Nursery DIYs

Just wanted to share the super-easy DIY bunting I made for little lady's nursery.  I also made some for our wedding, so I'll include pictures of both.

The blue and orange bunting was made by sewing together triangles of fabric.  I could have simply cut out triangles and used a plain single-ply triangle, but I didn't want them to fray, so I sewed them together: click HERE for an illustrated explanation of this technique - unfortunately, I did not photograph my process.

I made this orange and blue bunting for our wedding in July 2011.  My husband suggested putting it in the nursery back when the nursery looked like this.  It was a charming idea that I really loved, but when we repainted the nursery, it was time to make new bunting to match!

For the "new and improved" pale blue nursery, I used some teal fabric, burlap, mod podge, white double fold quilt binding, white thread, and some of the leftover paint from the walls.  I made two different strings of bunting:

For the first one - the one that reads "BABY" - I simply cut out my triangles, then painted the triangles with mod podge - this would ensure that they wouldn't simply fall apart over time.  Drying them was a pain; I had to keep flipping them over so they wouldn't dry all curled up.  Putting something heavy on top of them right away when they finish drying would also help.  Then, I freehanded my letters with a small paint brush, and sewed the triangles into the quilt binding.  With the second string of bunting, I added the teal triangles on top of the burlap ones.  To keep the teal triangles from fraying, I carefully dipped just the very the edges into a little puddle of mod podge I poured out on a plate.

The whole project took me just a couple of hours, and I think it turned out pretty cute.  I love triangle bunting to brighten things up, so it seemed like just the thing for a nursery.  Just have to get little lady into this room!  At nearly 4 weeks, she has yet to sleep in there - it just seems weird to have her all the way down the hall!  We'll tackle that once she's sleeping through the night and doesn't need to be fed and changed at 2 a.m.!

Don's Lunch

Yesterday was rough.  Little lady cried for what seemed like the entire day, and so my mood was less than charming as a result.  To cheer me up, my husband drove us over to Don's Lunch, a lunch truck in downtown Westbrook that we've been dying to try since moving to the area.  It's seriously a lunch truck that is open year-round, from 11 a.m. until midnight (2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights!).  They're closed on Sundays.  For extra convenience, they take credit cards, unlike most lunch trucks.

The menu is hamburger and hot dog heavy, with some other good stuff thrown in - including lobster rolls and clam cakes!  I got a cheeseburger and french fries, and for $4.50 it was a super tasty treat!  I am seriously thinking about weaseling over there for another cheeseburger today.  Yum!  Can't wait for my next Don's Lunch trip!  Since my husband is dying for anything with clams in it, I have a feeling it'll be soon!

For updates on Don's Lunch, you can find them on Facebook.

Outing: Portland Head Light

Last weekend, we needed to get out of the house together, so we decided to take little lady to the Portland Head Light, where she would see the ocean for the first time.  It's amazing how much more complicated leaving the house becomes with a tiny infant.  Little lady has so many accessories I need an enormous diaper bag to hold it all.  Not to mention the amount of time it takes to get her into the carseat.  And then take her out, change her, and put her back in again, because one of her favorite tricks involves waiting until we buckle her into her seat and then suddenly making a huge mess in her pants.  Delightful.

Hopefully, the next time we head to the Portland Head Light, it'll be warmer out, and we can explore the fort installations and the always-beautiful Goddard Mansion, which is falling down but incredibly picturesque.  In the meantime, here are my favorite pictures from our visit this weekend:

Stroller Reviews: Britax B-Agile and Marmet pram

Like many first time parents, I did a TON of research into what products we wanted for baby.  I consulted Baby Bargains endlessly, highlighting half the book and making notes in the margins.  (Note to authors: bigger margins, please!)  I absolutely loved that book and highly recommend it - it definitely saved us from wasting a crap ton of money and allowed us to put what we would have spent on things we didn't really want or need towards the Mamaroo, which for us has already been worth its weight in gold, and which I will review here soon!

