A Thursday Routine

Today we made another trip to Greenwood to shop for Nora. This has been our routine for a few weeks now-well not every week, but when we have the day off or coupons that need to be used up. The trip today was to get the travel system, but we ended up doing several returns and buying other stuff we needed too.

We started out at Once Upon a Child where we got a steal of a deal on a used Serta mattress and a changing table pad. We knew we wanted to buy used of these two because they both have covers that we could get new and just disinfect the pad and mattress. We also got a new mattress pad for extra protection. Why would you buy them new?

For lunch we went to McAllisters, a Thursday ritual, where I always, always order the grilled chicken spud...mmm its soo good! Jake always gets something new and today it was an open sandwich with coleslaw and, of course, some tea.

After McAllisters we headed to Buy Buy Baby because Jake is fascinated with the "mama-roo" its like a swing, but plays music and does different motions like the car, a W shape, figure eight, etc...when I say fascinated I mean-that's they only reason we stopped there. But I cant get out of a baby store with out using a coupon or finding something on the clearance rack. So we came home with 4 outfits-one of the shirts had a dog on it that looked like Jersey-I couldn't resist it!

After Buy Buy Baby, we went to Babies R Us-the real reason we went to Greenwood. We knew we wanted to get the travel system today, but after fitting the mattress and changing table pad in the car we weren't sure if it would fit! Ultimately, we took it out of the box and everything went fine (we kept the box, just in case), but there was no way it was fitting in the car in the box. Thank goodness Nora wasn't with us-we would have run out of room. Note to self: bigger vehicle would be nice...

Along with the travel system, we couldn't leave with out getting $8 off diapers and a $15 gift card for purchasing 2 boxes-so we did and now feel comfortable with several boxes in the closet. Before going, I did a diaper spreadsheet (Jackie & Alex-I know you are laughing at this point, but you too will do this eventually) to see where to buy the cheapest diapers. So far, out of Wal-Mart, Sam's, Costco, Babies R Us, several online sites, and Buy Buy Baby..Babies R Us is about 7 cents cheaper per diaper. When Jake found out that we are going to go through 5-8 on average per day-it was necessary to do the math! (I still don't think he knows what he's getting himself in to!) My only comment was...well babies aren't cheap, do you want to do cloth diapers?

We wrapped our day up at Target-always a bad idea. I can never get past the dollar section-especially now that they have $1 books, so I picked a few up that I didn't already have. After that, we had a return, we put a few more things on the registry, and searched for the clearance. I didn't have to look to far-they had tons of red stickers that were calling my name. Jake hates this and always says "that's why they do that to get you and every other woman to look at them"! Of course, do you see how much I'm saving?! I know the difference between 'clearance to try to sell' and 'actual clearance-where the price is too good to resist' so they don't get me on a $15 clearance outfit for a newborn!! Who would pay that much? $2-I'm sold!

A successful day in Greenwood-only spending a fraction of what we could have thanks to great deals, coupons, and several gift cards (the biggest being for our travel system from Jake's Grandpa-it happened to be $30 off and I was able to use a 20% off coupon too!).

After putting together the stroller, Jake felt the need to display it in her room...like it was a new car! I can still hear him saying, now we have to make sure the wheels are facing this way...He's one proud daddy!

Nursery Progress...

I can't even lie or hold off anymore, it's been finished for 2 weeks now! I tried to hold off thinking that everyone wouldn't be surprised, but if you know me you understand I get an idea and run (I mean run with it!). I think Jake is excited that his 'projects' are finished now, but I'm bored and am trying to figure out new crafting projects that I can do now that it has nothing to do with the nursery. So, here it is:

Nora's mommy made butterfly mobile. I couldn't resist when I saw it on one of my Facebook friends pages...I Googled it and found tons of butterfly mobile ideas & I created this one with mostly shimmery white butterflies with a few black ones to match the room. I think it turned out awesome for less than $10! Of course that doesn't include the labor of tracing, cutting (a million butterflies), and putting it together with Jake's help. He doesn't like the word project-because it usually costs a lot of money, but when he found out how much I spent to make it he was OK with this mobile compared with any other one I could have gotten-that isn't near as cute!

Nora's little library...we added to it this weekend after the shower I had for Jake's side. Target has great books in the $1 section that I took advantage of.

Can't beat clearance items: lamp $6 from Gordmon's, mirror (that has been painted twice since I bought it) from Goodwill for $8 and the picture frame from Pier One for $7 holding our first ultrasound pictures.

Her name on the wall turned out just like I had imagined it.

Clearance T.J. Maxx ugly colored shelf for $6-spray painted & Hobby Lobby 50% off wall art with some of Nora's gifts from the shower.

Nora's stuffed animal-Jersey!

Black Friday 9 cube storage from Menards for 40% off! Waiting on the canvas inserts to go on sale at Target.

