So I’ve been writing about our baby preparations — my carefully scheduled order of events that would have the house completely ready to bring Genevieve home by my 38th week of pregnancy. And things were going great, as I’ve posted before. That is until…
Genevieve was born 5 weeks early!
We had some concerns from the very beginning of this pregnancy. Baby and I did great all the way into our third trimester, but by Father’s Day weekend, it seemed Genevieve would be healthier out than in. So we had a baby!
It’s been a hell of a week to be sure, but Genevieve made it through beautifully and is doing wonderfully well. She was born 6 pounds and 18 inches with a full head of hair. Despite being only 35 weeks, her lungs and heart are strong and we were able to bring her home with only one extra day in the hospital. I am still going back and forth to the doctor for follow ups, but I’m glad to be home.
As you can imagine, bringing home a surprise premie baby is very hectic. Nothing was set up for her and we still had a lot of things up in the attic. The only thing I had done was her laundry, but then little-miss-I’m-so-different-than-my-sisters was born too small for the clothes we already had.
My grand plans for having our room streamlined, organized and peaceful for when she came home were thrown out the window. We are functioning now, but the more time I spend in bed recovering, the more projects I have in mind to make our room better. Right now this is our set up.
Not exactly a calming environment for an anxious person like myself. But we’re all here and we all have a space to go at night, so it works. Plus with the unending needs of four small children, it may be a while before things get back to organized around here.
I don’t think many families consider kitchen renovations among their nesting to-do’s. However, we convinced ourselves before Genevieve comes, among other things, our kitchen needed some sprucing up. A month and a half ago I got to show off the awesome built-in mail organizer my dad made for us. After a few weeks off, he was back!
This idea came about before the ink was dry on the purchase agreement a year and a half ago. When we bought our house, there was a laminate cabinet unit installed in the far corner of the kitchen under a corner shelf and tv stand. The TV stand didn’t last long and the mail organizer by the fridge did away with the need for the shelf.
Our kitchen is long and wide. Wider than a galley kitchen, but not wide enough for a full breakfast nook. Our idea was to add some seating with a small table for the girls to be able to sit and color or what-have-you while we are in the kitchen. I’ll come back later with more details about the design and building process. Mostly I just wanted to show off this beautiful, custom kitchen banquet we now have in our kitchen!
It looks so natural in this spot and fills the corner perfectly. A table is still forthcoming. My parents found one at a flea market in Pensacola that needs a little lovin’. After all the work that went into making the banquet, we’re going to live with the table as is for a while. That also gives us time to decide how best to modify it.
With custom fitting and design, this was not a quick project. But in the grand scheme of what Pinterest calls DIY, it was simple. And it makes such a difference! To me, this bench makes more sense for the kitchen than the stand alone cabinet. It also significantly adds to the quality, aesthetic and functionality of our house. I know I didn’t build it, but I am so proud of this banquet!
You may also noticed my stenciled frames hung up in all their glory! I’m working on ideas to make those walls a gallery or collage corner. There’s still more deciding to be done on that end, but right now I’m so happy with my bright picture frames and adorable pictures of the kids.
We’re starting up the third trimester and Reuben and Felicity’s birthdays are drawing closer. After their party, phase two of baby prep begins. With the completion of this project, I’m willing to call Phase 1 done!
A month ago, I posted about our preparations for new baby (who we now know is Genevieve). We’ve made some more progress! Phase one mostly consists of super organization. We need to first have room for all people and the stuff already in our house before adding another baby and her stuff.
Our house is plenty spacious, we only need to make better use of the space we have. This has become my mantra lately to keep me from complaining about this wonderful and more than adequate house we just bought. My dad generously donated his time and master carpenter skills to our cause and spent an evening bettering our hall closet and the closet in what is now Reuben’s room.
