Mom's Best Network

From Bump to baby…maternity staples that work before During and After Pregnancy

Karen Zaro — Fri, 24 May 2013 07:15:06 +0000

Hey girls, you’ve heard me talk about Isabella Oliver before (here, here and here), and I’m also a fan of buying high quality pieces that work for you both during and after pregnancy. But today I wanted to show you exactly what I mean with one of the best long term items I’ve found yet, the Maternity T-shirt dress.

By now you probably know (from my past posts; here and here) that ruching is amazing. It creates stylish wrinkles in the fabric which, when strategically placed do an incredible job camouflaging certain areas of your body. You may think this is good for your bump, but the real trick is not to try and hide your bump (because that’s not going to happen). Your bump is just going to keep on growing and nobody expects your stomach to be small when another person is hiding inside and calling it home. The key is to disguise the parts that you don’t want attention drawn to, which most often are your sides. Pictures taken by Living Notes, isn’t she amazing!

Isabella Oliver dress, Gap printed canvas tote, sunglasses, and bangle bracelets here, Ell and Emm necklace.

My favorite part is that with the comfortable, stretchy fabric of this t-shirt dress combined with the tasteful ruching you will look great at any stage of pregnancy, and even beyond. This can be a lifesaver for women who gained a lot of weight during pregnancy or are struggling to get back into pre-pregnancy shape.

Although most of the clothes from my last months of pregnancy don’t fit right because I’m so much smaller now, this fabric shrinks right down to my body and still looks fitted. I really love that right after giving birth it was great for hiding the baby weight I still had…and now…6 months after giving birth it just looks like a fitted dress, not specifically a maternity piece.

One last note, I love that the ruching also gives the dress some depth. As one big solid color it can be a little intimidating sometimes to wear a dress like this but the ruching details help keep it interesting. Plus it breaks it up a bit over your body so it feels more textured and looks extra chic.

Do you have any maternity pieces that you are still able to wear?

Sweet & Savory Blackberry Arugula Salad

Lindsey Johnson — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:48:21 +0000

The warm weather is here to stay and summer is on it’s way…and we are craving salads galore! This salad is both sweet and savory with another yummy berry flavored vinegrette. It’s worth making this salad just for the dressing…and it’s super simple!

To make this salad I like to use:

6-8 ounces fresh arugula
8-12 ounces fresh blackberries
4 ounces chevre (goat cheese), crumbled
1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

Place arugula in one large or several smaller salad bowls. Top with the fresh blackberries, chevre and hazelnuts. Drizzle with some of the blackberry-thyme vinaigrette. Pass the remaining vinaigrette alongside.

for the the blackberry thyme vinegrette recipe please go here…

I hope you love this salad just as much as I do!

Wrap up to our Gap Endless Summer Style Event

mom's best — Wed, 22 May 2013 07:05:41 +0000

We had a very fun evening at the Gap University Mall in Orem, Utah. The featured stylist’s/bloggers had a great time mingling, styling, and having fun! We were pampered with some delicious food while having our toenails painted, as well as shopping…who doesn’t love to shop at Gap! Thanks to

Stokke was there as well to educate us on their sleek line of strollers, and nursery wares. This international brand is a true pioneer in the industry, they have some of the best strollers available for every stage of your baby and families needs from the Xplory to a more compact light weight easy to maneuver Scoot. It was fun to take them for a test drive. Our personal favorite item…the tripp trapp high chair..literally a chair that grows with your child. Genius! Jealous of the lucky mama who won the Tripp Trapp chair at our event!

Group photo: Gentri Lee, Shannon from Style with Shannon, Tana Hallows, Sashai from Moiology, Alycia from Crowley Party, and Aubry from Finding Beautiful Truth.

Alycia from Crowley Party

Stokke Pictures below taken by Aubry Lybbert from Finding Beautiful Truth.

What’s in our beauty box? Favorite Mom worthy Beauty items…

mom's best — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:45:14 +0000

We were asked by Jennifer Stagg from With Heart to share what’s in our beauty box….

As mothers and women we are just plain busy! Over on With Heart today we share how keeping it simple is the key…head on over to With Heart to see our favorite MOM worthy beauty items! Thanks Jennifer for letting us share…xo

new Teen Style = more of our endless summer fashion

Tana Hallows — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:24:50 +0000

Happy to share a new area of mom’s best fashion inspiring your teen’s style! If your teenager is like mine they probably don’t always like listening to your fashion advice. As well they can’t stand to wear the same shirt twice within a 2 week period. Most of the time those battles are not worth the fuss. If there is one thing I have learned, children have their own sense of style…if you allow them to develop it, most of the time you will be pleasantly surprised.