We are excited to be finished and ready to relax for a couple months until she gets here. I have a doctor appointment on Wednesday, then every 2 weeks from there! In August, the every 2 week appointments seemed soo far away-I can't believe how time flies.

We have a name!

After hours of thinking about the perfect name-I think we both already had our minds made up a long time ago! Baby Girl Standeford can now be known as Nora Sue! We sat down and thought of every possible thing that could be bad about the name- and couldnt think of one that bothered us. In fact the only thing we could think of was "nora nora bo bora banana nana bo bora, etc.." you get the point! Kids did that with my name-it didnt go well, but they still did it!

We knew we wanted a short name since our last name is sooo long S-T-A-N-D-E-F-O-R-D, that's right, 10 letters! I know you counted them :) And, we wanted a sweet, precious, girly name that wasn't overly used and I think we found it.

Jake's Grandma's middle name was Sue-thats where we came up with it, and again short and sweet. N.S.S. (her initials) don't stand for anything we could think of and since deciding on her name we have been so at ease calling her by her name.

We are excited to see what she will look like and whose personality she is going to have-too much to look forward too! However, we are very much taking advantage of being kid-less for the next few months by sleeping in, going out to eat or out at all, and working on things we want to do since we both know lots are going to change when Nora comes.

On another note: I wanted to spell out her name for decoration in the nursery, but didnt like any of the harsh, 90 degree angle wooden or cardboard letters at any of the craft stores so I came up with my own idea.

I first started out by printing 'nora' in lower case letters in the font I liked-not a stiff, block font. Then I carbon copied the letters to 8x8 in. painting canvases.

Then I painted the letters with black paint-that has a slight shimmer in it. Glued and stapled ribbon to hang the letters from and shaded the corners and here is the finished product!

The canvases were on sale at Jo-Anns for 50% off, the ribbon for the entire spool was $2.00 and the paint I already had so it was a nice, cheap project (thanks to her short name!). Lately, it has put me in the crafty mood so I've been trying to come up with other projects to keep me busy when I'm bored.

Making Progress with the Nursery!

Away with the blue! Friday I taped off the nursery in hopes to get the painting finished soon, Saturday I patched all the holes that were there from the previous owners (they had a baby boy-obviously) and the ones we made too, and Sunday I sanded and then Jake primed the room. Pheww....that was a lot of work-well for him, not me, but still. Here's part of the room before:

Last night Jake painted the cream/beige/whatever color it is, but it needs a second coat-darn that blue! Good thing is we bought a gallon and since we have the bead board up-he only used 1/4 of it so we have plenty, bad news is its another 90 minutes of painting for him. But it looks so much better with just that different touch. I'm excited to see the entire nursery come together!

Here is the dresser I was talking about-isnt it cute? Perfect and distressed, black, tall, wide, long...everything I was looking for!

And I just love the mirror that goes on it! Thanks again to Jake for going to a "bad neighborhood" (38th street-didnt end up being as bad as he thought) to get it for me on a whim! I can just picture the changing pad and basket full of diapers ready to go on it, can't you?

Oh yeah, one more thing....right before I uploaded these pictures, the door bell rang and I jumped up-knowing that it was the crib-ran to the door and it was sitting up against the house! Exciting, except its raining, cold, and the crib is not light. So as the UPS man drove away I was stuck thinking of what to do with it! I ran to the garage and pulled out a tarp-and there it will sit until my buff hubster gets home to bring it in. Side note: I actually tried to lift it. Which is only funny if you can picture the shape and akward lift I would have to do to get it in the house...I guess that's the next project!

A Perfect Fit

I sent Jake out on a wild goose hunt to get a black antique dresser that was listed on Craigslist for the nursery yesterday. I found it yesterday morning after he was already at work with no access to the Internet to look it up or get directions. Since it was antique I texted him certain guidelines to follow in deciding whether we wanted it for the nursery or not. Here were the guidelines: that it didn't smell antique, that the drawers work (and we both know what that means because our old dressers DID NOT work well), that it's sturdy, and that the mirror on it wasn't going to fall off if the future toddler ran into it or decided to try to pull it off, etc you get the point. Long story short he picked it up last night (YAY!) after work-thanks to his co-worker who was so kind to go with him in his truck to get it if it met guidelines. Its perfect for the nursery-tall enough to make a great changing table, enough drawers for baby's needs, and so adorable in its black, distressed antique ways and it was 1/4 of the price of anything I've seen (and liked) on the Internet or in stores! After I told him I loved it he was relieved. I had talked to the lady selling it and told her that he is going to know what I'm looking for and she mentioned that to him when he was there and it made him nervous to get it without me there. I'll post pictures (when I'm not too lazy to take them) I mean ,when the room is a little more together-right now it's a scattered mess of decorations and baby things. Now I'm looking for the crib to go with it!