After careful consideration and many trips to Babies R Us with my handy copy of Baby Bargains in tow (seriously, I looked insane), I ended up picking out the Britax B-Agile, plus the adapter to clip in our carseat.  It was between this and the Baby Jogger City Mini, which also seems like an awesome stroller.  We chose the Britax in the end because we liked the styling a little more, the fabric looked and felt just a little higher quality on the Britax, and I believe the Britax compared a little favorably on the price front.  I'm not sure if that's the case everywhere, but it was that day at BRU.  I also preferred the sun shade on the B-Agile; it seemed more generous and again, we liked the styling.  The we here is my mom and me; my husband couldn't care less about the styling.  :)

We're quite pleased with the B-Agile; it moves smoothly and easily, and the adapter keeps our peanut clipped in there safely.  Roads and sidewalks in Maine can be really bumpy; the winter freeze makes them very tough to maintain nicely, but the B-Agile takes them like a champ.  It folds and unfolds with relative ease; my only issue is that I haven't quite figured out how to do this without getting grit from the wheels all over me; perhaps it's that I'm trying to unfold it from the wrong position, as I'm lugging it out of the trunk of the car.

Most importantly, the little lady loves it.  Generally, if she's in her stroller, she's snoozing happily. 

The stroller in action:

Our second option for walks is the ancient pram by Marmet, a British company that made gorgeous, luxurious prams.  Ours is from the 70s, we think, so it's not as posh as their older prams.  My mom bought it second hand in the early 80s to push me in, and my little sister and cousins used it.  That's 4 kids in my family, not to mention whoever used it before us.  I figure it's at minimum 35 years old, probably 40 or more.

It's held up remarkably well.  A little squeaky here and there, and could use new tires, but other than that, it's in great shape.  The suspension is good, and the materials haven't deteriorated.  If you can find one on Ebay and have the spare hundreds to spring for it, this is a super fun pram.  We're so lucky to have this fun hand-me-down.  One of the few things that I have that makes me feel posh.  And again, little lady loves it.  It's one of her favorite snooze spots.  Oh, and you can flip it around so baby can face you or can face forward.

Some action shots:

Birth Roots: From Belly to Baby

When my husband and I relocated to Maine, one of the first places that was recommended to us - by at least 3 different people - was Birth Roots, located on State St. in Portland.  So, we took that recommendation and signed up for their breastfeeding class and their newborn care class - the "fourth trimester."  These ended up being not only wonderful classes but a window into a great organization.

First up, the breastfeeding class:

The best part of this class, hands down, is that it was taught from a very positive, encouraging perspective.  Unlike most breastfeeding-related avenues of information that I have explored, this class spared me the obnoxious, repetitive preaching about how formula is poison and breastmilk is "liquid gold."  Thank goodness.  I've heard the demonization of formula and mamas who give formula sooooo many times, and while I acknowledge that breastfeeding is at least marginally better, I don't buy into the exaggerated stuff there is out there, and I refuse to come down on mothers who formula feed.  While Birth Roots definitely encourages breast feeding, they seem to make a real point of emphasizing the positives of breastfeeding without dwelling on formula.  I would imagine a parent who had given formula in the past would feel perfectly comfortable and welcomed in this breastfeeding class.

Because we didn't have to dwell on breast vs formula, that freed up a lot of time for actual, helpful information.  For us, breastfeeding was something we felt we should try to do, but we didn't know anything about it, and it felt like kind of a personal thing to ask our families about in detail.  So this class was really helpful in demystifying breastfeeding and giving us concrete, helpful information like different holds, what a good latch looks like, what kinds of complications and issues are normal, troubleshooting, etc.  The lessons of this class have stuck with us, and we have frequently remarked that this was the smartest $30 we spent during the pregnancy.


The newborn care class:

Oh my goodness, I LOVED this class.  It really helped us feel less anxiety and more excitement about the arrival of our first baby.  It's scary for first timers.  There's nothing more intimidating than a tiny baby.

The newborn care gave us practical advice and encouragement on helping the baby transition from being on the inside to being on the outside.  We got super psyched about swaddling, got tons of tips on soothing baby, and stayed after to ask about baby-wearing; the instructor was kind enough to stay and show us the Boba wrap and talk about it quite a bit, which was very helpful.  The best part was that this was the clear moment, from my perspective, when the baby became a real thing for my husband rather than just an abstract concept.  He just lit up talking about all the newborn care topics.  Another $30 very wisely spent.


Apart from the classes, my conversations with Birth Roots staff and with people who have been to Birth Roots have been overwhelmingly positive.  The Birth Roots folks are incredibly supportive and and put a whole lot of love into what they do.  They're welcoming and warm, and in our situation, having just moved 700 miles and changed practitioners and hospitals and everything only 2 months before our due date, they were just what we needed to feel good about the huge changes we were weathering.  Now that we have our daughter, I plan to look into postnatal classes and groups with Birth Roots.