Our hall closet was pretty bare bones — a single shelf above a closet rod. As to be expected, it became a catch-all for stuff that didn’t have another place to go. After our great toy purge at Christmas, I organized the kids’ toys into boxes and store them in the hall closet. It’s a system that’s worked great and has simplified our lives. However, it takes up a lot of space. Not to mention all the other hall closet type items that need storing. This is what we were looking at before building in shelves:
My dad added a shelf above the top shelf, and three below. We had room for a fourth, but I wanted to leave a taller space at the bottom for things like our vacuum cleaner. There is still a second step that we’re waiting on. I want to be able to hang our brooms and mops on the inside of the door. While they are not significantly heavy it will require a little creativity to hang them on the hollow core door. Nonetheless, the closet is vastly improved and much much more useful! The new and improved closet looks like this:
Reuben’s closet was also simply a single shelf above a single closet rod. Since this room was originally our study (RIP beloved study) the closet was stacked to the ceiling with storage boxes. A significant amount of nesting energy went into clearing out that closet to make room for baby stuff. We added a shelf above the existing one and wrapped it around on end. We also added onto the original shelf to wrap it around the same end. What a difference! I’m still deliberating if I want to add more shelving to the top and\or a second closet rod. Right now, I’m moving in everything that needs to be in there. Once that’s all settled, I hope to better be able to tell what is needed, if anything. I do know that I want to add some pegs on the left hand wall to hang Reuben’s growing flat cap collection. I didn’t have time to “stage” the pictures, sorry. You’re getting the real life look at things.
We’ve been able to cross off a few more things from our list (we added one thing, just so we could cross it off). Ryan’s big boy dresser finally arrived. We set it up in our room and moved the one he was using into Reuben and Genevieve’s room. We also built in a mail organizer in the kitchen, which I posted about before. One more big project, then I think we’ll be finished with construction and can move onto bed shuffling. But that’s phase two which won’t start until after Reuben and Felicity’s birthdays in May. Until then, I still have a lot of boxes to sort through.
We revealed on Sunday that we are having another baby girl. Our third daughter will be named Genevieve Rose and is expected to arrive in July. We are excited to add another girl to our family. So far, the girls we have are dynamic and delightful. We’re a little sad for Reuben, but I’ve no doubt that these sisters are going to make a wonderful man out of him. Evangeline is excited. She’s the only one who understands what’s going on and every day she tells me she’s picked a new name for the baby (usually it’s “Evangeline”). She’s drawing pictures of the baby and keeps asking if it’s summer yet. She’s our sweet mother hen and I know she’s going to enjoy having another baby chick to take care of. I’m excited to have another baby girl to wear all the adorable dresses and outfits I’ve stored away!
As a part of our Saint Joseph’s Altar (which I’m planning to post on separately), we did a gender reveal. By the time the fourth baby comes around, public excitement is pretty much depleted. I thought hosting a gender reveal party would be a fun way to celebrate this special new life. I spent an afternoon on Pinterest and all of a sudden, our routine St. Joseph’s Altar plans more than doubled. My computer is down for the time being, so I’m without my photo editing program. Here are some of the ideas we used for our gender reveal, sorry I can’t make the pictures more “fun”
Photo Booth: Guests took pictures decked out in blue or pink to visualize their “guess”
Photo Booth
Tally Board and Lapel Pins — Guests marked their vote for boy or girl, then chose a pink bow or blue tie to wear for the party.
Tally Board
Gender Reveal Cake Balls — If ever there were a more Pinterest-perfect phrase! To announce the final reveal, Ryan and I took a bite out of a cake ball revealing PINK!
Gender Reveal Cake Balls
It was a very fun day filled with good food, family and friends. Thanks to everyone who came out with their guesses and their congratulations and humored me with all my party gimicks. Genevieve is certainly entering a warm and welcoming world!
The kitchen is the most dated room in our house. We have good, functional appliances. The floors and walls are in tact, albeit in a high 1980’s style. The cabinets are solid wood and in great shape. The pantry and additional cabinets the previous owners added in are cheap and laminate, but also functional. There is no urgency to change anything in our kitchen, besides asthetics. The only things we’ve changed so far, are the ceiling light fixtures and the window curtains.
That being said, I want to change all the things!! I have an extensive and comprehensive list of changes I would love to make (complete with drawings). In addition to painting and updating what’s already in place, I also have some built-in pieces I would love to have. Caught up in the pre-baby preparation energy, my dad has started building in some of the big changes we wanted to make!!
I’m going to keep the biggest item on the to-do list a secret for right now, because that’s my prerogative 😉 But I’m really excited to show you what we’ve been working on. The plan is to have this corner cleared out — no cabinet, no shelf.
Big Changes in Progress
We already have big plans in the works of what will replace this set up, but first I had to find new places for all the stuff that gets dumped right there: mail, keys, pens. It’s your general drop-all spot. At first I thought by removing the flat surface we would be forced to mend our cluttery ways. Let’s be realistic though, that’s a habit that’s not going to change. So I needed another way to accommodate mail, keys and general miscellany of daily life. Walking around World Market (which I love!), I came across this dandy:
While it isn’t exactly my decor style, the idea was spot on. I mentioned the idea to my dad as a possible solution.
