Leading up to one glorious room...

Ok, finally, here is it, the long-awaited post about the transformation from nasty upstairs bedroom to lovely little nursery. I know that you, my faithful readers, have been passing many sleepless nights anticipating the photo-journalistic recap I am about to provide, so I would like to sincerely apologize for the long wait. Turns out it takes a lot longer editing photos and maintaining a blog with a newborn around the house. The title of this post refers back to something my father said when we were at Menards over a year ago, shopping for moulding and wainscoting. I was lamenting the cost of buying an entire bedroom's worth of trim, wood for shelves and wainscoting and professional floor sanders. My dad responded, "Cheer up. At least when we are finished you will have one glorious room in your house." And so, today I am happy to share with you all the journey towards that glorious room, and the final destination, which little Will is enjoying immensely. (Ok, not yet, but I certainly love gazing around the room exhaustedly with red-rimmed and bleary eyes adoringly and bright-eyed during those 3am breastfeeding sessions that last about 40 min more than I wish they did.) Well, without further ado:
Here is the start of our journey. 3 years ago around the time that we first bought our house:

Much as we loved the sky-blue carpeting and blank white walls, I knew that this had to go, and spent the next  year or so dreaming up a scheme for how we would renovate this room. First things first, this carpeting had to go. So we ripped it out, revealing lovely wooden floors...with lovely stains.

However, our floor sanders, who did an excellent job, were able to eliminate this nastiness, as you shall see in future pictures.

The next year was spent with me dreaming about how elaborate and expensive I could make this room to put my poor father into an early grave as he worked his butt off trying to realize the dream. At this time, I didn't even have the hope of a future grand-child to hang over his head. Poor father.

Many hours were spent at my dad's shop, cutting, sanding, painting, assembling, and such.

And then many MANY more in the bedroom.

If only it took as little time and effort to finish this room as it did for you to scroll through the above portion of this blog. Oh well. It's done now, and here are the pictures of the finished product!

The rocking horse was a garage sale find which we lovingly fixed up with a fresh coat of paint and a new mane made of a tea-stained mop-head (yes, my mother-in-law is Martha Stewart reincarnated...if Martha Stewart were no longer with us)

This hook was a clearance bargain I snatched up early in my pregnancy when we were just positive we were having a boy and naming him Will. And the hat my hubby went out and bought the day baby was born. Honestly I really think my husband was hoping we would have a boy just so he could buy him this hat.

Here is a picture of him wearing it...a little big still

All of the furniture in the room was purchased from craigslist, including the crib and the rocker. The dresser was a garage sale find which we fixed up and dressed up with knobs from Anthropologie.

Lamp was from HomeGoods, and the little elephant we named Max (as in Max Rebo from Star Wars) is from a sweet friend (you know who you are :)
These lovely shadowboxes were made by some incredibly crafty ladies (you know who you are) who matched them to the color scheme and theme of the room

He's got some adorably organized closets (thanks to my mother-in-law) hung with many adorable outfits. Yes, you might see some green and gold in there...Go Pack!! 14-0!!
A home-made mobile hangs over the crib...this took a lot of work. I hope to do a post about this some time...

The built-in bookshelves have some lovely gifts, vintage knick-knacks and classic children's books...I still need to get my hands on a bunch more like "Goodnight Moon" and "Blueberries for Sal" to name a few.

The built-in window seat obviously is the crowing beauty of the room. I drew a sketch of what I wanted, and my wonderfully talented and gifted father, who has been building gorgeous custom cabinetry for over 30 years (sorry, can't help but put in a shameless plug), designed and built the entire thing, in addition to installing beautiful new trim and wainscot. 

Here's a picture of my boy already enjoying that window seat!

And lastly, a picture of the nursery with the lovely mood lighting illuminated.

That's all folks. Thanks for reading and I hope you've enjoyed  this journey to glory.

A day of firsts...

Yesterday was December 4th, 2011.
It was a day of firsts for our little baby Will.
It was his first birthday - one month birthday that is.

