We hope you had happy birthdays, August b-day girls! Thanks again for sharing with us. September Birthday Girls, you’re up! E-mail us at mamas@nwaMotherlode.com (or comment below) and we’ll put you on the list for next month.

If you’re new to the Birthday Girls List, here’s how it works: During your birthday month — or wedding anniversary month — send us an email letting us know about it and we’ll throw your name in a special party hat. At the end of the month we’ll choose two winners at random and you’ll get a birthday or anniversary dinner on us, courtesy of NWARestaurants.com!

Winners will be announced on the first of every month. And we’ll also run a list of all the birthday girls celebrating out there!

The September birthday winner will receive a gift certificate to Bella Napoli in Bentonville. The anniversary couple will receive one from Outback Steakhouse.

NOW ON TO THE AUGUST WINNERS!

The birthday dinner winner for August is Stephanie McCratic, who celebrated last week on August 26th. Happy Birthday, Evolved Mommy! You win dinner to Fred’s Hickory Inn, courtesy of NWARestaurants.com!

We’d also like to congratulate Helen Urban and her husband who celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary on Aug. 5. They win the anniversary dinner to Crabby’s Seafood Bar & Grill, also courtesy of NWARestaurants.com. Congrats, Urbans!

About NWArestaurants.com: This website is the most comprehensive and accurate restaurant search engine anywhere in NWA. You can search for a single item (Mexican Food) or multiple items (Mexican Food, Open Sunday, Outdoor Patio) and get pinpoint results immediately. All restaurants have contact information, hours of operation, average price, and a list of all the amenities offered. “Featured Restaurants� also have menus, specials, interior images, and a verified map.

What makes NWArestaurants.com really unique is the way they support our community. Check out their 50% OFF gift certificates which range from $2 to $15 (something for every budget!) and all net proceeds go to local nonprofits. Restaurants are listed completely at random every month and you can follow them on Twitter (Here’s a link!) to get early announcements when new restaurants are about to be listed. Click here to check it out and bookmark the site for future reference, so you can check it out before your next dinner on the town or to see where you’d like your birthday or anniversary dinner!

We want to give a shout-out to the August birthday (and anniversary) girls.

Happy Birthday to these NWA moms:

Kristy Brown, Aug. 10

Ashdon, Aug. 16

Jen Simmons, Aug. 19

Stephanie McCratic, Aug. 26
Happy Anniversary to these moms and their husbands:

Helen Urban, Aug. 5 (15 years)

Laura Boysen, Aug. 7 (11 years)

Lesya Morrison, Aug. 8

Britney Schrag, Aug. 12 (10 years)

Kristy Brown (Aug. 16)

Diane Willits, Aug. 16 (40 years!)

Heidi Stephens, Aug. 17

Ashley, Aug. 30 (13 years)

Barbara Black, Aug. 30 (also 40 years!)

Brandy, Aug. 28 (12 years)

Don’t forget to send in your September birthdays and anniversaries for a chance to win dinner out to Bella Napoli or Outback!

By Lori Homstad, business owner and mother of two

Whether you love football season or not, it’s easy to love spending time outside now that the hot temperatures are fading into a comfortable fall. If you’re cooking on the stove or manning the barbecue grill, you can easily make both the kitchen and the patio area more stylish and functional. Here are some tips to make it happen:

For the kitchen, focus on convenience, comfort and control. Some window blinds are either hard-to-reach or large and heavy. When you’re choosing window treatments for the kitchen, consider some of the motorized varieties because they can be opened or closed with the touch of a button. This is especially helpful if you’ve got a hard-to-reach area over the sink. Motorization creates a cordless environment that’s safer for kids and pets, too.

The blinds can either be battery-powered and WireFree or can be wired or plugged in. You can control the movement from a wall switch, hand-held remote or an automatic timer, (all of which are backed by a five-year warranty.) Check out the demo in the YouTube video below. Your kids would appreciate the high-tech “cool factor� here.

If you or your husband like to barbeque this time of year, make sure the patio looks as good as the food! Often the patio is the most neglected area of the house when it comes to decorating and comfort. We do lots of free in-home consultations with clients who ask about outdoor solar shades for the patio, and they’re always surprised at how much style they add. (And yes, they’re affordable, too!)

Solar shades reduce glare and block UV rays which helps protect your furnishings from sun fading. They come in lots of rich colors and fabric styles. Regardless of whether your personal style is contemporary, traditional or elegant, there’s definitely an option that fits the look you want. I’ve seen these types of shades used in just about every type of home décor you can imagine. And these blinds do help lower your air-conditioning bill, so everybody wins.

Home design is so much more than furniture and accessories. Remember that the way you finish off your windows can pull the whole room together and take the room’s sense of style to a whole new level.

Related article listed below. Click on the title to read more:

• Create the Perfect Patio

The Home Design category is sponsored by Budget Blinds of Northwest Arkansas. (Click here to read more about this local company.) For a free in-house design consultation, call their office at 479-751-6655. They bring their mobile showroom to your home, which is SO much easier than trying to remember what your windows look like. Click here to visit their website.

Click the play arrow below to see a demo of motorized blinds.

By Andi Douglas, nwaMotherlode.com beauty editor

Time is precious to a mom, especially when your kids are in tow and at least one of them has to tinkle NOW! So, when I spend 15 minutes in the drugstore staring at all of the beauty products available (and there are a lot) and end up leaving with nothing because of a deep-rooted fear of Buyer’s Remorse, it irks me to no end.

