OhMyWow.

Well, as I mentioned last Monday, the furniture for LO's room finally came in and was ready for pick up or delivery. Can you just imagine my excitement?! YAY!!!

We chose to pay a chunky fee to have the furniture delivered, and it arrived at our home this past Friday night. Again, YAY!!! I couldn't wait to see it but everything arrived in the original shipping boxes, so there was no chance I'd be able to check it all out until after hubs was able to unbox it for me, which he couldn't really do with nosey LO around. Fast-forward to Saturday afternoon... hubs snuck into the baby's room (where we've stashed LO's furniture) and unboxed everything. This is where things were no longer "YAY!!!"

The first box he opened was the arched mirror that goes with the double dresser. The mirror panel was completely separated from the frame. This was quite unexpected. Especially once we noticed the mirror had two large chips out of both bottom edges (almost as if they had tried to screw through the mirror). Whoa. And the lovely wooden frame had large chips out of the bottom, front and center, where they would be completely exposed and visible once the mirror was placed on the dresser.

Insert shock n' awe here.

The fun continued when we started to unbox the dresser and headboard/footboard panels. Imagine a lovely white headboard, for example. Now add some lovely white wooden trim pieces to it for added decor. Pretty, right? Well, not if you don't caulk the seams. Yes, people, that's right. Basically everywhere you have added trim on the headboard, footboard and dresser you have these ugly shadowy seams where one would expect white caulk to be so as to hide such madness.

TERRIBLE.

I could NOT believe what I was seeing. And the drawers for the dresser? They pulled out unevenly and it was clear the drawer stops would need to be adjusted.

This is NOT what one would expect for quality, American-made, expensive furniture. And on top of that, how long could one expect said furniture to last if it requires so much maintenance and repair straight out of the box?!

I was pretty livid. Hubs was pretty calm. He said he could fix the mirror, caulk the trim/seams, etc... That's all well and good, and I have no doubt he'd be able to successfully complete these repairs. But my issue is that THESE ARE REPAIRS! ON BRAND NEW, EXPENSIVE FURNITURE!!!

And let me just mention that every single piece of furniture was clearly stamped, "MADE IN CHINA." Imagine my surprise when I contacted the manufacturer directly via Facebook and was told--and I quote--"the cribs are sourced from Vietnam and the rest is sourced from China."

{{gasp!}}

Wow. One of the bigger selling points that helped make our decision to purchase this set was that it was quality, American-made furniture. Apparently notsomuch.

So we went back to the reseller where we purchased the furniture this morning. We spoke with them about the issues we discovered and, surprisingly, they were willing to allow us to return all of the pieces for a full refund. They would even pick it up for no charge. Lovely. I asked specifically about the American-made aspect and was told all of the parts are in fact from China--but it's assembled in at their headquarters in High Point, North Carolina.

'Cause that's the same.

UGH. So now I cannot believe over 2 months have gone by since I first selected and ordered LO's new furniture and I'm BACK TO SQUARE ONE.

Do we keep the existing furniture? Is it okay that we have to do so many repairs straight out of the box? What is the likelihood this "quality" furniture will last until LO heads off to college?

Or do we find something else completely? And if so, how long will it take to find something we love and how long will it take to get here?

Not cool. This sucks. Knowing we weren't sure what our plans would be, I left the furniture reseller this morning and headed over to Rooms to Go Kids to shop around for a Plan B. Luckily I found two potential replacements, but with a huge caveat we'd have to consider.

The first is the Nicolette White Full Bedroom Collection:

It's rather similar to the set we already purchased, with a few downsides. First, I hate the drawer pulls on the dresser. But usually if I don't like it, sure enough LO will just so happen to LOVE it! She's funny that way. Plus I could always change out drawer pulls. No big. Secondly, since it's a platform bed, it only has one height for the side rails. It's designed for use with a trundle to be purchased separately (which we don't want), so the bed sits high and should be used with a mattress only or a bunky board underneath. This would render her existing box spring useless.

The second option I was actually kind of surprised to be drawn to. It's not quite what I've been looking at this entire time, but it's different in a good way. It's the Emily White Full Bedroom Collection:

I never really considered a metal scroll headboard/footboard option, but I really love the look of this one! And I still get my white double dresser and mirror, but with enough metal scroll accent to make the pieces look cohesive. I'm really kind of torn here! The other added benefit of this set is that you will be able to see the effort that is going into the accent wall behind the headboard in her room much better. It will be white beadboard with white chair rail, which you won't see much of with a white panel headboard there, but you'd see it much more with this one! And because this set is so ridiculously inexpensive, I'd even opt for a little canopy to hang on the ceiling above the headboard for added girly-ness, similar to this one at PBK (except probably with purple tulle):

But the biggest downside to ordering from Rooms to Go Kids is that they essentially have a NO REFUND policy. If for whatever reason we order one of these sets and didn't like it, we could only return it for store credit; not for a refund of the purchase price. I don't like the finality of that!

My plan is to mull things over for a bit and see where I land. It's gonna be a busy week with work and some other things going on but hopefully "THE" answer will hit me upside the head and I'll know what to do. It just seems like such a big decision to select furniture your child will use until they (hopefully) head off to college! So much pressure! And my goodness am I learning how incredibly picky I am these days! I had no idea! Maybe I can blame the pregnancy on that one... or not.

