Fall Front Porch + Family Photos + Cutest.Turtle.Ever.

I figured I better get going on my Fall Front Porch post. In another month I'll be decorating for Christmas already! I can't believe it. This year has gone by faster than others. I swear. Plus, I don't want Brittaney to lose anymore sleep over not seeing my front porch--which she demanded on Instagram.

Well, and what good is a Fall front porch photoshoot without people (and dog). Here's our front porch in action:

Scout never really looks impressed in photos. Don't let him fool you, he likes being included.

I went for a quick and simple design this year. I don't have a ton of time, to mess with decor and hem and haw over things...now I spend most of my free time chasing Ben around. He's crawling and boy can he move!

The rusty raised tub is from my parents garage. Thanks mom and dad! 

The chair was a $1 estate sale find. It's probably on it's last leg, but it was the best $1 ever spent. I truly love this chair and it's chippy goodness. 

I hung my thirfted tobacco basket on the door and stuck a wreath from Homegoods right inside.

I love the layered look.

We snapped a few fall family photos last weekend. We didn't have time to get with our photographer, but we really wanted to have a few photos taken at our home when the leaves turn. Luckily one of my very best friends visited and brought her camera along.

The Photo Crew...

GLAM PLAID SQUAD. Gets you maternity photo ready in a jiffy.

And is this not the CUTEST turtle you ever did see? Adam's favorite turtle when he was little was the blue one, Leonardo. So therefor, it is Ben's favorite turtle...until he can decide on his own that is.

He learned patty cake last week.

What was your favorite ninja turtle?
Did you take fall family photos? Professional or snapped a few at home?

Nursery Details: Billy the Bison

I love the animal bust trend all over blogs right now.  I knew I wanted one in the nursery. But didn't want something too modern. I wanted to keep the vintage and preppy theme in the room.

If you remember we added our own flair to a vintage find in our dining room. We gave a $5 flea market find a makeover.

See the before here!

Anyway, back to the Billy Bison.

For this project we used We used the Billy in the Junior size from Cardboard Safari. We chose the classic tan color. I'd seen people paint these, and maybe if we ever change it up, we will do that. But I liked the plain classic tan for this project. It went best with the look of the rest of his room.

It took about 20 minutes to put together. I should point out, that it would have taken less time, but I thought I was super smart and didn't pay much attention to the directions. So I realized I messed it up halfway through---read the instructions, then did it the right way pretty easily.

For the backing we took apart the thrift store frame, and covered the back cardboard in fabric. To secure Billy Jr to it we turned to our trusty staple gun. That's it!

We love the way it looks on his mini gallery wall above his dresser/ changing table. We're really happy with it and know we can use it even as he grows and gets a 'big boy room' in a few years.

photo credit AB Photography

See more of Ben's vintage nursery!

Check out the wild and crazy before of that beautiful blue dresser makeover!

Thanks to Cardboard Safari for providing Billy the Bison for this project! All opinions are my own.

Being a Mama..so far

I normally like to stick to house stuff on the blog, but want to share a little of our family life too. We'll be back to regularly scheduled house stuff tomorrow. And back to posting once or more a week too!

If I would have had time, I would have posted this BEFORE Mother's Day. But one of the things I've learned in the 3 short months of being a mom is that things no longer are on my schedule. Someone else runs the show now and his name is Benjamin.

photo credit AB Photography

I've learned so much already and love every day with this kid. He's adorable even when he's mad. I still have a weepy melt-y heart when he smiles and giggles. I can't explain how much I love this sweet baby.

We get millions questions from friends and family, so I thought I'd cover the basics here for those in blogland interested in how we are doing too.

HIS BIRTH:
Let's skip the birth story...I will spare you the real details of his birth--here's the short version:
Went to sleep Friday night at 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant and really crabby about it.
I woke up at 3:30 a.m. because my back hurt. Outside we were having a lovely Illinois snowstorm. I quickly realized as the back pain was getting really intense...it was labor pain. Adam loaded up the car and called our parents. Then my water broke. We made it to the hospital in the snow and ice...with not much time to spare. Ben was born at 6:37 a.m.
Thank god we have a Jeep, not sure we'd have made it into town with any other vehicle. The on call doctor apparently does not have a Jeep, because she could not make it to the birth.
Everything happened so quickly. I was not prepared for such an intense and fast arrival. There was not even time for the 'you won't feel a thing' drugs I heard so much about!

SLEEP:

He's a fabulous sleeper. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying that out loud!

