Nursery Progress

It's been quite a while since I've posted and that's partly due to busyness and laziness and partly due to my ability to wrangle the computer away from Jim long enough to have my turn to play. There's lots of other things I would like to post about and hopefully I will get to those soon. But Jim and I are both really excited about the progress that's been made on the nursery.

When last we checked in on this room, we found major work needed to be done to re-frame the windows. So Jim has had fun learning how to do this and trying to make things fit and function.

In fact, here's Jim now... Fitting in pieces of wood to fill the gap between the window and our house. This was also necessary to make the molding work properly.


Our room also got a case of chicken pox and we applied the calamine lotion as necessary.

As you can see, it was quite necessary.

We had to fill all the nooks and crannies with spackle and/or drywall putty. Then the real fun is sanding it all down. That's why the room is covered in plastic. We learned our lesson after doing Jim's office. We covered the furniture with cloth and that was just a joke. Plastic worked much better this time.

The molding was finally put up.

Isn't it pretty?

We custom ordered new blinds from Home Depot. We were really excited about the look and how they could split the blinds to accommodate the way the windows split and open. The first lady that helped us learn about what we could do was SOOOO helpful, I was rather impressed. But when we went back in to place the order she was not there and I was a little leery about the guy taking the order. But incredibly everything worked out.

Jim works hard to hang the blinds.

Ta-Da!
Good job, Jim!

Now we'll watch the other window evolve a little...

Here we have the chicken-pox-pre-molding stage.

Ah, molding and primer. Now we're getting somewhere.

Blinds are up and the painting begins.

I've inherited the painting gene from my mom, so that's always my job.
But I love it.

Jim was very proud of his super-straight line.

This yellow is called Caribbean Sunrise.
My friend Andrea breaks into a Billy Ocean song every time she sees the name.
Can you guess what song?

It was an incredibly hot weekend and it took a lot out of me.

So pretty!
I was worried at first that it was going to be too orange.
But the more I got painted the more I saw it was exactly the color I wanted.

And the windows now look 100 times better being offset by the yellow.
Once again - Good job, Jim!

The biggest recent excitement for me was FINALLY finding fabric for the room. I do not consider myself a decorator in any sense of the word. I have a hard time conceptualizing things. In fact, for my wedding I turned over the design of the aisle thingies (see? smart, eh?) to my mom and bridesmaids. I knew that would stress me out and I wanted nothing to do with it.

But I did have a vague idea of what I was looking for. Any of the packaged bed sets were not appealing to me. I couldn't find anything online. I went to JoAnn's to look at fabrics and practically ended up in tears. (No coincidence that a new batch of hormones seemed to kick in that week causing me to loose all control.)

Natalie, a friend and co-worker suggested a quilting shop to me so my mom and I shot over there on Saturday. Hallelujah!!! Their fabrics were organized by color which helped my feeble mind. It took quite a while of wandering, but long story short I found just what I was looking for!


And just to give you a slight idea of what I'm going for, this is the fun inspiration for the bedding that my mom will work on making.




My mom painted the closet for me this weekend which meant that Jim and I could finally start moving things to places where they belonged. This is how we'll have the dressers set up. The tall one will be the changing table. I'm thinking we'll paint both dressers, but that kinda scares me. Any volunteers?


So, it's taken longer than we wanted, but we have made a lot of progress on the nursery. The next big piece is to go get our crib. We have a pretty good idea of what we want and it's just a matter of finding it. We'll get crackin' on that first thing in August.

A Big Day

Our latest family adventure has reached the halfway mark. Saturday we reached 20 weeks. Woo-Hoo!!!



It's a little hard to believe we're here. Sometimes it feels like we've got a long way to go, and sometimes it feels like it's going by so fast.


The belly is definitely getting bigger and rounder. While this is all such a new experience for me, I find it odd that when I look in the mirror that this growing body seems so natural. It doesn't seem foreign or weird - which in a way is weird.


I'm still waiting to feel those first baby kicks. I wondered if I felt a little last night, but didn't really think I did. Jim says I get to say that what I felt were baby kicks, so I'll take it.


The big news for today was finding out the sex of our little one. Jim and I have both been very excited about this day. We played around with different scenarios of finding out (at the doctor office; in a secret envelope at a romantic dinner; buying baby clothes to indicate; having a baby-guessing party), but when it came down to it, we just wanted to find out during the ultrasound. Plus I have had a huge fear of the technician being wrong and I wanted to have everything pointed out to me.

Here is a picture of the Enterprise for your enjoyment...



Unfortunately, we didn't get any GREAT pictures to bring home. This little peanut was being shy. To my surprise they did do the 3-D view so we got to get a little bit of a better idea. Still a little blobby, and the poor baby's head looks like it's missing the top. But you should be able to see the nose and figure out the rest of the head from there. The arm is clear as day and, to me, looks like it's resting on the knee.


