Another Baby Room Update!

I got back from Juneau on Friday afternoon and we spent pretty much ALL DAY on Saturday with our new best friend, Allen Wrench.  While I was away, the dresser we ordered from Target and the side table we ordered from Pier 1 both arrived and Andy was nice enough to leave the assembly projects for the weekend when I'd be around.

The dresser has been kind of an annoying thing for us these past couple of months.  I guess I stupidly assumed we could just go BUY one at a store and that would be the end of it.  We ended up visiting no fewer than 10 places in town trying to find something we liked.  The only stuff we did like was so expensive it made us angry (the cheapest dresser we saw in a store in Anchorage was $700...considering we have one in our bedroom that has a broken drawer and is literally falling to pieces, I was not about to spend $700 on a dresser that my daughter will probably color and chew on). I also didn't want the dresser to match the crib perfectly, because I didn't want the room to look like it was one big set.  We went to this really awesome antique store and found some nice stuff, but since they refurbish the stuff themselves, they also want top dollar for the furniture because they put so much work into it.  We even thought about going to a thrift store and refinishing something old, but the only one I know of in town is with the salvation army and never has furniture, just clothes. I took my adventure online only to discover that nobody would ship anything to us, and then spent about a week trying to calculate how much it would cost to have someone I know buy us a dresser at Ikea and then ship it up here.  Finally I gave up and used a coupon I had from Target to purchase the dresser that matches the crib.  It was under $300 including shipping and came with the fun of having to assemble it yourself! What a deal!

The dresser arrived in a huge box that was too big to move down the hallway, so we opened it by the front door and carried it piece by piece into the baby's room.  Fro, as usual, supervised.

I didn't take any pictures during the process of putting it together and I really wish I had because that was a super fun FIVE HOURS.  The dresser itself took about one hour, while the drawers took four. At one point, two of the drawers wouldn't even fit in the dresser correctly and I disassembled them three times each trying to correct my unknown error.  Finally I watched a youtube video of someone putting it together and decided to put the drawers together the way the lady in the video did (which isn't how the directions tell you to do it) and they came out perfect!

Here's the final product:

It looks like it was specially made for the spot next to the window and is a perfect height to put our changing pad on to use as a changing table.  It's also solid and should last a long time. Also, in case you're wondering, NO, those SUPER ADORABLE knobs did not come with the dresser.  We bought them at the aforementioned antique store, Ozarks, (my new favorite store in Anchorage...I want them to come and decorate my whole house) because the white ones that came with the dresser were extra boring.  I LOVE them.  They also had some antique glass knobs that were amazing, but they were $14 apiece.  I did not love them that much.

After the dresser, the one page "instructions" for the side table (pictures only, no words) was a nice change of pace.  I had that sucker put together in about 20 minutes.

We had thought about buying a rocker/glider for the room and even found one we really liked, but one day I was just sitting in the leather chair and was so comfortable I almost fell asleep and decided it could stay put.  It doesn't rock, but we do have the old school rocking chair, which is also in the baby's room for now, and it would do in a pinch.   Also, the leather chair, already being in the room, was free. I love free.

Onto the accessories!

I got these cute hooks at Ozarks, too.  I will probably paint the tops of the screws white so they blend better, but I think they're adorable.  I might make some tie backs with some fabric I have lying around (relating to a project I'm working on that I will post about later) so they fit in the hooks better.

Another Ozarks find...I think we're going to hang these over the dresser/changing table.  We have both been feeling like the room isn't very girly, so I think these little frilly touches kind of help.

While I was in Juneau, I went shopping at one of my favorite stores on the planet.  It's called Trove.  It's ridiculously expensive, and I almost bought one of everything.  They had these adorable leather-esque animals in all shapes and sizes.  They are really heavy and I think are meant to be book ends.  We're still trying to figure out what exactly we'll do with them, but they are SO cute.  I had a hard time picking but finally settled on these two:

Orca!

Beaver!

I also bought this adorable bear clock at Trove.  We wanted to set it up right away, but haven't decided where to put it yet, so it's hanging in our living room right now by the fireplace (we found an exposed nail and went with it).  The tree is a little pendulum!

