Sawyer's Nursery

The breaking news around this house is that not only does Sawyer have a nursery, but he actually does spend time in it!

Yes, he's almost ten months old and has a nursery for the first time.
And, yes, he only uses it for naps and for that time of evening between falling asleep and waking for his first nursing session, and then he bunks stretched out in our bed while we're nearly pushed out of it.

But it is being utilized and is super-cute, so I thought I'd share.  And as long as I'm sharing, you might as well know that this has become my favorite room in the house in which to relax.
Sans baby.
This is the room that houses THE chair, and this is the room that is more well-decorated than any other room in our house.  During my "me time," you might just find me with my feet propped up in THE chair, drink and snack nearby, reading by the soft lamplight.  Minus the kids, it's quite relaxing.

The nursery has been in the making for a while now.  It all started when Sawyer started rolling around and trying to sit up, and I no longer felt comfortable with him sleeping on my bed during naps without me in it.  Try as I might, my other kids just weren't going to let me take a nap each time Sawyer wanted to snooze.  He refused to sleep in the pack-n-play now that his beloved cradle insert was off-limits, so we needed a crib.  We bought a cheap (but lovely), in-store, flat-packed crib and chest of drawers from Babies 'R' Us, and we assembled the crib in about five minutes that night and put it by our bed.  Nap problem solved.

Our fourth bedroom was being trashed used as an upstairs playroom for the girls, complete with princesses and fairies all over the walls.  Honestly, they weren't playing in there much, but instead liked to throw all the toys in the floor and leave it wrecked for weeks on end.  Getting frustrated with that whole scenario, and also coming to the conclusions that (a) kids really don't need two playrooms and (b) Sawyer was starting to not sleep well in our room while we were still milling about before our bedtime, we decided it was time to convert our fourth bedroom into his nursery.

This was my first time decorating a boy nursery, and I honestly kind of gagged when I saw the offerings for decor.  Teddy bears?  Cars?  Or, Heaven forbid, Sports?  No, thanks.  I looked online and strolled around baby stores until I found my inspiration...monkeys.  And modern monkeys, at that!  (Do those exist?)  It was a set by Mod Pod called Pop Monkey, and it had all the soothing browns and greens I like.  Let's face it, it was ALL about what I would like, since half my day would presumably be spent nursing the baby in this room (and it is).

One decision made, it was on to the next one: paint.
Brown?  But not too brown?  Tan?  We settled on Behr Premium Plus in New Chestnut from Home Depot, and we chose eggshell finish with primer built into the paint.  Wouldn't you know it, it STILL took two coats to erase all evidence of princesses and fairies!

The bedding was ordered, the lamp grabbed from the store, brown light-dampening curtains were hung, THE chair scooted into place.  Things were coming together.

Then, weeks later, it was complete.

View of THE chair from the room, with blanket from bedding.

 

 

 

His crib (it has since been lowered for the wild man).

Made the decorations from unused bumper pads and cross stitching hoop clamps.

Dresser, lamp, ceiling mobile, TV where I watch The Golden Girls.

Monkey lamp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Genius!  Toy baskets hidden under the bed.

Stuffed animal basket.  All my kids have one.

Monkey light switch cover.

LOVE this monkey mobile.

Even his drawers are organized!

This is probably the best nursery ever.  Just sayin'.  And the older he gets, the more Sawyer will enjoy it and actually sleep in it.  For now, it's really nice for me.

Julia's Princess Room

My firstborn baby girl just turned five a couple of weeks ago.  As if that didn't feel bittersweet enough, her request for a new "big girl" room did.

The conversation went a little something like this:
"Mommy, I want a new big girl room for my birthday."

"Oh, you don't like your fun butterflies and dragonflies?  You're room is so pretty now!"

: : blank stare : : "Mom, this room is for babies.  I am not a baby."

{Insert my realization of that fact and subsequent emotional breakdown here.}

She's right.  She's definitely not the baby who wanted bugga buggas to decorate her room three years ago.  Her butterfly bedding was fraying from washing it constantly.  Those pastel curtains were starting to fade.  And five year olds apparently do not need mobiles hanging in the corner.  Silly mommy.

What kind of room does a big girl like Julia need?  A Disney Princess room, it seems.  That's grown-up??  She assured me that all cool kids have Disney Princesses.
Now, I love those princesses as much as the next Disney addict, but plastering Cinderellas as big as my child all over the place is not really my thing.  I discussed this with her and we decided to go a more subtle route, just having touches of princessy things here and there.
By subtle, I mean she chose purple walls and pink bedding.  I have proclaimed since I was I was pregnant with her that I would NOT be a mom who would turn her daughter into a girly-girl, surrounded by girly-girl colors and dressing up in tutus and dresses all the time.  But you know what?  I didn't turn her into this.  She has chosen this.  And I just gave in big time.

We're tight on cash (who isn't?), but I was determined to give her the room of her dreams.  We bought her purple paint for her birthday, and her grandmother bought her pink bedding.  We reused the pink curtains from our upstairs playroom (it will be turned into a room for Sawyer eventually, and I doubt he wants pink curtains...you never know, though...).  I took the castle decal from the upstairs playroom and slapped it on the wall in Julia's room.  For artwork, I turned her existing decorative frames into Princess art using scrapbooking paper and more decals.  It is all very girly, and she loves it.  Here it is, in all its pastel glory:

Pink and purple Princess room (butterflies above bed stayed).  Night when I took this, so sorry it's dark.



Lamp also stayed...she couldn't part with it.  Cinderella's Castle wall decal and toy.




Her armoire.  Disney snow globes.  Stolen towel animal from Pop Century (he's a hitchhiker).




