sweet P's nursery

I'm so excited about this post! I've been dying to have the nursery area for baby #3 complete for months and its finally done! So much sewing and painting and trying to make good use of the limited space we have...but I think it turned out really darling :)

As already mentioned, the babe will be living in our bedroom for the first little while. We moved our bed to the other side of the room to clear space for an area that could be all hers. At the foot of our bed is another little area with a rocker.

I really wanted the space to
1. go with our bedroom decor and not scream "baby".
2. be simple, elegant, and bright.
3. be relaxing and feel comfortable.

Charlotte was born in February, and I think that having her birthday so close to Valentine's Day somehow got me into the pinks and reds. I LOVED embracing the pink, especially because she was my first daughter. This time around, I'm tuning down the "super-girly" and going for more gender neutral colors: yellow, mint/turquoise, grey, and cream. Not only does it blend into our bedroom perfectly but I just love how sweetly the colors come together.

So, the changing table. It's really an old desk turned into a changing table. I got this tan and gold trimmed beauty at a yard sale nearly two years ago. It got neglected and gathered dust because I never got around to painting it. Eventually it came out of the garage and became our junk desk. It was an eyesore but I couldn't let go of the charming aura it gave :) When we found out we were having a baby, I was finally motivated to give it a makeover!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

 I had never painted a piece of furniture before, and this project got me HOOKED. I wanted to paint every thing in our house afterwards, haha...

We decided on a pretty mint color, changed the knobs, and spray-painted the handles and legs an off-white. I also made a changing pad cover- I love how it turned out since it was my first time sewing one. 3/4 of it is minky and the head portion is the same fabric I used for the crib.

I also added some cute floral patterned baskets for storage- wipes, diapers, lotions/oils, and a hamper for dirty clothes underneath.

You may notice the wipe warmer on top. I always read that wipe warmers are un-necessary or whatever, but for the $2 I paid for it at DI it is TOTALLY worth it- especially when you're babe gets middle of the night diaper changes and you want them to STAY asleep :) I've kept that handy warmer for all of my kids and I pretty much love it.

The mirror above the table has a lot of sentimental value to me. It was my grandmother's that she gave to me once when I was visiting. She got this antique gold mirror at some auction and over the years thought it was ugly. I told her I would paint it over and it would be beautiful- she said "Go for it!" So I painted it yellow (the happiest of colors!) and hung it in our living room for a long time. After my grandma passed away I moved it to the baby's wall and this seemed much more significant. A small piece of Grandma to watch over our little one...

The drawers are filled with clothes for our little miss. Oh, to have these girly baby clothes again...brings back so many memories of dressing up Charlotte! I know C is excited to help me get the baby dressed each day, too.

I love how the binky clips turned out. We are a binky family- our kids love them. As a side note, however, Charlotte is now BINKY-FREE! It just sort of happened. She was biting through all her binkies and getting a rash on her chin from the drool that would pool at the bottom...I know, gross. I decided we were done, and luckily she handled it like a champ! (all things considered...)

The crib is the same crib we had before- with a new coat of paint! I sewed the crib sheet and ruffly skirt. They were big projects but they saved me SO much money and fit my "vision" perfectly :)

Multiple people have told me that yellow is the most stress-inducing color for babies to process...whether this is true or not, I tried to keep the yellow to a minimum and have mostly turquoise and grey in the bed. I REALLY like how the fabrics came together :) And I love the geometric prints- who knew hexagons could be so adorable?

I wanted to put something simple and sweet over the crib. So I opted for a first initial with a cute chiffon bow and paper circle garland. Yes, her name begins with P!

With my extra fabric I sewed some pillow covers. The basket-weave pillow is my favorite!

The quilt on the crib was actually the last thing I did for this room. I just had a TON of leftover fabric from this room and Charlotte's, plus a few more from previous projects. I thought I'd cut it all up into tiny squares and see how much I got...well, I got nearly 500 squares. This quilt was much more time-consuming than I intended...but I LOVE it. It adds the perfect touch to her bed, and all the random squares and prints are so fun! I like that even though I didn't buy these fabrics together, they go together perfectly.

I was determined to keep our old rocker that I used for rocking our other two babies. When I bought it years ago it was gently used, so you can imagine the wear and tear it has accumulated (stains, torn seams, broken zipper, and just generally ugly)... but, it's SO comfy and I knew I could save it somehow! With the help of a tutorial sent by a friend, I was able to make a cover for it- and oh, how much prettier it is now!

