Window Dressing

Greta's window treatment. Roman shade with ribbon and a simple valance.

Gettin' into the swing of things

We held off on buying a swing to see what Greta would like. It turns out Greta loves to swing. It will almost always quiet her down in the evenings. Problem was, her poor daddy's arms were getting quite tired swinging the carseat so I investigated our swing options. My first thought was to get one at a resale shop. Since swings are quite expensive from the get-go used ones are also expensive. Our local shop had one for 69.99. Before purchasing I wanted to make sure it was a good swing so I researched it. It did have good reviews but a new one could be had for only 20 dollars more. Why buy used when you can get new? I then found that this years model also got good reviews and could be battery powered or wired vs only battery powered. Further research revealed that Babies R Us had the new model for 119, Walmart for 109 and Target for 89. Well Target was the clear winner but I really wanted to get it at Walmart since we had a gift card for there. After reading Target's website more closely it was actually on sale in the weekly ad and Walmart will price match competitors ads! We got it for 89 from Walmart and were able use our gift card saving us significant bucks. Greta is now happily swinging away, staring up at the moving mobile and enjoying the relaxing tunes.

Nursery

(Click on the pictures for more detail.)

View from Door of Nursery. The picture on the left was made by my grandmother.

Left hand side of nursery. Her diaper bag and car seat all ready to go.


Right hand side of nursery. The pack and play in the corner will move to our room and my new chair will sit there. The quilt in the corner was made by Aunt Julie. Rebecca, I was inspired by your diaper supply shelf to have Graham put up one for us!

Her massive wardrobe. The closet extends another 2 feet to the left and that area is PACKED.

Peanut - This is a bear I crocheted. Instead of having feet the bottom of the bear becomes a blanket so she can cuddle the bear and cover up at the same time. His name is Peanut because before I had his eyes, nose, ears and muzzle sewn on he looked like a hairy peanut (according to Jack & Graham.)

Blanket I crocheted. I really liked the bright yarn and made up my own pattern.

Sweater set for next winter. There is a matching bonnet and matching slippers.

Crocheted dress and headband for next spring.

Close-up of the quilt.

Chair

With 5 days to go we finally bought a chair for the nursery. My main goal was to find a good quality chair that would also work in our bedroom as that is the intended location once I no longer need a comfy chair in the nursery. We went to La-Z-Boy last weekend to see what they had and found one we liked but waited until this weekend to buy it as they were having a big Labor Day sale. We ended up getting the in-stock color they had since it was cheaper and we could have it within a week rather than having to wait 8-10 weeks for them to make it. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures of it once we actually have it in the nursery.

I thought I wanted a chair and ottoman combo but couldn't find a chair that was comfortable. I really like this recliner because it's supportive but on the petite side so it doesn't overwhelm the space and it fits me well rather than being a huge recliner built for a big guy. Also the arms are a good height for holding the baby and nursing. Lastly, it does rock so if she likes that I'll have a chair in the nursery for rocking her.

Long overdue & Long winded

Since it's been a while since I last posted anything of substance I have a feeling this will be long. Consider yourself warned! :-)

Vacation
Our mini vacation at the lake was nice but boy did it make all of us really miss the beach. There's nothing like not getting to go your usual vacation spot to show how much you really enjoy it. I think all of us are sad that we won't get to go this year but we are all looking forward to next year when our newest addition will be joining us. If we go our usual time, September, she will be around 1! Our accommodations were nice but not so nice that I would buy a place there. These town homes were selling for 400K and on up and the craftsmanship left a lot to be desired. Also, the appliances in the unit were base level appliances and since we saw these same appliances in other town homes it must be their standard. If I was paying that much for a 3 Bed, 3 1/2 Bath town home I would really want something more top of the line. We really didn't do too much. Daddy played golf 3 times and Jack played with him once while the rest of us took it easy and enjoyed reading and the swimming pool. Graham and I went fishing a few times and he almost caught one. A fish came after his bait right as he was reeling it in. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures to post - I completely forgot about taking any. We did have several funny things happen on vacation.

