Nursery Photos - Better Late than Never!

I realize that this is kind of late, but I wanted to send photos of the nursery for those of you who don't live nearby. The reason for the delay is that I was waiting for my parents to come up and bring my old furniture (dresser, bookcase, nightstand, and headboard/footboard). My parents were saving my furniture for the day I should have a baby girl -- well, I have one now! I hope you like the room because we had a lot of fun planning out our baby's girly jungle love theme!

The crib - Charlotte loves the big dots and stares at them intently. Note the adorable name banner that her Tia Nancy made for her -- it looks perfect with the crib theme!

These next two are little letterpress cards that I ordered from a fellow mommy blogger who does letterpress for a living. I fell in love with the cute little elephant and giraffe notecards, but wanted to do something special with them. So I found an online framing store, measured the cards, and ordered the matting in Madagascar pink. They came out better than expected!

The nightstand with a frame that matches Charlotte's baby book - I couldn't resist.

The changing table where we spend a lot of our time.

The dresser and wooden Charlotte letters. We ordered these long before the baby shower, but I only received them about two weeks before Charlotte was born.

All of Charlotte's many books (and some of mine as well - I don't think she'll be reading the Twilight series for quite some time)

And of course, the little girl who makes this room possible -- wearing adorable cupcake pajamas from our friends Amber and Kris. She hasn't actually slept in her crib yet, but we're going to try that out soon. Also, please note that she's not crying here, I just snapped the shot when she was flailing her arms about.

Baby Berry Shower

I had quite the eventful weekend! My good friend Nancy and my next door neighbor Peggy threw me an absolutely beautiful shower. It really was more wonderful than I could have hoped for. The weather was perfect -- sunny and warm (although a tad hot for me with my Easy Bake Oven), my mom came up from San Diego, and Nancy and Peggy really outdid themselves. The theme was a tea party, so Peggy made cute little tea sandwiches and had lots of tea pots and china. Chris and Nancy's husband, Eric, amused themselves by watching the Star Trek movie, but came back just in time for me to open the presents! We got truly adorable presents from everyone, including a handmade security blanket from my former boss Julie. I don't think I have a picture, but it was great. We also received tons of White Sox baby clothes, courtesy of Chris' parents, as well as two Cubs onesies from Peggy's friends Helen and Woody. Chris gives Woody a hard time about the Cubs every time we see him, so it was so sweet of him to order Cubs onesies. Chris assures us that Baby Berry will be a White Sox fan. Finally, Peggy asked everyone to bring a favorite children's book to build up our little one's library -- I don't have a picture of this, but I know we'll have so much fun reading to our little girl. It really was a wonderful shower, and I'm so overwhelmed by the love from everyone!

And because I don't believe I've actually announced our dear little one's name officially on this blog, Charlotte Kay Berry is due in just over 4 weeks! Charlotte, besides being of French origins and sounding perfect with Berry, is also what the French call Strawberry Shortcake (Charlotte aux Fraises). We can't wait to meet her.

Nancy, creative girl that she is, sewed the Charlotte letters! This will be going in her cute little room above the crib.

All the wonderful loot!

Here I am with the three planners - Peggy, Nancy, and Helen

My favorite cake from Freeport Bakery! A Raspberry Cream Torte for our little Berry Girl.

Nancy also made this adorable blanket for Charlotte, which of course fits in perfectly. At some point, once I've gotten everything organized, I'll take pictures of the (almost) complete nursery.

My friend Elizabeth got me, among other things, this little pair of elephant pajamas. When she saw the nursery after the shower was over, she was amazed that we had a pink elephant theme! :)

30 Weeks, 4 Days

For your viewing pleasure. My belly at almost 31 weeks. You wouldn't believe the comments I get these days. People can't believe I still have 2 months to go. Of course, one of the girls at my yoga class, who's three weeks behind me, said "You've gotten so big since the last time I saw you. I wish my belly was that big!" Apparently, women still compare themselves with each other even when they're pregnant -- it's kind of like looking at other women in their bikinis, but in reverse!



And, because I can't resist, a sneak peak at the nursery walls!

10 Week Countdown

Hi Everyone,

Not much to report. I've been lazy getting another belly shot in, but suffice it to say, Baby Berry is growing and she's growing fast! The third trimester is so far kicking my butt. I'm exhausted most of the time, and it's not unusual for me to be asleep by 9PM. The bad news is that because Baby Berry is so active, I'm not sleeping through the night anymore either as her kicks and twists and flips wake me up. But fewer than 10 weeks to go!

The fact that we're going to have a real, live baby human being to take care of is finally dawning on me. Chris spent the majority of this weekend working on the nursery -- he painted the walls a few weeks ago, so we just needed to put up the wallpaper border. We fell into a bit of a hiccup when we put up a small section and realized you could vividly see the two paint colors underneath. Blerg! So, my poor husband had to remeasure and paint the border area white in order to mask the colors underneath. It took almost the entire weekend. The good news is that apart from one wall (we had to order another roll because of the mishap and don't have it yet), the border is up. It looks fantastic. As one of my friends said a couple weeks ago when she saw the two-tone room, "it looks like an Easter egg!" And so it does - bright and cheery and good enough to eat!

Once we have the last wall papered, we're going to have the carpets steam-cleaned and then Chris will be able to put the crib together! I can't wait.

