We would like to Introduce...

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  We would like to introduce our Christmas present to you:

Our sweet Little Lady was born December 27, 2012 at 12:57 PM!  She weighed 6 lbs. 14 oz. and is 19" long!  She is such a blessing to our family and her Big Brother just adores her (as we all do!)

 If you don't see me around the blog for a few weeks, you will know why!  School starts back for my Little Fella next week, and in the meantime, I really want to get some good family bonding time in for the four of us. 

See you in a few weeks!

Jessica

Baby News

Hey there!  I wanted to pop in today to share the latest news on the baby front.  I went for my 34 week checkup this past Monday.  Everything is looking great!  I had some contractions Saturday night (7 or 8 in about a 2 hour time span) and then 4 on Monday night.  They were uncomfortable, but not totally unbearable.  They also never got any stronger, so we didn't go to the hospital.  When I mentioned it to the doc on Monday, she said if they get stronger to call them and let them know we are headed to the hospital to get it checked out.

I am measuring right at 34 weeks, so everything is progressing normally.  I go for my last 2 week appointment on December 10, then it will be every week until she's born.  I am getting more and more uncomfortable/restless/anxious with each day it seems, and I think our Little Lady is too.  I can tell her space is becoming more and more limited because it feels as though she tries to knock out some ribs to give herself more room!  :)

Between the hormones making me hot and sweaty at night, the frequent potty trips, and the inability to find a comfortable position to lay in, I am not getting much sleep these days.  Just preparing me for late night feedings, right?  I really try not to complain, so I keep telling myself that we only have a few more weeks to go and we can do this!  I want her to be healthy when she comes into this world, so that means she has to stay inside a little while longer.  I keep thinking/hoping she will come early like her big brother (I was 37 weeks when he was born.), but I don't wanna get my hopes up too high.  Each child/pregnancy is different.  I think our family wishes she would hurry up and get here too!  :)

Every time I think about her being so close to being born, I get so excited!  Having two children will be so wonderful!  I know it will be more work, but I am ready.  Children are blessings!  I think the Lord outdid Himself when He created my Little Fella, so I can't wait to see what our Little Lady will be like!  When I feel like I just can't wait one more day to see her sweet face, I just look at this pic:

This month is about to get very busy for us too, as if we haven't been busy enough already!  Just a few events we have on our calendar:  preaching out of town, Christmas programs, parties, parades, family traditions, and not to mention Christmas Day!  Thank the Lord I had all my Christmas shopping done by the end of September!  Did I mention my family is coming to my house for Christmas since I am being induced on the 27th? (We told both sides of the family months ago that we were not going anywhere for Christmas and have been reminding them since!)  That means cooking for my family too........two days before I give birth, unless she does come before then.  My mom and I decided yesterday to just do finger/party/appetizer foods this year.  That way we can buy/make ahead a lot of it and throw it in the oven to heat up.  Then it won't be so hard on me or my mom in case for some reason I can't help.  I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I love that kind of food anyways!  It's not fussy and we will really get to concentrate on enjoying family time.  And the cleanup will be easy too!!!  Just pray this tired mama has enough strength to do everything that needs to be done!

I guess this update turned out longer than I thought.  If you don't see me around much in the next couple of weeks, you will know why!  I love the Christmas holidays, so I am gonna soak up as much family time as I can!  This is our last holiday season as a family of three.....and I wouldn't have it any other way!  :)

God bless and Merry Christmas!!
Jessica

Every

Baby Girl Nursery: Revealed!!

Hey there!  Hope you had a great weekend!  I had a doc appointment yesterday (32 weeks!) and our Little Lady is doing just fine!  So is mom!  :)  Looks like we will have a baby on December 26 or 27!  That means as of today, we have 43 days left until she is born!  WOW!!

As promised, I am back today to reveal her nursery!  I planned this nursery for a while, and as I mentioned before, having a collage to keep all my thoughts together really helped!  So, without further adieu, let's get to the pics!  Warning:  this post is loaded with pics so grab a cup of hot chocolate and snuggle up!  :)  First, some detail shots:  (I explain each pic underneath it)

Just to recap, this is the before color of the walls.  If you remember, this was our guest room I first told you about here.  As you can see, we had been making the transition into a girl's nursery for a while and we were finally ready to paint!

The color I chose months ago was Martha Stewart's Aegean Blue from Home Depot.  When I went in to have it mixed, I was told they were phasing out their MS line, so we had it mixed in Behr's Paint and Primer in one.  It was our first time to use it, and my hubby loved it!  He said it was such a great quality and really only needed one coat (with a few little touch-ups).  We chose a flat sheen too. 

