The details are coming together....

First came the paint, then the decal....Oh and we ordered that damn chair weeks ago....But last week it finally arrived. So here she is!

It was a relief when it arrived and I still love it. It is super comfy and looks great! Love the color. 

When my mom was here for the shower, she bought this rug. I love it! Very good purchase, it makes me very happy. Thanks to Gram and Safta for getting this nursery in order with the necessities. If it was left to me, who knows what this room would look like! Would he sleep in shoe box, or maybe an empty dresser drawer? Now that we finally have a dresser?

Jeff ordered 2 covers for the changing table and they arrived a few days ago. This one is my favorite, the other one has a monkey on it. They are both super soft. It must be nice to be a baby and get to lay on soft stuff all of the time. 

This is the original inspiration piece that the nursery was built around. I got these hooks from Urban Outfitters, maybe before I was pregnant. I am just not sure exactly where I want to hang them. Jeff is driving me slightly insane to make a decision so he can get them hung but I'm not ready to commit so we wait. 

This weekend Jeff prepared our cloth diapers. This was a bit of a process that requires its own full post so thats coming soon. Last weekend he washed all of the baby's clothes and hung them up in the closet in order of size. I believe it is all coming together. 

This is the 36 week. I start going to the doctor weekly now, so Im guessing we will start getting progress reports on how close we are getting. This week we need to get the car seat installed and pack that hospital bag. 

I will be doing a cast of my belly too, that will be a whole thing and I can't wait to see the final product.  Im working on making a video for the post on the amazing baby shower that our friends gave us. Ah, what a blessing.

Hot Date on Friday Night

Things have changed for us in the past few years. The days of walking from our funky little Spanish Town houses to the bar or the parade route or Happy's Running Club seem to be memories from a distant past.

No complaints, we've had some time to transition. Planning the wedding was big undertaking, then we became homeowners. Now we are in the final days of it just being the two of us (plus Jasmine & Charlie), before the little one makes his appearance.

Maybe I'm just naive, but I thought we were supposed to be just chilling right now and the real work was going to start when he gets here. Every weekend we attack our never ending to do list. It feels good to be making progress but it seems like once we do one big project (like painting or decorating), then there is just another one around the corner.

This weekend, our goal is to get the must haves. You know, those things (like a car seat and a stroller) that we need to bring him home. So tonight, we tackled Babies R Us. We were there for less than an hour and I managed to get $800 of "necessities" and go to the bathroom 3 times. Good thing that Jeff had his clip board to keep us organized and the muscles to carry the goods to the car. My man has the muscles and the brains!

Since it was in the same parking lot, we popped into Kroger for a few items. 

The honeydew is for the fruit of the week, 35 week pic, to be taken tomorrow. I ran out of raspberry leaf tea (which I call vagina tea), our midwives recommended that I have 3 cups a day starting a few weeks ago. Since it comes 16-20 bags to a box, I am going thru it like crazy. The pomegranate soda was just an impulse buy at the register. Of course, Mr. Safety Inspector, only approved the purchase once he confirmed that it was caffeine free. 

Tomorrow is my last wedding before the baby. Then Sunday we head over to get the must haves from Franklin Goose.  Our other 2 registries, besides Franklin Goose and Babies R Us, were at Amazon and Pottery Barn Kids. Between these 4, we should be able to get everything we need. Right?

For now, I will have some tea...

Accessorizing the Signature Color

First, let me say that I acknowledge that I am slipping on my weekly updates. You know I do not care for excuses, especially of the "I don't have time" variety. However, since the last update we have managed to celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary (go us!), have both of our mothers in town, have the best baby shower ever (thanks Kristen, Julie and Casey), celebrate my mothers birthday and Passover. Immediately following all of that, I survived 3 commercial photo shoot days. I'm "off" today, getting ready for one more tomorrow.

The follow up to the last post (where Jeff painted the nursery) is that we added a fabulous decal the accent wall. White birch trees with blue birds and a fun orange owl! I love it so much, I sit in there for a few minutes each day and admire it.

This was SO easy. I was a little worried that I had chosen a project that was a little more work than what we are capable of DIY-ing at the moment, but it was surprising simple. We got it out of the package and up on the wall in about 3 hours.

Now, we took our time, to make sure that we still loved each other throughout the process. We even took a snack break and got everything cleaned up. I have been telling people that we are total pros at this and can come over and decal a wall for you anytime. Im confident that we could get the next one up in less than 2 hours! With this chick's excellent supervising skills and the dude's flawless execution, we are pretty much masters. Just saying.