So does anyone have the perfect solution for our little dilemma? I'm all ears! Opinions welcome!!!

LO and the Author's Tea

Today was a special day for LO! She was selected by her Kindergarten class and teachers to attend her school's February Author's Tea. The Author's Tea is essentially a monthly gathering of selected students who read something they've written to the audience of other students and their parents. It's a special honor and we were overjoyed to attend this morning to see LO in her 30 seconds of glory! :)

 

Way to go, LO! We're so proud of you!! We loved your Valentine's Day story!

IT'S HERE!!! IT'S HERE!!!

OhMyGoodness I can hardly breathe! OhMyGoodness!!!

I just got my weekly Monday morning call from the furniture company. I was fully expecting (hoping/praying) for the typical "everything's on schedule... it'll be here by March 15th" phone call, but NO! Not today, my friends!

The new furniture for LO's new room is--get this!--HERE!!!!! It's here in town at the warehouse just waiting for us to either pick it up or arrange delivery! It's here! It's here! It's here!

Can you tell I'm excited?!?!?!?!

Seriously, I had to apologize to poor Eli (the furniture guy) for the excessive bawling and crying that immediately commenced when he informed me our furniture is H-E-R-E! I blamed my 30-week-pregnant hormones but I know it's so much more than that.

OhMyGoodness!!!

Now we just have to figure out WHEN we'll be able to ship LO off for a little weekend of fun with a grandparent or friend or what-have-you so we can have the time we need to get it all done while she's out of the house. I'm beyond thrilled!!! But the timing is still kind of "ugh" because I work this weekend and have other activities already scheduled for the next two weekends after that. But regardless, we WILL find the time and her room WILL get done ASAP!!! I'm so stinkin' excited!!!!!

WOOT!!!!!!

P.S. Thanks to all of you for your patience with my obnoxious self over the past 2 months... so many posts about furniture delays and room decor. Surely half of you stopped reading this ol' blog by now! But there should only be one more post on this particular subject... the BEFORE & AFTER pics!!!

LO's New Room: An Update

UPDATES: I forgot to mention the walls in LO's room will be painted a VERY pale pink (think the complete opposite of Pepto-Bismol) and we're doing beadboard with chair rail on the wall behind the headboard of her bed as an accent wall. I might paint the beadboard a VERY pale lavender and leave the chair rail white, but probably won't make that call until we start putting the room together. :)

Also, for the accents, I forgot to mention I bought oversized wooden initials for LO (about 2 feet tall) that I painted glossy white to hang on one of her walls. I'll probably incorporate some pink ribbon somehow with the letters, just to add to the "girliness" of her room.

---

So no news is good news, right? It's been a while since I've shared any update at all out here, but it's been even longer than that since I've discussed LO's new room! The good news is I have the furniture store we ordered her furniture from calling the manufacturer that is making the furniture every Monday to ensure everything is still on schedule, then the furniture store calls me to confirm. So far, for the past 3 weeks anyway, it's been on schedule. That means it should be here no later than March 15th. You know, like 6 weeks before THE BABY is due to arrive. ((sigh))

It's okay though because I've been finding ways to keep myself busy and less antsy during this time. Enter a TON of little artsy/sewing projects for her new room. I got to thinking about it and, really, the only "big" plan for her room was new furniture, lighting and paint. None of these things will really turn her room into the "horsey room" she's been asking for, so it was time to put my Martha Stewart skills to work and see what I could come up with. Let's see...

Lest anyone forget, this is the coveted furniture I'm waiting ever-so-patiently to receive ("Madison" by Legacy Classic Kids). We were told 3-6 weeks back when we ordered it IN DECEMBER, but were then told 12-14 weeks when the furniture company ordered it and found that the bed was still in production. Grrrr... She's a beaut, though, and hopefully worth the wait! We've looked into Every. Single. Other. Option. Under. The. Sun. and I never found anything that I loved even half as much as this furniture, so we really had (have) no choice but to wait.

Full Panel Bed:

Double Dresser with Arched Mirror:

And as another refresher, this is the Brigette Ruffle Quilt and Lucy Ringmaster Sheeting (both from Pottery Barn Kids) that I selected. Please note the cute gold star accent pillow... I really liked the idea of the accent pillow but the gold color and star theme had no place in her new room. More on that in a bit.

So back to my many projects that have been occupying my time while I impatiently wait for her new furniture to arrive.

((My apologies for the horrible photos. The lighting was bad and I'm way too lazy to run these through Photoshop. Not that y'all aren't worth the effort, 'cause you are. But you know. Pregnant = Lazy.))

I hand-painted this little coat rack and wooden accent pieces, then put it all together for her to have a place to hang her hoodies, purses, what-have-you. On the wall above the hooks will be a white shadowbox containing her precious Teddy, the lovey she used to have when she was a baby. I don't have that project complete yet, so no pics. ;) And yes, "S" stands for "LO."