We had to let my Little Fella in on the painting too!  He was so excited and kept asking all week when they were going to paint!  He loves being involved and loves to paint!  :)  And how cute is he with his little roller?

We kept the green color (Glidden's Spring Leaf) in the closet from when it was the guest room, because I thought it would break up the blue and be complimentary as well.  Love the way it looks with the blue.

For a side table, I chose this Martha Stewart 6-cubby organizer from Home Depot.  I added 2 pink and 1 blue bin also from the MS collection.  I love it because it adds even more storage to her room than just a typical table.  More Storage is always a major plus in my book!  If I need more bin storage, I can always go back and buy 3 more!  Those two stuffed animals on the shelf were mine when I was little!  My uncle and grandfather gave them to me, and they have both passed away.  Sweet memories!  She also has some books on her shelf that were mine when I was little including my favorite, Let's Go Shopping!  :)

I found this sweet lamp at the Goodwill for $5!  It had an ugly green and blue lamp shade with frogs on it, so I popped this sweet pink one I found at Walmart on there and made it more girly!  My Little Fella loves that pull chain!

This is the gallery wall I put together for her!  Almost every piece has a special meaning!  The CFC is her initials that my sweet friend painted for her!  That framed pic that looks as if it's a blank sheet of off-white paper is actually a pic my Little Fella drew for her!  It's a roller coaster and he wrote her name and his on there as well!  So precious!  The pic to the left says, "You make me happy when skies are gray."  I also have one of those in my son's room.

In this pic, you can see my button art I made for her room.  Also the pic that says, "I am of great worth" was something my Hubby printed out just for her.  You can find it here on my Pinterest board.  The large pink flower canvas in the bottom right was purchased at Ross for $10! 

The feathery memo board was a Goodwill find and you can also see the sweet canvas my Little Fella did for his baby sister's room that I told you about here as well.  The other dark pink framed pic is of her initials all fancy like.

This ceiling fan was in Little Fella's room.  He needed a bigger one, so we switched the primary colored blades to these sweet pastel colors and used it in baby sister's nursery!  I think it's a sweet little touch!

Ok, so now that we have some detail shots out of the way, let's get to the whole room pics:

This is what you see when you walk into the room!  I love the way the blue wall color looks with the dark pink curtains!  The glider and ottoman was a Craigslist find!  It is sooo comfortable!!  I absolutely love it, and the fact that it was light and dark pink, green, and yellow were perfect!  I found the fuzzy dark pink pillow at Walmart for $5!

To the left of the door, we have the crib (away from curtains and windows!)  I bought this bedding from Target online last year (Hey, I told you I was praying and believing for a girl!) on clearance!  It was the jumping off point for the whole room!

The rug pictured here is also from Target (the crib is from Walmart Online).  Everything for this room was collected over time and I love that I took my time and now each piece really means something and looks great instead of just trying to get it all bought in a hurry.  The dark pink curtains on this window are the energy-efficient kind from Walmart.  They also block out a ton of light!  I couldn't believe it!  I went back and got a set for Little Fella's room too!

I painted the stem of a flower angled over each side of her bed.  I then made these tissue poms as the actual flower and I love how it turned out!  I saw this great idea on the Pottery Bar Kid's Facebook page.  A lady had done this for her daughter's bed and I absolutely loved it!  The  pic is no longer on their page, but trust me, it was cute!  There is a flower on each side!  (I have her first name spelled out in pink wooden letters over the middle of her bed with some vinyl butterfly stickers, but for privacy, I have chosen not to post it publicly on the blog.  Hence the reason the other flower is not pictured here.  I hope you understand!)

The changing table is an old hutch I found, again, on Craigslist!  It belonged to a man's grandmother and is solid wood!  I had plans to paint it white in the beginning, but the more I looked at it, the more I loved the warm wood!  It's also in perfect condition too, so that was another reason why I just couldn't bring myself to paint it!  The little pink baskets came from Walmart.  I love all the extra storage I get from having this hutch as a changing table rather than a typical one or even using a dresser. 

The dark pink curtains came from Walmart as well.  They aren't energy-efficient.  No need to spend the extra money for those since this is just on the closet, but the color was a perfect match! 

