Baby Shower This Weekend

This weekend I'm going to a baby shower for my friend Lydia. We met in our Active Moms Club prenatal exercise class and she happens to live one block away from me. It's been really fun to get to know another pregnant lady in the neighborhood who will be at home with a little one at the same time I am.

It's hard to find cute baby gifts that aren't too hokey looking, so I assembled something myself with a "baby bath time" theme. I bought the Puj Tub (on her registry) and then put together a little basket of bath time necessities like washcloths, baby shampoo, and a rubber ducky all packaged up in two wire baskets that sit inside a wicker basket she can easily store in the bathroom. I think it looks cute. :)

Lauren's Room

Last week Mom visited to help me with Lauren's nursery. As usual, she whipped everything into shape. I love how it's coming along! For now, I'm just sharing a photo of one side of the room - the one with the daybed and two bookcases. We hung framed photos and artwork above the daybed and organized books, toys, family photos and other miscellaneous baby items on the bookcases.

I love the wall of frames. We have several family photos, a couple of book covers and two custom pieces - one with Lauren's name and one a quote from Teddy Roosevelt (the current quote is a placeholder for now until we agree on the final quote we want to frame). The only near-term thing left to do is to print wedding photos from Mom and Dad and Jim and Lavonne for the frame that holds three photos. We put our wedding photo in the middle and will do our parents' wedding photos on either side.

On the left bookcase, we have a cousins photo area with photos of Stacy with Olivia and Graham, Whitney with Corey and Toby, and Claire with Emerson. We also have a framed photo of Dan's Grandma and Grandpa (dad's side) on their wedding day.

The right bookcase houses toys, books and baby care essentials. Tomorrow, our building engineer will be re-connecting the radiator in Lauren's room, so currently the glider is pushed up against the crib, hence why I didn't take photos of the other side of the room. Hopefully the radiator project will be quick and without any major issues...and then I'll take photos of the whole room to share!

 

Missoni at Target

Today, Missoni launched its collection at Target. It's only available for one month and I have a feeling it will sell out long before then! The Target.com site was down for hours today due to so many people trying to shop. A friend of mine visited a Target store in Chicago this morning and said that within 15 minutes of the store opening the Missoni items were gone!

I was finally able to get onto Target.com and I bought three things for Lauren. Of course now Target.com has crashed (again) so I can't grab photos of all three of the items I bought, but I managed to grab one. It's a skirt for next winter/spring (18-24 months). Isn't it cute? I also bought a hat and mittens set and a pair of leggings for this spring (6-12 months).

 

Update: I was able to get onto the Target site, so now I can share photos of the other two things I got for Lauren: 

I Love Lakeview

This past weekend our neighborhood Chamber of Commerce hosted the annual Lakeview Arts Festival. Broadway is shut down for about 4 blocks and the streets are filled with artist tents, restaurants, music performances and a garden walk. It's fun to walk through the festival and look at all the artists' work. There are a ton of styles represented, from painting to photography to pottery and jewelry. This year, there seemed to be a lot more activities for children (a sign of the growing young population in Lakeview East!). Michael's set up a craft activity area for kids and there was also a puppet show area with performances every hour and a half. It was really well done. Next year Lauren will be able to enjoy the festivities!

Dust Ruffles for Lauren

Mom has been working on lots of sewing projects for us lately. Today, she finished the dust ruffle for Lauren's crib and posted a photo of it on her blog. It is just beautiful and uses the same fabrics we have on the daybed in her room, so everything will be coordinated! Mom also made a lumbar pillow case for the pillow that came with our glider, which will look great and make everything a little less matchy-matchy. Mom gets here in less than 2 weeks to help me pull together Lauren's room and put the finishing touches on everything. I can't wait!

The dust ruffle is made of the bottom two fabrics. The top fabric is actually the lumbar pillow case.