Zach is one, and his room is done

So, this has been the most difficult year of my life, and our newest addition is the reason why.  This kid doesn't nap, cries and whines most of the day, fights like a boxer for each outfit or diaper change, and just generally is the most difficult baby I've ever met.  Here he is doing his best impression of mama.

But, we made it to one year old, and he's starting to walk now and trying to say some words.  He has 6 teeth, but has been eating absolutely everything including raw veggies and apples since before the teeth.  Once in awhile he sleeps for 10 hours at night, but mostly he wakes up every 5.  When he's happy, he's awesome!

It took me awhile to finish his room because I never get any time to myself, but I'll admit it's been done for months.  I took some photos of the room while it was clean for his birthday party, so here is the final post for you all!  I'm very happy with the space, it is exactly what I wanted.

The wood wall turned out amazing, we literally did nothing but frame out the edges with lattice that I stained and sealed.  Whoever put it up probably had no idea how on-trend this look would be in 30 years!  I cut it extra fancy on top to follow the same lines as the chevron.

The sign above the crib was chosen for it's funnies, since Zach has napped in this crib maybe three times and absolutely does not like naps.  I think he does like me, though.  So, it's half legit.  I liked that the sign has no glass, and is very lightweight for when he decides to pull it on himself.  That will definitely happen.  

This room gets a lot of light, which is great since he doesn't sleep in here during the day, anyway.  Across the hall you can see a glimpse of our FINISHED guest room, too!  Post on that in the works.

I originally bought the gazelle head for the wood wall, and it was hanging there until I got myself so worried about it falling on his head, I moved it to the other side of the room.  It looked better above the crib, but it's much safer where it's at, because it is super heavy.  I got that beauty at fauxwhitetaxidermy.com.  They have so many animals to choose from, and the detail in the faces is stunning!

The little Ikea bookcases that used to hold my rainbow wardrobe in my old dressing room now hold toys.  Sad.

You can see in these photos the blackout paper blinds I have on the windows.  I know I'm fooling myself by thinking a darker room will make him nap in here, they haven't worked for 12 months, but still they stay up JUST IN CASE.

My mom took the Urban Zoology Crocodile fabric I bought, and turned it into the most beautiful crib skirt!  She even lined it with matching green fabric, because it was a little thin.  She is just so good at sewing crafts like this.

The skirt looked even better before we had to lower the crib, but of course, this happened in September:

We joke that he looks like a crib spokesperson in this one.  The wall with the changing area is my favorite.  I got a lot of little doodads to make it more homey and cute for him.

This is the dresser I used to have in our den on Russet Street.  I'm still using Howard products on it, and I still love it so much!  It's a perfect changing area and dresser for a baby.  Tucked off to the right is a rolling cart from World Market, it fits in that space perfectly, and stores extra diapers, unmatched socks (a huge BOO to baby socks!!) and other miscellaneous stuff.  The changing pad cover was made by Etsy seller avaelliot.

The marquee letter hooks are from Anthropologie.  Love that they are mixed metal, and have that industrial look I wanted.

The print of Zach is one of my favorite photos ever.  My brother and future sister in law are huge Disney fans, and buy him all these adorable outfits.  I dressed him up as Dumbo at two months old, and I couldn't imagine anything cuter!

Here is the actual photo, so you can fully appreciate.  I'm so glad I got photos like this when he was little, because there is no way I will ever get him to lay still again.

The shelf is a simple cedar board we had laying around, and the galvanized pipe brackets are from great Etsy seller PipeDreamsDecor.   The galvanized wall hanging basket is from World Market.

On the bookcase wall, the art is very special to me.  The bicycle print used to hang in Ashford's room, and the little animal-riding-things prints on the right are from a talented Etsy seller, AmelieLegault.  There are two more of her prints in the tall white collage frame above the dresser.  They are so whimsical and cute!