One of her walls will sport this simple artwork I created with Photoshop from some basic clip art. I love that the frames are repurposed from her old nursery when she was a baby. They used to be pink but I painted them a gloss white instead. Love how cute and simple these turned out. They'll add a nice touch of "horsey" to her new room. ;)

This is the curtain rod that will go with her new curtains... once I make them. UGH. I tried SO HARD to find light lavender blackout curtains to NO AVAIL. So I ended up buying plain curtains that will require me to sew in blackout liner to them. It's gonna take some time and effort, but seems I don't have much else but time on my hands these days while I wait for the furniture. :)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this huge 2 ft. by 3 ft. poster board print I made to hang on the wall over her bed. I think it's gonna look great!

So while we ordered the "big stuff" from the furniture store, we nabbed a night stand from my good friends at Amazon. I replaced the drawer pulls with hand-painted horseshoe pulls instead. I love how cute this looks!

See the cuteness?? On a side note... should horseshoes be pointing up or down? I so don't know.

This is a little iron star that I painted a gloss white to hang over her doorway. Please pardon the photo on our gym floor... just wanted to be sure it stood out.

Again with the gym flooring... Anywho, this is a little metal guy that will hang over her closet door. I also painted it a gloss white.

If you follow me on Twitter/IG, you would've seen this lovely little runner I made for her dresser. I got to thinking that the white dresser is a LOT of white, and it'd need a nice splash of color. I love how it turned out!

Here's a little accent tray I hand-painted and stenciled to keep on her new dresser, too. I figure it can hold jewelry, hair bows, hair clips, etc.

I couldn't not pick up this resin cowgirl boot from Hobby Lobby, especially since it was 50% off! I haven't decided for sure yet, but this will either be a bank, a vase with some faux flowers, or whatever else my imagination can come up with. I also picked up a few accent candles in pink and lavender for her dresser and/or nightstand.

Remember that gold star accent pillow I mentioned above from PBK? Ya, so I loved the idea of an accent pillow but didn't have any place for a gold star in my girl's new horsey room. SO... I purchased a similar-sized pillow form and sewed a pillowcase--complete with a zipper on the side! My first zipper and it was way easier than I had expected. I knew I wanted something "horsey" on it, so I ordered this $10 sequin appliqué from some website, and it shipped from Hong Kong! Took about a month to get here but it was worth it. I personally think it's a bit flashy/ghetto, but honestly I think it's gonna be one of LO's favorite things about her new room! I wasn't sure how to attack an appliqué, so I used fabric glue (which worked wonderfully, I might add) and followed it up with stitching around the edges with transparent thread. It worked out perfectly and is very secure. I love it!   

So the only real "project" left for LO's room (that I can actually do before the furniture arrives), is to purchase this super simple bookcase from Home Depot and jazz it up a bit. I purchased beadboard paper that will go on the back wall of the bookcase that I *might* paint purple, and I'm also planning to add decorative moulding around the top and bottom of the bookcase. It's gonna be super cute!

Of course, I should also mention I ordered the new 5-light chandelier for her room from eBay. Check it!

I plan to add these cute little shades, too.

So there you have it. A little inventory of the fun little art projects I've been staying busy with while waiting for LO's furniture to arrive. I'm super excited about her new room! I'm more excited about putting her new room together than getting the baby's nursery done -- isn't that crazy?! I guess I know the baby will bunk in our room 'til he's a few months old, so there's no major rush. That's what I keep telling myself anyway, even though I really wish I could be washing his clothes, blankets, etc. and putting them away into his dresser that is currently in use in LO's room. ARGH for my lack of patience sometimes!!! Haha!!

It's a Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!

And if you think about it, say a little prayer for us this afternoon as we head to an appointment at my Perinatologist for a fetal echo on the baby. Chase's cardiologist will be there to review the echo and we're praying that everything looks perfect. You may recall my earlier post from our 19-week scan that showed a healthy, four-chamber heart. Today's fetal echo is just a more in-depth look at the baby's heart and another level of assurance that everything is okay. We appreciate all happy thoughts and prayers sent our way this afternoon.

---

UPDATE: We returned from our fetal echo this afternoon and Chase's cardiologist Dr. H confirmed our baby has a healthy, four-chamber heart! The appointment went very well! The baby measures 2 lb. 7 oz. and was very cooperative for us. We saw lots of great pics of his face, both in 2D and 3D! So cool!

We'll return in 4 weeks for another growth ultrasound. The doctor wants to watch my blood sugar weekly as well as the baby's growth. Even though I wasn't "officially" diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes, it sounds like they're going to treat me as such (no surprise).

So for your viewing pleasure... here's a little profile pic of our guy! :)

GD Woes

Hmph. This post is quite a bit overdue. Honestly it's been about a month now that I've spent wrapping my mind around this unexpected pregnancy complication: Gestational Diabetes. It's required quite a monumental shift in my lifestyle that I guess I haven't really been ready to talk about until now. The timing is a bit weird as this is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week and I really should be devoting my blog to more posts about CHDs, but at the same time I like to use my blog as a journal of sorts so I can look back on this 2 years from now and remember the details of things long forgotten. So without further ado, here's my lil' rant.