Since I am a little behind, I hadn't done it yet, BUT I did take a ton of photos with the intention of creating a step by step video of how to to put up a decal. This would be super helpful, if you ever wanted to do it. If no one is interested, Im probably not going to take the time to do that just yet. BUT, if you are, leave a comment and I will get it up ASAP.

The how to video won't take me long to get up, but I should probably tell you all about the amazing baby shower that we had last weekend. And I have a few thank you notes to get out to the wonderful people who shared that day with us.

Living in Color

You remember how long it took us to pick out that chair? Well, lets just say, it took longer than deciding on my new car, which I got last week. More on that later.....

The nursery is slowly but surely coming together. The chair should be delivered in April, just in time for the baby to arrive in beginning to mid May. I moved what was my office, for the first few months we were in this house, to a new room that is much better suited as a study. I should do a little post on how its coming together too. I will add that to my list.

Before the furniture was delivered, in the middle of a random snow day, Jeff got the room painted. Choosing the paint color was a process, just like the chair. 

First we went to Lowe's or Home Depot (I cant remember, we are at both like every other day) and got some swatches. I taped them to the wall and checked in to see how I felt about them over the next few days. I would take a look in the early morning, mid day and evening, to see how they looked in different lighting.  After a few days, I narrowed it down to these 4.

Since we knew we wanted to add a decal mural, we figured it was best to pick that out first and that would help make the decision. Since we decided on a nature/woodsy kind of thing, we picked the green. 

Once we decided on the color, which only took a week!, this dude started painting! He did a great job and got it finished before the furniture was delivered. 

While I love the gold/yellow and feel like it is such a happy color, I felt green was best for the wall.  I added my splash of yellow with the rug!

And here is what it looks like pre-mural, with the furniture. Next post will be putting up the decals, which turned out GREAT! And just in time, I really wanted it to be up before our moms come to visit and before our baby shower next weekend. I am so excited I can hardly stand it!

Mirror turned Chalkboard

This was my Thanksgiving project. Long overdue to get done and long overdue to share. My bad. Most of what we have to share is baby G related (like registering and getting this damn chair ordered), so I thought I would break it up a bit.

You know that I am passionate about upcycling, repurposing or whatever you want to call refusing to throw stuff away. That is how this DIY headboard came to pass and so many other projects.

The backstory on this mirror goes like this....I bought these 2 mirrors for like $35 off Craigslist for my small studio space that I rented in Dallas (circa 2009). When I went to pick them up, the girl nonchalantly mentions that they have these obnoxious giant nails thru the wood framing all the way around. Since I was already there and I needed a mirror, I just took the damn thing.

Now these have been wrapped up in packing paper for 2+ years and schlepped from Dallas to our first house in Richmond and now here. Just like the wood in our shed that became the DIY headboard, I swore to the Dude that I would figure out some amazing and fabulously creative way to use them. It took me some time, but now that we are in our new house it came to me.

I decided to turn the smaller of the two mirrors into a chalkboard to hang in the dining room. After I hammered out the giant nails that were in the frame (I've got a pic of that from the 2nd mirror project that we did today), I taped off the edges and spray painted the chalkboard paint directly onto the mirror.

It was so easy! I did take a few coats. I think I did it 3 times, just make sure it was even. I let it dry about a half hour each time in between. 

 Each week, we have been taking my pregnancy progress photo and writing the number of weeks on the chalkboard. It also is a fun place to write our menu when we have people over for dinner. I am sure we will use it for all sorts of stuff!

We have been tracking the baby's progress with his size corresponding to fruits and veggies. I couldnt find a rutabaga that week:)

If you are a Pinterest person, I added this to my DIY decor Pinterest board. Its here if you want to  repin and save it for a future project.

See, told you so! Never doubt my creative vision. Today we put the 2nd mirror into action. It looks amazing, more to come on that.

Rock a Bye Baby

In last week's post (tackling the registry and other to dos), I mentioned the search for the perfect chair. I can not tell you how thankful we were to finally make a decision on this and get it ordered. I am sure that our mothers, were ready for us to make a decision and move on. I know for sure one of them was:). I also know that if she is going to spend as much time as she wants in this chair, with this baby, she will be happy that we got a nice comfy one.

