And this week I thought I’d better listen to my body and get some extra sleep, lest I go into labor already exhausted! Even better, the Lord has blessed me with a few great nights sleep, without being woken by a toddler, some sleeping in, and some refreshing daytime naps! With all that extra sleep I needed you can probably figure out why I haven’t been around much this week!

That being said, I have been busy around the house. So don’t think I’m sleeping the day away! Let me show you a bit of what I’ve gotten done the last couple of weeks.

I made a trip to Country Life Natural Foods to stock up on lots of baking supplies. We’ve now got pasta, flour (you can’t see the 50lbs I bought!) sugars, dried fruits, yeast, oil, and tons more I can’t remember. But now my pantry is full and I won’t have to worry about running out for something silly for the next few months.

I also made a bulk order from Mountain Rose Herbs for all my seasonings, some sea salt, and a gallon of coconut oil. I was impressed with everything and will definitely order through them again.
I also made up a big quart size mason jar of taco seasoning since it’s an easy meal Todd can make for us while I take a kitchen strike on my babymoon!

I also made a double batch of GF carrot zucchini muffins and some whole wheat banana bread.

A double batch of beef stew for dinner and lunches.

Some spaghetti sauce all packaged up and frozen.

Packaged up some bulk shredded cheese.

And put three more loaves of bread dough in the freezer.

And of course I didn’t take pictures of some of what I’ve done, so we can also add these to the list:

• Batch of bean soup for Todd’s lunches
• Double batch of chili for Todd’s lunches
• Chicken casserole, again for Todd’s lunches
• Double batch of granola bars
• Fresh OJ made and frozen to bring to the hospital for after labor
• and of course, the baby’s clothes washed and hung up.

This weekend I hope to get a few dinners in the freezer and all bags packed and ready to go. Because if you remember, Cody came 2 weeks early. So if this one does too, it’ll be within the next week. And she is definitely dropped and engaged at this point! But don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging, I’ve got a laptop to bring with me to the hospital now!

Monday:

• breakfast – whole grain pancakes, orange
• lunch – tuna sandwiches, cut veggies
• snack – veggies and dip
• dinner – omelets, homemade sausage, roast potatoes
• snack – smoothies (I’ve been having heartburn every night and the dairy in these helps a lot!)

To do – make 2 loaves bread (one to eat, one to freeze) make extra pancakes to freeze, make chili to freeze, make double batch of sausage to freeze. Clean out both kitchen and garage fridge.

Tuesday:

• breakfast – scrambled eggs, toast, oranges
• lunch –
• snack – fruit
• dinner – chicken casserole
• snack – smoothie

To do – make muffins to freeze (both whole wheat and gluten free) double casserole to freeze
Wednesday:

• breakfast – soaked oatmeal, fruit
• lunch – salad
• snack – granola bar
• dinner – grilled steak, broccoli, baked potatoes
• snack – smoothie

To do – double batch of granola bars, make gluten free bread, soak beans for soup, make burrito casserole to freeze
Thursday:

• breakfast – fried eggs, toast, fruit
• lunch – grilled cheese sandwiches, cut veggies
• snack – fruit or veggies
• dinner – bean soup for Todd, chicken noodle soup for me
• snack – smoothie

To do – make bean soup, make gluten free pancakes, make and freeze spaghetti sauce, make and freeze pizza crusts

Friday:

• breakfast – muffins, fruit
• lunch – chicken noodle soup
• dinner – baked salmon, steamed veggies, baked potato, salad
• snack – smoothie

Saturday:

• breakfast – pancakes, fruit
• lunch – leftovers/salad
• dinner – homemade pizza
• snack – homemade ice cream!

To do – make double batch of pizza crusts to freeze, make pizza sauce

Sunday:

• breakfast – eggs, toast, fruit
• lunch – leftovers
• dinner – roast chicken, potatoes, steamed veggies

This weeks featured nursery is from Melissa over at Mama Monoblogs.

Melissa’s Bio- I’m a Preschool teacher turned stay at home mom and love it. I have two girls, ages 3 and 16 months, and would love for God to bless me with at least two more. I’m a newbie at natural and healthy living and am continually learning all sorts of things about it. I love God, reading suspense, my family, blogging and a strong cup of coffee. I blog about my family life, mothering and my journey to a more natural, organized, simple and green lifestyle at Mama Monoblogs.

