Dash of Sass: December 2011

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Baby's Room Updates

Getting things in order around the house has been a long, slow process lately. Between feeling large, being tired, and all the contractions, it's become more and more challenging to accomplish simple tasks. The good news is that my fantastic husband has picked up a lot of the slack around here. I have to direct (and sometimes ask for things to be done several times,) but he gets it done! THANK YOU!!

Thankfully we're getting closer and closer to actually needing all the things we're preparing. I originally had a long list of ideas and projects I wanted to accomplish, but as time as passed I've decided that it just isn't necessary to do everything I wanted to do. What can I say...I give up!

So on that note...here's a little project I worked on last week. Since we don't know if the little person is a boy or girl, we needed to infuse his/her room with some color without making it too girly or boyish.

Remember how we last had things:

Well after a little trial and error I had a good base going...

It's hard to tell in the picture but because of the sloping ceiling some of these pom poms hang a bit low. In fact I hit my head on them slightly. But hey - they'll be fun for the little guy or gal to swat around once he or she is big enough and they're made of tissue paper so no one will get hurt if they are playing with them!

Here's the finished product:

Next up we have the bookshelf. We originally wanted to get a low, wide bookshelf for another wall. It's still in our future plans but for the time being we decided on another solution. Now the main reason for this book shelf is that we decided to get a video baby monitor. I'm not so sure it's necessary, but I'm sure there will be times when it's fun to have. I'm not thrilled with the idea of spying on the little person but then again it'll be fun to watch him or her when they wake up and see if they climb up the side of the crib or play nicely with themselves until we come get him or her. The angle of the camera can be adjusted from our monitor so we can spin it around the room to other locations remotely and/or zoom in and out. It also has a neat intercom feature so we can speak to the baby when we aren't in the room. Again - neat futures, not really necessary, but might be fun to have.

Back to the bookshelf...

We realized that there was no where to place the video camera in the baby's room where it could be angled to see into the crib. Oops. So we needed some type of shelf to put the camera on. One option would have been to wall mount the camera - but then we're back to the same issue with the sloping ceiling. In the crib nook there isn't a wall available where we could mount the camera. The next idea was to put up an acrylic shelf or floating shelves on the wall where this bookshelf is now resting. The problem with this idea is with our old plaster walls we've had a lot of trouble hanging things in the past. Neither of us wanted to mess with that. So we found this shelf and decided to give it a try! It provides a perfect angle for the camera and will also house some family pictures and books. It won't be fantastic when the little person is able to walk around and hang on it, but it will work out great for now!

What do you think?

And last but not least - I know you're all dying for a belly update. Sorry for the bad cell phone picture and my lounge clothes... 35 weeks! Getting close!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Preparing for the Baby

I've been trying to spend a few minutes every day or two preparing for the baby's arrival. I spent some time over the past two weeks washing all the baby's things and slowly starting to get things organized in the baby's room. It feels like a huge, daunting task, so I'm trying to take it one step at a time. As you know I'm also not supposed to do much so it's making it seem like there's so much more to accomplish when I'm can't even carry around the laundry basket. Sigh! Even the simplest tasks bring on the contractions and it's very frustrating for me. I know what's important, but I'm having a hard time staying put and not doing much.

On that note...here's a little glimpse into what's actually gotten accomplished for the little person's arrival.

First up...the crib! It's all put together WITH a mattress, mattress cover (and sheets that aren't on it yet! Might as well keep them clean until they are needed!) It's nice to see it more as it will be...

Mom G-K will be making a perfect crib skirt for the baby, but until then I threw on a hand me down version that was never actually used as far as I can tell!

Next up...the baby got a nice soft rug! It's supposed to be navy blue, but it certainly looks more like black to me! Oh well! I had originally wanted something really colorful and fun, but didn't find anything I was really excited about! The best thing about this rug is if we ultimately do find something better for the baby's room, this will work great in the guest room! Win-Win!

As luck would have it, the Pack and Play we wanted is discontinued. Mom and Dad G-K tried to buy it for us at the store, online, on Amazon...you name it! No luck. I tried too...no luck! So instead...they splurged and got us the Baby Bjorn version for travel. It'll be great because it only weigh 11lbs, unlike the typical Pack and Play. Anyhow, Julie gave us the Pack and Play they used when their girls were little. It isn't exactly like what we picked out, but it will do the trick for having a place for the baby to sleep and be changed downstairs for the first couple of months.

They said it was missing some parts perhaps so we decided to put it together and check out if it was usable. Surprisingly it's missing some major parts, namely the metal dowels that actually hold the whole mattress part up! How do you lose those? Anyhow Michael thinks he can fix it with some wooden dowels. If so, it'll be perfect for us for a while - and then it can go to Mom and Dad G-K's house for our visits in the future.

