Update: Baby A

Here's the first blog post about Baby Austin!

Baby A was born July 31, 2013 at 8:18 am via C-Section. He was 8 pounds, 8 ounces and 20.5" long. It was a planned section, but it doesn't make the experience of going to the hospital to have a baby any less nerve-racking. Everything went great and wouldn't change it for anything. I think I am ok with not ever feeling a contraction. Sorry to those that had a lot of them. I'm sure you are envious of me, but I am envious of you!

Well, in the past 3 months he has more than doubled his weight!! This boy likes to eat and isn't afraid to show it. He has brightened our world and, as of now, has completed our family. He is one amazing boy.

6 days old - love the squishy face! 

Photo by Laura Fiore Photography

2.5 months old (taken by me)

He hasn't slept in his gorgeous room yet (See http://neelysunderconstruction.blogspot.com/2013/07/before-and-after-austins-room.html) but he will someday! ;)

The past 3 months have been a learning experience and I'm sure we are in for a lot more!

The first major hump was breastfeeding. It sucked for the first 10 (TEN!!) weeks. My doctor was absolutely no help. I blame it on him being a man and never experiencing it before... maybe?? That's a long time to be in pain when I didn't need to be. I learned that I should have asked for help from La Leche League a lot sooner. I don't know why I waited so long. It turns out that I had thrush. Austin didn't. Once I started to treat the thrush with yeast cream and taking acidophilus tablets that I picked up from Trader Joes, I was pain free within 4 days!!

Something else I learned about myself is that I'm all about nursing Austin anytime, any where. I feel empowered to do so too. There are so many stories of people receiving negative feedback from people when they nurse in public, but I haven't gotten that yet. I don't know why nursing has become so negative for some people. It's natural and it needs to be normalized again. I think my friends and family have realized that I don't care who is in the room,  I will breastfeed if Austin wants to eat. 

I have also started using cloth diapers. I am still using about 2-3 disposable diapers a day (usually at night). As soon as I figure out a nighttime leak free system, I will cloth diaper at night too. Washing has not been inconvenient, but I do need more diapers so that I can wash every other day. As of right now, I'm washing daily. Since cloth diapers are working out, it's only natural that we use cloth wipes too. I am going to make those today along with a cleaning solution.  I will post my cloth diaper information as soon as I find what works for me.

Lastly, I have learned that sleep is overrated. I love spending time with my son. I don't care if it's at 2 pm or 2 am. His early morning feedings won't last forever so I will make the most out of them.

Next post will be about my experience with cloth diapers! Hopefully the post after that will be our bedroom update! 

I will leave you with a photo of my beautiful family. 

                                     

                                              Photo by Heather Jean Photography

Sarah

Before and After: Addy's Room

Addy's room when we first bought the house was awful!  Floral wallpaper, mini blinds, gross carpet... We couldn't wait to update it!  Here are the "before" pictures:

The first thing we did was rip out the carpet.  Under the carpet was brown painted hardwood floor.  The wood is in great shape and we hope to refinish it some day.  For now, we will repaint it a color that matches Addison's room.  Pictures of the floor will come a little later.  After the top layer of the wallpaper was taken off, we (meaning my dad aka our contractor) textured the walls and painted them pink!

This past week, Addison got new furniture from her grandparents (the contractor and his wife).  The contractor made her a custom closet like Austin's room and painted the floors!  Her room is pretty much completed, except for organizing her stuff.

Here is her new closet - before and after:

And her new floor - before and after:

And at last, her new furniture!

None of this would be possible with out the help of my dad and mom.  They are pretty awesome!  

Thank you!!

- Sarah

Before and After: Austin's Room

This room was THE worst room in our house.  From where we started to where we are now, it doesn't even seem like it is possible for it to be the same room!

Here are a few pictures of the lovely room when we bought the house.  I'm not sure why this wood paneling was ever in style.

And even better.... look what's under the wood paneling!  Other parts of the wall under the paneling had a floral wallpaper.  Some spots even had holes in the wall.  What theme were they going for in this room???

Obviously with the holes and really old wallpaper, we couldn't keep the plaster that was currently on the walls.  The plaster was ripped out and this is what the lath looked like.

After some holes were patched and part of the ceiling was repaired, drywall was put up, the walls were textured, and then painted.  Here is a before and after:

And another.. Those newspapers are from the 1980s!

My father and I also made a custom closet for Austin.  The original closet is the top left picture.  The bottom left picture is with the custom closet in and the picture on the right is after it was painted.