On to the tour……

Ok. So right off the bat I have to tell you that this is a new look for my daughter’s nursery. I asked my husband to a) please hang a picture on my daughter’s wall that’s been needing to be hung for quite some time now and b) fix the border that was falling off. He decided to go ahead and rearrange her furniture, and make some other changes in the room as well. What you are seeing for the first time in these pictures, is also new to me. I’ve done some tweaking but I’m still not sure if I’m crazy about the new set up. But for now, we’ll go with hubby’s vision for the room and go ahead with the crib tour.

This is standing from the doorway looking in.

(Yes, that is a mountain of my daughter’s unwashed laundry you see in the corner. Oh, you didn’t notice it? Oh, well. Now you do.)

We live in an older colonial built in 1936. The rooms are on the smaller side but have a lot of antique “charm”. I especially find the tiny closets very charming. So to add more storage space to this room we hung some shelving and have an “open air” storage philosophy.

This is the view from the wall opposite the doorway where you can see the crib and armoire.

I love the nursery bedroom set we received as a gift from my generous in laws. It’s very well built and should last us through all of our children(and possibly grandchildren!!)

The theme I chose was one sold at Babies R’ Us. I’ll admit I’m a girly girl and I love pink for baby girls. So I found a theme that was pink enough and that could grow with her without being too baby-ish. This nursery was set up for my first daughter and pretty much stayed exactly the same (until today) for my second. We use a standard changing table with baskets underneath. I keep my cloth diapering supplies in the pink rolling storage bin to the left of the changing table. I also keep a few days worth of clothing under there. Once I run out I take the clothing from the armoire and put a few more day’s worth in the baskets. I do still use disposables at night so I have to keep a diaper hanger and diaper pail in the room.

Reading and Rocking Corner

This is our reading and rocking corner. It is also our storage corner. Although I have a perfectly good, large shelf to keep all the books on, I keep a basket of books next to the rocker since I’m too lazy to get up while reading to get more books off the shelf. I also keep storage bins for outgrown clothing there, ready to be taken up to the attic once full. The rocking chair was a hand me down. Many a cozy cuddle time has been spent in that rocking chair. I’ve always meant to get new cushions for it but never got around to it.

Baby Shrine Corner

This corner is next to the closet. I call it my Baby Shrine. I’ve done this for both my girls. I hang a small shelf on the wall and put a newborn picture of them on it along with, what my 3 year old daughter calls her “ born hat”, the little newborn hats put on them right after birth. I also keep any special gifts given to them or mementos from their birth. I hope to carry on this little tradition with any future children and hope it will be special to them as they get older.

So, there you have it. The grand crib tour. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Donielle for hosting this and for all you wonderful readers for reading it.

From Ali: I am mom to a precious baby boy and an ornery yellow lab. I am wife to a patient, small-town kinda guy, and without him, I’d surely be off my rocker. I blog about the not-so-sunny side of motherhood because it is cheap therapy. And I pray A LOT, because without the big man upstairs, I’d still be in bed.

Even though we could not believe that we were pregnant (we were actually trying not to get pregnant), we both knew instantly that we were having a boy. Before ever having an ultrasound, I purchased little boy clothes, and months before his arrival, we had agreed on our son’s name.
And at 15 weeks gestation, we learned that, indeed, we were having a boy (we had a 4D ultrasound at 15 weeks).

Surprise or not, we were elated about this baby. I started dreaming up the nursery immediately (heck, I already had clothes and a name), and I determined that I wanted a room that could grow with my son.

Because my husband is an outdoorsman, and because I think that the outdoors are even cuter when you bring ‘em indoors (popping a tent in the middle of my cozy living room only steps away from running water is far more appealing than setting up camp in the middle of nowhere among bugs and hungry critters), we settled on a camping theme. And because I’m, well, cheap, I was determined to make my son’s nursery as cost-efficient as possible.

For starters, we decided against a changing table; rather we topped an old dresser with a changing pad and storage basket. Above the “table” we hung pictures of immediate family members creating a space to highlight those individuals who play a special role in our son’s life. Additionally, we received my mother-in-law’s rocking chair (the same one she had when her children were babies) and dressed it with a pillow and blanket from the mother store Target.

We have an ongoing debate in our house. My husband is a hunter, a very proud hunter. Proud hunters like to kill and display. I don’t like killing, and I especially don’t like displaying killed things. But when I saw this stuffed deer head, I thought, “now that’s a compromise.” And sure enough, my husband loved it! Though my son has never killed anything (and I hope he never does), his room proudly displays a much kinder version of what my husband only dreams of dressing our mantle with. Dream on, honey.

Underneath the stuffed dear head is one of my most favorite shower gifts. Someone so wonderfully created my son’s name “scrapbook style” and framed it. I love this gift, and I highly suggest creating something like this for a friend if you know the name of their unborn child.