Also, another realization that Baby Berry will be here before you know it -- the date of my baby shower at work has been set. My wonderful assistant at work is leading the charge for the work baby shower and she sent this picture out to the staff as a Save the Date:

I love it. She googled the image when I told her about my pink elephant fix.

Anyway, will try to post photos soon. Chris and I are heading to the Sonoma Coast (Sea Ranch) this weekend for a little "Baby Moon," also known as the last weekend away before bébé arrives. It will be a long drive, but it will be nice to do nothing but relax and watch the ocean (and maybe some whales) outside our hotel window.

Hold on Tight

Chris and I spent another weekend searching for things for Baby Berry. I think this little girl is going to stimulate the economy all by herself!

The goal for the weekend was to decide on paint colors, find a crib, and buy a rocker/glider. Despite going to 5 different stores over two days, we were able to solely accomplish the paint colors.

Armed with the comforter from the bedding set (which I absolutely love -- the back is a very soft, velvety teal blue and I wanted to find a paint color that matched), we headed to Lo.we's. Lo.we's is my preferred hardware super store over the Home Despot, as Chris calls it, because the people there actually seem to know what they're talking about.

We knew we wanted two colors -- a bright yellow and a teal blue -- but of course we quickly became overwhelmed by the sheer number of paint color in both of those colors. So after perhaps an hour (an hour!!) of comparing colors, we decided to order up 5 samples (3 in varying shades of yellow, and 2 in blue). While the paint guys were mixing the samples, we went in search of crown moulding. Well, Chris did. I got held up in the wallpaper section. And found the most adorable wallpaper border to break up the yellow and blue (it will act as a chair rail).

Behold, these pink Mommy and Baby Elephants, titled, appropriately "Hold on Tight":

This is with the crib bedding.

And here's another shot this time showing the back of the comforter (the picture doesn't do the colors justice).

And because I checked out the wallpaper book, we also came across this border called "I See Spots."

We're still trying to decide between the two borders, but I think I'm leaning towards "Hold on Tight." It's adorable and I love the white ears with the pink and chocolate brown polka dots.

I'd post the paint samples that we painted onto one wall, but the lighting doesn't work and the existing orange paint is too distracting.

Anyway, I'd love to get your feedback! And if anyone has some suggestions on where to get an overstuffed armchair that's not overly expensive, I'd really appreciate it. We want the rocker/glider downstairs, but wanted a chair for the nursery to read books to baby in (this one does not have to rock).

Because I Reserve the Right to Change My Mind

So I made the plunge and dove right in. I decided, as much as I liked the Bunny Meadow bedding, that it wasn't quite bright enough for what I was envisioning. Instead, after spending hours poring over bedding websites, I found the one.





Chris and I both like polka dots, but a lot of the polka dot bedding we saw seemed way too busy. What I like about this is that there is no specific theme, there are a lot of colors to build upon, and we can use cute animals, like giraffes and elephants throughout the room to make it a bit more whimsical. Plus, it's bright. I wanted a cheery room for Baby Berry.

In other news, we had a great long weekend with our friends from Santa Barbara. We went wine tasting in Amador County on Sunday, and despite the stormy weather, it was a lot of fun. I tried a few wines here and there, mostly taking small sips and pouring out the rest. Amador Wine Country is only about an hour away, there are great Zinfandels, and the best part is that the tastings are free! A great idea to keep in mind when having visitors around.

Decorating Advice Needed!

Yesterday, Chris and I spent almost 4 hours (!!) looking at baby stuff at a certain baby superstore. It took that long (and we haven't even decided on maybe half the stuff we need) because A) we have no idea what we're looking for or what we need, B) we needed to actually try out things like car seats and strollers for functionality, C) it's overwhelming, and D) it's a
huge store. Thank goodness they have a whole section of gliders and ottomans because I needed to sit down and take a break every so often.

We did manage to accomplish a lot over those several hours, like deciding on a diaper bag that's cute but wouldn't embarrass Chris to tote around; picking a stroller frame over a travel system; and deciding on how to decorate the nursery.

Although we're having a little girl, neither of us is really super excited about traditional girly colors like pink and purple, at least for the nursery. We wanted something gender neutral so that we can use the same baby for baby number 2 (although that won't be for a while). So we decided on Kids Line Bunny Meadow. I like it for a number of reasons: 1) I love the sage green, chocolate brown, and cream colors, 2) it's made with organic cotton,which is a bonus, and 3) the pattern is cute but not cutesy.

But my dilemma comes with figuring out how to actually decorate the nursery. To make the room a little more feminine, I plan on hanging up wooden letters of the baby's name (although that seems expensive considering the name we've currently agreed upon is nine letters long). We saw ones yesterday that were cute with pink polka dots. And some of the items we registered for are pink to insert a little more splash of feminine color in the room without being overwhelmingly girly.

I guess where I'm stuck is how to create something like what this mom did for her baby's nursery (I stole this from the above website's reviews on the bedding):



She actually made the adorable border using a stencil. How does one do that? Is it hard?

Here's another picture of the precious room.



Let me know what you think and if you have any ideas. I'd like to know what you think about other colors that would work for the walls that aren't necessarily those three colors of cream, brown, and green. We still have plenty of time, but I'm not the most artistic person in the world, so I need time to plan this out!