As much as this pregnancy seems to have chugged along, now staring at the finish line in clear view I can’t believe I’m midway through my 36th week. We’ve reached the point where it could be days or it could be weeks until our little one wants to make her arrival but as of now the plan still stands for a vbac. And while I couldn’t be more nervous about the unknown of what’s to come, I am more than ready to give birth to this little girl. So for now it’s a waiting game with lots of anticipation, nerves, and excitement for all.

While we wait for Baby #2 to make her grand debut, our hot early summer days are mostly filled with some cool movie and puzzle time inside, occasional walks, and water play in any form. And with so much change in store for all of us I can’t help but admire my little girl for really stepping into her big sister role. She’s become Mommy’s biggest helper these days especially as my belly grows and I’m not quite as limber as I once was. But some of my favorite big sister/ big girl moments are when she eagerly helps in the nursery getting things ready, reminds Mommy that she has to go to the doctor again to get the baby checked or the little doctor herself steps in to do it, and how she proudly shows off her big girl status in every way from being potty trained to fully embracing the move to her big girl room. We’re certainly lucky to be able to call this little girl our baby and it’s just unimaginable how much sweeter life will get in just a short while.  

For now though, I thought I’d show off all of a certain little girl’s big girl room that she’s so proud of. Not too long ago when the official move happened I gave you a glimpse into this labor of love, which you should check out again for all of the details, but now with all of the finishing touches up I thought I’d share a finished product. So with a little drum roll I’d like to present our little girl’s big girl room with all of the finishing touches!

A white, tufted big girl bed dressed up in lilac bedding and special shape pillows (don’t worry the toddler rails are hidden on the sides of the bed, with this mover and shaker we needed them)!

A light aqua wall was a perfect alternative to your typical girly colors especially with the grey Moroccan rug.

Ah, one of my favorites! This Ikea dresser is a great piece of furniture in and of itself with its perfect size and tons of space, but thanks to some gold spray paint and these special overlays we turned this already great dresser into a one of a kind piece of furniture fit for a big girl!

A beautiful, miniature white chandelier equipped with crystals and flowers.

One of my favorite personal touches were her purple painted letters with scrapbooking flowers that the big girl herself picked out to be attached.

White, gold, and purple frames add just the right touch to the aqua walls.

Everyone that knows me knows that I love pictures. I take a million every vacation and thousands in-between so we always have tons to choose from when it comes time to decorate our walls. So when decorating time rolled around for this special bedroom I knew that I wanted to add some very special moments to our little one’s walls. One do it yourself item I created special just for her where these sparkly, gold princess silhouettes of three of her favorite Disney characters, Snow White, Ariel, and Tinker Bell. After picking out the perfect image, I simply traced each of them on scrapbooking paper, cut, and then pasted on a pretty, purple paisley scrapbooking page that I then cut down to size for the frames. And voila, a little special Disney accent for our very own princess! When it came time for all of the frames, well I turned immediately to Kohls since they had a great sale going on and a huge selection of the white, gold, purple, and grey color scheme I was looking for. Without too much trouble, I picked out my favorites, arranged them in these gallery style arrangements, and added just the right pictures that remind our little one of some very special memories!

A floral, lilac canopy, perfect for a little reading/napping nook or for now, a tea table to play with friends.

I LOVE this canopy! I knew before we even started working on the room that I wanted to get either a tent or canopy to add a little special touch that would be right up her alley and let me say RH Baby & Child did not disappoint in this department. This canopy is easily mounted from the ceiling and its delicately draped fabric and light floral pattern makes for the perfect addition to this big girl room. 

White, floral floor length curtains hanging from gold curtain rods were just the right touch. 

Curtains are by far the bane of my existence, usually being the last piece that I worry about in our rooms mostly because they’re the most irritating for me to purchase. Okay, so my biggest gripe is that everywhere sells curtains as a single panel which for one window usually means you can just take that price and multiply by two since typically you need two panels per window. Putting that aside though I struck gold when we made our big trip up to Ikea for the dresser and I found these white curtains that were sold for a great price, and as a pair too, imagine that! Before we hung these beauties, we decided to take the rods that we already had in the room and spray them gold to match the dresser overlays and handles which really added a finishing touch! 