Here is a closer look at the alligator riding a trike, along with a tiny but cute giraffe hook from Anthro.  But the star is the beautiful custom birth announcement print made by my favorite blogger, Meryl from Picardy Project!   She surprised me with this, and one for Ashford, shortly after Zach was born.

Look at this hand-cut detail!  It's just beautiful with the colored glittery backgrounds.  Obsessed!

And here is Ashford's, which she also did in his room colors.  LOVE!

I know Meryl was planning an Etsy shop, I sure hope it happens.  These prints are beautiful!  And, here's the messy closet.  The Malm dresser fits well in here, and luckily, because Zach has inherited a huge wardrobe.  

So, that is the finished room.  I'm so happy it's done!  Here is a before, during and after.  I hope you liked seeing all the details!

Now, I can go back to our regularly-scheduled mess.  Clothes are no fun in the drawers, right?  Happy birthday, Zach!  Let's give mom a break in 2017!

Our master bath and baby ramblings

While I would love to totally rip our master bath out and start over, there is no way that is happening, so we are making the best of this teeny room.  It's certainly a NICE remodel, but it's nice for someone else.  The travertine/traditional look is definitely not my style.  Here is how it looked when we bought the house:

You can barely see the burgundy valance over the window.  It was coated in dust and was taken down immediately!  I absolutely hate this dark sage green paint, and the previous owners used it in the master bath and bedroom, and the half bath in the lower level.  It felt so good to prime over it!  This makeover is not a WOW or anything, but I think it looks a lot better now.

I used BM Natural Cream on the walls, the same color we used in our Minnesota house main bathroom.  It is a nice warm gray.  I couldn't tolerate painting the walls to match the fleshy/yellow beige of the tile, and there is veining in the tile that matches the wall color, so I think it works ok.  The rack above the toilet is from Amazon, it was so easy to install and give us a nice place to stack a couple towels.  It was hard to find a towel rack because that little wall is only 24 inches, and most '24 inch' racks are actually almost 26 since the measurement only accounts for the bars.  Love Amazon!

The window is bare since there is privacy glass, but I may do a little window treatment one day.  For now, it's fun to be able to use whatever color towels we want.  The ugly wood TP holder is a project for another day!

We had to replace the faucet the first week because the existing one's pop up drain assembly wouldn't open and the sink couldn't drain.  How that got past inspection, I have no idea...it was seriously like it was super glued down.  Replacement drains wouldn't work with the existing faucet because it was all one piece, so an entire new faucet was needed.  What an expensive problem!  We are finding the previous owners used cheap materials and we are now fixing all their mistakes.  I chose the Moen Banbury faucet and got the matching towel bar since there wasn't one before. 

I would really like some hardware on the vanity, since you literally have to claw the drawers open, but I can't find anything I like.  I feel like satin nickel to match the rest of the bathroom would be too obvious, so I'm thinking dark to match the dark glazing on the wood.  But the fancy edges make placing a knob on the door hard, so maybe a large pull in the middle of the door to match smaller pulls on the drawers?  Or, nothing on the door and just pulls on the drawers?  Help!  Another thing I really need to do is update the can lights.

I would love to rip out that dumb soffit and move the box to the wall for a nice normal vanity fixture, but that is just not a priority right now.  In the meantime, I will just get new flush can inserts and call it a day.  I also fight a daily battle with soap scum on the glass enclosure. 

I try to squeegee the water off after every shower to prevent this, but that doesn't always happen, or work.  I'd love to hear any good methods for keeping the glass clean!  So, that is the tiny bathroom we use to shower and (at least for me) basically nothing else.  I wish there was more room, but it's nice to have, anyway.  Life has been very hard this last month.  Zach's face usually looks like this unless he's nursing.

He still will not sleep decently unless being held.  He usually sleeps for one 2 hour stretch per night in the rock n play (the rest of the night on me) and a single 1-2 hour nap in the swing during the day if I'm lucky.  Some days he doesn't really sleep all day long, just little cat naps while nursing.  It's so exhausting and it's not just me, he is also super tired.  But he won't tolerate a swaddle, he won't take any pacifier I've tried, he won't even take any bottles - so I'm trapped at home with him.  He is also so big that it's tiring to wear him in the carrier.  He weighed 14 lbs 4 oz at his 2 month check up!

