Alyssa & John 2: Getting By on Their Looks and Fashion Sense

[SassyPants]

Both families had to wait to have trees until Michaela and Jana were old enough to set up (and take down) the Christmas trees-

[Hisey]

I'm amazed at the heels she is wearing in this picture. Seems a bit impractical when you are going to pick out a tree with three small children. She's got super high heels in every picture, sometimes stilettos. I don't think she does much running around with her kids. 

Her children are extremely beautiful, though.

[DundeeUnFundie]

Little Lexi is in overalls. They're bright pink, but I hope they keep putting her in them because they suit her cheeky little face haha. Ready to get up to mischief in those!

[miss_batson]

Alyssa and her beautiful girls

And rearly seen pitcure of Alyssa without make up

Spoiler

 

 

[VelociRapture]

2 hours ago, miss_batson said:

Alyssa and her beautiful girls

And rearly seen pitcure of Alyssa without make up

  Hide contents

 

 

Is it just me or are Erin and Alyssa mirroring one another’s posts a lot lately? The first time I noticed it was Alyssa’s post about no one looking at the camera, which was followed closely by Erin’s post about not getting a “perfect” family photo on Thanksgiving. And now we have Erin’s “too busy being a mom to do normal life” posts (“no makeup with Carson and Brooklyn”, as well as “random candy bar by foot”), which was followed closely by Alyssa’s “no makeup cuddling with Zoey” post.

[Audrey2]

Alyssa looks beautiful without makeup, but wow, does she look young!!! I know, she is (or at least compared to a lot of other mothers with three children), but it is really evident in the second picture!

[lumpentheologie]

I think Alyssa looks beautiful without makeup too, but she also could pass for 19/20.  If I were going around town with 3 kids, I'd probably want to look older than that too, just to stave off the dirty looks. 

Zoey looks like an adorable elf-chipmunk, with those ears and those cheeks. Kinda just want to squeeze her. 

I suspect Alyssa's already pregnant with #4 though. 

(ETA: this speculation is based on my spreadsheet and not her body.)

[Coconut Flan]

I get nervous any time I see Alyssa in a flowy dress unless she's already announced a pregnancy.

[VelociRapture]

11 minutes ago, lumpentheologie said:

I think Alyssa looks beautiful without makeup too, but she also could pass for 19/20.  If I were going around town with 3 kids, I'd probably want to look older than that too, just to stave off the dirty looks. 

Zoey looks like an adorable elf-chipmunk, with those ears and those cheeks. Kinda just want to squeeze her. 

I suspect Alyssa's already pregnant with #4 though. 

(ETA: this speculation is based on my spreadsheet and not her body.)

Zoey is a little less than 9 months old right now, but based off Alyssa’s previous spacing she could be at this point. She would have gotten pregnant with Lexi when Allie was around 13 months old (early May 2016)* and Lexi would have been around five months old when Alyssa got pregnant with Zoey (I would guess this was in very early July 2017 - Lexi turned 5 months on, I believe, June 27th.) 

Erin could easily be pregnant again as well. I believe Carson was around 6 or 7 months when Erin got pregnant with Brooklyn and that Brooklyn was right around 11 or 12 months when Erin got pregnant with Everly.** Like Zoey, Everly is right around the 9 month mark now. 

I hope that Alyssa and Erin aren’t  pregnant again. Pregnancy can put a lot of stress on your body and it’s good to give it time to recover a bit in between. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if one or both of them are though. At least they both appear to get decent medical care during their pregnancies.

*I know this one off the top of my head since my daughter was due a day shy of two weeks before Lexi.

**Erin tends to give birth around four weeks early, so I may have messed up a bit there. 

[Hisey]

2 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

Alyssa looks beautiful without makeup, but wow, does she look young!!! I know, she is (or at least compared to a lot of other mothers with three children), but it is really evident in the second picture!

Alyssa's children are extremely beautiful. Gorgeous.

