The Nursery

About a year ago, we started the process of turning our spare bedroom into the nursery.  For the nursery I wanted a space that was light and airy with a feminine touch without being in-your-face pink.  I have seen so many nursery's for little girls that were nothing but pink pink pink.... call me crazy, but I didn't want to feel like I fell into a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.  Don't get me wrong, I think a pink nursery can work, but you have to choose just the right shade of pink... that was a road I didn't want to head down. 

When we started out, this is what the bedroom looked like.

 

 

 

It was an unfinished space.  We hadn't painted, we hadn't replaced the curtains... basically we threw a bed in there.  The only part about this room I liked was the throw pillow and quilt that my mom bought for me when we moved in.  In fact, I have since moved the pillow and quilt into my home office.

 

We jumped the gun a bit and bought a crib before we painted.  Chris was a good sport and put together the crib a whole 5 months early to make his pregnant wife happy :)

 



Next came the paint.  We choose Shagreen from Sherwin Williams.  I can honestly say even after living with this paint color for about 10 months now, I still LOVE it!!  It just feels like a happy color :)

 

 

 

Next came painting the trim white.

 

 

 

I wanted to do something unique and fun for this room.  I had never gotten to decorate a kids room before and I just wanted to have fun with it.  So, I painted a tree on the wall!  I had a blast!!

Add in a few DIY projects, more furniture and some accessories and we had a finished nursery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the next few posts, I'll share some of the DIY projects that I did in this room.  I had so much fun decorating it and re-living it through these posts makes me downright giddy ;)

-Brooke

March Money Madness!!

First- because a post without a picture is just sad.... here is one to satisfy the need :)

 

 

 

With a new addition to the family, the ol’ budget is a bit tighter than it used to be.  In addition to everything we used to buy, we now have diapers, baby food, formula, baby toiletries, doctor visit co-pays, daycare, medicine…. the list goes on and on and on…. AHHH!!! It makes my head spin!!  Every month I think, “this is the month I’m gonna to put together an actual budget and stick to it!”  I start the month all excited and then I have a day where I just really don’t feel like cooking so we eat out.  Then, since I didn’t cook the night before, we don’t have leftovers for lunch the next day, so we have to eat out again.  Or we’re at the grocery store and all of those expensive little snacks are just calling my name…. (not good for my post prego body or the budget by the way).  I need to fight the temptation… Qdoba is my weakness…. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it…. I mean, I would marry it if Chris wasn’t in the picture.  At first I thought no one could pull off the budget that I had laid out, maybe it was just too tight and I needed to loosen up a bit.  Then came the moment when I typed in “Grocery Budget” on Pinterest.  People are feeding families of 5 on $200 a month!  We only have 2 adults and a pip-squeek and I sit back and watch as we pass $200 on by (way on by) every month.

 

So I thought if I put my intentions on here for March and know that people have seen them and are going to be judging me (that’s okay, I do it too) maybe I could stick to it for once!  Our problem areas are groceries/ household supplies and just basic spending on impulse items- I don’t know exactly how much we are spending, but I know that each time I try to plan a budget, we pass it up and I get frustrated and stop keeping track. 

 

Here is where I want our budget to be for the month:

 

Food/ Household Supplies- $300 (this includes baby supplies like diapers *Am I being over-ambitious???*)

Spending money- $160 (this is $20 a week for each of us to just throw away on whatever we feel like)

Entertainment- $50 (this is for us to take a date night)

 

So here’s my plan.  