I was dairy free for four weeks, and we didn't really notice a difference in his behavior or desire to be held/hatred of laying down, so I started eating some earlier this week.  Then he became extremely fussy and cried even while being held, so I'm back to no dairy hoping it will at least cut out some gas.  It's hard, but I still manage to find some happy baby moments to take cute photos of Zach.  I am determined to take as many photos/videos of him as I did with Ashford, I think it's so sad that first kids always have more!  I've committed to doing a 365 book of Zach, the same as I've done for Ashford in 2014 and 2015.  It will be so fun to see him gradually growing in each photo!  Here are some of my recent favorites:

This one has a little glimpse of a new rug we got for the living room.  The living room is in transition right now since Shaun wanted the sectional downstairs.  It's such a mess!

And despite Ashford not wanting to participate in photo sessions with his brother, I managed to get some cute shots for Valentine's Day...

There has been some exciting progress on the lower level, I will try to clean that up and take some photos for you all this weekend! 

Our new addition

Hi, everyone...I'm alive!  In case you were wondering, I had my baby Zachary Brian on December 10th...I hope you don't mind if this is a post about him. 

I never shared my birth story with Ashford, and that is because it was a terrible induction and I didn't want to talk about it...but surprisingly, I chose to be induced again this time at 39w+2 because I was having a lot of pain issues and the baby was big.  My doctor assured me it would go much faster and I wouldn't be pushing for 3 hours like last time.  She was right!  We went in at 6:30am and started Pitocin, contractions were easy until they broke my water at 9, then things got real and I labored on my own until 11am at which point I begged for the epidural.  I was fully dilated and started practice pushes around 1pm, but I couldn't feel the muscles I needed to push, so I frantically told them TURN THE DAMN EPI OFF because I didn't want a c section.  It took 35 minutes to start to feel again, and then I got the treat of FEELING AGAIN just in time to push him out.  I know it was still better than it would've been without the partial epidural, but it was awful and I was blubbering like an idiot for the entire 22 minutes I pushed.  Then he had the cord wrapped around his neck so tight the doctor made me stop for a few minutes while his entire head was out so she could cut it.  It was absolutely miserable!  But Zach was born at 2:02pm weighing 8 pounds 7 oz, and 21 inches long.  I was floored at his size, I knew he was bigger than Ashford but not that big! 

I was lucky enough to have Shaun take photos of the experience, and he did such a great job!  I treasure these and definitely recommend you have someone do this for you...although I'm sure the staff thought I was nuts looking at my camera to change the settings for Shaun while in active labor.  Hey, you do what is important to you!

This is the newborn outfit Ashford went home from the hospital in...it fit Zach for a few days.

My absolute favorite thing to do now is comparison photos, mostly because DUH comparisons are awesome, but also because Zach is huge and dark and the opposite of my fair, tiny Ashford.  I realize this perspective does not demonstrate that, but it's too cute.

So here we are a month later, and this baby is a whole different ball game from my first.  He MUST be held, he sleeps on me and hardly ever sleeps not on me, he nurses every hour and I can't get a single thing done.  Sometimes I'm able to pick him up with the boppy and set him down while still asleep, and that gets me about 30 minutes to do something. 

But usually as soon as the pillow hits the couch, this happens. 

We are all having a really hard time with this transition, having two kids is exactly as hard as I thought it would be.  Ashford wants me to play with him, but I'm stuck on the couch with the baby most of the day.  Usually, I'm listening to a chorus of crying from both kids because I can't help them at the same time.  I also stressed myself out even more by trying to take Zach's newborn photos myself.  OMG, what a disaster.  I was recovering slowly and had many postpartum discomforts.  It was cloudy and dreary for many days after he was born, then when I finally had good light, this kid would not sleep.  No matter what I did.  I ended up with some very amateurish photos that I am not proud of, but what are you gonna do.  The Christmas ones were done when he was 8 days old, and I'm pretty happy with them all things considered.  He at least closed his eyes a while, but wouldn't tolerate being naked no matter how hot I made it!