When I tell you that we spent more time in search of this chair than we did picking out our next car, I am totally serious. Chair shopping proved to be much more challenging than expected. From what I hear, you spend a lot of time rocking the sweet little ones in these chairs, so comfort is key.

What I learned on my journey is that even the ugliest ones available are also REALLY expensive. I decided that if I was going to buy anything, I wanted to not hate it.  We had looked at this Pottery Barn chair early on but had some sticker shock. Then, like I mentioned, as we kept looking we learned all chairs are expensive, even the ugly ones. We decided on the one in the above photo that I am glamorously "modeling" for you all. It will be coming in the below color.

All I wanted was an upholstered (not wooden or leather) chair that was semi-modern with clean lines that swiveled or rocked. It didn't have to recline or have an ottoman. I wanted to be able to sit in it before buying it, which made the Little Castle chairs not an option. A lot of folks recommended these but I wasn't dropping $500 on something I couldn't see in person. I liked the way they looked but I just couldn't commit.

So, assuming that I will rock more than one baby in this chair, and that I will continue to like it when these babies are older, we went for the Pottery Barn chair. We are really grateful that our parents help us with making decisions and purchases like this. If we didn't have them, we would probably just not have anywhere to sit.

Good thing we ordered it when we did because it takes about 10 weeks before the can deliver it. By the time the nursery furniture gets here, Jeff gets the room painted (more on that) and decorated, the rug gets here (oh, yeah, another story!), the chair will be here just in time for the baby. We also saved 10% by registering for a few items at Pottery Barn.

If you are looking for a giant leather chair that looks like a 400 lb, 80 year old man would rest comfortably thru an entire Sunday of football or a wooden rocker/glider chair built for a quilting granny, you should be able to find that in a single afternoon instead of weeks of searching.

I have a whole list of stuff to tell you about, what do you want to know next? I am thinking paint samples and our (super long) process of choosing an accent wall color will make for an interesting story. Ok, maybe not super interesting but it will do.

Registry, and other works in progress.

Since we are expecting this baby to come in May, we have been super busy the last few weeks preparing for his arrival! Maybe I was kind of naive about this but I really thought that the crazy busy times, started after that baby got here. What do I know!

We are getting it done, little by little. We made the announcement to the world that we were expecting (seen here), then shared our gender reveal (here), now for the real prep work! Its kind of like planning  a wedding, except I am much more into this than I was the wedding. Maybe because, unlike the wedding, we can make decisions how we want to, and not have to tip toe around what works for everyone else, friends, family, friends of family. Nope this one is all us.

I am trying really hard to keep the habit of posting here at least once a week. There is so much I need to update you on, but I will spread it out, as to not overwhelm you as much as I have been overwhelmed the last few weeks. For now, I want to share my excitement about our upcoming shower!

My awesome girlfriends, Kristen (maid of honor from my wedding) and Julie and Casey (gender reveal party planners) are hosting this. I have no idea what they are planning but it is always awesome. Just like this shower invitation that I got in the mail this week. They know how to pick fun things that make me happy and know that I love to be surprised. How cute is this invite!

I am especially grateful to Casey for helping us with our registry and making sure we did it on time!

This guy is a handful but he is great to have around!

girls just want to have fun!

My mom and mother in law will be flying to Richmond for the shower, which will be nice. It is hard not having them be here but they do the best they can to be a part of each special thing. I would have loved for them to be here for our gender reveal party, but when Casey and Julie surprised us with having them join us via Skype that was pretty awesome too!  Totally unexpected and very special.

Registering kind of snuck up on us, I didn't realize it would be so intense! And such a time consuming process. Of course, I do have the world's most thorough researcher for a husband. He has read this book, cover to cover and refers to it as his bible!
 
Seriously, if you or someone you know (who likes to make ultra informed decisions on everything) is having a baby, get this book. Jeff has read it cover to cover and it has all the safety information and the best place to buy everything.


It really helped us when registering. We are registered at a few places (see below for details). Babies R Us is a big box store that has a lot of stuff and is easy to order from so we went there. I added Amazon.com at the last minute, because it was suggested to me by previous new mamas who said having gift cards to Amazon was great to be able to order things yourself and have them show up to your door. I also registered for like 5 things at Pottery Barn because it saved us 10% on this chair. More on this agonizing chair decision and how we spent more time chair shopping than shopping for a car.

