Baby Alden's Nursery

I have so many blog posts to catch up on.  I have pictures, trips, restaurants, and even two months of Kellan's monthly updates to blog about.  Those posts will be coming shortly but I just had to go ahead and jump to the present because we finished Baby Alden's nursery tonight and I am so excited to share the pictures.  His arrival is scheduled for May 30th (if he doesn't come on his own before) so I really wanted this room to be done by this weekend.  

I LOVE decorating children's rooms.  Kellan's nursery was my favorite room in the house and I didn't think it was possible, but I think I might love this nursery even more.  I will be blogging pictures from Kellan's new "big boy" room soon too.  We moved the majority of Kellan's decorations to his new room and I'm keeping him in his crib for a little while longer so that went with him too.  I also decided to keep the turquoise wall that we painted in Kellan's nursery and plan a new color scheme around it.  This was a relief to Michael who is never thrilled about changing wall colors.

Alden's new crib with his new bedding made by the fabulously talented Evelyn Kientz.  She made Kellan's bedding too and I am so in love with both of them.  I bought all of the fabric from fabric.com and Michael cut the boards, stapled it on, and hung them for me.

I am so happy with the color scheme and fabric patterns that I finally decided on.  Evelyn put it all together and I couldn't have imagined it turning out any more perfect.  Target also just happened to have receiving blankets, fuzzy blankets, and sheets in the colors I needed.  This grey and white polka dot crib sheet is one of them that I found.

The IKEA storage shelf stayed but I did get new canvas drawers to match the new bedding.  The old drawers went to Kellan's new room.  I got the book wall idea from Pinterest.  We are thinking about adding another row of books above this one just because I have so many and there is plenty more room.

Kellan's nursery had a green owl and an orange owl that I used as book ends on this same shelf.  I thought it was only appropriate for baby brother to have his own owls when I saw these two at TJ Maxx :) Kellan calls the white owl "Owl" and the turquoise owl "Monster."  My sister made the diaper cake for my diaper shower and I'm leaving it intact for as long as possible :)  The gray and white basket, the chalkboard, and the yellow lantern were all TJMaxx finds too (my favorite store).  The turquoise A either came from TJMaxx or Marshall's.

The yellow and white frames and the metal "A" came from Marshall's.  The  clock and the turquoise frames stayed from Kellan's nursery and I just added new fabric.  As soon as little Alden is here I will be replacing the photos with a family picture and a brother picture.

The lamp and "baby" frame on the table came from Target.  My sister found the leather turquoise A on the lamp.  Evelyn also made the tablecloth.  I love that yellow fabric.  The turquoise polka dot blanket came from Target and the yellow chevron pillow came from Home Goods.  I found the gray recliner online but I can't remember the website.  I just basically Googled gray recliners and there were only a few options that didn't cost an arm and a leg.  I highly recommend a comfy recliner for all of those late night feedings (and all during the rest of the day too).  Lots of mommy-Alden time will be spent in this chair :) We still read to Kellan every night before bed in his brown recliner so that went to his new room too.

We left Kellan's changing table in here and just added a new changing pad cover and laundry hamper to match.  The changing pad cover I ordered from Etsy and the laundry hamper was another TJMaxx find.  Its hard to keep this area cute and organized when its constantly in use...especially when a certain 19 month old loves to dig through the baskets and pull everything out.

Thanks to the diaper shower that my family gave us, we are well stocked up on diapers and wipes.  These are just the ones that we have in newborn size!!

The "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" canvas came from Home Goods and the frame from Marshall's.  I will be adding a new picture to this frame too after Alden is here.  The mirror was the same green mirror from Kellan's nursery and we used turquoise duct tape to cover it.  Michael did a fantastic job keeping it wrinkle free and even :)  He's the perfect craft husband.  He thought I was crazy when I told him what I bought the duct tape for but even he thought it turned out great.

I hope Alden loves books as much as Kellan does.  I read to Kellan from the very first day we brought him home and I plan to do the same with baby brother.  This crate also (surprise, surprise) came from TJMaxx.

Alden's room is ready for him to move in :)  Now if I can just keep big brother from tearing it apart until he is here.

"New Baby" Updates

I know that I announced that I was pregnant a few months ago but I don't think I have given any updates since then.  I have been for my doctor's appointments once a month and everything has checked out fine.  I was lucky enough to not have had any trouble with my blood pressure, glucose, swelling, or much discomfort during my pregnancy with Kellan and so far this pregnancy is going just as well.

We did have one scare at the end of November and it was already an emotional day all around.  One of my really good friends was a few weeks pregnant (about a month behind me) when her doctor could not find the baby's heartbeat. She went back for another check up and they still could not find the heartbeat and scheduled a D and C.  Her procedure was on the same morning as my 12 week doctor's appointment and she was on my mind all day.  I had to sit on the toilet seat so many times to try to get myself together and stop crying so that I could put my make up on.  I finally was able to get ready and Michael came home to pick up me and Kellan.

