Nursery!

Mike finished the moulding today!!! So now the nursery is mostly finished!! I think I overdid it a bit with all the wall decals, so I just need to figure out which ones I like and which ones to take down.

I LOVVEEEE the cherry blossom tree behind the glider. But the quality sucks huge. It won't stay on the wall and I'm constantly having to put it back up.

Anyhow, it's FINISHED! Just some tweaking to be done. Like I'm also not so sure about the bear rug. It might look better in the guest room where the furniture is white. Also need to figure out what stays on the dresser.

K enough talking, here are some pics! (Apparently Mike wanted the name to be a secret, so he didn't want me to post pictures of the nursery with her name showing :) Though everyone who reads my blog probably already knows. However, we have made changes)





That's my awesome diaper bag down in the bottom left corner :) Thanks to my brother for sending it to me!

My Awesome Deals

Baby stuff costs a lot. And as I've mentioned in a previous post, I used to be pretty snotty about second hand stuff and shopping. Getting pregnant has completely changed my perspective on this :-) when I realized I could get exactly what I wanted in some barely used items for a much better price. Plus, I realized a lot of baby things are hardly used because they grow out of everything so fast and in some cases the babies never took to certain items.

I've been pretty proud of myself, I never imagined I'd use second hand items. As long as I can wash and lysol everything, I'm good to go now :-) I purchased most of these items by answering ads and purchasing them directly from the original owners.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this swing. I had registered for it and planned on purchasing it with my 10% discount at BRU where it retails for $150. And then I found this lady selling her barely used one for $50!!! Yup, awesome deal.



And this boppy. Oh my gosh am I in love with this!! I scored this for $10 and it retails for $50. It was in awesome, very very clean condition, and I friggin LOVE it!





I paid a little more than I wanted for this pack n play, but I had a hard time finding one in such good condition that was pretty gender neutral. This retails between $150-200 and I paid $60. It has all the awesome features with 3 vibration settings, 3 music and nature sound settings, with the removal bassinet and canopy. It's this tan with red and blue paisley print.



Now. This item has a funny story. I purchased it thinking that it was a baby sling. HA!! Baby things don't come labeled and I've never seen any of it before!! I had no clue. So I sat at home for two days trying to figure out how the heck to wear this, unzipping it and wrapping around my head, shoulders, it ended up around my waist, etc. I did a search for eddie bauer baby slings online to see if I could find a manual or at least a picture of it right? Maybe then I could figure it out. Well NOTHING looked like the one that I had purchased. I kept flipping it and flipping it, and suddenly it dawned on me. This is NOT a baby sling. It's a carseat cover!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my gosh. And I had been wearing it. lol I put it on the carseat to test out my new theory, and WA-LA! It fit! I took a picture and texted it to Mike, he pretty much laughed his butt off cuz he saw me walking around trying to wear this thing. Tee hee! I paid $3. No clue what it retails, $20 maybe?

Nursery

I painted the nursery yesterday, 2 tone, both coats finished. I used 0 voc paint, so I promise I wasn't breathing in harmful fumes! Mike wanted to hire someone to come and paint, but when I discovered 0 voc paint I got impatient and decided I just wanted to do it myself. It would be my first time ever painting a room, so it was a learning experience and I wanted to try!

I had a stressful week and thought painting might be therapeutic and fun, plus I'd have the accomplished feeling of knowing I did it myself! And I'm so glad I did!! It really was fun :) Now I might just have to go paint our purple bathroom something other than purple!! (I love the color actually, but it doesn't match the tile at ALL, plus Mike hates it. lol)

Anyway, when I was finished with the room, I wasn't so sure that I loved it. The beige turned out a little darker and the muave is more pinkish than mauvish and not as dark as I'd expected. It's so hard to base an entire room on one little sample card I suppose. And then I wondered if I should have painted the pink on top since it was pretty light.

I let it dry overnight and slept on it and went back in there this morning to check it out and decided I like it a little better. Probably seeing it in daylight helps a little. I think I like the pink on bottom regardless just because it's a little grown up and not so much cutesy overkill.

Here are my progression pictures! I definitely plan to do a chair rail in the middle.


