Thursday, April 18, 2013

Life as we know it...

     Everything is about to change and I really don't think we could be any more excited!  It's one of those changes that you just know is going to make your life that much more full and yet, at the same time, I don't think we have any idea just HOW much more full.  

This pregnancy has been hard, to say the least.  When I was pregnant with Kaden, it was so simple.  Very minimal morning sickness, not a lot of discomfort, mild heartburn at the end, went into labor early at 38 weeks... Not much to complain about!  Needless to say, this one has been the polar opposite.  If you google possible pregnancy symptoms, I have felt or experienced them all!  Maybe it's the fact that I am almost 9 years older, but dang, this body did not like pregnancy this time!  And here I am, at almost 39 weeks, very much pregnant and counting down until my induction next Monday.

I can't say it has been all bad.  I have loved every minute of feeling this sweet boy grow inside of me... yes even those soccer kicks he has been doing.  I have already fallen so in love with him.  He is such a miracle and a blessing to me.  I have spent a lot of my time getting ready for his arrival.  

Over the past 6 months or so I have kept myself busy getting his nursery ready.  Most call it nesting... Ben has said it's been more like beaver damming with the amount I have been doing! :)  I have loved every second of it.  Here is some of what I have been doing...

My mom and I painted the walls.  Never do stripes, especially if you are OCD and perfectionists like we are!  This was about enough to kill us both.  That being said, I am SOOO glad we did it!  I absolutely love how it turned out!  We learned a lot along the way though, that's for sure! 









One of my next projects was the changing table.  I had an old one in storage from when Kaden was a baby.  It was in pretty bad shape.  It was an antique when I bought it so it was really old and worn now!  I wish I would have gotten a better "before" pic but here is what I have.  I took off the nasty siding it had on it, cleaned it really well, went to home depot and bought bead board and nailed it on the sides with Ben's help.  Then repainted the whole thing and glued on some chevron ribbon.  Turned out pretty good!








I also decided to sew a new cover for the changing pad with some extra fabric I had

Next, I needing to do something for the shelves.  I found some great paper mache boxes at Hobby Lobby and decided to paint them and decorate them with ribbons and buttons





I also found a little wooden garbage can at Hobby Lobby and couldn't pass it up.  I painted it and wrapped it with ribbon as well


 Next, my dresser came in the mail.  And when I say it came in the mail, this means it basically came in a box in a million pieces.  Anyone who knows me well knows I actually like projects like this and love to put things together...well not this time!  This was basically a box of sawdust that I had to make into a dresser.  These pictures don't do it justice!  It seriously took me so long!  Luckily I had the best little helper around ;)





I painted a couple of picture frames, again from Hobby Lobby (I have been their BEST customer!) to put above his crib.  I plan on putting his newborn pics in these.  I'm still not happy with the green one, I think I need to lighten the paint a little bit.  It's a little more olive green than I was going for, I was going for a pale green.  We'll see if I get around to it!



THEN... the fabric arrived.  Oh BOY!  I have been going CRAZY with the fabric!  I have had so many fun ideas of things to make.  I was so excited that I made a car seat cover THE SAME DAY the fabric showed up!  I was so proud of myself though because this was a first for me.  It definitely had some tweaking and adjusting I had to do, but I am so happy with the end result!





 I ended up moving the straps multiple times to get the zipper to open up to the right place.  I also didn't realize how hard the "M" would be to see so I lined it with some grey piping to make it more visible.  


I found a cute pattern at, once again, Hobby Lobby and instantly decided I had to make it for a picture outfit.  I have since bought two others from Etsy, so I guess we will have to take LOTS of pics.  But here is the one I made...
It's hard to see in the pic, but it will go on him like a little bean.  The hat is so cute when it is actually on! 

Here is the one binky clip I have made so far... I have about 3 more to make with extra scraps of fabric from the bedding 


Here are the curtains I made.  I used the shear ones we already had in the room and just put a blue panel behind them to make the room a little darker for nap time :)


This one was a fun project, one of my favorites.  When I was searching Pinterest I came across this stroller bag.  It snaps onto the handles of the stroller but then also has a long strap that unfolds when you want to use it as a bag to carry.  I absolutely loved this idea!  I love how the chevron and green turned out!




 THEN, finally, for the mother of all projects.  I designed this bedding on a site called carousel that you can choose from hundreds of fabrics.  I put together the fabrics I wanted and order them.  I was tempted to just order it to be made custom by the company but it would have been over $400.  Now I can see why!  This project took 3 straight days and 3 generations of "seamstresses" to complete.  We stayed up so late each night to finish this.  I am SOO grateful to my mom and nana for helping me with this.  I never could have done it without them!  It was so fun to have nana help with a project like this... this was what she loved to do when she was younger.  

We started with the bed skirt.  Cutting everything out was the worst part!  For such expensive fabric, it was AWFUL to work with.  






Then onto the bumpers... these were surprisingly fun to do... a pain, but fun








I didn't get any pics of making the sheets but here is the finished project!






Oh, and I also put some fabric scraps that were left over on letters of his name to hang above the closet



Here are some pics of the nursery all put together!  I love it! Can't wait to sit in this room and rock this little bug!






It has been so much fun for me to put this nursery together!  Can't wait until he is here to squeeze!!