I have a family history of diabetes. Of course this means I have an increased likelihood of getting diabetes myself later in life, but it wasn't something I ever focused on. I'm more of a "here and now" kind of girl versus a "what if-er."

About a year ago, my primary physician decided to put me on a medication called Metformin, an antidiabetic drug of sorts that was prescribed almost as if it was going to prevent me developing diabetes. My doctor never asked me to monitor my blood sugar; I was just taking this medication daily as if it was my "cure" to diabetes. So I have no clue what range my blood sugar was in before I started the medication nor while I was taking the medication.

During our first OB appointment back in October 2012, I mentioned I was taking this drug and was told to continue it throughout the pregnancy. About 19 weeks in, I questioned taking this medication again and was told by one of the OBs that they usually have patients discontinue taking it at 14 weeks. SERIOUSLY?! You can only imagine how much I DISLIKE taking prescription medications while pregnant since we have NO indication of what caused Chase's congenital heart defect. Unhappy was putting it lightly when I was told this.

At my next appointment, Dr. B decided he wanted me to discontinue the Metformin and start monitoring my blood sugar four times per day, then he would review the numbers at my next appointment 3 weeks later. I didn't love the idea of taking a med while pregnant but I also didn't love the idea of stopping one, either. Ultimately I decided to follow his orders and discontinued the Metformin on Tuesday, January 15, 2013. I then monitored my blood sugar 4x/day.

The first few days, I decided I didn't want to change my diet at all because I wanted to see if the Metformin was truly doing anything to help my blood sugar or not. So I continued to eat all the junk food and bad stuff I've essentially been eating my whole life. I made an effort to eat "better" while pregnant, but I totally sucked at it. The first few days off Metformin, my numbers were still within the range the doctor provided. WOOT! However, after about 3 or 4 days, I started seeing numbers that made me quite nervous. They were getting to be way higher than the safe range.

After about a week off the medication, I called my OB and he told me that, based on the numbers, he wanted to put me on a diabetic medication safe for use during pregnancy to treat Type 2 diabetes called Glyburide. I was completely and fully adamant that I would NOT take another prescription drug during my pregnancy unless absolutely necessary. Luckily, I had the option to try to control my blood sugar with diet.

OMG.

Diet.

A four-letter-word.

It wasn't my favorite solution, but as far as I was concerned, it was the ONLY solution. So I immediately, like as in ONE DAY, completely modified my diet. I would safely say I had been eating at least 4,000 to 5,000 calories per day (Can you imagine?! Hello, American obesity epidemic!). I immediately slashed that to 2,000 (or sometimes a bit less, depending). I learned which foods would keep my blood sugar within range, and which foods (almost ALL of them) would cause huge spikes that weren't safe for the baby. It was insane how drastic my diet changed overnight.

But it would all be worth it if it kept my baby safe. Obviously! And I knew that after 3 weeks of monitoring, I would take the standard glucose tolerance test given to all pregnant women around 28 weeks with the hope that somehow I would pass the test and could discontinue all the finger poking and massive diet changes. It was my glimmer of hope.

Fast-forward 3 weeks into all of these changes, the DAY BEFORE my scheduled glucose tolerance test. I get a call from my OB's office informing me that they are NOT going to give me the glucose test, but that I do need to have some blood drawn before my 9:30 AM appointment.

I couldn't believe it.

It was my one shot!

It was my glimmer of hope that the major lifestyle changes wouldn't be forced to continue!

Basically the thought process was that they had already seen my blood sugar spikes since discontinuing the Metformin and it didn't make sense to them to give me a bunch of sugar when they were already pretty sure how my body would respond.

I was devastated. That doesn't even begin to describe it. I felt like I had lost the game without ever leaving the bench. I wasn't even given a chance. My body had failed me yet again and there was nothing in my power to fix it.

It was like when LO was a baby and I couldn't keep up my milk supply to provide for her and had to supplement with formula WAY earlier than I had hoped and anticipated.

It was like when we found out about Chase's heart diagnosis when I felt like my body had let me and my son down in a major way.

And now it's my body failing yet another child by causing this complication.

I'm a failure.

As a person. And as a mother.

No one understood what I was feeling. Most people were "excited" for me because I wouldn't have to drink that nasty orange-flavored drink. It was as if no one realized just how critical that test was... how it was supposed to be my saving grace that prevented me from having to keep up this radical change in lifestyle.

I had a dark few days where I felt so totally alone... even poor hubs couldn't figure out the "right" thing to say to help me feel better. He didn't quite "get it" either.

What all this meant was that I didn't get a chance to pass that glucose tolerance test. Instead, I get to continue checking my blood sugar 4x/day for the next 3 months. I get to continue eating about 1,800 calories a day for the next 3 months. I get to continue avoiding ALL of my favorite foods for the next 3 months.

Don't get me wrong: keeping my little guy safe and healthy is Priority #1 for me and I'll do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in my power to be sure he has the best environment possible in which to grow and develop. But I can't hardly put into words the PRESSURE this has put on me. Each and every decision about every meal and every snack... everything has to be carefully and methodically selected to ensure I'm not going to harm my baby.

This is a BIG deal. At least it is to me.