A tiny tea table that will host many a tea party with our little girl and her friends!

And this was our yard sale find! We picked up this table which was a dark cherry color for only $35, a far cry from my favorites on Pottery Barn that will cost you a good $400 or so, and after quite a few coats of white paint we had a delicate little play table that fits nicely under her canopy. I contemplated adding a little gold or lilac accent which may or may not come down the road but for now the crisp, white table as is is a nice addition to the big girl room!

To say our little girl is happy in her new room would probably be a massive understatement. It makes me so happy that our little one has truly fallen in love with her new room and shows it off with such pride. I think I accomplished exactly what I wanted, while staying well within budget I’d like to add, in that we were able to create a new space that made our little girl feel just as special during this huge time of change and also give her that big girl feeling. And even though in our many ventures back into the nursery or “tiny bedroom” as she calls it I see her peering with some confusion back into her once toddler bed that now is converted back into the crib, I know that she loves the fun and freedom that she has in her big girl bed, especially the jumping that makes Mommy very nervous. 

So for the days and maybe weeks until Baby #2 arrives we’ll keep enjoying our growing girl and watching her become more and more aware of her impending big sister status. With her understanding being just that of a 2 1/2 year old she may not quite get all that is going to come along with this new arrival but I have no doubt in my mind that our big girl, that has grown so much in such a short time who loves everyone around her and doesn’t hesitate to show it, will do just the same with her little sister. I know that she’ll be just as lovingly helpful with her little sister as she is with her Mommy and will walk away from every task with the prideful smile from ear to ear just as a big sister should.

Sincerely,

Lindsay (36 weeks) 

Well the big move is finally upon us. With the walls painted (and aired out excessively to appease this mommy-to-be’s sensitive sense of smell haha), the dresser put together with some added personal flair, and the canopy hung in just the right spot, all that’s left to do is hem the curtains and hang some decor but nothing that keeps our little one from getting a jump on her new sleeping arrangements. We finally took the plunge and introduced her to her new abode for her Sunday afternoon nap but as could be expected the transition wasn’t completely seamless. 

Our little one loved her Bambi nursery. She felt comfortable in her toddler version of her crib with her friends all piled in around her. She knew exactly where her skirts were in her dresser and how to squeeze them out through the childproof locked hole. It was her home for over two years and now with the arrival of her little sister looming around the corner it was time to move into the room she’s been eyeing up and playing in the past two months. As her mommy I’m trying to tackle this nagging feeling of guilt that I’m sure every mommy of one with another on the way feels and that’s partly why I wanted to create a really special new space that was suited just for her. 

It’s been a labor of love for sure but after a few short weekends of work, a special little bedroom has been created for our soon-to-be big sister and she’s loving it. She loves having tea at her little tea table, hiding underneath her floral canopy, snuggling with her special shape pillows on her big girl bed, and even putting laundry away with mommy in her new dresser and closet. All of the fun that she’s having in her new room is so sweet and special to see especially since day 1 of sleeping didn’t go so well. 

We started out with a nap thinking that might be a bit easier than bedtime and boy were we wrong. After happily putting her in bed, the second we started walking away we had a little girl chasing behind us in complete terror. So we snuggled up next to her in bed and talked to her about how fun it is to be a big girl now, fending off the occasional question to go back to the “tiny baby bedroom” as she calls the nursery. It broke my heart to see how sad she was but I had a glimmer of hope when she eventually fell asleep for her first successful nap. Our big girl has certainly done us proud though because only one nighttime rest later and she was happily sleeping in her new room.

So what’s our little girl’s favorite part of her new bedroom? She seems to love every bit which makes me so happy but I’ll share some of her highlights.

A big girl bed fit for a soon-to-be big sister!

