Let's Play a Game Called "Solve My Problems"

Problem #1: Butter Bean is getting his walk on. Not yet unassisted, but he is definitely moving in that direction.  I have heard that getting "walking shoes" will help give them the right foundation to get to walking sooner.  Since he is such a bruiser (almost 28 pounds), our backs can't wait for him to be walking since that means we won't have to carry him around 24-7.
Do these "walking shoes" really help? If so, what shoe should I be buying?
Problem #2: Our living room is currently decorated in neutrals. See?

Please ignore the hubby's foot, dog bone and Butter Bean's hideous Circle of Neglect

I want to add a pop of color to liven things up. My preferred color is green since I think it will really look nice with the Dunkin-Donuts-coffee-with-cream wall color. Really it is SW Portabello if you want the real specifics. Also, I'm giving our gallery wall an update with new pictures and a fun chevron background. I want to incorporate pops of the green into the wall as well. And I'll eventually add in a few throw pillows in green to tie everything together.

I have completely fallen in love with this fabric for the curtains. I love the design and the fact that there is lots of greens and blues to incorporate throughout the room. And it is awesome that the brown in the fabric perfectly matches the walls.

So what's the problem? Well, we have 3 sets of windows meaning that we need 6 curtain panels. And each of those need to be at least 100 inches due to our high ceilings. All of that means that we need lots of fabric (at least 18 yards) and below is the price.  Ugh!

Do I use the fabric I absolutely love? Or is there a clever way to use this fabric and not need 3 yards of fabric per panel? Or do you have a more affordable green curtains options? I'd really like for the curtains to be patterned but if the curtain has a lot of cream/ivory in it, it looks bad against the white wainscoting. I feel like I've searched everywhere and still can't find something that I think will look as good.

Foster Friday: Rudy's Room

I think one of the most exciting parts of expecting a child to enter your live is preparing their room.  Our first child, Rudy, had already staked his claim on our spare bedroom.  So much so that the room is called "Rudy's Room".  Luckily, he has been very gracious in sharing it with visitors, so we don't foresee any problems with him sharing it with a little one.

Since we don't know what age the child(ren) will be, we had to design a unisex multi-age nursery/bedroom.  Since most of the nursery themes are very baby, we decided to keep the room's theme and use Rudy as our inspiration!    I hope you enjoy our dog themed nursery/bedroom.  Rudy is quite pleased that the room hasn't changed names... yet!

Here is what the room looks like from the door.  You can see that we have picked pretty bright colors for the room, with a light yellow wall color (Sherwin Williams Napery).  

Let's start with the bed.  It is a trundle bed with three drawers.  These drawers are empty, ready for any belongings the child might bring with them.  The painting on the wall is a love-it-hate-it type thing.  We love it!  And others are not fans.  But we are fully prepared that it will be painted over for Spiderman when kids are in the room!  But for now it stays!

This art above the bed was simple and cheap using scrapbook paper.  I had the brown paper laser cut with the dog outline and then placed a colored piece of paper behind them.

Now let's move onto the crib.  It is a convertible crib (into a toddler bed and twin bed).  I love fell in love with the bedding (Delilah by CoCaLo Couture) due to the design and colors.

This sign was made by my dad and give to us at our baby shower.  He did a great job!  The dog butt hook was a purchase we made before we were thinking about kids in the short term.  It is nice to something purchased so long ago actually made it into our nursery!

The crib is already full of stuffed puppy dogs.  Just waiting for some loving from a child.  They have already gotten plenty of love from Rudy as he tries to steal them to claim them for his own!

Now we move onto my favorite piece of furniture in the entire room!  Doesn't look so exciting, right?  Just a dresser.  I don't even think Rudy is excited.

But it has a changing table hidden under the lid!  And we got it for an awesome deal off of Craigslist.  Love that site!  Speaking of good deals- the painting above it was a Home Goods purchase!  We aren't that creepy (or rich) to have a painting made of our dog.  He just has a close resemblance to models!

Here is my desk and chair from my CPA days.  I am happy it was able to stay in this room, since it will probably get more use from a child than I used it studying for the CPA.  Note the doggie piggy bank.  This was our first baby purchase after deciding to become foster parents.

This is a view of the closet door that holds tons of baby clothes.  And the antique rocker that we had reupholstered with this colorful stripe.  I love the bold punch of color it gives the room!  And the picture of the puppy above the hamper is basically Rudy's twin.  Too adorable to pass up!

