Bring on 2016

We are a little late this year with our traditional New Year's poster. What with our trip to Utah and then getting settled back in afterward, we waited until tonight's FHE to assemble our goals for the year.

Each year, James and I set individual goals, and we set goals for our family. We require our goals to be quantifiable--they have to be things that we can check off. We also try to create a mixture of mental, physical, and spiritual goals.

First, let's review the past year. Unfortunately, I threw out our 2015 poster before remembering to photograph it with the accomplishments checked off. But here's the photo from the beginning of our year:

We were about halfsies on our goals this year. James started law school, earned his 3rd Dan, and read 6 out of his intended 10 new books. As a family, we moved to Durham and went on a family camping trip. James and I went on a date every week, and met our temple attendance goal. As for me, I earned my 4th Dan, read 5 new books (+started a sixth) and learned to make sushi (simple rolls, at least). Plus had a baby!!

This year, I feel like our goals (mine, at least) are a bit more modest, and at the same time, a bit more realistic. I present our 2016 poster:

For James:

• Obtain a 1L job (aka legal internship this summer)
• Obtain a 2L job (for next summer)
• Read 10 new books
• Change oil in car
• Read the Book of Mormon
• Join a legal journal

For Valerie:

• Referee at the NC State Championships
• Read 5 new books
• Create a photography portfolio, utilizing monthly blog posts
• Read the Book of Mormon
• Teach Joel the alphabet
• Win NaNoWriMo (aka write 50,000 words)

For our family:

• Family camping trip
• Washington D.C. trip 
• Donate 4 handmade blankets to a charity
• Take Joel & Xander to the zoo
• Go on a date every week
•  Attend the temple at least thrice

It promises to be an interesting year! Candidly, the main focus of my life right now is my children. Mothering is a full-time job for me, so anything else I get done on the side is a major accomplishment. Still, I look forward to 2016. I can't wait to see what it offers us.

Our Musical Nursery

Baby X is due in less than 8 weeks! People keep saying to me, "Wow, coming up fast!" To which my response is usually, "Not fast enough for me!" Mostly because I'm very excited to meet our newest munchkin. (Also because pregnancy sucks.)

James and I have had some serious back-and-forth debates about baby X's room. The biggest question mark has been his bed. Joel slept in our room in a pack & play for his first four months or so before transitioning to his crib in the nursery. I fully anticipate doing similarly with baby X, except that there is no crib waiting in the nursery for him.

Joel will be almost 18 months old when X comes. At the moment, Joel is nowhere close to being ready to transition out of his crib. Meaning that baby X won't be able have the crib for an undetermined period of time.

James and I debated maybe just getting a second crib. The one that we have, which we love, can become a toddler bed, and eventually serve as parts for an adult size bed as well. But this didn't seem to be the right solution for our future plans. So baby X gets to stay in the pack & play, whether in our room or his own, until Joel is ready to move to a big boy bed. Then baby X will inherit Joel's crib.

I decided to set up the nursery with the pack & play there, even though it will be moving into our room when the baby actually comes. This nursery is not as elaborate as what we put together in Utah for Joel, but the little details please me greatly nonetheless.

Baby X's nursery is music themed. While it's mostly just the basics in place, there are some fun touches that we have included:

Curtains

Thanks are due once again to my awesome mother, who created these curtains for baby X. From a distance, it's hard to tell, but up close, the fabric pops with colorful music notes! Super fun.

James and I are in love with this clock! It's not actually as hard to read the time as I feared it would be when we ordered it. It's beautiful, and we love the personal touch. :) You should know that we had a great debate over whether to use the baby's full name on the clock. But we already refer to him almost exclusively by the short version (he is baby X, after all, not baby A), so that's what went on the clock.

Last but not least is a little design of my own which I painted above the dresser. While it's not perfect, I am still very happy with how it turned out. Can you determine what the song is?

The only thing left to be added is to bring up my armchair from the living room, which will once again be a comfy spot for me and the baby to nurse. We're leaving it downstairs for a couple more weeks.

All in all, I am feeling much more prepared for baby X's arrival!

Staying Busy

Patience has never been one of my strongest attributes, and it's being particularly challenged right now. I told James the other day that the closer I get to the end of my pregnancy, the slower time seems to be flowing. I was having a particularly hard day when I posted this:

At a prenatal appointment the other day, my midwife and I were discussing my upcoming labor. Her suggestions for dealing with early labor were a combination of rest and keeping busy. She encouraged me to make a list of things that never get done around the house that I could do during labor--"Make the list extensive," she said, saying to include things like washing the baseboards.

I realized that this was the answer not only to my labor, but to the next couple of weeks altogether.

I've started keeping a list of things I want to accomplish, large and small. And in my spare time, I turn to the list and pick something. So far today, for instance, James and I reinstalled the back seats into my newly-repaired car (we'd taken them out for our trip to Colorado) and then installed the base of Baby J's carseat. I then went shopping, to find a scrapbook for baby things (I'm tired of having my fridge cluttered with ultrasound pictures, baby shower cards, etc.) which will also mean an ongoing project for the evenings. Then I went to Lowe's to pick up some garden tools, so I can start working in the yard. (Mostly clean up. The amount of leaves that got trapped in our yard over the winter is somewhat ludicrous.)

The list goes on. I feel so much more optimistic about making it through the next couple of weeks armed with so many to-do's. It helps me stay focused on other things besides the overhanging questions of when the baby is going to come!

Our Ninja Nursery

Early in our pregnancy, James and I went out to dinner, and the wait time was 40 minutes or more, so we wandered down to Babies R Us to idle away the time. It was amusing; we scoped out cribs and rocking chairs and enjoyed the giddiness of prospective parenthood. At one point, we walked along looking at the bedding sets for cribs. James commented that all the little boy stuff seemed to either be cutesy animals or sports, neither of which he particularly cared for.