So there you have it. My Gestational Diabetes rant. I fully realize this probably just sounded like a lot of complaining to most people, and I'll admit -- there were a lot of "woe is me" undertones in this post. But when it comes to being pregnant and doing the best for my children, EVERYTHING IS A BIG DEAL.

Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week!

Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week is February 7th through 14th. Won't you help raise awareness? Check out the two startling statistics below that I'm guessing most folks weren't aware of:

♥ Congenital heart defects are America’s #1 birth defect. Nearly one of every 100 babies is born with a CHD. Congenital heart defects are the #1 cause of birth defect related deaths.
♥ In the U.S., twice as many children die from congenital heart defects each year than from all forms of childhood cancer combined.

Did you have any idea? Pretty astounding, right? Please help spread the word about congenital heart defects!

Stay tuned for more CHD Awareness posts throughout this week! And can I just say THANK YOU to the amazing family, friends, church family, heart moms and online friends I haven't even met who have followed our journey with Chase's special heart and have supported us and prayed for us throughout the past several years. I'm very blessed by your love and support!

This is the face of CHDs. My son is 1 in 100.

Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Month

Welcome to February... also known as Congenital Heart Defect Awareness month! I'll be sharing several posts over the next 28 days regarding CHDs so please stay tuned!

Today I'm wearing RED for my favorite CHD warrior, my sweet 3-year-old son, Chase! If you don't know his heart story, check out my letter to new heart moms as it shares a little glimpse at how our world was turned upside-down when our unborn son was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), a rare congenital heart defect that is fatal without surgical intervention. He is our Rock Star and inspiration... a living, breathing miracle and blessing!!!

My Day

If you're here for a bright, shiny, spirit-lifing post, keep browsing the interwebs. If you want to hear the brutal reality of my sucktastic day, read on.

It was a normal day for the most part. LO was back to school (thankyouJesus) and that left just me and Chase. He's still a potty-using fiend which is fabulous on the one hand, but ohsoveryannoying on the other one. He's getting to the point where he's self-sufficient in there, but every time he heads that way a certain very lazy and tired pregnant mama must remove herself from the couch and meet him in there to assist. Imagine that about a dozen times just before lunchtime hits, and you'll have a tiny glimpse into my morning. Oh, and add the fact that the boy, while he was in desperate need of a good #2, simply refused to knock it out and chose instead to wander the living room aimlessly all morning, whining that his tummy hurts. OMG. Seriously?

I won't get into the detail here since I feel it deserves its own lengthy and annoyingly irritating post, but I've been monitoring my blood sugar 4x/day for about a week now and have learned some interesting things. Like I'm on the path to gestational diabetes. Like my doc wants to put me on medication. Like I'm choosing to manage it with diet, which for those of you who know me rather well, know that I am NOT one to make healthy food choices consistently and am NOT one to walk away from sweets. So imagine the fun this is for me. More on that later.

After lunch I decided to call about LO's new furniture. We were told 4 to 6 weeks, but that it typically was coming in earlier like 3 to 4 weeks. It's been 4 so I thought I'd inquire about it. Lo and behold, the woman dares to tell me that LO's bed IS STILL IN PRODUCTION and wouldn't be here until MID-MARCH.

I just died.

I couldn't believe it. You're probably aware that we can't do anything to set up the baby's nursery until we get LO's new furniture and do her room first. So this puts a HUGE delay in getting things ready for the baby. And let's not mention how completely and totally inpatient I am about all things fun and home decor-y. And on top of that, I'm pregnant, people. Ever heard of nesting?! I'm driving myself INSANE not being able to do anything with LO's room or the nursery, but it was okay because the furniture was supposed to be here Any. Nuggin'. Day.

Notsomuch.

So once I'm done with my first bout of tears over the furniture, Chase and I head out to pick up LO. Boy was I pleased to hear she had a blue day (imagine the rainbow... blue's towards the bottom... 'nuff said). Great. Then there was the fact that a little fender bender took place in the pick-up line that should've resulted in the side of MY vehicle being scraped up, but luckily the rude lady in front of me was talking and wouldn't scoot up for me to go around her, so the guy behind me went around me and was the lucky one to get hit instead.

Then we get home. And I see a huge pile of fresh dog poo in our front yard. Thanks, unknown neighbor or wild dog/coyote.

And as I'm helping LO get set up to do her homework, Chase heads off to the bathroom to go pee. While he was sitting on the potty, he magically managed to pee All. Over. The. Floor. instead of IN the potty.

Whoa. Could this day get any better??

It's nap time. Things are starting to look up for me. Oh, and LO ate some of the Lay's sweet heat southern barbecue potato chips that I left out on the counter and about cried (not really, but sort of) over how hot they were, so that was funny. ;) She kept eating them, though, but then proceeded to clear out her cup of milk from the fridge. It helped make my day just a little better. (I'm a horrible mom.)

Okay, so this sums up my day so far. Yes, I fully realize all of these things are completely trivial and just a blip on the radar compared to what some people are going through, but it's been a crappy day and I just felt like sharing.

Woe is me.

Okay, I'm over it. The End.

