Back in the fall of 2020, when our preschool opened back up, we met two of our dear family friends.
The preschool opened up with more limited hours, and so the three of us all suddenly picked up at the same time. After a distanced summer, we were hungry for even casual interactions with strangers – which is what this started out as, as our children ran and played outside the school for a few minutes before loading into cars.
Day after day, strangers grew into acquaintances who grew into friends. By piggybacking off our kiddos, we were able to “hack” one of the oldest tricks in the book: making new friends at school – except this time, it was our kids’ school, not our own. This allowed us to quickly up the time quotient of the friendship equation, which can be hard to do post-graduation. Casual interactions, swapped stories, and frequent check-ins piled on top of another until one day, I realized these new friends were as close as many old ones.
We swapped phone numbers. We met up at a park. And then, after many months, we took a big step forward: one of the families hosted a weekend dinner. There’s just something about being in someone’s home that’s a huge leap forward for relationships, don’t you think? We had a lovely evening, and then several months later, the other family hosted us all at their home.
As we pulled out of the driveway, John and I chatted about how it was our turn to host, but that we wished our home was more conducive to having multiple families with kids over. (Our house is wonderful for our own family with young kids – the open plan makes it easy to interact while I’m cooking and they’re playing, for example – but it can get loud and chaotic and hard for both the kids and grown-ups to enjoy themselves when it feels like we’re all on top of each other and the floor is somehow suddenly strewn with every toy we own.)
Then, June piped up from the back in a sad little voice: “I wish we could have the friends over to our house.” Not realizing she had been listening, we fell over each other to assure her that we could have friends over to our house and that our house was wonderful, because the last thing I want her to think is that there’s such a thing as a house that’s not good enough to host friends, or that I was anything but grateful for our perfectly wonderful home. She was reassured, and we talked about how it might be nice to have a spring party so that we could enjoy our backyard. And then I forgot about it.
But she did not :) And so, a few weeks ago – apropos nothing – June asked when we were going to have our spring party. And so, a spring party it was. We set a date, and the planning commenced.
Friends, my big girl is her mother’s daughter, and she launched into party planning with great zeal. Here’s a sheet with some of her notes:
Over several weeks, we brainstormed food, we made decorations, we planned activities, we baked and frosted sugar cookie party favors, and on the day of, we did all the final preparations together. She was in heaven. In celebration of imperfect hosting, I thought I’d share a few photos…
The flowers for the back fence were the biggest project – they probably took 3-4 or so hours over several days. Does that seem like a lot for something we tossed in the recycling post party? Maybe, but it was a delight. June and I listened to the Yoto radio while we cut the petals out of paper plates (I still have a gigantic stack from pandemic preschool-at-home) and then Shep joined in to paint 60 flowers. I hot glued them onto twine and John helped us hang them right before the party. It was SO fun, and they looked so sunny and cheerful!
We also hung some honeycomb poms from my party-planning stash from our trellis and the branches of the trees.
For food, we started with a charcuterie spread from Raleigh Cheesy that one of the other families brought (SO GOOD!) and lemonade/lemonade cocktails for the grown-ups. We kept things easy for dinner with hot dogs and brats on the grill, plus fruit salad, cut veggies, and a tray of Chick-fil-a mac and cheese. Dessert was warm box brownies (Betty Crocker always) with freshly-picked strawberries and whipped cream spooned over the top. June’s sugar cookies (from our favorite baking book) were the take-home favors.
Whether you’re nervous to host or it feels like your circumstances are less than ideal, I hope this post encourages you to go for it if it’s something that matters to you! This night is such a sweet memory – and we’re all eager for the next one :)
And never forget – string lights make everything 100x more magical.
Now that her birth story is recorded, I feel like I can share Annie’s newborn photos! To be honest, this day lives as a stressful one in my memory. (I’m sure many mamas can say that about newborn sessions, especially when siblings are in the mix!) After being perfect angels for our maternity family shoot with Ally, the big kids were a bit of a disaster for this one – totally rambunctious, not listening well, not taking direction, very minimal interest in smiling at the camera, you know the drill. In case it helps a future mama, I think there were a few reasons for the difference:
1. Our spring shoot was outdoors, so they could run around in between shots and it didn’t feel disruptive. 2. Our spring shoot was in a novel location, so they were more attuned to us and both more interested in and less at ease in their surroundings than at home. 3. There was a tiny baby at this shoot, so we were planning fewer active photos and more “cuddle together” photos – not as interesting to big sibs. 4. John and I were a bit hobbled in this shoot compared to our spring one – I was post-partum and holding a tiny baby, and his ankle was still recovering – which made corralling them more difficult (and they knew it, ha). 5. We definitely could have done a better job of prepping them with our expectations in advance. Had a few other things on our mind, though :)
I also felt like I pulled our outfits together at the last minute, I could have prepared our house a bit better… BUT ENOUGH COMPLAINING! As always, Graham worked his magic out of our chaos and returned some absolutely beautiful (and spunky) images that we’ll treasure forever. We feel so grateful to have them. I hope you enjoy this peek!
There was only one photo I specifically asked Graham for – the newest version of a photo he’s taken for us with every newborn session.
There we are :) Thank you for letting me share, friends!
File this under classic third child situation: baby girl will not have a dedicated nursery.
BUT – we still have some special plans up our sleeves, and since where our newest addition will sleep has been one of our most commonly asked questions, I thought we could chat about our plans today!
