Thursday, June 28, 2012

As The Paint Dries

I am so pleased with how the room came out. Honestly, if anyone needs painting done let me know because Greg is amazing! He got this done all in one day! Here are some pics and I could not be happier!

 The wall where Nolan's crib will sit. 
I will be putting up block letters of his name in the white which hits just above the top of his crib.
 This wall will hold the changing table/dresser and hutch set. 
 If you can tell, Greg also painted the hallway, along with this room, in just one day!
 The glider is going over here. I tricked my Greg & said we got it in burnt orange, but i went with chocolate :) 

We got all the furniture ordered yesterday too. We cannot be more thankful to Greg's parents, Tommy & Ann, for helping us with all that. Some things are available later than others so we are having everything ordered together. So we probably won't have it all until the end of August. But that is A-OK with me! Then I will focus on adding he final touches to make the room Nolan's. 

This has just been just a blessing of a week. I have been able to catch up with old friends, get started on the final steps to making our house a home for the baby, and spend time with family. I am so excited to bring Nolan into this world with all the support Greg and I have and the love we feel from family and friends. Thank you everyone!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Nolan's Nursery - Decisions made & before shots

The big day is TOMORROW! We are starting on the nursery! I have decided on furniture, paint & decor. Now its time to get started. Thank you to my mom's co-worker for painting his room. It will be Valspar Churchill Hotel Maple on the bottom, valspar Du Jour for the stripe, and Allen + Roth rivermist on top. Here is a picture of the samples how they will be.


While Greg, mom's co-worker, is painting Tommy and I will be going to Baby's 1st Furniture on Richmond and Chimney Rock to purchase the nursery furniture! I decided on Baby's Dream Legendary curve top, safety gate crib in espresso. This is a great gender neutral crib that converts into a toddler bed then a twi size bed! And the great thing is that the safety gate is the rail for the toddler bed, so you don't have to buy that later on to convert! Now I had no clue what a safety gate was before I started looking. Recently it has been outlawed to even sell drop gate cribs, because it can hurt the baby, but it was convenient because if you are short (like me) you could get close to the mattress when placing the baby down to sleep. This safety gate is about a 6 in. section that flaps down so you can get closer to the mattress when the baby is larger and the mattress is set lower. I highly recommend this style of crib if you are looking into buying soon. Here is a picture of the crib.


We are getting the matching double dresser with hutch to serve as storage and changing table. Its a beautiful and very versatile piece of furniture as it doesn't look like baby furniture so it can grow with the kids. 


Now the nightstand with this set looked too library-ish so I decided to go with Baby's Dream (same manufacturer) Renaissance night stand. This is the other set I was contemplating but the crib didn't come with a safety gate. 


And lastly, Greg had mentioned this week he wanted to go to the Lay-Z Boy store and look into getting a recliner. Every wife's favorite piece of furniture :/ So I found a compromise! Best Chair designs gliders for nurseries and they can recline as well. So I found one that is spacious enough to fit Greg, while holding Nolan! So we are getting the Best Chair Irvington. The only thing is I didn't decide on a color, most likely I'll go for a chocolate.  Once I find a picture of exactly what we are getting I'll post it. 

Now for the before pictures of the room. I still call it a room until it is finished, then it will be the nursery!

The wall that the crib will be against

 From the window looking into the hallway 
I think Lacey is about to be really confused that this room won't be hers

 The opposite wall of the crib that will house the dresser

From the doorway looking into the room
The glider will be in the far corner

I'll post pictures throughout the process of converting this room into Nolan's nursery! Stay tuned...


Thursday, June 21, 2012

Nolan's Nursery

I am getting so excited because we are getting Nolan's room ready, finally. I have been hesitant to work on it, because we have so much time until he gets here. But here we go! We have cleared out the room and are going furniture shopping next week!

