Baby Room #2

Tenley loves her new room. During her first time in her new crib, she pulled up onto her feet by herself for the very first time.

Today, we (okay, my Dad :) ) painted our 3rd bedroom in preparation for baby #2. We have another 5 months to go, but I have a lot of fun preparing things like this. We had Tenley's room all done around this time during the last pregnancy too. The room we redid today will be Tenley's new room when baby #2 arrives, around late December/early January.

Yesterday my Mom found a great bedding set at a garage sale with crib skirt, bumper, pillow, memory board, rug, and 12 basket liners -- ALL handmade by the seller's mom. They are made from excellent fabrics, have great finishing touches, and don't look handmade at all - in a good way. :) The whole set was $25 and also included a mobile that I don't really like so I won't use.

A few weeks ago we picked up a crib and matching changing table for $30 - what a good deal. I put the bedding on the crib last night and the blue clashed terribly with the blue cloud walls. Yay! I finally get to paint these walls and get rid of these clashing curtains! Why didn't I get rid of the clashing curtains earlier? I don't know - I guess I didn't like the look of the room enough to put much work into it until I got to really change it with paint.

Before: the walls and clashing curtains before we painted. The furniture was different, but you get the idea.

After asking some advice, I decided to go with gray. I was nervous, and as the paint started to go on I thought I had gotten a color that was too dark. Darn. But the more we covered up that blue, the better it looked. I love the way it has turned out.

Paint was $20. Add to that a great wall picture frame from Target still in the packaging that I got from a garage sale this morning for $1, and a whole "new" room cost just $76. I'm sure I'll add in a couple things here and there in the next few months to finish it off, but it looks like we're going to have this baby room put together from scratch for a very good price.

Also in this new room is our piano, a bookshelf with baskets, and some storage bins, because we have very limited storage space...or we have way too much stuff. The room is very small, but I think we've done the best we can with the space we have.

Messy bookshelf will be organized with wicker baskets and liners like the ones you see on the floor.

Crawling

Yesterday Tenley crawled (for real) for the first time! Stephen, Tenley, and I had gone over to Jonathan and Rebecca's house to watch a movie and play with Navy. Tenley sat down on the blanket, eyed a toy she wanted, and just crawled to it! I was so surprised. She did it twice, I got out the camera, and then she refused to crawl again. Oh, well. She still had a lot of fun playing with Navy and the toys she wasn't used to.

Today I took Tenley to my parent's house to show off her new "trick." She crawled a lot over there! I finally got a short video. Another little new thing is that Tenley has finally realized that she needs to chew food before swallowing it. She was so used to liquid or very thin foods that chunks are a big change for her. She would even choke on puffs if I broke them in to fourths. They dissolve very easily, so I just let her pick them up and eat them and "choke" slightly each day until she finally figured out what to do. Now puffs (whole ones :) ) are her favorite snack.

Here is the video I got of her crawling today! Yay, Tenley!! Good job! It is still not her favorite thing to do, but I think once she realizes she can get around and gets more used to it, she will be crawling all over the place.

9 months old

Tenley's 9 month appointment was today. She turned 9 months on June 27, so it's a few days late. Today she was 20 lbs and 27 inches. In weight, she's thinning out, which was to be expected. The doctor says breastfed babies tend to be a little chunkier 0-6 months and then start to thin. She was always in the 95th percentile, but now she's in the 65th. She's a little on the short side, but we've got some pretty short girls on both sides of this family, so that's to be expected as well. Overall, she's a super healthy baby girl! She had 2 shots today (boo!), but after a short cry, she was fine. She's such a trooper.

9 months old has been so much fun so far! She's learning new things every day. She can get almost anywhere she wants, but not by crawling forward. She crawls backward, rolls, scoots on her booty - anything but crawling forward. She also loves trying new food, especially if Mommy and Daddy are eating. She loved celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks. She watched them on 3 nights. We've also been trying to have some good outdoor time, when it's not too hot. She loves being outside. She loves to swim, swing, play with bubbles, and go on walks.

watching the fireworks downtown

on a walk at Wesselman Woods