We matched the sample squares to her bedding, and as you see it didn't quite turn out that way:




Phase 1:




Phase 2:

Taken last night with the flash (looks a little darker)


Taken this morning in natural daylight. (You'll have to excuse my photography skills :D lol)



I might like it a lot better once I get the chair rail installed and all her furniture put in.

I was pretty sore after I finished and my hands are killing me this morning. I might have pushed it a little too hard for being 8 months pregnant, but I wanted to get it done! lol

Here's my 8 month pic (34 weeks 4 days)

Crib

I was SO incredibly frustrated because I had ordered our crib and was told it would be shipped no later than May 30th. June rolls around and I realize I have not received a shipment notice so look up the shipping status to see that they've changed the ship out date to Nov 15th!!!! Ummmmm baby will be a couple months old by then!!! So I search online to see if anyone else has this crib so that I can order it, and everyone had it on backorder for November. I was SO frustrated because I'd ordered everything to go with it (toddler rail kit, mattress, custom size changing mattress, etc) all at once and it was over the 30 day return policy for every item. One company was very nice and allowed me to return the toddler rail kit and it cost me $25 to ship it back. I was pretty annoyed.

My mom and I got online a few days later and picked out another crib and nursery set, so I've had it in my queue to order as soon as we moved into the new house. Well Mike and I went to Babies 'R Us today and guess what they had out on the floor??? Yup, my crib!!! Which annoyed me further because when I'd looked online it said out of stock so I returned that stupid rail kit! Anyway, turns out we scored a great deal, so it all worked out!

They had one of them in the clearance section because it didn't have a box and apparently everything was an additional 25% off today. We got to the check out and I remembered that I also had a 20% off coupon! We TOTALLY got this awesome crib for $175 off!!! SCORE!!!!! And they agreed to hold it for us until the closing date, so this totally ended up working out. Except that now I'm out $25 with no toddler conversion rail kit.

HUGE relief to know I'll have a crib, and super awesome that I got a great deal on the one I'd originally ordered!

YAY!

Baby Shower

Yay!! I had the baby shower today and it was a ton of fun! The girls really did a great job!! I posted the entire album on facebook, so I'm only going to put a few on here.

K, so after I saw all the pictures, I sincerely wished I'd worn a cami under the dress!! AHH!


These are in totally random order.

Party favors sent home with everyone, very cute!!!


The Loot





Part of the group, didn't catch everyone before they started leaving.


My wonderful hostesses!


Me with the cake


Super yummy cake!


Opening gifts!






Measuring how big my tummy is!! lol She lost!


Some of the decorations.



28 weeks, 3 days

Thrifting!!!

Okay, I am SO proud of myself!!!! I stepped foot in not just one, but 3 thrift stores today. This is a big deal because I have never stepped foot in one in my entire adult life.

I actually kinda had fun! Okay well at the last one I did. Our consignment shop is a little creepy. It's so overcrowded, unorganized and a lot of the stuff just looks old. Then the next thrift shop actually had 3 buildings: clothes, stuff, furniture. I felt better in there than at the consignment shop, but the personnel frightened me and some of the stuff was dirty. Though they had a lot of "stuff" I didn't really find much. AND their prices were outrageous!! I was in shock. They did, however, have a maternity section and I found a top from motherhood maternity, so that was totally worth it.

My last stop was at a much bigger, much cleaner, much more organized store (and actually much cheaper!). I felt better about looking through the baby stuff there. I kept thinking I would never ever buy baby stuff from a second hand shop, having NO clue where it came from. I still agree with that on most baby items; however, I finally decided that with clothing I can super duper wash everything myself to be rid of icky germs. Maybe some of the baby books too, if I have time to sit there that long. All the other stuff can be left to others.

Anyway, they had onesies for $.50!! I only bought two and not to be snotty, but I only picked out the nicer brands (i.e. not walmart) and the obviously lesser used ones. I haven't seen these around town. I also found these adorable little shoes that I figured I could scrub and lysol to death :-) I was super excited about this!!





In other news, I made this baby set! I am currently knitting up a matching headband with a big huge white flower to also match!



And just for fun, my 20 week bump!