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Pictured here are the crib and crib skirt we used with Jake, with some things I bought Saturday to start working on things for Mari.

Saturday I went ahead and got James to put the crib back together and I went and starting getting things to make her crib bedding (my mom is gracious enough to actually make it for--I just had to pick it out). For those of you who have been reading this blog for at least two years, you might remember that we picked out mostly sage green things for Jake so that we could reuse them with subsequent babies. I picked an overall theme of Classic English Children's Literature and then each baby can have a sub theme that coordinates with the overall them. This way I can reuse things but every child will get there own stuff to some extent.

So with Jake it was A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh (not the Walt Disney version) and the focus was honey bees. My mom painted his birth sampler with scenes from the books and he has assorted Classic Pooh books, stuffed animals, etc, but all of his bedding was/is sage green, honey yellow, white, black and cream. We made bees and a bee hive to hang on the wall. To see what we did for Jake click on November 2005 over on the right (archives) or click here.
With Mari her theme author is Beatrix Potter. For a website about her click here and for one featuring some of her work click here. The minor focus will be butterflies. Bees and butterflies will go together pretty good I think. Our house is three bedroom so she and Jake will be sharing a room until we move.

We plan on putting the crib in our room, the changing table in Jake's bathroom and the rest of her stuff in the room she will "share" with Jake. If she is anything like Jake she will be in our room until she is 18 months old anyway. Jake sleeps in his room until about three a.m. and then he comes and gets in the bed with us still at 20 months. I am not complaining though, because he is so much fun to cuddle with early in the morning. Jake has a full sized bed in his room and we are hoping if we put them in the bed together they will both be more likely to sleep in their room (we won't do this until she is around a year old though).

I also bought the letters for her name and Jake's name and found some receiving blankets and foam cutouts to design the wall hangings and mobile from. I will post more pictures as things progress.

Above is some material that I bought Saturday. The first one is for the back and border of the baby quilt/comforter. The middle one is for center of the baby quilt, the organizer and the bumper pad. We didn't make a bumper pad with Jake as I ordered an breathable bumper for Jake, but it didn't really keep him from ramming his head against the edge of the crib so we used one James's cousin's wife had left over from her son (but it is blue and we want to have one of our own this time). The third fabric is one my mom is making two large receiving blankets from. Jake quickly outgrew the normal sized ones and someone (EVY) gave us some extra large homemade ones that we still use at nap time!

I did buy these receiving blankets at Toys R Us, because I do want a touch of pink. I do not like the purple one though! Below are the patterns we were matching. The top one with the bees and butterflies, is the material that makes up our pack and play travel crib combo station (that will be our downstairs nap crib and changing station). The two fabrics below are from our infant car seat, high chair and just about anything else Graco makes in the sage Waverly pattern. The items are made of a sage green material, a sage and cream gingham material and a sage and green toile material called Central Park Toile (or Cherub toile) featuring cherubic children playing in a field with trees, and a see saw. There are also sheep in it. It reminded me of nursery rhymes so that is why I choose it because it sort of fits in with the major overall theme and I thought would be easily matchable with subsequent babies.

Jake's room is brown. Above is his birth sampler hanging on the wall and below is one of his bees that I am holding against the wall. We have not hung his bees yet. We waited because we thought we might repaint his room, but I rather like the dark brown. We are painting our room before Mari gets here though. It is bright ketchup red and they did a horrible job painting it. I was pregnant when we moved so unpacking has been a slow process and we decided to wait to put all of Jake's decorations up when we put up Mari's so that he doesn't get so jealous. He has already shown frustration at not being able to play with the new stuff we have bought and/or for the stuff that formerly was his that we are bringing down from the attic. Don't worry, we are being fair and Jake will be getting some new shelves, a new bed frame and a real toy box so that should take the edge off of bringing home Mari. Plus she is due two days after his birthday so hopefully he will have plenty of attention and new toys to distract him and smooth the process.

Jake climbed on top of a pile of his baby clothes that I was going through to wash for Mari. I piled them in his infant car seat (which he outgrew at 3 months) so that I would remember to wash the cover for it as well. I found quite a few green, yellow and cream outfits that she can wear. He is as adorable as ever, but unfortunately I will have to take him to get his hair cut soon. Because his hair curls we have avoided that first cut for this long, but he has my crazy hair that curls some days and frizzes the next. We will probably just get it trimmed enough to keep it out of his ears and eyes, but leave it long enough so that is can curl.

He has been having problems with his reflux again here lately so he will be going back to the doctor sometime in the next two weeks. He is talking so well now that we are able to have conversations. When he doesn't know a word he makes one up or uses a real word as a substitute. For example if he doesn't want to eat something he claims it is hot and then politely asks for fish (his gold fish crackers). He is still more fun than trouble and he and I have had fun looking at pictures of him at birth soon after. It is hard to believe it was less than two years ago. We are still working on the potty training. We have had some occasional success it just isn't consistent. Sometimes he wants to use the toilet, some times he doesn't. He has been in pull ups/training pants since March and within a month of trying we had our first success. He started of by saying Uh Oh when he needed to go and has now progressed to less polite terminology. All in all he is such a big boy. He can count to twelve with the exception of two numbers (six and seven I think are the ones he gets wrong). We have nineteen stairs and he counts them as we go up and down. He can climb without holding my hand, holding on to the rail by himself with me walking behind him or in front of him (depending on which direction we are going in) to catch him if he stumbles (although he hasn't yet). He has been able to climb them for a while, but now he does it like a little man instead of on all fours or holding the wall. He sits in a booster seat when he eats instead of a high chair and really prefers to sit in a chair by himself (rather than on my shrinking lap) when he plays with toys at the table. He sleeps in his own bed most of the night. He can brush and floss his own teeth (all though we always brush them after him just to make sure) and he likes to brush his own hair. I can't believe how big he is getting!

My doctor's appointment on Thursday went great. She and I are still measuring right on target (not huge like with Jake) and my blood pressure was low, even though I have started swelling from the heat. The doctor was impressed with how active Mari was when he did our measurements and she kicked the doppler three times while he listened to her heart rate. I told him she was quite docile compare to Jake and that I was worried because she didn't seem as active (or violent as we sometimes called it) as Jake was, but he said she is still more active than average. I am 25 weeks now and hopefully will go into labor a week or so early like I did with Jake as they don't want me to go over my due date with a VBAC (vaginal birth after a c-section). I am getting excited but nervous at the same time. Things went so wrong at the end with Jake, who can blame me for being a little nervous. I just won't everything to go smoothly this time.