reese's room

One night in the Spring we were all in the nursery watching Lofton work.  Reese mentioned he might like a new room, too.  Lofton and I are NOT all about giving Reese a big present because he's becoming a big brother, but a new room seemed like a reasonable request given his room at that time was decorated entirely by me.  {I looked for a picture but couldn't find one.}

When we moved into this house three years ago I had Lofton paint the walls BRIGHT pool blue.  Super bright.  I bought matching twin duvet covers from Land of Nod that had orange {Reese's favorite color}, lime green, blue, and gray guitars on them.  We never really moved beyond that.  The beds had mismatched sheets, a few inexpensive throw pillows, and some gray fleece blankets I picked up from Target.  Not bad by any means, but not great.

Reese's room is really big and faces the front of the house.  It was originally 2 rooms that at some point were combined into one.  There are four giant windows that let in a lot of light.  He has two closets-- one for clothes and one for toys.  He also has his own full bathroom that will eventually be shared with his little brother.

I knew with some bedding changes, a paint color change, and a little reorganization I could make his room more "him" and also make it fit more with our house.  The bright blue had to go!

First up was choosing bedding.  I wanted new duvet covers, but something more neutral than what we had currently.  My preference was a gray buffalo check duvet from Ikea, but when we went in March Reese saw a gray and white stripe he liked more.  Done. The duvets aren't actually used by my little hotbox unless it's the dead of winter so I found two white coverlets at Target on super clearance.  Like $12 a piece.  Then it came time for sheets.  Oh the sheets. While he lacked a preference in most areas, he REALLY cared about his sheets.  We finally settled on some from Pottery Barn Kids.  Expensive?  Yes.  But the duvet covers were cheap, the coverlets were on clearance, and I really wanted him to have what he wanted.  So there's that :)

The only other hurdle was the paint color.  Obviously his first choice was orange.  I shot that down quickly and he moved on to green.  I stupidly thought I could steer his green choice in a neutral green direction.  Maybe a toned down olive green?  Or a green-gray?  We went to Benjamin Moore and got four samples, all of which Reese will tell you looked like baby poop.  He hated all of them and I did, too.  {Lofton doesn't get a vote because he's color blind.}  Reese kept insisting he wanted "a green that was in the crayon box."  I looked through my paint deck, tried briefly to reconcile another bright wall color in my mind, and then just told him we couldn't do it.  I offered up the laundry room color-- quietude by Sherwin Williams.  He, surprisingly, said okay.  We actually went one shade darker on that paint strip-- halcyon green.  It's more green than blue, but balanced by a hefty dose of gray.

Now that it's done-- painted and put back together-- we love it.  Reese is pumped to have a "big boy"room, I love that it turned out so closely to how I envisioned it, and Lofton is just happy to have it done. One more project off the list!

A couple of final notes:  

• The wall color probably photographed the truest in the last photo.
• The bulletin board was made by Lofton and is a totally brilliant use of dead space.  He used a piece of sound board {which is basically compressed paper and really lightweight} covered in a drop cloth {cheap and looks like linen!}.  I wanted a bulletin board above Reese's dresser but Lofton pointed out that he wouldn't be able to reach it and suggested this plan instead.  
• Ideally we would have blinds on the windows to match the rest of the blinds in the house but Reese LOVES his blackout shades.  Seeing as how he barely sleeps as it is, I'm willing to compromise.

preK graduation

Reese graduated from Pre-K last Thursday.  Technically for the second time.

If you'll remember, we did the whole shebang {cap, gown, grandparents, etc..} last year, too.  With an October birthday he wasn't quite old enough to start kindergarten, thus our excitement over getting into the public school PreK program.  We kept graduation simple this year.  No grandparents, just Lofton and I, enjoying the moment with our most favorite person.  There were no gowns--only caps-- and a few quick songs followed by cookies.  Short and sweet.

This year has had high points and lows.  We've been blessed to be in a great school a year prior to most other kiddos.  It does my Mama heart good to know that when Kindergarten begins in August Reese will already be acclimated to the building, the people, and the routines.  He's also in my school system which means we follow the same calendar.  Amen to that. 

There have been lows, too.  I'm not sad to see this particular teacher go.  While I've been pleased at what Reese has learned, I've been less than happy with other aspects of her classroom.  I'd like to think there is something positive to be said about ALL children, especially my own.  I say that with many, many years of teaching experience and MANY very challenging children having graced my room.  At graduation her exact words were, 'Well, I guess he's come a long way." Moving on...