I found this cute little flower hook at the Goodwill months ago and decided to hang it inside her closet tucked away behind the curtain to hang her diaper bag on!  I want to find 3 more to hang another diaper bag and a basket cover on.  Anyone know where I can find them?

And here we are back at the door.  The room is a little small, but bringing in lots of great pieces (hutch, side table, and closet organizer) that fit the room that also had lots of storage really helped in here! 

I absolutely love her room!  I hadn't wanted to do a themed room like a Disney Princess theme or anything like that (not that there's anything wrong with it) but it kinda took on a theme of it's own when I got to putting it all together.  My Little Fella said he was painting his baby sister a garden when he made that canvas art for her, and later I thought about that and how she is our Little Princess, so a Princess Garden theme for her room came to be after it was all said and done!  I couldn't be happier with the way it all turned out! 

So, what do you think?  When people would ask me what colors I was doing in my daughter's room I got a few funny looks when I said light blue walls, but my hubby was my biggest supporter!  He always told them I had a vision, and that it would look great!  Every time he walks into the room now, he mentions how nice it looks.  I love that man!  :)

God bless!
Jessica

Nursery Design Inspiration

Hey there!  I hope y'all have had a great couple of weeks!  My hubby and Little Fella were sick last week, and my mom was in town this week so I am finally back to share the inspiration collage I made for our Little Lady's room!

(You can go here to find where the pics came from.)

The background color is my inspiration for the wall color.  I knew I wanted dark pink curtains.  The bedding I have pictured is not the bedding I chose, but it's the most similar to what I had.  The crib bedding I chose has the darker pink color in it as well.

Having an inspiration pic really helped to keep me on track for her room.  It's really the first time I had ever used one, and I really liked having it!  I could see exactly how everything would look and how well the colors would work together without having to do a thing to the room!

You have already seen my DIY Button Art I created for the room and as you can see, it was definitely on the inspiration board!  I have gotten many wonderful compliments on it! 

I hope to be back next week to show you the final reveal of the room!  I thought I would show you all the projects first, then do a final reveal, but I just can't wait any longer!  I love it so much and can't wait to show you!!

Until then, God bless!

Jessica

DIY Button Art

Hey y'all!  Today is Friday!!  Can I get a WOO HOO?  Not only that, the temps for Mississippi are supposed to cool way down!  Like 30s at night cool!  Music to this hormonal pregnant lady's ears!  :)

I wanted to share a project I did for our Little Lady's Nursery.  It was incredibly simple, and I don't consider myself very artsy.  The inspiration came from this:

source

I loved it the minute I saw it and thought, "That looks really easy to do!"  So I set out trying to recreate it for my girl's nursery.  

 

I gathered my supplies:  a canvas, paint, brushes, glue, buttons.  I started with my tree.  

I used three different shades of brown for my tree.  I dipped my brush straight down in all three shades at once and painted on the canvas.  This created light and dark places on the tree which is what I wanted.

Next, I painted a "C" for my daughter's first name in pink:

I just used one color pink for this.  I opened up a word document and typed the letter C in a bunch of different fonts to see which I liked best.  In the end, I decided to go with a simple one and just free handed it onto the canvas.

Next came the buttons.  I started with the largest ones and filled in with the smaller ones, just putting a little glue around the button and popping it wherever I felt it needed to go.

The final touch was to paint the edges brown and feather it onto the top of the canvas.  The original inspiration pic did not have this, but I used this technique on my Faith painting I did which you can see in this post, and I really liked it so I used it here too.  It's really easy to do.  Just paint your edges of the canvas the color you like and when you have about half the amount of paint on the brush that you started with, tap the top of the painting to create a feathering effect.  I'm not sure if this is the exact term used for it, again, I am not very artsy, but that's what I call it. :)

Here is the final product!

I thought it turned out really great!  I am very pleased with it.  It didn't take long at all to complete.  Waiting for it to dry took the longest of course. 

Here is another painting that went into her room too.  My Little Fella loves to paint.  I had one extra canvas that I had planned on doing something with for her room, but he begged me to let him paint.  I couldn't resist.  So I scrapped my original plan (it probably wouldn't have worked anyway) and let him paint.  He said he wanted to paint some flowers for her room, so we set out to painting.  I helped him with it because I wanted it to look like flowers and not just a bunch of paint splotches on canvas (bless him, he gets his artsiness - yes that's a word haha - from his mama!).  Here's the outcome of that project:  (since it's already hanging on the wall, you get a sneak peek of the nursery!)

Not sure why the color in this pic is darker and grayer than in real life.  Bad lighting, I guess.

