So much to do, so little time!

I have been running around like a mad woman lately!  I started working in my classroom a few weeks ago.  I went back so early because I wanted to be ready.  I didn't want to have to put in 12 hour days (at 7 months preggers to boot) because I waited until the last minute.  I have done some things different this year and have added a few touches that I really enjoy.  Too bad I'm only going to be able to enjoy it for a month and a half before I have to leave to go on maternity leave.  I will do a classroom reveal in a week or so when I'm all done!

I have also been doing some things for the nursery.  I have been awful at taking pictures lately, but I promise I will show some of the things I have done!

One thing I plan on working on soon are some hanging flower balls for the nursery.  I found this tutorial and fell in love.  And it looks so easy!!  Look how cute they are:

Shelley over at House of Smiths did a fabulous job on these and made the tutorial seem very easy!  So I'm going to give it a shot!  We'll see how it works for me.

I also finally decided on a car seat and stroller.  We decided on the Chicco KeyFit 30.  It was the top rated on Consumer Reports.  Can't go wrong there, right?  But, the patterns are not that cute!  So.....I found some super cute car seat covers! 

So cute!!  And it kind of matches the nursery!

Eeeeep!

*melt*

So the only problem is.....I CAN'T DECIDE WHICH ONE I LIKE BEST!!  They're all so cute and I would be happy with any of them.  Only problem is.....how do you register for something like that when it's on a specialty website?  Those bad boys are $100 a pop!  Yikes!  But this is the website that has them all.  They're sooooo cute!  I wish I were talented enough to make these.

Oh well.

We are off to our 4D ultrasound now!  Yay!  I cannot wait to see my precious baby girl.  Pictures from that in the next post!

Holy Closet, Batman!

We finished Lil' Waller's closet last night!!  Hooray for checking things off the proverbial "nursery to-do" list!  It really wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be and didn't take us quite as long as I thought it would.  We had already installed a closet system just like this in our last home, so I think we were pretty familiar with how this works!  Here are some photos to show the progress:

The closet started like this with one single shelf (keep in mind, this is actually a pretty darn big coset):

Pretty plain, right?

So we ran to Home Depot and bought this puppy:

We also bought some cabinet doors and a couple drawers, but I forgot to take pictures of those.  Whoops.

We had to take the shelf that was in there out.  Since it was put into the wall with drywall anchors, it left huge holes in the wall when we removed it.  So, we had to spackle and paint and wait for all that jazz to dry!

After all that was done, we got to work assembling (and by we, I mean my dearest hubby).

All the lovely pieces.

Gotta anchor it to the wall.  Safety first, people!

Just call me Vanna.

Almost there!!

And the final product..........

(well, until she gets more stuff)

So there you have it folks!  An amazing new closet for our negative 4 month old and it only took a few hours!  Can't beat it with a cane!

Next on the nursery list......the chair!  My wonderful parents have offered to pick up the tab on the rocker/swivel/recliner chair I found!  Sweet!  So now I need to go order that and find a little "nightstand" style side table that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. 

Please share your closet and/or nursery transformations!  I'd love to see!

Catalog Living

Ok, so I have stumbled upon this AMAZING blog that is absolutely hysterical!!  I have been laughing at this darn blog for the past hour!  It is basically a blog that takes home decor photos from catalogs and/or the Internet and the author of the blog puts her own little comical sattire to the picture.  Here are a few of my fav's:

"Gary and I have slept in separate beds for years, but last night he left me a tied-up stack of books on my foot-of-bed-bench. I think he’s in the mood."

"Elaine wasn’t about to let some hot flashes get in the way of balancing the checkbook with the abacus."

"Our entryway set-up is great! Now I never forget my hat, burlap satchel, or life preserver."

"Oh dear, our Q-Tip decanter is almost 1/5th depleted"

"Hi Nancy, it’s Elaine. I’m going to be a little late for lunch. I can’t find my hat or my back-up hat."

OH MYlanta!!  That mess is hilarious! 

That's all I got for today!  I'm off to put my tired, swollen feet up.  It's been a long day of cleaning and organizing.

Laundry Room spruce up!

So one of my main goals this summer (so far) has been to organize.  Since we moved into the house in September, I barely had time to get things "settled" the way I wanted them.  It was the beginning of the school year and the wedding was just about a month away when we moved in, so things were a little hectic around here to say the least.  I am finally able to get things kind of how I want them this summer!

I love my house, don't get me wrong.  But one of the MAJOR flaws with this place is the lack of storage.  I literally do not have a hall closet to use as a linen closet or coat closet.  So, all our coats are taking up the guest room closet.  We are fine with this.  But I had a huge problem with linen/cleaning products/lightbulb, etc storage upstairs.  So, we had these 2 old white cabinets from lord knows where.  When we moved, I had taped the doors on one of the cabinets shut (one has doors, the other has drawers) so they wouldn't fly open in the moving truck.  Well, when we were unpacking and I went to pull the tape off the cabinet, it took the paint or varnish or whatever it was right off with it!  So it left me with a pretty ugly cabinet.  The drawers came out fine once the tape was pulled off.  I had these tucked away in a closet for the longest time, but finally moved them into the laundry room for more storage.  Only one problem.....I COULD NOT STAND TO LOOK AT THEM!!!  The missing paint was just driving me crazy.  But I couldn't get rid of them because they are perfectly useful and I needed them for the storage. 

Ok, ok.....I'll stop blabbing and show you how hideous they were so you can empathize with me!

See the missing paint and how it looks kind of gray on the front??  Oh and not to mention the missing knob!!  Just hideous, I tell ya!

Long story short, one day while browsing in my favorite store, Target, I came across some really cute green and white contact paper.  It had a really cute design and was my favorite color green!  Not to mention, it was a huge roll for only $5!  So, I snagged it and ran home to start covering these ugly cabinets.  I measured out my cabinets and cut the contact paper into pieces big enough to cover the doors and the front of the drawers. 

Here is how they turned out:

1st drawer is done!

Much better!

I even found a cute basket to hold the starch, detergent cup, and iron when not in use.

So there ya have it!  I still need to go pick up a white knob to put on the right side drawer, but these bad boys look so much better.  Inside the drawers I put extension cords, lighbulbs, extra flashlights, etc.  In the cabinet with doors, I put cleaning supplies for the bathrooms upstairs, lint rollers, etc.  Super handy and functional!

Yay me!

On another note, we are headed to South Florida to visit friends and family.  I'm just super excited about getting to go to Ikea.  I've already started my list of things we need to get there.  It's kind of long.  Whoops.  I wish we had an IKEA closer.  The closest one is 4 hours away.  But, at least I get to go each time we visit South Florida!  Hooray!

Have a fabulous 4th of July weekend everyone!

Nursery Progress

Well, I am happy to report that the nursery furniture was delivered last Monday!  I LOVE IT!  It was a floor model, but it looks pretty much brand new.  We got such a good deal on it.  So, it has been sitting in a blank room since Monday.  We went to Lowe's and bought some paint samples to see what color we wanted to paint the room.  I love that they sell those little sample cans.  So handy!  Because of said magnificent sample cans, we found our paint color!!!  It's called Lucky Leprechaun!  Pretty funny since Scott is Irish!  I say all that to say......SCOTT PAINTED THE ROOM YESTERDAY!  And it looks fabulous!!!  I love it.  It's very green, but I love it!  Here are some pictures to show the transformation!

The room before:

Scott painting the room:

And the finished product:

And there ya have it, folks!  Now we just need some lamps, a bookshelf, a rocker/glider thingy-ma-bob, and a baby and I think we'll be good to go! 

Stay tuned for the final product.......