Here's a picture of it mostly put together:

The next project was putting together the high chair to ensure it was good to go and didn't need to be exchanged for one that wasn't broken (just in case!) We know it won't be used for a while, but at least we know it's good to go when we want to use it!
Here it is...very retro looking! We picked this one out based on advice from all my new mom friends out there. They all said, pick something that can be easily rolled around, and can be most easily cleaned. This one only has two pieces of plastic that are molded to form the seat. That's exactly two things that might potentially need to be wiped down. And the tray is one solid piece as well-and diswasher safe! Easy peasy! (hopefully!)

We also ventured out one night to spend all our Baby's R Us gift cards on some last necessities. Here's just one small stack of our loot!

I've also worked to start pulling the room together. It's coming along...slowly. Here's one view...

See we actually have a changing pad now. The pillow will get relocated eventually but it's living here for now.

Lastly, we now have clean baby things that are actually put away in the dresser and ready to be used.
From the bottom drawers up...
We have blankets and receiving blankets:

Changing pad covers, crib sheets, and Pack and Play sheets:

Clothes that will fit the little person right away (hopefully!)

Bath towels, wash clothes, and bigger clothes that won't fit yet:

And at the very top drawer, we have diapers, wipes, baby first aid and grooming kit, and I'm not sure what else will go here yet. Burp cloths perhaps? What else do I want more handy so I don't have to bend over and search for?

Other Electrical Projects Around the House

While the electrician was at the house, we loaded him up with other projects. Some of these things we'd typically do ourselves (ahem - or the husband would do himself) but considering everything we have going on, we figured, let's just make arrangements to get everything done!

First up - we now have cable in our bedroom. Mind you we don't own a tv for the bedroom, but cable is there should we decide we want it!

And because I love it so much...here's another picture of the baby's light fixture.

The baby's the proud owner of a dimmer switch as well...

And so are we! The hallway/staircase light now has a dimmer! We're going to love this with all the late night feedings and diaper changes that we have coming up.

And lastly we grew a modern day digital thermostat! It's amazing! We come home to a warm house and wake up to a warm house now. It's incredible! Sadly, our wall didn't make out so well. We need to patch up the plaster and repaint a bit but we'll get to that.

Knocking things off the list! That's what it's all about these days...

Baby's Light Fixture

Remember this old fixture?

There was one in our bedroom, the guest room, the hallway, and the baby's room! Either someone before us really liked this fixture, or must have gotten a great deal on them!

Either way, I knew they needed to go (and FAST!) We've already replaced the hallway fixture and our bedroom fixture. Next up...the baby's fixture.

As you already know, I love getting all the daily sale emails from sites like Rue La La, Joss & Main, ideeli, and HauteLook. I rarely buy anything, and when I do, I try my best to research the items before purchasing as most things cannot be returned. One day I found this light fixture that I thought would be fantastic in the baby's room. It was on sale for about $300 off the retail price. I made a point of researching the brand that made it, found the fixture on their website, and called their customer service number to ensure the fixture could be altered to suit our needs, etc... I felt comfortable ordering it after having had all my questions answered. Much to my surprise the fixture arrived within days (not weeks as I was told.) It's very exciting when that happens!

Anyhow a couple weekends ago I put the husband to work installing the new fixture. I usually help, but this time I promised to do so from a chair in the baby's room rather than standing on a ladder. After opening the box, we discovered that this was the only instructions given for putting all the parts together. Not really sufficient if you ask us! There were no words at all. Just one page with a picture that wasn't exactly clear.

Here are some of the parts:

Now you should know the husband is pretty much an expert at these things...and he couldn't figure the darn thing out! After analyzing what was sent and calling Dad B for advice, we decided to have an electrician come install the new fixture. We felt like we'd given up too easily, but we knew there was no way we'd be able to figure out the wiring. It was quite wacky and not at all like what we'd seen in the past. We knew we had other electrical projects for the electrician so we figured that we might as well save ourselves the trouble and just have him do everything we wanted done at once.

The next weekend the electrician came out to check out what needed to be done at the house, said no problem, and we scheduled a day for him to come do all the work.

The following Thursday the electrician got to work. After doing his other projects, he attacked the fixture...only to find out that it was indeed like nothing he'd ever dealt with. We weren't crazy! The poor guy spent an entire day installing it! He had to retrofit the darn thing to work! Of course I called to check in and learned all this information, but at this point it would have been silly to just give up. So our little sale priced fixture, plus a full day of electrician's work turned out to be a big ole waste of $$$. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the new fixture and it's perfect for the baby's room, but it cost us an absolute fortune when all was said and done.

Oh and I didn't mention that he didn't even finish installing the darn thing. We spend another hour putting the rest of it together when we got home that night.

I know what you're thinking...enough talk. Let's just see the finished product!

Ok here it is!

By the way...can you see the blue box poking out? We weren't thrilled about that so the electrician went back to the house yesterday to remedy this situation. I figure for a full day's worth of work-it should have looked finished at least! Here's another picture because I love this fixture so much...but imagine it now with a larger plate that covered the electrical box. Looks much better!