Lindsay styled her own look…amazed that she is only 15! Photos taken by the amazing Olya from Living Notes.

Gap Floral shirt

Gap Yellow Skirt

Gap Belt

Gap Sunglasses

Striped Canvas Back Pack from Baggu

Gap Blazer below

Converse Chucks

Quick & Easy on-the-go Summer Accessories

mom's best — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:11:12 +0000

It’s summer break and the kids will soon be out of school! With non-stop summer activities …who says you have to sacrifice your style? Here are a few of our quick and easy on-the-go favorite summer accessories that will keep you looking chic no matter where you go!

1. Duck Bag in NEON by Baggu

2. Chic Ballet Flats by Tieks

3. two-tone Bamboo Sunglasses by DVF

4. Pink Foundation Bracelet from Stella and Dot

5. Chronograph watch by Invicta

Congratulations to our 1st Destination Nursery Winner!

mom's best — Sat, 18 May 2013 19:31:50 +0000

We are over the moon excited to announce our 1st dream nursery make over winner! The response to our launch of Destination Nursery has far exceeded our expectations. Its an amazing chance to be able to help so many of you have the opportunity to enjoy a beautiful space for you and your little one!

We are prepping our next dream nursery make over give away and will reveal the details in a few weeks…Click here to see the details of how our contest works. We look forward to having many of you enter again...you never know if the next one will be you! Great job to all of the contestants in sharing and engaging their family and friends to vote…we were so impressed with the support you all recieved. Thank you to everyone for your support during the voting. To the 4 semi-finalists that did not win this time around…we have enjoyed your little videos and getting to see and know more of you and your stories, wishing you could all be the winners of this space!

Congratulations… the winner is….Shannon & Tyler Rehlinger and Baby Boy Connor from Madison,Wisconsin. They had the highest average score of 756! We can’t wait for your baby to arrive and to see your finished nursery space!

Averages scores for the 5 final contestants…

#1- 481

#2- 49

#3- 756

#4- 113

#5- 363

**if you like this please click the Heart shaped like button above or below, or share a comment about what you liked about our contest…thank you.

Your Summer Style = Efortless Maternity Fashion!

Karen Zaro — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:25:42 +0000

Featured here is Ginger Parrish…beautiful pregnant mama from Sweet Little Peanut. We are loving her fun slimming striped dress and Blazer from Gap Maternity! Super comfy and easy to dress up as we have shown here or dress down without a jacket.

Dress - GAP Printed drape-front dress

Blazer - GAP Pique Academy blazer

Shoes – Similar style here

Watch- Similar style here

Last one with a little sneak peek to another fun and easy summer outfit worn by Shannon from Bird ala Mode. Details coming soon! See you at our Endless summer style event tonight with Gap! I look forward to helping you style your chic bump!

fresh strawberry herb-dressing makes the perfect Summer Salad

Lindsey Johnson — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:56:00 +0000

This amazing strawberry salad dressing is the perfect thing to help beat the new summer heat!
You can make it with the freshest of ingredients, even using fresh herbs and spices! It’s so good everyone will be asking you for the recipe! For details of the ingredients and recipe please go here… Come back after you make it and tell us what you think!

Simple Summer style

mom's best — Thu, 16 May 2013 05:55:25 +0000

We are loving the simple summer style we found at Gap including lots of our favorite neon pops of color! Excited for our event tonight with Gap + Stokke featuring some amazing stylists from local/national bloggers that we all know and love…We look forward to seeing those of you who can join us at the Gap University Mall in Orem. Enjoy an extra 40% off all sale items!

Featured here is Tana Hallows with her daughter Presley, from head to toe Gap, including sunglasses, light denim shirt, perfect neon pink ballet flats, hair bow, and a bright yellow accent leather bag. The Maxi skirt collection right now at Gap is amazing! You can wear them several ways…tea length or floor length. Presley is wearing this fun eyelet dress with neon , and a matching hair bow. The cute elephant zip bag is from Baggu and has many different uses from storing your babies favorite toys, to keeping diapers and wet wipes….we love them! Photography by the talented Olya from Living notes.