More Pics of Caroline's Sweet Nursery!

We are slowly but surely making progress on Caroline's nursery. We've got all of the major pieces of furniture except for a rocking chair and really, if she came tomorrow we would be ready. We are still working to get all of the art on the walls. I have a frame to go over the dresser that has three openings, one for Caroline's newborn picture and one for Mommy and Daddy. I also finally bought the frames for the fingerprint tree guestbook that we got from our California shower and that will go above the changing table. Once those are up and we have the stuffed animals arranged a little more neatly on the upper shelf I think that it will be "done." Check out the pictures of what we have so far:

This is a panorama of the room, I love this feature on my phone! It's a little distorted but it gives you a better sense of the layout of the room. The rocker will go by the windows where the little desk is now. The cradle will go in our room/living room for when she first arrives. The stroller will also get moved, likely to the garage or near the front door.

I'm not in love with the changing table but I sure did love the price when compared to the changing tables that matched the crib and dresser! This changing table from Ikea is nice and sturdy and was less than $50! The one I registered for was closer to $250, which is absurd. I got the green and purple cubes from Target but of course when I went back for more they were out of those particular colors so the cubes in the closet are not an exact match but they are close!

I love all of her duck pieces but I also love the fact that it doesn't look too ducky and it is definitely a room that can grow with her and change with her changing interests and needs. My Mom made the duck quilt and the little tag blankie shown in the picture. Now we just have to wait 8 more weeks for our little girl to get to use her new room!

A Name for Baby Mac

Well, her room is coming along nicely! Who's room? Our little Caroline's room! That's right, we settled on a name for our little one. I spent a while creating this awesome bit of art work for her all the while thinking we should have picked a shorter name, especially considering that our runner-up name (Leah) uses half as many letters!

The letters are made from scrapbook paper in frameless picture frames (the kind with the little clips on the sides). The letters I printed from Word on regular white paper and then cut our of the brown scrapbook paper, this was by far the most tedious part of the project. I have to say that I am impressed with how well I lined these up considering I did it on my own, thank goodness for the laser level!

Along with putting her name on the wall I also hung the ducky art work that was previously on the floor. We have also since purchased a mattress for the crib using gift cards from our fabulous friends. The sheet laying in the crib was made by my mom, Grandma Sally. She made us 4 sheets, all in our color palette and theme. This one is striped and polka dots in green, yellow, cream, and brown. These are so much prettier than store bought and cheaper since she had a coupon for the sheets and some of the material she had been saving since I got engaged 6 years ago (not really joking about that).

The next step is to find a changing table solution or maybe see if we can live without one since it seems a little wasteful! I'll be checking the second hand furniture store and Ikea later this month to see what I can find.

The Nursery

Here is the beginning stages of our little girls nursery. To start we have super high ceilings in our home which allows for this awesome shelf that goes around 3 walls of the room. When my father-in-law was here in January he painted the wall chocolate brown (it was red). I thought the brown would give a nice contrast to all of the little trinkets and things we plan to put up there and display.

Over Christmas when we were visiting my dad and step-mom they offered to buy us a crib. I was thrilled, that's one big purchase that I did not mind leaving to someone else. I found a few cribs that I liked but of course they were all back ordered and I was impatient so my step-mom made the call to order this crib from Target and I couldn't be happier! It is perfect for our little one. It arrived on Friday night and by Saturday morning we had it put together and put in place.

Near the windows (with curtains that came all the way from our house in Indiana and may be older than Mom & Dad's relationship) you can see a big Graco stroller that my father-in-law found for free through Craigslist, a gal took it apart to clean it and couldn't put it back together so she gave it away and Papa Joe fixed it right up for my niece Grace when she was visiting them in Ohio and now our little one will get to use it here in Texas. Papa Joe also brought us the little desk that Dad had when he was a little boy. She won't be quite big enough to use it for some time but it's so stinkin' cute that we had to have it and the green paint on it matches our theme completely!

The big dresser in the room is a hand-me-down from me! As a grad student I entered and won the Family Circle College Cook-off and got a bit of prize money that I used to furnish my brand new house in Indiana. One of the things I bought was this awesomely huge dresser but with a built-in dresser in my closet I just didn't need it so now our little one gets to use it, I just need some drawer organizers because those drawers are huge and I'll never find anything in there without a little organization.

Next to the dresser is the rock-n-play cradle thingy courtesy of Grandma Sally, I had heard tons of good reviews on it and it just so happened to come in a duck print! It was one of our first pieces for baby. In her massive closet our little girl has a huge assortment of hand-knitted dresses and sweaters from her Memere Fournier (my grandmother)!

Shown below is the art inspiration for the room, I found these before I was even pregnant. I always knew that I wanted a duck themed room but I didn't want it to be too kitschy or over done, I think these are just right!

We are still working on getting the mattress and deciding on a crib skirt or not, I'll show updates as we get further along!