The Nursery so far!

We started with a room that was brown from the ceiling all the way down. We primed it all. Painted the ceiling, doors and trim white. Then painted the walls a lovely gray. Needless to say, we were excited to be done painting, and were even more excited to begin decorating! There are still a few things we want to add (clock, lamp, some cute name decoration above her crib - once she's officially named, etc.), but here's it is so far!

My mom and I made the valence. We didn't have a pattern, but I had an idea of what I wanted in my head, and so we just kind of made it up as we went along!

I got the rug, chair and bookcase from Four Chairs, and I love them all so much. The green chair and the blue rug are the perfect amount of color against the other white furniture.



We love our crib and dresser/changing table. They were super inexpensive, and they are a perfect fit to the nursery.

We love our little nursery. We're excited to add a few more personal touches, but most of all we're excited to add the best addition of all, our baby girl. We're only a few weeks away, maybe even days away. Everyone asks us if we're ready, and of course we have purchased several things to be physically prepared, we've read several books to try and be mentally prepared, but let's be honest...who is ever ready to bring home a newborn. Ryan says it best, "we may not be completely ready, but we're willing"...and sooo excited!

Baby Quilt

I wanted to do something special for my baby girl, something that she could always have that would always be hers. Rather than just buying a crib bedding set I decided to make her a quilt and keep everything else to the simple bare essentials. I have never made a quilt before, but I decided to go for it. My mom and I were able to figure it out, and I must say, it turned out pretty darn cute. She probably won't use it as an actual quilt until she's older since she's mostly going to be bundled as a baby burrito for awhile, but it'll just but cute to look at until then. It was a fun project and really built my confidence in sewing! It was especially fun to sew this all together knowing that is was for someone so special. I hope she likes it!

Good as new

Lucky for us we inherited Ryan's grandma's piano a few years ago. I absolutely love it! It's pretty old, but it still plays like a gem. We hadn't moved it in to out new place until a few weeks ago, and when it got here we decided it needed a little Jackson flare. I wish I had a "before" picture, but the "after" pictures turned out pretty darn cute. We recovered the bench seat and painted the base of the bench a fun baby blue. It's was quick and easy, and I just absolutely love it! Some of you might be a bit afraid to do something different, or maybe a little afraid of some bold prints of colors, but don't be! Maybe working at Four Chairs taught me this, but it's true, I love color and fun prints. I figure, it's my house, and it should make me happy! I'm excited to finally play the piano again once I regain feeling in my swollen fingers, and sit on my cute bench.

Peaches

You don't have to tell me twice, I know that I have the best husband in the world. Despite it being a Saturday, a perfect day for golfing, watching football, and everything else, he helped bottle peaches today! Ryan's mom does it every year, and has every year since she's been married. She thought about not doing it this year, but with Ryan's never-ending pleading she decided to go ahead and not break her annually tradition. We washed, peeled, sliced and bottled the peaches. With Hoosiers on as our entertainment, Ryan was happy to help. I told him he'd only last 20 minutes, so I'm pretty sure he helped out with it all just to prove me wrong, but I'll take it! We love peaches.

Happy new camera day

We've been married almost 4 years, and we've never been able to experience a "happy new camera day". It's a very happy day. The camera I had, was dropped and broke almost 4 years ago. The camera we've been using was Ryan's camera that he had before he left for his mission. This camera survived a 2 year mission, and 5 years of traveling all over the world, and it's still works pretty well (besides the black spot in the top left corner of all the pictures). So the little point and shoot Canon we liked was $40 off at Costco, so we went for it. We decided that we'll be taking hundreds of pictures in the months to come, so it was an investment that needed to be made. Anyway, I love the new camera, and I'm excited to snap photos of our baby girl soon!!

Jackson Family Shower

Last week I had my Jackson family baby shower, hosted in Andrea's beautiful new home. All the Miller girls put together the most fabulous shower with lots of delicious food, a fun baby food game, and of course there was great company! I married into the most wonderful family, everyone is so kind, genuine, funny and makes me feel like I truly am part of the fam. We're getting closer to having this little girl in our home, and we just can't wait! Seriously, I don't want to wait anymore, we will gladly welcome her anyday :) Thank you again everyone for the fun baby shower! (and thanks to Andrea for the pics)

What I've been up to...

In great anticipation of this little baby I've been finding fun ways to keep myself busy instead of thinking way too hard about what it'll be like when she's here, what the delivery will be like, when is she coming, what will she look like, etc. I also was realizing that everyone doesn't give "newborn" size clothes because they grow out of them so fast. Well my baby still needs something to wear until she grows out of it, so instead of spending a ton of money I decided to make a few unique onesies. It's been a fun little craft, and it's been fun knowing that I can put these to great use soon! I still have a whole bunch to make, it's fun to be creative!

Fall has come

We've been wanting to go up the canyon and see all the beautiful trees, we barely missed them last year. Then Ryan got invited to go golfing with his dad and two uncles (Uncle Dick and Uncle Scott) up at the Wasatch Golf Course in Midway. It was absolutely breathtaking. I tagged along with Sue and Ruthanne to cheer on our spouses. It was perfect weather, and so beautiful. It was so nice to get out and enjoy the nice fall mountain air.

We then went with Ryan's parents to a delicious little restaurant on the edge of Heber called the Snake Creek Grill. Ruthanne recommended it, and it was fabulous! It was the perfect way to spend the perfect fall day.

thirty-four weeks

I've made it through the hot summer, and I'm looking forward to the fall temperatures these next few weeks. I am feeling great, but I am definitely getting a little bit bigger every day, 6 more weeks of growing and growing. I have found myself wearing the same things often, so if you see me in the same outfit as when you saw me a few days ago don't be surprised, I'm running out of options here! Besides, at this point I'd much rather spend money on a cute little pink onesie than an XL t-shirt :) This little baby is a crazy one! There are few times a day when she actually stops moving. She hates it when I slouch, and when there's loud noises. Ready or not this baby is coming before October 22nd. My due date is the 15th, but my doctors scheduled my induction date for the 22nd, so there's no question of going over more than a week. The nursery is almost completed, we just need the little odds and ends to make it cute! Ryan did an amazing job of setting up the crib, we'll put up some pictures soon. I love it, I just absolutely love the nursery so far. We are so excited to have our little girl here. Love you baby!

Memory Lane

This last week we've been staying with Ryan's brother Josh while his parents are in Europe, and with school starting we knew that the big first dance was soon approaching. Only being 8 days away - and being a girl I know how cruical each day is when finding a dress - so we convinced him to not waste another day and ask! So tonight we came up with a few ideas and this is what Josh decided he wanted to do. We wrote all the letters of his name on a little piece of paper and put each letter in a different balloon and said "I'd be blown away if you'd go to Homecoming with me!" Then she gets to pop them all and hopefully unscramble it to figure out who it is. Ryan got to be the doorbell ditcher and I was the get-a-way car. I have forgotten just how much I loved high school. The fun, the drama, the friends, the excitement, the drama, the craziness and the drama. I wouldn't do it again, but I loved it.