elephant parade

i had a hard time deciding what kind of room to do for the baby. i didn't want a cartoon character, i didn't want sports if it was a boy, and i really didn't want a mess of flowers if it was a girl. in the end we (i) decided it would be birds if it was a girl, and elephants for a boy because i had found some bedding i really liked.

why elephants? well, besides being so darn cute, they're known for their intelligence and memory- i just liked the whole theme. maybe we "overdid" it with the room, but this is probably the only time i'll have a major say in the decor in his room. i thought we did a pretty good job with everything.



here is the dresser/changing area. i opted against a changing table because it's just a waste of money if you have a really good dresser. this dresser was mine when i was living on my own in atlanta. dave and i sanded the finish off a bit, then painted it brown. then i went back and painted the knobs to match the wall. i like the way it turned out because the brown isn't perfect. we have the changing pad and diaper station on top and then his humidifier and monitor as well. the lamp is the lighting for the room because there's no light fixture (boo). we have the diaper genie on one side and dirty clothes hamper on the other.




here are some shelves we put up. we got a lot of stuffed animals, etc. we needed a place to put that stuff and something to break up the empty wall. below is our play gym. he is really loving that thing these days.



here is the crib. it's where you really see the theme of the room. perhaps we overdid it? i think not for a baby room. we have the rug since the entire house is wood/tile. the bedding is elephants and circles. i really like the cute wall art and his name above the bed. i'm sure the letters are crooked, but we are the least artsy people around. beside the bed is an adorable hippo chair we received as a gift from pbkids! then there's the rocking and reading corner...



i love this! we got the chair off of craig's list for practically nothing. i hate that it's not the same color wood, but after the adventure of painting the dresser and room, dave wouldn't let me anywhere near that chair with paint. it's right by the windows so the light is wonderful during the day. we have blankets for covering up if it gets chilly over there, and our little table with a cute little elephant lamp.

i think we did a pretty darn good job. now i wanted to do some other kind of elephant something for our 4th wall (the longest, which has nothing on it).

i don't know if i want to do another elephant or something else. Chronicles of a Babywise Mom is doing a great giveaway from Lola Decor. there are so many cute vinyls on here, and they would be perfect for our sad empty wall (also perfect, a bookshelf with tons of kids books, but one step at a time)...

i can't decide what i would even pick if i won. if i had had a little girl and gone with the aforementioned bird theme, there would be lots of choose from, as i couldn't even pick which bird vinyl i liked best. but i have a few things i like for our little guy. (images below from Lola Decor)


i really love that verse. i also like the quote, "let him sleep, for when he wakes he will move mountains."

choices, choices.

anyway, i'm really proud of how the room came together! i think husband and i did a wonderful job on our little man's room!

revisiting the to-do list

today is December 17th. 12 days to go. let's see how the ol' to-do list is looking today. by the way. 1\2 a cm dialated!

1. finish Christmas shopping. we're almost finished, but we have both sets of parents, 2 brother in laws, and a sister in law left.

2. find a tree, buy said tree, put up tree. decorate house.

3. finish our regular house decorations as well.

4. unpack all our shower gifts in baby's room

5. put together remaining baby items

6. wash baby clothes

7. NAME BABY

8. get baby bedding ordered

9. finish decorating baby's room

10. celebrate Christmas

11. pack for hospital

so now my list is only consisting of 5 things- awesome! now that the bedding is here, it just needs to be washed and put on the bed, and then we can actually decorate the rest of the room. i'll probably go ahead & pack for the hospital as well (although my stuff is already together- just not in a bag). i'm feeling pretty accomplished here. things might actually get done in the next 12 days. 12 days. it doesn't even seem real. i'm pretty good at not actually thinking about it or freaking out. oh- i must add 2 things to the list- one that i am thinking about daily and freaking out about...