Some time later, when we began discussing what we wanted to do with Baby J's room, we talked about some different color schemes we could go with, but we kept feeling dissatisfied with our options. Footballs and whatnot were definitely out. I was thinking that I could resign myself to puppy dogs, but James was not satisfied with this, and I definitely was craving something a little more...unique. And through the course of our brainstorming, we found it.

Ninjas.

We began in January with painting the room. We had settled on red and black, but I feared that if the entire room was painted these colors, it would be overwhelming. So we decided to paint the top half of the room red, leave the bottom half the tan it was already, with a thick black stripe through the middle.

Getting started (the view from the door)

Getting started (the view of the door)

First coat of red

Now for the black stripe

We were anxious pulling the tape off, but it looked great! This picture doesn't do it justice.

It was amazing to me how much the color added warmth to the room. However, even though I wanted to hang out in the room all the time, it wasn't very comfortable with the uncovered window. (I don't like feeling like I'm in a fishbowl!) So next I approached my mother about making some curtains. (My mother is a curtain-making wizard.)

Turns out, Mom had already found some ninja-themed fabric online. She'd been hoping to find something less expensive, but nothing had turned up, and this particular fabric was just too perfect to pass up. In short order, the window was measured, the fabric purchased, the design decided, and Mom set to work. A few days later, this joyousness joined us:

Isn't this fabric perfect?

 
One of the most important parts of the nursery for me was a chair. Seeing as how I'm going to spend a lot of my time nursing, I wanted to create a comfortable space in the baby's room. I think I tried out every chair at RC Willey looking for "the one." You have to understand, because I'm short, a lot of chairs aren't that well suited for me--you know, I wanted to be able to have my feet touch the ground, which is sometimes a challenge! But I did find a chair that I loved (and it was on clearance, even better!) and though I was worried (rightfully) about the color clashing, I could not deny that this was the right chair for me. So we brought it home.

Fortunately, some of the color issue was mediated by the arrival of our next addition:

There is just something about having a crib in the room that really makes it start to feel like a nursery. Our beautiful crib came as a gift from James's mother, for which we are incredibly grateful!

Next came a purchase of our own, to match the crib:

The dresser, having been shipped from Amazon, was somewhat of an adventure to put together. LOTS of pieces. But it came together perfectly, and we love it!

The next addition (one of my top favorites!) came from Patrick & Shaylee, our brother- and sister-in-law, as a baby shower gift. Could not be more perfect for our ninja nursery!

But the best part of all came this week. A few months ago, I asked my dear friend Ashley Stubbs, an incredible artist, if she would be willing to create ninja "chibis" on the walls of our nursery. To my delight, she took on the project with great enthusiasm! On Wednesday she came over and drew the ninjas on the walls, and today we undertook the painting of them.

The fabulous Ashley Stubbs!

And here you can see the finished pieces:

"Ninja star guy"

"Ninja Guardian" peering over the edge of the crib

"Swingy guy"

"Kicky guy"

And behold, the finished product at last! I tried to get a couple of different angles so you could take in the full effect. =)

We are absolutely in love with our ninja nursery! Now it's time for our ninja baby to show up!!

Love & Family photos

We received these picture frames as wedding gifts--funny enough, from two separate people. We had already decorated our apartment at the time we received them, but I liked them, so I hung onto them in the hopes that I would be able to use them at some point in the future.

Of course, moving into our house meant that we had a lot more wall space. (A LOT more wall space.) After sorting out where all our current wall hangings would be placed, I determined that I wanted to use these frames at last, and place them on the walls of our office. I actually hung them last week, in time for a housewarming party (and our video tour) even though the frames were still empty. Or rather, the frames were still full of generic shots of strangers.

I spent an afternoon earlier this week carefully selecting the photos I wanted to go in each frame. I followed the "Love" and "Family" themes, and filled one frame with pictures of our families, and the other frame with pictures of us. (I'm just vain, I guess. And really in love with my husband.) The photos came today, and I am completely in love with the results! This is our "Family" frame:

Top (L to R): my brother Kyle and his wife Kristi, my parents Don & Kathryn, my Grandma Mechling, James' parents Gene & Charmaine, James' brother Patrick and his wife Shaylee.
Bottom (L to R): my family (James & I, my parents, Kyle & Kristi), James & his best friend Damian, us, and then the entire Holley clan (Timothy, Daniel, Shaylee, Valerie, Charmaine, Gene, Brendan, Victoria, Matthew, Thomas, Nicholas, Tristan, Sean, Patrick, James, Caidin, Tyler).

I am just in love with this collection of photos. It displays the people who are most precious to me and to my husband. Family is so incredibly important to us both, and I love having their pictures hanging on my wall. Then I guess I'll show you the "Love" frame, even though it's entirely pictures of us:

Top (L to R): Our NYC trip in April, riding the Screamer at Lagoon in May, from my sister's wedding in October, James' 2nd degree Black Belt test in January, one of my favorite engagement photos.
Bottom (L to R): random photo I love from a lunch at Applebee's one Saturday afternoon, Halloween at a masquerade ball, our mutual favorite wedding-day photo, and my favorite photo of us from Mechling family photos in May.

I wanted pictures that represented the span of our relationship, and the variety of things we've done together. Travel, Taekwondo, our wedding, and just time spent enjoying one another's company. Photographs are very important to me, and a very tangible way that I keep memories. So, this frame may be a little egocentric, but it also makes me very, very happy every time I look up at it. :)