Nursery!

WARNING: Photo Overload

Well .... after weeks of planning, agonizing over paint colors, putting together furniture and having carpet installed, the nursery is just about done!

I didn't take a before picture before we started looking at paint colors, so this is the best I can do for a "before" photo:

Next steps were to start painting and getting rid of our junk.  It took forever, but we finally decided on paint colors.  We decided on 3 walls tan, 1 wall green.  I did most of the painting one week after work.  Here's the tan part completed:

With the last wall (green) completed, the room is starting to come together.  We've even made some progress on getting rid of the junk!  

Next we had new carpet installed.  The carpet was 7 years old and it was .... well ... disgusting.  Here's the before new carpet photo:

Of course I took photos of the carpet while it was being installed.  Here's the new pad going in:

The new carpet is going in!  So exciting!

It got too hectic to take an after photo.  Considering this room was done first so the furniture for the rest of the house was stored in here so the other rooms could get done.  It was a crazy day!  The carpet was installed a few weeks ago.  So since then, Mike and I have both spent a lot of time building furniture and other baby items.  

Here are the "after" photos!

(of course, Hooper snuck into this photo.  I swear he still thinks it's his room)

There's still a bunch of stuff to be done, but it feels so good to have the big things completed.  Mike and I nearly threw the dresser out though - the instructions were HORRIBLE and I actually just finished putting it together this morning.  I love the way the furniture looks but it does scratch very easily, which is really too bad.  

As I mentioned in What do we REALLY need?, I've kind of taken a break from buying things.  I also promised my mother I'd slow down.  It's hard .... I have fun shopping for Sea Monkey and I really enjoy it.  And now that the nursery has finally come together, I want to fill it with cute things.  But I'm trying to take a break, slow down, and relax.  And in case you really don't know me at all, I have no idea how to relax so it's pretty hard for me!  Plus, I have a lot of 20% off coupons to Babies R Us that I hate to see go to waste.  Oh, and a bunch of coupons for Carter's!  I can't make any promises, but I will try to slow down and relax.

In other news - 

My body feels like it's breaking down.  I'm having a very hard time bending over to pick things up off the floor because my belly is so big, so I'm forced to go into a squat position every time I need to bend over.  Because I'm not accustomed to squatting on a regular basis, my legs are now KILLING ME!  The worst part?  I can't just pop 2 Aleve and be done with it.  Instead, I hobble around like I'm 80 years old and moan and grunt whenever I need to move.  It's very attractive.    

Sea Monkey is a busy little boy.  I'm feeling him move more and more often and I love it!  I'm still waiting for the day Mike can feel the movement from the outside, but so far no luck.  I'm very grateful Sea Monkey has changed positions though, and hasn't kicked my bladder in a few days!  

Mike and I have started talking about names.  We narrowed down a list of 100+ names to 35.  We continue to disagree and have yet to come to an agreement.  I have my favorites, Mike has his.  But one thing we agreed on was the middle name.  And no, you won't find out what we finally do decide until Sea Monkey makes his appearance into the world!  

That's all I've got for now.  18 weeks, 1 day and counting......