More progress in the nursery

This weekend Steve went to pick up our glider / ottoman that had arrived in stock. While he was in the furniture moving mode, he went ahead and moved the rest of the furniture into the nursery. I am really happy with it and glad that we made the decisions that we did. The room is not huge, so I think if we had done anything else, it just would have seemed too crowded. I feel like all of the pieces are coming together - next on my nursery list are things for the wall and window treatments. If anyone had any great websites for nursery wallart, please share!

Here are the pictures with the furniture:

View from doorway

View towards doorway

View from closet

Closet organizer from Target - i love it!

Thanks Steve! (and herbie too)

St. Patty's Day Meets Martha Stewart

It's not very often that I do anything particularly "homemakerey" - beyond getting a few home-cooked dinners on the table each week, there just never seems to be enough time for anything creative or what Martha would describe as "special." When we were invited to our neighbors house for a casual St Patty's Day dinner, I really shocked myself when I volunteered to bring a dessert. But, I was committed - one St Patty's Day themed dessert coming up. Luckily, I remembered a green cake that my friend Carolyn had made in college. I immediately texted her for help. She sent me the recipe and i was set. It was actually a piece of cake - no pun intended and a big hit with our neighbors. Here's the recipe:

• 1 package white cake (whatever is required to prepare the cake mix - typically oil and eggs)
• 1 jar of hot fudge ice cream topping
• 1 container of cool whip
• 1 bottle of creme de menthe liquor

Instructions - Prepare the cake according to package instructions substituting creme de menthe for the water. (I used two 9 inch rounds for a layered cake). Allow cake to cool, then spread hot fudge on one cake for middle layer and stack cake rounds. Continue to spread the hot fudge on top layer and around edges. It is very helpful to slightly heat the hot fudge in the microwave before spreading. Pop cake into fridge for 20 to 3o minutes to allow fudge to harden. Finally, mix cool whip with a couple tablespoons of the creme de menthe liquor - add gradually as you want to be careful to not make the cool whip too runny. I also added a few drops of green food coloring to kick up the green color. Then spread cool whip over entire cake surface. Then decorate as so inclined - for me that meant a shakey four leaf clover and a few green sprinkles! Keep cake in the fridge until ready to serve - this cake tastes best right out of the fridge but it could probably sit out for a couple hours and still be great. The result is a cross between and bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and a thin mint girl scout cookie. Yummmmmm.

We had a great time with our great neighbors last night - thanks Lindsey, Charlie and Nash for having us over - and thanks for inspiring me to make something truly "special." :-)

Beginnings of a Nursery

We had the nursery painted this past week and my bedding arrived, so I have to say, that we definitely have the beginnings of a nursery. In all of the bedding that I looked at and liked, there was one common color, light green, so I decided to go with that on the walls. I strongly dislike picking out paint colors - they all look so similar on their little 1 inch by 2 inch sample. I was able to narrow it down to three and had Manuel do a test area of all three. I went with the darkest / brightest of the three greens that i had picked. Our furtniture is espresso and we have a camel colored glider / ottoman planned. I am excited to see how it will look as it all comes together.

Here is the wall color. I never realized what a great window was in this room until we emptied it out.



And here is the link to my bedding:
http://www.babybedding.com/render/ebd576f3-1011-4ef7-9a16-24dad51cf81d

Baby Girl P - 23 weeks

Our baby girl has been pretty camera shy up to this point. If you can believe it, this is the best picture we have gotten! You can see her eyes in the upper right portion of the picture and then her mouth a little further over towards the center. The doctor said she is measuring 1 pound and 5 ounces. She was very active during the ultrasound - it's hard for me to believe because I am not feeling much in the way of kicks yet. I get a few twinges and pulses here and there (which I LOVE by the way), but nothing regular so far.


And I've had lots of requests for pictures of the growing belly...this was at about 22 1/2 weeks.