You can see in the bottom pic the button canvas I painted too.  It looks so good in this room!  My Little Fella called his painting her "garden." I loved it!  I thought about letting him add some clouds, but decided less is more and left it alone. 

I think the fact that he painted it for her is so special!  We have really tried to let him be a part of the decision making process for her room, and as much as we can, so he will feel like he is a part and not feel left out.  He even calls her "his baby."  So sweet! 

I have lots more to share before her big nursery reveal, so come back next week!  I have really tried to keep the cost of her nursery way down and I can't wait to share it all with you!  Until then, have a great weekend!!

God bless!
Jessica

Fall Mantle

Hello!  Hope you are all doing well today!  I love fall.  I may have told you that a few million times!  I love everything about it.....the colors, the cooler air, the food.  Our weather has been teasing us with cooler temps one day and then hot temps the next.  This weekend we are supposed to have highs in the 60s and lows in the 30s.  Woo Hoo!!!  But first we have to deal with temps in the 80s for the rest of the week.  I guess it could be worse though, right?  :)

Anywho, I wanted to show y'all my fall mantle.  In keeping with the simple theme, I wanted to only put things up there that I love and scream fall to me.  So I went with flowers, candles, and pumpkins.  What do you think?

I really love it!  I used my hymnal wreath and just added the "Happy Fall Y'all!" sign I got from the Dollar Tree last year.  I used my milk vase urn and popped a glittery pumpkin on top.  The pumpkins came from Target and were so cheap!

I also used my fall garland I got from Dollar Tree last year too and added a few flower fillers to fluff it up.  I nestled  three candles into it as well.

And nothing says fall more than a basket of blankets, so I added that to the hearth.  My Little Fella picked up the small pumpkin on the hearth at his school's field trip to the pumpkin patch.

All in all, I really love this mantle.  I don't decorate for Halloween, just the fall, so this will stay up until I get ready to decorate for Christmas.

I also added a few other fall touches around the house.  The first is my wooden pumpkin I found at the Goodwill and a few other pumpkins/squash that sit in front of the TV.  These actually serve a double purpose because they help conceal (from far away) that little Move camera that goes with Hubby's PS3. 

I also added a pretty pumpkin and flower arrangement I found at Walmart to my dining room table along with some ceramic pumpkins I picked up at Dollar Tree a few years ago.

I would really like to paint over the red in my kitchen/eat-in.  Some of it is peeling off, and it's looking pretty bad, but I just know it's gonna take a lot of work to paint over that red!  They are making paint now that is supposed to cover red in one coat.  Has anyone tried it?  Did it work as well as they say it does?  Good thing this room isn't very large and most of it is covered by cabinets.

I also added  a few squash to a shelf in my living room displaying my painting and my red candles.

Like I said earlier, I am really loving these fall touches around my house!  I just wish the weather would cooperate and start cooling off so we can see the beautiful fall colors outside!  :)

Do you love the fall as much as I do?  How is the weather where you are?  Do you like to decorate for Halloween?  I would love to hear your answers in the comments!

God bless!
Jessica

Nesting

Hey y'all!  Ever since we have all gotten over all our colds and sicknesses, we have all been in full-on nesting mode around our home.  (In between work, school, college classes, soccer, school functions, church, etc., that is!)  As of right now, we have a little over two (yes, TWO) months to go until our Little Lady arrives!  I can't believe it, but we are so ready for her to be here!

When I say full-on nesting mode, I mean moving furniture (it's what I love to do), painting, putting things together, cleaning out, crafting, etc.  Of course, I haven't been able to do much furniture moving or painting, but my Hubby and Little Fella sure have been working hard!

And having some fun along the way!

But the cat is just as lazy as ever!

I have been supervising and doing what I can, but I must admit, it's getting harder and harder with a growing baby in your tummy!

And this is over the course of a month!  :)  She is definitely growing!  We had our 4D sonogram yesterday, and it was pretty special!  :)  Makes us want her here right now even more! 

I can't wait to show you what we've been up to lately!  So many changes!  I did manage to do a little fall decorating, which I am very excited about!  I love my mantle this year, and can't wait for you to see it!  Our Little Lady's room is thisclosetobeingdone.  Finally!  Only one thing left to do in there!  My goal was to have it finished by the end of October....I think I will barely make it!  :)

Hopefully I can get my Fall Mantle post up tomorrow!  I still need to edit some photos!  Until then......

God bless!
Jessica