It was the first time that he smiled at Daddy. Of course, I did not get a picture, but it looked a little bit like this:

It was also his first trip with mom and dad and the fam to go shopping for a Christmas tree!

Of course he slept through most of this exciting experience...somebody has to tell him he's really  missing out.

Lastly, it was his first trip to Opa and Oma's house...he had a cuddly  night by the fire, where his aunts fought over him, as usual.

I did manage to fight off the aunts and grandparents enough for just a quick cuddle minute with my son.

Happy one month birthday baby boy!

A change of perspective

So weird...

One day, not so long ago, he was on the inside

And now he's on the outside

Hope you like your new perspective Baby W

It's about time...

I know, I know. I have been quite remiss in posting.
I have an excuse, and he is keeping me quite busy.
Somehow, finishing my planned posts about the two wonderful October baby showers I had, or the post about the finally-finished nursery, have taken a back seat, and now all I want to do is post pictures of my son.
However, that would not be fair to you, my faithful followers.
Please know that those posts will be coming, so please continue to wait patiently (do you really have a choice?).
And in the meantime, enjoy these few sneak-peak photos from the photoshoot I did with my new little son last week.

The Last "Hurrah"

Last weekend, like many couples who are about to experience a forever-life-change like having a baby, the hubby and I went on a "babymoon" (note: though I thought this word was well-incorporated into society, appaprently not, because dictionary.com did not have the word, hence urban dictionary.) (sidenote: I am referring to definition # 1, certainly not #2 :)  Unlike many couples, our destination was the exciting and exotic town of Elkhorn, WI. Never heard of it? Calm down, your geography isn't that bad, when viewed on a map, it's probably about as big as the period at the end of this sentence. Anywho, we decided to find a good deal on a decent hotel and find fun things in the area. So, Saturday afternoon we checked out Royal Oak Orchard and were very impressed with the place over all. Over 12,000 apple trees folks - I don't know a lot about farming, but that seems like a lot of trees to me!



Of course, what would an apple orchard be without profuse amounts of mums, a huge pumpkin patch, endless amounts and a millions varieties of apples and a tractor-pulled wagon to take you to the trees

a live blue-grass band performance

A petting zoo

And a heart-warming supply of the most amazing apple cider donuts?

(Try to ignore my hugely pregnant nose and face in this pic, ugh!)

 It bears saying that we enjoyed, oh, about six of said donuts, slowly sipping a cup of hot cider while sitting in front of a roaring fire in the big apple barn feeling the crisp breeze on our backs beautifully contrasting with the warm flames on our faces. It was an amazing little life moment, a memory you just want to capture and remember so that you can pull it out later to savor and enjoy, perhaps during the dead of winter, or in the dog days of summer. Yes, a memory I wanted to capture so badly I couldn't even bother to snap a photo of it. Sorry - I was too busy enjoying my cider and donuts.

So after the apple orchard, we had a lovely and relaxing afternoon fooling around in our hotel room (taking silly pictures, get your mind out of the gutter. Besides, have you ever BEEN 37 weeks pregnant??) 

went out to dinner, did some major hot-tubbing and some more relaxing.

Next day, we had a loveley time exploring Lake Geneva on a wonderfully crips, blue-sky autumn day. Had fun drooling over houses and snapping photos as we walked around the lake path.

All in all, it was a wonderful little weekend get-away. While we are both very excited to meet this baby, we both are experiencing a bit of the "ambivalence of pregnancy" that my old nursing school textbooks described - excited beyond belief, but also afraid of the change, and a bit sentimental about it never againg being 'just the two of us'. Ah well, it's too late now, so we need to just hang on to our hats! Speaking of not feeling ready for change, as I sit here typing this at 3:30am trying to determine whether or not I am in labor, my darling cat Sam is perched on my stomache (which is finally similar to a shelf), hanging onto my neck for dear life, trying to get as close to my face as he can. He must sense that change is coming...hope he's hanging onto his hat as well!