The Journey of Parenthood…

Taylor Swift Concert

I went to my first concert when I was in fourth or fifth grade. It was Brooks and Dunn and Martina McBride was the opening act. Ever since then I’ve really loved live music. I lived just outside of Atlanta in high school and I’d be down at The Tabernacle or another venue seeing anyone I could see. When I got with Zach he’s just the opposite. We literally avoid any restaurant that plays live music, even if it’s just instrumental. Loud music has bothered him his entire life and he can’t understand how anyone could enjoy hearing someone live when they always sound so much better on the recorded versions of their songs!

Between marrying someone who is anti-live music and having four kids to raise I’ve kinda lost my concert-going-ways over the years. I loved getting to see Justin Timberlake with Robyn and when she and Katie suggested going to see Taylor Swift I was in!

To be honest, I’m not a huge Taylor Swift fan. We don’t listen to country so I never heard her earlier stuff and I only knew a few of her biggest hits on the pop scene until we got the tickets. Katie found her setlist online and I downloaded every song she was going to play at her show and listened to them non-stop in the month or so leading up to the concert. I’m SO glad I did that as I really knew every song and had some favorites and by the time we saw her live I was a more legit fan 😉 Not Katie or Robyn status fandom but still a fan enough to enjoy it (I wish I’d done the same for Carrie Underwood a few years ago because I didn’t know ANY of her music when we went!)

Robyn had to be in Atlanta the weekend of the concert for her nephew’s birthday so Katie and I took our time driving up that morning. We hit up a mall near the hotel to get some lunch and do a little shopping. I really needed some new makeup and thought it’d be a good opportunity to pop into a Sephora and check out my options in person. I always think new makeup is better purchased in person to make sure the colors all work and everything with my skin tone!

I ended up being able to get a mini-makeover done in the store which worked out great with the concert timing. We also spent our entire time at the mall hunting down a stinking clear bag for the stadium. Such a nightmare! NO stores carried clear bags and you’d think they would being a mall so close to all these huge arenas that require clear bags to enter.

We checked into the hotel nice and early and Robyn met us there so we could all get ready together and play some T.Swift while we got concert ready!

This lunch was SO GOOD.

Here are all my new makeup purchases! So far I’m LOVING the new items and highly recommend them all! The foundation is a little heavier than what I’ve typically worn so I only wear it when I’m leaving home haha I still keep my old stuff (It Cosmetics BB Cream) for around the house wear. And yes, I’m a wear a bit of makeup everyday kinda girl! It’s part of my morning wakeup routine so I feel naked without it!

Here are the items I bought:

Too Faced Peach Perfect Comfort Matte Foundation

Too Faced Chocolate Soleil Matte Bronzer

Tarte CC Under Eye Corrector

Nars Blush – Orgasm (sidenote but whhhhy the sexual names for dang makeup?!?!?)

Too Faced Primed Poreless Skin Smoothing Pressed Powder 

We left plenty early to have time to get to the stadium and find our seats and eat some dinner before the concert started. Driving downtown stresses me OUT so I was SO thankful that Robyn loves driving. Not only was she a baller at getting us there but she was INCREDIBLE getting us back to the hotel. Traffic is always INSANE after a concert and it was SO LATE AND she had an extra drive to get back to her sisters house but she handled it all like a boss and Katie and I couldn’t get over it because no way could we have handled it all like she did!

I am NOT a fan of lipstick. Like at ALL. I am an eye girl so I always focus on my eyes and maybe wear some chapstick with a hint of color too it but that’s it. So these events where we all keep wearing lipstick are killing me haha Zach cannot STAND lipstick (See? We’re such a meant-to-be-couple haha!) so when I sent him a pic of me and he was like “wipe off the lipstick then you will look great.” Of course my response was a lipstick kissy face haha. I’m so glad though that he’s not into it because I’m not at allll and I don’t even like pictures of myself wearing it! It just doesn’t look like ME to me!

I know I’m getting to an age where a bit of color is probably needed so I’m working on getting better at at least getting tinted lip balm. Any favorites? I just don’t like worrying about it getting messy or wearing off or anything so I like stuff I can apply without even looking in a mirror. I probably looked at myself a bazillion times the night of the concert to make sure it was all still in place. Lipstick is just too stressful haha!

