1st load of baby laundry

My baby shower is one week from today!  It's a combined event with my side and Jamie's, and I have to admit that I'm guilty of peeking at my registries.  I am already taken aback by how generous people have been.  I've had to add stuff twice to Babies R Us; it had been whittled down both times to the expensive Britax carseats for when the babies are bigger, a four pack of hats, and gift cards.  The Buy Buy Baby registry is also getting down to the wire- double stroller, matresses, and a bunch of smaller stuff.
 
All of that being said, since Jamie had to work OT yesterday it struck me that I should maybe make some order out of the baby things we already have.  I sat on the floor for close to two hours and clipped oodles of tags and little plastic connectors off of jammies, onesies, hooded towels, washcloths, blankies, socks, hats, and bibs.  Today we went to Sam's Club and bought 170 oz. of Dreft (for just over $24!!!  I'm going to delete it from BBB's registry because they have 100 oz. for $22.)  I washed my first load of baby clothes!  =)  They're drying now and the second load is going.  Unlike all of the other laundry that needs to be caught up on, washing, drying, folding, and sorting baby things is a lot of fun (so far). 

We are making progress inside the house, too.  My goal has been to wash, dry, and put away two loads of laundry a day.  In my meltdown post a few days ago I mentioned how backed up we were, and we've certainly made sizeable dent.  There's still a lot to clean and organize around here, but in addition to everything I listed before, I'm now coming up with other things that seem really important- like condensing our two linen closets and giving the babies the smaller one for all of their towels, washcloths, extra wipes, back up soaps and lotions, etc.  Maybe it's a bit of nesting?  I realize in the big scheme of things, no one would notice an organized linen closet, but they would notice 8 piles of dirty clothes on the floor!  I'm hopeful that betweentoday and part of tomorrow Jamie and I can get crackin' over here. 

nursery update- we're getting there

Jamie got the nursery all painted a few weeks ago, with just a bit of help edging from my dad.  He built the cribs, with some help from Greta.  And he got the furniture upstairs and in position, with some help from my brother.  We're in really good shape so far.  This weekend he and my dad are supposed to put the Peter Rabbit mural up above the cribs, but it might take a bit longer to get the woodwork purchased, painted, cut, and hung so pictures may be a while.  We also still need to figure out the closet situation (there's this weird bump out that eats up valuable space because the closet is over the staircase).  Oh, and we need window treatments.  We still have the paper shades up from when we moved almost three years ago.  Here's how it's looking:

Jamie and Greta hard at work, but pausing to smile at the camera!

Greta was whispering some words of encouragement to Daddy.

The picture doesn't do the paint color justice.  It's a beautiful, light, minty green.

The "fraternal" blankies that my parents bought for Christmas.  We're big Disney people in my family.  Jamie and I bought the baby Goofy rattle years ago, before we even started ttc.  How could we ever decide which baby would get it?  Luckily we didn't have to.  My parents went to Florida just a few weeks ago and were given the mission to find baby Donald Duck.  (We had bought one for Brooke's baby, before she even knew she was going to have one!)

This dresser will be our changing table once the babies arrive.  For now, it just displays some of their treasures.  (This wall looks darker than the rest from the sunlight coming in, I think.)

Closet and turny glider.  There's a matching ottoman, but since I'm not using it yet I don't like it just floating in the middle of the room.

nursery- cute bookcases

Last night began my quest for cute bookcases for the nursery.  When Nick and I were growing up we had a red cuckoo clock bookcase.  It was only about 4 feet high and maybe 2 feet or so wide, with 3 shelves.  The shelving part looked like a rectangle and the "clock part" was similar to a triangle on top.  Think of drawing the most basic house- square and triangle, but stretch out the square.  The clock was painted on to the front of the triangle; just adorable.  I would like a cute bookcase for my babies, and Nick has "dibs", if you will, on the cuckoo clock.  Since he's older apparently everything that was ours was really his first.  Maybe my parents will just keep it for all grandbabies to share (it's still loaded with books), who knows.  Hey, if nothing else, it gives me another reason to shop for the SnuggleBugs!  I was initially just thinking of a plain bookcase, that Jamie could paint in a cooridinating color and maybe stencil or throw some decals on.  That still may be the case, but I stumbled across these and my heart leapt.  I'd likely have to wait and see what genders our babies are beforing committing to any of these, but how cute are they?  They are all made by Teamson:

nursery- part 1

Jamie has been off of work this week, so he was able to make some progress in the nursery.  He emptied the (former) computer room, went into the attic and ran cable to move the computer into Presley's room (our lovebird), and started priming the ceiling and walls.  Here are a few shots of what the room looks like, starting with a straight on view from the doorway and working clockwise around the room:

view from the door
the dresser/changing table will go between the windows

either the tall dresser OR a small bookcase (that I haven't found yet) will go between the closet and door

my chair and ottoman will go on this wall

the main event:  our Peter Rabbit Mural will go on the top section of this wall
both cribs will be underneath the mural, headboards in the back, facing out

Hopefully this weekend we can decide on a paint color for the walls.  It's still either going to be a very pale blue or light green that's pulled from the mural.  We're still unsure whether we want to have a ceiling light or just a lamp or two.  Jamie's an electrician, so putting in a box and the light fixture in the ceiling isn't a big deal, but he'd like to do it before the ceiling is painted if that's the way we're going to go.  I've been looking at nursery chandeliers that have a florally/gardeny feel to them to compliment the mural, but I'm not entirely gung-ho on any of them yet.  Here are a few that I've found so far:

potterybarnkids.com

annabean.com

ababy.com

making some progress

There hasn't been a whole heck of a lot to write about lately.  A few updates I do have to share are that we are pretty much done registering.  We did both Buy Buy Baby and Babies R Us, although BBB's list is significantly longer.  Not all of our shower guests live nearby, and I know there are a lot more BRU around for out of towners, which is why we did both. 

We ended up ordering the Peter Rabbit mural!  It arrived at the end of the week and is even more vibrant and beautiful than I had imagined.  I can.not.wait. to post pictures of it.  We're looking at paint samples and will likely go with either a pale green or a super duper light blue. 

Yesterday we bought the most fabulous, comfy chair ever.  Jamie will go back to pick it up today (with my brother?).  It'll likely join the rest of the nursery furniture in our living room for now, but at least it'll all be here. 

Since I'm off of school today, I'd like to say that I'll work on cleaning the junk out of the computer room/ soon to be nursery.  If I'm being honest, though, I'll more likely watch tv, read from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and perhaps work a nap in there somewhere.  I woke up today with a slight headache that I haven't shaken yet.  I try my best to hold off on taking Tylenol, but headaches are simply the pits. 

nursery furniture

We've been going back and forth about the nursery for a while.  Which room should we use?  (we have a 3 bedroom house)  What color wood?  What kind of bedding?  Convertible cribs or standard?  The list of questions goes on and on.  Well, today was a big day.  We found and fell in love with a furniture collection.  My parents always told my brother and I that they'd like to buy the furniture for our baby's nursery.  They hooked up Dominick, and now they did the same for our SnuggleBugs.  In the spirit of fairness (since Nick and Brooke had 1 baby and we're having 2) we told them we'd cover the second crib, but they'd hear nothing of it.  So, while there's still a lot to figure out for the nursery, we've got furniture!



It's a beautiful French White color- much more beige than white.
This picture does not show how rich and creamy the beige is;
it's seriously not at all white!


We got 2 cribs, the tall 5 drawer dresser, and the low, long dresser to be used as a changing table.  It's all just fabulous!!!  The cribs are convertible, so that's going to change the layout of things a bit, but we'll figure it out. 

I've been on a Peter Rabbit kick for a while (admittedly, on and off).  In a perfect world this mural would be on the big blank wall in the nursery (framed out in matching French White wood trim so it looks like a picture in a frame), about half the height of the wall, the bottom of the mural being about where the top of the cribs would start, and with the two cribs side-by-side underneath it:



http://www.muralsyourway.com/myw5-design.cfm?pid=MMCGBP1017
country landscape II


I don't know if there's enough room for my vision to become a reality.  Once we get the computer room emptied and the furniture set up, we'll see how it goes.  I'd likely pull a green or yellow from the mural to paint the remaining wallls, and keep the bedding very simple- just solid colors (yellow or green if we buy it ahead of time; pink, purple, or blue if we buy it after the babies are born and we see who we've been blessed with).  This is what I'm leaning towards now.  I'm sure it'll change a whole bunch of times in the next month or two, but any other serious contenders will certainly get blogged about!