So there you have it!  Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Foster Friday: Filling the Closet

Baby clothes are too cute!  And since we don't know the age of the foster child(ren) who will be placed with us, it has been fun collecting a few outfits for all ages/sizes.  Thanks for our very generous friends, consignment sales, and clearance racks we can still pay our bills after filling the nursery closet.

The biggest challenge has been finding gender neutral clothes, especially in the bigger sizes.  We have tried to keep to red, orange, and navy, which means leaning to more boyish.  But I figure you can throw a bow in the girls hair and she can rock some blue at least for the first few days!

Below is our stash in its entirety.  This isn't meant to make me look like a crazy person, although I understand that is probably going to be an unintentional side effect of this post.  But it is purely to document the nesting.  And more importantly, to give comparison when I post pictures of kids actually wearing these clothes!  And the fashion show begins!

Newborn

Because it has already been asked,
"Mommy" refers to the birth mother, not me.

3 Months 

Those are little puppies on the onesie to keep Rudy happy!

6 Months

Duckie feet are so adorable!

9 Months

I spy a froggie foot!

12 Months

Again, daddy = birth father

18 Months

I love the alphabet romper in the center!

24 Months

I love these crab clothes!  Hopefully the kid is more cute than crabby!

2T

I think this is our best set of unisex clothes.

3T

These clothes are going to start to look familiar.

4T

Rudy and Hedgy the Hedgehog needed to join in the fun too!

5T

Let's hope the child isn't too wild!

Socks and Undies

Can't forget the real necessities!

And now the full closet

Yes, I do realize that we I have gone overboard.  My husband does not support this level of shopping preparedness.  And God help us if we get a kid that doesn't fit into any of these clothes!

New Office In Progress

Friday night it finally hit me that I needed a dedicated study space. The living room couch just wasn't cutting it. I kept being interrupted by Rudy delivery his stuffed hedgehog then platypus then hat and then ball just begging for some playtime. Then Kevin would wander out to the kitchen for water/snack/cookie and talk to himself. For a relatively quiet person, I never before realized how much he talks until I was trying my best to concentrate on the never ending multiple-choice questions. I just wasn't studying well stationed on the couch.

We wracked our brains trying think of a space that I could study until 10pm, since I have been able to go strong in the evenings until then. The typical spots (library, Panera, Starbucks) aren't open that late. But then we came up with the magical idea of creating an office for me in.our.house! We were really thinking outside of the box with this one, but all of the pieces somehow seemed to fit into place.

Here is the office that you have seen before. This truly is Kevin's office and I knew that neither of us would be happy if we tried to share this desk.

So our attention turned to our underutilized guest room.

Well, we would need to start with a desk. So the Craigslist hunt began and I was happy to find the perfect one quite quickly.

Then the search began for the perfect chair. I think this one is going to be the winner, but I'm reserving my final opinion until I see it in the room.

The only question left was what color should we paint the desk. I loved the idea of red since it would match with the existing rug and curtains, but what shade? Clearly, a decision has yet to be made! We'll leave that until after REG is complete.

Here's a picture of the room in progress. (Please ignore the laundry on the bed) I'm really happy with how all of the furniture fits in the room in the new configuration!

Big News!

I have been a posting slacker lately, but I promise it is because things have been crazy.

First, I have finished my MBA. Hopefully I find out soon that my hard work was good enough and then I'll graduate! But at least for now I'm celebrating the fact that there is no more work! Woohoo!!

Second, we found an amazing house that we want to buy. It is right down the street from our current house, but is quite a bit bigger to be able to fill with kiddos one day! It isn't perfect since it is yellow, has popcorn ceilings and quite a bit of carpet (Kevin's top 3 house pet peeves), but the layout is awesome and the potential is there!

Third, our house is now on the market so we can have a chance to buy that house! We love our house, so it is bittersweet to think of saying goodbye. But we will see if all of the stars align so that the move can happen. If not, then at least we can stay in a home we love in a neighborhood that could never be topped!

Here's some pictures from our listing. I've always wanted to do before/after pictures of all of the work we've done to the house. But I figure I should put these up now since I may not have time for those before/after posts!

Living Room, excuse the Christmas decorations
since we decorated before putting this on the market.

Dining Room

Kitchen

View from the Living Room to Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Guest Bedroom

Office