House of Hydrangeas

Well hello friends and faithful readers.  Sorry for the absence as of late.  I wish I had some great excuse, but in all honesty, I have just been zapped of any desire to write.  I've had plenty of time on my hands but my decisiveness, even in regards to a blog post, has been non-existent. But today I thought I'd share a little something I've been meaning to share for months--how we announced our pregnancy, well at least the creative ways.  Most of our close friends and family live hours away so the whole "telling them in person" thing wasn't really an option for my impatient self (Jon was still in Afghanistan for another month).    However, I was lucky enough to have one of my best friends, Bekah, coming down for a visit a few days after I found out.  I thought it would be the perfect chance to have one creative thought come to life. I decided to design a hotel-esque welcome sign for the guest bed listing all who lived at The Reutter Hotel, includi...

On Friday, June 28th, Jon and I headed out to see the gender of Baby Reutter.  Jon wanted to find out as soon as possible, and I wanted to wait to be surprised with everyone at the reveal party the next day. So we decided that he would find out and be the one set up the "big reveal."  Baby Reutter didn't want to cooperate on the first attempt but after some cold water, walking around and sweet patience from the ultrasound tech, we got the "money shot."  I'm not going to lie, it was a bit torturous at first to not be in the know with Jon, but after the first few hours, I was good to go and so excited about the surprise for the next day.  Here we are about to head out to the reveal appointment. Now for the reveal party on Saturday...As mentioned before, I wanted a unique theme for the party.  Since Jon is a pilot, I thought planes would be a cute idea for a boy.  For the girl, I thought of pearls; they're sweet, feminine and also happen to be my bir...

Two days ago marked the three year anniversary of this blog.  And this post is the 500th post... seems like it should be a good one, huh? I think the best way to celebrate is by sharing what the gender of our baby will be.  As you may remember, the theme of our gender reveal party was Planes or Pearls.  So we decided to send our dogs out with the big news wearing signs saying "Baby Brother/Baby Sister" on Remington and "...is landing" on Riley.  Jon was the only one who knew the sex beforehand so he was in charge of getting them "dressed."  It was such a great surprise!  Enjoy the video :)   I'll post pictures and details from the party very soon!

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 pr...

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...

Yesterday I started working on different furniture layouts for our baby's nursery.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Jon and I are having a baby! If you aren't a close friend or family member (or friend who saw our announcement on Facebook) this will be news to you!  Baby Reutter is set to make his/her debut around Decemeber 3.  The original due date was November 26th, but the doc said I was measuring small at my 10 week appoint and pushed the date back a week.  We will see which date is closest in the end.  I know the baby will make its debut on its own time anyway.  Did you know only 5% of women have their baby on their actual due date?  Crazy.  But I digress. Here is the picture we used to make the announcement on Facebook.  The top left picture was taken of us at the airport heading out to our honeymoon a little over three years ago.  And since we are now adding one to the team, we had to get Baby a Team Reutter shirt as well ...