No More Monkeys

When we moved into our current house, a little over two years ago, we decided to paint Jack's room immediately because it was purple... with a large monkey on one wall. 

Since his existing furniture was white and gray, we agreed that light blue-gray walls were a good place to start. 

I originally had a vision of painting large horizontal stripes on one wall, so at the time we left one wall as plain white.

Two years later we finally got around to putting the stripes on the white wall.

The room has evolved somewhat since we moved in. 

Jack's crib/toddler bed was long ago removed from the room (Isaac sleeps in it now). I think Jack slept in the toddler bed for one nap time. We are currently on the hunt for a bed so that Jack's mattresses are no longer on the floor.

It was a good solution when he was learning to sleep in a big boy bed, but now I would like a really bed with a head board. 

I have a vision of what I want and I have a feeling we will just build something when we have more time.

I found a dark blue, reversible comforter at Target that I liked, as well as construction themed bedding.

All of Jack's wall art was originally transportation themed (bikes, airplanes, etc.), but I am trying to be flexible and let Jack have some say in what his room looks like (though when he asked to have a green room, I said no for now because I didn't want to repaint what I had already started).

I found white and blue striped, blackout curtains and almost ended up ditching the striped wall because I thought the stripes might conflict. 

But I'm glad I stuck with my original plan. We are really happy with how it turned out.

There is a bedside table at Target that I have been eyeing. It is blue and has a locker-style drawer. Daniel doesn't want to commit to a side table until there is a bed so we will have the right scale with the height of the bed and table.

We are a lot closer to finishing up this room and I love how it is coming together. It's a long way from the purple walls with the monkey.

When the rooms is completely finished I will share a more finalized tour... 

Now to tackle Isaac's nursery!

10 Products We Regularly Used for Jack (9-12 Months)

This is a list of some of the products that we found useful for Jack during the 9-12 month stage. These items are in addition to things I have written about previously. See 0-3 months, 3-6 months and 6-9 months for more info on products we have used over the past year.

1. Jack really loves his Lillabo wooden toy car set from IKEA. He has learned how to push cars around – which quickly became a favorite pastime. His cousin, Izzy, also introduced him to smashing cars together which he thinks is great fun.

2. We picked up the Fisher Price Rock 'N Go Pony at a consignment sale and Jack seems to like it. He will stand next to it and rock it. Since turning 12 months, he now likes to sit on it and is more inclined to push it around.

3. I am a big fan of footie pajamas at this time of year. He hates to keep socks on, so I know he will stay warm in his footies.

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4. The bulb syringe aspirator has been with us since the beginning, but with the onset of cold season, we have used this sucker more times than I can count. Jack hates it, but it does help to clear the mucus from his nose.

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5. Likewise, in relationship to sickness, we are very fond of our Safety 1st Fever Light Ear Thermometer. I have learned that I can typically determine a fever by kissing Jack's forehead, but I like confirmation from the thermometer.

6. Instagram has been great for uploading photos of what Jack is up to "right now." I love being able to share day-to-day things with our loved ones.

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7. Tommy Tippee Explora 9 Training Sippy Cups from Target -- Jack has never had a bottle and as he ate more, we introduced him to a training sippy cup. Thanks to Jack's Aunt Emily for picking out a good cup.

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8. Chick-fil-a turned us on to disposable placemats, but instead of stealing extras any time we visited this fastfood establishment, we decided to order some online. The Neat Solutions disposable placemats have been a welcome addition to our eating out arsenal. This particular brand has adhesive on four sides so Jack can't really pull it off the table... at least not easily.

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9. Gerber Puffs -- Jack basically eats what we eat. Since we have followed the baby led weaning approach, we have never purchased baby food, with the exception of Gerber Puffs. They feed the toddlers this as a snack at church and he really likes them. We have found that they are great for on-the-go, especially as a pre-meal snack when we are at a restaurant.

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10. We still are huge fans of our cloth diapers, but for nighttime we ended up upgrading to the BumGenius One-Snap Closure 4.0. We love our other cloth diapers, but found that they leaked at night. The BumGenius diapers NEVER leak.

 That wraps up our year of products that we have found useful for Jack. He continues to love books and toys and I will post again later this year with a list of his favorite toys as a toddler. What are some of your favorite baby products at this age?

Project 52: Date Nights - Have You Seen My Shoes?

Being separated continues to be a tough experience, but we are making the most of it... here is a recap of our date "weekend."

Daniel came home on Friday, dropped his stuff in the living room, did some work on the house and then crashed. I came home to find him exhausted and in bed. I have to confess that my first reaction was to be annoyed and run around and put away {hide} all of his stuff since we had The Staging Girl coming by to give us advice on how to best stage our home when we put it on the market.

By the time Barbi {The Staging Girl} arrived, I had gotten over my annoyance {and had also forgotten that I threw Daniel's work shoes in the coat closet}...

Anyways, we had a great meeting with Barbi {see this post} and then we ran to grab a late dinner at O'Charley's where we discussed our weekend plans and how much we wanted to spend on staging and landscaping.

Saturday was a huge shopping day for us – this was a bit overwhelming since we are not big shoppers. We normally meticulously plan out what we intend to buy. We research like mad and then we go about finding the best deals. It is important to us to make sure we are both on board with purchasing decisions since we BOTH live in the house. Saturday was a bit overwhelming because we essentially threw caution to the wind and hit the stores with a list in hand. We managed to get everything at IKEA, Lowe's and Target, but it was overwhelming to pick out items that will {hopefully} stay with us for some time.

We spent Sunday rearranging the furniture in our basement and then we headed to the Original Pancake House {I was too exhausted to cook all weekend – shopping really wears me out.} Once again, we said our goodbyes in the parking lot and Daniel headed back to Chattanooga.

An hour after he left Charlotte, I received a call: "Do you know where my work shoes are?"

OOPs. I had completely forgotten that I threw them in the coat closet on Friday night before The Staging Girl arrived...