At the doctor everything checked out normal until he couldn't find OUR baby's heartbeat.  He assured us that everything was probably fine and as early in the pregnancy as we were, finding the heartbeat could be tricky.  As soon as he left the room, Michael immediately starts telling me that its going to be O.K. and that we don't know that anything is wrong.  I immediately fell apart and reached for Kellan to hold him.  The five minutes it took to walk down to the ultrasound room were the longest and scariest five minutes I've ever spent in my life.  Thankfully everything in the ultrasound checked out fine, there was a strong heartbeat and the baby was just swimming away in there.  Our doctor reassured us that at 12 weeks the baby is so tiny, finding the heartbeat can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Every mother and pregnant woman knows that there is no greater sound in the world than a baby's heartbeat.  It is what I look forward to hearing every month when I go for my appointment.  One thing I have learned from friends', family members', and my own pregnancies is not to take a healthy baby for granted.  Why people that don't want their babies and don't take care of them, are seemingly able to have them so easily, is a question pondered by many.  Especially when there are so many couples that want a baby so badly and are unable to have one.  My friend I mentioned before is lucky enough to have 2 healthy children but there are so many that try and try and aren't able to have a baby at all.  It is a difficult concept to accept.  Anyway, I got side tracked but I did want to share our little scare just because its comforting to know what other women have been through.  

We had another ultrasound on January 3rd, 2013 and we found out that we are having another little boy!  I didn't even have to have the ultrasound to know.  As soon as I woke up that morning I just knew it was a boy.  Up until then I had gone back and forth between boy and girl but that morning, I can't explain it, I just knew.  Michael is beyond excited to have TWO boys and for Kellan to have a future little brother.  I was just thankful to hear that heartbeat again and see that everything checked out well.  We had a scare at our 18 week ultrasound with Kellan that I need to blog about one day.  Luckily this time there were no red flags.

Hands raised up over his head :)

Footprint :)

Ever since we found out that it was another boy I have been on a mission to decide on a name.  With Kellan, we honestly were not sure what his name was going to be until I was in labor and Michael had to fill out the cord blood banking paperwork.

I hadn't really been actively searching but names were always on my mind.  When you're pregnant you get so many emails from Diapers.com, Babycenter.com, Pampers.com, Huggies.com, Enfamil.com (I breastfed for a year...why I get emails from them I do not know), Disneybaby.com...I could go on and on.  An email somewhere along the way sent me a list of baby names that were variations of the top 10 names from 2012.  It has been no secret that I have loved the name Aiden for years but I refused to use it because it has been the #1 name for several years now.  I really liked this list because it gave you names that were similar to the popular names.

There were 2 names that were variations of Aiden that I immediately liked.  One was Adden and the other was Alden.  I liked Adden but I think people will mispronounce it Aiden just because of its popularity and there are so many different spellings of it now.  I also thought it was a little TOO close to Aiden.  So I asked Michael what he thought about Alden and prepared to be shot down (that's what always happens when one of us likes a name, the other hates it).  Surprisingly he liked it too and we tried it out for a few months to be sure.  I've been sure for a while now and have been calling the baby Alden in my head.  Its so much nicer to have a name to call him instead of "the new baby."  We already knew that his middle name was going to be Lee since that is Michael's, his dad's, and his grandfather's middle name.  

So officially, the "new baby's" name is Alden Lee Grizzard.  And its pronounced All-den.  Whew!  I bet no one expected us to have a name picked out so early.

My new diaper bag from the Whimzy Tree.  You can find her page on Facebook and Etsy.

It has Kellan's name embroidered on one side...

And baby Alden's name on the other.

The last few months I have been on full out baby planning mode and Kellan's nursery is half torn apart in preparation for making it Alden's nursery.  Some of Kellan's stuff is still up and some has been moved to his new room.  Meanwhile Kellan's new big boy room is half done and is currently the very messy and unorganized playroom until we officially move his crib in there next month.  I don't want to hang any pictures until all of the furniture is in there and I am sure of where I want everything.  I am having a very hard time moving him to the other side of the house but want him (and me) to be adjusted to his new room before baby Alden is here.  Right now we have two rooms in limbo but I know everything will fall into place in the next couple of months.

Kellan hanging out on baby Alden's new crib bedding made by my awesomely talented friend Evelyn.  She made Kellan's bedding too and it still makes his room my favorite one in the house.  I didn't think it was possible but I love this bedding even more.  The gray chevron is the outside of the crib bumper, the yellow pattern is the inside bumper and the turquoise ties and border is the same color as the crib skirt.  I will put up more pictures once the nursery is done.

Right now I am 29 weeks along with 11 weeks to go.  At my last appointment our doctor is planning another c-section for either May 24th or May 30th.  I'm hoping to hold out for the 30th because that is only 4 days before my due date.  That's really all of the updates that I have for now.  We're just counting down the days until baby Alden is here and they are going by quickly!!