After looking through the baby bargain book (great reference) if you live in Houston I recommend you look at Baby's 1st Furniture. They carry only top rated furniture manufacturers. Their biggest floor store is on I-45 N, and they are moving to the Woodlands soon, so they are selling a lot of their floor set ups. And another benefit of this store is that they set it up in room set already so you can see the whole thing together. And its a plus that Roula, from 104 KRBE, highly recommends this place too :)

Here are pictures of cribs I like. What do you think?
Baby's Dream Legendary Collection - Cinnamon
Baby's Dream Renaissance Collection - Espresso
Stratton Collection
Nerva


Sorry the last one is so big. The small ones are all sold, in multiple wood finishes, at Baby's first. The last one they can order because they sell from this manufacturer but they just don't have this set on the floor.

Next thing we have to set into motion is getting Nolan's room painted. His nursery theme will be bulldogs, of course! Here is the color scheme and wall painting I was thinking...

Puppy love nursery!!! But with a bulldog
But a little altered of course. I like the khaki brown on bottom, but then I want a thick white stripe in the middle then the top be that baby blue. In the white stripe I will hang wooden letters of his name over his bed painted in a slate grey. The accent in his room will be that color. Here are some other things I want to include...(all found on pinterest)
dog nursery
I want this four picture set to put up in his room. 
Adorable! But paint it blue and have a manlier shade
I want the bulldog lamp, but Ill paint him metallic grey and get a blue shade. 
Dog paintings for baby / child nursery. Customized puppy pictures on canvas for kids rooms and playrooms (not prints) Set of 6
And I love the bulldog one, but would get four of it in only the bulldog with different shades of brown with different shades of blue for the background. 

Really getting excited now!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Half way there

Sorry I have not posted in awhile. I guess since my family lost Lane I have had a hard time connecting with Nolan and accepting the fact that I will be having him. I wish nothing more than for my family to feel no more pain but I have not had as many dreams, or comforting feelings, that I will have this baby. I had not seen him, known how he was growing/doing, since I had the NT ultrasound at a different office. I have seen my doctor for regular 4 week visits but its most comforting to see an ultrasound with my doctor so she can explain things to me and I can ask any questions that come up. I guess I just haven't had that comfort in awhile so I haven't felt comfortable in this pregnancy.

That is until yesterday. Even though I was not with my doctor, I did get an ultrasound with the technician. We got to see him move and kick, as I was feeling it too. It is always amazing to see your baby move, and see  his heart beating. We even had a close up of his heart to where we saw all for chambers of his heart working strong. And we got a confirmation picture that he was a boy! We saw his turtle, hehe. It was a very comforting feeling, and I cried through the whole experience. We were able to get multiple pictures to take home with us.

After the comfort I received I woke up this morning refreshed. I wondered when I would want to get things started to prepare our house for Nolan, and I am today. Right now his room is our study/storage room. So I am going to organize all the storage things and move them, clear things off the furniture to move them to other rooms. That way we can have the room deep cleaned to then have painted and buy furniture to move in.

I am starting to feel like we will be prepared for Nolan. Im thinking thats another thing I needed to feel connected to him, and that I will have this baby, I needed to feel like we were ready. We have been ready mentally and emotionally since we found out we were pregnant again, but now I needed the feeling of readiness physically at home.

No one tells you all the things you go through during pregnancy, probably because it is different for every women and couple. But there are so many stages you go through, especially if you have had a loss, but I/we need to have faith. I have a friend who said she prayed to St. Jude every night with all three of her children and never felt completely comfortable until she held them in her arms. I have a feeling I will be the same way. I am feeling better but as I said before, your worry as a mother starts when you get the plus on that pregnancy test and does not stop (however it does change) until you die.

But for now lets all enjoy some pictures of our approximately 13 oz bundle of joy.

 Nolan's profile
Nolan's turtle

We can't wait to see what he looks like. I think/want him to look just like his daddy and have a big baby belly to blow on. Greg thinks he will look like me because my traits are more dominant, such a doctor's train of thought. We shall see soon, half way there!