Stay away, August!

I am in some serious denial that August is two days away.  WHAT?!  No, August.  Stay away. We are so not ready for you.

In just 3-ish weeks, I go back to work.  Oy.  I am not ready for that, mainly because I had big dreams of getting all this stuff ready for the babies "over the summer" so that when I went back to work, we would just be relaxing and waiting for them to make their appearance.  Well that has SO NOT HAPPENED YET.  I know I will be kicking myself when school starts back up and then I am trying to scramble and get things put together after work every day.  I will say, "Self, why did you not do this when you had those THREE MONTHS OF NO WORK??"

Well, in my defense, we didn't really want to do anything until we knew if we were having boys, girls or a combo deal.  Now that we know it is a boy and a girl, we can really hit the ground running.  Sort of.  Turns out, finding any kid of nursery bedding and decor that tastefully blends boy and girl is...... pretty much impossible.  After weeks of looking, my options were basically as follows:

- Beach theme with plaid in pink for her, blue for him (Eh. I don't want a "theme-y" room that has surfboards and palm trees and ocean waves.  Too much.  Stay away from themes.)

- Solid white bedding with subtle hints of blue for him, pink for her (Eh. I don't even want to mess with solid white crib bedding and blankets.  I spill enough as it is, without adding two babies into the mix, also making their share of messes.)

Annnnnd that was pretty much it.  My Plan B option was to just pick a boy bedding set and mix it with a girl set.  But here's what I'm finding - boy things come in two categories: animals and sports.  With the occasional "western" theme sprinkled in.  So I could do monkeys, giraffes, elephants, birds, fish, zoo animals, circus animals, moose, etc.  Or I could do football, baseball, soccer, basketball....  Again with the themes.  Not working for me.

So Plan C is the always-trendy "gender neutral" nursery, which means tan, gray and/or yellow.  Or even all white (No. See above)  Ducks.  Bees.  Birds.  Things like that. But I knew I wanted more color and something fun.  So after being throughly overwhelmed by all the lackluster options I was finding, I decided I would just have to put together my own design, picking and choosing from all over.  And as I have started to make decisions and even purchase things, I am really getting worried that this room is just going to be an explosion of patterns and colors.  But hey.  These kiddos won't complain, right?

Here's where my basic vision is going, with an update of where we are on the whole Let's-get-the-entire-nursey-set-up-this-summer plan:

- All white furniture.  We have this all picked out, but have only purchased one crib so far (side note: please send any and all Bed, Bath and Beyond/Buy Buy Baby coupons your have our way)

- Mint green/pale aqua walls, with one or two walls accented with white stripes.  This is halfway done. The mint color is on the walls, stripes coming... soonish.

- Navy blue (for him) and coral (for her) throughout.  This was tougher than I thought it would be, and my mom and I ended up buying some cute fabric to make our own crib bedding (which means my mom and mother-in-law will be sewing this... not me!)  Here's what we got:

- I am also wanting to get some of those very Anthropologie-ish ruffled curtains for the window.  So we're talking stripes on the walls, ruffles on the curtains, patterns on the bedding, and then, you know, throw a rug and some art work in there somewhere too.  Oh and we ordered a chair with a geometric print on it.  Uhh.. too much?  Only time will tell.

I'll wrap this up because I know it's more than you probably ever wanted to know about my unborn children's bedroom, but before I do, here are some quick "before" shots of the room that is going to be the nursery:

Cleaning out this room was actually a big part of our June and July.  I lost count of Goodwill trips after our fourth one.  We had to do some serious purging and organizing, so that whatever was going to stay would have a new place in the house.  Like that dresser has moved to the guest room, where it looks so much better than, you know, right in the doorway of the room when you walk in!

This room has always been the place we stashed the things we just didn't know what to do with, or even never really unpacked when we moved almost a year and a half ago.  Some things have found new homes, thanks to our friend Craig ('s List).

This closet was my "dress closet," housing all my dresses.  I am proud to say the closet is now EMPTY for our two little foxes to fill, but that meant giving away a lot of clothes on my part, and then squeezing the remaining stuff into my actual closet (well, the Bridesmaid Dress Hall of Fame was relocated to a guest room...)

That little TV there, I bought with a year's worth of babysitting money when I was in the fourth grade.  I paid for it, in cash, at Best Buy years ago, and even remember handing over baggies of coins to the cashier.  I've never wanted to give it away, but it did finally make it's way to Goodwill.  Not before I gave it a hug though.

And now (finally!), here's where the room is now:

Empty (other than a kitty who still thinks it's his room) and in it's current, mid-paint stage.

Whew!  If you made it this long, congratulations.  I'll save the rest of my rambling for another day.