12. take our rings for their scheduled cleaning

13. figure out how to get my gma's ring off my finger in the event of a c-section

35 weeks = 35 days

I found it interesting that my little counter says "I am 35 weeks pregnant. 35 days to go." It's just funny to me that those numbers match. What have I been doing lately besides running around like a crazy woman? I had 2 baby showers the last 2 weekends- 1 in Georgia with my girlfriends and 1 here in Illinois with Dave's sisters, mom and grandma. We got a lot of great things for baby at both showers. I was starting to worry baby wouldn't have enough clothes- I need have no fear! At the GA shower we played a fun game where I was blindfolded and got to taste baby food- it was pretty funny- I even had 2 other friends brave enough to try it- funny that neither of them were my pregnant friends at the shower! Here are a few photos from that shower:

Tiffany- 16 weeks, Me- 33 weeks

I am pretty sure I had just eaten the peas in this picture. GROSS

opening gifts = always fun

Things are looking good in baby's room- all the furniture and accessories have been put together. We have "piles" in the baby's room right now: 1. I have 1 load of clothes left to wash from the stuff we got this past weekend. 2. I have kitchen and eating accessories that need a home in one of our cabinets. 3. I have stuff that needs to be returned (multiples) or exchanged (like for instance how someone registered for the wrong diaper genie refills... i wonder who).

I am ordering our bedding today. God has really blessed us as far as this goes- no one tells you, but baby bedding is EXPENSIVE! It's probably the most expensive item we're having to purchase on our own. Bedding + the accesories to go with it (extra sheets, etc) were totaling out around $300-$400. For starters- I am lucky that I joined this points website about 10 years ago- by simply answering a survey a week, and clicking through on emails I had earned over 30,000 points. Now Dave and I wanted to use those points for gift cards for an HDTV, but then baby came along. We found out that the site that had our baby bedding also was part of the points program, and we were able to cash in my points for $200 in gift cards (to arrive in 2-6 weeks (from last week), but that is another story in itself). Of course, even with that we still had around $175 or so that wasn't going to be covered- and here's where we've been super blessed. We have received money from various people for baby, and we used most of it for painting the room. All that we had left was around $20. Since Saturday, Dave & I have received $160. Put that with the $20, and it is exactly enough to cover the ENTIRE cost of what we were going to have to spend on bedding out of pocket. WHAT A BLESSING!

So we at least will have baby bedding in a few days... with our accessories, it may be a month or so from now. Shh, don't tell baby. Of course, pictures will follow.

Well, it's time for mom to rest- I am working tomorrow, and need as much energy as possible for that. Just over a week left at work... whew! Plus, I know i'll probably wake up a few times during the night before then- not only to use the bathroom, but I have a new affliction- acid reflux. Let's just say it takes about 2 seconds to happen, and in that 2 seconds hurts worse than heartburn. Ugh. I've got to try to stay on my side while i'm sleeping- but my body just wants to be comfortable!

To-Do List, Updated

today is December 10th. so we have 19 days to go. here's how my "freak out" list from a few days ago is looking. this is what we had still to do...

1. finish Christmas shopping. we're almost finished, but we have both sets of parents, 2 brother in laws, and a sister in law left.

2. find a tree, buy said tree, put up tree. decorate house.

3. finish our regular house decorations as well.

4. unpack all our shower gifts in baby's room

5. put together remaining baby items

6. wash baby clothes

7. NAME BABY

8. get baby bedding ordered

9. finish decorating baby's room

10. celebrate Christmas

11. pack for hospital

12.... i'm sure there's more

it at least makes me feel better to have a few things crossed out. hoping this weekend will lead to more things being crossed off our list!!

so much to do, and so little time

well, i may now be officially about to blow a gasket. the fact that my induction is more than likely 3 weeks from tomorrow is exciting and terrifying. mostly terrifying. not in the fact that i'm worried about being a mom- afterall, i was a nanny for a while, and a nanny to a newborn at that- i feel like the baby part will be ok, it's the getting ready for the baby part that I'm mostly worried about.

today is December 7th. so i have 23 days to go. 18 days of work left (at most). i feel like i have a pretty long list of things to still do...

1. finish Christmas shopping. we're almost finished, but we have both sets of parents, 2 brother in laws, and a sister in law left.

2. find a tree, buy said tree, put up tree. decorate house.

3. finish our regular house decorations as well.

