Under the Sea - Planning the Nursery #2

Continued brainstorming for the nursery-to-be...

The room we're working with in its current status is a sewing room/The Boy's changing room/TV room/junk collecting spot.



As mentioned before, I am going with an Under the Sea theme for the baby's room in bright colors of turquoise and red with lime green, orange and cream.



I have about 2 yards of this wonderful crab & seaweed print for ages and I'm so glad I never used it for anything. I love the bright red and lime green!



I also have this wonderful (and mighty pricey, I might add) seahorse print in aqua and orange. Not sure I'll actually use this here, but it does go with the theme...





Mix it up with some turquoise, red and lots of polka dots (I'm a sucker for polka dots) and I'll have a fun, bright room that he'll be able to grow into.



I've been following the Sew4Home website for years and have made a few things with their free patterns. They have a great number of baby nursery things that I can't wait to get started on! This is what I have planned (obviously I won't be making them in any of these pink fabrics!):



Fabric boxes to organize diapers & toiletries

Crib skirt



Quilt(ambitious, we'll see how it goes!)

Matching pillow (for me to use in the glider chair)



Baby Blanket

Window valance. I'm going to need to buy blackout curtains though because the sun comes right in through the vertical blinds that are there already.



Hooded towel

What do you think? How much of this dream list will I actually get done? Only time will tell...

Under the Sea- Planning the Nursery #1

So, this past weekend I spent at my parent's house while my husband tiled their front living room. I didn't have much to do...all the Better Homes & Gardens magazines had been read, I'd been chatting with my mom for 5 hours, I'd already taken The Boy to lunch, I took a two-hour nap...I'd run out of things to do and I was bored!

I headed over to JoAnne Fabrics with some ideas in my head. Knowing now that I'm having a boy, I've settled on a theme for the nursery: Under the Sea!

For my stepson, who is now 13, I'd made a crib bumper and skirt in a bright animal print and a fleece blanket. For my son, who is now 7, my sewing machine was out of commission at the time so most of the stuff I bought for his room were used items off Ebay. We were living at my parent's house and able to paint the walls so we used Disney-themed colors and did the upper half in blue (Pooh's Favorite Things) with soft lime green (Tinker Bell) on the bottom half. I had some sweet peel & stick butterflies to put over his crib and mixed in yellow gingham on the crib sheet and changing pad cover.

This time around, I'm ready for bright colors again and have decided, that bright aqua and red will be the main colors with a mix of orange, lime green & cream. I already have some fabrics (which I'll share later) and I picked up a few coordinates at JoAnne. It's important to me that the room have things that can "grow" with this new little one. I don't want anything too baby-ish or that will look dated in a few years, but should still look like a little boy's room.

I've been perusing the web in the evenings and "pinning" things I like in Pinterest.

Source: babysupermall.com via Julie on Pinterest

I like this bed skirt but there is a bit too much powder blue in this crib set for my taste.

Source: sarahandabraham.com via Julie on Pinterest

No idea why this picture is soooooo tiny! Personalized banner...I can totally make this! And I can use coordinating fabrics to match the other things I have planned to make.

Source: laylagrayce.com via Julie on Pinterest

And for another option, check out this darling banner that sticks to the wall!

Source: etsy.com via Julie on Pinterest

A sweet personalized print to match the theme & I like the non-traditional nursery room colors

Source: landofnod.com via Julie on Pinterest

Beach pails to hold baby stuff...these would be great for holding diaper supplies on a shelf above the changing table & they can hold toys or school supplies later.

And because I need a hand-sewing project to do while my husband & I watch America's Got Talent, I picked up this Finding Nemo cross-stitch kit (a whopping $4.29 at JoAnn with my 40% off coupon!).


I'm picturing it in a bright teal frame, won't that be fun?

I think I'll leave off the name personalization and date because I want to get it framed and hung in the nursery as soon as possible (and if I wait until he's born before I finish, it's just never going to get done!).



I want to round out the room with red gingham sheets (because I'm a sucker for gingham, The Boy had gingham sheets in his nursery too).

And I'm going to paint my own version of this ocean-themed print to hang over the bed. Why buy something if I can do it myself, right?

Source: images.search.yahoo.com via Julie on Pinterest

Memory Lane

My husband is busy today, tiling my parent's living room. They spent last week tearing out carpet & baseboard and last night buying the tile and putting together the fancy new tile saw. Right now I hear the noise of lots of scraping, mixing, cutting and general busy-work chatter between him, my brother and my dad.

The Boy and I are here, just hanging out until we can decide what in the heck we want to do with ourselves today.

He's watching some annoying kid's show on TV and I'm perusing old photos on my parent's computer.



I love this one of the boys eating popsicles on the front porch a few years ago. I have this as my mouse pad, it's always been one of my favorites.



And the two cousins in a tractor at the pumpkin patch. Such adorable little faces...and chubby little hands!



This is The Girl, about a year before Danny & I started dating. At this time, she'd been coming to play with the boys for a while in my parent's front yard. Check out those ringlets, most of her natural curls are gone now.



