Extreme Makeover: Nursery Edition Part II

After K helped me clear out the room, I cleaned the floor and walls and then sat. I had no idea what I wanted to do in the way of theme.  I really  hate the color pink, and whenever you look at girl nursery stuff, its pink. I figured I had to suck it up, choose the lightest possible shade of pink to work with, and then pick some other colors to go along with it. I love pink and grey together, so that was an easy one. I added brown in just because it was one of the colors of a comforter I had that I was using to cover my rocker/glider. Plus, I like pink and brown together. So I had colors, pink, grey, and brown. Sounds kind of odd, but actually is pretty together!

I also knew that I wanted to incorporate butterflies. Every nursery set I looked at with butterflies though was a bright pink, and had other colors like purple, green, yellow, blue, etc. I wasn't diggin it. I decided to just piece together a butterfly nursery myself.

Our crib was actually M's crib from when he was a baby that his mom has kept all these years. When we first picked it up, we were hesitant. It was broke on one end, had turned a yellowish color from age, and had some big glue-like stains on it that I couldn't wash off. We knew we had to repaint it, but really didn't want to have to sand the whole thing and paint it by hand. So we found some spray paint at Lowe's that we could just put over the old stuff (nothing like cutting corners!). I sanded some spots, especially the stained parts, and M sprayed the crib. It made a world of difference!

The part behind is the new painted one, the front one is the old one

I then bought just a plain light pink sheet for the crib, and a brown breathable bumper. I made a mobile that I saw on Pinterest, and hung that up.

Yes, I know its the dangerous drop-down, but I actually like that!

Tutorial

I had some butterfly mirrors from my old office still, so I added them to the wall.

My mom and I went shopping for curtains, and found some really pretty light pink ones, and a white rod that has butterflies on the end! 

I painted the little desk under the window with a pearly white (which you can see in the pic above) and painted the sides brown with pink butterflies and gray "branches". I moved the the set of drawers over next to the changing table/dresser (that K gave me!) and covered it with an old white sheer curtain and pinned the corner up with a butterfly pin. 

K made gray and pink poms that were hung at my baby shower, and I hung them above the changing table in the corner. I had Pumpkin paint his feet and made a butterfly out of them to hang above the changing table, and once Peanut gets here, I will do her's also. I also got 2 small coat racks from Wal-Mart and hung them on the wall to hold all of her hats and headbands.

I had a friend of mine's sister, who is an amazing artist, paint a wall quote on canvas for me that I hung above the window. 

"Never settle for less than butterflies"

The closet was another obstacle! I was actually able to clean it out, but I only get half. The other half has our gun safe in it, so I bought a tension rod and put that up between the gun safe and the wall so that I would still have all the room. I then made little dividers to help keep the size of the clothes organized.

To make them, I just used the flaps off of a cardboard box, cut the circle for the rod about an inch into it, and covered them with some scrap-booking paper. Simple and easy and helps me stay a little more organized! 

I put my rocker/glider covered with an old down comforter and duvet cover in the corner.

That is my scrapped together butterfly themed nursery! I am really happy with it, even though there is quite a bit of pink. At least its a light pink! I can't wait to use it!

Did you buy your nursery decor or did you scrap one together like me?

Extreme Makeover: Nursery Edition Part I

Setting up the nursery is one of the really fun exciting things most people look forward to. I was really excited about this also, but a little hesitant.

You see, we have a 3-bedroom house. Our room, Pumpkin's room, and the "guest" room, or better known as the catch all. Our house doesn't have much in the way of storage space. We have the closets in the rooms, a closet that holds our hot water heater, and a coat closet, that is pretty small. We also have a laundry room, but it holds our washer and dryer, and a couple other random things. That's about it. I like to try to give M the garage for his stuff, since he does work on a lot of things out there. The crawl space has just dirt flooring, and no shelves, so its hard to put things down there, especially when we get a lot of moisture and it turns the dirt into mud (which happened last spring, ugh). Also, I won't go down into the crawl space because of the possibilities of spiders, so it isn't a great place for me to store things.  So, the guest room turns into the catch all.

Have something that you don't know where to put it? The guest room. You use something every 6 months and don't want to have to go down into the crawl space to get it? The guest room. Don't feel like actually putting that away where it belongs? The guest room. So, it didn't take long and our guest room looked like this:

Looking straight in from the door, under the window

Diagonally right from the door

Immediate right from door

Left-ish from door

Yep, its a mess. I was actually pretty lucky to get the door open all the way! And now you see why I was hesitant to start the nursery! What was I going to do with all this crap stuff?! The reason it was in this room in the first place was because we didn't know what to do with it already. It overwhelmed me. And was so much easier to just close the door and pretend it wasn't there. 

