Tree Mural

After all of the hemming and hawing I had done over the wall color picking a theme or accent wall was something I wasn't too keen on doing until I stumbled onto an image of a tree mural when I Googled nursery ideas.  As you all well know I love nature, flowers, and my garden but if it's one thing I have a serious attachment to it's trees!  I left this entirely up to the creative muse in the house with just a tad bit of supervising (which I do very well by the way!)  Here are the pics from start to finish and I love, love, love the results!

Taping the outline

Outline completed

Painting the trunk and branches

Trunk and branches sans leaves

Painting the leaves

Adding more leaves in different colors

The finished project

It was Daddy's idea to have each branch have three leaves;

one for each of us =)

A small request of mine that this be added to the trunk

Baby Shower 5/21

Four of my closest friends planned and threw a beautiful shower for us in May.  The decorations were beautiful and we received so many nice things for the room and tons of cute clothes!

The garden themed cake and lovely flowers arranged by Gretchen's Mom.

Garden Cake

Roses, Hydrangeas, & Lily of the Valley

Opening gifts

Adorable outfit from Steph's Mom

Reading some of the books we received

Baby Christmas ornament

My favorite book as a child

Proud Mama!

Looking at the answers Grandma & Nina provided for the quiz.

Happy Parents!

The Auntie's

Mommy & Auntie Gretchen

Auntie Steph & Mommy

Mommy & Auntie Maggie

Mommy & Auntie Kristine

Mother's Day

Flowers from Daddy

Flowers from Grandpa

It's all in the details....

A few changes had to be made to what used to be my reading room/scrap room.  We started with tearing out the carpet as soon as the furniture was moved out, followed by painting the walls.  Organizing the closet was easy with the doors off but those were soon cleaned up and reinstalled (which took about 45 minutes for Daddy to figure the configuration out....damn 1960's closets!)  Next came the beautiful crib we picked out that Nina & GP helped out with.  The curtains and curtain rods were almost as much of a fiasco as the paint color but not too terribly as bad!  Then small details started being added here and there....a duo of shelves with small bird houses (which will be painted soon be on the lookout for those pics).  A second set of shelves (disregard the Asian child we really are having our own we didn't adopt her) one shelf will have Baby L's name in small blocks, the other her initial..  My favorite decorative item so far is the beautiful mobile I found through Etsy that my sweet TA went out of her way to make sure I had for the nursery and surprised me with at my shower.

From beige to Paris Mist

Oh how did I hem and haw and drive your Dad nuts about the color to paint your room!  I started off thinking we'd go with a nice pale neutral with a "hint" of color.  So I happened upon Valspar's site and they were running a 1k samples a day in 100 days for free.  So I selected a pale cream with a hint of pink and had it sent to me. Unfortunately it was only one sample per household....little did that stop me!  Another sample went to Auntie Kristine's house, a third went to work, and another to Grandma's.  Sadly I didn't care for any of those choices; back to the drawing board.  The next color choice process went something like this baby girl = pink room.  So off to Lowe's I went and stared and stared at the paint strips.  Finally narrowed it down to a darker pink and a lighter pink and left with two samples which Daddy put swatches of on the wall.  Sadly I didn't care for any of those choices; back to the drawing board.  Back to Lowe's I went with the color choice of green since pink and light celery green are complementary colors.  Finally narrowed it down to a darker green and a lighter green and left with two samples which Daddy put swatches of on the wall.  Sadly I didn't care for any of those choices; back to the drawing board.  (Are you seeing my issue which is becoming a trend here?)  With Daddy's artistic eye in tow back Lowe's we went.  I think the total number of trips was three times in four days; what I can I say I'm indecisive!  Taking a deep breath and saying yes I went along with the color Daddy picked - Paris Mist and it turned out beautifully!

Flowers

Sweet flowers from Daddy who is so happy and excited about this next step in our life.

Baby L's blog

Since I wanted to post a lot of pictures of the baby going ons around here I figured I give the little one her own place.  Can't have her stealing my thunder!  Be on the lookout for baby pics, milestone updates, and the journey we're going to be making as this little one makes the two of us a family.  Watch her sprout, blossom, and bloom!