I was prepared for many many sleepless nights with this kid. But he started sleeping through the night at just 3 weeks old. I'm sure he will go through a time when this is not the case, but we're enjoying it while it lasts! We are lucky. But it's not all luck.
I believe we can give ourselves an itty bitty bit of credit too. I believe in a routine.  Kiddo gets a bath at 8 p.m. every night, swaddled, and fed...then put to sleep. Routine is the key. When we didn't do this, we would notice a big difference in his sleeping.  Now, he will still wake up here and there for a late night feeding. But I'd say 9/10 nights he sleeps from 8:30pm-6:30am. 

Routine. Routine and a good sound machine. The keys to getting a good night sleep in my house!

Baptism weekend.

EATING:

I chose to nurse Ben. It was hard at first. It was painful. It was stressful. It still is sometimes. We are both learning and teaching each other. Our hospital is wonderful and sends a nurse to your home shortly after you give birth to help with breastfeeding and baby care. 

For the first month and a half he was nursing every two hours during the day. It was exhausting and stressful. I felt like I never had a break. After awhile we got the hang of it and figured each other out. Now he only eats 6 times a day, and almost on a pretty good schedule. Again, routine makes life easier on everybody in our house.

PUMPING: 

I hate it. I hate finding time to pump. I've had to sneak away from family get-togethers and parties to pump. I've pumped while driving. I've pumped in a parking lot. I've pumped while everyone else is sleeping and I only want to sleep. It stinks. Scheduling pumping time is a pita. However, it's paying off. I have a small supply of freezer stash. This will ensure I get much needed time away from baby.  I will need to figure out an entire new pumping routine when I go back to work (next week!).

GEAR:

I love my Boba wrap. I used this thing several times a day in the first two months. Now we only use it a few times a week since there is less sleeping and more playing and awake time. But I will for sure take it with me while we are on the go this summer. Ben loves being close to me in it and usually snuggles up and naps. I was nervous about learning how to tie it up safely but it's SO simple. A quick Youtube search and you are ready to baby wear!

We also have a BabyBjorn, but haven't use it yet. We purchased it used off a local parent site so we didn't get an instruction booklet with it and it came all buckled weird. We just have to take the time to get it all buckled correctly and we will try it. Any tips on the BabyBjorn are appreciated!

If you are an expecting mom get yourself a Sound Machine. This is one item I did not register for but Adam's cousin Laura gifted to us. She swears by it and now I do too. It's great to cover up noise when Ben is asleep. He goes to bed at 8:30 every night, but we don't. He can't hear us if we are watching a movie, or putting away dishes. We don't feel like we need to tiptoe around when baby is asleep.

Me & Ben & BobaWrap

Adam giving Scout a pep talk on Ben's first day home.

BABY & SCOUT:
We weren't really too worried about Scout & Ben. We've seen Scout play with our nephews, or with our friends' kids, and he loves them. They jump on him and pull his tail, and snuggle him and Scout smiles away and runs around with them the entire time. We knew Ben and him would be fast friends. My mom on the other hand was sure Scout was going to "bite the baby's butt" and Scout would be banished to their house to live. Sorry mom. I think she secretly wanted Scout to just ever so lightly nibble Ben's bum because they miss having a dog at their house.

When we brought Ben home from the hospital Scouty was curious and interested. Naturally he wanted to give Ben a sniff several times a day. Only once we saw him put his nose inside the bassinet though. Mostly he'd just peek and sniff. Now he sits by us every day while I nurse Ben, and I know they we be best buddies as soon as Ben is on the move.  Scout surprisingly respects Ben's toys. We only have to tell Scout 'NO' once each time a new toy comes out.  We're pretty impressed with his manners. However, I do have to say when Ben is upset and having a crying fit Scout quickly excuses himself to the other room. He's not much help.

Proud big brother Scout.  | photo credit AB Photography

DIAPERS:

Boy do we go through these things like crazy. Much less now than when he was just a tiny newborn. But they still aren't cheap! My advice to expecting mamas: sign up for Amazon mom. Diapers shipped to your door--the last thing you want to do with your precious 2 hours of free time between feedings and away from baby is to schlep to Walmart.

So far our favorite brands are Luvs and Target Up & Up brand. Blowouts contained 99% of the time versus those higher priced Pampers.

In all, I love being Ben's mama. It's weird sometimes to think 'I'm a MOM.' My friends even agreed with me this weekend. I'm the first one in this group of friends to have a kiddo. Yep, it is weird.
But, it's also so wonderful.

Did I miss anything? What else do you want to know? I've got all kinds of expert new mom wisdom now. Hah, I kid I kid.
I go back to work on Monday. Any tips for me? I already know this one...no mascara!