So here's the room so far - we're getting close to being done!

The view from the closet, which we already cleaned thankyouverymuch!

We still need to paint the blades of the ceiling fan, though as the rest of the room moves along, it bothers me less and less.  The mobile also needs to move over the crib instead of just randomly dangling in the corner.  The chest, which used to be my parents and we took when they considered selling it at our garage sale back in Salem, may also get a facelift in some kind of interesting color since it's kind of a sad 70's veneer right now. I also have my little secret craft project to finish, which is about 50% done, and we need to work on bookshelves/display shelves, but none of these are huge projects. Andy and I both think it's the best room in the house, which I am hoping will be our motivator, once it's done, to FINALLY get out and paint the living room before the baby comes, or else we will be taking her prom pictures in front of the fireplace surrounded by the brick red wall adjacent to the purple kitchen.

Saturday marked 100 days until my due date! The countdown is on!

Sunny in Juneau?

As I mentioned in the last post, I spent this past week in Juneau.  I spent most of my time there doing some super un-fun work. One of my tasks was to help purge old files that we had in the office in order to prepare the Juneau office to move into another building, and we had about 40 years of files that needed to be archived or purged, but of course it required a human to literally look at every single piece of paper before a decision could be made about it.  It wasn't the most exciting way to spend a week, but I did get to throw a lot of stuff away and that felt pretty good.

For the first two days, it looked like this in Juneau:

That would be about 37 and snowing.  It did this for two whole days.

 By Wednesday night, it started to get nicer, and the mountains even peeked out.  Juneau is SUCH a cute town.  I would live there except it is like living in a deserted island most of the year and the weather is generally pretty miserable.  Honestly, I should be their director of tourism.

Note there's nobody around.  The cruise ships don't start coming up until about May I think, so the stores either don't bother to open or they are open from about 10-5.  I think I took this picture around 6pm.  It's amazing how much different it was from the last time I visited when everything was open until 11 pm or later and was full of tourists buying as much crap as they could lay their hands on.  I think I like sleepy Juneau better.

Since the cruise ships aren't around, they let you walk on the dock.  I tried taking a panorama of the harbor.  It's pretty when it's not rain/snowing in your face!

On the dock I found this little statue of a dog.  I asked my coworker David about it and he had no idea what it was for even though he lived in Juneau for eight years.  Honestly, it's the ONLY statue in town...he's a terrible tour guide.

On Thursday morning, this is what I woke up to.  Just Amazing.

The rest of my trip, town pretty much looked like this.  I just can't get over how nice it was.  It made it hard to go back to work after I took a walk at lunch time every day.

Here's my little office in Juneau! I spent 4.5 days sitting in the yellow and orange building in the room right above the flagpole making piles of things to shred.  At least we had a nice view.

On Thursday afternoon David drove me out to the Mendenhall Glacier to look around because I told him I wanted to see some of the sights since the weather was so nice.  I wanted to hike out to it but David wouldn't let me because I'm pregnant.  Apparently pregnant women aren't supposed to walk.

What a place!! I'm glad I finally got to see it sunny in Juneau.  Honestly if you ever get the chance, you should visit, just try to plan your trip for one of the 10 sunny days per year they have in Juneau.

Snowbound!

On Friday night we made plans to go out to dinner with some friends downtown.  After we got home, took care of Ripley, and changed, the weather had gone from 42 and sunny to 32 and snowing.  The weatherman that day had mentioned that there would be some snow on Friday night, but we didn't pay too much attention because the weatherman has been notoriously wrong about the weather all winter. Also, their prediction was 2-5 inches overnight, so in just a couple of hours we couldn't get THAT much snow, right?

The snow started to stick around 6-6:30.  We got to dinner around 7 and by the time we left dinner at 8:45, it was coming down hard.

In the less than two hours we were at dinner, three inches of snow had accumulated on our car.  We dug out and quickly headed home.  I think Andy was secretly excited that he had a couple of beers so I had to drive home, until he realized that being a passenger on the roughly ten mile journey home would be almost as terrifying as having to drive.

Andy took a video.  Check it out! The classical music we were listening to makes it seem less scary I think.