For his part Reese is simply thrilled to be finally headed to kindergarten.  It's been a long buildup for my little buddy!

The face of pure joy.

nursery complete

The nursery is complete.

It's been fun to create another little boy nursery.  As I said previously, Reese's nursery had a definite nursery theme.  I added some baby elements to this room, but primarily just kept it simple and classic.  I wanted it to fit in with the rest of our house.

The paint color was a doozy.  I had an idea for what I wanted but once we tried it on the walls I hated it.  Eight samples later we landed in the perfect color.  It's Black Pepper by Benjamin Moore.  Neither black, nor super gray... it's more of a grayed out navy.  I love it. The chair is from Reese's nursery.  It was green chenille and is now an ivory Matisse.  Practical?  Maybe not.  But it's what I wanted.  So much so that I tracked it down after my order was cancelled by three different places for lack of inventory.  My MIL had it recovered for me and the arm slips were made from the extra fabric.  We also scotch guarded it a zillion times. I decided to forgo an ottoman this time and grabbed a pouf from Target.  The lamp is also from Target {thanks to my Mama!}.  The garden stool was a last minute purchase so we have a spot to set a drink or a bottle.

I may have mentioned before but aside from the chair we had no nursery furniture.  All of what we used for Reese was borrowed --and then returned-- many years ago.  For a changing table this go round I knew I wanted something more furniture like.  We lucked out finding this piece at a consignment store in Auburn.  The mirror was living in the hall closet and the plates were a Pottery barn find.  They have the sweetest bunnies on them, but are super simple and don't scream baby.

This tray corrals some diapering gear.  I saw the dog on One King's Lane and knew it had to be mine.  Reminds me so much of Raleigh.  There are diapers in the top drawers of the dresser along with nail clippers and all those other fun things that babies need. In the top photo you can see the changing pad peaking out.  I love the star print Aden and Anais cover.

The crib came from Amazon {thanks again Mama} and currently has no sheet on it.  But we have one!  It's white. Just waiting on Lofton to bring a piece of plywood home for under the mattress before I make the bed.  The bumper is from restoration hardware {which probably explains why 13 catalogs weighing a total of 17 pounds were delivered to my house by UPS yesterday}.  Lofton and I made the skirt from fabric I ordered.  Don't get him started on the amount of fabric samples I went through.  He says we could make a quilt.  All the extra diapers we were gifted at my school baby shower hide perfectly under the crib. 

You've seen the bookshelves before.  Lofton made them to cover the fireplace.  Yes, there's a fireplace back there. The bookshelves are kind of amazing.  He made a pair for our old house and leaving them was sad.  I'm so glad to have something similar here.  They aren't super full right now.  Some books {most shared by big brother}, a few toys, a rabbit from Peter's Pottery {i collect it}, and two baskets.  The baskets hold blankets, swaddles {that I don't know how to use}, and extra crib sheets/changing pad covers.  We left a right shelf empty to hold the monitor parts and maybe a humidifier.  

So that's it.  A nursery complete. Sans the baby who will be here sometime in the next 35 days!

Just to keep it real, Reese's room currently looks like this:

The painters came yesterday and I'm not tackling rearranging furniture solo.  Project get Reese's room and the dining room {which looks similar to this} done are on the agenda for this weekend.

maternity leave

Yesterday was day one of my maternity leave.  Day one came about two weeks sooner than I planned, but then again, I've learned a lot on the last year about "my plans.'

This baby has not made pregnancy easy on me.  The sickness was quickly replaced by sharp pains that ran through my pelvis down my left leg and braxton hicks contractions.  At first, the doctor said the leg pains were from my ligaments stretching-- they aren't as strong due to this being my second pregnancy.  I carried Reese to almost 40 weeks and he weighed eight pounds ten ounces.  Not a giant baby for most people, but I'm really short and fairly small framed.

I did all the things he told me to do.  Tons and tons of water to help the contractions, resting more when I was home and trying to put my feet up at school to help the pain.  The bigger the baby got, though, the more my pain increased.  The last month has been awful.  It hurts to walk, to roll over in the bed, to step in the car or shower-- all the necessary parts of my day.  Stress at work has also ramped up with it being testing time and the end of the year.