Alyssa herself, though, looks tired and older than 23 when she has a full face of makeup on. She is lovely, dont' get me wrong, but I think she is wearing herself out with all the pregnancies so close together. Slathering on all that makeup, coloring her hair till it's dried out. . . none of that helps her.

[HarleyQuinn]

That bow pushing Zoey's ears out like that looks painful. 

[JillyO]

1 hour ago, HarleyQuinn said:

That bow pushing Zoey's ears out like that looks painful. 

Rufus knows I'm no big fan of those bows, but I'm pretty sure the bow is not pushing Zoey's ears out. That's just what her ears look like. If you look at the make-up free cuddle picture, Zoey (and her ears) look exactly the same.

[JermajestyDuggar]

Her ears are like Callie’s ears and they are adorable. 

[Johannah]

It seems sad to me that she feels the need to “fix her hair and do her makeup for the day.” Isn’t that part of the luxury/benefit of being a stay at home mom? Snuggles in your sweatpants without having to get done up?

[nastyhobbitses]

6 hours ago, Johannah said:

It seems sad to me that she feels the need to “fix her hair and do her makeup for the day.” Isn’t that part of the luxury/benefit of being a stay at home mom? Snuggles in your sweatpants without having to get done up?

Personally I love fixing my hair and doing my makeup for the day even if all I'm doing is running errands. The only reason I'm not bothering this morning is because I plan to go for a run later in the afternoon and there's no point sweating all that shit off (plus it's pretty awful for your skin). To me, doing my hair and makeup, even if I'm not doing much, is my morning toilette that lets me have a little me time, play with colors and textures and fun new techniques, and just give myself the psychological cue of "it is time to start the day". It's a nice routine. I understand that Alyssa's religious beliefs put her in a different context, but I'm real damn tired of the narrative that a woman who puts on makeup every day is Oppressed and Benighted and Beholden To Men and How Sad, when the case is, more than likely, that she just fucking likes wearing makeup. 

[HarleyQuinn]

On 12/15/2018 at 9:46 AM, JillyO said:

Rufus knows I'm no big fan of those bows, but I'm pretty sure the bow is not pushing Zoey's ears out. That's just what her ears look like. If you look at the make-up free cuddle picture, Zoey (and her ears) look exactly the same.

Ah, I didn't think they looked that pronounced in other pictures. Must just be the angle for me. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Personally I love ears that stick out on little ones. Callie Bates, Zoey, and Gabriel Rodrigues all look adorable. But if my child wanted to have them pinned back when they got older, I would allow it. I understand looking different from your peers and wanting to fit in better. My parents just ignored the fact that a part of my body looked different and I hated it. Just because I love the way my kid looks doesn’t mean they love the way they look. And I shouldn’t make decisions based on my preferences for their looks. Of course my child would have to understand the process but I wouldn’t stand in the way of my child as long as they are old enough to understand the consequences of their decision. 

[OyToTheVey]

11 hours ago, Johannah said:

It seems sad to me that she feels the need to “fix her hair and do her makeup for the day.” Isn’t that part of the luxury/benefit of being a stay at home mom? Snuggles in your sweatpants without having to get done up?

My best friend is a SAHM, she gets up before her kids just to do hair and make up. I go to work with wet hair in a bun and hers is curled before I even have coffee. It's her form of self care. I can count on 2 hands how many times I've seen her without make up in our 20 years of knowing each other. 

[Johannah]

I used to be the girl who wore makeup and had brushed hair even just to run across the street to get a cup of coffee. But now I’m in my late thirties with a 3 1/2 year old and an almost 10 month old and I LOVE not having to even put on real clothes for the day, much less do hair or makeup on the days I stay home with them. It is such a pain to do it on days when I have to look presentable for a meeting or something. I just feel like my perspective has changed and sleep feels so much more valuable to me these days. But I’m also not a morning person at all. I do still love getting done up to go to a party or out on a date night, but when I do hair or makeup just to run errands, at the end of the day I feel like, well that was a waste of an hour.