And now, I definitely have to go change and soothe my little peanut, who's got her grumpy, waking-up face on.

The Nursery

When we first moved into our new house, the nursery looked like this:

So, most of the walls were white, and then the one wall had these giant, bold stripes somewhat reminiscent of the Greek flag.  Very cute for the nautical nursery the previous owners had, but not quite my style.  Fortunately for me, my husband didn't have a lot of opinions about what he wanted the nursery to look like.  He was even kind enough to repaint it in the end, despite the intimidatingly bold stripes.

I worked hard to make the nursery work with the original paint job, but after weeks of planning on changing nothing, I suddenly lost it when I realized there was no rug in the world that would look good in this room, between the color on the walls and the weird color on the floor.  I finally broke down crying over it, which in retrospect was pretty stupid.  But by that point in my pregnancy, my hormones were telling me that this was a Big Deal and that nothing would be ok until I got the nursery looking nice.  Like somehow not only would my baby notice the color of the walls but would also care about it.

So, we revamped the whole nursery around a rug that we found on Overstock.com, the Alexa Chevron Wool Rug in Ivory and Blue.  Click HERE to check it out.  We really, really like this rug.  It's pretty true to color compared to what you see on the website, and the only annoying thing about it is that it does have a chemical-ish smell at first, but other than that, we really love it.  So does our cat, when he manages to bust into the nursery.

As a result of the rug choice, we clearly had to repaint the walls, so we picked out a light aqua color, and my very sweet husband went to work.  Meanwhile, I worked on a DIY triangle bunting project.

Here are the results:

Flag bunting: DIY, Shelving and lamp: IKEA, Crib and dressing table: Graco Lauren collection, swing: Mamaroo (we bought it from Amazon.com)

Trouble.

Similar mobile here

This rocking chair was a gift from my father to my mother for Christmas 30 years ago, when they were expecting me.  My mother did much of the re-caning herself, and gave the chair to me for Christmas this year.  Such a wonderful gift!  A quick google search isn't turning up a lot of new results like this chair, but Ebay has some similar ones.

I still need to make a new lamp shade, but other than that, it's done.  She won't be sleeping in there for a little while, anyway - for now, she's in a bassinet in our room.

The great thing about doing a nursery when we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl is that it freed us up to put together a room that we like, without feeling pressured to impose some kind of gender-specific nonsense on our kid.  And since the baby won't be old enough to have her own opinions about her room for a few years anyway, it seems entirely reasonable that we design the room the way we want it, because she sure as heck doesn't care.  Cute as a button, but not really into interior design yet.

Life Lately

It's been an extremely busy 9 months since I last posted.  So much so that we have moved 700 miles, bought our first home, and had our first baby.

A whole lot of firsts all at once!

Long story short:

Shortly after my last blog post, we discovered I was expecting a baby in March.  This kicked our search for jobs in Maine into super drive, and my husband was offered a job in his new field in early November.  They needed him to start in January, so we were fortunate enough to be able to take a little bit of time planning.

On researching apartments in our area, we found that with our particular situation, and the need to accommodate a baby, we would be spending approximately the same in rent as we would on a mortgage.  So we started looking at houses.  My sister is a realtor, so she looked at the house we liked the most and was very enthusiastic.  She did a walk-through, took videos for us, and sent pictures.  She and my mom couldn't come up with anything objectionable about it, and based on the pictures, we loved it, so we - and I still can't quite believe this - we put an offer on it.  Without ever having stepped foot on the property.  And our offer was accepted.  *gulp*

We did get to walk through the house the day before we officially purchased it, so in the end it wasn't exactly buying a house "site unseen" - it was more like buying a house online.  Still sounds crazy to me, but I guess that's how we roll!  We're loving the house big time, so that worked out nicely.

I'm going to do another post regarding my pregnancy and our experiences with the hospital and our practitioners, but long story short (again), that all went well, and we loved the hospital and my midwives.  I saw midwives in both Pittsburgh, PA and Portland, ME, so I will discuss both practices.

So now, we are adjusting to life in Maine in our own home with a newborn.  She's pretty fabulous and lets us get a decent amount of sleep.  Definitely a keeper.

Future posts will cover everything in detail, but for now, here are some snapshots of our new life:

Buggie steps out in her buggy

One of my DIY projects for the nursery

Love the frost on the windows

Beef burgundy: a blizzard-friendly meal

Another nursery view

A quiet corner in the guest room

Dining room

Holding hands with the little one