Hospital bag for mom.

Since I am still scrambling to get our house together, and Luke is almost one, I thought I would share what I packed in my hospital bag to help new mom's out!

1. Hanes boy - short underwear. These things are amazing. They are so comfortable to wear home from the hospital. While your in the hospital - they give you throw away undies - at least my hospital did! (They also give you pads, witch hazel wipes, and steroid cream if you ask for it!)

2. Gilligan & O'Malley nursing bras. They are so comfortable!

3. Sweatpants or shorts to sleep in that can get ruined. I would bring three or four of these, depending on the season. If you are the type to be all 'pretty' at the hospital, you can chose some Princess Kate dress or something, but that wasn't me! :)

4. Either tank tops or larger shirts to lift easily. My favorite were these from Victoria Secret. You can find similar ones other places though!

5.. Nursing pads. The reason I bring these, even though your milk won't likely be in, is because when you put Olive Oil on your chest, it will prevent staining your clothes!

6. Olive oil. If you are going to nurse - this stuff will save your life. Forget the Lansinoh cream, olive oil is 10x better, a natural anti-baterial, and natural! Seriously, use this at the hospital, at home, anytime you feel a tear coming on... it is amazing.

7. Your own toilet paper. I may be am picky. The stuff at the hospital is hard, and paper - like. It is no Cottonelle. So, that is what I bring, my stuff from home. When you are sore - you will appreciate it!

8. Camera and charger. For obvious reasons.

9. Cell phone, computer, tablet, and charger.

10. Comfortable shoes. I wore flip flops, even in November, because that is how I roll! :)

11. Toiletries. Shampoo, conditioner, face wash, razor, loofa, body wash, soap, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, hair dryer, hair ties, and makeup.


I should also add that I do not bring my own pillows or blankets. I think for a few nights I can deal with the hospital ones, plus it is SO MUCH to carry out when you are leaving. You have your bags, your baby's bags, your gifts, the flowers.... and a new BABY! It is just one less thing I wanted to deal with with my second child. Oh, if I had only known this much with my first!

Our fall mantle.

If you read regularly, you know how much I love mantles. They are kind of my favorite thing ever! If you remember, I blogged about my mantle inspiration here, and I want to show you all what I came up with! But first, lets take a look at what it looked like prior to any decorating.

Beautiful, but boring, it needed some color! Since most of the things in our house are in the brown family, we needed a big pop of color for the room. Since it was just painted we will probably wait awhile to paint, even though it desperately needs some color on the walls!

This is literally the only thing decorated in our entire house. In fact, I purposely didn't post a straight on picture because you can see the reflection of random toys all over the floor. The rest is pretty much in shambles. But, I am working on it! With two kids, it is not easy! 

Sources: Branches, glass vase, white pumpkin, ball: Hobby Lobby. Artwork: given to us from my parent's house (from American Furniture Warehouse), candlesticks, lanterns: TJ Maxx, stool: garage sale find, tin and wheat bundle: Home Goods. 

The official before photos.

We FINALLY closed on our house! Woo hoo! Everything went much more smoothly than the closing of our first home (that was a short sale)! I am so excited to share the before photos. Ignore the blurriness in a few pictures, I was too excited to focus! Pun intended! :)

Looking at the front door:

Office area that will be a playroom while the boys are young:

Upstairs small loft area:

Luke's room:

Laundry room:

Guest room/office:

Boys' bathroom:

Aiden's room:

Our bedroom:

Our bathroom:

Downstairs half bath:

Kitchen:

Family room:

Leaving closing:

Back to put the key in the door!

And this is what we have been doing since then....

I hope everyone has a great week!

Moving day!

We are in the process of moving! Look for "before" photos as soon as Internet is up and running! 

 

Yay!!

Month by month room schedule.

How nice would it be to move in a house and do every room and have them perfect right away? Fun if you have the funds, but that is not always the case! Berto and I decided that we are going to focus on one room a month until we get things the way we want! Then, we might start over! But for now we set a VERY tentative plan for which rooms we are going to do and reveal monthly on the blog. I also found some of my favorite Pinterest photo's that are going to inspire each room!

1. November. Since the holidays are coming, we are starting small. Our first project is going to be our powder room on the main floor. I like the vintage look of this bathroom and the breadboard. We may actually do stripes in ours, but I like this as well!

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2. December. Also with the holidays this month, I want to take it easy on home costs. I also think Aiden will be the happiest having his room finished and ready. Since I have the bedding and the dresser (even though I will be redoing it) I will probably aim to finish Aiden's room in December. 

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3. January. Although we will have the couches and many of the other things for our family room, I may try to tie the look up with a big rug or something this month. Here is one of my favorite family rooms. 

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4. February. I think we may have our tax return in around this time. Hopefully. Those are going to get a little tricky this year because we lived in our previous house less than two years. Thanks, nasty neighbors, for guiding us to our dream house! This month I want to work on our master bedroom! 

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5. March. Luke's room may get painted sooner than March, but I hope to have the whole thing done in March. 

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6. April. I have a shower curtain from Land of Nod that I absolutely adore. It is going to stay with us at our new house and I am going to revolve the decorating around that curtain. The boys' bathroom is going to be fishy, fishy!

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7. May. Since spring will be coming, and we will be getting our sod around this month, I only thought it would be fitting to do our spring porch this month. 

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8. June. Since it will be starting to heat up outside, and you all know how much I love the heat,  I will be working on the boys' playroom. 

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9. July. Our master bathroom is gorgeous without anything. But it will need a little color. And, some other more pretty stuff. 

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10. August. There are so many adorable laundry rooms on Pinterest these days. I love this simple design. 

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11. September. I am not quite sure what I want to do with our backyard yet, but I do know that I want to plant some trees to gain some privacy. I am sure we will plant them strategically to block out windows over time. 

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12. October. We do not really have guests all that often but when we do it will be nice to have a little get away. I think the guest room should be this type of place. 

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Well, there you have it. A year of rooms and ideas and a year of goals. Hopefully we can stick to this schedule if costs permit in order to start turning our house into a home! 

Less than one week.

I can't believe we are in single digits let alone less than one week away from move-in day! We went down to the house yesterday to see how the yard was progressing and took a peak inside as well!

Of course Aiden had to get a little playing time in. I don't know if I said before - he tends to leave stuff at the house... and we usually find it when we go back there. But I wonder if he is keeping his stuff there just to make sure we go back... smart kid. 

These are some of the fall foliage views we can see from our windows...

And if anyone has ever questioned why Colorado is the most amazing state - let this picture tell that story!