Christmas Re-Cap

Thank you so much for all your wonderful ideas for what to put over the crib! I've been "researching" (shopping and looking online for ideas) and think I might have come up with something. More on that later though...

I wanted to do a post on our Christmas for posterity's sake. We were able to spend over a week with our families and that has been so fun! I've gotten a lot accomplished for the nursery like ordering the chair and registering for my showers. I think my Mom has driven me all over town!

27 weeks in front of my Mom's tree.

Grammy and Grampy (my Dad's parents)

Grandma and Papa (my Mom's parents)

Zach posing in front of Gran's tree.

Cody and I at his parent's house.

Cody's parents with his nephew, Peyton.

All of our stockings. Reese was never far from our thoughts during Christmas. I thought about her and missed her so much.

Z seeing his horse for the first time on Christmas. We heard a lot of, "More horse!" after this.

Z stole his Mom's sweetarts from her stocking and just made himself comfy with them!

Z and Cody

Z opened God's gift to all of us...Jesus. The last gift we open on Christmas is a box that has Jesus from the nativity in it.

Katie and I at my grandparent's house.

I hope everyone had just as wonderful of a Christmas as we did! I'll be cleaning the house and organizing everything this week. I love getting the house back to "normal"! :)

Crib Bedding

My Dad fixed my computer! Yea! I have been so anxious to show you the crib bedding! It came in on Tuesday but I couldn't even upload the pictures until today. I absolutely love it. The lady who made it did such a great job and was so fast!

Obviously we put it on the second I got home. :)

Once I saw it all put together I was so glad we didn't compromise on the plaid. :) I know y'all think I'm crazy talking so much about this plaid fabric but I think it just makes it! Hahaha (I'm not denying that I can be a little picky)

We went out a couple of days later to pick out the paint color. If you look at the pictures above this one the walls were the same color as the crib. We went to Walmart and picked out a Color Place color called Sphinx. We should have been suspicious when it rang up for $7.98....it was a little thin but nothing a few coats didn't take care of. :) Cody is still deciding if it was worth saving a few dollars or painting a few coats....

The drapes will be similar to the crib skirt except it will be bordered with the plaid.

I love his initials on the bumper. However, now I am completely stumped as to what I should put over the crib! It seems like lately everyone does their name or initials (which I love!) but that would too repetitive. Your suggestions will be greatly welcomed! :)

Christmas Decorations Continued

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Our computer has a virus so this will probably be the last time I get on it for about a week until it gets fixed. (This post has taken me forever to do because of it!) If you email me or leave a question in the comments I will be able to email you back from my phone but I just won't be able to return every one's comments. :( Just a reminder, if you leave me a question in the comments, be sure to leave me a way to contact you with the answer. Someone asked about having the crib bedding made vs. buying a ready made set but I cannot comment on your blog because it says I have to be a member to leave a comment. So if you can leave me your email address I will get back to you. Thanks!

Now, on to Christmas decor!

There used to be another plate hanging below the white and green one in our laundry room but Cody knocked it off the wall so it broke. :) So I just put up a Christmas wreath for now.

This is looking into the laundry room from the kitchen. I change the the signs over the door for the seasons.

I think this plate was my only Christmas decor purchase this year. I love the colors! It came from The Christian Book Outlet.

Those M&M's didn't last long...

This little wooden girl gets so many mixed reviews. I think Cody is used to her now but some are scared by her ghostly white face. :)

The snowman wall pocket is waiting on all the Christmas cards we will get. I love going to the mailbox this time of year!

I think I noticed that my kitchen has a candy cane and holly theme. :)

A fun craft fair find. :)

This is all I did in the guest bath this year. I had totally forgotten about this snowman picture that I got at Gordman's last year. It is always fun to find new things in your decorations! :)

That should finish out all our rooms that I decorated. :) I haven't gotten my crib bedding in yet but I should this week. I will try to post a picture from my friend's computer if I can. I can't wait to see it and I can't wait to show you! Have a good week!