Hello Atlanta!!!

While Zach was zero percent envious of the concert…he was pretty dang jealous that we were getting to go to the NEW Mercedes Benz Stadium!

We all love a good theme and why not dress for fun for the concert? We each picked a favorite Taylor Swift quote and got a t-shirt with the quote on it (mine was custom but you can find Katie’s here and Robyn’s here!). We also each wore a skirt (mine and Robyn’s here and Katie’s here). I LOVE a skirt with a t-shirt. It’s like one of my current favorite looks and I totally plan to buy Katie’s skirt as I think it’d be SO CUTE for Disney!!! Right?!?!

You also can’t attend a Taylor Swift concert without a snake haha so we all bought these matching necklaces/belts. I think our looks all came together so well and it made the night extra fun to be dressed in theme!

As I mentioned earlier Katie and I spent a good couple of hours at the mall on the hunt for a clear bag. I’m talking we split up and went in just about every single store possible to ask if they carried any. We found a few options but none of them were perfectly clear. All had some sort of opaque coloring to them so I just bought the most clear one I could find and rolled with it. It was a book bag and it was $30.

And as soon as we walked up to the stadium…it broke. NO JOKE. Ugh.

Thennnn we get up to the stadium security to enter and the security tells us that it’s not allowed in. My options were to toss it or check it for $5. Turns out they provide clear bags at the security to use for your items and they check bags and purses for the $5 fee that can be picked back up after the event. UGH. If they’d put that on their dang website I could have saved $30 and a bunch of time and hassle!

I ended up just tossing the bag because I wasn’t about to pay another $5 for it especially when it was broken and I didn’t want to spend the time that night having to wait to get it back when I’d probably just end up trashing it anyway. Toss it up to a learning lesson I guess!

If you’re visiting Mercedes Benz Stadium be sure to get a LEGIT clear bag. NOT a book bag. Or just carry your items and use one of their bags provided for you when you arrive!

Some stadium pics!

Hey when you spend the money on concert tickets and coordinating outfits…lots of pics are a MUST 🙂

Robyn, Katie and I are having an EPIC year with so many fun things together and we didn’t want to overspend for the concert so we got the cheapest seats. And yall. They were for sure the most nosebleed of nosebleed seats possible. We all about died when we walked up the stairs to our seats. It was SO STEEP and the stairs were so close together that we had to sit and collect ourselves for a hot minute. Whew. It was unsettling to be that high up!

I got these binoculars on a deal awhile back so I stuck them in my stupid book bag to bring with us and they came in handy haha

Squad Goals!

The opening acts for Taylor were Charli XCX and Camila Cabello. Yall I hadn’t heard of either of them or any of their songs. I know. I’m old. Especially regarding the Camila girl because since hearing her at the concert I’ve heard her name and she’s won some awards and such so I probably should know who she is. I also don’t understand why songs become popular. Her popular song is something about Havanna and Atlanta and is just not that great but she’s SO TALENTED. Like why is that crummy song the one that takes off? She’s way, way better at singing than that song shows! I did think it was super cute that she wore a Falcons jersey to perform.

I always love watching opening acts. Not only because often times they end up becoming huge (like the Black Eyed Peas I saw open for Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera back in high school) but because I just think it’s so awesome for those artists. How cool it must be to get that opportunity and I always feel bad when so many seats are empty during their performances. Even though we were so high up I doubt they could hear us cheer, I still like to be there to support!

Gorgeous view of Atlanta!

Ready for TAYLOR!

Again, I never listened to Taylor’s early stuff but the songs I’ve heard have always been very family friendly. We love her song “never grow up” and I can see how parents would allow their children to listen to her early albums.

I do not understand why artists feel like “growing up” in their music means they have to add in vulgar language and/or sexualize their image. I don’t own any of Taylor’s full albums but majority of her set list for this concert was from her most recent album, Reputation. And it’s far from family friendly in it’s message or content across majority of the songs I downloaded.

