The Princess Room...

I finally finished my daughter's room. Well, there is actually a lot more I would like to do but I ran out of time because I am a big fat procrastinator.

Here is a full shot of the room. It's not something you would find in a Pottery Barn catalog but as we all know, kids have a lot of stuff that doesn't match therefor my decor options don't match everything in the room.

You can't see it in this picture because the bed rail is down, but my daughter's bed has a bedskirt that matches the window valances. Darn bed rail.

Here is the corner of the room. I really wanted to make real curtains instead of valances but I don't trust my kids to not try and pull the curtains down. This is why we only have valances in the whole house. Someday when the kids are older I'll have real curtains (and other nice things)...

This is my daughter's bed. I didn't want to put the mirrored wall stickers down too low because I was afraid my daughter would try to peel them off of the wall (she is two and very destructive when she wants to be). I wanted to make a throw pillow with the fabric I used for the valances but like I said above, I ran out of time. Hopefully I can whip one up in the next few weeks.

This is the baby's crib. The crib teething rail covers are made from an old crib bumper that I covered with fabric. The crib skirt is made from the bedskirt that came with my daughter's comforter set.

This is the dresser. We are planning on buying all new furniture once the baby is out of her crib but this one will do until then.

I covered the switch plate with fabric so that it would match the rest of the room.

I am happy with how everything turned out and even more important, my daughter loves her princess room. Little girls' rooms are so much fun to decorate and I actually didn't spend much at all to pull everything off. My son's room on the other hand, well he is four and has his own opinions on everything so his room is a mish mosh of boy stuff. He's happy though, so I'm happy too.

I Hate Sewing...

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Currently I am working on finishing the crib rail covers for the baby's crib. The front one is done and already tied onto the crib but I still have the two sides to finish.

I have already covered them with the new fabric (I am reusing the crib rail covers I made for my daughter's crib way back when) but now am on to the really sucky part- making the ties. I cut sixteen pieces of fabric tonight (eight ties on each rail cover) and of course my foggy brain contributed to me not cutting them the right width. I worked around my incompetence and the ties will just be skinnier than the ones I made for the front cover. I'm sure the baby won't mind. I started pinning the ties and hopefully will get that done tomorrow night. Then another night this week, probably after I make the kids' trick or treat baskets, I will sew (by hand because my sewing machine petrifies me) all sixteen ties. Then on yet another night I will attach said sixteen ties to the crib rail covers and will be done with this darned project I started.

Once I am done the crib will look adorable and I will only have a couple more things to finish up in the room before my baby makes her entrance into the world. Man, I hate sewing....

Too Much Work...

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Don't you hate when you start a project thinking that it won't be a big deal and then once you are into it a bit you realize that it is way more work than you anticipated?

I feel like that now with the crib teething rail covers that I am making for the baby. Holy moly, what a lot of sewing I have to do!

I thought that it would be easy because I am just covering the old teething rail covers I made for my daughter with new fabric. Little did I know that sewing the fabric on is not an easy thing to do and then to top it off I have to make new ties- lots and lots of new ties.

I can only console myself with the fact that the crib will look beautiful when I am done. If only I weren't completely terrified of using my sewing machine...

Operation: Decorate the Girls' Room

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I am really starting to freak out a bit about how close to my due date I am which is good because I am starting to get stuff done.

Right now my focus is on the girls' bedroom. My daughter's bed is all set- I bought her a new comforter set and made her bed skirt. The bed skirt matches the window valances I made and if I do say so myself, it all looks very cute. I made the crib skirt for the baby's bed last night which matches my daughter's bedspread (I used the fabric from the bed skirt the comforter set came with) and put the crib back together from it's previous form as a toddler bed. We bought a new mattress which was desperately needed considering the old one was on it's last leg. We also bought a new rug from Ikea a few weeks ago that goes with the new room decor and the room was painted from a light blue to a pretty purple.

With all of that done I still need to do the following:

-make the teething rail covers for the crib- I am going to use the same fabric that I used to make the bed skirt and window valances
-revamp a lamp with ribbon
-make some throw pillow covers using the same fabric as the teething rail covers
-paint unfinished bookcase (I am leaning towards white but who knows)
-put up shelf over the rocking chair
-make some sort of name sign to hang over each bed (leaning towards this)
-put up new white faux wood blinds (got an awesome deal on them at Home Depot.com)
-put up mirrored wall decals above both beds (bought from Target on clearance)

I'm sure there are a million and one other things I want to do to the room but I'll just try to keep myself focused on what I have listed here. Pregnancy makes me crazy...

Baby Names

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I have decided that it would be a good time to choose a name for the baby considering she is due to enter this world in November.

Choosing the name that your child will have for the rest of their lives is a lot of pressure to put on a parent. There are a lot of cutesy names that are great for a toddler but what adult woman wants a name that sounds like she could be a Disney Princess? And don't even get me started on the names that would fit right in at an establishment with a stripper pole.

After reading through my baby names book and eliminating weird names, cutesy names, names on the most popular list and names that would go well with dancing naked I have a short list of ones that I consider normal.

It may take me until November to choose a name from my list but at least now I have a list which is more than I had and hour ago.

Damn You Sewing Machine...

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The baby will be arriving in a little more than two months and I cannot believe how fast this whole pregnancy has gone by! I guess that is what happend when you are already chasing around a four year old and two year old.

I feel like I have so much to do to get ready but yet not much at all (if that makes any sense). We have all of the basic things ready but I still need to finish decorating the girl's room. I started making my daughter's bed skirt and window valances last night and after much fighting with my sewing machine, of which I have no idea how to use, I dcided to do the Amish thing and hand sew everything. Oh yeah, and I still need to pick out a name (kind of important, I guess).