Totally Random

I still have more Christmas decorations to show you but I just wanted to post about some random things first.
This is me at 24 weeks. I'll be 26 weeks on Sunday but we haven't taken a more recent picture. I look at this picture and honestly think that I am huge and cannot imagine getting any bigger. I know I will though! It is just hard to wrap my mind around. It is already hard to put my socks on.

I love this old slate! I saw it at an antique store in Hot Springs, AR this past summer. I thought it would be so cute to hang in the nursery. However, the shop owner wouldn't take my offer of $10. He wanted $15. So we left it there but I always remembered it and talked about it. My Mom surprised me with it the other day! She said she went back in several months later and it was still in the same spot I had put it in and offered them $6. They took it! :)

My fabric came in! We had to break down and buy the plaid from Bassett Furniture but thanks to my Grandmother and my Mom's friend, Sue Carol, they bought it for us! What a blessing and surprise. If you want this plaid, just buy it from Bassett. Trust me, it is nowhere to be found! I have taken the fabric to the lady who is making the bedding and we should get it back today. I'll for sure be posting a picture of it. :)

Sorry this pic is blurry, it is from my phone. Back in October, my Mom and I went to the local craft fairs and we saw Michelle Duggar at the Dayspring booth. I think I shocked my Mom when I asked Michelle if I could have my picture with her. :) Me and my friends just love their show! We are both due in March. However, this is my first and although she looks young enough for this to be her first, it is her 19th. :)

And way back in July, Katie and I drove by The Duggar's house. :) I told you we like their show! This was actually the day we were trying to kill time because I had taken a blood test that morning and we were waiting on the call back to see if I was pregnant or not. I will never forget that day and I was so glad Katie was with me! I'll post more Christmas pictures next week! Have a great weekend!

Christmas Dining Room

What is wrong with this picture? Doesn't every one have a leather chair in their dining room?? ;) It was in the living room where the Christmas tree is now. With all the re-purposing of the rooms we have been doing there was no where else to put it. It doesn't stress me out too bad. ;)

I've always tied these dollar store candle rings on the back of the dining chairs. On the arm chairs I added a little stocking.

I used some of my new velvet ribbon that I got at Oops awhile back to tie the greenery to the candle sconces. Of course I had to tuck some feathers in it.

You might have to click on this picture to enlarge it but I got those Santa pictures at a thrift store last year for $6 each. I had to paint the frames but they are some of my favorite decorations. I actually saw these exact prints at the craft fairs this year for $20 each, unframed. I think I got a good deal. ;)

Christmas Living Room

Welcome!
Come on in.

I love this rug from Ballard Designs that Brittnay sent me a couple of years ago. We became friends through Rate My Space back before we had blogs. Cody calls her my "internet friend". :)

My little Believe corner.

You know I love these little characters.

The sofa table decorated with some greenery, a glittery Santa and candle.

This picture was fun to pull out this year since I got it for Christmas last year.

I still love this beading that you can wrap around anything. I got it a few years ago at a local craft fair and love to put it around candles. Thanks for touring our living room. :) I'll post some pictures of our dining room and kitchen later this week.

The Calendar Goes To.....

The winner of the calendar is #16 (according to Random.org)!

Sara of

The Life of Our Ladybugs

Congratulations! Email me your info and Kim from Fresh Entity will get it out to you. Thanks for entering and thank you Kim for offering such a fun giveaway! Remember, if you didn't win you can order a calendar from Kim's Etsy shop by clicking here.

Awesome Giveaway!

This is such a great giveaway and just in time for Christmas! Fresh Entity is giving away a 2010 Calendar. These are absolutely adorable and would make great Christmas gifts! They are printed on watercolor paper and each month has a Bible verse on it. It comes with a clip and bow so you can hang it up or use it on your desk top.

These would make great teacher's gifts too. Really, they would be perfect for anyone! I just love these. You know the drill....just leave a comment on this post. If you do not have a blog, leave your email address in your comment. Or, if you can't wait to see if you won, go here to buy one.

Random.org will pick a winner Friday evening! Good luck!