Sure, I enjoy them. But I’m 33 years old. I was SHOCKED to see SO MANY little girls at that concert. I understand being into her early stuff but she didn’t play a ton of that early stuff. Her current “image” is her attempt at “growing up” and being “sexy” (which by the way I do not think she pulls off sexy well AT ALL and should just stick to the girl next door vibe because she really just looked like a little girl trying to be sexy to me). I know many friends in real life who took their daughters and I’m not being judgmental, every parent has their own priorities and what they deem appropriate but I bet a lot of mamas were covering many little ears that night from some of the content being played.

I also just in general can’t fathom shelling out that amount of money to have my kids be exposed to that loud of music at that late of an hour. We didn’t leave until midnight and with traffic and all we weren’t back at the room until 1 am. Some of these kids we saw were LITTLE. Like Tess’s age little. No way did they enjoy that show? Right? And it’s SO MUCH sitting around and WAITING for the main act to perform. We were there a good 4 hours before she came on. What kids enjoy just sitting and waiting that long? Or even during the show..I can’t fathom my daughters being into it enough to override the negatives involved?

That being said the groups of young girls we saw all did look super adorable in their little themed outfits! And really the whole combo of little kids at the concert combined with Taylor’s current “image” made me disappointed in Taylor as an artist, not as much in the parents bringing their kids. I think it’s one thing to grow up and shift and change things a bit but why feel the need to go such a different direction? Why put stuff out there that will make you a poor example to the young girls who have always adored you? I don’t get that perspective and I’m sure she’s lost some of her fanbase in this switch!

Aside from my “mom concerns” as just plain EMILY I LOVED the show! She is an incredible performer and I love that she does what she does best and knows what her strengths are. She’s not the best dancer in the world so she doesn’t attempt crazy dance moves. She’s also truly a girl-next-door. I mentioned it earlier but she’s simply adorable. Even while trying to play sexy she can’t keep a straight face about it. She laughed and giggled and has this act DOWN. I mean we all know this ain’t her first concert. She knows what she’s doing and I just think she should go back to / stick with that vibe. The sweet, innocent thing is what she does best and what suits her best too! Anytime she did a sexy look (that we could see on the screens haha) I laughed because it just didn’t suit her at all!

The whole show was extremely well done. We were in nosebleed seats…but also nosebleed seats on the far side of the concert so I can’t speak much on the stage or actually performance as a whole since, well, we couldn’t see it haha. But from what I could see on the screens it was awesome!  A great combo of old and new stuff. Lots of fan interaction. And tons of moments of her talking, which I always love in a concert. I like when they personalize things and show you sides of themselves and moments that you can’t buy on a cd 😉 I especially love when they go acoustic and show off their other talents. I respect an artist a TON who writes their own stuff and can perform using multiple instruments (Alanis Morissette can play every instrument on the stage…she’s INCREDIBLE).  Taylor played piano and guitar and had several intimate moments with the fans that I appreciated. Overall it was a great balance of a show and we all enjoyed it!

Katie and Robyn both saw her during her 1989 tour and said it was better and I can see that being the case. I don’t think her new stuff overall is as good as the stuff from 1989. At least my favorites are still the few that I knew off that album so I assume that’s the case for the big fans too! We were all still glad we went though and will for sure go again if she tours again but will spend the money for better seats next time 😉

I took several videos! I think my favorite part of the videos are the ones where you can hear Robyn signing 😉 I love that she was so into it! Katie had the dance moves and Robyn had the lyrics and I was just there to soak it all in with my best friends 🙂 We had such a fun night together!!!

They handed out these awesome light up bracelets that were synced to the show and lit up at certain times. It was SO AWESOME!

We had a BLAST! It was a LATE night but Katie and I enjoyed sleeping in and taking our time waking up and getting moving the next morning. We originally planned to go back to the mall because the guy who did my makeup snuck an item in my buggy that I hadn’t planned on buying so I wanted to return it but the mall didn’t open until late since it was Sunday so we just headed home early!

It worked out super great because we stopped by an O’Charley’s on the way back and omg yall they have an INCREDIBLE brunch!!! Like seriously amazing!

Strawberries and cream cheese french toast – AMAZING. We both cleaned our plates!

I love spending quality times with my sweet friends and making memories together and this was such a fun trip away and lots of bonding over some T. Swift jams!

Emily Parker
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