Birthday Girl and Fourth of July Weekend Outfits

Thank you all for the birthday wishes, I did enjoy the rest of my day (even if I had to take my daughter to the doctor instead of having a nice blowdry) and my evening out. I did wear the Rebecca Taylor dress and I took a few pics of the outfit (the colors appear more washed out than they are in real life as I took the pics just before leaving for dinner when it was dark in my bedroom but I knew that I wouldn't get all dressed up again this morning, and especially I wouldn't lace up my shoes again, only to take pics for the blog):

The cardigan is the Jackie in the (store only?) organic green color. It was crazy hot yesterday but I had to take the subway to go to my birthday dinner so I needed it for coverage during the ride. I especially bought the cardigan to wear with this dress (but it also looks nice with the Casbah paisley print) which was a bit of a risk because I got it on final sale (I never pay more than $30 for a Jackie). Luckily the color is a perfect match of the green of the dress and even if I can easily wear a cardigan in another color with it (like a coral or even gold) I do like the total green look, it feels very ... organic, like I was a flower plant or a fairy. I also bought a pair of matching green flat sandals at Zara but yesterday night I preferred to wear the lace-up Dorian wedges from last year (which I ADORE). I felt so pretty and my husband loved it too!

Now, after the birthday parenthesis, I am going to wrap up the 4th of July post that I had started the other day. My weekend was very casual (for the most part I threw on a tee and shorts without any accessory or tentative of styling) so I didn't feel like taking pics (although I particularly liked the color combination of this one so I made the effort of taking my camera out):

I made a tentative of dressing up a bit on Sunday night, when we went out for drinks with my husband and I had initially put on my recently purchased black Theory dress and the green Zara shoes that I have mentionned before but when he saw me my husband said that I (I quote) "needed to look younger". I would have punched him in the stomach but in the end he was right because we went to the Lower East Side and everybody was wearing cargos (I ended up wearing a very cute "young-looking" outfit with my JBrand cargos and an olive-colored tee from the Loft but it was late and I didn't take pics).
So the only exception to my weekend of casual outfits is the one that I wore to the 4th of July party organized by our friends who live on the other side of the Hudson River (I mean New Jersey). They live in a high-rise right on the Hudson and from their apartment we had unobstructed views of the NYC skyline and the fireworks.
This is the view from their apartment, towards the North of Manhattan and the South. In the second picture you can see that the Freedom Tower is close to be completed and is now the highest building downtown (I go so very rarely downtown that I hadn't realized that the construction works were in such an advanced status):

From our friends balcony we could take very neat pictures of the fireworks, which had a very strong red, blue and white theme this year (I tried to upload a few of them twice but Blogger wouldn't let me, probably because they are too big).
I wore my Theory white strapless dress as planned, with Tory Burch silver Thora sandals (instead of the Talbots pumps). I had to take a few subway trains and a Path train to go there so once again, I wanted some boobs coverage to be free in my movements. Instead of a cardigan I wore my new Shortcut sweater in dark fog over the dress:

I had never considered this sweater until I saw it in the dark fog color in a store and fell in love (I had always and only seen the navy and muslin, which is very creamy). It looks very polished and has a slight sheen to it due to the silk content. It fits TTS (this is my usual XS). I kind of "overpaid" for it, it is one of the very rare times that I didn't know the online price beforehands (it was cheaper online), so I didn't ask for a price match (I am not terribly upset because it was only a $11 difference in the end but lesson learned!) In any case I really recommend it for the price.

I have one more post planned for tomorrow and then I have a couple of VIPs (Very Important Posts) at the beginning of next week where I will ask for some advice on what to wear to a beach wedding coming up at the end of next week so stay tuned and thanks for stopping by!