Before and After

Things change.

Yesterday morning vs. yesterday later morning:

Last October vs. this October:

Family picture last November vs. Family picture this weekend:

*This will change again soon - and hopefully my belly will be significantly smaller!

Micah in his car seat at two weeks old vs. Micah in that car seat this morning:

Can you tell that I've been thinking about how quickly things change? Just thought I'd share.

Must-Haves for A New Baby

We have just over two weeks until our baby girl is supposed to arrive. After a few freak-outs over not being ready for a new baby, I'm finally feeling prepared. We plan to use most of what we had for Micah when he was a little one, so getting prepared wasn't so much about having what we needed, but feeling ready emotionally! There were a few things that I wanted to buy/get ready for this new baby, knowing that they were either favorites when Micah was new, or they were things I wanted to have. So, here are a few recommendations:

1. Swaddling blankets.
With Micah, I just had a bunch of those little receiving blankets that come in a four-pack. They're really helpful for other things, but for swaddling, they just don't cut it - they're not big enough and I couldn't ever get them to stay around him. I ended up having to buy flannel, and my mom hemmed the edges, so I had some thin (but warm) swaddle blankets.

I keep hearing great things about Aden + Anais's swaddlers, so I talked David into letting me buy a package of them. They're more expensive than I would like, since we're on a fairly tight budget ($48 for four) but I had $10 to Amazon, and then I got a 20% off coupon from Amazon Mom, so it saved me about $20!

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2. Head bands and hair clips
If we're going to have a little girl, I want people to know she's a little girl! We have plenty of pink and purple clothes for her to wear, but I really like it when little girls have cute head bands. So, occasionally, when I see a cute little clip or bow, I pick it up to add to our collection.

3. An infant car seat
A few weeks ago, I realized that if we were to have this little one early, I wasn't prepared! I didn't even know where our car seat was - and wherever it was, it probably wasn't clean. So, I got my butt in gear and found the car seat, washed it, and set it aside in the spare room, waiting to bring this little munchkin home.

It's the same car seat that we used with Micah, and the pattern isn't really very feminine, hence the need for head bands for the little lady. I;m planning to make a cover for the car seat, to replace the blue and brown, but until I get the fabric and finish it, this will work just fine!

By the way, where did the last two years go? When was Micah ever this little?

4. Long-sleeved Onesies

Since this baby's going to be born in late Fall, I want to be sure she stays really warm. A lot of the shirts and onesies I have for her are short-sleeved, though, so I like to put long sleeves underneath. The little dress she's going to wear home from the hospital is sleeveless, so it's important to get some sleeves (and pants - or at least tights) on that girl to keep her cozy.

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These aren't the exact ones I bought - I'm not a fan of Gerber - but they look very similar.

So, there are a few things we bought to get ready for 'Baby Audee' as Micah calls her. We're feeling prepared, and hopefully we'll have pictures to share very soon!

A Room For Two - Part One

I have so much to do for Micah and Audrey's room to be finished. I've been really excited to design and style their room for both a boy and girl, but it really is a lot of work!

I have a list of projects to finish for their room to be finished, but here's the list, and then some pictures of what the room looks like right now. I'm sorry for some bad looking pictures - my camera is dead, and I'm just using my iPhone as my camera until I get a new one (Christmas maybe?).

* Paint walls gray
* Stencil one wall? ** This will probably come a long time down the road - the priority is to get the room painted.
* Add shelves to closet
* Unpack/organize boxes in closet (Micah's blankets, toiletries, etc.)
* Big-boy bed painted
* Micah sleeping in big-boy bed
* Sew sheets for crib ** I have one left to sew.
* Sew crib skirt for crib
*Order new crib mattress
* Baskets organized for Baby Audrey - we're not buying a second dresser because we don't have room, so we're going to try using baskets in the closet, on the new shelves.
* Scale/wave artwork for wall
* Yarn treatment on lampshade
* Shelves/accessories for Audrey's side of the room.
* Shelves/accessories for Micah's side of the room
* Paint shelf with Micah's baskets (socks, shoes, washcloths)
* Audrey's bow holder
* Hang curtains
* Hem curtains - they're WAY too long!

My mom made this embroidered hanging for Micah - it's hanging above his bed, but it could really use a shelf or something below it.

So, I feel like I'm making some progress, but that's a long, intimidating list! I know I won't get it all finished before she's born, but I'd like to get as much done as I can.

Yesterday (Sunday), I made some good progress on projects. First I worked on the lamp:

I used an old white lamp that had been in Micah's room before. I really love the shape of the base and shade, but the shade had seen better days. It was kind of dented and had some marks on it that made it look kind of old. So, inspired by this lamp done by Lindsay at The Pleated Poppy, I went to work at transforming it into a much better looking piece.

My next project was a Pinterest inspiration. I found this painted canvas when I was just imagining moving into our house, and have been planning to make it for quite a while.

I planned to buy a new canvas to make it on, but remembered that we had an old ocean painting hiding in the corner of our bedroom. It hung in our old bathroom but wasn't something that we liked all that well. So, I read the steps that the blogger laid out in her post about how she made this, and followed them - I thought.

I started by mapping out the circles.

Then I got to work painting - bye bye, ocean scene!

Here it is after I finished:

So, if you look back at the original, I guess I put my circles closer together than the original project had. But, I like it anyway. I'm thinking about changing the color of the third gray, because it seems to blend in a lot with the color below it.

Here are both of my projects, together in Micah's room:

I'd still like to paint that little shelf white, and then I feel like this one little part of the room is finished... one very little part!