The Nursery!

Well, we took your advice and decided to put the boys together in one room. It has been so much fun preparing a place for them! Everything is ready...now we just need the boys. So exciting to think that they'll be home here with us in just a week and a half! Enjoy a look around the nursery....

We had fun adding some special/sentimental touches to the room. These are my baby shoes and the photos are of baby Brian!

The little blue outfit is what Brian wore the day his parents made his adoption final in court! Yes, my husband was adopted also! So was my Dad, and the little green hand print was his at age six! So we'll have three generations of adoption in our family!

We bought this wooden cross in Ethiopia. Several regions in Ethiopia have their own cross design. This is called the Aksum cross, and it is from the Tigray region, where Jeremy and Zachary were born.

It is also a sweet reminder of the blessing from God that they are to our family. We leave on Friday for Ethiopia to be reunited with our boys, and we'll be home with them Labor Day weekend! It's been a life-changing journey, and I am forever grateful that God has chosen us to witness and be a part of the miracle of adoption. Jeremy and Zachary, we're so happy to be your Mama and Daddy!

Advice, Please!

Well, I'm not sure that our feet have come back down to earth since learning our wonderful news last week, but we are starting to think about the practical aspects of welcoming to little ones into our home!

The main thing I'm concerned about is whether I should put them in one room together or in separate rooms. They fact that both of them will have spent their recent months of life living and sleeping in a foster care center full of cribs and other babies makes me think that they both might be more comfortable sharing a room. I don't know if it would be too lonely for them to suddenly be sleeping in rooms all by themselves.

What I don't know, though, is if it will be difficult to have a toddler and a baby with potentially different sleeping/napping schedules sharing a room.

I'm curious if any of you have thoughts or advice about this. I don't think there is really a right or wrong answer, but I'm certainly open to hearing what others who have gone before me have done!

Thank you!

Baby Birdies

Still no referral, but the dove outside the nursery windows is a mama! Actually, shortly after I took the last photos, I noticed the little baby birds in the nest. They're growing by the day!

The Beginnings of a Nursery

This is the room that will one day be our baby's nursery. I love the big window that lets light in and also the plantation shutters to keep light out when it's nap time!

When we moved in, the portion of the wall above the high chair rail was red, as was the entire ceiling!!!  So Brian and I spent the weekend priming and painting over the red, and got it all back to a crisp white. 

So the room is now a blank canvas for us to pain a baby theme whenever we find out if we'll be adopting a baby boy or girl or both!  Actually, I already have an idea brewing that I want to paint argyle diamonds on the wall. It will be a preppy baby room!  And I figure that if I pick the right colors it could work for a girl or a boy.

The dresser was mine until recently when we bought bedroom furniture for our master bedroom. It is from IKEA, and I thought I could paint it to coordinate with whatever colors we paint the room. It is also deep enough that we can put a diaper changing pad foam pad thingy on top of it, and it can be our changing station.

Mom found these cool little bookshelves on the side of the road (score!). Someone was throwing them out and put a sign on them that said they were up for grabs. They are in fine condition, so Mom scarfed them for us and I've had fun finding things to decorate them.  Dolls from a trip I took to Estonia when I was in college, my baby shoes, Brian's baby picture...

A collection of children's books from my own growing up years...

 ...and this sweet book that my sister gave me for our future baby!  The stuffed animal is Babar, the elephant. I loved the Babar stories as a child, and my mom found him up in our attic recently, so I thought he'd add a splash of fun to the nursery!