Baby's Room: Shades of Blue

I have finally taken pictures of the nursery that we have put together. It now contains everything that we need, which is a nice weight off my shoulders.

Here are a few pictures of what it looks like!

This shows our nice rocking chair, with the cute little closet that is perfect for a little baby. I added a few hooks to the wall for the two nursing covers I made and his little blessing outfit.

 I put the crib right in front of the window, but then added darkening liners to the drapes so that nap time might come a little easier during the summer when its light till late.

 Here is the other wall! I painted that dresser that I got for $20, painted the lamp that I got for $4, and then made the baby wall decoration from a cheap vinyl and a cabinet front from the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store. I also bought the frames for $1.25 each and painted them as well. I haven't gotten around to adding the pictures I want yet, but that will be finished this week!

 With all the different light angles the walls all look a little different, however...I have come to really love the color we chose. It is a Disney Bright Blue! I have just used a bunch of different blues as a theme, with white furniture so that we can use the furniture for any baby of any gender. I found this changing table on craigslist for $12. The bookshelf was from my Grandpa's house that I painted and put these adorable storage bins in.

Here are a few close-ups of a few things in the room:

I decided to add a few pictures of sports per Neil's request. I found a few ideas on-line and then decided to paint these. I think they turned out pretty cute.

These are the bins on the bookshelf in his room. I absolutely love the polka dots! It just adds something to the different colors of blue in the room!

 This is the baby plaque that I mentioned making earlier. I have made two of these. I have put one up in my dining room that has a family vinyl on it. This is a cheap and easy way to decorate and add something personal to a room.

Here is a close-up of the two nursing covers I made, with the little baby blessing outfit that I am in love with! 

 I decided to make a teething cover for the crib so that he doesn't chew on the edge. It matches the quilt that I have on the crib right now that my mom, sister, and I made in February when they came to visit. I love the fabric that we chose and the other fabric that is super super soft! LOVE IT!

Again I have added tons of pictures, but I can't ever seem to decide which ones I like the most, so I just end up adding more and more! Beware of longer posts when he is actually born and I can take photos of him!

39 Weeks: Never Thought We Would Make It!

So, it's good news: Week 39! We have been so blessed during this pregnancy to be able to make it so far and have such a healthy baby. We are excited to meet him soon!

Here are a few pictures of what we look like:
This is how I feel most of the time now.

 Excited that we get to meet him soon!

 Sorry it's so blurry, but it's the only side one I got that day. It just shows how big we are getting.



We are dilated to a 2 and 90% effaced, so we are just waiting for this little guy to kick it into gear and come meet us! Hopefully we'll see him soon!

Celebrating Two Years in Chicago!

Some might think we were a little crazy, especially with a baby coming so soon, however...we found escaping to Chicago for the weekend to be quite the adventure! We left on Friday afternoon just in time for all the great Chicago traffic to stop us. We had got a cheap hotel on priceline earlier that day that was downtown. We got in around 6 and decided we needed to eat and see the town! Here are a few pictures depicting the whole epic adventure!

Oh, and for those who weren't aware....this whole adventure was to celebrate our two year anniversary! Yep, you got it...we've been married for two glorious years. Saturday was our official anniversary date, but we decided the whole weekend deserved to be celebrated!

Here we go! Oh, there might be too many, so you can just scroll on through all the way to the bottom. Sorry about that, but I couldn't pick which were my fav's.

Love this one!Since we were staying downtown we each bought a 24 hour CTA pass that would allow us on any bus, tram, or subway the whole time we were there! It worked out grand! I would highly suggest this to anyone that goes there. It was so much easier than trying to find parking and way cheaper too!

 Some really cool looking American Flags. These were up everywhere. I wasn't sure if it is always like that, or just in preparation for Memorial Day weekend.

 This is one of my absolute favorite places in Chicago! There is so much you can do there and so many people! We had driven past it before, but this was our first experience really going there.

 And of course for dinner we had to have the famous "Chicago Dog" from America's Dogs.

 Here are all the options you could have when ordering there. It was a fun place to eat and quite tasty too!

 After dinner we went and saw a play called Murder for Two. It was absolutely hilariously amazing! There were only two actors. One who played the cop/ investigator and the other who played all 12 suspects. They both sang and played the piano through it all too. I would love to go back there again next time we come!

 After the amazing play we saw we decided to be romantic and ride the Ferris Wheel! It was huge!

 The next morning we went to the United Center, where the Chicago Bulls play, to see the Michael Jordan statue...which was way cooler than I thought that it would be.

 We caught the blue line to the red line to go see Wrigley Field! Home of the Chicago Cubs. This field was so cool! We had wanted to go see a game, however...they were playing away this weekend. Sad. It is on our list of things to do when we come back!

 We finished the trip spending time at the temple! It was so nice to be able to go in and just feel so rejuvenated and motivated to be a better couple and individuals. Since the temple is so far away we don't get to go that often, so it was a treat!

 Beautiful trees!

 A view of it all!

That was our anniversary trip in a nutshell! It felt so good to just get away and have one last weekend with just us before the baby comes. Don't get me wrong...we are very very excited to meet this little guy, but we have been given lots of advice to take advantage of this fun transitional time. We hope to see other big cities that are near us before we leave the mid-west, but who knows when those adventures will present themselves!

Maternity Photo Shoot

During my last session of swim club at Lands' End the amazing parents all went in and gave me and little Preston a gift: Venden Photography Gift Certificate! You can check our her website here. She also has a facebook page for Venden Photography with a sneak peak of our session. Hooray! I was super excited about this. They gave me a whole baby photo package, with maternity pictures included. I called our photographer and we scheduled maternity pictures for yesterday. She told me that she would just come to our house and we can do it here, which is something I've never done before. She was so nice though! She runs her own photography business on the side and works at Lands' End during the week. She loves shooting families and children, so I am excited to get good pictures of our little guy when he decides to make his appearance. (Hopefully sooner, rather than later:)

Here is a sneak peak of my own:

Love this one! Can you see the hearts that our hands make!

 Hilarious! This was Neil's idea...

 It was pretty hard to get down and back up, but looks like it was worth it.

 A sneak peak of Preston's room...it is all decorated, so now I'll have to show you what that looks like in a later post. I do want to point out the teething cover for our crib that I made the other day! Love it!

 I wanted to make Team Spencer or Team Preston shirts for delivery, but this is the same idea! Go Team!

 Just a little shot of him.

 Adorable shoes!

 So, we are thinking that we like the name Preston, but if he all of a sudden comes out looking like something else then I guess these pictures will be completely obsolete, oh well!

 We took these in our backyard. I actually really like them!

 And thanks Mom for the gray sweater! Love it! I might have to wear it even after Preston gets here because it is so cute. Nobody will know its maternity, right?

Well, sorry for the huge amount of pictures I put up, but these were some of my favorites! I am super excited to see what cute pictures will be taken of our little guy. Oh....and this is WEEK 36, whoot whoot! We have gotten lots further than we ever expected!

For a slide-show of all the photos, go here:
http://vendenphoto.zenfolio.com/p220560029/slideshow