Christmas Mantel

Thank you for making me feel better about my lack of motivation! Apparently it is normal and I'll be back to normal next year. :) I really was worried that it would be my new normal and I did not want that!

I was off work on Monday so I spent some time working on my mantel. If you were with me last year it will probably look exactly the same. :) I didn't do anything different.

I just hang some greenery on three Command hooks and then stick some feathers, sparkly picks and a few fake poinsettias.

In a rare move that even surprised myself, I chose not to have our stockings monogrammed when I ordered them 5 years ago. I was even a newlywed and very into monograms! :) Instead I got the letters to hang off them. I still like this look but I'm not promising I will never get our names on them.

The stockings are from Ballard Designs and we are getting a coordinating one for Westin. I am having his name put on his. It is in their catalog but not online so I can't show you a picture.

In the middle of the garland I hung an ornament and added more picks. I feel much better now that everything is up and finished!

Christmas Tree

Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving? Ours was great except Cody was sick but he is feeling better now. I think this is the first year in our 5 year marriage that I did not have the tree up before Thanksgiving. It is such a weird feeling for me to not be motivated but I guess it is this pregnancy. It is the only thing I can think of. Also, I have been working so hard at cleaning the house out and re-purposing rooms that it was hard for me to bring out the seasonal decorations. :)

I knew we couldn't go without a tree (although I seriously considered it-crazy I know!) so we finally put it up yesterday. I think with all of our breaks it took all day! Ha! I haven't done the mantle but as of today I plan on doing it. We will see what tomorrow brings. :)

I've always done reds, lime greens and golds. I don't think I added anything new to the tree this year. Our yearly ornaments will go on a separate tree once we have more than five ornaments. :) For the topper I just stick feathers and a few sparkly picks in the top. Cody always says it looks like an alien landed on top.

I love this green wire mesh stuff that you can wrap around the tree. I bought this the first year we were married but now they have some that is much brighter and easier to work with. I may have to get some of that next year because mine is literally wire that could cut you. :)

These are some of my favorite ornaments. I found the red and green ones a couple of years ago at Lowe's of all places. They have some great after Christmas sales on their seasonal decorations. I'll be posting more pictures soon!

Possibly The Most Pics In One Post

Get ready for picture overload. We had a busy, fun-filled weekend. It started off with a bang with Zach's 2nd Birthday party.

Isn't this the cutest cake that Katie ordered? Zach is really into "choo-choos" right now.

He was so cute opening his presents. He had to stop and play with each one before he could move on to the next one.

His parents got him his first new car! He loves it!

He got a little shy when we sang "Happy Birthday" to him. :)

He sure did love his cake though! It was such a fun party.

My parents surprised us by bringing up our crib! It was ordered from a store in their town but my Mom didn't tell me it had come in! I came home from work on Friday and it was in the nursery. Of course I wanted to put it together right then.

I love it!

(Those pictures are not going over it, I just haven't taken them down yet. )

My Mom painted the changing table for me while they were here. It is going in the closet so it didn't have to match the crib exactly.

My Dad built some shelves for the nursery closet. Of course he did it with some help from his biggest fan and constant shadow.

They are going to be painted to match the trim. This will add so much more storage!

My dad also built a small shelf for my printer to sit on under the secretary. I don't know what I would do without my parent's help! Everything is really starting to come together.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'll be back next week with Christmas decorations. :)

Happy Birthday Zach!

Happy 2nd Birthday Zach!!!

We love you sooo much!
We are so thankful for you!

I can't get enough of your contagious smile and laugh!
Looking forward to celebrating with you tonight!

Switcheroo

I think I might have entered the "nesting" phase of pregnancy. I am driving myself insane trying to clean out the office to get it ready for West. For some reason it has to be done now. :) The Lord is really teaching me patience in the process.