Our curtains were handmade by my better-than-Martha mother-in-law, and the crib blanket was a gift from my ‘rents (it is actually a comforter). Don’t freak out, I would never cover my baby with it. It’s removed from his crib when he’s in it, but it will be something he can use into his boyhood. And the clock. I love the clock. The ticker is a hanging fish – how cute! It’s another great piece that will grow with our boy.

Whadya think of the wall art? Cheapest wall art ever! I bought blank canvas, printed out animal silhouettes, enlarged the silhouettes, traced the silhouettes onto the canvas, and painted away! Aren’t they fun?
Oh, and the rocking horse – it was mine when I was a kid!

This is a minor detail but oh-so-darlin’. I found these bear claw hanging posts at Target (did I mention, “I heart Target?”). Holy cuteness!

And finally, the armoire was an old tv chest turned dresser turned storage for my son’s room. Atop the armoire are five lanterns, two of which I found for dirt-cheap on eBay and three of which I bought for five bucks each at Walmart. Don’t they make you want to roast a marshmallow?

And that is that. We bought a converter crib, so when our boy is old enough, we simply convert the crib to a bed, remove the changing pad from the dresser, and ladies and gentlemen, we’ll have ourselves a little boy’s room! Voila.

Thanks for sharing with us Alison, I’m definitely impressed with how well the entire theme plays out throughout the room! So Cute! And don’t forget to swing by her place and say hello.

For now, we’ll be taking a 2 week break from this series over the holidays, but if you would like to be featured when we come back, just drop me an e-mail to

(and remember, this is open to everyone, even non-bloggers. And I’d love to see what some of you are doing who either don’t have room for a nursery or even co-sleep!)

I’m a really bad blogger. And Sara hasn’t even hollered at me yet! Here is this weeks featured nursery a day late! Sorry Sara!

Today we’ll get to peek in on little Z’s nursery thanks to mom Sara. Sara blogs over at Lovin’ My Fellas and has 3 little boys along with a fantastic hubby.

Well, nurseries have a long and storied history in our family. When I found out I was pregnant with my first (twins!), my husband and I decided our one bedroom condo in the city was probably going to be too small for our family, so we sold it and rented a two bedroom apartment in the suburbs. There, we set up the first nursery, but didnʼt put too much thought into it because we knew we would be moving again seven months after the twins were born.

At that point, we moved so that my husband could go to grad school. We painted the nursery a nice baby blue for my two boys, put up shelves, bought pictures for the walls, the works. We loved the two years we spent there (and hated to leave to set up our THIRD nursery in corporate housing for my husbandʼs summer internship!). This past April, we were able to finally buy a house and settle down for a while.

The twins are now almost three, so when we moved into the house, they got a “big boy room.” Plus, we were excited to be expecting our third in October! When we moved in, we didnʼt know the sex of the baby, but we wanted to get all of the painting in the bedrooms done, so the babyʼs room ended up yellow. That is basically how we started building our FOURTH nursery in three years.

The crib in baby Zʼs room is a hand-me-down. We purchased lifetime cribs for the twins, so they are still using them as toddler beds and will be for a while. Thus, we needed a new bed. When the twins were born, my cousin offered this crib up to my parents so that they could use it at their house in conjunction with the crib that was mine as a baby. Now that we only have one baby, they were able to pass this one over to our house. The quilt on the crib is from Pottery Barn Kids, a gift for Z from his grandma. The window has a valance and a black-out shade. The valance is from Loweʼs, and the green gingham happened to perfectly match the green gingham on the quilt! What luck!

Around the corner from the crib, we have the dresser/changing table. With the twins, I didnʼt want to have a separate changing table in their room because we already had two cribs. I loved using the dresser as a changing table so much for them that I decided to do it again. I picked up this dresser new at an outlet for The Land of Nod. At the same outlet, I found the rug, too – it
was a steal at just $8 for a chenille rug that normally retailed for $150! Next to the dresser, we keep the diaper pail handy.

The light above the dresser is from IKEA – it is one of my favorite parts of the room. It was really inexpensive, and it casts the perfect amount of soft light.

This rocker was purchased from Babies R Us when the twins were born. I love it because it is really comfortable and because we have so many memories in that rocker! Now that Z is transitioning to sleeping in his room (he has been sleeping in our room in a bassinet), I know it will be getting a lot more use. The table is just a decorator table from Bed Bath & Beyond, and the lamp is another find from The Land of Nod outlet. The base is a buoy and the shade is a nautical map to go with the sailboats on the quilt.

