Baby Barela Room

Baby Barela's Room...

As you can tell we went with a modern, animal-type theme. We tried to keep it from being too "themey" and we absolutely love how it came out in the end. Martin added the green paint at the bottom of the room and then the two dark brown stripes all the way around.

He has a little closet for hanging clothes and storage. The dresser is perfect, with deep drawers for clothing and a changer on the top that is removable when he gets older.

We bought a letter B, painted, and textured it with sandpaper.





We love the two-toned dresser that matches the crib. It's the perfect size for this wall. And after our fabulous shower we had plenty to fill those drawers with.

 Tiny baby socks and hats.

 Newborn diapers and brightly colored wash cloths.

 Adorable onesies, bibs, and

 even more onesies, shorts, pants, swim trunks, pajamas...

This little guy is set for the first year of his life.

And Martin installed shelving and hanging rods in his little closet for even more storage.

This is our beautiful crib that we picked out. It is also two-toned and has a great storage drawer underneath where we have put all his little blankets, sheets, and extra stuff.



I ordered these cute decals offline from a online decal store and they came out so good. We were a little nervous putting them on because it's pretty much a huge sticker but it came out better than we imagined.



 We have a little bear and the boppy all ready and waiting.

 And this storage drawer makes such a difference in organizing and keeping blankets and sheets separate from all the other baby items we have. The crib is not meant to use a typical bedding set but we did want a simple crib skirt to cover up the storage drawer's contents...so we put one together with simple brown fabric and iron-on hem tape...and it works exactly as we hoped.

 This little bear is actually one of the first gifts Martin gave me when we were dating back in high school...seems like forever ago. :)

 Our diaper genie is tucked away in the corner.

Our diaper organizer is perfect for keeping all those essentials together.

 And here is my new favorite chair...it is super comfortable and I love that it is covered with microfiber.

 I decided to do a photo accent wall with silhouettes, mirrors, and cute sayings. We will probably change it as he gets older and we have cute little photos of his smile to put up.

 "Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in our hearts."

 "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, As long as I'm living my baby you'll be."

 This frame just has some scrapbooking paper that coordinated with the colors of the room for now.

We painted this frame and texturized it as well.

"I love you to the moon and back..."

I love this frame with metal gears on it, so boyish, and we have a little matching wooden box that is on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf.

 This little bookshelf is perfect for holding books, toys, and that adorable black bag is his diaper bag by SkipHop.

 These little blocks are just fun.

 And we already have a savings fund started for the little guy.

 One of my favorite baby books of all time, a little stuffed giraffe, and the same coin bank from when I was a baby.

And in the corner we have this hilariously cute duck and the Raggedy Andy that is a family tradition from my Memere. Yes, she made that by hand and it means the world that all of her grandkids had one and now her first great grandchild will have one too.

The room is ready...the hospital bag is packed...Baby Barela is just about done baking...so it is just a waiting game now. I can't wait to meet this little guy, I already love him oh so much. :)

 

Baby on the Way!

So, back in September we found out that we have a little peanut on the way!

And yes, I took two tests because I was in disbelief that I was actually pregnant.

This was our first ultrasound, which was nice to confirm everything was real and the baby was healthy. They couldn't hear the heartbeat with the doppler so when we went down the hall to the ultrasound we were obviously nervous but turns out we just weren't as far along as we thought. This is the peanut at eight weeks.

This was our second ultrasound, at 12 weeks, another scare because they couldn't hear the heartbeat, but this time it was because the baby was wiggling around like crazy so the doppler wasn't working properly. Crazy little wiggler...and just to let you know the wiggling has not stopped ;)

And this was our third ultrasound at 19 weeks, the BIG one, where they measure everything, take pictures, and can tell the sex. I was joking around a few days before, saying that we were so excited to find out the gender and that the baby was probably going to have their legs crossed. And guess what? We got situated, the baby popped up on the screen, and the legs were crossed! Luckily...

 the baby cooperated and uncrossed HIS legs! It's a boy! First words out of our mouths were, "Wow, a boy:)" Then, the second words out of my mouth were, "Are you sure?" The tech smiled, pointed at the screen, and said, "I'm sure, it's pretty obvious." We laughed and watched as she measured, tried to move the little guy to get different shots, and to be honest we were both surprised that it was a boy. We both had guessed a girl. Surprise!

