Baby Boy Kelley's Nursery Room - Progress Photos

When it came time to think about Grant's nursery and how I wanted his space to look, I knew I wanted something classic, (and like Everleigh's room...nothing too "baby"), that he could grow into. I wanted something we would ALL enjoy for years to come even after he transitioned into a big boy room, (cause Lord knows this mama would surely NOT have the energy needed to try and do a whole new room makeover in a few years. ;)  

Unlike Everleigh's room though...where we just went with a color scheme that I liked and thought would be fun for her, Grant's room had a more focused, theme oriented feel to it.  Playing off a traditional "boy's room", we went with a transportation theme with a vintage twist.  Navy blue, lime-y green with pops of orange here and there.  I still have plans to incorporate orange into his crib skirt and/or rail guard, so needless to say, this room is NOT 100% done yet but I'm actually quite PROUD of where it stands today, considering we still have a little over 6 weeks til baby is due to make his arrival.  

Slowly but surely... here is where baby boy's room stands today.  :)  

Grant's Room - AFTER (in progress) 

Grant's Room - Previous Owner's Decor

Certainly has come A LOOOOOOONG way from how we saw it when we purchased our house a year and a half ago!  

Grant's Room BEFORE - How it looked a month or two ago 

A mess to say the least! Yikes :) 

For awhile there I had contemplated these orange curtains (which was actually a duvet cover that I took apart and sewed a lining onto) but I ended up liking how the solid green seemed less busy AND was a lot less work to put together...lol.  At nearly 30 weeks pregnant (at the time), I quickly found out how UN-motivated I was to work on the other panel after spending hours trying to get these stupid things to line up properly.  It probably would've been easier to work on everything on the floor but I ended up working on our very large but also very SLIPPERY dining room table.  NOT a fun process so I quickly decided that the green would win the curtain contest...for now.  I figured if I ever wanted to change the look of the room, I could easily finish up that other curtain panel later on.  

While perusing Pinterest for inspiration, we came upon this awesome shelving idea that took Ikea brackets and stained deck boards to create this awesomely industrial-ish look we were going after.  

Homegoods has definitely been the source for a lot of the decor for this space.  

The piggy bank, the silver plane, both vintage cars, the metal G, and plane stool all came from Homegoods.  The globe and dark navy basket were Ross finds.  :)  Gotta love me a great find! 

The prints over the crib were just photos I found and printed off the internet.  The frames came from Ikea.  

And this cute "not-so-little" bear pictured above found ALL of her old baby things as we were organizing and decided that she needed to baby test everything again.  ;)  

Ohhhh the entertainment this kid brings to our lives.. :) 

It was actually cute how Everleigh gave up one of her big bears for her baby brother's room.  This giant panda had been living in our playroom for the last year and when I asked Everleigh if we could put it in Grant's room, she happily agreed and even helped me move him over!  

Inspired by several projects I had seen on Pinterest (of course) I enlisted the help of my super awesomely HANDY husband to create this pegboard station above the changing table.  It's obviously not filled up with all the decor I'm sure it'll eventually get, but I love how it looks so far.  :)  

Celebrating Grant Henry Kelley :)

It's funny how our most successful parties come with the least amount of party preparations.  

About a month ago, Chad casually mentioned in passing that he thought we should have a get together to celebrate the upcoming arrival of our baby boy before his work schedule got crazy.  Since so many of our friends had been asking if we were having a baby shower or where we were registered at, I took his casual party idea as an opportunity to start stock piling the only thing that we really, truly needed... DIAPERS!  

One problem.  It took forever to nail down a date.  With Chad's uncertain work schedule, house projects popping up almost every single weekend and unfinished projects mocking us daily, it was hard to commit to a date that we knew would work for us.  Not so convenient when party invitations needed to be sent out so our friends would be able to plan ahead.  

So once a date was set, and with practically ZERO notice, we informed our amazingly awesome friends of our plans and shifted into high gear to "prep" as much as we could with the limited time we had.  

