We’re starting to cross off the big items that we need for the baby from our buy list. We purchased a beautiful white crib and our bedding set from Babies R Us. We went with the adorable bunny meadow six piece set pictured below. I love it so much! The pattern is modern and will work great for ether a boy or girl.


The bunny mobile wasn't included in the set, but it was too cute to pass up and had to get it too!

About two years ago my husband, sister and I back packed through eighteen cites in Europe. It was such an amazing experience. I feel very lucky to have been able to do this. We lived from our backpacks for twenty days, so extra space for souvenirs was limited. I made just enough room for two small keepsakes from each city.

The other day I came across my travel journal and a few souvenirs I had forgotten about. One of them a postcard of Vincent van Gogh's painting, A Wheat Field, from the National Gallery museum in London. It’s too nice of a painting to be tucked away, so I decided to get a frame for it the other day. Now it sits so pretty in my living room.

Organize Your Cleaning Schedule: Week 3

My least favorite thing to do is clean. I wish it wasn’t. I feel a clean home is a happy home. Every once and awhile my husband and I give our place a good deep cleaning. Afterwards we try so hard to keep it that way, but it never seems to last. In a matter of days it’s messy again. And we don’t even have kids yet! Yikes!

This week focuses on your cleaning schedule. Most of the goals gear towards involving your family to help complete them. My favorite is to write down jobs on small pieces of papers and stick them in a jar. Each day have a child pick a chore from the jar and complete the task. I think this would definitely make chores fun for the entire family. The vintage blue mason jar pictured above would be perfect to hold those small pieces of papers. Also to encourage and motivate your kids have them place a sticker on a chore chart once they have completed their task. Who does not love to add stickers to the mix?!

Surprisingly, most of the remaining goals Matt and I kind of already do. We just need to keep up with it more on a daily basis. I can just imagine how disastrous our place will be once the baby arrives. Maybe it's a good thing that we don't know many people in the area and won't have to worry about any surprise guests.

31 weeks

The weeks are flying by and we're getting more and more excited everyday to meet our little peanut. These last few months we've constantly discussed baby names. Recently, we've finalized our boy and girl name. Our girl name has been a favorite to us for quite some time, but we were undecided on the middle name until now. We thought we were sure on our boy's name but changed it last minute. Both names are perfect!

Lately, I've been feeling very tired. My motivation to complete anything is at a zero. I'm having a hard time to even keep up with my blog. I haven't completed much from my to-do list that I created months ago, but I'm not going to worry about it too much. Either way our little baby will have everything it needs and more. It has two loving parents waiting for its arrival.

During my pregnancy, I've tried keeping my spending on maternity clothes at a minimum. This way I can splurge a little more on the baby's adorable toys, clothes, books, etc. For the most part, it's been really easy. I went through my exsisting wardrobe and selected tops and bottoms that are stretchy friendly and packed the rest away for the time being. This allowed me to see what I have to work with and what I need to add to my wardrobe. I hardly needed any dress wear, because I'm currently not working. When I was in school, I was barely showing yet and wore my pre-pregnancy sweat pants almost daily. And now that I'm taking a break from school and lounging at home, I really have no reason to get all dolled up. With the exception of the weekends when Matt and I run errands and to take my updated belly bump pictures.

I do have a few maternity pieces that were my favorites these past few months...

The BeBand is a great invention. I used this so much during my first trimester. It allowed me to wear my pre-pregancy jeans comfortably until about my fifth month. I'll be using it again after the baby is born since losing the baby weight doesn't happen over night.

I LOVE these Old Navy full-panel skinny jeans. They are so comfortable and stylish. If I wasn't wearing sweat pants, I was wearing these. Unfortunately, they started becoming uncomfortable around my sixth month when my belly outgrew the panel.

I can't forget to give credit to these roll panel yoga pants from Old Navy. I have the gray and black pair and they are so comfy.

I'm impressed with Old Navy's maternity section. I rarely shopped there before I was pregnant. And, there selection of baby clothes are adorable and affordable as well. Looks like the store has become a fast favorite of mine.

I've enjoyed watching my baby's book collection expand these last few months. Matt and I love to read and we plan to share our love for reading to our new little guy or gal. There's so many great children's books out there too. It's also been fun going back in time and rereading some of my favorite childhood stories.

Recent additions to our baby's book collection include:

Love You Forever is one of my favorites. It's a really sweet classic story.

This collection of Sesame Street board books are so colorful. I just love them. And I found them in the dollar section of Target...bargain buy!

What better way to introduce our home state of Minnesota to the baby. I picked up a copy the last time I was home visiting.

The Belly Button Book! is a very adorable board book. Love this find!

Pat the Bunny is another all-time classic. I love its touch and feel feature.

Organize Your Schedule: Week 2

This week's goals focus on your daily schedule and tasks. I can be the queen of to-do lists. Sometimes I make too many of them and find the little scraps of paper and post-its scattered throughout my place. The book suggests to only make them in your planner, something I need to work on. Also, there's a guide to how you should sort your tasks by importance, something I need to work on as well. I love to make them but have a problem actually completing the tasks in a timely order. I need to learn to make more realistic deadlines to fit my lifestyle.

I'm a little old school and still prefer using the type of planner pictured above versus my BlackBerry for all my appointments. Right now I'm using a simple weekly planner from DayMinder. Without it, I feel overwhelmed and stressed. This handy little book keeps me organized and puts me at a ease. It's going to be even more useful once the little guy or gal arrives too.