So, obviously we have been busy planning for our little peanut and Martin has been hard at work finishing the second bedroom so that we can make it into a nursery. For those of you who saw this bedroom when we first bought the house a year ago, it was...well...hideous pretty much sums it up.

As you can see it was bright, fluorescent pink, with a really bad paint job near the heating baseboards and disgusting old gray stained carpeting.

The wall to the right had ugly track lighting that didn't work and the walls were covered with tape and glue from posters we assumed.

This was the closet that had no door and had all kinds of outlets and a weird shelf.

And the door to the bedroom was an oak pocket door. Very cool but didn't match the house and was very loud to open and close...not convenient for a baby room when I'm sure the last thing we want to do is wake him up by a loud sliding door.

Fortunately, the windows were in great shape but needed new molding, new casing, and new blinds.

We had painted this room a pale blue last year and painted the ceiling a matte white that went with the rest of our blue/gray tones in the house. Martin did a phenomenal job installing our gorgeous hickory hardwoods that run throughout the house. We sanded and spray-painted the baseboard heating a flat white, making them look brand new. Anthony has spray-painted all of the baseboard heating in our house, he is pretty fantastic at it. So thank you!!

Martin then took the entire casing apart around the window and rebuilt it.

I painted the molding and he cut and placed it together to go around the window.

This is the white molding we used in the entire house. It really makes a huge difference in the window, making it look bigger and more open.

Martin installed our custom blinds and it was finished! A beautiful window.

Martin also did a beautiful job on the closet. Remember what that ugly open closet looked like? He split it in two so that we have a hall coat closet and a closed baby closet in the bedroom. He installed adjustable shelving inside that will grow with the baby. And you can see the brand new light/fan that he installed on the slanted ceiling. He replaced all of the outlet covers and light switches to matching white ones. So, right now we have a perfect blank slate of a room for the nursery. We're not going for a theme, just a modern looking baby room.

This is the crib we love, and not only is it different than most cribs we have seen, but it is sturdy, has excellent reviews, and turns into a toddler and then a day bed. The darker drawer will be great for storage.

I absolutely love these wall decals, they are sort of like a reverse silhouette and I think the brown will look great with the pale blue walls.

We have not decided where it will go yet, but I love this photo wall. I am going to do my own spin on it.

And this chair will hopefully complete the nursery with a few accessories and a changing table which we have not decided on yet.

Time is flying. We are going to start putting everything together over the next couple months so that it will be ready for our baby boy in May.

It seems like yesterday that we found out we were expecting a little one and we're already over halfway there! He will be here before we know it. I can't wait :)

And although I am cringing at the very thought of posting a picture of myself, nevermind a 5 1/2 month PREGNANT picture of myself, this one is for the soon-to-be grandmothers :)

After the first 3 1/2 months of morning sickness that lasted most of the day every day, I feel fabulous and this little guy is already quite the kicker.

Hopefully we will have updated nursery pictures soon!

Long Time No Post...

So it has almost been a year since I posted on here. A bit ridiculous...I know. Sorry.
We have had a busy year with lots of changes and lots of craziness. Just normal life craziness...you know, like buying our first house, re-doing a house into our first "home", traveling, new jobs for the both of us, and plentyof other things in between it all. We've learned alot this year, about life, about ourselves, and about what really matters.


So there will be a super big post soon all about our house. Promise.


As for this post, I'm devoting it to some fabulous photos of my weekend in Vermont with Sarah. We drove up on a friday night and the four hour drive was relaxing, winding through the mountains of New Hampshire and then onto the absolute calming views of Vermont's green hills and fields.


We arrived in South Burlington, Vermont, her hometown. We stayed with her Mom in her beautiful home that kind of felt like a big hug the moment you walked inside. And her Mom, well she is a special lady. She is one of those people that you feel like you have swapped stories and confided in your entire life.