Lo and behold...our party was a SUCCESS!  The weather actually cooperated (storms had passed the night before so we were uncertain that our outdoor BBQ idea would pan out), we had a great turn out, and the decor was actually much more coordinated than I thought it would end up being.  YEAH for last minute pachangas! :)  

And DOUBLE YEAH for AWESOMELY CREATIVE and HELPFUL friends Hollienoel, who lent us baby pools and outdoor water fun for the kiddies and Rebecka who came bearing the show stoppers of ALL show stoppers... 

Are you KIDDING ME with this?!  Chad and I are STILL FLOORED and in AWE at the amount of time, energy and LOVE that Rebecka put into not only this picture above.. BUT...

This diaper cake too!!! 

When she mentioned that she wanted to do a diaper cake for us...and asked what colors we had selected for his room, and what name we had chosen for our baby boy, I never in a MILLION years thought that she would show up at our house with THIS! 

The amount of detail is amazing...

  

AND on top of all this.. she even came bearing gifts... FOR EVERLEIGH!!  

What incredible friends we have...talk about LUCKY bears we have!!  :)   

The rest of the house was pretty simply decorated as well.  Streamers, balloons and onesies as decorations filled our living room.  :)  Easy peasy and done.  

 

      

And because who can STOP looking at that dining room table of awesome-ness.. here it is again..   

  

It turned out to be such a beautiful day. 

Not too hot for a Texas summer afternoon in June...  Whew!!

And the kiddies had a blast splashing in the sun :) 

 

Everleigh's so lucky to have made such sweet friends since starting at her new school back in February.  Love the friendship these sweet girlies have. :) 

  

   

 

Sweet baby Z! :) 

  

     

That's a WRAP and we are POOPED!  :)  

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it out to help celebrate our new bear.   

He is already so incredibly LOVED by everyone near and far.  We can't wait for his arrival.  

We're counting down the days til we meet our sweet little man.  

August 14th can't come soon enough!  

Kelley Belly 2.0 (20-27 Weeks)

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted last.  This blog has definitely been put on the back burner lately, and for that I apologize.  So much has happened in the last several months but when I think about when and how I need to start sorting it all into blog posts, I get overwhelmed and just stop.  I figured the best excuse I could probably get away with was, oh you know.. that whole growing a tiny human thing.. ;) 

With working full time (and sleeping HALF the time), peeing ALL THE TIME, focusing what's left of the day to giving Everleigh some mommy-time, to prepping the nursery for our baby boy all of the times in between... things have definitely been nutty around our house.  On top of all that we've been adding projects that weren't even on our original "to-do" list, like buying a new TV for the living room.  Normally that wouldn't seem like a big deal to most but it required a whole new media cabinet below.  And wouldn't you know it wasn't a size you could just find and buy at any old store.  We actually had to do a little research to find what we (sorta, kinda) wanted and then had to modify it.  (Once again, a blog post on THAT coming soon too....hopefully ;) 

It's like we're opening one can of worms after another.  And that's cause the "nesting phase" hasn't even hit full force yet!  

Regardless, I'm back---ish.  No promises for consistent blogging but I've got a long list of things I want to post about, I just need to find time to GET IT DONE!  ;)  

Until then, I thought it would be fun to see how the Kelley Belly has been growing since I took my first "bumpie" 7 weeks ago.  Seems like Baby Boy Kelley has made a major jump in growth during the last 3 weeks.. swelling up not only my belly BUT my face and my hips and my thighs and yeah.. everything else.  

And to think we still have a LONG ways to go.. 

(I'm currently 27 weeks, 4 days...with a scheduled c-section tentatively set for 38 weeks) 

20 Weeks 3 Days (above)

21 Weeks 4 Days

22 Weeks 4 Days

24 Weeks 3 Days

27 Weeks 3 Days

27 Weeks 5 Days

Baby Bear Kelley 2.0 - Gender Reveal 2015

So I'm actually quite proud of Chad and I for holding this TEENY, TINY, bit of HUUUUGEE information all to ourselves for over SIX WHOLE weeks.  Who knew my will power was so strong?! I think it was easy cause we actually just flat out LIED to everyone.  No one knew we'd gotten a sneak peak at an early doctor appointment, so no one bugged us to tell them.  