Let me just note how much I HATED this project. The entire time I felt as if I was doing it wrong, and I did make a ton of mistakes...but luckily, I was able to cover them up and pretend like I know what I'm doing. The side panels were a bit on the short side so I added the ruffles to give some length. This mistake I was actually grateful for because I think the ruffles add a little somethin somethin. The fabric was also a steal (thank you coupons and in-store sales) and though I didn't think I'd have enough I ended up with extra- enough to make a pillow for the crib! Love it when that happens.

At one point during the making of this cover, I had a breakdown and told Jonathan it was stupid and I was stupid and the world was stupid. haha. (pregnancy hormones, maybe?) He made me take deep breaths and took over with measuring and figuring out a pattern. He is amazing. I love it when he helps me with my projects- it's good to have someone with a sensible, fresh perspective.

After it all came together, I took a deep breath and realized that I can do hard things. haha. Now whenever I walk into the room, seeing the chair makes me happy. I can't wait to sit there and rock our new little miss to sleep in it.

We have hard bamboo floors in our bedroom and I wanted to soften up the floor space a bit. This light grey rug was purchased from rugsusa.com at 70% off just like the other two :) I LOVE it. It's soft and squishy and perfect for some baby-rolling action.

We painted our two night stands the same mint color as the desk and put one beside the rocker to hold nursing supplies, spit up rags, etc. And of course my must-have essential item for pretty much everything- coconut oil! Great for nursing and rubbing all over baby :)

And that's it! I'm grateful that even in our tiny house we managed to make a special space for baby. It took a ton of time to prepare.. but it's always worth it to me to take the extra effort in making/sewing things myself. Our room feels much more meaningful now- we just need to add a baby to it! ;)

We have ONE week left until my "due date". It's going to be one insanely busy week but also lots of fun- how could it not be? Halloween is the best! :)

Cinderella & Spiderman

This year, I am just way too pregnant to be making costumes for the kids (my due date is 4 days after Halloween!).

At least, that is what I've been telling myself. It turns out that even after having the pre-made costumes in hand, I still had to bust out the ol' sewing machine to alter the sizes and then track down accessories. Blah. Oh well. :)

Charlotte of course wanted to be a princess. Probably any princess would have made her happy- but she particularly loves Frozen and Cinderella (or, as she would say, "Fwozen!" and "Cinderwel-la-la!") We went to Target and the Cinderella dress was 40% off, plus I figured that EVERY other little girl was going to be dressed up as Elsa or Anna this year. I held up both options and she picked Cinderella- whew! Plus, I have to admit that the Cinderella dress was a ton more sparkly and poofy and just altogether adorable.

I always like to take some fun Halloween costume pictures of the kids to really "get into character". :) For Cinderella we pulled out some pumpkins (if only I could magically turn one into a carriage- darn!), vines, and a few of her little Cinderella toys for kicks.

It's been raining EVERY day here lately but there were a few breaks in the clouds today that allowed us some picture-taking time. Still, the ground was soaking wet so I had miss princess sit her royal tush on a blanket. It worked out just fine!

 This is her "Oh no- it's midnight!" face ;)

In the bottom right picture, she is pointing to Talmage who was watching from the kitchen window. haha.

For accessories I added a silver sparkly ribbon headband and "choker" on her neck just like Cinderella wears. And what's a cute outfit without a big bow? :)

I just love these "Where's my shoe?" pictures. Too bad we don't own a pair of glass slippers!

I gotta thank my husband for those shots, since I really struggled laying flat on the ground to take them :) It's sort of challenging to be a nearly 9 month pregnant photographer...

For Talmage, it was easy. Again, OR SO I THOUGHT. After all he already had a Spiderman costume that he was obsessed with since his birthday in April. My mom got it for him and I knew it was a little big but when we tried it on again...it was still REALLY big. Like absurdly big. I literally had to take it in in 8 different places. It's not perfect but at least he looks a bit more like Spiderman instead of Spiderblob.

We had some errands to run this afternoon, so we decided to just go ahead and find a spot downtown for his pics. The bus depot was perfect- it was completely empty and there was lots to work with. Oh how these pictures make me smile!

 The spider that made him the hero he is today! {cue the cheesy theme song}

Showing off his spidey-moves.

I found this awesome spider web at Target's dollar spot. We had a little too much fun with it...

 Climbing walls requires great concentration...

