Our Little Girl

Our little girl has arrived!  She was born on August 9th at 3:35 pm.

She has truly completed our life, can't imagine it without her now.  Estevan put it very well, it's like she has a part of our souls in her.  She's a dream come true. Pin It Now!

Gray and yellow nursery

We are just about finished with putting together and decorating the nursery for our little girl.  I am 38 weeks and 5 days, she could come at any moment!  I can't wait to see her and bring her home to this cute little room.

Before we found out if we were having a boy or girl, we decided to paint the nursery gray and yellow.  We love how the colors are bright and cheery while still being gender neutral, this was important because we wanted baby items to be neutral enough to be passed from one child to the next.  Check out some pics!

I love walking in and seeing the morning sunlight pouring through the plantation shutters.  I finally hung up the hot air balloon mobile that I made for our sweet baby girl.  

We placed a bed in her room for me to sleep in for the first few weeks when she is waking up in the middle of the night for on demand feedings.  Here's to hoping that she can sleep in her crib from day one!  Bonus is that the bed will be her big girl bed some day.

My dad has made some stacking toys in the shape of a rainbow, cloud, and sun which I will place on the top floating shelf.  He's driving from AZ next week to be with us, so happy!

We fell in love with this small painting in New Orleans.  Perfect way to bring a little girly charm to her room.

You knew her dresser drawers wouldn't be arranged all willy-nilly, don't act surprised.  Top drawer contains changing table essentials (more to be added as we figure out what she needs), pacifiers, hair accessories, bibs, hats, mittens, and socks.  Basically, all the little odds and ends of her wardrobe.

 Second and third drawers contain onesies and rompers arranged by size.

Good golly, all of these diapers came from diaper cakes that were given as gifts at the baby showers.  Took me over an hour to remove rubber bands and unroll each one but we are set for a good amount of time!  By the way, this is one of the drawers in the daybed; yay for storage!

I love the closet space in our home, this is a huge closet!  Inside, we have dresses hanging up with blankets, burp clothes, and sleep sacks placed on the closet organizer.  Her larger stuffed animals are sitting inside the oak chest.  I'm head over heals in love with my Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag!

I found these baskets at The Container Store for about $5 each, they fit perfectly on these small built-in shelves.  They contain toys for her carseat and toys for when she gets a little older.

These baskets also came from The Container Store, we have soft toys in one and hard/teething toys in the other.  These are stored right above her changing station for instant distraction if she starts fussing while being changed.

I can't wait to sit in this glider with her and read some of our favorite stories.  The ledges are actually picture ledges from Ikea!  I like how the books easily conceal the cord to the video monitor attached to the wall above her crib because I'm picky like that.

Details

• Wall colors: Valspar Cheerful Hue and Natural Gray
• Crib: Pottery Barn Kids, Hayden
• Dresser and daybed: Ikea 
• Swivel glider and ottoman: Best Chair Inc., Dolphin color, bought at Baby's and Kid's 1st
• Floating shelves and book/picture ledges: Ikea
• Crib bedding: Pottery Barn Kids, Harper Gray
• Organizing bins for dresser: Ikea
• Various baskets: The Container Store

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Frozen meals

I have been stock piling my freezer in preparation for baby's arrival and the chaotic times that are sure to come.  Estevan thought I was nuts when I told him that I wanted to make meals for the sole purpose of freezing them.  He was also worried about the food budget getting jacked, a worry that I can't blame him for.  Preparing for a baby is very expensive!  So, instead of buying a bunch of food to freeze on top of food for our normal consumption, I decided to split every big meal in half.  Since it's just the two of us, we always have leftovers and those leftovers sometimes do not get eaten.  At least one portion of every meal ends up getting thrown away!  I have been able to stock up a lot of food by simply baking one half right away and storing the other half in the freezer.  Behold the yummy goodness...

We have chicken spaghetti, stuffed shells, stuffed chicken breasts, marinade for lemon rosemary chicken, and a small meat loaf.  I wrote the name of each dish, cooking instructions, and the date it was frozen on each package.

Here is a breakdown of the recipes that I chose, click the titles to see full recipe:

• Chicken Spaghetti, Pioneer Woman
• Stuffed Shells
• Stuffed Chicken, Kayotic Kitchen 
• Lemon Rosemary Chicken
• Meat Loaf, Pioneer Woman

Most of the foods have been prepared up to the point of baking.  I will set my oven to a lower temp and bake the chicken spaghetti and shells for about 20 minutes to warm up and then raise it to the normal temp and bake for the normal time.  The stuffed chicken breasts will need to be thawed then wrapped in the puff pastry and baked as normal.  The marinade will simply need to be thawed and the chicken pieces plopped right into the bag.  I cooked the meat loaf almost entirely to ensure it will not be overcooked and dry when reheated, it will be thawed and then baked until the internal temp is 170. Pin It Now!