After driving in that for a couple miles, I decided I needed to get off the highway.  I couldn't find my lane and people were passing me (I felt like 25 mph was perfectly acceptable for those driving conditions and I was on the far right lane, but ANYWAY).  We made it back home on side streets, at times not being able to see the road or anything beyond our headlights.  We also dealt with other crazy drivers in huge pickup trucks zooming past us (only to get stuck up ahead) and some people even driving without their lights on.  I guess when you're fully committed to the official Alaskan pastime of texting and driving, you don't really need to see out of your windshield.  At least now I can check driving through a blizzard off my bucket list, because I'm never doing that again.

By the time we got home around 9:30, we had over six inches of snow on the deck.  By the time we went to bed around 11, we had over 13 inches! (and this is why we never listen to the weatherman).

We woke up in the morning to this view out our bedroom window:

That fence is about chest height on me.  

Ripley was not too excited about having to go outside to do his business.  I went on the deck, which was bare at 6pm the night before, and measured almost 21 inches of snow right before I took that picture.  Ripley is only 23 inches tall to the top of his back.  This makes peeing difficult.

Andy is standing in our driveway in this next picture.  The snow is over his knees...

Eventually Ripley started to bound around.

While poor Andy had to shovel.  By himself.  Sorry! Pregnant! Shoveling is off limits!

Doesn't that just look hard?  Poor Andy.

Ripley and I played in the snow while Andy toiled on the driveway.  He's standing up in the next picture.  Only his head peeks up!

At least the snow wore him out quickly.

I tossed the frisbee all over the yard.  The frisbee is a pretty good snow toy because it stays above the surface of the snow for the most part.  Look at his face in the next picture.  VICIOUS!

About 15 minutes into playing, he lost the frisbee.  I think he stepped on it and then covered it up, and we couldn't find it anywhere.  It'll be an extra special surprise when it surfaces sometime in May or June.

Sadface.

Without the frisbee to entertain him, Ripley used his time to monitor Andy's progress on the driveway. He's such a good foreman! 

Almost done! (yes, we have the world's longest driveway).

By the time Andy finished, the sun was coming out, and yesterday turned out to be a beautiful day with all the snow.

The plow man didn't come to our cul de sac until about 4 pm yesterday, so even with the driveway plowed, we couldn't have gone anywhere if we wanted to.  We took advantage of being snowbound and did some much needed spring cleaning and organized the closet in the baby's room.  Sometimes it's nice to be stuck inside!

This morning we woke up to more snow, and it's been snowing all day, but very lightly.  It's actually kind of welcome in the sense that we haven't had a very snowy winter and we need the snowpack.  Also, as painful as it is that it's snowing this much in March, at least it's not MAY (and god, I hope I didn't just jinx myself).  Tomorrow I'm off to Juneau for the week for work, so I should have some fun stuff to post from there! Happy Sunday!

Baby Room Update

It's been a lazy weekend for us, and I am totally okay with this!  Andy's oldest friend, Brian, (oldest because he's known him the longest, not because he's particularly old...) made a surprise trip up from Texas on Sunday and he stayed with us a couple of days this week.  We all had a great time hanging out and even going out on weeknights(!), but all the excitement definitely took its toll and it finally caught up to me by the end of the week.  I'm feeling first-trimester levels of tired and I even took two naps yesterday.  Hopefully I can get some good sleep tonight so I'm not a zombie at work all week like I was last week!  Even though I'm exhausted, it was such a fun surprise to get to spend some time with Brian, who is also going to be a dad this summer! I think he and Andy were enjoying one of their final hurrahs before the late night feedings and diaper changes become the new normal.

Before I get to the baby's room, I have to post a little about our other baby, Ripley.  He got a bath today, and his bath routine is so cute, I had to share.

First, he stands very very still in the bathtub while Andy gets him nice and clean.

As soon as the bath is done, Ripley leaps out of the tub and runs to the nearest carpeted area to ROLL.

Then Andy finally catches up with the towel and they wrestle for awhile...

Before Ripley runs upstairs and jumps on our bed to finish drying in the sun.

Isn't he handsome? I just love him. 

