Little Man's Day at the Park

The nursery is finished! (For now.)

I would like to place a "before shot" of the room here....however we accidentally erased a number of pictures and everything on our external hard drive while attempting to transfer old pictures to the external hard drive. Oops. Just imagine an empty room with a very small closet with sliding mirrored doors.

And now....

This is the view from the door.


Remember the turquoise dresser from DIY projects of months past? We brought it in to be our changing table and the room took off from there. The basket came from Ross for a few bucks and holds our diapering essentials (diaper caddies are EXPENSIVE!). Thank you Target for the great and inexpensive lamp (it only took three returns for me to pick out the correct lampshade).

Next, I had this vision of painting a tree on the wall, which morphed into a vision of starching fabric pieces on the wall to create an Eric Carle collage effect, which drifted its way into this final reality: I cut shapes out of thick cardboard and staple-gunned fabric around them, then nailed them onto the wall. And yes, that's our son's name: Josiah Benjamin Leboffe!

After the tree I started down the track of nature and parks so that's where the rest of our decor comes from. The tree is very imaginative and free-form and is more representative of what side of the brain I mainly use. Nate is more mathematically programmed. Because the tree was such a dominating presence of me in the room, I wanted to bring something in for Josiah that represented his daddy. What goes with trees? Birds! How do you make them graphic and mathematical? Turn them into a tessellation! And viola, you have the wall...
I'm no good at tessellations so I cheated here a little bit by printing off a picture, enlarging it, then using it to cut a stencil out of the side of an old Cheerio box. We LOVE the end result. It was definitely an act of love to finish: tracing all birds in pencil, painting in birds, painting in birds SECOND coat, touching up all the feathers with a small paintbrush. Many late hours and good friends helping. The birds are staying up until we move or Josiah graduates high school, whatever comes first.
Let's also take a moment to appreciate the fact that there are no more mirrored closet doors! The closet is small anyway. Imagine only being able to reach in there one half at a time! I got friendly with the power tools and set the mirrors up in the garage with Husband's exercise equipment. With a few homemade curtain panels, valance, and tie-backs, along with the fabulous hanging organizer, this closet is much more functional and eye-catching! (The curtains in this room were my first big sewing project.)



Here is our amazing new-to-us crib we bought from a lady for a very little amount of money. It is SUPER sturdy and also perfect for the room. A favorite of big sister right now is the shaggy green rug. It was my vision of really soft grass in the room. And didn't my friend Serena do a great job sewing Josiah a sweet little quilt!

Friends and family have either given us or made so many lovely little blankets for us to use that I needed somewhere to store them. How about in a fabulously turquoise metal drink tote from Target! Thanks Aunt Kathy for the fabulous patchwork quilt that ties all the colors in the room together and to mom for making a crocheted blankie the perfect size to cover up that infant Tylenol stain on the ottoman.

Instead of a mobile above his crib, we have kites flying high to complete the day at the park theme this room turned into. The cool thing is that they are real kites so we can go use them when he gets old enough!

And that is little man Josiah Benjamin Leboffe's room! It was a lot of fun just dreaming up fun elements and finding inexpensive ways to accomplish them. Now we're just waiting for him to come join us!

Prelude of Things To Come

Neon plastic eggs scurry along the hallway, reminders of the past holiday. Clean, albeit wrinkled clothes are picked out to be worn for the day not from drawers, but from the pile on the bedroom floor that never quite got folded. The hanging plant is looking slightly droopy, its slumped shoulders tacitly asking me for water and sunlight each time I pass through the living room. There is more than one tupperware of questionable content in the fridge.

At first glance this appears to be a slightly messy home. But today I saw it as a prelude of things to come. We get to meet our son sometime in the next few weeks! While I would like for our home to look like we walked into a magazine shoot with everything glistening clean and throw pillows plumped, that's just not our reality.

We're ready for this little one to come add to the mess and tiredness and joy!

Setting Boundaries

Boundary: (noun) A line that marks the limit of an area; a dividing line; a limit of a subject or sphere of activity.

I know all about setting and maintaining healthy boundaries...in theory. The actual practice of this needs some work. I like helping. I like being in the middle of the fray. I like knowing what's going on and enthusiastically want to be involved in the process. Basically I'm a busy-body that doesn't want to be left out. And if I can use my greatest spiritual gift in the process (bossing people) then that's even better! The result of these desires to actively participate and help make great visions come to fruition has left my boundary lines faded.

For someone who doesn't work outside the home I have A LOT of responsibilities right now. Not to mention the newborn coming soon! When you ask me how I'm going to do it, I honestly don't know how exactly it is going to get done, but I do know it will get done. I thought about quitting all my responsibilities while I was worrying the other night. But we're "past the point of no return" as the Phantom would sing. And quitting is the selfish, easy option. But following through on the promise I gave in these relationships is more important.

Instead of quitting, I'm doing something I don't usually do. I'm asking for help. And to my amazement I'm receiving it...in abundance.

In this season of busyness here is a lesson learned.

In the words of "Dirty Harry", "A man's got to know his limitations."

So as these responsibilities begin coming to an end I'm going to be drawing a line and saying no even when I think it'd be really fun to say yes.

Happy Easter

There was a poll last week during our marrieds group of whether to do the Easter Bunny or not with your kids. (We're a pro Easter bunny/Santa/tooth fairy family as long as the true meaning of why we celebrate Christmas and Easter are the main focus.) We didn't really talk too much about bunnies this year with Selah, but she did have a basket that she adored with Cheerio-filled plastic eggs and had a grand time finding eggs in Grammy and Grandpa's backyard. We celebrated the resurrection of Jesus this morning at church and celebrated life and family this afternoon with lunch and yard games. It was a good Easter Sunday. And Selah Grace even wore the huge Easter bow I made for her the whole day! Unprecedented. We tried to take a nice little family Easter portrait, but it was too far past naptime for that to happen. So, here are some other pics from the day.

Playing in Grammy's garden. She calls the little angel statue, "Mama." So kind.

Yes, I let my child drink out of the fountain. All in the name of a good picture.

Selah loves playing ladder golf with us. While we were playing we felt the ripples of the earthquake in Baja California. It was crazy how long it kept going.