1. The people we rented from are also trying to sell their unit. (550K if anyone is interested). On Thursday I noticed flashes in the hallway from the sun like someone had shut a car door outside. I thought maybe it was daddy returning from his golf game. Then we heard someone at the door. Momma walked down the hallway to be greeted by a Realtor who was surprised to see us there. She said her MLS listing showed the unit as unoccupied. She asked if she could show it and Momma told her it wasn't ours and that we were renting. I guess the Realtor figured it probably wouldn't be nice to impose on us and it's probably a good thing as we are fairly neat on vacation but not "show a home" neat. A few days later we had a lady walk right in when Graham was in the hallway and he asked if he could help her, she yelled sorry and ran out of the door. I'm guessing she was another Realtor. (Just to be completely honest, I had to try several spellings to get the right one for Realtor. :-P )
2. On our first night in Seneca we drove down to Clemson to eat at a place called Calhoun Corners. According to the information in our town house it was rated a really good upscale place to eat. We had no clue what to expect and it was good, and quite upscale. After the salad course the server brought out little dishes of lemon sorbet. I wish you could have seen the look on my dad's face. Momma and informed him it was a palate cleanser between courses. Although it tasted really good Graham said he couldn't eat it as it was too weird to have something that tasted like dessert before the main course.
3. As we were driving back from the above restaurant we hit a major rainstorm. We rolled up to the gate where we were staying (it's a gated community at night) and I punch in the code. Nothing worked. I try and try and try and cannot get it to work. We were about call the people we were renting from when daddy came around to try the code. Evidently water has splashed up on the keypad making the bottom three numbers not particularly sensitive. He had to push incredibly hard to make them react. I was quite glad we didn't have to sleep outside the gate that night.
   

Pregnancy
As I said before my GTT really did a number on my blood sugar but I have now recovered and am feeling much better. I haven't heard anything back from the Dr's office and it's been almost 2 weeks so I'm hoping that is a good sign. On July 17th I go back to the maternal-fetal specialist to have another Level 2 U/S to check the placenta and on the 19th I have my regular OB appt. I'm crossing my fingers that all will be well.

Work
Work has been crazy. I have been putting in some incredibly long hours (for me) trying to get a project done. Working those hours has just left me zapped but I think that project has wrapped up and hopefully life will be back to normal. Thus far I haven't felt the need to cut back my hours further and should I continue to feel as good as I have thus far in my pregnancy I plan to work right up until delivery.

Nursery
Now that our nursery is painted we are slowly but surely getting stuff put in there. We've taken down both of the twin beds which Graham's parents will use for guest room beds until we need them back again. They are currently still stored in the nursery but we plan to take them over to his parents house tonight when we go for dinner. Graham bought the dresser on Monday and brought it home on Tuesday. Since we had Wednesday through Friday off he worked on it to get it stained and polyurethaned and we moved it into the nursery today. It came with plain wooden knobs but I plan to use these knobs instead. I just need to order them as our local hardware stores want an arm and leg for them. Can I just say I love shopping on the internet?

Momma, Daddy and my grandmother bought our bassinet/pack and play and that arrived on Tuesday and is now set up. I still need to wash the sheet that goes over the mattress but other than that it's ready to go. I was also excited to see that a few items have been purchased off of my registry. Most notably is my car seat! :-)

Birthdays
Graham and I both celebrated our Birthdays the last week of June along with our anniversary. I told Graham I really wanted a nice watch for my birthday/anniversary. I haven't had one for a while, mainly because the type of watch I wanted was more than I wanted to spend except for as a gift. I gave him my qualifications (silver tone, a scratch resistant crystal, preferably a citizen eco-drive) and he went to work. He did a bunch of research and found 3 he thought I would like. He very nicely offered to let me view them to see what I thought and I'm glad he did as one of the watches was not exactly what I wanted. I told him to pick from the remaining two and on my birthday I got to wear it. I've very much enjoyed having a watch again and it's exactly what I wanted. He did a great job. It's basically this watch without the diamonds.