The place that I am most excited about registering was a small local store, Franklin Goose. They have very unique, environmentally friendly products. You can order online, which is great for our out of town friends and family. The staff is SO helpful and knowledgeable on the 2 things that are really important to us, cloth diapering and making your own food.

We went to a diapering class there that was SO helpful and we are ready for the challenge, yes, I know you think we are nuts. No, we don't care what you think, we are doing it anyway. Unless you think we are awesome, in that case, we agree. I don't know why I am surprised when people say super negative things about something I am excited about, but that somehow 30+ years into this life, it still kind of gets to me.

Because so many of our friends and family are out of town and won't be able to join us for the shower, we wanted to include registry information here, if you wanted that.  I added the links so you can go straight there, some of them were not easy to find! Anyone who sends anything before the March 23 shower, I am saving your gifts to open then so it can be like you were here in spirit.
Babies R Us
Amazon
Franklin Goose 
Pottery Barn

Things coming soon:
The Chair Shopping Adventures
More details on the Gender Reveal Party
Weekly Pregnancy Photos Journal
Letters to the Baby
Hiring a Doula
Why Cloth Diapers?
On a Mission for the Perfect Chair
Nursery Decor

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I'm Back!

So, yes, I know its been awhile. I didn't how long until I looked at this blog and saw that my last post was Christmas of 2010! This blog was started to chronicle our transition into married life and living in Richmond. While married life is pretty awesome, that first year in Richmond was kind of shitty (to be quiet honesty. But, by year two, I had weeded out most of the crap that I had gotten into in year one and had some pretty awesome folks in my life. I was having a lot of fun and business was booming. Thats why you will have to excuse my 2 year hiatus. 

The best thing of 2011 was probably getting hitched to the dude, I can't really think of anything else right now. You can check out the recap of 2012 here. It made me happy to see how many things had really turned around last year. Grab a cup of coffee and check that out. I warn you, its not short, but its good. 

Late last year, I started a new venture with the business coaching program Money Making Makeup Artist and that is going great. I got approved to be a YouTube partner so I got to make my channel all pretty. Do me a favor and go on over there and subscribe and watch a few videos, share the on Facebook and Twitter and give them a thumbs up. It would just take a quick second and mean a whole lot to me. I need to get some more eyeballs over there stat! Go here now!

Now that I am back on track and so many good things are happening, I am back to organized goal setting. I tried this thing in December, where I made a video of my December goals to see if that will help me make sure to do them. I figured if I put it out there and had to report back in January, which new goals and December's progress, that a fire would be lit under me to make things happen. See December here and January here. 

I would love for you to play this game with me. Share your goals, on any of the blogs (Emily Hudspeth, here or Money Making Makeup Artist) where I post about the goals or on the YouTube channel under the video itself. Posting it to the YouTube video would be my preference but i really don't care as long as you play. Tell me what your goals are and how we can help. I swear the accountability will get you going! Report back and let me know how you did. 

That brings me to what I did in December, granted I think I completed it December 30 or 31 but it was done in the month that I said I would do it in, so that makes me happy. I made my DIY head board project and here is the step by step for how I did it.

First, this was our starting point. No color, very institutional, don't you think? Our old bedroom was black/white/silver, so there are lamps and curtains and prints on the walls. We wanted an update, something fun. Something new. 

We moved into our first home (as official homeowners) in September. We have this little shed thingee on the side of the house for storage, which is nice. However, it was apparently where random pieces of wood (like a collection of several past owners dining table leaves!) went to die. Because I am a proud product of my mother, I can't dispose of anything that can be put to use. Especially when it can be used for crafting. The dude of the house, was getting really frustrated because I swore I could do something with that so he couldn't throw it out. Time to put my money where my mouth was.....

One rocking Saturday night, we headed out to Joanne Fabrics to get our supplies. This is the dude, supervising the lady working at Joanne Fabrics. I know it looks like a Michael Jackson impersonator, but no, its the dude.

We really scored because the fabric was on sale (15% off I think) and then the dude really pleased me when he whipped out his iPhone and scored us another coupon on top of that. I am teaching him well. This fabric and the batting I got to put under it, was only $68! That also included the Cadbury egg that I   picked up last minute at the register. A girl's got to celebrate these little victories!

I borrowed this staple gun from my bff, Casey. What  badass, a chick with her own staple gun!?!?! I've got to get one of these myself. It was really empowering. The dude went to Lowe's/Home Depot and got the appropriate sized staples. Those were just a couple of bucks so our total budget for this entire project is about $70.