My mom agreed to take our desk and they will be up here this week so I wanted to send it back then. The only thing I could think to do was to get a small secretary desk to put beside my side of the bed. I didn't want to combine a guestroom with an office but I still needed an area to keep bills and office related things. This is the desk I had to consolidate into a secretary:

My next step was finding a secretary. Oh my word. Those are few and far between. I had my mom looking in her town and I looked all over mine. I finally found one at an antique store. It was the perfect size and to make it even better, it was half off! It is not the color I was looking for but that is a project for another day. Here it is beside our bed:

It is obviously taller than Cody's table but my lamp is shorter so I think it works. Plus I do not like matching nightstands. (Oh, I also changed out our bedding to our "winter" bedding)

It actually holds most of our office supplies. Another reason I wanted a secretary as opposed to just a chest of drawers was because I wanted to be able to put our wireless printer underneath. So I needed to skirt the desk.

I just used a tension rod and some left over fabric I had. I didn't even hem the sides or the bottom. I wish I could tell you that I made the rod pocket with my sewing machine, hem tape or at least fabric glue.....

Nope! I just used blue painters tape. :) I am all for quick and easy!

The Winner Is....

According to Random.org, the winner is......

The Stockton Family!!

Congratulations! I couldn't find your email on your blog so click email me on my sidebar so I can get your information to Two Sisters Shop.

Thank you so much for hosting such a wonderful giveaway!!

P.S. I am going to put the comment word verification on for a couple of days because I keep getting a spam comment on one post. It should be off by Monday.

Birthday Banner Giveaway!

Have you been to Two Sisters Shop yet? They carry so many cute things including this birthday banner:

Several of you were interested in it when I posted a picture of it from Katie's house. Sooooo, they have offered to give one Birthday Banner to one of you! All you have to do is go visit their website and come back here and leave me a comment telling me your favorite item. (I bet you just might find some great Christmas gifts too.) Be sure to leave your email address if you don't have a blog. I'll use Random.org to pick a winner on Friday night. I hope you win! Thank you Two Sisters!

Thanksgiving Decorations

I took down all of my fall decorations to put out my Thanksgiving ones. I know these are the same type of decorations but it makes me feel better to pack up 8 totes of fall and get just one Thanksgiving one. This way I feel like there is more of a break between Fall and Christmas decorations. Plus I only have one box to put away before I get all the Christmas boxes down. :)

I got this "Thankful" sign at War Eagle (the local craft fairs) this year.

I also got this basket at War Eagle. I put an old Revival Praises hymnal in it. It looks "Thanksgiving-y" because it has a picture of wheat on it. ;)

My Grandmother bought me these pilgrims last year. I love them!

Does anyone else decorate for Thanksgiving? Sometimes I feel like it is a holiday that is often skipped over. I love Thanksgiving and everything it represents. Even though these decorations will probably be taken down before Thanksgiving (I put my Christmas decor out the weekend before Thanksgiving) I still get to enjoy them for several weeks.

Halfway There

20 weeks!

Duck Duck

Friday night we went to our Connection Group Fall Fellowship. We had our annual pumpkin carving contest. There seemed to be a pumpkin shortage around here so only 5 couples carved pumpkins. It was still a lot of fun though!

Here are most of our Connection Group girls.

Cody, me, Katie and Jason

We carved the ;) wink. Cody seriously did not get it. When we left he asked me again, "why did we carve a sideways smiley face?" He doesn't do too much on the computer. ;) He had never heard of this.

On Saturday night I met Jason, Katie and Zach up at the mall for Malloween. Elizabeth (or "Bella" as Zach calls her) met us up there too. The kids could trick or treat at most of the stores. Zach loved his "duck duck" costume!

He has always loved ducks and every bird or duck is a "duck duck!" He gets so excited seeing one. Back in the spring and summer when I had all my bird decorations out he would run to every single one and point at it and yell, "duck duck!" It was so cute.

He loved getting all the candy too. Especially these suckers. He was showing them to me in the picture. I just love hanging out with this little guy!

