A Big Sister & Brother to Be...

We are very excited to announce that we are having another baby! Little baby "L" is due in early February 2013! Lola is SO excited to have another baby brother, or a sister! (She is really hoping for a sister though!)  She has asked on a regular basis when we can have another baby since the day Logan came home from the hospital. :) To say she loves her brother would be the understatement of the year, and she is most definitely his favorite person as well.  Lola is 3 1/2 and Logan just turned 1 this month.  The age gap this time around will be about half of what Lola and Logan's is, I am looking forward to experiencing something new! 

I really wanted to do something fun with these two cuties as a way to reveal it to the "world" aka Facebook! :) I have seen these chalkboard signs used for a lot of things these days and think it is so cute! Knowing I would never find what I had dreamed up, I decided to just look for a unique and fun frame that I could turn into what I wanted! Ten stores later, I found it! (Thank you Target!) I found this mirror and instantly loved the shape! It was perfect! A little dis-assembly and spray paint and we were in business.  I sprayed the frame white, and the mirror portion with the chalkboard paint.  It was such a quick and easy process.  

Here is the original mirror before its makeover:

In hindsight, it may have been significantly easier to use a different product besides chalk, as I forgot to take into consideration the tiny hands that would be holding this sign and how easily it smudges into a complete disaster. :/ Thankfully it still worked out!

Who wants to be a big brother? This guy! :)

 Logan, how do you feel about not being the baby anymore?

We sure love these two, and are looking so forward to meeting baby L # 3! :) 

 

Logan's Monster Nursery!

Long before I knew my sweet baby was a boy, I started dreaming up how I would decorate a little boy's nursery. I knew I didn't want the typical baby blue room with sweet teddy bears, monkeys, or you name it- animals. I came across this blanket from Bed, Bath, & Beyond online and instantly was in love! I never know exactly what I am looking for until I see my first piece of inspiration, and for Logan's nursery this was it! I am a little bummed I didn't buy this blanket when I saw it, so unfortunately we don't even have it! But it was the inspiration piece none the less! When I found out we were having a boy, I was so excited to get started on his nursery! I knew I wanted it to be an extremely bright and fun room, and I think that was accomplished. :) I decided to do happy monsters, not scary ones! I still have people look at me funny when I say that Logan's nursery theme is monsters! Hasn't anyone seen Monsters Inc? They can be friendly! :)

Took me a little while, but I found a bedding set that I fell in love with and ordered it right away. I ordered several extra crib sheets too so I could make many of the things in his room to match his bedding. Here is his bedding, thank you Target! We decided not to use bumpers this time around based on the new recommendations for SIDS safety by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Time to pick out paint colors! Remember I said I wanted it to be bright? I was not kidding, I really meant BRIGHT! I know there are some people who based on color theory research say it is not good to paint a childs room orange, but I went ahead and did it anyhow! (I even wrote an 8 page paper on this subject in high school!) I will let you know how Logan turns out! Haha :)

Once the bedding arrived I got to work on deigning the accent wall. Here is the design I came up with!

Time to get started! This wall took me about 5 days to do. I was pregnant while I painted it so I chose to take my time and only paint one color a day. With my doctor's permission, wearing a mask & with the windows wide open I was only in the room for 5 minutes, 3x a day. :) My sweet husband always measures out the accent walls for me, otherwise these never would have turned out looking like squares!

I added one color of squares each day!

I looked around for a mobile but could not find one I liked, so I decided I could just make one! This was a really time consuming project, but I am really happy with how it turned out. I sewed fabric around embroidery hoops and scrunched the fabric to get the look I was going for.

I cut out all the monsters out of felt and got started stuffing & hand stitching them all together. I used some ribbon to put the whole mobile together and we hung it from the ceiling over his crib. He really loves it!

Here they are finished!

A friend was giving this chair away on Facebook (thanks Jamie!) and I quickly asked if I could have it! I have always wanted this chair from Ikea, but had completely forgotten that I now have the perfect room for it to live in! I was so tickled with how well it matched Logan's room! I made a little cushion for it because it just looked like it needed one! I took scrape pieces of fabric I had leftover from sewing the curtains, and sewed them all together with ribbon in between. It was a quick and easy project that makes it look like the chair was made for Logan's room, I love it! Plus now its a little more comfy for the kids to sit in, and they love to sit and spin in it!

The part I was most excited about was the artwork for the room! My Husband said he would paint the pictures and I couldn't wait! It was the main way I had planned to incorporate the monster theme into his room. We did all the artwork to match the mobile monsters I had created, I love that they match!

Here is how they turned out! I painted the two small ones and William painted the two big ones! :)

I found this idea on Pinterest, my favorite place to waste just about all of my time! ;) I bought the letters at Michaels on sale and painted them with the leftover paint from the accent wall, so they would match exactly. The shelves are actually spice racks from Ikea for only $3 each. They came in a neutral color so I just spray painted them black to go with everything else in the room. I did a DIY blog post on this project already, you can see it here. Fun random note, that Tickle Monster book is my very favorite book ever I think! Love how it portrays monsters in a friendly manner rather than all the things out there that make monsters seem scary! We love monsters here in our home! :)

Are you ready to finally see how it all looks together? Take a peek!

I sewed these curtains out of the extra crib sheets I had ordered, and used red ribbon for the edging. They are backed with the blackout fabric so when they are closed it is nice and dark for naps & bedtime.

I made this changing table pad cover out of a soft fleece, I would have loved to have just bought one but they didn't have any color that looked good in the room. Turns out I was happy to not have bought one because these are the easiest things ever to make and I did it for so much cheaper!

Here is my little cutie enjoying his room! It is time to move the mattress down now, its amazing how fast he is growing up!

Hope you enjoyed seeing his nursery, so much love went into making this room! I spend a lot of time in Logan's nursery, and it makes all the hard work seem worth it! I hope Logan loves it as he grows up!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think! :)

Lola Goes to the Movies!

Last week William & I took Lola to see her very first movie in the theatre! We had been talking about taking her for a while now, life has just been so crazy lately that it was hard to settle on a day that would work, but we finally did it!

We have been reading the book "Curious George Goes to the Movies" for months now and she always has the same response at the end, (and you need to say this quote in your saddest 3 year old voice possible...) "I wish I could go to the movies and eat lots of popcorn... :( " I told her the night before we went that we had a surprise for her the next day and she was so excited- my girl loves surprises! The next day we got all ready to go and when William got home from work we loaded up and took Logan over to my Mom's house. Lola of course asked what her surprise was and I took out the Curious George book and gave it to her, she knew right away we were going to see a movie! She then proclaimed all the way to the theatre that this was the best surprise ever! : ) It was fun to see her so super happy! Now that we have two kids it was special to be able to spend some one on one time again with Lola, she sure is growing up! We took her to see The Lorax, such a good movie! It was not scary which made it the perfect first movie choice! Here are some pictures from our night, we had such a great time!

She walked right up and handed him her ticket!

Normally we do not buy snacks at the theatre, but Lola was so excited about the ginormous bucket of popcorn that there was really no way around it :)

Her favorite, she calls them M's :)

It's official, she loves popcorn!

Such a fun Daddy, Mommy, & Lola date! I think she has asked me every single day since when we can go again, and also for more popcorn! Her mind will be blown the day she finds out I can make popcorn here at home! : )