So what did we learn we're having...?

It's...
a...

BOY!!!!

Place Your Bets

June 8th is the big day we will (hopefully) find out the gender of our little bundle. Hopefully he or she is not too shy to let us know.

So, place your bets on what you think our little one will be. I would love to get a tally of your guesses.

My Watermelon Quest

I haven’t really had any cravings. But when I think of something I want, I gotta have it. Gotta make it happen.

If anything has come close to being a craving, it would have to be watermelon in the last two weeks. I love summer because I really do like watermelon. It is the perfect, juicy, sweet, refreshing treat for a hot summer day.

About two weeks ago I bought a wedge of watermelon from the grocery store. I cut it up into chunks, threw it in a bowl, and Jim and I devoured it. Yum! Yum!

A few days later I decided to buy a full watermelon so that it could last a few days. This melon, from Fresh & Easy, had to have been the toughest piece of fruit I have ever tried to cut in my life. Just getting the first cut through the mass was a monumental feat of its own. But the task was accomplished and I threw all the pieces in a container. I was surprised and a little concerned that there really wasn’t any juice on my cutting board. Tasting the fruit only confirmed my fears – it was DRY and bitter and gross! Blech!

This past weekend I bought another wedge. Now we’ve gone to the other extreme – overripe, over-juicy, over-icky. It was edible, but not the perfect watermelon I had been seeking.

I was getting desperate.

Today we had a potluck with some girls at work to celebrate a birthday. I signed up for fruit – still needing my watermelon fix. I went to a farmer’s market type of store as they usually have better fruit. I bought a full watermelon and strawberries (I wanted raspberries too, but they were incredibly expensive). Last night I cut up my much anticipated watermelon…and…

DING! DING! DING!
WE HAVE A WINNER!

I just stood in the kitchen eating my wonderful watermelon. I probably could have eaten the whole thing right then and there. But I didn’t. I told Jim I was sorry to inform him that I was leaving him to marry watermelon. There is nothing like satisfying a long-suffering need.

Now, please excuse me, I’m off to spend some one-on-one time with my watermelon.

Day Laborers

Since Jim and I bought our house in August 2006, we have slowly been redecorating every room. This house had every wall covered in either wallpaper or wood paneling. It's been a slow process, but enjoyable for the most part. We've had our surprises and they always lead to learning something new.

With a new member of our family on the way, it is finally time to tackle the last room - previously known as the guest room or junk room. The photo below gives the general idea of what the room looked like before the deconstruction started. This photo already has the room moved from "junk room" status back to "guest room" status (sorta).


We were able give some items to our church's rummage sale and purged a lot of stuff we just didn't need*.

*Anyone wanna buy some luau stuff?

Those few items that still remain started huddling together in fear of being "next".


The cats have never been allowed in this room - it's been our fuzz-free zone. But we're letting them explore (with a chaperon) while we work on the room.

They're a little shocked...

...and a little cautious.

My mom came over to help tear down the last of the wood paneling. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to be rid of this stuff. It's like putting bandaids over owies and leaving them there to rot. Ick! Ack! Just say "no" to wood paneling. There were at least two coats of paint on this stuff.
There's mom. She's a trooper.

It's so messy to pull down that we had to cover the room in plastic. The plaster falls of the walls and the ceiling rains its popcorn.

And if you look on the wall just to the left of the window, you'll see kind of a white patchiness. This is faded evidence of a wall hanging from BEFORE the paneling was put up. Owie + Bandaid = ICK!!

Not to mention, nailing in wood paneling takes - obviously - nails. Lots and lots of nails. What do nails do? They make holes. Lots and lots of holes.

Holes that have to be spackled. Jim and I have become pros at this process and have the system down. Our new recruit (above) is being trained in the art of spackling an overabundance of wood-paneling-nail-holes. It will look good on her resume.

Windows are also fun. The trim on all our windows needs to be redone, but we haven't cared enough to do anything about it. I don't know how it started this time, but Jim really started inspecting the window in the new baby's room. Inspecting led to removing pieces. Removing pieces led to discovery. Discovery led to "new project."

Evidently the window is smaller than the window hole and the way it was jimmied by previous owners was - not surprisingly - wacky. So Jim is going to make it better. Not put a bandaid on it, but surgically repair the problem - cure the disease. It will make it possible to hang the blinds back up the way they are supposed to be hung.

Unfortunately, this means the room will take longer. I don't think there's much more I can do until the window is done, then he has to finish the walls. Then I get to paint. Luckily by then we should know the gender of Pudge so we can have a more specific plan.

Here's my crew. My day laborers.

They work for food...

And love...