These are the only decent 'wrap' photos I got.  He wouldn't sleep and wouldn't allow me to pose him at all.  I think he smelled me and just wanted to eat the whole time.  He was also three weeks old at this point, well past the best age to take newborn photos.

This guy is a super chunk.  He weighed 11 pounds 7 ounces at his 1 month appointment!  That is a three pound gain in one month, holy cow!  Here is a hilarious comparison of my boys at one month:

And another comparison that shows not only how different my kids are, but my photography skills, too. 

I wish I could share a 'final' photo of the nursery, but we still have a couple things to do in there.  For now, we are just trying to soak up the good parts of the baby stage - like the snuggability!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Why I'm so slow

I had an accident in March.  And now, I look like this. 

Well, that is not what I look like on a daily basis, but you get what I mean.  I am 34 weeks pregnant now, and I'm almost totally unable to do anything useful around the house, so progress has been totally dependent on Shaun after work and on weekends.  Not fun for a DIY lady like me, it frankly drives me crazy that I'm so tired, so nauseated, and have such bad pelvic pain every day.  Shaun took my maternity photos, didn't he do a great job? 

When you feel like crap, it's nice to at least look good!  So, as you can imagine, we needed to make a room for our newest addition - another boy, Lord help us.  As usual, my motto is reuse and buy as little as possible...so the yellow rug, crib, glider, bookshelves, nightstand, linens and dresser are all things we already owned.  As well as all the baby gear that will soon clutter up this room!

The wood wall looks magnificent in here, but we still have to frame out the edges with pine lattice to cover the gaps.  I tested some Gunstock stain on a strip on the right, it seems to work ok.  I am brainstorming what else to put on this wall, shelves?  White animal head?  Huge picture?

Not all the yellows in this room match, but I'm ok with it.  I have loved yellow and gray since my dressing room, so it only seemed right to use that combo in here.  I will add pops of green as an accent on the crib skirt, changing pad, toy basket and accessories. 

I'm not sure if both the bookshelves will stay in here, or if there is just too much furniture in the room.  The wall color in here is the same as Ashford's room, SW Anew Gray.  The light fixture is this one from Wayfair.  I love the industrial look!

It goes well with the pipe-inspired curtain rod I found at Target.  It looks very shiny online, but in person it is a nice matte pewter. 

The curtains were a splurge.  I wanted blackout panels and didn't want to bother with making any since I just wanted a neutral solid.  These are the Evelyn linen blackout panels from Pottery Barn Kids in gray.  They were expensive, but I was able to catch them on sale and they also let me use a 15% coupon I got in the mail.  Not too bad! 

Here is a better photo of the pine lattice we're using around the wall.  As you can see, it's a bit more red than the wall, so I may try to tweak it before staining the rest of the pieces. 

The fabric I chose for the crib skirt is this adorable Urban Zoologie Crocs fabric.  It has all the shades of yellow and green I was looking for!  The dresser that used to be in my (dearly missed) walk in closet fits in this closet, so we can't possibly have any lack of drawer space for baby goodies.   

 The closet goes a bit farther to the right with built in wire racks for diapers, extra blankets and bulky stuff. 

And that is a little tour of the baby's room thus far.  In other news, I waddled to meet up with fellow fabulous blogger Kim Woodward at a pumpkin farm a couple weeks ago!  Here are a few pics of our boys having a great time:

Backstory on this one...we let them go up the big slide by themselves, and instead of waiting in line, they just ran up and slid down ahead of everyone.  It was hilarious! 

These two were so adorable together.  Kim, I can't wait to meet up again!