Grace's Fairy Party

Well, as usual we are 2 months out from Grace's party, but I am already looking for ideas. I always seem to pick a theme way ahead of time and then regret not waiting until later on to get a feel for what the kids are loving at the moment. This is one reason my kids' rooms are not based around character themes since their tastes change all the time. For Jacob's second birthday party, we did a Wonder Pets theme since he absolutely LOVED them at the time, but less than a year later he was on to Diego and Mickey and NEVER watches the Wonder Pets. If I had done his big boy room around a Wonder Pets theme that would be old news by now.

Needless to say, Grace LOVES Abby Cadabby and all things Sesame Street, but seems to really like Minnie and Dora these days. I am sure she'll love whatever it is that graces the cake plates at her party, but when I saw these little buckets at Target in the $1 section I knew they would be perfect to put favors in:



Since they were only $1 each and she loves Sesame Street I figured we would just stick with the Abby party theme. Since she will be sharing any future birthday parties with her baby brother we can do the Dora and Diego and Mickey and Minnie parties then!

Just when I was starting to doubt my Abby Cadabby decision I was cruising through Gymboree one day and came across this outfit from their Fairy Fashionable line from last Summer:





It was a 2T (PERFECT!!) and the entire outfit was less than $10 and since Abby is a "fairy in training" I thought it was adorable and perfect for her fairy party! That sealed the deal!

I am probably going to go with an invite from Etsy (as usual) and I really like this one or this one.

I am still trying to decide whether to do cupcakes or a cake and considering how busy and exhausted I was for Jacob's party in March I think I will be skipping the DIY this year and ordering out like I did for his party. It was much easier (although much more expensive) to have someone else do the cupcakes, but considering I will be almost 33 weeks at this party it will probably be a necessity. As usual, there are a ton of cool cupcake toppers and party supplies on Etsy for an Abby Cadabby party and I am sure Grace will have a blast! I am so happy that at least two of my three kids have a Summer birthday so we can have some fun outdoors and BBQ for their birthday parties!

A whole bunch of nothing....

....is pretty much what this post is going to be. We have a lot going on around here and very little time. Unfortunately, the blog has fallen victim to this, but I have plenty of stuff going on to blog about.

Let's start with preschool! Jacob is doing great! He "moves a lot" and is "very active" (his teacher's words, not mine!), but we already knew that. He is starting to recognize the routine, but has trouble listening and following directions so we are slowly but surely getting there. I have a feeling he'll catch on by year-end and then have the Summer off to get all out of sorts before starting again in September. That should be fun! He has only had one bad report and it was the day I sent him to school after keeping him home for a day due to a nasty cold. He still had a runny nose and wasn't feeling well so we just chalked it up to him feeling under the weather. He also had a minor "incident" in the motor room on Friday and fell off a toddler size trampoline. The school nurse called, but just to let me know what had happened in case any bumps popped up later and nothing did.

As for the state of the pregnancy, I am currently 23 weeks and feeling great. I was a little anxious at my appointment on Tuesday because as of my last Level II ultrasound my cervix was measuring 3.8 cm. That is still great in a normal pregnancy and even better for high risk, but with Grace's cerclage my cervix never went below 4 cm so I was a little nervous that maybe the last cerclage had damaged my cervix and this one might not hold up as much. My doctor reassured me that everything looks fine and as long as I am not having any pain or contractions I am good! I am a little less than 2 weeks away from where I was when I delivered Jacob. At this point with him my cervix was already less than 2.5 cm so I am doing pretty good all things considered!

My fingers have been swelling and I can't get my e-ring on anymore, but my wedding band still fits (thankfully)! I don't know why, but when I am out running errands with two toddlers and very visibly pregnant with a third baby I like to know that people don't think I am some crazy, single person who runs around getting knocked up. Not like it matters what people think, but that ring makes me feel much better! My ankles have started throbbing and I am sure cankles are on the way. They arrived around 33 weeks with Grace and it would just be my luck for them to arrive in the 2nd trimester this time around.

Since I will be very large and uncomfortable in July, we are planning Grace's 2nd birthday party for the end of June so that we don't have to worry about throwing something together last minute once baby is here. It looks like there is a 95% chance that this baby is going to arrive on Grace's actual birthday and since this will be the last party she has that is all about her I want to make it special. We are doing an Abby Cadabby theme and I have a few cute ideas to share in another post soon!

