Grady's Room Makeover!

The "before" picture...

As you can tell, he had TOTALLY outgrown this crib-converted-to-toddler-day-bed! Look how long he is! No wonder he woke up every single night and wanted to come get in our great big bed with us! He was more than happy to give this bed to Vera!
Saying bye-bye to the baby bed...

Mom and Dad took Grady to the beach for a few days. So while he was out of our hair, we re-did the room. Faye and Josh painted the rooms (Grady's AND Vera's). I was not allowed to paint, so I just worked on "choo choo train art" at Grady's request.

The "after" pictures...

His room sign...

Again, Grady's request was to have "choo choo's" on his walls and on his room sign!

I ordered his letters from Land of Nod.....also got his bedding there. Loved the little boy letters! Grady calls these his "ABC's". They had these vintage-y girly ones as well and I ordered them for Vera's room.

Our first experience with vinyl wall stickers. Josh hung them this morning. Took forever, but Grady loves them! They go all the way across his wall.

Sorry I didn't get an "after" picture of him in his new room. I had to clean it up and take a picture of it this afternoon while Josh and he were playing in the backyard. It doesn't always look this clean...especially if he is IN the room! ha! But he loves his new "big boy bed" and thankfully sleeps SO much better in it!

I promise to post pictures of the nursery soon!

Updates

I went to the doctor this past week for another ultrasound. My doctor wanted to see how big little miss Vera is at the moment. Or should I say BIG MISS VERA... She is already at 4 pounds and measures 2 weeks ahead of schedule if you look at all of her measurements...the femur bone, the head circumference, etc. So she will be like her big brother most likely. Every trip I've had to the doctor has been a good report so far. No problems with blood sugar, blood pressure, weight gain, anything... I just have big babies! Runs on both sides of the family, unfortunately. Josh was almost 10 pounds when he was born. I was 9. Grady-man was 12 days early and weighed 8 lb., 5 oz. So my doctor is really watching Vera because she doesn't want her to weigh 10 pounds... Neither do I! ha. She told me that she will most defnitely NOT let me go all the way until my due date (which is April 2nd), so it looks like we will have a little girl in March! WOW! That is just around the corner!

We have been working really hard trying to make room in our house for another little person...And with her arrival being practically a month and a half or so away, it's REALLY starting to sink in that things are about to change SO much around here! It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in just a few years of living in a house! Over the Christmas holidays, I parted with TONS of stuff... mainly school stuff from years of teaching Kindergarten. We cleaned out the "office" which is now Vera's room and totally re-did Grady's nursery to make it a "big boy" room. (pictures to follow in another post). We gave away furniture, packed up stuff to take to the GoodWill, and boxed up stuff for the attic. I gave an entire car load FULL of Kindergarten stuff to Grady's school. SO hard to let go of that stuff, but SO happy to walk in his classroom and see his teachers using it with the kiddos! :) Better than it sitting in the attic and getting no use whatsoever.

So needless to say, we have been pretty busy around here getting ready for Vera. Sorry for the lack of blog posts. I am going to post pictures of Grady's room in the next post. We completed it today! Vera's is still "in-the-process" as I am working on some artwork and we have a few things left to hang. Will post pictures of her nursery soon!

Christmas 2011

Making cookies for Santa at DeeDee's house on Christmas Eve...
(Note...next year, Julie will get slice and bake cookies, or ship Grady to Susan's house!!!)

thankfully Susan stepped in before I lost all of my patience!

the finished products...

Grady did MUCH better this year. Last year, he did not understand that the cookies were for Santa and freaked out when I wouldn't let him eat them. He ended up eating Santa's cookies, well...part of them. We had to put them on the plate with bites taken out of them. But this year, Grady understood WHO the cookies were for and he gladly fixed Santa's plate himself.

We continued the tradition of writing a letter to Santa on Christmas Eve. Grady helped me write his letter this year. He told me what to say and helped me write it...

here's his letter, complete with a "picture" he drew for Santa...

And on Christmas morning, he was excited to find that once again, Santa had written a letter back to him! AND complimented Grady on being a good cookie baker! :) He only left one bite on his plate.

Santa brought WOODY and BUZZ and Grady was all smiles! He is really into Toy Story right now! Buddy-the-Elf must have told Santa!

And the little cook got his own kitchen, too!

Grady got to open his stocking AND Vera's!

Hard to believe this was our last Christmas as a "family of three!" My, how things are about to change around here! Hope you and your family all had a wonderful Christmas!

Happy New Year!