;)

Baby Gear

Those of you readers who are rather astute may have caught the fact that I mentioned in yesterday's AMAZING post about Chase's AMAZING potty training progress that I registered for our baby boy at Buy Buy Baby. The list is pretty small... there's not much you truly need by the time your 3rd little one comes along. But we inventoried our supplies when we cleaned out the storage baby's room so we'd know what stuff we actually needed to include on the registry. It's basically some towels, blankets, bottles and a few sleepers.

This is where YOU come in! I'd love to hear some suggestions on must-have baby gear for 2013! It's been 4 years since we purchased baby stuff, and, let's admit: the stuff we picked up for Chase was a bit different from what you'd buy for a healthy little arrival. Case in point? I have a TON of snap-front sleepers that worked great for Chase while he was in the hospital because of his leads and wires and stuff, but those aren't so handy when you're changing a newborn's diaper in the middle of the night. And sure, we have all the big stuff like furniture, car seats, strollers, pack n' play, etc... but there's gotta be some "fun" stuff out there that would make welcoming #3 just a tad easier, right?

So please, feel free to comment below or on my Facebook post or via Twitter and let me know what things YOU found incredibly helpful with your recent little ones! :)

Ahhhmazing!

Okay, folks, for those of you who couldn't care less (yes, it's couldn't not could) about potty training, please move on to the next item in your Google Reader. But for the curious few out there (read: Grandmas), prepare to be amazed.

Last Wednesday, January 2nd, I began the lengthy and arduous sojourn of potty training Chase. I was expecting the worst. After all, I've always heard boys are harder to train than girls. And LO? She was a BREEZE in the potty training department. I never understood how we got so lucky with her. In fact, check out my concerns about potty training Chase in the except below from my post about what it was like to potty train LO that I wrote just over one year ago, on January 4, 2012:

I documented her "training" in this post...and I'm afraid she set the bar a bit too high. Seriously. It was like, 2 days of training and she was DONE. Trained. Fully trained both day and night. Zero accidents since. See what I mean? Set the bar too high. I'm scared thinking about what Chase has in store for us! Haha!

So of course I figured karma would bite us in the bottom when it came time to get Chase using the potty. It couldn't be that easy the second time around.

Or could it??

Today is Tuesday. I started potty training last Wednesday, so we're just shy of one full week of potty training. Let me give you the highlights:

• TWO accidental pees on his first day of training.
• TWO pees on the potty with his big boy underwear not pulled down (obviously in a hurry) on day 2.
• ONE poop in his big boy underwear on day 2.
• ZERO accidents in the past 4 days. No peeing on couches, carpet, flooring, car seats, beds... NADA!
• DRY DIAPERS in the mornings.
• DRY PULL-UPS after nap times.
• NO I am NOT kidding!!!

The kid will even fuss in his room after bedtime if he needs a trip to the potty. Last night hubs took Chase's little potty into his room when he was fussing and the boy pooped on the potty, went to sleep and, of course, woke up clean & dry.

Tonight I put him to bed and after our story, prayers, hugs and kisses, he informed me he needed to go potty. I took him to the kids' bathroom and helped him sit on the actual "big" potty. He pooped. The end.

It's seriously unbelievable, people. I had NO IDEA. Do you know how many potty training horror stories I've read? How many blogs about the drama and online forums about the frustrating and sometimes strange issues and problems parents face when it comes to potty training their kids??

I had NO idea. I am so shocked. And so blessed! I can't believe I'm not scrubbing poopy underwear 8 times a day and cleaning messes out of carpet left and right.

Honestly, the most frustrating part of this process had to be yesterday (Monday). See, Sunday we had church and then I had to work all day. This means hubs was home with the kids and had the joy of handling the potty training after I spent the previous 3 days solely responsible for it. Apparently Chase only peed like twice the whole day and never pooped. Like, EVER. For the entire day. Seriously?! I was so worried about the explosion that would be in store for me on Monday while hubs was at work.

But there was no explosion.

Instead, the kid went on his potty about 30 (THIRTY!!!) times throughout the day on Monday. I'm not even joking or exaggerating here, either. He'd pee. We'd dump and flush the potty, wash hands, get M&M's, and go back to the task at hand (usually Super Mario Bros. Wii). Then about 2 minutes later he'd pee again and we'd repeat the entire process. Then not 10 minutes later, he'd sit and poop on the potty, and we'd repeat again. About 30 seconds after that, he'd sit and pee. This went on All. Day. Long. I got the point of wondering if the kid was manipulating the "free candy after potty trips" policy and was purposely holding things in to go more frequently to get more candy. I wouldn't put it past him. He's no dummy.

So the worst part of this entire process was the fact that I had to get my lazy, tired, pregnant self up off the couch like 62 times yesterday to empty the potty chair and give out candy rewards. I'd say that's not too shabby, eh?

And let me just add that today was the first day I ventured out of the house with him to run errands now that we've started the potty training. The boy went pee twice while we were at Panera meeting one of my BFFs for lunch and then went pee again while we were at Buy Buy Baby adding a few things to my baby registry. Then we picked up LO from school and he was still clean & dry when we got home. I continue to be amazed by this kid!!!!!

Okay, enough potty talk. Here are a few pics of my little big boy from the past few days.