I really cannot wait to have this baby. I can't wait to have my body back (well, somewhat- I'm going to breastfeed so my boobs won't be my own for awhile) and not feel tired and worn out all of the time. I also can't wait to be able to wear my old clothes and not feel like a water buffalo waddling around (isn't is worse enough getting huge when you are pregnant- why must we have to waddle too).

Got Off of my Lazy Butt...

Something came over me yesterday and I decided to pull out all of my daughter's baby clothes and sort them. My dining room floor looked like a laundromat barfed on it and the kids made a mess of the house while I was occupied with my project but in the end all is well.

This is everything that I am keeping. It is all separated by size and labeled so I have no excuses to not be able to find what I need when I need it. It seems as if I am pretty much set with clothing except for 0-3 months pajamas but only time will tell. I will have to see how the baby grows to determine if the seasons of clothing I have will work for her which annoys me because I have when I can;t get stuff done when I want it done.

This pile is of clothing that I am going to sell on Ebay. It is all boys stuff so I'm not sure why it was mixed in with my daughter's baby clothes- wait, I take that back. I was probably too lazy to put it where it should have gone so I stuck it in the girl bin.

The bag on the left is clothing that I am going to give to my mom to sell at her neighborhood's yard sale in a few weeks. The orange bin in the right is full of donations- mostly baby clothing and other randomness I found throughout the house.

One more thing checked off of my list.

Twenty-Six Weeks Down...

Today I am twenty-six weeks pregnant and I feel like I am forty weeks pregnant.

I have succumbed to sleeping on my couch because like with my two previous pregnancies, my usually very comfortable bed has become like sleeping on concrete. The last straw was when I wok up one morning and had such bad cramps in my hip that I could barely walk.

My clothing options have been vastly whittled down due to my ever growing stomach (and butt, and thighs... sigh). I only need to make it to when the weather starts to cool down a bit and I will have many more things to choose from to wear (I have never been pregnant in the summer so I had to buy things to wear but I didn't want to go too crazy).

I have about fourteen weeks to get everything ready for the baby. It seems like a lot of time but it really isn't when all of your time is taken up with raising two children and attempting to keep your house in somewhat order. I went through and donated/sold all of my son's baby clothing so that is all set but I now have to pull out all of my daughter's baby clothing to see what will work for the baby considering that my daughter was born in June and this baby will be born in November. Once I see what holes I have in her wardrobe I can start buying things to round everything out. I have a feeling I will be utilizing a lot of layering of short sleeved summer shirt over long sleeved onesies...

We are having the kids' bedrooms painted over the next two Saturdays so I really need to get on the ball about decorating the rooms. First up is finding my daughter a solid colored comforter for her bed (she is moving from her crib turned toddler bed to a twin sized bed). Once I find that I can go buy fabric to make a bed skirt, curtains, pillow covers, crib skirt and crib teething rail covers (I am pretty sure I am going to forgo a bumper this time around but we'll see). I have a sewing machine in my bedroom closet that I will be dusting off soon and hopefully I can figure out how to use it.

My son's room will be pretty easy compared to the girls' room. He will need new curtains and he really wants a new comforter and even though he doesn't really need one I want his room to all coordinate with his wall color (grass green- it was either that or black so I guess I can live with it). We also want to buy him a nice chair so he can have a little reading nook in his room.

As far as baby gear and diapers I am pretty much set. I'll be breastfeeding so we don't need to buy any formula and already have bottles, nursing pads, nursing bras and a breast pump. The only real cost associated with the new baby will be some clothing (don't you love how each baby you have gets cheaper and cheaper?).

You know what- if I weren't so crazy and didn't have to have everything just so I wouldn't be so stressed out right now. Darn my crazy self!

Paint Colors- What to Pick...

We are going to be switching around the kids' rooms soon so that everything is in place before the baby gets here. My kids are going to switch bedrooms with my son getting the smaller one and my daughter and the baby getting the larger one. That means we need to repaint the rooms (insert groans here).

I am going to let my son pick out his own color (within reason) so that won't be too stressful for me. I am stressing about the girls' room though. I have all of these visions in my head of a beautiful room and am putting pressure on myself to make it happen.

So, what color to pick? Everything will need to coordinate between my daughter's bedding set (she will be switching from her crib turned to toddler bed to a twin sized bed) and the crib bedding (I am going to make my own crib skirt and teething rail covers). I will also be making the valances for the windows to match whatever I come up with for colors.

Lordy, lordy- what have I gotten myself into?

Mission Impossible- Declutter the Toys

My kids have a lot of toys. My son had a lot of toys and then when my daughter was born the toys seemed to have spawned new toys.

At one time we just had one large Ikea bookcase in our family room to hold my son's toys. We then bought another one to place beside it when my daughter started to accumulate toys but ended up putting more of my son's toys on it. All of my daughter's toys were put in our den which we gated and baby proofed so she would have a safe room that we could put her in when we couldn't keep an eye on her. Both rooms started neat enough but then turned into something I hate- cluttered rooms.

The other day I took it upon myself to start consolidating the kids toys into the family room because my daughter is old enough to not have to be locked up in the den (the rest of the downstairs is either gated or toddler proofed) and I want to den to be back to a grown-up room. My goal is to have all of the kids' toys together and then when the baby starts crawling to make the den the baby's safe play room (but with way less toys).

I did pretty good- I moved the kitchen set and various dishes and play food into the kids' playhouse in the family room and I also moved a bunch of my daughter's toys. The only things left are all of her Little People sets, a bunch of random toys and a bunch of stuffed animals. Once I go through all of my son's toys and put some in the basement everything should fit neatly into the family room.

Is it me, or has the nesting stage of my pregnancy already begun?