Wall art I crafted out of scrapbook paper, old frames, and wall decals.




Her stuffed animals.  I want to remember this forever.




Another view of the room.  Note the 80s Barbie house, which is AWESOME.  Also, her memories board and messy toy bins.



Princess tin we got at Walt Disney World.  First thing you see upon entering.




Princess throw pillow.  And, yes, she still sleeps on her converted toddler bed.  She refuses to allow us to turn it into a full bed as of now.  She could grow a foot or two and still fit.

 So, all in all, we spent $30 for paint and supplies, and her grandma gifted her sheets and a comforter.  We owned or created all the decorations, and her sentimentality (or mine?) allowed us to keep a couple of things from her old room.

Is it overwhelmingly purple and pink?  You bet.  I totally failed at preventing that.  But even I have to say that it doesn't just SCREAM tacky princess decorations, though it does speak it loudly.  She got enough of the characters to make her happy, but there are few enough of them to keep me sane.

It comes down to this: it's her room, not mine.  While a color like that would lead me into some sleepless nights, she loves it.  She picked the theme, and she owns it.  As if she weren't a princess enough already, now she has a room fit for her royal status.

Tacky and Terrific: Our Christmas Decorations

I'm not gonna lie to you, guys...I'm not great at decorating.  Not at all.  But when Christmas comes around each year, I haul out all my tacky things and enjoy every second of it.  My kids do, too.  So much so that they decorate and un-decorate (is that a word?) our tree multiple times a day.  I wish I could say that that's the reason it looks the way it does, but honestly, it's not.  My tree has looked pretty shabby since I first set up a tree in my one-bedroom apartment when I was nineteen years old.  It has, however, gotten progressively worse.
First of all, my tree is fake.  And it's not even a good fake one.  There are bare spots everywhere.  But, hey, it's pre-lit, so that's one less thing I have to do.  That cloud has a silver lining and all that.  This tree was purchased on clearance at Proffitt's department store my second year of college for next to nothing, and it totally reflects both its age and its price.  I pushed for a real tree this year, but Brandon nearly laughed in my face over that one.  Seems he's not into the needles and all that, and he also made a good point---no matter how pretty the tree is, it's still going to look pretty bad due to our ornament assortment and all those grabby little toddler hands pummeling it daily.  In the end, I agreed.  And this is what we've got:

See the ribbon?  That's not me trying to be all fancy or any nonsense like that.  That's practicality, folks.  We used to have tinsel, but that was too tempting for the littles, and most of it was pulled off within the first few minutes of putting up the tree.  Then we moved to beads, but to two little princesses, those seem to make fabulous necklaces, so that was scrapped.  And the ribbon?  If they pull this stuff down, I've got a spool of 100 feet of the stuff, so bring it on.
Our ornaments aren't matchy-matchy like some people's gorgeously-coordinated trees.  It's a complete mish-mash of ornaments collected over the years.  Here's the break-down.

We've got personal interest ornaments.  Those are obviously my British ornaments (only a slight obsession acquired during my multiple trips!), and that's Julia's ballet ornament, which was mine when I was little.

And Brandon's personal interest?  I always tell the girls to hide this as best they can, but for some reason the sheer yellow-ness of it makes it always visible.

We have handmade kids' ornaments.  Glitter and painted pottery are favorites around here.

We have the traditional "first" ornaments.  Our first Christmas together (when we looked like babies ourselves), the girls' first Christmas as babies...and, shame on us, Sawyer doesn't have one yet, but not for lack of looking.

And then there are tacky Walmart shatterproof ornaments.  These, along with the shatterproof balls, are disappearing slowly.  We don't know where they go, but each year we mysteriously have less and less.  Must be an ornament ogre out there, just like the sock thief that lives in the dryer.



Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care...and with those quick-release plastic hooks.  Obsessively safety-conscious mommy won't allow nails.  They're the old-school cheap stockings with our names school glued and glittered on them.  I love it.  When I was growing up, my parents had fancy stockings for us, and I always wanted the ones with names like I saw on TV.  My kids have known no other kind.

This year, our gingerbread houses had to move higher.  Instead of our kitchen decorations, they became mantle decorations.  While making a huge mess making these, we found out the Brynn just cannot be trusted not to scarf down an entire house and spread icing all over her face and anything near her.  So up they went.

Crafty I am not.  But these Target kits make things as easy as possible for me.  Even that does not mean it's easy.  Seriously.  I dyed my hands red and green and am waiting for it to wear off.

Our kitchen decorations now consist of this cookie jar from my childhood:

And Santa's cookie and milk pit-stop area:

There are two cups and only one Santa, I know.  One's for milk, and the other is probably for something a bit stronger to warm him up.

And these are my Sarah, Plain and Tall houses.  They have been my Christmas decoration pride and joy since 1994.  What do they have to do with Christmas?  Well, they're all decorated for the holidays, of course!  (And they've done a much better job than I've done on my house.)  My aunt gave me these when I was eleven and I loved the book and movie.  Now my girls love them, if only to use as props in their princess figure playtime.

So, now that you've been on a tour of my random decorations, let me say that I do realize that I have no theme and none of them coordinate at all.  But you know what?  I love them.  There is not a single decoration here that doesn't hold some memory or another.  Whether things were made by hand, bought to commemorate an occasion, or given to us by our friends, we love each and every thing that we carefully place (and in my kids' case, place again and again) on our tree and in our house.  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas over here, and we're all super-excited.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.  I hope your traditions mean the world to you like they do to us.

How do you decorate?  And how do you celebrate?  I'd love to hear all about your family's quirkiness!