This first one is hilarious!!! Our first two days of training was without any coverage on the lower half. It certainly didn't keep this kid from his Wii games! LOL!

Still with the Wii. I loved that he was all curled up on the couch with no bottoms on. Seriously the faith I had in this kid's potty training! I wasn't worried one bit about a pee'd on couch!

By Day 3 we were able to start putting underwear on and taking it off during potty trips. He loves them!

So he needed to go potty, yes, but he was in the middle of a very important task on Super Mario Bros. Wii and felt it necessary to multitask. Just love this kid!!

Mommy kept him all kinds of hydrated during training to be sure there would be plenty of potty opportunities. I can't tell you how many sippy cups of watered down apple juice this kid blew threw over the past week! His kidneys sure are working great! Don't ya just love The Incredibles? ;)

Can't. Stop. Playing. Wii. Seriously, it's like a sickness for this kid. The first thing out of his mouth the past few mornings has been "I be Mario the red guy, you be the green one." Haha!

So there you have it! My next steps beginning tonight include removing diapers completely (he was just wearing them at night anyway) and putting him in Pull-Ups at night time instead. And at nap times, I'm opting out of Pull-Ups and going straight for the big boy underwear. And I'll attempt to keep the big boy underwear on him when we're out running errands, too, because I like to take chances like that. ;) Of course I'll keep a spare set of clothes handy just in case...

In summary, WAY TO GO, CHASE!!! YOU ARE MY ROCK STAR!!!

Prayers Needed

Please pray for this beautiful young lady who is undergoing a heart transplant at MUSC this morning. She was born with a heart defect similar to Chase's and has lived the past 17 years with half a functioning heart. Pray for her surgery, recovery and the family who made the sacrifice that is giving her a whole heart.

We love you, Taylor!!!

My Sweet Girl!

I came home the other night to find a little note left for me by LO. Well, technically, a series of notes.

Check this out:

TRANSLATION: "If you come home on time,  you can come give us a kiss and a hug."

TRANSLATION: "If you come home late, then you can't give us a kiss and a hug."

TRANSLATION: "Chase went pee-pee on the potty and I got a marble!!!!"

((Side note: Marbles are part of our rewards system for the kids.))

TRANSLATION: "And Chase got a marble, too!! And Daddy said that we had..."

TRANSLATION: "A really good good day today!!!"

Floating Shelves

HELP!!!

I'm desperate to find floating shelves as seen in the photo below, but unbelievably have been striking out everywhere online! I can't believe how hard it is to find these guys! They are white and I'm guessing between 12-24 inches long. I want them to be floating shelves so you won't see any hardware or support beams below them. Anyone seen such things??

Source: http://www.daffodildesign.com/2012/04/i-decorate-room-for-two.html

I've tried contacting this blogger but haven't received a response so I'm turning to my blogosphere friends for help. I really want to use these on a wall in LO's room when we complete her room transformation in a few weeks.

HELP!!!

Potty Time!!

UPDATED WITH A VIDEO BELOW!!!

This is happening TODAY!!!

The boy has surprised me beyond belief already! I seriously was worried he wasn't ready. We talk about pee-pee on the potty, but he hasn't been too interested in actually doing it. But I've been talking it up for the past few days and he "seemed" to be on board with the idea.

He woke up this morning and I had out his potty (complete with a few new Cars stickers on it) and a stack of big boy underwear. I asked him to sit on the potty before breakfast and he had a lovely little meltdown. I decided not to push it so I asked if I could change his diaper before breakfast. He agreed and I took off his damp diaper and left it off. I then proceeded to get his breakfast ready. He seemed a little confused and asked about putting his pajama pants back on but I told him his Pop-Tart (don't judge) was ready, so he ran over and climbed into his chair at the table. He didn't seem to mind the fact that he was wearing nothing but his pajama shirt!

During breakfast, he told me he pooped. GASP! I went over to check and saw that he had peed in his chair. No worries! I explained that it was pee-pee, not poop, cleaned him up, and he went back to his breakfast.

After he got down from breakfast, he headed into the play area off the kitchen and a few minutes later he said something (can't remember what) and I looked up to see he had peed on one of the foam alphabet letters. No worries! I told him it was okay, but that we want to make sure the pee-pee went in the potty (which was sitting 2 feet from him in the play area).

That, my friends, as of this writing at 2:00 PM, was his LAST accident so far today!!! I can't even begin to believe it!! Boys are supposed to be much harder than girls, but he's so far proven to be just as easy as LO was to potty train! Keeping his bottom half naked with free roam of the house has been working wonderfully! I can't believe that he'll even stop in the middle of an activity (Wii, board games, etc.) to go sit on his potty and go pee-pee! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! I'm so happy I can't stand it!

Now I know this is only Day 1 and there's sure to be plenty of accidents ahead of us, but I'm just so impressed and proud of his progress already this morning. Simply amazing.

I'll keep ya posted on how things progress (since let's face it, all of you are dying to receive potty updates from me)!

Way to go, Chase!!!!!!

Making Progress!

