the nursery!

so the nursery is pretty much almost done. it's like 97% done.  enough for a blog post.

but first, let's all just take a moment and remember what the nursery looked like "before":

mmm mmm mmm!  (more before pics here and nursery progress here)

but now let's all take a deep breath (shake off the eebie jeebies from the before shot) and prepare ourselves for...
THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!

 

this is the head-on view of the nursery.  

we made a valance and curtains to cover the bookshelves (a craigs list find) and make it look like a comfy nook.  

the day bed (a barely used pottery barn hand-me-down from billy's sister) is great for resting or pulls out to a king size bed for company.  

billy plans to put some crown molding around the map (which we found affordably at allposters.com) to achieve a framed look.

i spent a lot of time choosing fabric for the nursery.  i picked a very inexpensive corduroy for the curtain panels that gave us a velvet look, but for a lesser price (i think it was like 6 bucks a yard)!  the green pattern of the valance is part of a three fabric series i found online at purlsoho.com.   these fabrics were more expensive, but we used them to make the baby's crib bumper and crib skirt and those are way more expensive to buy at the store than it is to make them... no matter how pricey your fabric is!

the chandelier came into my shop.  i just love it.  it doesn't run on electric, but instead has little cups that hold battery operated tea- lights.  it looks so romantic in there when they're turned on at night!  and yes, there is a chandelier in our baby boy's room.  i don't care.  we were going for gender neutral.  shush.

 

this is the left side-ish view of the nursery.  

you can see the bookshelves that are behind the curtains and will eventually fill up with all of our cool books.  

you can see the crib is in the back left corner of the room.  

the chest next to the radiator is super cool and was also a find at my shop.  it houses all of baby's toys and stuffed animals.  

on top is his cd player to play all of his rock-a-bye baby cd's courtesy of steve and lindsay (lullaby renditions of led zeppelin, pink floyd, the beatles, etc... so cool!)  

the feed bag pillow is covering up the outlet that the window lights are plugged into.  i hate exposed wires!  we decided to leave the lights in the windows in here after christmas in lieu of a nightlight.  it looks so much cooler!  

the handmade sign above the window reads "murphy- all because two people fell in love" and was a wedding gift from the lovely and talented kim segal.

 this is the right side of the baby's room. 

you can see the great dresser/changing table that billy's sister handed down to us, as well as the great pottery barn shelves. 

the rocking chair is the rocking chair my mama rocked me in. 

the basket is for trash, but you can't see my super nifty diaper wet bag hanging on the other side of the dresser. 

behind the changing pad is the cloth wipes warmer, and a white bucket housing all of baby's cloth diapers!  they are so cute! 

you can also see to the right a cool vintage vegetable barrel which acts as a hamper.

 here's a close up of the crib. 

i just love the tree fabric and the nature-y print of the crib skirt fabric. 

if you think the mobile looks familiar, it is!  mom saw my previous post proclaiming our love for a mobile we found on etsy, so she decided she'd just go ahead and make one herself!  and it turned out even better than the etsy one, in my opinion!  we just love it. 

so, those were the best "area" pics, but here are some close ups of my favorite little details:

 

 we really wanted something different for the nursery, and i am so happy with the way it turned out. 
i love that it's original, and that it's something of our own creative building instead of a pre-packaged set you buy at the store. 
everything that went into the nursery is either passed down from family, made from scratch and with love by my mom (the most excited grandma to be ever), gifted to us by dear friends and family, or hunted down and found on a budget.  i feel like the nursery is as much of my baby as my baby! haha!
i'm glad that it turned out so "us" and i know it will be just perfect for our little guy!  i like how comfortable it is for us and for baby. 

we are expecting an area rug to be delivered tomorrow, so i will post a picture of that once it arrives. 

hope you like the finished product as much as we do!

hello again, blog.

hey there blog.
i know, i've neglected to post for like umm, forever.
but lots of things have been keeping me busy over here. 
like christmas, and new years, and baby showers, and snow storms, and premature labor. 
here's an update:

christmas:

it was really fun to decorate the house.  not so much fun to undecorate it.  thankfully mom helped me... when she came up to visit last week and everything was still decorated (oops).  it's hard to climb up 9 foot christmas trees when you're 9 months pregnant!

baby showers:

 

our sweet family friend, nadyne, threw me a lovely shower in maryland over new years weekend.  mom was in newfoundland to be with poppy before he passed away, so it was especially nice to be with church friends and family and celebrate the little one during such a tough time.

mandy and steph threw me a shower at deluxe in wilmington with all of my wilmington girlfriends.  i love these girls and we had such a nice time.  mandy and steph really outdid themselves, and i got a lot of really nice things!  it's so fun to get together with the wilmington gals and celebrate big life events... there are a lot of weddings (and i have a feeling more babies!) coming up this year! yay!

snow storms:

 

we've had a few.  this was our most recent on wednesday night.  snow is way more fun when you don't own your own house and have to shovel your own enormous driveway.  we had to cut down a bazillion branches the next morning and drag them through the yard just so we could make it out of our driveway!  it was pretty though.  and my favorite part of snow storms are always snow days!  especially the mornings:

 

beautiful blue skies

 billy makes breakfast!

 and the whole world looks like it's covered in vanilla frosting.

okay you're basically all caught up now.  i promise i'll pay more attention to you in the upcoming weeks.  mostly because i'm becoming less mobile.