 

•  I’m going to plan out meals for 2 weeks at a time, so I will only go to the grocery store twice in a month.  There may be stop-ins for milk/ bread/ produce, but as far as big trips- only 2.  Less time in the store= less time to be tempted by impulse items. My budget is $150 for each trip.
• I’m planning to make lunches for the freezer for those days where there are no leftovers.  I’m still looking into what all I want to make, but right off I know I’m going to do chili and pepperoni rolls.  I’m also going to have homemade snacks at the house pre-packaged and ready to drop into lunch boxes.
• I’m going to make some breakfast items for the freezer as well so that we can grab breakfast and go even if we’re running late.
• Chris and I both get $20/ week each to blow.  This isn’t for gas or anything like that, just fun money.  I felt like we needed this little bit of freedom to make it work.  If we don’t allow ourselves anything, we’ll go crazy and end up going on a spending spree.  If we want something that is over $20, we’ll save for a couple weeks to get it. 
• Since I’ll have packed lunches at home, if Chris or I choose to eat out for lunch, it will come out of our fun money.  Hmm… this could get interesting… this will probably deter my Qdoba habit.  The meal I usually get at Qdoba is around $7.  If I decide that I want Qdoba, it will only leave me with $13 of spending money…. Worth it???? I think not.
• $50 is reserved for us to go to dinner and rent a movie or two.  This money is for us to do things together- consider it “date money” even if those dates now include a screaming baby diva J  Okay, so I know you’re thinking $50 is not a lot for dates, but that’s the point.  Usually the most expensive restaurants we go to are Red Lobster and Olive Garden.  Usually our meals there come to a max of $40.  That leaves us $10 to rent movies or go do something else.  Or, we could go to our favorite pizza place for $20 and go out twice that month.  If we’re out of Entertainment money for the month, we’ll have an evening of homemade pizza and board games J  Sounds more fun anyways!
• I’m gonna take a swing at making my own baby food.  Crazy right?  I really wasn’t thinking of doing this until Khloe’s pediatrician mentioned it.  She has a 1 year old, so we she has just gone through the stages I’m going through now.  She said she bought the steam-fresh veggies for $1.50, steamed them, added water to thin down in a blender and it made enough food for a whole month.  Right now I’m paying $1 for two meals for Khloe.  So $15/ month compared to $1.50/ month??? Yes please!
• I’ve been following coupon sites that list the best diaper deals and stocking up on diapers whenever I find a good price, so hopefully we can stick to the budget when it comes to diapers… that’s mostly up to Khloe J
• Use coupons!!

 

 

Okay, there you have it.  I’m declaring my own brand of March Madness for our family this month.  March Money Madness!!  If we can stick to this, we'll be able to put a nice chunk of change in savings every month.  WOOHOO!!! Let’s do this thing! 

 

One more thing, I've made a Facebook page for the blog.  I'll no longer be putting a link on my personal Facebook when I post, so if you want to see when I post a blog entry on Facebook, you'll need to follow the blog page.  Here is a link to my Facebook page!  Thanks!!!

 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Life-On-A-Gravel-Road/160276614128243?fref=ts

 

-Brooke

Monthly Pictures

One of my goals with Khloe is to take a new picture of her every month of her first year so that we can look back and see how much she has grown.  I've seen a ton of these on Pinterest and I love all of them.   This poor kid would be blind from all of the flashes if I didn't refrain myself....  I decided I would take two different pictures each month for her album.  I'm taking one in her swing so we have some sort of scale to compare her to.  But that wasn't quite fun enough for me... I needed something bigger.... something with props :) :) :) I started thinking and realized that there is some sort of holiday or event every month that I can use to theme her pictures!!  Let the fun begin!  Here are Khloe's pictures so far.... (I haven't taken the February one yet, I bet you can't guess what the theme will be for that one) ;)

September- Okay this one isn't really themed... it was before I decided to do that, so we'll just call this one Newborn :)

October- Fall!

November- Thanksgiving!  See her turkey bow?

December- Christmas of course!
 

January- Happy New Year!

I'm having a ton of fun taking these pictures and it's actually making me find cool tips and tricks for my camera.  I've only had the camera for 3 years... and I still don't really know how to use it... I'm getting there, I promise!!  She's really getting to the point now where pictures are so much fun!  She can sit up by herself which opens up so many more poses.  There are only so many ways to position a baby laying down...

Anyways, I'm gonna keep this up through her first year and then after that, who knows!!

-Brooke