Nursery Dresser Makeover: From Wild Tween to Vintage Preppy!

When we shared Ben's Vintage Nursery we said the "before" on this dresser was pretty wild...here she is:

Wild is right, yes? That would be neon green, bright purple, and pink, orange mixed in there too!

This was in my sister's room when she was a tween. Her bedroom was painted all crazy. Like, I'm talking Nickelodeon themed colors, and stripes, and neon, with zig zags on the wall. I wish I had a photo to show you. But you will just have to imagine the colors from this dresser--but up the crazy x1000.
Prior to becoming purple beast, this piece had been in the family for awhile. It actually belonged to my great grandparents. I'm not sure what the original dresser color was, but I'm going to guess it wasn't this bright. It's nothing fancy, but it was nice to have a piece from my family for his room.

The plan was to stain the top of the dresser a deep walnut brown, and paint the rest in a bright chalk paint blue. Adam had to strip the top of the dresser for me (paint thinner not pregnant lady friendly!) And scrape all the layers of paint off.  And I'm talking layers. This dresser had been painted several times before the Nickelodeon tween room.

When we got the paint off, we realized the top was not ~real wood~. Adam took the sander to it and lightly sanded the top to make it smooth.

We were ready to begin!

Since the top was not real wood, we used Minwax Gel Stain in Dark Walnut. The gel stain works on fabricated wood.

This was after the first layer of stain...not so bad but needed another coat.

I used Webster's Chalk Powder paint, mixed with Sherwin Williams Blue Plate. The chalk paint powder is all natural, so it was safe for me to use it while I was pregnant.  The nice thing about chalk paint is that the piece doesn't need to be primed or anything, just wiped down and painted! 

I mixed it with Sherwin Williams Blue Plate and used their Harmony brand of paint which has 0 VOC. 

I probably would have been fine with regular SW paint, and a mask, and outside..but I was a spaz about that sort of thing. I also avoided ham sandwiches and JIMMY JOHNS for the whole first trimester. Now that was hard to do!

Anyway, it took me one weekend to paint it. Mostly because I was tired from being pregnant. I had to take 600 breaks. It could have been finished in one day by a non-pregnant person. The paint dries SUPER fast, and there was hardly any sanding involved.  

I finished it with a dark wax by Fiddles N Sons brand... Which Webster's recommends for use with their products.

Here it is all done up in Ben's room.

The pulls were from Menards hardware section. I'm more of an Oil Rubbed Bronze hardware girl, but the brushed dark silver just looked so much nicer.  They also go nice with the DIY bookcase in his room. We'll share about that very soon, along with some other great details!

See the rest of Ben's vintage nursery!

Ben's Vintage Inspired Nursery

Photos of Ben's nursery are here! I'll provide more detailed info on our DIYs in the room in a later post. Today, we'll just share the vintage goodness!


Vintage Rocking horse, a gift from Ben's Great Aunt Wendy sits in front of his Jenny Lind crib.

This giraffe used to hang in my childhood bedroom.

My dad made this zen garden for me a few years back. It sits on his side table.

A view of one side of the room.
The chair is missing from the room right now, as it sits in our bedroom for now.

The bookshelf was a DIY which we will share later in the details post!

Plenty of room for more books!

I used scrap fabric from the baby showers to tie back these Ikea curtains.

This corner of the room turned out perfect. The dresser was a DIY makeover. Can't wait to share this makeover... you won't believe the crazypants "before"!

We used the Billy from Cardboard Safari above the changing table. We'll talk about this DIY with you coming up too!

You may remember this hilarious President Scout print from Uncommon Goods I shared a few months ago.

His mobile was a gift from a dear friend.  It goes perfect in the room, and is something I would have chosen for the nursery myself.

All photo credit in this post goes to the talented Andrea Beltz from AB Photography. She did our newborn photos which we L-O-V-E and snapped a few photos of the nursery for us too! Sharing one of our favorites of little Benjamin below.

Isn't that face the sweetest? Happy Friday!

Oh, p.s. A reminder we have a GIVEAWAY going on right now with Body After Baby! Ends in a few days! Awesome for new moms, expecting moms too...would be a great baby shower gift too! Enter here!

He's Here!

Introducing Benjamin Henry.

Ben was born during a snowstorm Saturday February 21st at 6:37 a.m. Everyone is healthy and happy.
We're taking a short break from the blog and enjoying our sweet boy and taking 1 million photos of him. We will be back next week!


P.S. If you want to see a few more baby photos..and maybe some sneaks of the nursery...follow us on Instagram!