62 Days...

Not sure how that happened, but now we are down to 62 days until Baby B's scheduled arrival. I'm not feeling panicked yet (thank goodness), but we are really starting to work on his nursery these days. The room is painted and his new rug is on the floor:





And today I finally ordered a dresser and crib:


Unfortunately we couldn't get the snazzy changing table topper - it's out of stock, but I figured with a curved changing pad we should be in good shape.

I managed to find a 10% Pottery Barn Kids coupon - purchased off ebay for $3.50. Well worth the $3.50 to save $105! And, the truly weird thing, the dresser was marked $100 cheaper in our catalog than it was on-line. Very strange, but I'm not complaining!

I think I'm also finally done updating our registries - both at Babies R Us and at the Land of Nod. I wasn't going to do Land of Nod, but the stuff is just so dang cute - I couldn't resist...

I'm slowing getting all my Christmas stuff done too. Got Z to help write Christmas cards (man I love being pregnant!) and I wrapped all our gifts. Now all I have to do is finish up my work for this week and I'm in good shape to relax through Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

Coming to a postage stamp near you...

Because square Christmas cards require $.52 stamps and $.52 stamps (or $.60 for that matter) only come in ugly non-festive looking eagles...and Annie deserves some top-billing before Baby B pushes her a notch down in February...

Only 99 days until Baby B!

I cannot believe the time is flying by so fast. Only 99 days until he is due to arrive! Luckily, my Mom & sister visited and we got some things accomplished to prepare for his arrival.
After all my hemming and hawing over fabric - I ended up buying a pre-made set after all! My Mom & sister visited last weekend and we discovered a wonderful place - that Land of Nod OUTLET. I'm in heaven - cute & cheap!
So, little Beetle Belton will sleep in luxury in what they have frighteningly named "Womb with a View" bedding:

And, even more exciting, we will store his little clothes in a fabulous new armoire - which we saved nearly $500 on by snagging it from the outlet and picking it up ourselves (well not me, but Zach & our neighbor!).

Lastly, my Mom & sister helped me register at good Ol' Babies R Us. That place is so overwhelming, I'm so glad they were there to help!

Slowly coming together

I've been working hard to figure out the Beetle's nursery. My Mom came up for a few days and I'm so excited - we found fabric! There is a blue with white dime sized polka dots, a blue/green/white plaid, and a wide green & white stripe. The pictures aren't the greatest, but I promise they look cute together!
Taffy Apple/Cascade Stripe/Beetlejuice My Mom is going to make the crib bumper out of the blue polka dot and then make a cording around the edge with the blue/green plaid. The crib skirt will be the green stripe with a border of blue/green plaid. And lastly, she'll make a simple window valance out of the blue/green plaid with a trim of the blue polka dot. I'm so excited!
Now that we found the bedding I can get moving on the painters. I cannot wait for his room to be bright green!

Well, my lovely sister sent me this and I really like the patterns, but I'm not sure if the green is bold enough to match the color I like for the room.

But, it made me realize - this is really what I want - a mixture of bold colors in assorts prints (I really like dots & stripes together), but that still "match" with one another. Thinking about talking my Mom into making a crib bumper and skirt instead of shelling out big bucks for a set!

Decorating Decisions!

Well, now that we are sure baby B is a BOY, I'm must determine my decorating strategy! I had already decided, girl or boy, that I'm painting the nursery a bright green color. It needs to look good with the rest of our tiny condo and not look too baby for when we sell it someday (so no big murals painted on the walls). I'm trying to avoid any thing too themey, but I'm finding that to be difficult.

Potential nursery bedding options...

It's A...

BOY!!!
Just in case anyone hasn't already heard, Baby B is a BOY! Z is over the moon and cannot wait to buy basketball hoops and some new gaming system that is coming out. He is very excited to have a boy household!

For some crazy reason, I really thought the baby was a girl, so I'm still adjusting, but very happy that everything looks good and that he is healthy. Now I just have to adjust my decorating scheme...more on that later...

Make Room for Baby!

This weekend we took our first step toward making room in our condo for the baby! On Sunday we made a lovely trip to Mattress World and purchased a set of trundle beds. Nothing fancy, just the metal frames and mattresses, but this will allow us to:

a) Combine the guest room & office
b) Keep our lovely desk with the computer set up.
c) Still have room to sleep two guests comfortably (trundle converts to a King sized bed when popped up & pushed together.

But, in order to pull off this melding of guestroom/office, we had to clean out some junk. A lotta junk. I should have taken a picture. Currently the full sized bed is propped up against the window. We had to sift through all the "stuff" stored under that full sized bed. Much of which hadn't seen the light of day since we moved in and shoved it under that bed. Luckily it was rainy and cold on Monday, so it was a good project. I don't think Z enjoyed it AT ALL, but he was a trouper for me and got the job done. It felt so good to have it all done. The new beds were delivered and set up on Wednesday!
Now, please pray for no rain on Saturday, so we can strap the old bed to the roof of the car and drive it down to Z's parent's house!

1 Week European Vacation - Where Should We Go???

We'd like to take a little "Babymoon" because we are realizing, there will be no European vacays again for a while, and if we have them, they are going to more of the National Lampoon's variety than the romantic moonlight strolling variety!

So, here's the factors we've come up with:
1) One week max (vacation time limitations)
2) Must stay in one hotel for the duration, a Hilton (free from points!)
3) Sometime in October
4) Nothing too strenuous as I will be nearly 6 months pregnant
5) No Italy (Zach hates it), Spain, Paris or London (we were at the last three last fall)
6) Good food a must

Some current contenders:
1) Prague, CZ
2) Athens, Greece

Damn thieves

Well, Z & I have had trouble with our joint credit card number being stolen. The jerks that have stolen never steal much, $20 here, $30 there, but it adds up. I believe we are on our third card for our Amazon.com VISA. It's a PITA.

I'm very anal about checking our bank & credit card accounts. This is what helped me catch the jerks pulling money from our Amazon card. Well, this morning, I log into my personal CC account and it's been flagged for suspicious activity. I call, and some jerk in Massapequa, NY went on a nice little bender with my personal CC. I'm so bummed. I've had this card for *years*. I have the numbers memorized so I can buy online freely :( and now no more.

What sucks most is that in all of this - we have never had our physical cards stolen. How are these assholes getting our info!?!?