But I couldn't do that, or Peanut wouldn't have a room. Not that she will spend much time in there in the beginning anyways, but its just something you have to do. So, I enlisted the help of K, and we got to work. We were able to throw a lot of the stuff away. The big things, like the extra stroller, TV and stuff, went into the garage for M to deal with. We got the bed taken down, and friend N & B took it. Another friend took the dresser for her brother's kid. The clothes got given back to who they belonged to, the bows put in our room under the bed in our closet. The set of drums broke down and got stored in our coat closet. I left the desk thing under the window, and the little set of drawers with the lamp stayed also. It was amazing how much we got done, and how good it looked! I could actually see the floor!!!

Did you have a room that was easily turned into a nursery? Or was the room you were going to use a catch all like ours?

Ready But Not

I'm ready for Peanut to come, like last week, but I'm not ready. There are a couple things that have to be done before Peanut can come. And no, they aren't on my crazy cleaning list!

I packed our hospital bag today with our clothes. Its just a start to what needs to go in there, but it has to get done so I can put it in the car. The clothing items I packed for me were:

• Sweatpants
• Nursing tank
• 3 pair of socks
• Slippers
• 3 pair of boy short underwear (although I will probably just wear the ultra sexy ones that the hospital supplies for you)
• Zip up sweater

I will be packing a nursing bra also, but the one I got is already too small, so I have to take it back and get a bigger size!

For M, I packed just the basics also:

• Sweatpants
• Sweatshirt
• Jeans
• 2 t-shirts
• 2 pair of underwear
• 3 pair of socks

He will probably want his slippers too, but I won't pack those because he wears them every night. I'll put them on the list of things to grab though. 

I also threw in some cards, a couple movies, and put our books on the list of things to grab, just so that if we have some down time at all, we can have some things to do. 

Pumpkin and I are going to go shopping tomorrow for the rest of the things I need to pack. Those include:

• Travel toothpaste
• Travel toothbrushes
• Travel shampoo and conditioner
• Travel face wash
• Mini lotion
• Nursing bra

I'm not going to buy any pads at this point. I am going to see how many I can get from the hospital, which may be enough to last me for the heaviest bleeding, then I can just buy some thinner ones when I need them. I don't want to waste the money on buying them right now when I may not even need them. 

I will also make a list of things to remember to grab, like our phone chargers, M's slippers, camera (if for some reason its not in my purse still), and our books, etc. 

Yes, I still need to pack Peanut's diaper bag with her coming home outfit, blanket, hat, etc. I need to install her car seat this week, make arrangements for the animals, and do some cooking that I can freeze (which is my project for this coming weekend with friend K).

Am I forgetting anything?! What did you pack, or plan to pack, for the hospital? Is there anything really important or useful that I am blanking out?

36 Wks

I am 36 wks now. I can't believe it, but I am so ready to be done!

I had an ultrasound yesterday to see how big Peanut was measuring. There isn't a lot of room in there, so getting good pictures was hard, but I did get 2 that are pretty cute!

Fingers!

Chubby cheeks!!!!

She sure does have some chubby cheeks! She is measuring a little big right now, weighing in at about 6 lbs 8 oz. It is said that babies gain about 1/2 a lb a week from here on out, so that would put her at about 8 lbs in 3 wks, the date of my possible induction. 8 lbs isn't bad, but I would rather have her right now at 6 lbs 8 oz! 

It was really fun to get to see her again, since we haven't had an ultrasound in so long. But it makes me want her even more now! I am ready to kiss and snuggle into those big cheeks ;) I am also ready to be comfortable again, and sleep... well, sleep until she wakes up! 

The Great Debate Part III

Cold feet and a baby shower.

I'll just say it now, then explain. I am not going to cloth diaper.

For one, I got cold feet. Yes, the savings in the end is huge, and I would LOVE to save that kind of money, but in honesty, we don't have the money to jump in. The initial lump sum is something that we just don't have. And if we are going to be spending that kind of money, I want to know that we are 100% for sure about what we are getting. Because I have never used, or even seen anyone that uses, cloth diapers, I am not comfortable spending money on it. What if I end up hating it? What if we get going, and then something comes up, like I go back to work and daycare won't take cloth diapers? Then we cloth at home and disposable at daycare? That doesn't even make sense to spend money on both diaper ways. I just can't bring myself to spend the money, when I have so many questions and doubts still.

I also had my baby shower (more on that later!), and got.... diapers! A diaper cake, 2 boxes of diapers, and a package of diapers. I could use the diapers in the beginning, and then switch to cloth, but I have a feeling that once I get in the grove of diapers again, and how easy disposables are, I won't switch.

I am sad that I won't get to use those cute cloth diapers, but I feel comfortable in my decision to stick with disposables. I know what I am getting into, and don't have to fork over a lot of money, that we don't have, to get started with it.

Were you set on one diaper way and then switch to another?