Category: Maddie

I know some of you are dying to see pictures of the baby's room (I have a hard time calling it the “nursery” for some reason). So I snapped a couple this weekend after the baby shower.

We got the wall decorations hung that came with the bedding over the crib. I still need to wash the bedding (what? I still have 12 weeks!), but at least it's in the crib. Chuck's mom made the curtains for us. I love how they turned out. And that bookshelf next to the chair (which we already had just sitting around) will be replaced with a table at some point.

I don't have a changing pad, yet, but the dresser is going to double as the changing table. I am planning to sort through all the clothes in the tote (these are the ones from Katie that she so generously parted with). I made the wall hangings with Chuck's help the night before the shower. The morning of the shower, we were hanging them. I got the idea somewhere online. I will try to find the link or maybe just do a tutorial on CraftsOnAWhim.com. They were a big hit at the shower!

This wall still needs something hanging over the bookshelf, but I have no idea what to put there yet. I kind of want to do a collage of white picture frames with these little flower things mixed in. It would make more sense if you were in my brain and had some idea what I was talking about!

And a friend bought us the mobile to go on the bed. It was delivered yesterday and we have yet to hang it up, but it will go on the wall side of the crib.

So there you have it…the rundown of the nursery baby's room. Now if we didn't have to wait 12 whole weeks for her to come live in it. Come on baby!!! Cook faster!

My wonderful friends threw a great shower for me over the weekend. Katie is really close to having their third baby and put together most of the shower. She dropped everything off the day before. Unfortunately, Katie didn't end up making it to the shower (she hasn't had the baby yet either), but we had a fabulous time. She was definitely there in spirit!

My friends Brooke and Hillary helped out with the other details and made sure everything went great. They did a fabulous job and I am so lucky to have these girls as friends!

The only bummer is that Minnesota decided to have it's first snow storm of the season. A number of people couldn't make it, but we had a really good turn out all the same. And this just means that I'll get gifts as I see the friends…nice and spread out! How fun!

Chuck spent Saturday morning snow blowing and trying to keep up with all the snow falling so people would be able to park and get into the house easily when they got here.

HERE are the pictures from the shower if you are interested in seeing them.

Thank you to everyone that came. All the fun gifts make it even harder to wait 12 more weeks for this little girl to make her arrival!

Last week we went to dinner at one of my best friend's house. I work with her husband, so he drove me to his place after work and Katie cooked a delicious dinner (stir fry!). She had a crib mattress for us and some baby girl clothes to go through. Now you aren't going to believe the amount of clothes I ended up with! I was swimming in all the clothes!

Can you see that there is a second tote behind me? There was no way I could say no to anything. It was all so cute! I was so excited! See….

Katie is pregnant with her third baby (a boy). Some people are concerned that she is going to have the baby before my shower this coming weekend, so I wanted to be sure I took some pictures of the two of us together. This will probably be the only time we'll ever be pregnant at the same time since they are done having kids after this little baby. So we took a couple pictures.

I joked that this was the first date for our babies. We're I'm already planning an arranged marriage of our little girl to their little boy. Hopefully no one minds too much!

I saw this the other day and thought it was interesting. I don't know that any of you care about this, but I am posting it anyway.

We have received a few baby gifts from people. The very first gift were some baby socks. They are so tiny! I can still hardly believe that a little person will fit in those things!

The first toy she got was this adorable little elephant/blanket.

The first little outfit she got was this one! It's so very soft and I can't wait to snuggle her in it!

We are so thankful for all the gifts people have given us. We have also received a bunch of hand-me-down clothes from people. Everyone's excitement and generosity is has been so wonderful. I know this little girl is already so loved.

I have been taking pictures of my belly when I am getting ready for bed. I have made a little gallery of them if you are interested. There are a few mixed in there that are ones Chuck took. They are much better than the ones I have been taking from my phone. But this was a fast way I could take pictures frequently.

They are in order from oldest first to the most recent ones at the end.

I had a doctor's appointment last week and the doctor said everything was looking great. I have gained 12 pounds so far and she said I was right on track and to keep doing what I have been doing. The baby's heartbeat sounded great and this was my first appointment where she took out a tape measure and measured my belly!

I am also feeling her kick all the time. She's a maniac in there some days. But I don't mind. I love feeling her move around in there!

Well, there's a small update for you!

The baby's room is coming along nicely.

Last weekend, we picked out, purchased and set up the crib and dresser for the baby's room. I love them!!!

