Aidan's Nursery

Here's Aidan's nursery! It's finally all finished! It definitely took a while and lots of work, but it turned out better than I thought! This used to be our guest bedroom and the walls were just a beige color. We added the chair rail and painted it the trim color. Then we painted the stripes below...well actually Josh figured out how far apart and how to make the stripes even, and I just painted. The stripes took forever, and now we know that stripes are pretty difficult and always seem a lot easier than they really are! The room was fun for us to paint together....well the first coat was fun! I bought the letters at JoAnne's and painted them. I don't know what got into me but I went through a crazy "artsy/craftsy" nesting stage! I painted the letters and put the ribbon on them. They turned out better that I expected and I liked how they match the room since I used the same paint colors....plus I saved money! His room theme is the "elephant parade" so he has a bunch of elephants. I really liked that I found cute bedding that had polka dots, stripes and bows but was for little boys! There are NO selections for boy cribbing but a billion for little girls, so it was difficult to find something that I liked. I wanted something cutsy for his nursery because I figured that was my only chance....I'm sure his next rooms will be with dinosaurs, bugs, tools or airplanes/cars...I don't see polka dots & stripes in his future rooms!

Herschel LOVES Aidan's nursery. He used to run off with as many stuffed animals and toys as possible, but he's getting a lot better! We took him to an obedience school called Man's Best Friend a few weeks ago and it's like we have a new dog. Well, actually at first when we picked him up (he had to be boarded for 2 weeks) his regular trainer couldn't be there so we had this other young guy show us what they taught him and a demonstration, and let's just say it wasn't that impressive! We both just thought that he WAS a little better than before and maybe he's just a bad dog and simply untrainable! But then we went back last week for a follow up lesson (we have unlimited lessons, which is nice!) and his real trainer was there this time and we were blown away! This guy was super intense and Herschel listened to every word he said. It was like magic. NOW Herschel is a better dog (he was probably really bummed that we figured out that he could be trained and now he has to follow the rules!) and he no longer steals Aidan's stuff! He really is a super sweet dog...he just needed some discipline and training. It's really cute when we go into the nursery and Herschel's asleep at the foot of the crib. Aidan's going to get into so much trouble with Herschel....I can already see them coming into our house caked in mud & looking really proud of themselves. :)

Below is the changing hutch. He has a wipes warmer so that his little behind won't be cold when we change his diapers! We also have "pee pee teepees" that goes over his little thing so that he won't pee on us! (I've heard that becomes a problem with little boys...and I'm sure they think it's hilarious if they get a hit!). The baskets are full of bath towels, wash clothes, burp clothes, blankets, and diaper changing stuff. It's amazing how much stuff this little boy already has...and a lot of it we'll have to learn how to use! I made the picture frame on the top shelf. I got into a crafts frenzy when we were painting his room and started to make all of these things....it must have been a really weird nesting stage!

The rocking elephant is too cute! If you press his ear he'll sing and if you press his nose he'll make the elephant noise. Herschel has figured out that if he nibbles on his nose that he'll make noise...then he just looks at it and does it again! It's really cute. All the animals in the basket are really cute too. The bear makes sounds that mimic the womb, the turtle is actually a night light that fills the room with constellations (it's really cool....Josh & I stayed up really late one night looking for all the different constellations!), and the bright blue elephant plays a song for a long time, which will be nice to keep Aidan occupied!

The rocking chair used to be Cathy & Mike's when Josh was little, and it's one of the few things that we kept from the old Galts house that we tore down! I had it reupholstered (I had NO idea how expensive that is! Next time it would have been cheaper to buy a new glider! But, then it wouldn't look as cute or have the history...:) and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Grandma Lucy made Aidan a really nice blanket that's on the back of the chair. We're planning on taking the blanket to the hospital to take him home in so it will truly be his "baby blanket." We also hung our maternity pictures on the wall. We'll replace them with his newborn pictures once he gets here.

Aidan's closet is full of clothes! It's hard not to buy baby clothes when you pass the Baby Gap! I washed all the newborn stuff already and I LOVE the way baby clothes smell!! He also has a ton of bathing stuff, pillows, his pack'n'play (which will be great when we drop him off at the grandparents!), shoes, etc. Shoes are especially hard not to buy because they are so dang cute! Too bad he'll only get to wear each pair once before he grows out of them. It's worth it though :)

He's been moving A LOT lately and we think that he's almost ready. We only have about 2 weeks left so he can come any time. Now that we have his nursery totally finished we're ready for him! He'll be here before we know it... :)

Pregnancy

This is my first blog (ever!) so I'm kinda new to all of this. I wanted to create a blog so that our friends & family that weren't around us a lot or don't live in Georgia could keep up with us. Josh & I got pregnant at the end of December and now I'm 9 months and ready to pop! We only have 4 weeks left (6 weeks if he's late like his mommy:) and we're getting really excited to be parents. We're having a little boy, Aidan Joshua (his nickname WILL NOT be AJ!! Shelley is pushing this...) and he's due September 16, 2008. We just hope that he doesn't decide to come on our 2 year Anniversary on September 9! A lot of our family has birthdays in September (Tommy, Shelley and my sister-in-law Emily all do!) so he'll probably be sharing a birthday with someone.

All in all we're ready for him. His nursery is finished and exploding with baby stuff. We don't know what half of it is for, but we'll figure it out soon enough! We had 3 baby showers and got everything we would ever need and more, so we're very grateful for our awesome families and friends! I'll post pictures of his cute nursery soon. We also got our Maternity pictures done when I was 8 months. Most of them are at our house and on our dock. A few of them are in Josh's uncle's studio, who took the pictures for us. I'm really glad that we got the Maternity pictures done...it's a good way to remember our first pregnancy.