So Miss Melody isn't quite old enough to really enjoy trick or treating, but that didn't stop us from getting her dressed up (and us too)!
All in Household
DIY Headband Holder
Melody has a TON of headbands. When we first find out we were having a girl, all I could think about was how I wanted cute headbands. I bought quite a few myself, but my cousin gave me a bunch of hand-me-downs too from her little girl. So I needed a way to store all these cute headbands. Check out what I did below!
0-4 Month Toys
So I find 0-4 months to be a boring age for toys. I struggle to find fun things that Melody also enjoys. I also hate to buy a bunch of toys that we will never use. With that said, I decided to create a list of Melody's favorite toys right now. Granted she is only 3.5 months old, these are still toys she has enjoyed since she was a mere few weeks old.
Baby Items I Didn't Realize I Needed
After we had Melody, there were a few items we didn't have that we really wished we did. Check out a few of them below!
Formula Bottle Prep
When we transitioned Melody from breast milk to formula, I had to find a way to better prep bottles so that I was not making one bottle at a time. I tried a couple of methods, but in the end, I found a solution that works great for us right now. Currently Melody is taking 5 ounce bottles 6 times a day. As her bottles get bigger, my method may not be the most efficient, but it works great now.
Travel Baby Formula
Brad and I travel a lot. We decided while I was pregnant that we would not let a baby slow us down. We are really trying to stick to that goal after having Melody. Of course some trips are not realistic and traveling is definitely not as easy as before, but we are doing pretty good. We have a baby that loves the car, so that definitely makes traveling easier. One thing we faced on our first big travel (it was 3 1/2 hour trip to Brad's parents' house) was making Melody's bottles. We now usually make all of her bottles for the day in advance, but that has not and will not always be the case. I decided to make use of some of our breast pump supplies and create my own travel baby formula containers. Check it out below!
Tealight Candle Favors
For my best friend's baby shower, I decided to make the favors simple but cute. I wanted something that people might would actually use at some point. A lot of times you go to showers and weddings and end up with favors that you just throw away. I did some research and decided to use candles somehow. I mean people can always find a purpose for candles. Using washi tape, I was able to make some cute and decorative tea light candles for everyone to take home. Check it out below!
Burlap Football Door Hanger
So Brad and I cheer for opposite college football teams. We have good reason seeing that we both attended different colleges. I am an Alabama graduate and fan, and Brad is an Ole Miss graduate and fan. It is very, very hard to find house divided things for Alabama and Ole Miss. I could always get something custom made, but I usually want to attempt it myself if I am resorting to that. So I decided to make a door hanger from burlap. It is a super easy craft. It only took me a few days and that was primarily me waiting on paint to dry! See the steps below:
Life as a New Mom
I would be lying if I said childbirth was easy. I have previously written about our birth story and our hospital experience. I think the difficult childbirth really impacted the relationship that both Brad and I have with Melody.
The biggest trouble I ran into while pumping breastmilk was not having any free hands. This was troublesome for two reasons. One - this prevented me from being able to feed Melody AND pump at the same time. This was an issue only at night because I did that feeding alone, and I was ready to go back to sleep! Prior to my pumping bra, it was taking me 15 minutes to prep for feeding and pumping, 30 minutes to feed, and 30 minutes to pump. Then I had to clean up, change Melody, put her to bed, then go to bed myself. That was over 90 minutes! The second reason was that my hands would get super tired from holding the breast shields in place while pumping. I sometimes would slide my bra over the bottom of the shields, but it would still leak.
Nursery Completion
So we are finally finished with Miss Melody's nursery! Today is her official due date, so I thought what better day than today to post our final pictures. Of course, all that is missing from these pictures is Melody herself! Check them out below!
DIY Wine Charms
I came up with the idea of making my own wine charms when I was trying to come up with a good party favor. While I actually never used these for party favors, I still think the idea of making your own is ideal for any occasion. And if you aren't a wine drinker, they can still be used on any glass with a stem to help everyone identify their glass! You can easily change out the beads or even the charms to make each one unique!
Shower Renovation
Back in November, we noticed our fiberglass shower had a crack in the floor. To be honest, there is really no telling how long this crack had been there. It was very tiny, but since our shower was one piece, we were going to have to replace the entire thing. And doing a temporary fix would not really suffice since it was in the floor. Had it been on the wall, a temporary fix may have worked. We called around and found someone that have us what we felt like was reasonable quotes. We knew that we did not want to replace the shower ourselves. We had the option to either replace the shower with another fiberglass stall or for a little bit more we could have a tiled shower. We opted for the tiled shower. It was finally replaced in the middle of January. See below for the before and after pictures.
Nursery Progress Part 3
So today's focus is solely the nursery. We accomplished a lot over the last week. We spent the end of last week cleaning out the rest of the nursery. Then this weekend we painted the nursery a light gray. Our goal this week is to clean up all the paint supplies, clean the carpets, and put together the crib!
Our Experience with Genetic Testing
My husband and I had a pregnancy scare when I was 18 weeks along. We felt that there was not enough information on the internet to help comfort and guide us during that difficult time. I decided to share my story. This isn't my typical crafty, fun blog post. It is a raw, emotional post about our experience. I hope you are not reading this because you are going through the same thing, but if you are, I hope that this provides you with some hope and knowledge about our story.
Nursery Progress Part 2
Over the last week, Brad and I accomplished quite a bit in the nursery and extra bedroom. See below for our most recent pictures:
Our Lego Collection
Prior to meeting my husband, I really didn't know much about the development of Legos today. I remember the boxes of Legos as a kid that you just built what you wanted, but I was not exposed to the Lego sets like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Back to the Future, etc. Then I met Brad. He already had tons of Star Wars Legos. Then I started becoming more and more involved. It started small. I would find a set on clearance at Walmart and purchase it. Or I would find a small set on vacation. Then what truly got me, the Disney Princess Line! So below are some of our sets that we have already put together. We have many, many boxes still to assemble, but this is a view into our completed sets right now!
Nursery Progress
Over the next few months, I am going to keep you updated on our nursery progress. Below are a few pictures of the "before" and "right now". For the next couple of nursery posts, I will be showing pictures of both the future nursery (previously was a craft room) and our guest bedroom. A lot of things from our craft room is going into the guest bedroom. Once it is finished, the focus will solely be the nursery!
Thanksgiving Livingroom Decor
On our coffee table, I used a short table runner to give it some color. It is very glittery and is also fall colors with leaf patterns. I reused some of the orange flowers from Halloween with a vase to finish it off.
Thanksgiving Kitchen Decor
I have some cute fall/leafy wired ribbon that I used surrounding my ceramic decorative plate and wrote "Happy Thanksgiving" on it. I have a lot of Thanksgiving and fall paper supplies that I used as well. I switched out our white plastic ware, and I replaced it with crimson and brown instead.