The Monthly Bloom

December

*********Special Edition Addition*********

My last monthly bloom post was back in November! Not much was happening in our yard that month; the trees were vibrant with orange and yellow leaves, and I think the holly and nandina bushes were already brimming with berries, which were beautiful through January. Lots of these bright red berries graced our kitchen table and front door for the holidays, thanks to my mom.

We'll just say our November monthly bloom was 8 pounds, 20 inches long, and a boy! (for those of you who just keep up with me through this blog) And, I apologize it's taken me awhile to get back here. It's rare for me to have two hands free these days, and so much else needs to get done when that does happen. I started The Monthly Bloom series last February. So when the crocuses started blooming this January, I realized I just had a couple more months to make it a whole year of documenting our blooming yard! So, I'm catching up a little bit from the last few months. And, I'm excited about our new subject for a series of monthly photos to share with you here- he's really quite beautiful, and amazing. Lots more photos coming soon, but for now, meet Abe:

Abraham Carroll Eaton

November 24, 2011 at 8:12am

8 pounds, 20 inches

So much Joy!!!

of interest-

I posted some New Year's resolutions last January, and I find this one so entertaining:

3. Decorate for Christmas the Sunday after Thanksgiving (tree and all, no exceptions!)

NO EXCEPTIONS! What about being in the hospital with a brand new baby!? I guess I didn't see that one coming, but you'll be happy to know that we did eventually get out all the decorations to enjoy our first Christmas at home with little Abe :)

Nursery Renovations: Part 2

Little details

Baby, lots of empty hangers excited about finding out your gender! 

 so excited to have some baby books filling up all these nice bookshelves!

Laurence's baby shoes now have a home:)

This light fixture was in the back bedroom when we moved in the house and cleaned up so nicely...

and easily. I never knew how much fun spray paint could be!

I used the left over spray paint on some cheap frames I found at Big Lots. I've got more frames to maybe add another color to the room. We ended up with lots of BLUE and green in here, so we'll either be adding some PINK! or maybe some accents of orange??? We'll know soon!

 Compromise. Laurence did do so much work in here when he started telling me his ideas about how to decorate the room I had to figure out how to compromise a little bit: carved wooden canoe paddle from the Amazon- OK, mounted fish- never OK, an any room, right? I actually really like the canoe paddle on the wall now, with the nice plush lily pad rug!

ready or not!

When telling people about working non-stop on the nursery all summer I kept getting comments about how creative or cutely decorated they thought it would be. Well, as you can tell from the last post, we weren't just decorating or painting a room:) We'll get to the decorating eventually... and it will be fun to add some gender specific colors too!

Nursery Renovations: Part 1

Left corner of nursery

before we moved in:

the house was duplexed in the 70's, we converted it back to a single family dwelling, this was the 2nd kitchen, which we ripped out before moving in

refinishing floors in 2008:

fyi - tiniest closet ever for a bedroom

 oh, we're having a baby?! getting to work (2011):

TADA:

we used the space from the tiny closet for this nice built-in, Laurence thinks it will make a great changing table- clearly never changed a baby's diaper:)

Chair corner:

before we moved in:

replacing old plumbing:

getting to work:

TADA:

Facing crib wall:

getting to work:

we decided to close off the door to the back bedroom because it was awkward, and we needed to make room for the closet we added 

TADA:

From hallway:

Right corner of nursery:

getting to work:

 closed off door, while renovating we found some old hotrods under the baseboard that must have been stowed away through the hole in the wall:)

TADA:

Facing window:

before we moved in:

we had to remove those horrible radiators from throughout the entire house 

TADA:

Wow! That's a lot of work we've done! I know, I've said it before, we're crazy. I can't believe some of these photos from back when we moved in here. What were we thinking!!?? I can say we've learned a ton, most importantly- DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME! This is the first room I think we've done right the first time around, making sure we knew exactly what we wanted and finishing every single last detail while still working in the room. My trick rule to make sure this happened was that we weren't allowed to paint the walls until everything else was finished. It would be our reward, our oh-so-satisfying reward. So many people offered to help paint. Didn't they understand how much I was looking forward to the easiest part of the whole project- rolling beautiful bright yellow paint onto our now smooth, clean walls! Well, I'm getting a little bit carried away, but my rule proved to be very helpful in getting all of those tedious details finished. Having a "due date" helped too:)

That's all for now. I'll post more soon about some of the details of our baby's nursery! We did seriously consider making this our bedroom, just for the nice closet. And yes, it's still crazy to walk by there and see a crib out of the corner of my eye. 

nine plus months o bloomin'

Lulu knows something is going on, but she has no idea she's about to meet her new best friend!!

I love our street in the fall. I think we're ready to start the walking/spicy food ritual every evening:)

See what I mean? We're ready when you are, critter or sweet pea!

I certainly won't mind packing up the maternity jeans.

So, if you're wondering what we've been up to... besides renovating two historic homes, filming a show for the DIY network, wrapping up art sales, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, making some meals to freeze, preparing for labor, attempting to wrap up some art projects, prepping prefolds... I think it's called nesting. Seriously, I had no idea how much "nesting" this momma had in her. It's time to take a break from the list-making. It really did get out of control a little bit, sorry Laurence. No more lists, for now:) Nine days until the "official" due date! Really, it's crazy to pick out one day, when it could be 14 days before or after that day, but in case you were wondering.

The Monthly Bloom

October

Occasionally Laurence comes home with little mystery plants in pots from a plant swap or sale.

 Like this "low growing" sunflower:

or this "blue" perennial:

that is taking over!

I'm learning to be weary of plant swaps and anytime someone's trying to get rid of something because they have too much of it. We've tried to transplant this swamp sunflower once already, but more keeps coming back where we originally planted it, thinking it was a low growing flower. 

It's been nice to have lots to cut and bring inside though:

Laurence also decided to throw these whole tomatoes in the freezer back in June. At the time I thought it was a little bit crazy- who wants mushy frozen tomatoes? 

They were perfect for Ina's Roasted Tomato Basil Soup! 

So glad I spotted them at the bottom of the deep freezer while we still had lots of basil in the garden.

A perfect fall meal with some grilled cheese on the side!

Can't wait to see what who blooms in November!!!

time for change

Lots of new and exciting things happening around here, which calls for cleaning up and clearing out. Our little house can only handle so many plastic bins. 

sneak peak at light fixture now hanging in the nursery!

So, I'm cleaning out my inventory and retiring some prints. Like this one, one of my all time best sellers, I've got one left:

All my children's illustration prints are marked way down!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PepperedPaper

Everything in my shop has FREE SHIPPING until November. 

(just for you, readers- use the coupon code, FREEPOST)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PepperedPaper

Or, if you're in Knoxville, come see me at the Farmer's Market tomorrow where you can get the most delicious cake donuts imaginable or some pretty peppers.

We're getting so excited, and a little anxious about everything that I'd like to get done, we're having trouble sleeping, already. So, somedays I feel like Lu:

Don't forget to check out my sale and pass along the info to anyone you know who may be looking for some fun children's art prints, etc.

coupon code - FREEPOST 

shop - http://www.etsy.com/shop/PepperedPaper

Thanks!!!