The Beast

We call her the Beast. She's just such a physical baby. Wants to crawl all over you. She growls and bites. Not a great sleeper. Absolutely refuses to be fed by bottle or by spoon. In to everything.  And she's fast. Blink and she'll have crawled into the bathroom and unrolled the toilet paper.

We adore her. Her brother especially. And she would follow him anywhere. She has a sweet, shy smile. She's happy to be held by anyone and everyone. She's working hard on walking and talking. She's smart and curious and generally a joy to be around.

Happy first birthday baby girl.

Lessons Learned: Halloween Edition

 

 Double the kids, double the pumpkins to be carved. Also, three-and-a-half year olds are not much help when it comes to pumpkin carving.

 

If I disregard the instructions written my the crafty folks at Martha Stewart Living and hot glue the snakes to the wreath, I will find myself wiring the snakes on after every. single. snake. falls off.

Happy Halloween

Due date: today. Still waiting. Uncomfortably. I am happy though that I got to take the big one trick-or-treating tonight. And I got to rock my fabric marker + old t-shirt + round belly getup.

Before and After

I scoured Craigslist for a year, looking for a vintage bedroom set. Not something that's easy to come by around here, I guess. Luckily, my dad is a carpenter. A pretty amazing one. He built the boy a bedroom set: bed, dresser, and bookshelf.

A reminder of what the room looked like before:
 

All the white Ikea pieces have moved to the baby's room. Gulliver, you may not be fancy, but you are a sturdy little crib.

At first I thought I'd design modern plywood-y bedroom set. Low slung bed with drawers, exposed plywood edges. But my mind kept coming back to the midcentury bedroom set I never found. I looked through my favorite catalogs for inspiration and then I shamelessly ripped a design off.

Dad did an amazing job. He usually works in a style I like to call midwestern country traditional. Think honey stained oak with antiqued brass hardware. I like to shake him out of his comfort zone. He always rises to the occasion.

Everything is solid wood, finished with Danish oil and wax by my parents and husband. I love that this furniture will last until my son is grown. And then some.

I bought the side rail at a garage sale this summer for $3 and slipcovered it with quilt scraps and a piece of muslin. The school chair was another steal from a preschool closing sale last summer.

Since there's one less piece of furniture in the room, there's more play space. Something I imagine will be appreciated when the boy has a mobile sibling menacing his toys.

The transition to the big boy bed went remarkably smoothly. I'm so, so happy about this as I'm getting little enough sleep as it is and with the new baby due in two weeks, there's no rest in sight.

Soon: the office/guestroom and baby's room.

Slowing Down

I am really pregnant. It just hit me about two weeks ago. I'm grumpy, I'm lumbering, I'm exhausted. And I'm only 33 weeks.

 

I am very glad I got the boy's quilt done, though. Had it taken longer at the quilters (she quilted it over a weekend!), it may have gotten pushed to the back burner. The quick turnaround meant that I had no excuse not to bind it.

   

I like it. Zig zags quilted in smaller zig zags. Lots of Joel Dewberry's Aviary woodgrain on the back. It looks lovely on the big boy bed.

 

And best of all, it's done.

Yellow!

The office/guestroom is mostly done. The baby's room is started. Big boy furniture arrives on Friday. A quilt has been completed. Stuff is happening here.

Of course I'm also 30+ weeks pregnant, have a cold and all my new photos are imprisoned on my camera.

So, in lieu of photos, here's a bit of the plan for the new nursery. All the furniture from the boy's room is making its way next door. The walls have been painted Benjamin Moore Sweet Innocence (which is a little lighter than the above paint swatch). I made the curtains from the chevron patterned fabric that has been popping up all over the place (and lined them in charcoal blackout fabric). The hardwood will be mostly covered in Feelin' Groovy Flor tiles in Yellow and Fog. The crib set will be-- oh, who am I kidding-- I'm just going to throw a pink sheet on the crib mattress and call it a day.

I've got a bit of art to frame. A bit more still being devised and some throw pillows to sew. Grandma is working on a small quilt for the room. I managed to spackle the many, many holes in the closet (seriously, for each successful hole that held up the old shelf brackets, there were at least two other holes drilled. The plaster is like swiss cheese in there). Next up is painting the closet and installing the closet organizer that my husband has already built.

And getting my photos off the camera.