Nursery 2.0

James and I had a busy week last week and an even busier weekend. Our niece Jenny, who will be a senior in high school in the fall, was visiting and helped us out a lot with preparing our house to be put on the market. We scrubbed all of the little nooks and crannies and have packed and stored about half of our belongings. It feels good to finally see the "For Sale" sign in the front yard, even though I'm still sad about leaving.

After we tirelessly worked on the house, we decided to finish up the little details of Henry's nursery that we were too busy and tired to previously complete. Jenny sanded down the dresser in Henry's room all by herself so that we could repaint it with brown and green stripes. The finish on it previously was a dingy, nasty shellacked sort of paint job that we've hated ever since we bought the dresser 5 years ago at the antique store. Here's what it looks like now...

We also added this big comfy chair from Ikea so that we could sit and cuddle him as we read to him at night. I love that it was very affordable and has a machine washable slipcover that can be replaced for less than $30!

Here is a close up of the crib skirt and fitted sheet that my sweet mother-in-law made for Henry's crib. She's still working on the bumper pad and quilt that will tie it all together. We love it and think that she did a great job!

James was carefully hanging Henry's name letters on the wall on Father's Day. It's cute how much he wants him to come home too---just as much as I do!!

And here's our beautiful neice Jenny who helped us so much all week and went to dozens of baby stores with only a little complaining :) ....
So...now everything is 100% ready for our little guy--our house we've been working on fixing up for months is finally on the market, he has a cozy little nursery (that can also easily be set up in our next house), he has a full wardrobe of clothes for the next year of his life, he has all of the important baby accessories, he has his travel visa, and most importantly, he has LOTS of people who love him already and can't wait to meet him!

Almost done with the nursery!

I love his crib! I can't wait to see the gorgeous baby bedding that his Granny has been working hard to make for him (see earlier post for crib fabric picture). The sign above the crib says, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed."

We are going to repaint that dresser with a few brown and green stripes going down the front of it. The low console with green and white plastic bins is from Ikea. I love how it provides storage for his toys that he can easily get into and that the top is a perfect surface for play. I think we are going to either paint it or stain it darker. Oh, and yes, I realize that his little wooden Noah's Ark play set is a choking hazard. I will put it away before he arrives. James and I were just playing with it. ;)

I brought in this brown velvet chair from our dining room. It's pretty small and uncomfortable to sit in, but it does look really cute in the room! I really want a cushy armchair in here so that I can snuggle and read books with him, but this will work for now. Also, notice the green circle rugs. We have 5 of them scattered around the room instead of one large rug. I like them, but I'm not sure that we'll keep them...still deciding.

A close up of one of his monkeys and a soft "lovie."

My sister-in-law Debi had this plate painted for Henry. It matches his room really well!

We spent this weekend working hard to prepare Henry's nursery for him. A lot of work was involved in this project! We are just about to put our house on the market so we decided to just paint the walls a neutral color. Also, the nursery has 7 (!!!!!) windows and all of them had glued-on masking tape from when our house was rehabbed before we moved in. Long ago we tried to scrape that tape off but eventually just gave up and put up window coverings. We worked on scraping those windows today for about 2 hours. We still aren't done yet...we have some "conflicting" wood-tones in the several furniture pieces and the floor that we plan on correcting. Also, his crib bedding is pretty offbeat and I think it will add a lot of funkiness to the room when my mother-in-law is done with it. I'm so happy that we finally have a space for him! It definitely makes everything seem more real. I hope that we get our good news soon!

Baby Shower

This week my amazing 3rd grade teammates threw me a baby shower. They did a beautiful job!! It was so much fun to open all of our presents!

James and I ordered special fortune cookies that had custom fortunes inside about our adoption.

Yes, I made James go to the shower!

The very next day James' office surprised him with a big basket full of really cute baby stuff. I love all of the monkeys!

Last night James and I went to Babies R Us armed with the gift cards we received and bought a lot of the essentials we were missing (such as bottles and a crib mattress ) and a few fun things (bath toys and wall art). Somehow we were in that store for 3 hours and didn't realize it!

Today Henry's crib will be delivered also. We finally are beginning to create a nursery for him. Since we know we will be moving we aren't going to be able to do as much creative stuff yet as I'd like, but what have done so far has been a big improvement! Before, we just had a guest room with his stuff just piled all over the place, but now we have moved some furniture in from other rooms in the house that will work well in there, and we have been organizing his things. One thing that bugs me, though is that the room is painted blue (from when it was a "beachy" guest room), but all of his stuff is green and brown. It stinks to have to repaint it when we're likely going to be moving soon, but I think it must be done! James disagrees. He thinks that would be a big waste of time. We'll see....

Photos coming soon!