Newest smith house

We've moved! Again. For the 9th time in 6 years, but who's counting? Me!
Luckily this is going to be our last move for a while. Says me. I even had the nerve to cut up and throw away our moving boxes this time. They needed it anyway, they were all falling apart from being used so many times.
Un-luckily this time we moved just 3 weeks before baby No. 2 was due! A little stressful. But finally worth it!
I've added the photos of the walk-through to the Smith Houses page, go check it out!

The apartment building is owned by my in-laws, and the building's name is Smithhaven; my brother in-law lives in one of the other 3 apartments with his wife, and my sister in-law lives in yet another one with her two boys. All the Smiths. :) Must be confusing for the post office.

The walk-through has it all, but here's the gist:

We went from this, and this

to this

And this!

Home-made Baby Book

So I realized the other day that we didn't have a baby book for talon like we'd had for Alexis. Like to put info and pictures and mementos in, like the hospital bracelet, family info, etc.
So I went online to find one.
And Oh.Em.Gee.
Why are they so darn expensive? The cheapest one was $25 (at Target) only available online, with no pictures of the inside, and the cover was bland and generic. The average price anywhere else online seemed to be around $35, and on Etsy they averaged at around $60!

So, my brilliant husband asked me why I didn't just make one myself? And I thought, hey, that's an awesome idea!
I spent an hour and a half that night coming up with pages for the book (birth stats, all about mom, all about dad, the day you were born, etc) some of which I found inspiration for online, and some that was just information I wanted to put in.
I also went online and had coupons texted to my phone for Michaels, our local craft store, because I knew that that was where I would get most of what I needed.

The next day we headed out to run our errands, Michaels being one of them, and we were surprised at how few actual baby albums they had. Well for boys anyway. They seem to have plenty of everything for girls everywhere we go, but for boys? Well, that's a different post in and of itself...
So we decided to really do it ourselves.
I found a beautiful turquoise blue photo album with no embellishments or pattern, just a pocket for a photo on the cover.
The I found stick-on letters in burlap, a small pack of multi-colored jute twine, matching mod-style flowers (not feminine looking at all), and the best part, a stick-on fabric banner that matches the banners we made by hand for the baby shower! One of those banners is going into the kids room, so this album is going to match, and look great displayed on a shelf or dresser top.
I also found a 180 sheet card stock paper pack that was perfect. I searched forever and finally found one that was just colors and modern patterns.

The album and paper were both Recollections brand and were 40% off! The little embellishments for the cover were about $4 each so those added up quickly. I used a 40% off coupon for one of them. I'm wishing I had waited until today because I happen to have a coupon (starting today) for 20% off your entire order including sale items! So that would have actually saved me a bundle. But I was anxious. :)

I started by laying out all my finds on the table. Then I arranged and rearranged until I had the cover looking how I wanted.
I love how it turned out! You'll have to excuse the poor photo quality. I take all my pictures on my iphone, no fancy camera's in this house!

In order to get the jute twine to look how I wanted it too I had tied it around the cover, just to see how it would look. Then I liked it so much I didn't want to disturb it, so I just hot-glued it right down as it was. The knot in the middle was a little ugly, so I used one of the owl clothespins I bought in the Michaels sales bin (for $1.50) pulled the felt owl off carefully, and hot-glued it right over the knot.

Then I took my "pages" I'd printed out and my giant paper pack and did it the easy way. Slide in a pattern, then a page on top. Only one is glued down and that is because it has two small captions for spots for the hospital bracelet and footprints. The last few pages are still blank but I have captions all ready and they will be filled with pictures. The fonts I used for the basic pages can be downloaded for free, they are Duality (the font in gray), and Ribbon (in colors).

I plan on putting a picture of Talon in the cover but for now I decided to slip an ultrasound photo in.

I also created a subway-art style print that I am going to put in the kids room, but I thought it would also make a good first page of the book! The fonts are all downloaded free, they are Sketch Rockwell, Boston Traffic, and again Duality. I just used my Microsoft Works program and took my time fitting them all to take up about the same amount of space. The dots separating the sections are periods done in the Boston Traffic font, but on paint so that I could get them to do what I wanted them too. Then I inserted them like clip-art.

I really love how it turned out and how personalized it is! What do you think?

Baby shower!

 Yesterday marked my 32nd week of pregnancy, only eight more to go! And last weekend was my baby shower. It was small, just family and close friends, but it was so fun and relaxed! The colors were the same as my kids room is going to be, so a lot of the shower decor will find new life there. I have to say, my mom's sunroom is the perfect room for parties! We rearrange the furniture and add different decor for almost every shower and party we have. The snacks were made by my mother and I, the punch was a recipe I found on Pinterest and edited which I will share in another post, most food was made by my mother, one dish was made by my sister's mother-in-law, and as far as decor I will include credits at the bottom. Without further ado, pictures!

These are the prize bags! We found the bags on clearance at Target, and I hot-glued twine and little mini-flags on them to match the larger banners we'd made.

