House of Hydrangeas

Well, a lot has been going on over here.  I've been prepping for our gender reveal party (which is a week from this Saturday!) while the man cave and guest rooms in our home have been getting some makeovers. The guest room and nursery are getting crown molding installed (we had it in our room and the dining room but not the three guest rooms for some reason), and the man cave is also getting board and batten where the bamboo used to be.  Bamboo, you say?  Let me remind you of how beautiful this room used to be.  Metallic gold paint up top and sheets of bamboo on the bottom.  Just not for me. I dreamed of a cozy and clean space that would be manly and classic... and a place for Jon to put all of his currently boxed up military memorabilia.  Charcoal Slate paint from Benjamin Moore was just what I envisioned, and the white board and batten that will run along the bottom will add some architecture while keeping the room from being too dark. Here's a progress shot.  It'

Land of Nod is a great place for finding kid bedding you can mix and match, which is the easiest way to achieve a custom look on a budget.  And what's even better is that right now they are running a promo for an extra 20% off already reduced sale items.  Here's a grouping I chose for a little girl's room. I'm a sucker for mixing patterns and colors.  The polka dot, scalloped edge and floral print work well without competing with each other because the patterns are all a different scale.  While most of the bedding is pink, the blue sham is an unexpected element that creates a nice balance to all of the lighter pink tones.  I would have loved this as a little girl! Twin Scalloped Duvet-$83.95 Scalloped Euro-$19.95 Twin Sheet Set-$54.95 Blue Sham-$19.95 Subtotal: $178.80 less 20% with promo code SAVEMORE: $143.04 + taxes. Not a bad deal!

I heard a snippet of a Christmas song on a talk show yesterdy morning and immediately started singing along.  And then blurted out excitedly to Jon, "Honey!  We're going to have a baby with us at Christmas!"  It's in little, weird moments like that when the reality hits me.  On Tuesday I celebrated my last birthday in my twenties and my last birthday without baby.  Oh how different a year from now will be! We got to hear the baby's heartbeat a couple of weeks ago, and it was so surreal.  When I look at my stomach, all I think I see is a bloated belly.  At 16 weeks, I'm still in my regular clothes (which I'm not complaining about), and I'm back to my originial start weight from March!  See you later, nausea!  With the nausea at bay, and my waist not screaming "there's a baby in here!" it is at times hard to believe that a baby is growing inside of me. Here I am on Tuesday night (bump pic) and Wednesday before going out to run some erra