Some Finishing Touches

The weekend of the baby showers, my mom finished up the nursery by adding the safari border to the wall-papered wall, a lamp that was actually mine when I was young (but is now updated with a cute "abc" fabric on it) and having Jim and my dad hang this uber-adorable valence above the window (might I add there was actually NO fighting while hanging this valence..may be a first for g.g. and Pops)! It has lions and elephants on it and the bottom is the "abc" material used on the lamp.
This week Jim and I did some major shopping to Target and Babies R Us to add some finishing touches to the nursery. We needed a mattress to put in the crib (helpful) along with some other items. I did a load of laundry to get all of his essentials (i.e. sheets, mattress pads, clothes to come home in) that say "wash before use" all cleaned up for him Saturday night (fun, no, but yes, productive night). I was afraid of the "Wrath of Jan" so I ironed the dust ruffle for the bedding this morning after giving Easton breakfast -- which lead to me ironing the sheets -- WHO IRONS SHEETS!?! I must admit, I kept thinking I was going crazy and told myself it was stupid to do, but I HAD to get the wrinkles out of at least the sheet that would be the top layer -- can you say "nesting?" Maybe he won't make it to being induced - ahhhh, scary! We read somewhere to do a few layers of sheet-mattress pad-sheet to help make bed changes easier in middle of the night -- hopefully it works! Here is a pic of the bedding all put together (a crib looks so much nicer w/o baby clothes all over it)! Don't worry people, the quilt and bumper will be promptly removed when he starts sleeping in there, just looks so darn cute right now. Did you know, having a fan running anywhere in the nursery and all bumpers and quilts removed from the crib has shown a reduction of SIDS cases by 90%? SOLD, consider them gone! We got a mesh bumper for later to keep the airflow moving but keep his arms/hands inside the crib and have some sleep Halos to try out too.

The decor turned out awesome! We added some shelving, which is now the proud home to the giraffe bank Aunt Kris got Peanut, a stork and Curious George from Amanda. Laura S. hooked him up with the lion, monkey and elephant for the wall above the dresser -- thanks ladies! PS -- I got some turtles in there on the dresser, no worries ;-)

The changing table wall features a longer shelf with a bank, music box and clown decoration from my nursery and the frame to hold a newborn pic and his ID bracelet from the hospital. The diaper changing station has been all set up but I'm sure we'll have some tweaking to do when we start to figure things out!

Now all we need is a Peanut to fill this stuff up -- but we're both OK with him waiting until closer to his due date so we can get a few extra nights of shut eye ;-) Less than 3 weeks!

Nursery Part 2

Last weekend my mom and sister came up to try and finish up the nursery. Kristen slaved over the baseboards while Mom hung wallpaper over the ugly cork wall...it looks amazing! The wall got finished (minus the border, which has to wait for wallpaper to dry), baseboards cleaned/painted, door/window frames painted and carpet cleaned...what a busy 24 hours! Great job ladies, I know Peanut will love his room when he gets here (hopefully not until mid-March) and we owe you!

Here's the wall -- kind of hard to see but the yellow wall color really brought out the yellow in the paper.

Easton decided it was too much to handle, so he took a nap (mostly) under the bed :-) What a silly puppy!

After Mom and Kristen left, Jimmy had an itching to put together some furniture -- but he had explicit instructions to wait until Wednesday at least so the carpet would be all the way dry. He was actually able to hold off until Wednesday night when he put together the IKEA purchases -- the changing table (left) and the step-up storage bins (right). The glider/ottoman his mom bought us (see below) was put together the next night (so comfy)!

The weather in Chicago was horrible on Friday and school was cancelled for me (early Winter break, but one extra maternity day of leave I have to take now, oh darn -- it was a much needed day off after Thursday's hard lockdown and lunch room fiasco at school)! Jimmy stayed home too, but he actually had to work (sucker)! So Saturday was the big day -- dresser and crib day. Again, he did most of the work while I supervised. I did attempt to put together the drawers for the dresser, but the manufacturer (Carter's) had the grooves off by just a smidgen -- enough that I couldn't get them together -- after leaving a message (which I'm sure won't be returned) with the manufacturers), some brut force from Jim got the bottom boards on them and we finished it (3 hours later). It looks great though and I love that the drawers actually "dip down" so a kid can't easily pull them out to climb them. After a lunch/stress break, we decided we might as well push on through and assemble the crib -- SO MUCH EASIER!!! I think it took us about 30 minutes for the crib, so we were relieved and got to see the whole room come together!

And I thought this picture was just too funny -- Easton was BEAT from all the hard work Jim did putting the nursery together, so he had to take a nap -- what a life and with no inhibitions! Easton was actually very curious as to what we were doing all weekend in the room and spent some time getting cozy on his new bed in the nursery's doorway while we worked...I think he now believes he is the guardian of that room :-)

Nursery Under Construction -- Part 1

Gma Jan came in over her Fall Break to start working on the nursery. The people that lived here before us had turned that room into a walk-in closet, so it was sad to see it leave, but the space is needed. The hardest part is that one wall is completely covered in cork-board, so it's been a challenge to figure out how to best cover its ugliness up. We went with 2 coats of primer, sizing and a wallpaper liner. If that stays up, wallpaper w/ pastel 2in. by 2in. checks and a safari border it will be on that wall only. The other 3 walls will stay this yellow-orange color Jim found (looks more yellow during the day and almost Tennessee orange at night).