In our home, the master bedroom is downstairs, and we are grateful to have three bedrooms upstairs. June is in one, Shep is in another, and the third is our guest room. The guest room was the very first room we painted in this house (Benjamin Moore Healing Aloe – the prettiest soft green, which I still love!), and after we hung a pair of magnolia art prints on the wall, we dubbed it the Magnolia Room. It’s perfect for welcoming our mostly northern guests to our Southern home! Here is what it looks like today:
Since we live far from loved ones and my sister and her family visit for weekend trips often, it’s important to us to keep a queen bed upstairs. Because of this, this room will largely stay intact, but we will be making a few adjustments to accommodate baby girl! (On that note, I am very glad that baby is, indeed, a girl and not a boy, because the existing decor definitely skews feminine! We could have made it work if we were welcoming a boy, but it’s a much lighter lift this way, ha!)
Here’s a look at the plan, and then a few more details:
First, of course, we’ll add a crib. We’ll use Shep’s same white Jenny Lind crib, even though he’s currently occupying it. We figure we have at least until the end of the year without overlap (if we need it!), since our babies usually sleep in the bassinet in our room for the first few months. Once we move the crib into her room, we’ll add this beautiful magnolia crib sheet (with this floral design as a back-up) and eventually this muslin quilt.
We’ll also switch out the curtains. While I love the current curtains, they’re not black-out and don’t even exactly cover the entire window when closed. (Oops – one of my earliest commissioned projects :)) I’m planning to find a seamstress to make black-out roman shades with the gorgeous Poppy fabric by Lulie Wallace, which I think will tie together lots of the colors in the room and be a fun, feminine touch for baby girl.
Finally, we’ll hopefully switch out the dresser. There is currently a dresser in the room, which was a free hand-me-down from one of our cottages in Maine. It is lovely, but smells AGGRESSIVELY like mothballs. We have tried various things to air it out over the years, but none have made much difference and we don’t have much hope of further progress. We’re currently storing a few things in there that don’t really absorb smells or we don’t care if they do, but ideally we would like some storage for baby girl things. So, we may opt to replace this dresser with another one – maybe this one. If I could get an exact dupe of the dresser in June’s room, I would in a second – I still think it is the most gorgeous honey wood color!! Alas, it was a one-of-a-kind flea market find.
We’ll also likely take the opportunity to switch out the lamps for a matching pair, add some happy yellow artwork over the bed, and frame a few family photos for the dresser!
For those who are curious, we figure the room in this configuration should be just fine for at least the first 2-3 years of baby girl’s life. Our kids don’t keep too many toys in their room until they start quiet time, so it shouldn’t be an issue to preserve the guest room feel. After that, we might consider having two of the kids share a room, or shifting the guest room to be more custom for baby girl (but still keep a queen bed). Or, we might be in a new house entirely! We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it :)
Sharing these posts is always good motivation to nail down the details – now I just need to execute! T-10 weeks to go…
How about something a little lighter for todays’ post? :) You may have noticed in my February goals that I’m shining the refresh spotlight on our master bedroom this month. I thought I’d share a little bit about where we are now and where we’re headed, just for fun!
Where we are now: err, here —
Complete with laundry mid-fold. Real life :)
As you can imagine, this room does A LOT. We sleep here, obviously, but it’s also a hub of family activity – it’s where our kids’ clothing is stored, where they get dressed in the morning, and where they pull on their jams at night. It’s also our workout area, where our stationary bike and weights live. It houses a nursing glider. And, for COVID times and the foreseeable future, it’s where John works day in and day out. While it’s a good-size room, again, that’s a LOT.
Despite its centrality in our lives, this space has not gotten much design love. Since moving in eight-ish years ago, we’ve hung the curtains from our apartment and a few things on the walls, hung our framed wedding vows, added a low dresser for me, upgraded to a king-size bed, and switched out our bedside tables.
Knowing that there’s not going to be a magical “after” in our future (there will, after all, still be an ergonomic desk chair and exercise bike in the picture, ha!), I’m hoping to lighten things up a bit. Here’s what I’m picturing:
And here are the steps I’m looking at:
1. Painting the walls. Inspired by Liz’s living room, we’re going with Benjamin Moore Brittany Blue. I painted a test swatch and on our walls it’s actually not that similar to either her photo in the top left or the Ben Moore swatch in the top right – I’d say it’s icier/clearer. It’s pretty, though! We will hire this out.
3. Hanging a grid of family photos. Picturing 9 or so over the low dresser, in gold frames, probably all black and white to keep things unified. I thought it might be fun to try and tell the story of our family across the collection – we’ll see!
4. Buying a bed. For years and years, I’ve held out hope that we’d someday purchase the wooden bed of my dreams, but have finally admitted that at this stage in our life, with the financial goals we have, there’s no way I’m paying $3,000+ for the quality of king-size bed I’d like anytime soon.
After scouring Craigslist and Marketplace for years without success (kings just don’t pop up like fulls!), I’ve decided that an upholstered bed is where it’s at for us right now. I have my eyes on this one and am hoping to snag it soon with the help of some parental birthday money! I think it will look lovely against the blue walls and our existing bedding, and help the room overall look more “finished” and cozy.
I’d love to hear: in your home, has the master bedroom languished, or was it a priority to complete early on? Excited to share more as our plans get underway! (Probably slowly, ha!)