On to the baby's room.  Things are starting to come together, though we still have a couple of key pieces to buy.  Just last week this room was FULL of boxes.  I wish I'd taken a picture of the pile of stuff in the room.  I'm happy now that things are a little more organized.

The crib has been put together and is in place, complete with the (free!) mattress that we also got from Target:

Yes the tags are still on the crib.  Those will likely get removed soon.
Paddington is holding down the fort as you can see.

I also put our stroller together, which was a wonderfully generous present from my parents.  We love it, and the baby will be excited to ride around in style!  The stroller won't stay in the baby's room obviously, but all those boxes I talked about are now in the garage, so there isn't much extra space around the car for the time being.  Also, we're currently working on a little mouse problem in the garage, so until we get that under control, the stroller is in the baby's room.  I am waiting to see a cat sitting in there one day. 

We bought this adorable mobile on Amazon for $8 on clearance!! I was going to put it on the registry, but then I was worried that it would sell out before anyone had a chance to grab it.  It didn't come with an arm to attach to the crib, so right now it's hanging from the ceiling from a hook that was already in place.  I can't decide yet if I want to bother trying to find an arm or if I just want to hang it from the ceiling over the crib.  I really love it though.

We found some curtains on clearance at JC Penney one day at lunch this week (Andy and I typically mall walk in the winters on our lunch breaks and lately we've been cruising for good deals for the baby's room).  These curtains were 70% off! I like that they're sheer and just kind of soften the light in the room.  The room already has some heavy duty blackout shades if we ever want to use them in the summer to help the baby sleep, though Andy can sleep in bright daylight after growing up here, so maybe we'll try to get baby into the same habits...

The curtains match the rug nicely, which you can see now that things are off the floor.  Now that we have stuff in the room, the rug looks pretty perfectly sized, though I'd love for it to be a foot bigger in either direction.  No complaints though, it was so cheap! (Note - the cat tower is going to be moving into our room once we buy a dresser - for now they can keep their vantage point to the front of the house).

I went to Kohl's today and bought this pouf to use as a footrest.  We're going to be moving the leather chair out of the room and putting it in the downstairs living room, and we already found a rocker/glider at Babies R Us that we like, we just need to pick it up.  I think it will work perfect in the room and I love the idea of using this pouf (only $39 on sale!) rather than the matching ottoman that Babies R Us is selling for $150! I am so proud of all of my bargains! I also think it'll be a fun thing to have in the room when the baby gets older to have as an extra seat (most likely for the cats).

I've been setting out some of the little adorable items we've been gathering over the past couple of months.  Our good family friends the Schwalbs got us Sophie the Giraffe, and I found that awesome viking hat at a holiday bazaar with Ann when I was about two months along (perfect for honoring my Scandinavian heritage!).  The little booties are another fun craft fair find, and are made out of an old sweater.  Finally, we have an adorable wooden pacifier clip that my sister got us in Austria - complete with a little redhead on it - everyone is wondering whether this baby will be inheriting Andy's ginger genes!

Andy found this stuffed platypus at the mall this week and had to buy it.  Turns out it's from a cartoon that we didn't know existed, and his name is Perry.  For now, he's stealing Fro's spot on the tower.

So as you can see, we have a lot of stuff done and the room is finally coming together.  We still have a LONG to-do list.  For one, I need to get the baby clothes out of these duffel bags that I brought back from Oregon and put them into some semblance of order...

And you may have noticed from the photos before, the ceiling fan is still bright pink butterflies.  I'd love to just scrap the whole thing and put in a really cute chandelier - we found some perfect girlie ones at this fun antique/knickknack store in Midtown - but I think ultimately, we'll want some air circulation in that room, so we'll probably just take the blades off and paint them white to blend into the ceiling.

We also have some bookshelves to make (yes, make, I'm confident we can do this really easily based on things I'm finding on Pinterest, which Andy is quickly discovering is a rabbit hole that starts with me going "OMG LOOK AT THIS" and ends with him at the hardware store), some art to buy and hang, and I think we want to hang a curtain or something over the closet opening so the contents of the closet aren't always in view.  Oh, and speaking of the closet, it, now, is currently full of boxes and randomly collected items, so we have to organize that, too.  Thankfully we still have a number of months to go!