Newly Parents | Newlyweds To First Time Parents…and Everything in Between

Houston, We Have A Fussy Baby!

// May 14th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Marriage

Today was the final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis and being that I am at home with my three month old son I wanted to watch it with him since there may not be any more shuttle launches to watch in the future.

Unfortunately the shuttle launch came after feeding time and just before nap time which means he fussed and cried through the entire launch and didn’t see any of it. If he was old enough to remember this day he would be kicking himself later down the road. But since he won’t remember anything I will just have to remind him when he is 16 when he is talking about the ancient space shuttles in Science class. Of course by then, we will all have our own personal space shuttles right? That’s what they kept telling us in the 1950’s.

In other news, with my mother visiting us this weekend my wife wanted the house cleaner than ever (as she does with all visitors) so we spent all last night cleaning. The only thing we were missing was air fresheners which she said, “Just take the baby to Wal-Mart tomorrow and get them before your mom gets here.” I like how she picked the one day of the year when we got over 3 inches of rain in just under half a day. I never realized how much effort it takes to get a baby to Wal-Mart in the rain. Trying to carry an umbrella, car seat, diaper bag and lock the car doors is near impossible in the rain.

I also had an item to return but there was no way I could fit anything else into my rain soaked ensemble. So it’s still sitting in the passenger seat for the next trip to Wal-Mart.

I decided today that it’s time the baby starts seeing his bedroom a little more often. You see, the baby sleeps in our room for now in a bassinet and we have been dressing him/changing him downstairs in the playpen for convenience (his bedroom is upstairs). So he rarely ever gets to see his bedroom. So since he sleeps through the night now and we don’t have to get up to change him there is really no need to keep everything downstairs in the living room. This will also help declutter our living room. It’s true what they say, the baby really does take over every part of the house.

I think he likes being in his bedroom. He’s basically looking at all new stuff since he spends so little time in there. Mommy isn’t going to be too happy though. She will see this as a sign he is growing up and we are losing our baby. Yesterday she was talking about how she can’t wait until his Kindergarten graduation but then she gets sad whenever he outgrows an outfit and we have to retire it.

Nursery Pictures!

// December 2nd, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Baby

Over the Thanksgiving break we spent several days painting and decorating the nursery for the baby. Here are some pictures we took along the way!

This is what the room looked like when we bought the house. Reminds me of The Brady Bunch!

Two coats of primer and we’re ready to start taping and painting! Notice the green tape. This is Frog Tape. It’s 10x better than the standard blue painters tape.

Two coats of Sky Blue. Now to move on to the stripes.

Sandstone stripe. It looked pink while it was wet. We we’re a little worried. We also had to use 3 inch blue painters tape for the next stripe we were about to paint. You’ll see the different results from the tape in a moment.

Finishing off the stripes with Starry White

Here’s the difference between Frog Tape and blue painters tape. The top tan line was taped off with blue tape. The bottom blue line was taped off with green Frog tape. Very little paint bled through the Frog tape while the blue tape looked like this around the entire room. We spent an hour going around the room with a little brush touching this up. You can buy Frog Tape at Lowe’s.

You can’t paint a room without having a mess. Don’t forget the drop cloth! We went through about 80-100 yards of tape.

The finished product! Now to clean up and put the furniture in!

The Baby’s Room!

Wifey painted these to go along with the rock star crib bedding.

Wifey painted this for Husbands 27th birthday. It fits nicely with the Rock Star theme so we decided to put it in the babys room.

All in all we spent 3 days painting and putting together furniture. We did learn that if you are going to paint a room, you get what you pay for. Buy a good brand of paint (don’t forget the primer), buy good brushes and rollers (the cheap ones will wear out after one wall), drop cloth ($3 drop cloth is cheaper than replacing carpet when you kick something over), and of course buy Frog Tape. It’s also handy to have some paint that is the same color as the ceiling because you will undoubtedly bump the roller against the ceiling. If you buy a small quart of paint for ceiling touch ups that will be handy. It will cost you an extra $10 or so but well worth it.

If you plan on painting any horizontal or vertical stripes in the room, we would suggest getting a 4ft level to ensure your lines are straight. We picked one up at Wal-Mart for $12. It made taping the lines so much easier! If you just try to eye ball it, it will be crooked!

Also, don’t forget the touch ups at the end. When you think you have everything done you are actually only about 90% done. Go back over each wall and look closely for spots that need a touch up. Do it now while you still have everything out otherwise there’s a 99% chance you will never go back and do it!

So the nursery is all done. Now all we need is the baby. 3 months and counting!

Let us know what you think and we would love to see pictures of your nursery so leave us a comment and a link if you have pictures!

Painting can be easy and a lot of fun if you take the time to do it right. Check out the How-To video that we found on painting a room. You can view it at the top of the page on the right.

Enjoy!