Thursday, July 31, 2014

Baby Turtle's Room Tour!

**NOTE: This was written before I had baby turtle. I have since then edited the room to function for us, which should be upcoming in a post at some point. Time is pretty valuable right now, story of a new mom's life**

Welcome to Baby Turtle's Room! It took me about 6 weeks to actually get it to this point. Thank goodness for nesting lol. I blame any time delays on bladder breaks and munchies breaks! My idea for this room was pink and grey chevrons with elephants. HOWEVER: I did not realize that baby stuff is ~expensive~. So my next resort was to buys bits and pieces and hope they all match ;)

View from the door
I have a toy box that I want to put under the window but it needs some major TLC. I want to paint it a solid white and somehow get baby turtle's name on the top. But this will be a post-partum project. Just like the baby furniture. I wanted to paint the baby furniture white with pink accents. Like on the bars of the crib, top of the changing table and insides of the drawers of the changing table. But being 8 months preggo at the time I decided this, I knew it wasn't going to happen. And Hubs works all day. Sad face.

Left Wall

This is the action wall. Fashion, diapers and hampers. All in one central location. The main reason the big gorilla box is there is to act as a stand for the diaper champ and hamper. I bought the diaper champ off of someone and didn't realize how short it was. (It maybe hits my hips on the ground. No one has time to wrestle a baby and dirty diaper at the same time!) And the hamper is from Target's Dollar Spot. I figured, with as little as baby clothing is, this could easily accommodate baby turtle's laundry. *fingers crossed for preggo logic working*

Mini Station #1: Small trashcan, Diaper Champ, Hamper all on
top of a gorilla box full of stuffed animals. (Confession: they're
all my stuffed animals that I'm "giving" to baby turtle. Here's to
hoping she wont destroy all of them lol)

I made both the bow holder and headband holder long before I even contemplated making this blog. But in all seriousness, it took me like 5 minutes to make the bow holder and 10 minutes to make the headband holder, only because I had to  individually glue on the clothespins! If life allows me, I'll recreate these projects and post about them :)

The wall of hair~! Most of the headbands were a gift at our baby
shower. The bows were purchased from Hold The Confetti and
the flower clips are from Miss Maddies Closet. The other random
ones are *confession* mine that I've passed to Baby Turtle.
We didn't buy too many NB sized clothes. Figuring that newborns grow up in a blink of an eye, more of the purchasing focus has been on 3+ month sized clothing. This drawer pretty much contains all of her NB clothes, minus the few that are in her diaper baskets in the living room, our bedroom, and hospital/diaper bag. And we're in Arizona. The chances of her needing to go outside and actually wear clothes are very limited. Like doctor visits and possible a visit to work to show off her cuteness once. If I don't want to be in the heat, I'm pretty sure she won't want to be either!

Drawer #1: Clothes!

Drawer #2: Accessories? The left side contains baby leggings.
There are always coupons/promos going on that site! That's why
I have so many!The right side mainly has burp cloths and bibs.
I stuffed her hats there too  

Drawer #3: Blankets!

Hubs and I are going to try our hand at cloth diapering. Since newborns are so small but grow so quickly, we got mainly prefolds and covers to last her. I got my covers and prefolds at Kelly's Closet. They are always having some sort of coupon/promo that makes it even harder NOT to buy cloth diapers! I also bought a couple of NB pockets, mainly because the store I stumbled upon was having a closing shop sale. $7 for a NB pocket diaper with insert? Heck yes! Her diaper baskets in the living room and our room look pretty much like this but about half the size plus a few outfits for the inevitable spit up.

Drawer #4: Diapers! These are some of her prefolds, covers,
NB sized pockets and fitteds. And the random Snappi that's just
chilling on top of it all.

We also plan on using cloth wipes, but not until we finish all the Honest Company wipes that I had already bought and the Huggies wipes that we got at our baby shower. Why waste them?