The next morning we were off to explore. We headed to Waterbury, VT, where we first stopped at the Cold Hollow Cider Mill where we tasted some of the crispest, most delicious apple cider I have ever had. It is so good that you are afraid to take another sip because you can't imagine the next one being any better. It is...just saying. We each got a cider donut for breakfast and sat outside under the overhang where we people watched and talked about what to do for the rest of the day.

We drove through Waterbury, stopping at gift shops and any place that caught our eye. Everywhere I turned there was another spectacular view, another beautiful place, quaint houses, unexpected decorations, and the weather was gorgeous.

We drove along Route 100, sightseeing. Admiring the beauty of everything.

Some houses were really old, you could tell that if they could talk they would have countless stories. This particular house was just something we passed and every window was filled with colored glass bottles, catching the sunlight against the pure white curtains.

We stopped at this store alongside the road. There were these amazing carvings of everything you could imagine...from giant bears to tiny bears, raccoons, rabbits, and there was even a statue of a woman halfway completed outside.

We drove past fields of corn, glistening in the sun. They seemed to go on forever.

When we drove through the farming area of Stowe there were plenty of old tractors to be seen. I think they are pretty neat looking.

And the views only seemed to get better as we meandered along Route 100, shopping, sightseeing, and chatting.

The mountains in the distance were incredible.

Old farming buildings were tucked in between retailers and homes, full of character and beautiful just the same.

We picked up one of the tourist maps even though Sarah definitely knows the area like the back of her hand.

While driving through Historic Stowe Village there quirky little shops, this one had giant, bright yellow spoons hanging from an old tree.

We turned onto Route 108 where we continued on our drive.

We could see the bare ski slopes, just as breathtaking without the white snow drifts.

We headed back eventually and headed to the shore of Lake Champlain. After a recent flooding everything seemed to be back to normal but we could see where the water had been so high it seemed unimaginable.

We went to dinner with her extremely adorable grandparents at a great little restaurant called The Shanty. They had delicious clam chowder and we had the perfect table overlooking the lake as the sun set.

Everyone was getting ready for the July 4th celebrations which were the following day. Boats, vendors, the restaurants, everyone was excited about it.

We went for a walk along the lake, windowshopping and walking off our dinner.

We spent some time in downtown Burlington, which is such a great little community. It's a college town but at the same time it is quaint and quirky and modern all at the same time.

We went to Overlook Park where we took in some breathtaking views of Lake Champlain and the mountains.

I love that there were all kinds of little spots to stop here and there. It is like someone just stopped and said, this view is too beautiful to develop anything in front of it, let's make it a park.

We spent the morning with Sarah's other set of grandparents who were a riot to listen to their stories and look at photos of their family. Not sure how a day can be bad when you start it out with waffles.:) In the afternoon we headed to the marina where her "dinner grandparents" took us out on their boat. We couldn't have asked for a better afternoon, the sun was shining, we got a little rainshower, we sipped white wine while chatting with her grandparents, her brother and his lovely fiance, and just enjoyed the boatride.

Lake Champlain is spectacular. Enough said.

Brother and Sister...

Downtown Burlington from the water. I love that downtown is a combination of city, park, lake, residential, and farming...it's the best of everything all wrapped into one beautiful town.

Beautiful sailboats, cruising along the shore. We had an awesome afternoon and then went to dinner that night with Sarah's brother and his fiance who were both a pleasure to get to know. The wine flowed, the food was so good, and we ended the night with a beautiful July 4th fireworks celebration over downtown.

Pinks and purples, and sparkly ones that remind you of your childhood.

And then the finale was breathtaking. Everyone was quiet and stared at the night sky as they tapered off and the crowds dispersed.

We had breakfast downtown with Sarah's dad and said goodbye to Vermont as we made our way back to Massachusetts.

The views on the way back were just as beautiful as the ones on the way up.

All in all a phenomenal weekend that will not soon be forgotten. :)