christmas cookies!

today i spent the afternoon doing one of my most favorite holiday activities... baking cookies!

mom started mandy and i baking at a very young age, and for that reason it's always been very near and dear to my heart.  there are special cookies that i made every year growing up with my mom and sister, but i just can't seem to make those by myself!  it just wouldn't be the same without all three of us.  but that doesn't stop me from trying new cookie recipes every year and baking up a holiday storm!

today i made four different kinds of cookies.  three of them were new recipes, but one is tried and true.  here is the rundown of the recipes, including professional cookie taster billy murphy's tasting notes.

cookie numero uno- thumbrint cookies!

ever since billy and i have been together i have made thumbprint cookies for christmas.  they are his favorite, and his dad likes them so much that he's been known to hide them so well from everyone else that he actually forgets where he's put them himself! 

i have used a number of different recipes over the past few years for thumbrint cookies- there are a million different varieties and ways to make them.  for instance, you can use almond extract instead of vanilla extract, or drizzle them with icing instead of sifting powdered sugar over top of them... make peanut butter cookies instead of plain, seriously a million different ways.  all varieties are good!  but i think the most crucial element is using the right jam for the middle.  and bonne maman raspberry preserves is the best!

that's my advice anyhow!
here's the recipe that i used this year.  it's my favorite way to make them (traditional).  billy says he likes them better with the almond extract instead of vanilla.  shut up billy.

this brings me to cookie numero dos- polvorones, or ground walnut cookies.

these are traditional mexican wedding cookies, but we americans know them better as snowball cookies!  you can make them with pecans or walnuts.  i'm sure there are a lot of different variations of this cookie as well.

this was my first year making them, and i was frankly a little concerned halfway in.  the dough is really stiff and crumbly and i was worried they were going to fall all apart, but nope! they held up great.  this is the recipe i used for them this year, and i would definitely make them again!  they are tasty.  billy says they are "right on point".

now for cookie numero tres- chocolate gooey butter cookies!

yes, it's true.  i found a paula deen cookie recipe with the words "gooey" and "butter" in the title.  umm... OF COURSE i made them! 

so neither billy nor i are big on chocolate cookies (ick), but i had to give this a shot.  they were super easy, and they turned out really really good.  they stay chewy and gooey.  billy said it was like taking a bite of chocolate cake!  and even though he doesn't normally like chocolate cookies, he said he could totally do one of these for dessert with a glass of milk.  i highly recommend.

and lastly, cookie numero quatro, which isn't actually a cookie at all, it's- peppermint bark!

seriously, i almost didn't make this because the recipe looked too easy and the simplicity made me nervous.  i didn't think there was any way they would turn out right with so little effort.  they did.  they're pretty, and they're unfathomably easy. 

i will say, that instead of using candy canes for this recipe, i used these old fashioned peppermint sticks from cracker barrel.  don't do that.  these peppermint sticks are delicious, kind of like those after dinner mints that disintegrate in your mouth when you bite them.  but i wouldn't use them again for the peppermint bark.  they are not as crunchy and minty as you want for the bark.  even though i added the optional peppermint extract, the bark still ended up a little more sweet than minty.  they are still delicious, don't get me wrong, but billy and i have both concluded that in the future plain old candy canes are the way to go for these.

so this concludes my little christmas cookie blog.

next year hopefully i will have a waistline again and i'll be able to wear my little june cleaver aprons while baking.  this year i just wore a sweatshirt that ended up covered in dough. hot.

merry christmas ya'll! :)

the sky is falling... a series.

when we woke up this morning, the ceiling in the great room looked like this:

peely. leaky. drippy.

we knew the ceiling was bad in the great room when we moved in. 
it's been slowly getting worse.
like a ticking time bomb of melting plaster. 
over the past eight months whenever we got a really bad rain storm or lots of rain over a period of days, we'd hear the occasional "splat", find a chunk of ceiling on the ground, stare at it mournfully, and continue about our day.  because money to replace the ceiling did not, however, happen to be falling as well.

this morning it was exceptionally drippy, because it was exceptionally rainy.  but not too many splats.  although it was looking a little more questionable than usual. 
we put down a bucket and went about our day. 
at six we left for childbirth classes in bryn mawr. 
we left tucker gated in the kitchen.
when we came back, the ceiling looked like this:

i should have taken a real picture, but you'll notice my hatted little head in the bottom left corner of the frame... i was already cleaning up (i don't even think i had put my purse down) and billy just snapped a shot real quick with his iphone.  it wasn't pretty.
tucker (who must have thought the end of the world was happening) had jumped the gate in the kitchen, peed all over the ceiling mess, and was found buried under pillows in our bed (that he's not allowed in).  i think he was pretty traumatized.

luckily, wonder husband and i cleaned everything up in no time. and let me tell you, old wet plaster ceiling is heavy.  and messy.   but we worked together and 20 minutes later it was looking like this:

 

the crappy iphone shot doesn't do the shiny mopped floors justice.

i'm actually super glad that the ceiling all came down in one big chunk, and not like a serious of jagged pieces that i would have to be cleaning up for days.  we knew it was going to happen eventually, and it was nice that it was all over and done with in one shot.

 

and we are calling the huge wood beamed owwee spot on the ceiling "character" until it can afford to be otherwise.