long. We found out over Christmas while we were in FL. We wanted to keep it quiet to make sure everything went well with my first trimester, but now that I am safely into my 2nd and my expanding belly is getting harder and harder to hide in my style files- it was time to tell you all!!!!

We will be doing a photo series once a week on Thursdays, dedicated to documenting my growing bell (just like the one below) but other than that Jenloveskev will go on as normal. Recipes, home decor, I’d wear thats and of course daily style files. No worries I will not bombard you all with baby things. I will keep it to a minimum. I plan on keeping style files going until the end. It’s going to be a whole new challenge for me because well I have never dressed a pregnant belly before. I am excited though! So, I hope you will all stick around and join us on this journey.

This week our photo post comes a little early. I am 15 weeks…

Usually these posts will come on Thursdays.

This is one of our favorite spots on the island as well. Its up on the North Shore. Its super country out there, with beautiful mountains and the air just smells so sweet. There are hundreds and miles of Pineapple fields up there. I love it. It’s so different from the hustle and bustle of Waikiki.

Dress:Forever 21
Belt: Thrifted
Neckalce: Target
Sandals: Steve Madden

They graciously sent us some prints a little while ago and we couldn’t wait to get them framed and hung in out new place. They look awesome! We still have lots to do in our place (having a hard time with such high high ceilings and not being able to paint) but we are getting there. I am really excited to start sharing pictures as we get things finished.

Here are a few sneak peaks of our Roll and Tumble Prints hung by the best book shelf (the expedit) ever. I love that thing. It holds so much. You can also see a little of our bedroom, with my favorite thing in there- our fake fireplace! I can not fall asleep with out in on. The sound lulls me to sleep every night.

Prints Courtesy of Roll and Tumble Press

I wanted to share a few random things with you…
I know Couturious.com has been up on other blogs but I have just been slow to post about it. When I got an email a while back asking if I could try it out and make some looks, I wasnt really sure what I was getting myself into. Lets just say, when I logged on for the first time I was thinking I would sit down and do something really quick but ended up playing around for like an hour because it is so fun. Seriously, it is like playing dolls with cool clothes. I can’t stop. I am totally addicted. Have you played around with it yet?

Also are you part of Weardrobe? They are having an awesome new contest that lets you win some beautiful spring clothes from Pac Sun and to be a part of the Spring Break Crew. The crew is made up of me, Julie, Indiana and other awesome bloggin’ ladies. Its going to be lots of fun so upload your best spring break outfit to weardrobe today!

Also I wanted to share a few of my favorite links from this week…
1. Tieka styled my Rainbow Raw Honey Modcloth dress this week for the Delightful Dozen and she looks amazing!!!

2. I am totally in love with this artist. Every painting she post instantly makes me want to get out my water colors and try to paint something as beautiful. I just love this maid picture she posted…

3. Trashy! Who doesn’t love recycled clothing? This party seemed like a blast and totally inspired me to make a senior art project out of it!

4. Spring! Spring! Spring! Can I please look as cool as this girl. I need those yellow shoes!

5. Can I also please have matching hunter boots with an adorable little girl…

6. Boy by Band of Outsiders always melts my heart. The want to wear everything!

Happy Weekend my Friends. Make sure you hug someone that is special to you. Or even not. I love hugs. I like hugging as a greeting instead of handshakes. Way better in my mind.

I have a date to night with a special someone and we are going to try try try to sneak our way into Alice and Wonderland. Here’s hoping!

Also one last thing. There has been some exciting things going on for jenloveskev. Monday I have some really great stuff I can finally share!!!

Honestly, this week has been rough. I am glad we had these extra pictures from hawaii. It has freed up some time for other things. Sometimes it hard to not let this blog world get the best of you. I love all the readers (you ares are seriously the best!) and all the friends I have made but it is hard to not see it as a competition sometimes. It was my new years goal to not let that happen and I have been really good but I am not perfect and this week has been hard. I don’t know why I am sharing but I guess I need to get it off my chest. Does anyone else struggle with things like this with their blog?

* don’t get me wrong I love my blog and I love blogging. I also love taking pictures of my outfits each day. Its very inspiring and super creative which I love. I in no way wish I was more like someone else or am comparing myself to particular people. I love my life. I want to be me. I am just wondering others thoughts on the whole competition feeling of blogging.

Update: Thank you so much to people who are leaving comments. I really like that we can all talk about this. That was my intention. I was worried about writing I was feeling that way but I knew others had to be feeling it too. I just wanted us to be able to share and learn from each other. I appreciate each and every comment. The link left by MsAmanda is a good one. Keep the conversations going!

Paper Sparrow is having a spring clearance right now and all the pendants are $6 bucks!!! That is just crazy- what a deal! Head over and check it out!

I got this tee at H&M and I love the sailor feel to it. I am really diggin’ the nautical themes out there right now. I knew I wanted to match the navy with red and gold. Please excuse my unpainted toenails. haha I debeate about putting that picture up because who really needs to see a close up of my feet. The week before vacation I told myself I cant wait till next week so I have time to relax and paint my nails. It did not happen as you can see but I had high hopes of having some nice red nails. One of these days…

I think my favorite part was the handmade tortilla strips. They added so much and were so much better than added like corn chips or something. I do with there was a magical spell to ripen avocados right when you need them because it always seems like the grocery store never has ripe ones when you need them. I am not that good of a planner to get them days in advanced to let them ripen.

Tortilla Soup:
1 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes with green chiles
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 teaspoon Mexican oregano (optional)
1/4 teaspoon chili powder (or to taste)
4 cups vegetable broth
2-3 cups water
3 cups pinto beans, cooked
salt to taste
6 corn tortillas
1 large lime, cut into 6 wedges
1 ripe large avocado, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
4 cups chopped spinach, chard, or kale leaves

1. Add can of tomatoes to a blender.

2. Heat some olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook till brown, 4 to 6 minutes. Pour it all into the blender along with the chilli powder and process until smooth.

3. Pour mixture back into sauce pot and heat on medium. Stir consistently for about 5 mins. Let thicken. Add broth, water, oregano (if using), and drained pinto beans. Bring to a boil, then adjust heat to maintain a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes.

4. While the soup is cooking, prepare the tortillas. Preheat oven to 375F. Cut each tortilla in half (can be done in a stack if you have a sharp knife). Then cut each half into 1/4-inch wide strips. Place the strips in a single layer on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt,pepper, a little chilli powder or cumin if you want. Bake for about 15 minutes, flipping every 5 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven.

5. Add spinach (or chard or kale) to the soup. Cook, stirring, until the greens are wilted, about 2 minutes or so depending.

Serve the soup topped with avocado and tortilla chips in soup bowls. Serve with lime wedges. It taste awesome to squeeze juice of 1-2 lime wedges in soup. MMmmmm Enjoy!

Did you watch the Hockey game yesterday? I am not a sports girl. I really hate all professional sport (sorry) but hockey is another thing all together. Can you blame me? I am from Canada! Anyways, Kev’s Dad went out in the morning on a mission to find us little American and Canadian flags. It was really sweet and we had a blast watching the game with them. I got to wave my Canadian flag proudly in the end! It was such an AMAZING GAME!!! I can’t even believe it. The announcer was cracking us up right before OT started. He was so worked up and excited. So good!

p.s. a little picture from yesterday…