Make-up counters in the mall cause similar anxiety with the tempting, and breakable, goods always within reach of little hands, even with the restriction of a 5-point stroller harness. So, in desperate need of some updated products, I agreed to a consultation at the home of a Mary Kay sales director, Dawn Stanford.

Even though Lexi, 17 months old and never still, managed to empty everything out of my diaper bag including an entire bowl of Goldfish, I felt relaxed and able to try out some great new products.

Finally, I was able to get the tinted moisturizer I have been craving. I have been putting off buying any from the store because the color choices seemed vague and, unlike foundation, most moisturizers come in opaque tubes so it is hard to compare. The Mary Kay Tinted Moisturizer with SPF 20 ($18) went on smooth and evened out my skin tone without the weight of foundation. The best part, all of the Mary Kay products are guaranteed so if a month goes by and I a find that the lotion is not compatible with my skin, Dawn will help me find something else that works.

If you want more coverage and are a fan of mineral foundations, Mary Kay Mineral Powder Foundation ($18) is definitely a great value and has all of the oil-absorbing properties mineral foundations are famous for. Personally, it did not work on my super dry skin, but when winter rolls around and I lose my summer tan, I am going to try out some of the other liquid foundations that are available.

My favorite part of the makeover process is always the eyes and a beauty tip I picked up from Dawn: Always do your eyes first, so if you have any flakes or blink while your mascaras wet (hate that!) you won’t mess up the rest of your face.

I tried out some of the electric colors that beauty editors have been raving about and found that I’m a big dud when it comes to eye shadows, and migrated back to my standard smokey eye. But I did update the look with Navy Eyeliner ($10) and smoked it up with Mineral Eye Color in Midnight Star ($6.50). It came out gorgeous and one of my friends commented that they had never noticed I had brown eyes before, a real testament to the rule of opposites attract when it comes to eye makeup. I looked a little made up for lunch at Chick-fil-a but who’s judging?

I was a little nervous about the one-on-one aspect, but with a friend along for the ride, it made for a really fun morning and I have a mile long wish list of things to try next. I’m also officially addicted to the comfort of a guarantee…no more Buyer’s Remorse for me!

Have a question for Andi, beauty blogger and fellow mama? E-mail it to mamas@nwaMotherlode.com.

“Beauty Buzz� is sponsored by Hull Dermatology, with offices in Rogers, Bella Vista and at the Eureka Springs Hospital. Dr. Hull has published several scientific papers and has received numerous awards and honors for her work in dermatology. For more info, click here to visit the Hull Dermatology website.

 

Dear dads,

I’m pregnant with my first baby and my husband really doesn’t seem excited. I’m having a hard time with his reaction. We discussed having kids when we were dating, so that’s not it. He says he’s happy, but I don’t really believe it. Any advice on how to handle this situation?

MAVERICK: More than likely he’s happy and excited, just not the same way you are.

In general, men don’t think much about being parents until they are, or are about to become one. It’s not something we talk about with our pals over beers or daydream about while we fish. Women have a big head-start on us in that regard.

So, even if he wanted to be a dad and all, he has a lot of catching up to do regarding the whole parenthood gig so don’t judge him for not reacting the same way you are to the news and the different stages of the pregnancy.

Also, for those of us cavemen types out there, the responsibility of being a dad might just now be sinking in. He’s seeing the next 20 years, and then some, filled with doctor bills, braces, bikes, clothing, and college that he’s gonna have to figure out a way to pay for. He could be trying to get his head around a serious reality check.

So, don’t read subdued as uninterested and don’t register him as not excited if he’s not giggling about baby showers or happily zooming out on trips to the store to by onesies.

You’ll likely see his enthusiasm pick up once the baby is here, then again when the baby becomes more mobile and then even more when the baby can talk and play games with him and stuff.

Parenthood is a team effort. It helps if we bring different skills and emotional strengths, and reactions to the process.

So remember, he’s a dad to be, not a mom to be, don’t expect his reactions or emotions to always mirror yours. Who wants to be married to a clone?

GRAY: My first recommendation is hormones. How are you dealing with things? A little emotional perhaps? Remember, your body’s getting hit with a ton of stuff right now. When my wife got pregnant she couldn’t stand chocolate anymore – yeah, chocolate – so something as relatively minor as your husband not being excited ought to rank pretty far down on the totem pole.

My second recommendation is taking another look at when you “discussed having kids.� When he said “Sure, I’d like to have kids� you probably could have substituted “kids� for “a house,� or “a grilled cheese sandwich,� or “socks.� In the real world, you don’t really understand what having kids is about until you’re in the thick of things.

So go take another look at your less-than-excited husband. Is he just less than excited or does he have that glazed, bewildered expression usually reserved for lottery winners? Getting hit with news about becoming a father can clobber your mind. And it doesn’t mean he’s not excited, he just has to figure out how on Earth he got to this point in his life.

My final recommendation is to believe him when he tells you he’s happy. Asking him again and again will probably just make him think you’re hormonal (see first recommendation). If that doesn’t cut it for
you, then engage him in talks about what he plans to do when the baby arrives. Sometimes you can tell how excited a guy is by listening to him talk about what he sees his future as being now that he’s a dad to be.

To read more Inside His Head, click here. Or you can send a question to our anonymous panel of husbands to mamas@nwaMotherlode.com.