4. unpack all our shower gifts in baby's room

5. put together remaining baby items

6. wash baby clothes

7. NAME BABY

8. get baby bedding ordered

9. finish decorating baby's room

10. celebrate Christmas

11. pack for hospital

12.... i'm sure there's more

my main goal right now is trying to prevent being so stressed out (it's not good for the baby, you know). if i can at least accomplish some of these tasks this week with the help of my darling husband (who of course, is preparing for finals right now) when he can- we might actually get this stuff accomplished!!

insanity!

that would be a good word to describe the last week or so. we had a whirlwind 2 weeks of viewing rental properties (we decided it was time to make the move before too much goes down with our poor little Atlanta house). at the end of our 2nd week, we found a place we really liked that had lots of room and was in our price range. we decided on monday (last monday) that this was the house we were going with, and we were ready to move forward, we waited all week and then Friday got word that we could move in on Saturday. we spent Friday evening scurrying around (well, Dave did, i worked) trying to get boxes out of our storage unit (the unit had to be vacated by Saturday @ 5 to keep from paying the next month) and then get a rental truck set up. I worked Saturday morning, while Dave and his wonderful friends (thanks Chuck, Mike, Chris, Willie (our brother in law), & David & Debbie (Dave's parents)) loaded the storage unit contents into the truck, then took them to the house, and then took the furniture that wouldn't fit into our house (spare bedroom furniture, since we'll have a much smaller bed in there now) to my in-laws office to store in their basement space.

I went by the house Saturday and mainly just looked at how things were unpacked- it was so overwhelming, it IS so overwhelming. I think unpacking might be worse than packing- i just want it done NOW! Sunday we went back by the house- Dave put our bed together and I started unpacking a few things- mostly the kitchen. This is where we discovered that my dinner plates won't fit into our dishwasher- baffling. I also discovered that i will need a step stool to reach all our cabinets- very frustrating- but, it's probably not worth worrying about. Today, Dave took a personal day- we went to the Dr. then I went to physical therapy. After PT, we decided to go to Ikea and look at the sleeper sofa we had liked on their website. I keep hating Ikea more with each passing day- this sleeper sofa was tiny. Dave & I could just barely sit on there together. I guess if I had read the description a little more carefully, I would've discovered the sofa was less than 5' wide. We did find a couple rugs at Ikea, so I guess it's not all bad. We decided to look at an actual furniture store for either a sleeper sofa, or a sofa/love seat combination. I'm sorry to say, if you stay at our house, you're probably going to be sleeping on an air mattress. We got the living room cleared out a pretty good bit, dvds and books are unpacked and put on our bookshelves. Tonight I bought groceries while Dave attends traffic school (after 5+ months living with my in-laws, I can say that I have forgotten how to shop for groceries) and it looks like we might actually be sleeping in our new home tonight! I'm a little nervous because I'm moving out of where I've called "home" for the last 5 months, but I'm ready for it to be just Dave & I again, so we can enjoy these last 2 months before baby arrives!

Pictures to come!

changing my mind

so i had everything decided on as far as baby furniture went. we've done pretty well with buying things too- budgeting out a large item per every other paycheck or so. so far we have only gotten our glider rocker & "bassinet." this week we decided it was time to get our crib. i had one picked out, the Gulliver model from Ikea.

It was given an A in my Baby Bargains book for safety and value, and it didn't cost several hundred dollars- double bonus. White wasn't the look we were going for, but we thought we could stain it quite easily. We made our journey to Ikea Wednesday night, took a look at the bed in the baby section- it wasn't quite what i was expecting. It was a little smaller than I was expecting, and they had the mattress set up on the lower of the 2 levels. We decided to get it anyway. That evening I was re-reading through my BB book and I just kept having second thoughts- was there something better. That's when I read about the Graco/Bonavita cribs- also receiving an A in the book. I decided to go with the Graco Sarah.

I was hoping they'd carry them at Target, but they didn't. I looked around and found them at BRU and Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is about $30 cheaper (they are the same crib) and they will ship for free to your store, or ship to you for a whopping $0.97! I think I'll be happier with this crib. It's larger for one, and it's already the color we're going for- which means we only have to stain the dresser (one less thing to worry about after putting it together). Only thing I'm not entirely thrilled about- it's a convertible, and I think the convertibles are ridiculous, but I think I can live with that- besides, I don't ever plan on having to convert it.
Now Mama is happy, so everyone can be happy. Well, except we now have to make another trip to the dreaded Ikea...

In other news- we are going to look at a house/apartment this weekend. I feel relieved that we getting this ball rolling. Now, to sell, burn, drive a car into our house in Atlanta...