Today we made a purchase that I am SUPER excited about!!! Well, minus the 4 to 6 weeks it will supposedly take to get here, of course. ;)

As you may know, we're expecting baby #3!! A BOY!! In just 18 short weeks! So exciting!! Since we found out we're having a boy, I started planning the furniture situation for the kids. Both LO and Chase have Munire convertible furniture (crib to toddler to full) in dark espresso finishes. With a little guy on the way, I decided I want to take LO's furniture (converted back to a crib) and use it for the baby's room. That way I can purchase new furniture for LO in a white finish (much more girly, IMO) and finally do her room up nicely, just like we did for Chase's room a few weeks ago.

Of course she doesn't know about this yet, as it is all part of my master plan! We will completely overhaul her room -- including her new furniture -- while she's at a sleepover so she'll have NO CLUE about it until she walks in and sees it for the first time! WOOT!

So back to today's purchase... we bought her new bed and dresser with mirror! Yay! See how cute??

The Legacy Classic Kids Madison full panel bed:

Along with the Legacy Classic Kids Madison Dresser & Arched Mirror:

I am SO in love!! And of course, these will pair beautifully with her new Pottery Barn Kids bedding we purchased last week:

I am so happy to have all of the main components of her new room on hand and/or ordered and on the way! I'm hopeful we'll be able to do her room transformation by mid-February. Besides a few miscellaneous decor items, the only other outstanding purchase to be made is for her new bedroom lighting, which I'm hopeful will be something like this chandelier from eBay (with or without shades... I can't decide... thoughts??):

Once everything is HERE and LO is NOT, we'll knock this new room out in no time! I only gave us about 8-10 hours to do Chase's entire room, but I'm going to allow over 24 hours for LO's room since in addition to painting we'll also be installing wainscoting, chair rail and some other additional "stuff" that we didn't need to do in Chase's room. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

The super cool thing is that once LO's new room transformation is complete, we'll be able to start on the baby's nursery! And I'm keeping that one super simple and low-key (much to hubs' delight), so don't expect TOO much craziness going on with that room.

Of course eventually we'll FINALLY get to the master bedroom, but I won't talk about that yet since hubs needs a few days weeks months to settle into the idea of dropping another large sum of money on more new bedroom furniture and decor. ;)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours... ;)

LO's New Room: The Beginnings

I am ecstatic to report that this morning I FINALLY pulled the trigger and purchased LO's new bedding from Pottery Barn Kids. It begins with this adorable Brigette Ruffle Quilt. Oh, the girly-ness of it all!

And the perfectly themed and adorably cute horse and princess Lucy Ringmaster Sheeting.

These items are on their way! While I love the North Star Decorative Sham as an accent to this collection, I'm not a fan of the price tag and I'm pretty sure I can make something similar to this myself for much less (and much more value since it'd be made with love by mommy!).

I'm SOOOOOOOO excited! I'm not sure when we'll actually begin LO's room makeover, but I'm 99.99% sure it'll be before the baby arrives as we are planning to take LO's convertible furniture (crib to toddler bed to her current full size bed as well as her dresser) and put them in the baby's nursery. My logical thought process was that buying a full size bed and dresser for her room would be cheaper than buying a new convertible crib and dresser for the baby. We shall see where the numbers fall...

I've been searching for a white furniture set for LO, and have been sadly underwhelmed by the lack of selection out there. From Rooms to Go to Ashley Furniture Homestore to baby furniture stores, I just haven't found exactly what I want. The closes thing I've found so far, that I like "enough" (though I'm not in love with the price tag), is the Madison Full Panel Bed from Legacy Classic Kids Furniture. I love the simple, clean lines, and I think it'll really look amazing with her new PBK bedding (versus the lame khaki bedding in the pic below).

I want her to have a double dresser instead of the tall chest of drawers she's had so the room will be much more "girly" than it is now. Again, with the simple lines... I really love the double dresser with arched mirror!

I also found that I also LOVED the Enchantment full panel bed from Legacy Classic Kids...

Hubs and I both felt the dresser with photo mirror was just a slight bit too "froofy" or over-the-top for our less than girly-girl...

Plus I was concerned the antique off-white finish for the Enchantment collection just wouldn't look right with the PBK bedding I'm so totally head over heels in love with. Would you agree?

The only other decor idea I really have at this point for her new room is to do an accent wall with wainscoting, similar to this:

A majority of the wall will actually be covered by her full size bed, but I don't think I care. I really love the look of this accent, and as of right now, I'm thinking her room will be a VERY pale pink with the wainscoting in a slightly darker shade of pink (but not quite as fuchsia as the pic above).

There's so much more planning to do but now just isn't the time to focus on all of the details for her room with the holidays so quickly approaching. I know I'll want to do a good bit of homemade wonderfulness, whether it's sewing accent pillows, making framed artwork similar to Chase's, or maybe having her name in letters on the wall (also similar to Chase's). I plan to incorporate some level of horses/unicorns and just a little sprinkle of princess-y stuff. I want it to be girly for sure, but if you know LO, you'll know she's also into dinosaurs and trucks and cars and swords, so I don't want to take it over the top. Ya know?

I can't wait to see how her room unfolds because, you know, after this room there's a nursery to work on. But I wonder if it'll be PINK or BLUE? ;)