Color Me Coral

I knew even before we found out that our little one is a girl, that I wanted to do something unique and fun for her room. I love pink, but the soft "baby pink" color scheme that is so prevalent just doesn't float my boat.

But even though pink isn't my first choice, I still want the room to feel fun and feminine. So here's a little idea of what I came up with:

The fabric for the curtains is actually vintage fabric I've had for a while. I have always loved it, but just haven't been able to find a use for it yet. As it turns out, the fabric was the exact length that I needed for two curtain panels. Yay! Here's a closer view, it has some painterly blue flowers with green foliage and a gold accent. It's even prettier in person...

 We purchased the comfiest chair in the world from IKEA. I'm so glad we went with the plush version, it really is so comfy and will be perfect for late-night feedings and story-time.

One of my favorite colors is Coral, so I chose to use that as an accent color along with teal blue and green. A lot of the elements in the room (walls, crib, chair, and changing table) are either white or off-white so I needed something that would "pop" and give some cheeriness to the space. As much as I love white, all-white rooms just scream "I'll never stay clean!" Especially for a baby...

We have a tall dresser that's been hiding in our closet that I plan to pull out and repaint in a beautiful coral tone. Here's a dresser I found from BHG that is similar to the color I would like to use (it looks so much brighter than the pillow in the picture above, so I will need to match the colors a bit better).

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As for the rest of the decor, I want a vintage-y vibe (are you surprised?). I bought the pattern for this beautiful alphabet sampler and I'm currently still on the letter "A." Hopefully I can make my way through it before the baby comes!

(Source)

I also want to do something with cardboard letters and scrapbook paper, probably for the first initial of her name or something.

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Also, this baby blanket is just to die for! Obviously this one would clash a bit with the floral curtains, but it gives an idea of the vintage vibe I'm going for. 

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So that's what I have so far! Decorating is so much fun, I haven't had a chance to decorate a whole room for a while so it's been fun to pull things together and get a vision for what it could be. Of course, the most important thing for me is to have a happy, healthy home for our baby girl. The decorating is just icing on the cake! 

Let's Just Pretend...

Let's just pretend that I didn't stop blogging for over a month... Ahem. I'm still alive. Still with-child. I even have the cankles to prove it!

So what has happened in the time that has passed, you ask? (Well, maybe you don't care, but humour me!).

In May, we celebrated my brother's wedding. It was amazing, and full of wonderful friends and family and celebration.

 We had a lot of family come to the wedding from out of town, so we got to spend some time with wonderful relatives that we don't often see! Here's some of the "girls" of the fam:

 (Photo by Yetta Olmstead)

And then the whole group- which is only about 80% of us: 

(Photo by Yetta Olmstead)

(Photo by Yetta Olmstead)

Now, we have plunged headfirst into preparing our house for Baby's arrival! I of course am focusing on the pretty things like decorating and buying adorable clothes. Josh has been working his rear end off finishing painting the trim in the Baby's room as well as fixing up the crib (we bought a used crib off Craiglist that has ended up needing more work than we originally thought...). 

I also started working part-time again to fill up some of my days, and I'm totally loving it! It takes a big chuck of my time, but it's a job that I really enjoy so that makes a huge difference.

Well, that's the short update! What have you all been up to? I can't wait to hear!

Gender Reveal Party!

Recently, we had our ultrasound to find out whether we are expecting a bean or a beanette! It has been crazy-busy lately with my brother's wedding coming up, so we wanted to have a small gender-reveal party that was simple and fun for everyone involved.

I went to Target and found some adorable favor boxes in the $1 section (I seriously love the dollar section...). Then I bought an assortment of candies and filled 6 boxes with blue/green candies and 6 boxes with red/pink candies. I found some fun, decorative tape to put on the outside of the boxes so that no one could tell what was inside. 

Then, Josh and I went to the ultrasound to find out the news! It was fun to have a moment for just the two of us to learn our baby's gender. I'm not huge on surprises anyway, so I'm glad I had a chance to learn in private (well, with two ultrasound techs that were complete strangers...). Then we hopped in the car and drove to one of our favorite meeting places, a mexican restaurant called Acapulco. 

My sisters Morna and Elsie met us there, as well as my in-laws and my dad. My mom, sadly, was sick with a really high fever and couldn't make it (but we all called her on the phone later).

It was the perfect way to share our fun news and celebrate a little with everyone. Needless to say, we are ecstatic (and still feeling a little numb!). 

I tried uploading the video- but alas, it has decided to not work for me. So, I will just have to tell you. We are going to have a baby GIRL! 

I'm so excited! I would have been just as happy with a boy, but my creative bent obviously runs towards girly stuff so I'm glad I will be able to put all my ideas to good use. And girls are just awesome. I've had a feeling most of the pregnancy that we were going to have a girl, so it's nice to know that my motherly instincts are off to a good start. 

Happy Wednesday to you!

Strange Cravings...

Sometimes, I love being pregnant. It's obviously not all fun and games, but one of the best parts is being able to give into cravings once in a while. I like singing "Straaange craavings" to the tune of "Strange Magic" as I rummage through the fridge for pickles or cheese sticks.