All that to say, I had a not so ideal doctor's appointment about two weeks ago.  Picture lots of tears after a day spent prepping my kids for state testing in a room with no air conditioning.  As I laid on the table my sweet doctor patted my arm and we talked EXTENSIVELY about priorities-- what comes first right now and what SHOULD come first.  He sent me home with a prescription for some pain medicine he knew I wouldn't take and instructions to talk to Lofton about what we want the next month or so to look like.  I would go back in a week for an ultrasound and appointment.

The answer for Lofton was easy.  He wanted me home, resting during the day and crying less at night :)  We both want me to be able to enjoy this fleeting time with Reese as our only child.  Leaving my school kiddos early was not something I had planned on, though.  I'm tougher than I look and I felt certain I could make it.

Flash forward to last Wednesday.  Lofton met me at the doctor for my scan and appointment.  The good news is that the baby sounded much better than he had the week before.  He's really big.  Measuring three weeks ahead in almost all areas except his head.  His head measures four weeks ahead.  Ultrasound weight estimates are just that-- estimates-- but they estimate him to weigh almost six pounds.  And I have five weeks left :)  We met with my doctor after the scan and he talked about a few things.  The first being the need for the baby to grow a lot more despite his giant size.  We are going to have to have another ultrasound, maybe two, to keep an eye on him.  He's crowded and they want to make sure he isn't too crowded, or running out of fluid, or getting tangled in the cord.  The second being that because of his location and size he is putting a lot of pressure on my left pelvic joint, possibly causing it to become disjointed.  He referred me for physical therapy and signed me out of work, starting immediately.  He wants me off my feet more than I'm on.

I was impressed by how well I took the news.  I was glad to have had a week to prepare myself for what I knew was probably inevitable.  Lofton begrudgingly allowed me to work Thursday and Friday so I could get plans in place and say goodbye to my kiddos.  It is certainly bittersweet, but made a little easier by knowing it's the end of the year anyway.  It's only two weeks early.

And so I'm at home.  Yesterday I watched a ridiculous amount of television and surfed the internet.  Rest is boring, but productive I presume.  I was so happy to see the clock turn 3:30 so I could go pick up my favorite kid!  

this season

Home with a sick kiddo today-- the pollen finally got to him.  Love Spring, hate pollen! Luckily, after four years of breathing treatments we pretty much rock it.  A comfy seat, holding Mama's hand, with the television on full blast.  I just wish he didn't feel so yuck.  We have a doctor's appointment this afternoon to see if we need oral steroids in addition to the albuterol. Ugh.

Our allergist won't give him an inhaler or do specific allergy testing {he had a small panel which basically showed his allergies are outdoor related} until he's six.  An inhaler would make breathing treatments at school MUCH simpler, but for now I'm going to enjoy this day at home.

I overheard Lofton tell someone he was on the phone with that nesting should be a legit diagnosis.  What can I say, I love a to-do list. Lofton and I have, though, been soaking up this time.  Slowing down and trying to enjoy these last few months.  Sometimes we look at each other like, "Oh snap, are we really about to have another baby?!?"

So with that I'm back to resting with my favorite kiddo. If you can call rest watching four episodes of The Power Rangers back to back.

various things

We are officially a few days away from the third trimester.  Twenty seven weeks has snuck up on me.  Not because this pregnancy is super easy and flying by, alas it's not, merely because life is just full.

I passed my glucose screen yesterday {by the skin of my teeth} and Dr. Alverson said he'd start seeing me every two weeks from now on.  I laughed --a little-- because he's basically been seeing me every two weeks since 20 weeks anyway due to these silly Braxton Hicks.

Reese went with me to my appointment yesterday and he was pretty much a dream.  It was the last day of our Spring Break so we rewarded ourselves with prizes when we were done.  Spring Break has been especially bittersweet this year.  I think it's knowing that this is my last real break with Reese before the babe arrives. In theory I should have three weeks at home between the last day of school and the baby's arrival, but I'm certain 37 week pregnant me is going to be a mess.  100% certain.

At the beginning of the week we took our favorite five year old on a mini vacation to ATL.  There is nothing Reese loves more than staying in a hotel.  Seriously.  There's a Fairfield Inn less than five minutes from our house that he asks to spend the night in at least once a week.  I found a room at the Omni for a steal a few months ago, and other than that we didn't really have a plan for Sunday/Monday.  We wanted to go to Ikea and I really wanted to avoid the aquarium, but otherwise we let Reese take the lead on what he wanted to do.

We started with lunch at the Varsity on Sunday and then headed to the ATL Children's Museum.  To be completely honest, the museum wasn't our favorite.  Reese and I experienced the McWane Center in Birmingham with Cassie and Penel this summer and comparatively this was a letdown.