I just love how goofy this kid is... and how much he loves superheroes! He is truly the best.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that baby comes AFTER Halloween so that we can all go trick-or-treating together. It's sort my favorite thing that our family does all year! Plus I am totally taking advantage of the whole pregnant costume thing. I rarely dress up so it's really simple but I can't wait to wear it! More on that later :)

I am so excited for this next week! If only everyone can get to feeling better before our ward's trunk-or-treat...(Talmage got the croup, Charlotte caught it as a cold, and both of them made Jonathan and I sick simultaneously. lovely.) On the one hand, I'm glad we're getting the sickies out of the way before baby...but then again, it's a pretty miserable situation. Halloween will make it all better (I hope!).

Talmage's bigger boy room

It struck me pretty hard that our little Talmage is going to soon be the big brother to two little sisters. That's a big deal! He's got to learn to be the protective one...the example...the responsible child (oh my..). Later on- of course! Right now he's still the wild, imaginative, adventurous little dude that we love with our whole hearts :) And that's why I knew that his room would be centered around one thing...

ADVENTURE! What else?

I mean, really...when you think about it...
things Talmage loves the most: getting into trouble, building things and tearing them down, anything with a motor and wheels, going on trips, and trying new activities. He is one adventurous little guy.

For his room, I only wanted to vamp it up a little. He already had the bed, bedding, tent, and curtains. And for his birthday in April we got him three long shelves for his Lego creations (these have been so nice for keeping them organized. Yes, you CAN be a Lego mom and not have tiny lego bits threatening your life everywhere.) 

There wasn't much else to do, really. I started with taking down his nursery stuff, just like I did in C's room. I saved all the important stuff but threw away some less significant things. Talmage never really had one color scheme in his room but after we got his bedding from Ikea a while ago, they became royal/navy blue, light blue, bright green, and orange.

Okay...now this is where I get a bit nuts and judge me if you will...but I love organization in all aspects. I divided up his lego characters into these perfect-sized containers (also from Ikea) and labeled them. Nothing fancy- just paper, sharpie, and clear tape on top. Such a simple thing that brings me so much happiness when I see them :D And when Talmage just wants his lego ninjas, for example, it's easy for him to find his little box of ninjas instead of digging through the hundreds of lego peoples...

So he has this ugly brown blanket that he calls his "cozy". It's been in his bed for a long time and since he wrapped it around his body in his diaper-wearing days I just haven't been able to wash out the "pee smell". I know...gross. Well, a few weeks ago we forgot to put a diaper on him and in the morning he was actually DRY.

So I said to him, "Let's try this again. Do you think you can stay dry another night?"
He was all, "Yeah! I can do it!"

Sure enough, every single night since then he has stayed 100% dry! We have him go right before bed like we always have done, except now he wakes up at about 6 am and goes potty again! Unfortunately he doesn't go back to sleep, but oh well. Once he even woke up at 2 am to go potty, which I was super impressed by. Where has my baby gone?!

ANYways...we got rid of that old, ugly pee blanket and replaced it with a super soft one from Ikea that was $3 on clearance. He LOVES his new "cozy". And it smells much nicer.

To open up some floor space, I moved a bunch of his bigger toys to his closet. I also snagged some extra storage buckets from Ikea (can you tell we love that place?). We love these buckets because they look cool, they stack, and they roll around! This is a must when transporting Legos from bedroom to living room ;)

I sorted the toys he plays with the most into these buckets- cars, blocks, extra legos, figurines, etc. Now this little corner of his room is for toy storage, to spread across his floor as he pleases :)

Under his bed he has his books and other small toys. This is where we make caves/forts/tents. He calls it something different each time but basically we just tuck a big blanket into the top of his bed. haha. And he thinks its the best EVER.

The navy rug is the same rug that C has, just a different color. We got the rugs at the same time for a discounted price and it was so worth it! I love the trellis pattern and Talmage likes to line up his cars on the white lines...haha.

Talmage has never had a dresser of his own- he and Charlotte have always shared. And this has been just fine because kids don't really need a lot of dresser space anyways. But, now that Talmage wears underwear day AND night we wanted him (and us) to be able to change his undies and clothes in the middle of the night if needed without going into C's room. (She's an incredibly light sleeper!) He hasn't had an accident yet but I know it will happen here and there. It's also nice for him to have a dresser in his room because it encourages him to dress himself when he wakes up.

We found this one at Ikea for a pretty decent price. I love the natural wood look. Someday I'll replace the knobs with sturdier, more colorful ones.