More Wins and a Baby Shower

This has been another FUN week to go to the mailbox! This past weekend I won Cari's giveaway of.....get this.....a $50 gift card to JCrew! I was beyond thrilled. I had visions of cute tops, scarfs, and jewelry but this is what caught my eye. I told Cari it was because I have a feeling my world is about to be invaded by all things boy and blue so I picked out this pink tote. It will even be monogrammed with my initials. Thank you so much Cari! She was one of my very first bloggy friends. :)

I also won these cute "Harvest" blocks from Connie at Shady Creek Lane. She was kind enough to offer these on Cheri's big giveaway post. I love these! I had been wanting something extra in this spot in my living room and these were the perfect fit. Thank you Connie and Cheri!

Can you believe I won something else? I also won this great handmade purse from Kate from Kate Designs. She has an adorable etsy shop here. I love her zippered pouches too. She uses the cutest fabrics! This purse is the perfect size and even has a pocket inside. I love it! Thank you Kate!

This past Sunday our Connection Group girls had a baby shower for our friend Lindsey. She is due with baby Adeline in just a few short weeks. I'm so excited to meet her!

I had fun setting up the table for a baby girl. My mom bought me this antique baby scale a couple of weeks ago because I mentioned I wanted to put one in the nursery. I thought it was the perfect thing to use for the shower.

I made a few smaller arrangements in some antique silver baby cups.

I know Lindsey likes milkglass so I used this vase for the flowers.

I was so excited to get to use some of the silver baby cups I've collected. I saw the idea of hanging some from a chandelier a long time ago on a blog (I'm sorry I have no idea where) and have been waiting to do it ever since. :)

Some of the yummy petit-fors.

Jennifer, Sarah, Heather, Lindsey, Me, Jill, Abby

I really can't believe this is the only picture I took of people! Lindsey is in the middle with some of the hostesses. We had a great turn out, great food and Adeline got some great things!

Craft Fair Finds and Nursery Peek

Can I just tell you something you already know? There is a much bigger selection of baby girl things than baby boy things! That's okay though because it makes the hunt all the more fun. A couple of weeks ago my mom came up and her, Lindsey and I went to our local craft fairs. We started at 6:30 am and finished around 5 pm and I think we saw about two booths that had boy things. ;)

My first buy for West was this precious bib. The lady thought I was crazy for choosing white instead of brown for the monogram but she loved it after she did it. :) Since it is sort of a seer sucker fabric I wanted it a little dressier than brown and blue.

My mom bought him this monogrammed blanket and two monogrammed washcloths. The pictures of the washcloths didn't turn out but they were cute. They were white with red and white gingham trim with a "W" on one and "West" on the other one. We actually lucked out at this booth because the lady was a little frazzled. We ended up getting another blanket monogrammed with "West" and another "W" washcloth that was a little bit off centered. So we got two blankets, three washcloths and the monogramming for $17.00! Bless her heart, she lost money on us.

I thought that once I finally got pregnant I would know exactly what I was doing in the nursery.
I mean, I've thought about it for years! I was a little surprised when I started really stressing out about it. I really don't stress out about anything so I was getting a little worried about myself. :) I just want this to be perfect. :) After much thought, we ordered this crib:

Source

One thing I KNEW I wanted was a cream crib with solid sides. The problem was that I found two cribs that fit this description. Cody thought they looked exactly alike but you know how that goes. They were completely different but I woke up one morning and knew that this was the crib. :)

While my mom and I were looking at cribs one day I saw a tassel that reminded me of a picture of some bedding that I had torn out of a Bassett catalog. I had intended on getting it for our master bedroom in the very, very, very distant future but when I saw that tassel, I just knew it would be perfect for a nursery. This is the bedding:

Source

I LOVE this fabric combination! I really never thought I would use brown in the nursery for a boy or girl but I just love this. I have found the toile fabric and am on the hunt for the plaid. I can order it from Basset but it is pricey! I haven't started looking for a coordinating chocolate fabric but I don't think that should be too hard. Soooooo, any suggestions for wall color? Right now I'm thinking just a light, neutral, warm brown color. Do you have a specific color name that you think would look good?

P.S. Thank you for your suggestions on freshening up the cradle. I plan on using the products you recommended. Thanks!