At our 12 week sonogram, over a month and a half ago, the sono tech doing the first round of a two part scan of our baby, told me that 9 times out of 10, the perinatologist (who I'd be seeing next) was correct in being able to accurately see gender that early on.  Without Chad at that particular appointment, I contemplated the POSSIBILITY of knowing the sex of our growing baby.  I didn't even think it was an option at this point so it took me a minute to get up the courage to ask the Dr when he finally came in to see me.  After a quick scan and without any hesitation AT ALL the doctor said.. "Well don't go out and paint the nursery room or anything... BUT I'm pretty good at this stuff and I'm MORE than 85% sure that it's a......."  (to be continued... to the end of this post  ;)

Right away we knew that we wanted to try to get my parents up to visit for our next scheduled sonogram, at 18 weeks (this past Friday, March 27th).  When we found out Everleigh's gender, we literally couldn't contain our excitement and called my parents from the parking lot right after our appointment.  I knew they wouldn't care how they found out this time around, but I was set and determined to make it up to them for not making that first reveal EXTRA special.  With that in mind, Chad and I went full force into "Gender Reveal Party Planning Mode".  

With this sonogram being so close to Easter, we took advantage and decided to make our party "Easter" themed.  It was gender neutral, springy and let us have the opportunity to have an egg hunt for the kiddies attending the party.  It was a hit!  

With the party set for 4pm (past lunch and before dinner time) we focused on light snacks and, of course, yummy sugary treats.  ;) 

Tasty flavor options from Nothing Bundt Cakes

Main Cake - White Chocolate Raspberry (topper made by yours truly ;)

Mini Cake Flavors - Pecan Praline, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and Carrot 

 

After all the kiddie guests had arrived, we went outside to start the Egg Hunting festivities!

So proud of all the littles for being patient enough for me to snap a few pictures.  ;) 

Aaaaaannnnd... THEY'RE OFF!!!

So cute watching all the smaller ones walk RIGHT OVER the eggs, not really understanding the concept of filling their baskets.. lol.  

Saving the best eggs for last, I came out with 2 dozen confetti filled eggs that I handed to each kiddie to "SMASH" on each others heads.  Everyone really seemed to enjoy that messy part.  ;)  

As Chad and I mulled over our "Reveal" options, the one that we both really liked involved creating a unique piece of art for the baby's nursery.  Finding this inspired post on Pinterest, we quickly decided this was the idea for us. (Along with TWO other back-up plans in case the weather was bad ;)

Luckily for us, the weather was perfect.  A bit windy, a bit too bright but perfect enough for our plan.
A couple nights before, we emptied, washed and painted some egg shells that we later filled with different color paints.  The idea was that we'd throw the first set of eggs containing either BLUE or PINK paint...thus our REVEAL.  ;)

READY?!  SET?!  THROOOOOWWWW!!!!

It's....A....BOOOOY!!! 

The screams in the background told us that everyone was as excited as we are to be adding a sweet little bear cub to our family.  :) :) :) 

After that we invited everyone to help create our masterpiece!  :)  

\

We're definitely loving the way they turned out.. but we will most likely add more color splashes before we hang them up ;)  

Our "INDOOR" reveal option - A giant filled egg with BROTHER bear hiding inside.  

Everleigh got to open that one on her own later that afternoon.  ;)

Friends for nearly half their lives... Sophia and Everleigh now go to preschool together! 

It's been so great seeing their little friendship blossom and grow and we're so glad they get to spend so much time together ;)

Sweet little eggheads.  ;) 

A sincere and heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who was able to make our reveal so special.  To those who traveled from long distances to be with us and to all our friends and family who have sent well wishes from all over.  We are definitely feeling the LOVE for the little man growing in my belly.  We are truly thankful for the friendships we've made and the special people that surround us daily.  

We can't WAIT to meet our little bear cub!!