Next to the chair, we have the closet and then some bookshelves. The shelves are hand-me-downs that we got when we first got married by “shopping” in my inlawsʼ attic. All of the books were chosen by Zʼs big brothers to be handed down to him. To the left of the shelves, we have a basket of baby toys. Now that Z is two months old, he might start to be able to use a few of them! On the right, we have a childrenʼs coat rack. I love this coat rack (another outlet purchase), but I am not sure what to do with it now. Any ideas?

As far as accessories and wall decor go, we are sorely lacking. I recently purchased a vinyl wall quote at Kohlʼs to put on the wall, but it hasnʼt made it there yet. It says, “I see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me.” I also have visions of doing some SIMPLE watercolor paintings of sailboats to hang on the wall, but my bet is that Z will be in a big boy room before that happens. Here are a few things we do have around…

On the left side of the dresser, we have the monitor and a handprint kit with five tins to make handprint impressions each of Zʼs first five years. The glass block is a nightlight that was a gift when the twins were born. It has a string of ten white holiday lights inside, and it gives off the perfect amount of light at night – I love it!

Not exactly accessories, but here is what is on the other side of the dresser. These are our diaper changing essentials. The wipes warmer is perfect for keeping cloth wipes moist so that I am not constantly running to the sink to get them wet. We also have lotion and hand sanitizer. The blue bottle is some Bac-Out to spray on dirty diapers – I love the stuff because it helps to eat all of the mess away and I donʼt have as many stained diapers! Speaking of diapers…

The top right drawer of the dresser is our diaper drawer. I was doing diaper laundry as I took this picture, but it shows a general idea. We do a mixture of pockets and prefolds, and we just keep all of our supplies here so they are ready to go.

One of my favorite things in the room is a set of four wooden pull toys. They were handmade for Z by one of his great-great uncles. Isnʼt that incredible?!

Thanks so much for stopping by Zʼs room! It is a work in progress, but I think that is what helps make
it feel like home.

Thanks for letting us in Sara! I’m thoroughly impressed with all the cuteness! And if you’d like to join in as well during our nursery tour, just contact me at donielle at raisingpeanuts.com

This edition’s nursery visit is brought to you by Jodi, from JodiMichelle.com. Jodi is a stay at home mom with two little ones and also does some photography on the side. She also writes a blog, where we get to see all the Etsy and antique store finds she comes across. (seriously, the girl is like a ‘cool magnet’ for stuff on Etsy!) Now this isn’t all she writes about mind you, her blog is a lot like our own lives, eclectic. A little bit of everything. Join me as we sneak a peek into her nursery!

Welcome to our nursery! We’ve had two, one for each child and they’ve been dramatically different, mostly because of the rooms they’re in, but here is our sons nursery – he’s the baby, 6 months old. This nursery is still very much in use.

Everything in this nursery is on it’s second wind. The crib we had from when our daughter was about a year old, we bought that new – and that was an adventure. I never want to have to shop for a crib again.

The rocking chair is from my fraternal grandparents – it’s their tradition to buy each grandchild a rocking chair as their wedding present. We had it in storage until we moved to this house (I was pregnant with big sis) and have used it in our nurseries ever since. I love the story behind this chair and hope that I can pass it on to Jessica or Oliver when/if they have kids.

The room itself started out as an office, then a guest room and now the nursery. I was infatuated with fish and all things aquatic when I was pregnant with Oliver and made the curtains myself. They’re by no means straight or perfect but thats one of the reasons I love the motif so much. Fish are just funny that way. We thought about painting the pine walls, we have many, many walls like this in our house and have painted only one room – it was a process and we just decided not to tackle that. We did however decide to get quite a large rug for the room. It’s hardwood floors are beautiful, but that was too much wood for me.

Here’s how we did the rug: I went to a local carpet shop and only allowed myself to look at the roll-ends (most carpet and flooring centers should have these) I had my dimensions with me so I knew how big the room was – I didn’t really care if the carpet was a certain size, although I knew I wanted it bigger than a little throw rug. When I saw this carpet I immediately loved it. It was blue and white in a wonderful little weave – but the sticker said AS IS and made me a little nervous so I asked about it – apparently there was a little pull in the middle of the whole thing. Problem solved. I bartered on the price until I got it to what I was willing to pay ($200 total) and had them bind the edges so I could use it as a rug and not have to worry about installation. They threw that in the price for me.