One of the strongest cravings I've been having is lemonade... I want lemonade all day, every day. If you follow me on Pinterest, you may notice that my recipe board is now chock-full of lemonade recipes. It's the pregnant-ladies cocktail, y'all. 

This version was made with frozen raspberries, fresh lemons, and mint. It was SO good. I actually woke up in the middle of the night and had to chug a big glass of it. Mmmmm. 

Some other recipes I have found include lavender lemonade, sweet basil lemonade, blueberry mint lemonade, and regular lemonade with edible flowers (so pretty!). Instead of posting them all here, I will just link to my recipe page on Pinterest so if you want to check them out you can! With Summer just around the corner, an arsenal of lemonade recipes will come in handy. =)

Anyone else have strange cravings when they were pregnant?

Homemade Aioli Sauce

My favorite restaurant in the Twin Cities, Barbette, has the best pomme frites (french fries) I have EVER tasted. As a bit of a french fry connoisseur, I have sampled many fries. Theirs have the perfect amount of flavor, a dark golden, crunchy exterior, a fluffy interior, and are small enough that they actually stay crunchy instead of getting soggy. But perhaps my favorite part of their pomme frites is the sesame aioli sauce that they serve on the side. It is, in a word, divine. (ok, is anyone else hungry for french fries now? Sorry).

So, last weekend, I decided that I really needed some fries with aioli. I knew that I was going to fail miserably at making fries like Barbette, so I decided to focus on the sauce instead. I have never tried making this sauce before, but when I found a recipe online I realized that I had all the ingredients on hand. And it looked rather simple! The recipe is from Epicurious.

Ingredients:

• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Mince the garlic and the salt together to form a paste (a butter knife or the back of a spoon works well). In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, lemon juice, and mustard. Combine the oils and begin to slowly add into the egg mixture, whisking the whole time. The mixture should start to emulsify, if it doesn't, stop adding oil and just whisk until it comes together again. Once the oil is all added, whisk in the garlic paste. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Chill for at least 1/2 hour before serving.

Aioli sauce is also wonderful with egg dishes, on sandwiches, burgers, and fish. There are so many uses for this flavorful, tangy sauce! I think I will be making it quite often.

Mail Center

We had a space on the wall between our kitchen and dining room that was just begging for something. I was also starting to get annoyed with our calendar being perched on the countertop (see picture above). It was starting to feel really cluttered, but since we use the calendar all the time it needed to be somewhere easily accessible. After I found a wire storage unit at Marshalls a while ago, a plan started to formulate... we needed a mail/organization center! 

It didn't take long to hang up the wire baskets, and the calendar was a cinch as well. For the calendar, which did not have any hanging device, I just hot-glued a bent paper-clip to the back. It works really well! 

I also added two extra dots of glue to the bottom two corners to help keep the calendar straight and level on the wall. 

Now, our mail has it's very own place to live. I love the wire mesh, but it was looking a little messy from the front when you could see all the various papers. So, I added in some cute Amy Butler paper that coordinates with our dining room hutch. Perfection!

It's so nice to have the calendar in plain view (it was a $2.50 purchase from Target a year ago- best $2 I have ever spent!). Plus, when I want to write on it, I can just pop it off the wall with no trouble at all. I'm glad I went the paper-clip route rather than using something more permanent!

I hemmed and hawed about the height to put the wire thing at, but finally decided that this was the right height. I wanted to make it level with the green cabinet, but it was just too low. If I made it level with the kitchen cabinets, it would be too high! So, I decided to go with the height of the basket for a little bit of visual continuity. I think it works ok! 

Now the kitchen counter feels less cluttered, and our mail and various papers have a cute little place to be stored. Getting organized feels great! 

One Baby Step...

This weekend was jam-packed with goodness. I just love weekends like that! Friday night we got to hang out with Nick and Cindy and made grilled pizza for the first time this year! Yummm.

Saturday, we got all gussied up and headed to a beautiful wedding for some friends of ours. Get this: the groom is my brother's best friend, and he met his now-wife through E-harmony, and she happened to be the daughter of my aunt's best friend. Weird, huh? I love how you find random connections with people like that.

This is dorky, but I just have to say that I was super excited to be able to wear this dress. I bought it at Anthropologie in December and wasn't sure if it would fit me with the baby bump. But it did! And I felt great in it! 

Here's a closer pic of the bump:

On Sunday, we went to church and then went to my parent's house for the afternoon. Josh sold his motorcycle (so sad), and we also bought a crib the same day! So that's the "Baby-Step" we took this weekend. =) We now have a car seat, stroller, a few stuffed animals, and a disassembled crib. We are so set for this baby!  

Here's the pic from the Craigslist ad. It's a white sleigh-bed style crib. I love it! It needs some work, definitely a new paint job, but it was $40 and it's solid wood. Score!

The people we bought the crib from lived just a few miles away from my Grandparents, so we stopped by their house for some tea afterwards. They had not seen me since Christmas, so I got to show off the baby bump again. 

We just felt so blessed this weekend and were reminded greatly of God's provision in our lives. How was your weekend?