And finally.. all the "after" pictures.  The quilt was handmade by my Aunt. It's so perfect for his room!  The letters were bought from a seller on Etsy, she had them all cut and sized like they are, I just painted them.  The crib was also Addison's crib.  I am so glad that it stayed in such great shape!

The chair and table are from Ikea and I made the floor pouf pillow.  There were ugly mini blinds in the room before, now we have these great faux wood blinds that are about $25 each from Walmart.  We are slowly replacing all the window coverings in the house with these blinds. I love them!

I love the pictures I have above his changing table/dresser.  The one on the left was ordered by my mom.  The 3rd jersey from the left is number "22" with the name "Neely."  The picture on the right is the front page of The Record after the Giants won the 2010 World Series.  Another cute little addition to his room is the knobs on his dresser.  They are baseballs!  I got them from Hobby Lobby.

Here are the letters up close and also a canvas I painted for his room.  My Aunt got the inspiration for Austin's quilt from this canvas that I made.

All we need now is baby Austin to arrive!  At the most, we have 14 more days left before his arrival.

-Sarah

Stairs: Sneak Peek

I just wanted to post a little sneak peek of our stairs.  This is the project that is taking the longest!  My husband and his team (his dad, his step-dad, and my dad) had some trial and error, but finally got a technique down that works!  I will explain more on that when they are all completed.  We are about 3/4 of the way done with them right now.

The top left picture is the carpet that was on the stairs before we ripped it off.  The bottom left picture is what was under the stairs.  We got lucky with the wood being in great shape!  The picture on the right is our finished product!  I am so proud of my husband.  The stairs are going to look amazing when they are all completed.

Living/Dining Room: Updated Pictures

I didn't have the final pictures of what our dining room and living room look like with our furniture when I posted last week.  Here they are now:

Living Room

From the entry foyer to the living room

The couches are from the Ashley Homestore.  They are SO comfortable!

 We still need to clean up the soot on the fireplace, but I like it the way it is.  Lucian, on the other hand, doesn't.  Maybe someday we'll update it, but as of right now it's staying like it is.  

The TV stand is from World Market.  I really like that style.

Living room to dining room 

From the dining room to the living room. I just got the rug on my amazing Home Goods run.  It was perfect for this room.  It really lightened it up and completed it perfectly.  The coffee table and side table (hidden) are both from World Market also.  

What we love best about the rooms that we don't use very often are the pocket doors between the living room and the dining room.  There is also a pocket door from the entry to the living room, but it doesn't close all the way yet.  We still need to work on getting that working.

Now to the dining room pictures.  I think this might be one of our favorite rooms.  We love having people over for dinner so it's fitting.

Dining room

From the living room to the dining room

New dining table and chairs- YAY!  Love it!  It is from the Ashley Homestore.  We have two slipcover chairs and 6 regular chairs.  The fabric is a cream and light grey.  The rug in the room is one my mother-in-law has had for years.  It's about as old as the house and we actually love it!  Even the spots that are worn down.  It gives the room more character.

I really like our window seat.  There was a really old gross cushion here before, so it needed an overhaul.  I went to Morgan's Fabrics on Fremont and got two 1 inch cushions for $10 each.  At Joann's, it was somewhere around $60 or more with the coupon.  I wasn't going to pay that!  Morgan's also had the batting to make the edges and cushion softer.  I got the fabric from Joann's with a coupon.  Here's the link for the cushion design that I was going off of.  Of course it's a Pinterest find.

http://pinterest.com/pin/195484440047721835/

 Our two built-ins.  The one on the left I'm using for barware on the top and the bottom drawers I have linens and serving trays.  The one on the right is for crystal.  I was surprised one day by my mother-in-law who had filled it for me!!  I still want to do something different with the bottom since it's such a big space, I'm just not sure exactly what yet. 

Our favorite part of the room is probably our chandelier   I tried to take a good picture of it but it wasn't really working with the amount of light in the room.  In the next two pictures, you can see the details of the chandelier.  It's beautiful.  We got it from LampsPlus.com. 

Chandelier with the light off.

Chandelier with it on.  Isn't it beautiful??

The last project that I added to the room is a picture frame board.  I spent about $5 on it because I had most of the supplies to make it already.  The picture frame is from the photo booth from our wedding, then I put nails in various spots on the back, and twine to wrap around the nails.  When it was wrapped enough, I tied off the twine and then hammered the nails so that they bent sideways to lock in the twine.  It took me about 5 minutes to make and it's really cute in our dining room.  I got the idea from a friend of mine.. she got the idea from Pinterest.

The next updated rooms I'll post are of the kitchen and then I'll show you the bathroom before and after pictures.  Just need to do some final touches to it before I take the final after pictures. 

- Sarah