As for baby boy, he still does not have a name! Oddly enough, we have pretty much scratched all 4 names on our "final list" and started all over. Naming a boy is SO HARD. We had so many girl names picked out that we will never get to use and no boy names to name this poor child with. I am just hoping to have one within 24 hours of birth. Jacob was nameless for awhile after birth (and rightfully so since we hadn't even gotten that far in the pregnancy) and that stupid woman with the clipboard was in our room every hour on the hour wanting us to fill out the form for the birth certificate. I felt rushed and honestly I still feel as though Jacob was forced on me. He is a Jacob now and that is all that matters, but I constantly wonder what his name would have been if we had more time!

I guess that is all from here. We have been very busy cleaning house and are trying to organize a yard sale for next month to get rid of all the crap that has accumulated in our basement over the past 5 years. We are hoping to earn some cash to buy a few baby things and clean this house out. Soon we will need room for 5!

Grace's Room - Final Plan

You may remember my post back in October about our plans to makeover Grace's room. Shortly after posting that, we realized we may be pregnant with baby #3 sooner than we had expected which was surprisingly good news considering my fertility struggles.

We decided to hold off on that makeover until we found out for sure just in case I got pregnant and found out it was a boy. Grace is currently in the bigger of the two rooms and we would need to swap rooms if the baby was a boy. Jacob's current room is simply too small for two kids. Well, it's a good thing we waited! Sure enough I got pregnant in November and here we are now at 21 weeks pregnant and it is a boy! The color palette and fabrics I had selected before were based off a line I had found at Target that had accessories in the same color. Well, Target no longer has any of that and the colors are very hard to match so we have decided to go in a different direction.

Grace's toddler bed has been assembled for about a month now, but we decided to wait until the room is finished and all set up to move her into it. With the swapping of the two rooms there is just too much junk cluttering up her room and we are afraid of what she will get into at night when we're all asleep!

The current plan is based again on a color palette. One of the newer trends in color is aqua and I fell in love with a few aqua/yellow nursery pictures I found while cruising the web looking for ideas. I decided to go with the aqua, but use pink as more of the main accent color and maybe throw in a few other bright colors to spruce it up a bit. I went WAY outside the box with this room. My entire house is pretty much all neutral colors, but if you are ever going to go bold a kid's room is the place to do it! I again avoided themes, licensed bedding, etc. and I am going more with something she can grow with. I was originally going to go with bird/butterfly decor, but so far all I can find that I really like is birds. There isn't much out there with butterflies.

Here are my ideas:

Paint Color: Benjamin Moore Bird's Egg (2051-60)



We were originally trying to decide between this and BM Robin's Nest (618), but the Robin's Nest was just too green for my taste. I prefer an aqua closer to the blue family that looks more like the color of a robin's egg. I saw a few pictures online of rooms that had used Robin's Nest and LOVED them, but it must be the lighting in our house because I bought both colors in sample sizes and painted them on the wall and the Robin's Nest was too green in Grace's room.

Furniture:
Ikea Hemnes 3 Drawer Dresser
Da Vinci Sleigh Toddler Bed in White
Target Do-Your-Room Medium Bookshelf





We only need to buy the dresser since Grace already has the toddler bed and bookshelf. Target no longer carries the bookshelf, but I was able to find a picture online in a Google image search. We were originally going to go with the Hemnes 8 drawer, but it is over 63" long and that dresser would swallow Grace's tiny room. I wanted a low dresser so we decided on the 3 drawer which is only 43". She doesn't need more than that space-wise right now anyway and at only $199 you can't beat the price. When Grace needs to update to twin bed furniture in the future we'll think long term.

Decor:

This is where I had to get creative. I am trying to find things that will grow with her and everything available right now seems to be birds or flowers. I have a couple of friends who have used birds and have seen some blogs where birdhouses were used for decor. I have decided to go that route, but purchase unfinished birdhouses and paint them myself! I couldn't find anything online that I liked enough to purchase so I figure I will buy them and paint them myself with whatever acrylic paint color I want! I am thinking maybe some pinks and yellows.

I am also hoping to incorporate some lanterns in one corner of the room to add a pop of color and possibly a wall decal of a flowering cherry blossom branch with birds. Once I do this and add a mirror above her dresser there will literally be no wall/floor space left! She has an oversized beanbag from PBK which I am considering re-covering in a coordinating color and I am running out of places to put it without tripping over something! I am also buying the same cheap stick lamp that I bought Jacob in blue in either pink or yellow for Grace. It was $14 on sale and works great. I also like the look of the silver stick and the bright shade.





As far as bedding goes I am just going to get some mismatched odds and ends since she will only be using this for a few years. I am thinking a hot pink chamois blanket for warmth and some cute sheets for her mattress will help tie the colors in the room together. Right now PBK has a new Penelope line out and the crib sheets they have match perfectly!