We thought this upholstered headboard from Target was just perfect for our growing girl and it just so happened to fit our budget even better. But a transition to a bigger bed wouldn’t be complete without the guard rails along the sides. We picked up a two pack at Babies R’ Us and put them on either side sans comforter for now until she gets used to the bigger and higher space. So far so good, excluding the solo falling out of bed incident the other day during nap time which I knew was bound to happen since my little girl is quite the mover, always flopping from end to end in her baby bed. Thank goodness for the Moroccan Trellis rug from RugsUSA because even though it looks fantastic it will surely give some extra padding for accidental tumbles.

Bedding and pillows in someone’s favorite color are probably one of her favorite parts!

We picked up the comforter and pillows from RH Baby & Child for a great deal after Christmas and we paired it all with a Target clearance pair of purple flowered sheets that match really well! The favorites by far out of this set though are the shape pillows, so much so that little one hopped down out of bed in the middle of the night to pick up the two pillows that I put down at the bottom as a just-in-case cushion for a fall. She loves to snuggle with the velvet shapes with the heart being her number one even using it to say I love you to her mommy. 

A new look for her name, with a little creative help from the big girl herself!

These letters hung proudly above her crib in pink for quite some time but we knew we wanted to still include them in her new room with a new look. So I scoured all of the craft stores for just the right purple spray paint and found this gorgeous lilac at Joann’s. To add a little something extra too I thought I could glue some flowers to the letters themselves, so with little one in tow we picked out a multipack of flowers in different patterns and shapes that seemed to go with the paint color perfectly, great choice little one!

What a difference changing a light makes!

The addition of this cute little chandelier from Kohls was perfect and I’m so glad we decided to swap out the ceiling fan for this one. The smaller size and lighter features of this light are perfectly suited for the smaller room making it much lighter, brighter, and a lot more girly too!

A little twist on an Ikea dresser makes it that much more special! 

After doing our fair share of furniture shopping over the years we’ve gotten a pretty good idea of how expensive bedroom sets can be, hence why we tried to piecemeal her room as much as possible. Going with the single headboard from Target and a BJs bed frame was a great move to downsize on the cost there but dressers seem to be expensive no matter where you go. So after some scouring online we finally found a reasonable fit for our budget and as a bonus, one that we could tweak a little to make it a little more unique. We decided on a white Hemnes dresser from Ikea that was comparable if not bigger than her dresser in the nursery and we knew we wanted to add a personal touch to it in some way. I came across this fantastic company called o’verlays who sell kits of different wooden cutouts to attach to all different Ikea pieces, a genius idea in my opinion. So we ordered the Jasmine kit, spray painted the overlays and all of the knobs a shiny gold, and voila, a new dresser was born! This is one of Mommy’s favorites!

For now those are just some of the highlights from the room but I’ll be sure to share the final product in all of it’s decorated glory once the odds and ends are tied together. I just picked a mixture of white, gold, and lilac frames to hang up, along with hemming the curtains, and a little idea I have to tweak the play table once more. I just loved putting this room together for my little best friend and it makes me even happier that she loves it just as much as we do.

For a little pregnancy update, I’m 30 weeks now and baby and mommy are doing pretty well. Mommy has been feeling pretty sick again with lots of acid reflux, so some daily Zantac is a must, along with some nausea and a very picky appetite again but other than that I’m doing pretty well. We took little one to my appointment this week to hear her sister’s heartbeat for the first time and boy was she in shock. I’m pretty sure she didn’t quite get the concept of a heartbeat but an adorable excited grin spread across her face as she heard the rhythmic thumping. I’m so excited for her to meet this little girl and finally see what we’ve been talking about all of the time. But for now I’m in the midst of meeting with the anesthiologist like I had to with my first pregnancy to go over things beforehand in terms of safety with my venous angioma. I’m not a huge fan at all of these added meetings but they’re a must for me so no negotiations there, I just wish they didn’t cause even more anxiety about the big day but that’s inevitable. More updates will come after our meeting with the anesthiologist next week and a few bump pictures as well!

Sincerely,

Lindsay (30 weeks)