Everything else in the nursery is furniture we had in other rooms of the house and all very repurposed. We never owned a changing table in the first nursery – we bought an antique oak dresser that doubled as the changing bed and now is our dresser in the master bedroom. So we lost the changing table and needed to get creative. I did buy another dresser, this time wicker, from my favorite antique store but it smelled of mold so we got rid of it quickly. For a while we were using this puny little coffee table that we had to bend on our knees in order to change a diaper and then, with some friends help, we decided to try this yellow table – pulled from our entry way/mud room and the new changing table was born!

We also bought this at an antique fair. We like us some antiques in this house. The locker is his dresser/storage of bottles, burp cloths, sheets and linens. And the organization underneath the changing table is also due to my very helpful friends. A yellow tub holds toys while 3 red bins hold diapers, blankets and plush toys/overflow. We can also store the unsightly trash bin underneath the table with no issues.
The accesories:
The side table is actually a plant stand that I picked up from my brothers house when he moved and didn’t want it any more. I just repainted it – we store books on the shelves and a basket of nursing essentials. A burp cloth, ointment, tissues, tweezers, nipple shields (for the first few weeks of nursing), a book for me and a bottle of water.

The water spigot hangers I found on etsy (http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=10631996) and we use them to hang hats, jackets or other trinkets for wall decoration doubled as storage.

The art in the room – I bought a couple things from etsy (http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=7566215) and (http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=7566168) and the YIELD sign I got, you guess it, from my favorite antique store.

The red bins we’re using for storage underneath the changing table are from ikea (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50115579) same with the added lighting (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10124712)

I made the blanket for the crib and I swapped crib bumpers with a girlfriend because the one we had for Jessica’s crib was made to fit the older style cribs (which we had – we were using my husbands childhood crib at first) and the fabric we chose didn’t go well in the new room.

And thats our nursery. The furniture has been a few different ways but I love how it’s set up right now. I envision this being a room to grow up in – and easy to change directions and themes as he gets older.

Thanks for letting us in Jodi! And if anyone would like their nursery featured, just email me at donielle at raisingpeanuts.com.

I’ve actually had to decorate my nursery twice. I had it all finished, complete with a built in changing table built by my hubby, and then we moved when our little guy was just a year old.

I loved and hated my first nursery. I loved the colors, I loved the changing table (and cried that we couldn’t take it with us when we left!) and I loved the fact that I already had so many memories of nights rocking my sweet little newborn to the tune of the coyotes. But I hated the fact that it had no heat during the winter and no air during the summer. We lived in an old farmhouse and they never ran duct work upstairs, so we had to supplement with our own oil filled heater and air conditioner unit. After a year of paying over three hundred dollars a month for gas and electric, we decided to move.

The problem is, we moved in before the house was finished and the nursery just never got back to the way it was. First it was because we were to tired after moving to mess with it, then it was because we were busy with other things, and now it’s the fact that we have another one on the way and big brother will be moving downstairs soon to a new bedroom. So now my nursery is in limbo. Waiting for the day we find out the sex of our baby.

Our nursery is right next to the master bedroom, which is so much nicer than having to tramps upstairs in the middle of the night to change or put a little someone back to bed. (although it is much harder to let him cry-it-out!)

We still have a cribTo which someone decided to snack on a few months ago

And although I don’t actually use it as such, a changing table. Because me and the changing table are not friends you see. While I love the fact that it has a pull out hamper, it is way to short for me and I have to hunch over to use it. Plus, even as a one year old, my kiddos legs seemed to be going over the edge! So I’m really holding out and hoping I can find a dresser to replace it with.

I’ve got newborn and baby stuff way up on the top shelf, one size up clothes on the top right rack, current clothes on the bottom right rack as well as down the shelves in the middle (which is also why I want a dresser, putting everything on shelves is a pain!) bottom left rack has outgrown clothes that need to be put away and the top left rack is again full of newborn things. Oh, and see the moses basket? I got that at a garage sale last year! I was so excited, I think they are to cute! And at the bottom of the closet I’ve put my gliders ottoman in there since we don’t really use that right now, the boppy, and another tub of outgrown clothes.

Another closet bonus – it doubles as a hiding space!

Unfortunately decorations are few. The shelf I have up came from Babies R Us as a Christmas gift the Christmas after he was born. Oh, but check out the teddy bear on the shelf! That was my moms when she was very young, and she gave it to me when I was a kid. All the fuzz is worn completely off, but isn’t it cute?
So there you have it, my nursery. And hopefully in just a few short months I’ll be able to knock your socks off with all my creativeness when I decorate the new one!

Wanna join in and show us your nursery? “Welcome to My Nursery” is open to bloggers and non-bloggers alike, just e-mail me at donielle at raisingpeanuts.com and we’ll schedule you in! You can also check out the full post here for details.