Better late than never! I had such an incredible time at my baby shower a few weekends ago and I wanted to show you all how awesome my friends and family are…check out the yummy food and decorations they set up for the party!

Coffee and candle favors…insanely delicious cupcakes…and a rockin’ diaper cake. I ate a disproportionate amount of cupcakes compared to the rest of the guests…but they were really, really good.

Plus hey – I wasnt able to partake in the mimosas (below – before being poured) so the cupcakes balance it all out. Riiiiight. Cucumber tea sandwiches were delicious as well, and the decor was adorable.

I felt so blessed to have so many friends and family come from all over the country to celebrate our baby boy. And for each and every one of the buttercream-iced lemon, almond and raspberry chocolate cupcakes…

It’s finally done! I wanted an adorable mod nursery with relaxing colors and a sunshiny feel…with an Australian theme…and I needed it to fit lookwise and sizewise into our master bedroom. Tall order!

I sent embarrassingly awful hand sketched drawings to artists to custom make different parts of the nursery and bless their little hearts for seeing my ideas through the scribble. I used this awesome etsy vendor for the custom wall decals and I recommend her and etsy.com in general for so many cute baby/nursery things. Janeymacpress

Odds and ends are from Ikea, Pottery Barn Kids, and my grandmother’s library where I scavenged hundreds of really old children’s books. My favorite book is one from the 50′s (and now out of print) called The Unhappy Hippopotamus. The story is great and the illustrations are stunning – black and white hand drawn images with shades of pale pink…so pretty!

So come on in and step inside our room! I cleaned up the mess mostly using photoshop’s clone tool. Way easier then actually mopping!

The bedding (which actually you can see one of my sheet options in the last set of photos – here it’s just the plain old mattress – it’s a good look) has pale blues, navy and pale yellow colors and small embroidered stars and moons. We spent so many nights in Australia checking out the southern constellations and admiring how you can actually see the milky way when you’re in the outback. So, so pretty. We’re planning on replacing the photos above the changing table with either some from our trip, or some of the little guy when he arrives.

Pay attention to the cute shelves and ignore my dirty shoes! The sailboat mobile is another nod to our Aussie trip as we spent 2 weeks aboard different boats – one sailing through the Whitsunday Islands and the other diving off the Great Barrier Reef. Some of my favorite memories are from those trips!

Fun stuff!

Eek!!! 5 weeks left until my due date – how did time go by so quickly?! I must admit – pregnancy has been so much fun for me. I’ve felt fantastic every day, have loved feeling Heath hiccup and kick, and have been so happy thinking about this little man who is already loved so much. I keep telling dave that with as much as I’ve loved being pregnant that I now want 10 kids. Annnnd as you can probably imagine, there are no words in the English language to describe his expression when I mention this…

Here I am in all my rounded glory. Check back later this week for completed nursery photos – fun!

Please let me relish in my glory that I’ve actually remembered to do this today!

1. GOOOOOO DEACS!!!! Huge shout out to my Wake Forest fans here (any any other NCAA march madness crazies). Our game vs. Texas went down to the wire last night, and while I have no idea how we managed to lose our early lead, I’ll take the W! Tough game up next though with Kentucky…should be interesting!

2. We just got back from a bit of a babymoon in Florida and it was awesome! The weather was perfection, the sunsets were gorgeous, the water cold (but hey we had a pool too) and it was a great time had by all. I read 2 completely contradictory books on parenting and realized that Dave’s idea of winging it might actually have some merit. Some snaps below of our trip – enjoy!

3. I dont want to jinx it because I really, REALLY dont want to see it…but I think we may be out of the woods with snow! Could we really have an entire month of March with no snow here? PLEASE!!!!

4. Along those lines, my first vegetable garden is tilled (I think I used that word correctly) and limed (no idea on that one) and soon I’ll be testing the PH balance. Of course I have no idea how to do that, but it sounds like a good starting point. I’m so excited to try to grow something now that we have land! I’m planning an ambitious start – lots of herbs, veggies and even some fruit. If anything survives my black thumb I’ll be sure to post photos. Plants going in the ground on Mother’s Day!

5. Why are items made by Graco so difficult to assemble? The swing and the pack and play for Heath are RIDICULOUS! The directions seem to miss entire steps and nothing seems to come together the way it looks on the box. Our living room is starting to resemble the island of misfit toys. 6 more weeks until my due date – I cant believe he’ll be here so soon!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Soooo excited for this announcement! This contest was so fun for me – I loved participating with photographers across the country, seeing the amazing nursery entries, and watching all the votes come through! I was so impressed with every single nursery in the running – you all are so talented and creative (and have adorrrrrable babies)!

Without further ado – the winner of the Nursery Contest (with 349 votes!) is…

Nursery Number 6!

Congrats Nursery 6!!! I’ll be contacting you with more details shortly, but you’ve won a 1 hour complimentary session from Shey Marin Photography focusing on nursery, baby and/or family, and your choice of (1) 8×10, (2) 5×7 prints and one set of (8) wallet prints. Additional prints and digital images may be purchased at 15% off a-la-carte.
CONGRATS!!!!

And to our fantastic second and third place winners – you win something fun as well! I’ll be emailing you shortly with details!

Thanks to everyone for participating and for all the votes!