And so it was!
My dad made a 20.5 “x 20″x 10” box with a shelf run running the full width. The bottom cavity is divided into 5 cubbies. It was only after my dad firmly and perminatly attached the back that I thought to myself “wait, how am I going to paint that??” I had to get a little creative. Ultimately… it was good enough. You know what I’m talking about. The cubbies are used as mail slots, so you won’t really see inside each one anyways, and, hey, just don’t look that close.
For the back of the large cavity, I had the idea to use some of the scrap fabric I had left over from my back door roller shade. Originally I planned to use spray adhesive to glue the fabric directly to the wood, which seemed like it would be tricky to do since the back was already glued on. Then my mom gave me the idea to cover a piece of cardboard cut to the right size and attached the cardboard to the back. It was so much simpler, plus gives a much cleaner look than I would have otherwise been able to do. The cardboard I cut fit snuggly into the space. After I covered it with fabric, it fit so tightly that I ended up not attaching it at all with staples or tacks.
Never Short on Cardboard Around Here
I found the label card holders at JoAnn in the scrapbook section. There were so many great ones online, but they were all too big for what I needed. These scrapbook ones are perfect. We also added hooks along the bottom for keys, purses etc.
BeforeAfter
It’s such a great addition!! It’s functional and accommodates all of our daily coming and goings. And it’s also attractive and organizes all of our clutter! The only problem so far is that we have to re-train ourselves not to hit our head on it when we throw something away in the trash can below it. So far I’m bruise free, but I can’t say the same for Ryan’s forehead. In a few weeks I’m sure we’ll be used to it. But head’s up to any visitors!
This Sunday is our St. Joseph Altar and Gender Reveal. We went Friday for *the* sonogram. Baby looks healthy and was wiggling up a storm. Evangeline got a kick out of seeing all the pictures. Everything she saw on the screen, she said was baby’s mouth. Baby waved to us at one point, and Evie waved back! Spring is coming fast, and we’ll be very busy, but stay tuned for more baby prep updates around the house!
Tomorrow is the day we find out if we’re having a Mister Baby or a Miss Baby. The news will be announced Sunday March 16 at our Gender Reveal and St. Joseph’s Altar. But get your votes in now!
For those of you wanting to use science to make an answer, here are some facts:
We’ve proven we can make both girl babies and boy babies
My skin and hair are acting like they did when I was carrying Reuben
My stomach is acting like it did when I was carrying Evangeline and Felicity
At 9 weeks, baby’s heart rate was at the higher end and at 18 weeks it was at the lower end of the scale
This pregnancy is giving us a lot of opportunities to accept the things we cannot change, to put it nicely. In preparation for a new newborn, we’ve begun shuffling furniture all about in and out. I keep telling myself that we have plenty of space and it will all work out with some strategic planning. This house was huge when we bought it, now that we’ve added two more babies (and baby stuff), suddenly things seem different.
My once peaceful, serene bedroom is now the library
Reuben’s room is in flux, but is the most put together.
The girls’ room is in limbo, as though holding it’s breath for the next phase of kids.
The plan is to move Reuben into the girls’ room before new baby comes, have both girls in a twin bed, or each in a toddler bed (depending on Felicity’s preference) and for new baby to have what is now Reuben’s room to his or herself for a few months. The best laid plans…
But we do have some to-do’s on the list to help get everything ready for the summer. We bought our first piece of furniture as a married couple. We made it through 5 years and 3 kids decorating off the generosity of family and friends’ hand-me-downs which is amazing and we’re so thankful (mostly because our family and friends have such great taste!) Finally, though, Ryan is getting a big boy dresser which will match the rest of our bedroom set. The chest of drawers he’s currently using will go into new baby’s room for their and Reuben’s clothes. Phase one of baby prep is:
After that, I think we’ll have a bit of a break until after Reuben and Felicity’s birthdays. Phase two will include more shuffling of furniture, fitting as many beds in one room as possible and getting ready to bring baby home. Wish us luck. In the meantime, we have plans for a St. Joseph’s altar next month, so stay tuned for more on that!
Family and friends have all been told and now it’s time for you, the interwebs to also know.
Baby Carruth #4 is on it’s way!
So all those hopes and dreams for a calm, quiet, uneventful year…well…maybe next year? I’m into my second trimester, and while some of the biggest risks are behind us, we still have some more looming ahead, so we could use any extra prayers you have lying around — for the pregnancy and the fact that we’ll be a family of SIX before the summer’s out!
Being the Carruths 