  It as a beautiful day! Sunny and like 60. We pulled out the first of these 3 wood panels and got to work! Step one, cover it in the batting.

Next was the fabric, which I will tell you that you should iron it before you start. As soon as I pulled it out of the bag, I noticed that it had big creases in it from being folded overnight, so I had to run upstairs and press it to perfection. Then, we return to the scene to place the fabric over the batting.

I stretched the fabric tight (make sure that your patterns are straight!) and had my handsome assistant staple it to the board. So quick and easy!

I have to admit that we stood this first one up and Jeff immediately said, "uh, oh, I hope its not too tall?". I had never thought of that! We had the measurements to get the fabric cut properly. And we had been so worried about which of the boards in our storage unit would be best to pick from, based on the width, but I figured if they fit in the storage unit, we would be fine. We brought it in the house and it was about 2 inches too tall to fit floor to ceiling in the kitchen. I tried not to panic and said that we should take it upstairs because I thought the ceilings were higher up there. 

*Truthfully, I didn't think this, but I was praying that it was a possibility. Aren't ceilings usually taller downstairs? 

Well, luck be a lady, it fit PERFECTLY floor to ceiling. If it had been a 1/2 inch taller, we would have been out of luck! So we got the first one finished and knew it would fit, score! Then we went down to the deck to quickly finish the last two. What do you think? 

 Lamps and curtains will be added, I just have to shop for the perfect ones. What do you think? Less hospital/institutional? Not bad for less than $70 and getting some of that wood out of the shed! I am pleased. That inspired me to keep going with my goal videos, it must be working.

Oh, and bringing back to the goal videos.  Adding the occasional (monthly at least, not every few years!) post to this blog was part of my January list. I have been saying that I would bring it back for like a year! Let me know what you think, I could really use some encouragement to keep it up. So, let me know if you think it is fun and I will be sure to keep going!

xoxo

this chick

Holiday Cheer

After our Thanksgiving blow out, it was time move on to the next set of holidays. Since we are a blended family, we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. Enjoy!

We pulled out our decorations from the last few years and I added a few new ones too.

This sign is recycled from our first Hanukkah party in Baton Rouge. We thru that sucker together in less than 24 hours from the moment we decided to have it to the kick off of dinner with 16 of our closest friends. Jeff did everything, made the brisket, latkes and apple sauce from scratch. I got decorations, party favors and borrowed a table. When people asked "what can i bring?", we said if you could bring a chair that would be great, otherwise we going to have to sit down to eat in shifts.

I bought this fabulous tree and almost all the decorations the day after Christmas. My mom and I dropped into the Dollar General in Olla, La. and picked up some Christmas goodies for 75% off. I think I got the
tree, decorations, lights, the tree skirt, and ornaments for about $20. I do love a good deal.

Some people are all about their real tree. I think they are lovely and smell divine. But they are also messy and a pain in the butt. What I really wanted, and I got, was a fabulous, fake white tree covered in rainbow goodness. I may do some after Christmas shopping this year for an upgrade in ornaments. Im thinking we will keep the white tree and maybe do 1 color ornaments, like all pink maybe? What do you think?

 Last year I scored this Santa playing Dirty Santa. I love it. It bobbles arounds. Kind of fun.

 I got some new flair for our new house. The stockings are old stuff but cinnamon scented pine cones (which are awesome!), the greenery, blue and silver ornaments are new. Thank you Micheal's arts and crafts store and Dollar Tree.

I didnt put this ornament on the tree. Instead, I put it by the door, under where we hang the keys. Its a fun reminder that this is a fun, loving,  happy time of year. Although, if you arent careful, it can be stressful. We have enough stress so lets keep this fun.

This baby tree is also by the door, under the fun ornament. This was also scored from that 75% off day after Christmas trip to the Dollar General. My mom has a tree in every room. Yeah, the kitchen, the bathroom, everywhere! The Santa ornament under it weighs about 700 pounds so we just have to put it on the table instead of the tree. With all these plastic trees in the house, we depend on pine scented candles from our friends at Yankee Candle to trick us into feeling legit.

When Kristen came to visit a two weeks ago, she brought us these fabulous stick on window decals as a housewarming gift. 

Im having issues with this one sticking.

You can feel the holiday spirit coming and going!



look at this chick!

I really want a wreath but the crappiest ones are pretty pricey and I do not care to have a crappy one. I am thinking a DIY project may have to take place soon.