The countdown is officially on!

I went to the doctor yesterday and they scheduled my induction for Monday morning at 6am- words cannot express how excited I am! I feel like this is finally, actually going to happen! Yay! This pregnancy has felt like an eternity to me; perhaps it's because I've essentially been pregnant or taking care of a young baby for the past 5 years. Perhaps it was wayyyyyy back in February when I first found out that I was pregnant. Perhaps it's just the nature of the beast.

Either way, we will finally get to meet our sweet girl on Monday, and I cannot wait. :)

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Our life has been lately, as Molly put it, a bit mundane but never slow. Full of lots of simple pleasures. I like it when my kids have as the most exciting thing that happened in recent days as, "Remember when you filled up Atticus' bath with too much water, mom?"

That's my kind of excitement. ;)

Another good moment in recent days- my sweet friends at Noelmignon.com secretly planned a baby shower for me and surprised me on Saturday with a visit from Deanna and a HUGE basket full of gifts, and a Baby's First Year album, complete with layouts that they'd all made. I was SHOCKED, to say the least.
(I'm swallowing my pride and posting these pics, although- WOW my eyes are practically non-existent with the puffiness of my face.... ugh!)
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I've been doing my fair share of nesting, which also usually goes hand in hand with creating stuff. I stumbled across this blog, and was very inspired by the author's simple and resourceful style. Inspired by her posts about her kitchen and "little white room," I resolved to make our bedroom a more peaceful retreat for us.

I am a very visual person (duh!) so my surroundings really affect my mood. I know I shouldn't let it, but it's just the way I'm wired.

I've been working on our bedroom for a couple of days, just "shopping around the house," as the Nester puts it, and switching things out so it's a very natural/white/peaceful palette.
(Partially through the process- but that picture above the bed was just seeming kind of small to me...)

I'll show more pics as I'm done, but I did want to share a picture of something I created over the past two evenings.

Emerson decided she wanted to paint (she likes to craft before bedtime too- I wonder where she gets that from?!), so I sat down with her and pulled out a canvas I had on hand. (Btw, a little tip: look at your thrift store for canvases you can paint over. There are LOTS there now; people apparently like to go to Sips n Strokes for the experience but don't always keep their finished product. I bought a 16x20" canvas there recently for $1.99!)

I started by putting on Elmer's Tacky Glue and layering pieces of ripped up book paper (from an old book I keep on hand for projects). Then I mixed together a little white acrylic paint and water and brushed that over it all. Before the paint dried, I used a cloth and wiped off patches of the paint so that more of the text would show through in areas.
I bought a couple of packages of towels from Big Lots a while back- $3 for 4 canvas towels in each package. I have big plans for these towels. (Big plans meaning I'm going to attempt to re-cover some pillows I have... we'll see how that goes!) Anyways, out of two of the towels, I cut out hearts, layered them, and roughly handstitched them together.
Then, I turned on the season finale to Design Star from last week and set to work sewing buttons on the hearts.
Once that task was done, I again used the Elmer's Tacky Glue to attach the heart to the canvas. A few little cross stitches through the canvas itself helps to secure it on there. My next plan is to hang some wire & clothespins above the canvas to clip up some of our wedding pics... I'm loving my "handmade renovations" to our room!