The Nursery

Our goal for the nursery was simple - Not too girly/baby and no painting. There were only 2 rooms in the house that we didn't have to paint; two of our guest rooms. One is grey and the other is the light lilac/purpley/grey. If we were having a boy, we would use the grey room, if we had a girl, the lilac room. It wasn't our first choice, but hey, we figured we would work with what we have. (The only problem is that we don't have the color/paint, so no touch-ups)

Below is our simple, not too overdone nursery. While I loved all of the great inspirations on Pinterest, I wanted to keep the cost down.

Before:

 

Your standard guest room.

 



After:

 We had a really cute bumper, but quickly learned that was a big N-O for newborns, so off it went. Stephen created the the Samantha sign with some trim, decorative corners and letters that we sanded and painted. Stephen's mom was sweet enough to buy us our crib for our baby shower present and we love it. Clean, simple and white (and convertible). We aren't sold on the paper lanterns, and might switch these out, but for now, they are staying.  

I wasn't looking for anything in particular when I found this cute Hedgehog picture at TJ Maxx Home Goods. I thought it was really cute/silly and had fun colors in it. I left without buying it, but realized that I really liked it and went back and bought it the next day. We didn't want all of our furniture to be matchy-matchy, or spend $1500+ on an entire nursery set, so our goal was to mix and match. We got the dresser from IKEA and it works great as a changing table, my only regret is not getting the bigger one!



I was going to make curtains for the nursery just to make it more 'special' but once I started looking at fabrics, I quickly realized the only ones that I liked were way to expensive, and it would be more cost effective to buy these cute pink and white striped ones. I was a little nervous they would give it a 'circus feel' but luckily they don't. Eventually our goal is to build a window seat under the window, but for now, the standard Target storage shelves will work. As I said, I didn't want it too 'girly', so we tried to incorporate some blues/browns/greens in where we could. Don't get me wrong, there is a whole lot of pink and lilac, but hey, she is a girl after all :)



 

Thanks to my mom for the glider- part of her gift to use for the baby shower! The pink blanket on the chair was actually mine from when I was a baby - my mom saved so many of my things from when I was a child, and I am really grateful for it!

 



 

Speaking of things from my childhood - the two ceramic cats on the left were two other things that I found in some of my childhood boxes. We found these and bought some spray paint, and 4 coats later - voila -  silly, cute, colorful cats :) The vase was a gift from the South Bend Baby shower - Molly and her mom had all the guests write 'wishes' or words of wisdom for Samantha, its the perfect touch in the corner.

 

 

This looks really random - but it is a small wall between the door and the closet. This was a mirror that I found and we decided it would be fun to spray paint in the same green as one of the cats (and the storage bins). While I wish the mirror was a little bigger, I wasn't willing to shell out for a large mirror, knowing it would be covered up a majority of the time.

 

 

 

And lastly; Samantha's closet - YIKES- The poor girl already has as much clutter/stuff as her mom! For not even being born yet, its amazing how much 'stuff' she has. Stephen's friends threw him a diaper party last weekend, and we are so grateful for all of our friends who contributed to this awesome diaper stash :) Look how cute all of the clothes hanging up are, its hard to believe that she will even fit into some of them, they are so tiny!

 

 

 

PS - I added my 36 week photo to the 'growing baby bump' blog post below. I am 38 weeks and 2 days - to say the anticipation is killing me is an understatement! We just can't wait to meet Samantha! 

A look back on my pregnancy journey

I am 35 weeks pregnant! I never thought I would get here. I know I still have 5 weeks (give or take) to go, but thought I would recap some of my thoughts about pregnancy here.

Pros:

• Knowing that we are creating and growing our 1st child together
• Discovering that Stephen gives the BEST foot massages
• The generosity of our friends/family - Everybody is wanting/willing to help out where they can. Whether it was donating maternity clothes (Thanks Erin and Jennifer), offering their children's clothes/gear/toys (Thanks Beth, Sarah and Amie), coming to a shower (Thanks everybody), or offering to help with day to day tasks - It has been amazing to see!
• Eating dessert more often
• Not needing an excuse to NOT run :)
• Not spending money on shopping
• Bigger Boobs!

Cons:

• Sleep! I haven't been able to sleep through the night in 20 weeks. I know that everybody says 'get used to it'. However my hope is that once Samantha comes, I won't be in pain anymore, therefore, when I am able to sleep a few hours in between feedings, they will be solid/uninterrupted.
• CONSTANT peeing. I mean seriously - like every 1-2 hours.
• Expensive maternity clothes - you know I love a good deal, and let me tell you, there are NO good deals to be had when it comes to maternity clothes. They know that they can charge an outrageous amount and you have no choice but to fork it over.
• Not being able to buy new shoes - I really wanted some new fall boots a few weeks ago, so I went and tried some on. Not a good idea. Actually, like one of my worst ideas since being pregnant, so depressing.
• With that being said - swollen feet. I don't know what pregnant women in the winter do, none of my shoes fit. Thank goodness for flip flops.
• My patience is gone - I no longer have tolerance for stupidity or excuses. Its hard to be at work and bite my tongue....
• No wine
• No deli sandwiches (I pretty much lived on turkey sandwiches for the majority of my life)

Typical Pregnancy Symptoms - what I did and did not experience:

• Morning Sickness: I would get queasy and feel 'hung over' every evening in the first trimester, but only actually got sick one time.
• Loss of appetite: I definitely experienced this in the first trimester - nothing sounded good, (especially meat!) I lived on cereal and peanut butter and jelly. Stephen had to fend for himself because I never wanted to cook, I ended up losing about 7 lbs during that first few months.
• Cravings - Not really. I have been eating a lot of fruit, and more dessert than normal, but nothing that I 'need' to have.
• Being overly emotional: I think something is wrong with me - I am just not an emotional person. Some women complain about crying at the drop of the hat, overreacting, getting mad easily, etc - but I have been pretty normal (I think) through the entire pregnancy. Although, as I said earlier, my patience is gone now, but that's not really an emotional thing.
• Nesting: I am not sure I would call it 'nesting'. Yes, I have wanted the nursery to be complete, but its more of a taking it day by day thing. I have never had a huge urge to clean the house, as many of you know :) I do what needs to be done and clean about every other week or so. However anytime I ask Stephen to complete something in the house or nursery, he says "its your nesting..." No, I just want it done! :)
• Insomnia/Backaches/heartburn/charlie horses: Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. ugggg.
• Stretch marks: not yet, but I still have 5 weeks to go - most people say that theirs happened in the last few weeks, so this could change, but so far, so good.
• Pregnancy Brain: Nope, not yet