We will get the crib mattress next week. And we don't have the bedding yet, but I am hoping someone purchased it off our registry!

And I took these pictures right after we (meaning Chuck and our neighbor) moved the dresser into the room, so I'm sorry there's stuff on it. I think they are just lovely and I couldn't be happier with them!

We also ordered some blinds for the downstairs office, the project room and the baby's room. Chuck installed the blinds in the office the other day, and one night after work we put up the blinds in the baby's room.

Chuck's mom is going to make us some curtains for the baby's room (this is where the pink will come in!) and we are going shopping for the fabric this weekend. I'll post the pictures when they are finished and hung up! I am so excited to get some pink into the room! Not that I don't love the green, but it will be fun to see it look more girly!

My mom also came over recently and brought more baby clothes for us. We are getting quite the collection already and all but a couple of these are hand-me-downs. We are so thankful for everyone's generosity!

And my mom brought over a bookshelf for the room. The piggy bank on the top belonged to my grandma. I always loved to play with it at my grandma's house and I think I am going to keep it in the baby's room.

My mom has one more shelf to give us, but couldn't fit it in her car with all the other stuff she brought us! I can't wait to get some books on those shelves!

It's so exciting to see the room coming together a little at a time! It's going to be so exciting when it's all ready for our little girl! But it will be even more exciting when she's home and sleeping in her very own room!

Last weekend we painted a couple rooms in our house. One, of course, was the baby's room. I'll get to that one in a second.

First, we painted the downstairs study. This is going to be an office on the first floor of the house. I think we are both excited to have an office down there.

This is what it looked like before…with all the stuff cleaned out of the room:

The color of the room is the same color the whole house is. We didn't want to paint any of the rooms in the house until we have been here over a year because they would come and do touch-up painting. But now that we are past that, it's time to PAINT!

So this is what it looks like painted:

This color is called “Mother Nature” from Behr. We actually painted the dining room this color at our last house.

We have started moving things down to this room. Chuck brought the desk down there and now we just have to get things organized. I'll be sure to post a picture (or a few pictures) when it's all done.

Ok. So, on to the baby's room. My mom and Chuck's mom came over to help paint these rooms. I snapped a couple pictures of them in action!

I took a break at one point to do some stretches:

And this is what it looks like finished:

The greens are different in person. Since the green in the study is the same green we did at our last house in the dining room, I already knew I liked it. And the baby's room is a green that is very close to the green in the bedding we want to get for her room. It also reminds me of mint ice cream and I wanted to lick the walls while we were painting! It's called “Fresh Guacamole” from Glidden that we color matched in Behr paint.

I want to add pink curtains to the baby's room and other pink things. I thought it would be too hard to do that if the walls were pink, too!

There will be more pictures to come. I already plan to paint another room next weekend! And of course, there will be more pictures as we get the baby's room more put together! Until then!

We had our ultrasound Wednesday and found out that Baby Hays is a girl! We are so excited and spent the evening looking at paint colors and bedding. I have come to the decision that I am not quite sure what I want! Any suggestions for little girl's rooms? Everyone thinks I need to do pink in the room (which I think I might), but I don't know if I want the whole room that color….maybe just half of it. Or maybe two shades of pink….so many decisions!

Ok ok….I'll show you some baby pictures from today!

HERE is a link to all of the ultrasound pictures we got. They gave them to us on a cd. This was so nice. The pictures look much clearer than when they print them and then we scan them in! If you click on them, they get a little bigger, too.

These are probably (and hopefully) the last pictures we'll see of this little girl until we meet her in February! Now we have to think of a name for her!

We finished cleaning out the rest of the big items in my office. All that was really left was my big Ikea bookshelf. We had to empty the shelf to move it. So this is where all my books are right now:

This is where the bookshelf ended up (and please excuse the mess since I haven't unpacked from this weekend):

And this is what the rest of the room looks like cleared out:

There are a few things left in the closets and a few small things from my shelf that is still in the room. But those are very minimal things. Tomorrow morning we find out if we're having a girl or a boy! I can hardly wait! It's going to make all of this seem even more real!

Chuck and I also decided that we are going to paint the other rooms the new offices are going in. It seemed like a good time to do that and I know I am getting anxious to start adding some color to the house. I think we are going to paint the office on the main floor a green color. I really want to paint it the same color we painted our dining room at the last house.

But we'll see! All I know is that I am so excited for all the changes taking place at our house!

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p.s. Did you notice that I made my pictures bigger? What do you think? Do you like them a little bigger? Should I go bigger still?