My kids are also terrible nappers, so I have very limited time to get anything done while they’re asleep. And trying to style my hair or put on makeup when I don’t have to while they’re awake and needing my attention (particularly the baby who is constantly trying to put everything in his mouth and pull things onto his head) sounds like my idea of hell. There are enough times when I have to do that to get out the door and be somewhere on time. Doing it voluntarily seems insane. And the exact opposite of relaxing.

But I agree, to each their own. If you love it and it gives you more me time and makes you feel human then go for it! We all have our thing. And if we’re not fundies, then that’s usually a freely chosen thing.

I think I was just detecting some reluctance/obligation in Alyssa’s post because she said “I NEED to go change out of my pjs, etc, etc, but can’t resist these snuggles,” as though it was an obligation she felt she had to do when she would rather just snuggle with her baby in her pjs. I would feel differently if it was a post of her sitting at a vanity saying “enjoying some morning me time while the kids are still asleep!” or something else more positive about it

[Carm_88]

I can't feel human until I take off my pjs and put on jeans or a skirt/dress. It's like a signal to my brain, that it's time to get real.

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, Carm_88 said:

I can't feel human until I take off my pjs and put on jeans or a skirt/dress. It's like a signal to my brain, that it's time to get real.

For me, that’s a bra. ?

[feministxtian]

3 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

For me, that’s a bra. ?

thank rufus for chilly weather...I can get away with no bra. Tank top, baggy sweater, hoodie...yay me!

[lumpentheologie]

15 hours ago, Carm_88 said:

I can't feel human until I take off my pjs and put on jeans or a skirt/dress. It's like a signal to my brain, that it's time to get real.

Lol, I don't feel human until I get home, take off my 'outside clothes' and get into my sweats. Finally comfort and being able to focus without being distracted by proper clothes! 

10 hours ago, feministxtian said:

thank rufus for chilly weather...I can get away with no bra. Tank top, baggy sweater, hoodie...yay me!

My favorite thing about last summer was the no-bra trend, and how it became acceptable (at least where I was) to just wear a tank top and no bra in a casual setting. Since then I've stopped wearing a bra 99% of the time, and it's amazing. Now that I wear a big sweater or coat whenever I leave the house no one can tell I'm not wearing a bra anyway. 

I think it's lovely that some people like @nastyhobbitses enjoy doing hair/makeup and find it relaxing. What I really don't like is that for women, having done hair/makeup looks "neutral." I hate that it takes me an hour get presentable and it takes my husband 5 minutes. If it were totally optional to do those things, there would be a lot less pushback from women who resent the hell out of it. 

There are days when I don't leave the house because I don't want to deal with having to make myself look a certain way, and I also don't want to deal with how people treat me if I don't look that way.  Almost all of my friends have stories of people telling them they look tired/sick/homeless if they show up somewhere without hair and makeup done. And it bothers me how the default for women's "self care" seems to be spending time/effort/money on making yourself more attractive to others. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

When I was in college I could go braless. I was barely a B cup so they wouldn’t flop around. Nowadays I can’t do that. I wish I could! But I’m 2 kids and 90lbs heavier so it’s a no go.

[feministxtian]

2 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

There are days when I don't leave the house because I don't want to deal with having to make myself look a certain way, and I also don't want to deal with how people treat me if I don't look that way.  Almost all of my friends have stories of people telling them they look tired/sick/homeless if they show up somewhere without hair and makeup done. And it bothers me how the default for women's "self care" seems to be spending time/effort/money on making yourself more attractive to others. 

I haven't worn make up in years. I brush my hair and teeth, put on some semi-decent clothes and that's it. Today's wardrobe consists of bra (the comfy one), a baggy sweater and my "winter" hoodie from American Muscle (car stuff). My footwear consists of a comfortable pair of running shoes (not that I run but they support my feet). No make up, I hate the way it feels on my face. ONCE in a blue moon I'll do my face but not on a regular basis. 

Then again, I've often been told I look "intimidating"...haven't figured that out though.