Maternity Photos

I have always thought that there was just something beautiful about maternity photos. Since it has been almost five years since Matt and I got professional photos taken together, I thought it was important to capture this new moment in our life through photography. I did a google search for photographers in our area and found Maria Sabala. Maria is a stay-at-home mom who does photography on the side. Her specialty is maternity and baby photos and is priced extremely well. She even came to our house, set up a backdrop and started shooting away in our own living room. My favorite shots were on the black background, although she had a white background as well. We also took a few outside and out our bed, but I wasn't as thrilled with those. It was quick, it was easy, and we got a few great shots. I am getting larger prints made of the top three photos to put in our bedroom. The bottom three will go in the baby's room. What a great way to add some personality to our walls, since our walls are pretty bare!

Project Nursery: New Rug

Project Nursery: Part III
The nursery is coming along nicely! I am currently at 32 weeks, so Baby Urbin will be here in just two short months. Time to get this project completed.

This weekend we bought a rug from overstock.com...one of my favorite websites. This is the second rug I have purchased on overstock and again this rug has exceeded my expectations and was very affordable. It's just perfect. It is pictured in the bottom left of my revised idea board. I was so happy with it that I decided to update my first "idea board" which at this point is a sneak peak as to what the nursery will look like. My friend Megan gave me a little gift for the baby's room which inspired me to add more color to my original color scheme idea. She gave me the three cute owls when I hit my 3rd trimester mark. One look at these cute little owl piggy banks and I was in love. I was thrilled when I found the rug that tied all of my accessories together. This baby room is eclectic, playful and not overly "baby" themed which is exactly what I wanted.

My next project: gum drop pillows by Amy Butler. I bought this pattern on amazon.com. I have a few fabrics that I plan to use and will post once they are done.

Project Nursery

Project Nursery Part I: New Bamboo Flooring

A few weeks back I mentioned that we had an issue with the HVAC in the soon-to-be nursery. This caused us to rip up the carpet to get to the subfloor in order to repair the ductwork. The fix was relatively easy but it did force us to replace the flooring, which I was happy to do. We put down vertical grain bamboo flooring, which is beautiful. It's a soft wood so I would only recommend it for a bedroom or any low traffic area.

Project Nursery Part II: Closet Storage

This weekend we finally completed the closet storage!! With a few items found around the house we were able to build this awesome shelving....I just love it!

We had some extra 3/4" MDF board in the garage so Matt used that to build the shelving. I wanted enough flexible organization space so that I could use the shelving for clothes, toys, books, etc. We bought some inexpensive storage boxes at IKEA which would allow for that flexibility. The best part though was that we used some existing yellow paint that the previous owners left for us and mixed in some blue and green acrylic paint from my painting supplies to get the right shade of green to match the fabric that inspired the bedroom itself. It turned out so great. Now it's time to fill the closet. Baby Urbin will be here soon.

Think Green Paint

I mentioned in last weeks post that I want to keep the nursery green. And although the color green will be used a lot, that is not what I mean.

We painted the walls in the nursery last week and while researching our green options, we came to find out that Home Depot actually sells "no voc" paint as well as"low voc" paint. Now I have used their Behr low voc paint before, and although it is a bit more expensive, it worked wonderfully and there was hardly any paint smell. What is a voc you ask? It stands for volatile organic compound, which is really the off-gassing of any product. Some products off-gas more than others depending on what they are made of. Think of that new car smell...yea that smell are the voc's coming off the new carpet, fabric, leather, etc. These voc's are not good to breath in, especially while pregnant.

I actually love to paint, and I would say Matt (my husband) and I make a great team when it comes to painting. I was not going to let the pregnancy stop me from painting the rooms in our house that are left to be painted. That is when I started to search for my low voc options and came across Martha Stewart's no voc paint. Home Depot was even able to match the creamy yellow paint sample that I brought in from my paint deck from ICI Paints, my personal favorite pant deck to use!! I find their colors to be a bit more crisp compared to others. The paint was so easy to use, a one coat application is all we needed, and we could hardly smell the paint which means I didn't have to worry about wearing a mask or anything. I would recommend this product to anyone!

Cloth Diapers Versus Disposable

I heard once that it takes 500 years for one disposable diaper to decompose in a landfill. It is a fact that diapers make up a huge part of our landfills. The statistics are something like 18 million diapers each year. Once I heard this disturbing statistic I began to research to verify if this is in fact true. According to the research that I have seen, it does take up to 500 years for the plastic part of a diaper to decompose. The biodegradable parts of the diaper will decompose over a shorter amount of time, however the process of decomposition needs oxygen (air), light and/or water. Tough to get under layers and layers of garbage. So begins my search to compare disposable diapers verses cloth.

I have also heard that there is a substantial cost savings when using cloth diapers so here is where I begin my research. This will not be my last post about this subject. Here are a few articles that I found helpful when comparing the cost of cloth versus disposable diapers.

Fuzzi Bunz- Cost Comparison
The Parent's Guide - Diapers, Diapers & More Diapers
Cash Money Lift - Cloth Diapers Vs. Disposable Diapers
Family Education - Diaper Wars: Cloth Versus Disposable

Another fact to note is that by state regulation daycare centers can not use cloth diapers for sanitary purposes. At this point, and based on the fact that my husband and I both have full time careers, I believe that our decision might come down to a part-time use of both cloth and disposable.