It wasn't very expensive {I think  $11 per person} so the fact that we were only there an hour or so wasn't that big of a deal.  We headed to our hotel next.  The Omni is directly across the street from Centennial Park and connected to the CNN center-- a prime location.

This pretty much sums up my hotel loving baby.  He ate a snack and rested from that position {and later returned to that chair to watch the lights come on in the city- priceless} before we headed to Centennial Park to walk around.  There had been a marathon earlier in the day so the park was mostly clear of homeless people, a rarity in ATL.

Monday morning Lofton went down to the CNN center to grab coffee, yogurt, and Chick Fil A -- i.e, the breakfast of champions for our crew.  We got dressed, checked out, and hit Ikea right when it opened.  I, impressively, had a list and even more impressively pretty much stuck to it.  We got a bookcase for the babe's closet, a few curtain panels for our back bedroom, new duvet covers for a "big boy room" upgrade, and a couple other odds and ends {umm, $2 wine glasses?  I'll take six more, please}.  Then we zipped over to the zoo.

Reese has a love/hate relationship with the zoo.  As in he loves it "in theory" but when he gets there he's kind of "meh" about it.  Such was the case again.

There were some high points-- seeing the baby pandas and baby lions.  But also some lows "Mama, why does it always have to smell like.... the zoo?!?" Luckily Lofton and I were fully aware of this pre-trip.  We went in knowing our tour would be quick.  The Beasley's can see an entire zoo in an hour and a half-- tops.

Before getting back on the road, we hit one more place-- Flip Burger.  It was yummy and Reese's krispy kreme milkshake was amazing.  And it was at this point that I started to get a little sad our trip was over.  Lofton felt the same.  Lots of changes on the horizon for these musketeers!

The rest of Spring Break passed with cold weather, rain, and chores-- and on our one clear day a picnic! Monday we are back to the grind.  Nine more Monday's to go until summer....

nursery plans

The boys are at small group tonight {and I'm stuck at home with my "germs" as Reese kindly told me} so I thought we'd do a little nursery update.

Reese's nursery was bright.  Very bright-- with lime green walls, traditional crib bedding from Pottery Barn, and a green chenille rocker.  At the time it was just what I wanted.  My tastes have evolved a bit in six years, though, so we're moving in a less baby more classic direction.

The first step in creating the nursery, however, involved creating a room.  Our house is a very long ranch style with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.  Plenty of space for us and we easily could have used one of the existing bedrooms for the babe.  For various reasons, including we like having a room with a bathroom for my parents AND the room's location at the very end of the house, we opted for a different plan.

For the three years we've lived here we have brainstormed how to better utilize the long space at the front of our house.  In 1958 it was used as a formal living room and dining room.  There was an addition to our house in 2005, though, that added a giant family room {open to the kitchen} and a huge master bedroom.  We used the front space as a dining room, alternating our table from one side of the room to the other.  It just never felt right.  And we'd eat dinner at night and talk about what we could do to change it.

One night, before the babe was a blink, Lofton jumped up with an idea to divide the space into a bedroom and reconfigure the other side into a dining room/foyer.  The plan for the dining room/foyer is currently on hold, but the bedroom idea has worked out perfectly.  The only obstacle was the fireplace which you can see in the photo above.

That took some pondering, as well, but I couldn't be happier {or more impressed} with Lofton's plan.  Bookshelves.

Really fantastic bookshelves. He built those! The detail is seriously amazing.

And while he's been constructing, I've been doing what I do best-- planning.  I've picked out a wall color, fabrics, and some accessories.  The wall color was a struggle.  Originally I wanted a light, blue gray {SW quietude, the color of our dining room}.  We painted some on the wall and I was kind of blah about it.  Then we tried lighter shades which I just hated.  So on a whim I had Lofton pick up some darker test pots and just like that we had a winner.

Benjamin Moore Black Pepper.  I love dark paint in a bedroom.  Our bedroom is really dark {Martha Stewart Plumage} and it's one of my favorite rooms in the house.  Plus, the nursery has so many light elements: the white bookshelves, a white crib, and an ivory upholstered chair.  I think that the dark will be balanced perfectly.

Lofton painted the first coat today and I'm smitten. I tried to snap a picture with my phone, but there is currently a teeny light source in the room.  Finding a replacement is on the to-do list.  As is crib bedding, art, a lamp, and all those other things babies really need like clothes and diapers.  At least we have a plan, right?