Sneak peak!

My friend Violet has been a very busy girl! She's been working on all of Mason's bedding and shooting me pics along the way! So I thought I'd share a few pics! The above pics are the crib sheets, and then below is his quilt (in progress) and the matching pillow for the rocker!! She's also making curtains, changing pad covers, bumpers, crib skirt, receiving blankets... she's pretty much amazing!! :-) Can't wait to put it all together!!!

Getting closer...

Things are coming along very nicely in the nursery! Chris installed our new blinds, and I opened up the bags of hand-me-downs from my sister-n-law Krisson and started loads & loads of laundry, so I could fill our new dresser and organize Mason's closet!

One Friday, Chris and his dad made a trip down to Portland to pick up my family rocker! My awesome brother works for a Traeger grill distributor in Hays, KS and they were able to load my rocker on a pallet and put it on a truck that was coming up to the Portland area to pick up another load of grills! Did I mention, it was shipped for FREE!! This rocker was given to my mom and dad by my grandparents (Copelands) and I'm excited to have it here to rock my baby boy!! It made it up here safe and sound and it matches the nursery furniture perfectly!! We re-arranged a few things and we both love the way it looks!!

Nursery Furniture has arrived!!!!

Chris and I took advantage of his Monday off and headed for Portland Sunday evening after the annual church picnic! We stayed at Ana & Paul's and then headed out early Monday morning to start our marathon shopping adventure! It was a super early morning, because Jayden was already in bed Sunday night when we arrived, and she leaves for school at 6:45 in the morning, so we were up before 6:30 to spend some time with her! And then we were able to spend some time with Miss Lexi and Ana before we left the house around 9am. First stop... the Apple store. Chris needed to go in there for something and to his surprise, they actually had the new iPhone he wanted in stock (they've always been sold out when we've gone in, in the past). He had one on order, but it wasn't due to arrive until Oct. 2nd, which might be a busy time considering I'm due Oct. 4th! So he was pretty excited when he was able to cancel his order and walk out of the store with a new, pretty, activated iPhone 4!!

After that was all taken care of, we stopped by Paul's work and had lunch with him, and then headed to Bed Bath & Beyond for a navy duvet cover and shower curtain rod. Violet's working on curtains and pillows for our bedroom, so we need a new duvet to match. And the bathroom is next on our list to attack, primarily removing the sliding shower door and putting up a curtain. The doors are a pain to clean and space is limited as it is... I can't imagine trying to bathe a baby/toddler the way it's set up now. Then it was off to Violet's to pick up one set of our bedroom curtains and pick out fabric for the nursery bedding! We made a trip to Fabric Depot and Chris was able to sit out front with all the other men and update his new phone, while Violet and I shopped! We came up with some really cool fabric combinations, and she's going to be working on making me some curtains, a pillow for the rocking chair, 2 changing pad covers, a quilt, bumpers, crib skirt and about 3 different sheets for the mattress!! SWEET!!!! Violet is amazing, that's all I gotta say!!! :-) Here's a couple of the fabrics we picked out... there's a couple more, but I wasn't thinking and didn't take pics of the whole collection, so you'll just have to wait until the finished product arrives and I'll take pics then!!! The top and bottom fabrics are flannel and will be sheets and changing pad covers. The middle print will be the bumpers and possibly the curtains!

After Fabric Depot, we headed to Babies 'R Us and picked up our crib, dresser, changing table, mattress and changing table pad. Chris, being the master packer he is, got it all secure and protected in the back and we headed to Target!! We didn't spend much time there, although I could have walked around the clothes section for quite awhile... but we were facing rush hour traffic if we didn't hurry, so we got out of there fairly quickly with a new diaper bag (yippee!) and a few other odds and ends. Luckily traffic wasn't too bad, we stopped at Panda Express real quick for dinner and headed back to Port Angeles to pick up Gracie and start assembling furniture!!!

This was Gracie's spot for the night, maybe because it was the only open spot to lay! It will be interesting to see if she still chills there once the Baby Mason comes!!

I helped a little... not much, tho. Chris was the master builder!