This was the first outing we took with the kids once we started dating. We took them for a hike on a nature trail a few miles from our house. I have this photo framed in our house. I'm not sure we could ever get them to voluntarily hold hands now!



And this one was at our second outing, an Easter weekend egg hunt at the lake. Look at the chubby baby faces on these kids!



This was taken on The Boy's first fishing trip, when Danny introduced them to Lake Morena, worms, bait and trout.

Ahh, memories!

Boys Vs. Girls

If you notice a BOY TREND on this blog, it's because our family is heavy on the snips, snails and puppy dog tails!

My stepson is a ripe ol' 13 years old!


Picture him with the same 'do, except now it's dyed black!

We have my son, who is 7.



A girl! My stepdaughter is also 7.



My 6 year old nephew.



Oh look, another girl! This is my cousin's daughter, who is starting kindergarten this year.



And then the flood of boys picked up again.

There are two three-year olds...





Two two-year olds...





And three more that were born recently, all sons of my cousins.







Oh look, the triplet sister, another girl, how about that??



Round out the list is my newest nephew, born just around 10 days ago.

And now to add to the boy tally, our little bean, due in early December.

I couldn't believe it, another BOY! My mom, for one, was happy. She and The Boy were about the only ones voting boy again, the rest were pushing for some pink! My mom loves having grandsons and said, "At least we won't have to buy any more toys...we still have all the dinosaurs, trains and swords we'll need!".

We received a printout of 5 images, only two of which are slightly discernible. The other ones (including "gender") are so obscure, I guess that's why the technicians make the big bucks because I literally couldn't tell heads or tails from them!


Here is the bottom of his foot


And this one is a silhouette of his face and the bones of his arms extended over his head

Here we are together (excuse the blurry shot by The Boy, he's usually much more steady!). This was taken just before I left for the sonogram appointment.

A 2 and a 3

It's BABY month, in addition to being birthday month, I guess...the past few weeks have been filled with new births as well as happy birthdays!

Two cousins, from separate sides of the family, have little boys celebrating their birthdays this month.

We have this little guy, my cousin Vanessa's son, who just turned 2. The day was celebrated in the park on a day where temps were reaching 100 degrees.


He loves riding his daddy's skateboard!

They had a big plastic pool filled with sodas and ice water and of course after the sodas were gone, this was the ideal location to fill up squirt guns and take a cool dip!




Watching the water drip off his diaper!



We all took turns passing around cousin Michelle's 3 month old triplets too.



As I was getting ready to leave the party, I got a call from my sister-in-law Samantha. She was at the hospital and her doctor was ready to perform her c-section but she couldn't get ahold of her husband!! Ack!! After a few quick calls, we were able to get him on his way (he was at the pool with their other son and hadn't gotten the calls). He was able to get there in plenty of time to see the birth of his second boy. We went to visit them in the hospital the following day and see the one-day-old little guy and his happy parents.

This past weekend, we drove up to my cousin Marianne's house for her 3-year old son's Cars-themed birthday party.




This is the first time in three years I've been able to get him to stop and look at the camera for me!

The house was stuffed with kids, so most of our time was spent in the shady breeze of the back patio. My cousin Joe's baby son was there and Danny was able to meet him for the first time. As you can see, they got along sweetly.



And The Boy loved tickling all the babies feet and rubbing their soft skin. I think he's going to be a pretty good big brother.



As a side note, today is my wonderful husband Danny's birthday! I'm picking him up from work and we'll go to the hospital to find out the gender of our baby. This will be the first time Danny will have gotten to go to any of my doctor's appointments, so it's also his first time hearing the baby's heartbeat or seeing the baby on a sonogram. Please send some prayers our way for a healthy-looking scan.

Flashback to the 90s

It's been *gasp* 20 years since I graduated high school.

This weekend was our class reunion and it was the first time in 20 years that I'd seen many of these people.


Sweet 16, taken a month before I started my senior year of high school

I grew up in the same city, going to the same elementary, junior high and high school so some of these people I've known since I was 5 years old! Some of them I only hung out with during school hours in elementary, some were friends in junior high, some just during high school years and then some of them I didn't start hanging out with until after we'd graduated and were all attending our separate colleges.

Many of them participated in AYSO soccer with me and then later, dance classes at Harper's Dance Studio. There were Brownies and Girl Scouts. There were the wild slumber parties where we often stayed up all night in a tent in the backyard playing the new Madonna cassette tape over and over. Some of us were in the marching band together (I carried the first letter A that spelled out our high school's name).


Me in 5th grade, how many of my elementary friends remembered me (an odd combination of The Boy and my nephew!)

Some still live in the same city (myself, included) but most are living elsewhere. Some became teachers and are working back at the same school!

I'm a different person than I was back in school, despite the fact that my face hasn't changed very much! I used to be much more shy and nervous and now I don't have any problems in social situations. So I was really very surprised how many of my old classmates even remembered me! I guess I just assumed I was that quiet girl with the big glasses, sitting in the back of the room, hoping that nobody noticed her was really noticed after all!