Do you ever gaze into the eyes of your baby and try to convey all the love in your heart with your glance? Knowing she can’t understand your words and that mere words wouldn’t be powerful enough to convey the depth of your love.

Willing her to fathom that you are her biggest fan, that you never want her heart to be broken, that you will be her support always.

Begging with your eyes for her to comprehend that you love just the way she was made. And because she is yours.

Like beams of love right from your eyes to hers. Imprinting onto her soul.

Lovebeams!

Do you?

Yeah?

Me too.

I hope you know that I REALLY love love love our Lids. I designed them for practical moms (like me), who want their kiddos to look stylish (like I used to be). My kiddos REALLY wear them all the time.
Eli’s Lids has been slowly growing! I cant believe I made the first Lid for Eli 5 years ago! (Eli at 5 months old in my first prototype)

Once they started selling a bit, we couldn’t afford a whole roll of different colored fabric, so I painstakingly hand dyed light fabric for some basic colors. Just 7 Lids in each color the first time! Then we got cute tags for the back. Boy did I feel awesome when I saw my logo in a woven tag!! (Eli at 16 months in one of my dyed Lids with the outside tags)

Then we got to buy whole rolls of colored fabric. That was AMAZING.
I couldn’t believe it! (December 2010)

As we grow, I get to add more and more to Eli’s Lids.
We are growing because of you!
Y-O-U!!!
I always want Eli’s Lids to be changing and growing and evolving. (And myself, for that matter!)
I want to be better than the rest.
Because of you!
Y-O-U!
My vision for Eli’s Lids is changing as well. 
We’ll always make awesome Lids for hip kiddos. And we’ll always get to help some great people. (Surfers Healing & Henry)
But now we get to change the world. 
Just a little… or maybe a lot.
More on that in a few months. (Waiting is lame. Sorry.)
Something I can tell you now…
In about a month we’ll have some new colors!
I love them.
Ocean Aqua, Spring Green and O-live You.
(Get it? I love you, O-live you. Yes? or not so much? If you can think of a better name for Olive-ish, brown-sih, green-ish than you’ll get a free Lid. REALLY!)

What’s after that??

 “I’ll never tell!!”

“Neither will we!!!”

Sometimes after folks buy Lids they send me pictures of their adorable kiddos wearing them (or post them on our Facebook page).

I love it.

Like really LOVE it.

Because I really think people who buy Lids are my friends.

Is that weird??

Anyway, some Sundays I feature one of the Kids in Lids pictures sent to me!

Here is the first Fedorable picture sent to me. Yay yay yay!!!

This is 3 and a half year old Sydney. Her mama snapped this pic on the car ride to school. Sydney insisted on wearing it!

A lot of parents are telling me that their kiddos love wearing their Fedorables everyday. It’s super comfy and lightweight. The cooler alternative to a bucket hat. Not that I’m bias or anything.

Have you been wondering where I have been?
Of course I’ve been working on all sorts of goodies for Eli’s Lids.
(Exciting!!)
But mostly I have been starving.
Yes, starving.
It’s no secret I haven’t lost my baby weight from my last two littles.
People who meet me in person, usually do a double take, because I only post skinny pictures of myself on the blog (It’s my blog, I’ll do what I want to) it’s kinda funny.
Anyway, I started logging calories on an AWESOME app called My Fitness Pal. It’s FREE and very eye opening about what I was actually eating.
Who knew almonds were 640 calories per cup??
Not this gal who was snacking on about 2 cups a day… that’s 3/4 of what I should be eating the whole day!!!
I’ve been doing it for 30 days and I’ve lost 6.5 pounds.
See…

I can now button my fatty fat fat jeans with minimal muffin top.
A Mini Muffin Top!
I’m not perfect and I cheat. A lot. See today’s entry below. (Guess it’s salad and air for dinner.) But I’m still losing because I’m eating less than I was before. A lot less.

One of the best parts about My Fitness Pal is that you can friend other peeps who are suffering doing it too and chat/encourage each other.
If you get it, find me! My username is KNBLawson
But don’t follow me if you don’t want to hear LOTS and LOTS of complaining about how starving and cranky I am.
Because that’s all I ever post about.

(And a bit of a review of The Hunger Games)

(pic of me at 3 am after the show)

Last night I survived the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

Midnight:O-1.

Me, a few friends and a few hundred teens.

The movie was good but there were a few lil’ things that had me bugged (more on that in a sec), which just confirms how much I like to see the movie BEFORE I read the book.

Here’s why:

When I read the book first…

The movie can be really disappointing. (Ya Ya Sisterhood, Shopaholic… the list goes on and on) Not because the movie is bad, but because my expectations are… different.

If there are any differences or if the movie folks cut a scene in the book that I really love, I may whisper, “inaccurate” somewhat loudly to no one in particular in the theater. It’s pretty annoying for everyone else but I just can’t help it.

If I disagree with who they cast for certain parts I can’t stop thinking about how stinky the actor is for this role.

Basically I walk out of the theater un satisfied and angry about spending so much money. (First World Problem, I know)

When I see the movie first…

I’m never disappointed by a fun flick.

After the movie, when I’ve read the book, it’s ALWAYS better. Even though I know the ending of the story already, the book always has so much more perspectives, insight and narratives, it usually feels like a whole new story.

I love visualizing characters on my own but if I see the move first, I can easily build off the movie visual in my mind. It makes for less rereading of descriptions, especially when in a sci-fi or fantasy book when everything is new. (Hello, the first time I read Lord of the Rings way before the movies came out!)

It’s a win-win! I love the movie then I love love love the book.

Now for my take The Hunger Games…

It was really good… not great. I think they did a great job of cramming what they could of the book into the movie. But, of course, there is SO MUCH MORE in the book. I really missed the scenes with the mayor’s daughter. I’m not sure they really captured why Peeta is so important to Katniss or Katniss’ mom’s mental breakdown or Katniss’ constant struggle of putting on a show, very well. And I couldn’t stand the jumpy camera scenes. Headache central. You’ll understand 10 minutes into the movie as Katniss is going into the woods and you have to look away from the screen before your brain explodes. All in all, it’s worth seeing and I’m looking forward to the next film!

What did you think of The Hunger Games? Do you prefer to read a book first or see a movie first?