Drawer #5: Wipes! We got these wipes at our baby shower :)

My "First Aide Station" has all of my aiding needs. Medicine dispensers, 4-in-1thermometer, nose sucker, etc. It also has my extra baby supplies at the bottom. I stuck all the things I plan on using on top for easy access. My fluff stash (aka diaper stash) is relatively small compared to most. The top two shelves are diapers. The top is for non-pocket diaper types (A1O, A12, fitteds) and the bulk of the stash is pocket diapers. I bought most of mine off of Zulily whenever they would have cloth diaper sales. The third shelf has extra inserts that I've bought or been given. Don't mind the little egg shaped thing that's just chilling there. It's a dehumidifier, to suck out moisture around the inserts so they don't get all mildew-ey or moldy. And funny enough, right below that is an actual humidifier.

(Right)The First Aide Station: A lot of it is
comprised of Honest Company products.
(Left) The Fluff Stash! This will need it's own
post lol. So much fluff!

Her crib. We don't plan on letting her sleep in the crib overnight for a while, but it's all set up and ready to go. For the meantime, I stuck her extra stuffed animals in there to fill the empty void.

Her crib corner :)

Close Up of the Art Work from Sweet Melody Designs
I had to get this set from her! The picture in the top left corner
was the inspiration for the whole theme of the room:
Pink, Grey, and Elephants <3


Close Up of the Art Work from Around the Block AZ
I had this customized with the pink and grey chevrons in the
background. I love this quote!
 

Some special stuffed animals. The large elephant, Hubert, was a
gift from my dad when I left for the Air Force. The teddy bear
was the first plushie Hubs won me when we were dating,
affectionately named Teddy Bear lol. The big turtle is baby
turtle's first gift from her uncle in NC. The little turtle
and the yellow spotted dog are a gift from her grandma in NC.

Her closet is more so a place of storage.

Baby turtle's closet! Most of it's stuff that
she'll be too small for or mommy tools :)

Her book collection!


Friday, July 4, 2014

What I Really Used From My Hospital Bag


I must say, I really over packed for the hospital in preparation for delivering baby turtle. (If you haven't seen what I packed, check out my post on What's In My Hospital Bag.) I used ~maybe~ one forth of what was packed. I'll mimic the order of my original post and show what I used and didn't:

Duffel Bag:
* Chapstick (I used a few times, but I didn't have that crazy chapped lip that most moms talk about)
* Wet Bag (we made this our laundry bag)
* Hanes Underwear (didn't touch these. the disposable ones were actually kinda comfy. and they were big so they held up my post partum pooch a little too)
* Fuzzy Socks (I used one pair once and realized that I was never a sock person and wasn't going to convert right then and there. I reverted back to the flip flops I wore to the hospital.)
* Towel (Def used my fluffy towel. but I also used the hospital ones too.)
* Hubby's clothing pile (The swim trunks were so handy when Hubs was helping me take a bath during labor and my post partum bath. Since I could barely stand without feeling weak in the knees, he pretty much had to be next to me, while keeping an eye on baby turtle in her bassinet outside the bathroom door. I didn't pack him enough clothes though. We truly only planned on being in the hospital for 1, 2 days max. We ended up being there for 4 nights. Hubs had to run home to change clothes once his supply ran out.)
* Clothes for me (The only garments that I ended up even touching were a nursing bra and maxi dress to go home in.)

Target Bag:
* The Food ( Hubs ended up eating a few things, but went out to get food instead. I ate lots of hospital food, which surprisingly not too bad.)
* Dental Hygiene (Def used it. Esp when I was stuck with the Pitocin and IV and couldn't really take a bath/shower. Clean teeth can make the world of a difference.)
* Rice Pillow/Maxi-Pads/Cloth Pads/Bradley Workbooks (these were untouched.)
* Bag O' Hygiene (Def used this, especially for my post partum bath. Hubby went home for his showers.)
* Relaxation/Misc toiletries ( I only used the deodorant.)
* New Mama Bottom Spray (I didn't start using this until I got home, and boy do I wish I started at the hospital. It felt a lot more soothing and cooling than the medicated spray they give.)
* Hair stuff (It really helped to have my hair out of my face during labor. The nurses even tied my hair for me when my hands were tied down with IV ports. For you gals with long hair, a really high top bun is a great labor hair style.)

Boppy and Pillows (Life savers. Need I say more?)