For the wall space above the dresser, I got some cheap plastic frames from Ikea and made prints of some of our favorite "adventure quotes". Excuse the quality of these pics...this wall is on the darker side of his room. They look much cuter in person!

These frames are hands down my favorite part of his room. They just fit his personality to a tee!

All that's left is to find some kind of lamp. I'm picky about lamps, and since they're kinda pricey they haven't been my biggest priority for the kids rooms. I would love to thrift some lamp bases and just buy new shades. But that's for another time :)

This little guy is ready for so much. For kindergarten next year, for dressing himself (in underwear AND shoes!), for his first Primary talk on Sunday, for no more bibs when he eats, and for another baby sister! He really is growing like a weed right before our eyes and I LOVE seeing his personality change. Through it all he's still the same sweet, tender-hearted, caring kiddo. We love our Talmage!

pumpkin patches 2 & 3...& apple festival!

Last week we went to a pumpkin patch with a few of our friends. It was the perfect playgroup activity and the kids were never bored. We went to a place called Greensbridge- one of our favorite local farms. They have all pumpkins (20 lbs. or less) for a dollar. Doesn't get better than that!

The littles wore themselves out by playing in the "wheat box", doing the mini-haymaze, climbing more haybales, sliding down the pipe, racing rubber duckies, and petting the animals. It was sort of a long walk to the actual pumpkin patch but thankfully I didn't feel sore until AFTER we were home :)

Once again, it was all FREE except for the cost of the pumpkins. Yay!

On our way out I also bought some sweet corn for super cheap and cold juice boxes for my sweaty, dirty kids. They couldn't stop talking about all the fun they had on the ride home. I love fall for this very reason- there is never-ending fun to be had everywhere you go!

Even walking to the mailbox is a thrill these days. We collect acorns and pet the horses next door. It is pure joy:)

The next day (Friday) we went to Bauman's Pumpkin Patch. We've never been here before but everyone says it is a must around here. To be honest I wasn't impressed with the over-commercialized aspect of it...and its size alone was overwhelming- kinda like a carnival. But there certainly WAS a lot going on and many things were free. (The things that were NOT free, however, and an absurd amount of money received well-understood tantrums from our children.) We paid a fee of admission to get in and were able to to some fun stuff like a hayride to the pumpkin patch and back, playground thingies, and apple cider tasting. 

Towards the end as we were leaving, we saw the bumble-bee ride and I was (sort of) willing to pay for this extra thing. The driver went super fast and I knew the kids would love it. Well, since they were closing in the next 20 minutes the guy let the kids ride for free! I had a feeling to have Jonathan ride with C on his lap and I'm so glad he did...because they really went FAST. And out of sight, which would have scared me to death. haha. 

In the pumpkin patch we took some (yes, MORE) pictures. I always say that I take more pictures of the kids in the month of October than any other month...I just love everything about fall. Everything. So I apologize for the picture overload, but I'm not that sorry because I think they're kinda adorable :)

Getting these two to actually look at me and smile...well, obviously they were more interested in talking to each other. ;)

 But Talmage knows how to work it when it's just he and I. This dude cracks me up.

And Charlotte. She's learning :)

 We had a ton of fun here, despite the huge crowds of people and looming ATMS at every corner. :)

You'd think two pumpkin patches two days in a row would be enough...buuuuut a friend told me about this Apple Tasting Festival the next day and it just sounded so interesting. I convinced Jonathan that we should go since 1. It was all free. 2. Who knows how many times we'll have to go places as a family of four before baby comes? and 3. We all get to eat apples and apples are healthy, right?

The Apple Festival was just the best. There weren't too many people, it was a beautiful day, and there was so much for the kids to enjoy. It was a really neat experience to try so many different kinds of apples too- most of them I've never heard of. I don't think I can go back to the "grocery store apple species" again. These samples were delicious and so, so different.

We love the movie "Nightmare before Christmas" so Talmage was super excited to see Jack the Pumpkin King :)

On our way out we watched the cider press in action and tasted some of their cider. The one sip I had tasted AMAZING- tart and fresh. I say one sip because then I realized I couldn't have unpasteurized juice while pregnant. Oops. 

We will definitely be making the Apple Festival a family tradition. I love living in Oregon because it seems like there's always fun events like this going on not too far from us.

What a weekend! If only this week was nice and relaxing...it seems like everyday there's things going on. I pray I don't go out of my mind...at the same time I kinda love being busy because it makes the time pass more quickly! We are ready to meet baby! :)