For Graham's birthday I planned a trip. He has mentioned so many times that he would like to go to the zoo or aquarium. Next weekend, after his cousin's wedding on Saturday, we will leave for Atlanta and stay at a hotel in Buckhead. On Sunday I have tickets to the zoo and on Monday we have tickets (along with my parents) to the aquarium. I haven't really planned out anything else except that we'll eat at the Cheesecake Factory. We really didn't go anywhere special for our anniversary so this will be our anniversary dinner.

Other odds and ends
I've enjoyed my time off this week by working on a crochet project for our newest addition as well as birth announcements. I found some really cool scrapbooking cardstock at Hobby Lobby that I cut into 6x6 squares. I've punched holes in each one for green coordinating ribbon I tied at the top. Once the baby makes her arrival I'll print out the details on white 4x4 cardstock and then glue it onto the 6x6 squares, pop in an envelope, and I am good to go. I spent a lot of time today going over who I need to send announcements to. Right now I am at 70 and plan to make extras just in case. Thankfully I already have 52 done and they really didn't take that long. The other nice thing was almost everything I needed to complete this project was on sale at Hobby Lobby this week! I still need to find/make envelopes, address them, and get stamps.

Well I think that about wraps it up. Congrats if you made it through the whole thing!

Paint Color

Here's a screen shot of the color we chose as shown by the Behr website. I think this chip makes it look browner than it is. It's actually a very pretty green. The name of the color is rejuvenate. Hopefully it will make the baby feel peaceful and well rested :-)

Cheap is good, free is better!

I've been searching for inexpensive nursery furniture since day 1. I've heard of people going all out and buying gorgeous heirloom furniture and I would love to be able to do that but finances don't really permit us to do that and do anything else we might want to do. I figure the baby could care less how expensive the crib is so I figured I would settle for something nice. Even so, cribs are expensive! I really wanted a natural wood crib stained in a light honey color (but not yellowish). About a month ago Graham's Uncle called to offer us their old crib. His children are both in elementary school so they won't be needing it anymore. The only downside - it's white. I battled internally for a little while as I really didn't want white but how can you say no to free? We went to look at the crib and it's very nice, has modern safety features, and is actually a very expensive brand (bellini). All we'll have to do is purchase the mattress. As a bonus it has the one thing I really wanted - a drawer in the bottom for storing linens. It also converts to a toddler bed (but not beyond that).

Bellini "Katie" Crib (This picture was one on sale on eBay for 350 - Used!)

After our score in the crib department I was also hoping for something similar in regards to a changing table. Unfortunately I couldn't find free and I could find cheap but the quality was so poor I couldn't bring myself to even consider those. Graham was kind enough to offer to finish a piece from Wood You so that we could get a nice piece of furniture inexpensively. We've had really good luck with them in the past and I had actually considered doing this for a changing table but hadn't brought it up as I'm usually the finisher of furniture and I know it's not his favorite task. We haven't purchased it yet but plan to sometime early this summer. We decided to go with a dresser vs. changing unit as we'll get more long term use out of the piece.

Changing Table/Dresser - We'll probably choose a finish close to this color. ($279 plus staining supplies)

The only other piece I'm hoping to add is a Chair and Ottoman. I don't want a nursery glider - more like a club chair and ottoman. I plan to pick out something neutral so that I can move it to my bedroom as a reading chair once baby is no longer nursing. Hopefully since the other furniture was such a good price we can get a nice chair. I looked at the ones at Babies R Us but they had awful reviews. Many people said the chairs started out nice but after 6 to 9 months the springs started popping out. These sets retail for 400+. I'd rather pay a little more and get something that is good quality. Jack and Julie have a really nice large club chair and ottoman set from La-Z-Boy so I may look there.