We finally finished things up around 2am. Well, Chris did. I ended up bringing a dining room chair in and crashed out pretty hard while he was assembling the dresser drawers. I woke up a couple times, either to the sound of Chris building, or my own snoring! Ha! Now that all the furniture is in there, the room is magically smaller!! :-) So I'm not sure how we're going to arrange it yet, since we still have a HUGE rocker to put in there!! But it's going to match the furniture well, and has great sentimental value since my grandparents gave it to my mom and dad when I was born!!

It was a big (and long) day, thank you Oregon for being tax free! I'm sure we probably spent more in gas than we saved in tax, but that's okay... it's always fun to see family!! I just wish we had more time so I could have seen Violet's girls!! But there's always next time... and next time, we'll be introducing Baby Mason!!! :-) And we're both super pleased with how the furniture looks... now the room really does look like a nursery!!! I can't wait to get the bedding and curtains set up, and figure out what decorations I want to put up!!! This is the fun part!!!!

SO CLOSE!!!

After Chris got back from middle school camp, he rested on Friday and then put a whole lot of work into the nursery! We cased in the window and added a sill... put trim up around the window and doors... added the base board AND the crown molding. He also filled in the nail holes, so now all we have left is to add caulking to seal edges, paint the trim, touch up the nail holes on the base boards and crown... and then BUY furniture!!! Woo hoo!!!

I'm so proud of him for creating this beautiful room for our precious baby boy!!! I'm amazed at the hard work that he's put into it and so impressed by his skill and motivation to learn how to do all these things... electric, dry wall, etc. And God has truly blessed us with christian men that have helped us along the way... from the electrician who came in and showed him the ropes for free... our friend Dan from church who taught him how to mud and tape drywall... to the guy who came in and measured for our new carpet. We even have a hook-up for when we decide to refinish the wood floors in the rest of the house!! God has definitely been looking out for us and blessing us through this adventure!! Baby C hasn't even arrived yet and he is already spoiled... he's got the nicest room in the house!!! :-)

Installing our new closet shelving system! I think I'm jealous!

Nursery Progress

The room is coming right along!! Chris finished mudding the drywall and enjoyed (NOT) a few hours of sanding! I crashed for the night, but he stayed up past 1am working on it... he's amazing! :-)

And then last week was a really eventful week! In a matter of a few days, Chris and I picked out carpet and paint colors on Mon. and Tues., painted the room on Wed. and Thurs. and had the carpet installed on Friday morning... just in time for Ana and the fam to come visit and actually have a room to sleep in!! LOL!! And I actually helped with the painting! Chris did the ceiling and most of the first coat (thanks to my emotional pregnancy breakdown), and then left with some friends on a 3 day hike... so I finished up the room with the 2nd coat!! But of course, have no pics to prove that I really did help!!!

My contribution was spilling a bunch of expensive paint of the floor! Oops!

The room color is a light beige and the carpet is a light beige with brown flecks to help conceal messes!! :-) We are both REALLY pleased with how it's turned out so far!! Jayden helped Chris paint the doors on Friday, so now all we have to do is paint the closet, pick out, paint and install the trim around the doors, window, floor and ceiling, and install the closet shelving system. We're SO close!!!!! Then will come the super fun stuff... buying nursery furniture!!!! :-)

Nursery Progress

This is an accumulation of Chris's work starting back in June! The room was originally our guest/junk room, plus I used the closet for my clothes. But by the first week of June, we had everything moved out, some of which is in the garage, the sun room, our living room and even the kitchen! :-) BUT, stuff was moved out and Chris immediately got to work. He tore down all the lathe and plaster, ripped up the carpet and installed dry wall! In July, he installed new doors and a brand new window!! He's also been working with Dan, a friend from church, learning how to tape and mud... that's where we're at now. 2 coats of mud down... 2 more to go!!! Now the pressure is on for me to pick out wall colors, carpet and trim!!! I thought starting a baby's room from scratch would be awesome... but for a girl that hates making decisions, it's a little overwhelming!! But I know the end result will be fabulous, and I can't wait to tell our little baby boy that daddy did it all for him!!! :-)

Thank you Jacob for helping Chris hang our new ceiling!!

Yeah! No more door into the kitchen!!

And now we have insulation!! Woo hoo!!!

The closet now has a new door AND a light!!

And the room now has a window that OPENS!! The baby is going to have the nicest room in the entire house!!

To be continued...