The invitations were SO cute. We found them on Etsy (credit below), printed them at Walmart, and we found this frame again on clearance at Target!

These large poms we found on Etsy (credit below) and we used twine to hang them from the ceiling fan. They came with clear fishing line for hanging, but the garlands we bought from the same shop we ordered on twine so we wanted them to match.

These garlands were the best decoration! They are different shades of orange on twine, and we hung them from the curtains using safety pins.

We made several of these banners and hung them across the doorways and also above the present table. We bought all the paper at Michaels (most on clearance for 20 cents a sheet) and were able to get 3 good sized flags out of each sheet. Then we punched holes in the corners and threaded them onto twine in a specific pattern similar to the one on the invites.

These are the sweets made by my mother and I, and the cupcakes were iced by my sister and I. The marshmallows are dipped in white chocolate and sprinkles, and they're skewered on gray chevron paper straws. The pretzel rods are also dipped in white chocolate and sprinkles. The cupcakes were a special recipe created by my mom (almond vanilla, with sour cream in them which keeps them moist!), and the frosting was a special recipe also.

Me, my momma, and the little munchkin before the party started.

The flowers sent by my husband that arrived in the middle of the shower. :) He's so sweet! They were even prettier when they were all alive. In this picture only the carnations are still kicking.

Some party preview shots!

Credits:

Poms and pom garlands purchased from:                                       Pom+Love on Etsy

Invitations purchased from:                                                            katiedidesigns on Etsy

Gray striped paper straws purchased from:                                     BakeMeAParty on Etsy

Cute matching tin owl purchased from:                                           Ross

Yellow pillows (originally for the kids room) purchased from:             Target

Paper and twine for banners and assorted decor purchased from:     Michaels

The original Punch recipe can be found:                                          here (but we did tweak it a bit for ourselves, more on that later!)

Shared Room Nursery Project: Stage 1

Edit: This project is finished! You can find those pics Here or Here.

Room Inspiration

So I can't honestly remember if I managed to mention at some point that the apartment we are moving into is being gutted and renovated or not, but that's where we are at with that. In the meantime we are living at my mother's (again...good grief) surrounded by boxes not worth unpacking, with half the furniture in her garage.
My poor mother.
Anyhoo, while we are here I am still nesting, acquiring things, and planning for the kids room at the apartment, which is super fun! Even if the stuff is all being piled up in one corner of our living space. Lexi has moved to a twin bed, so the crib will go to Talon, we got a changing table at a resale shop nearby, got a high chair for cheap from a friend, got our old dresser back from said friend, got my childhood toy box from my mother, and have steadily acquired clothing from the resale shop and my sister (who's little guy is almost 2 months old!!) as well as blankets with matching burpies from my lovely sister-in-law.
While we are here, I figure I can plan out the kids soon-to-be shared room as best I can, and this has actually proven to be really fun!

Color scheme

These are the colors for the kids room. In real life Carrot Cake looks a lot brighter on the swatch than it does here, so I added the Pecan Praline here because it more accurately represents the color we are going for. The Stone Mason Gray is going to go on the walls, and the Almost Charcoal is going to be the crib and dresser. Lexi's bed, the toy box, and the toy organizer are all white. Nothing is actually going to be painted the blue, orange, or yellow (yet anyway), they are just representatives of the accent colors in the room.

The bedding we bought for Lexi's room (left) And Talon's crib sheet (right)

We are having to piece together Talon's bedding from individual places because I have yet to find any crib bedding in our color scheme. We found this orange sheet at Target (the bedding is target too), and are looking at custom made crib skirts and bumpers on Etsy to try to bring all the colors together. Lexi's bed will have orange sheets also, which I finally found at JCPenny in the right color and size (harder than you would think!) and with good reviews as to the quality. I'm hoping to bring the colors together with pillows and blankets also.

We found all of these pillows at Target (I work there, so the discount makes it worth it to shop there almost exclusively!) And the pillow is actually from a tutorial I found on Pinterest.

And the baby shower is in the same sort of color scheme, so things like the orange pom garland, and paper bunting banner will make great accent pieces on the walls in the kid's room! I'll post pics of those in a later post. I have a big inspiration board for this room on Pinterest called For Our Kids Room. Pinterest has been so helpful with planning these kinds of things! I just love it.

These are some more inspiration pics for me. The banner in the middle is from Etsy, and I have actually considered buying it for the kids room.

So this gives you a good idea of what we *hope* the kid's room will look like. Stay tuned for the real deal, and pics of the baby shower and decor!

::Credits::

Monkey inspiration room: Chiccheapnursery.com

Paint: Valspar

Chevron bedding: Target here

Orange crib sheet: Target here

Pillows 1-5: Target

Blanket: Purlbee.com

Dark gray with rainbow inspiration room: Chiccheapnursery.com

Banner: Etsy here

Gray & yellow inspiration room: Chiccheapnursery.com