Red Sox Clench the AL East

Friday night, the Boston Red Sox clenched the AL east when they beat the Toronto Blue Jays...and in case you wanted to see the scoreboard from that game, c'mon over to our place and check it out!  (details to follow...)

Billy and I spent most of Saturday working on the nursery.  We had to chalk the entire chalkboard wall & clean it with a wet cloth, per the manufacturer's instructions.  Not sure why, but it did give the entire wall a bit of a chalky non-perfect look, which I really like.  Then, it was time to apply our Fenway Park scoreboard decal.  The decal was roughly 9' long, by 3' high.  Somehow, we figured it out and got the decal on the wall still wearing our wedding rings.  We went into the exercise knowing this would be a challenge and tried to laugh as much as possible throughout all the frustrating moments.  Decals are tough due to the fact that once the decal hits the wall, you're stuck...so you better make sure it's straight and level...now multiply that by 27 square feet!  In the end...the finished product is exactly what we imagined.  Check out the progress photos:

First, we chalked the entire wall...

...floor to ceiling...

...then we measured the decal and the wall...

...then used lots of blue tape to lay it out on the wall...

...TAH DAH!  (these photos make it look so easy!)

As mentioned previously, we chalked in the score of Friday night's game against Toronto.

So as to avoid any questions from my followers...did you notice that the scoreboard has a 10th inning?  I promise that's not a mistake.  The scoreboard in the real Fenway Park, too, has a 10th inning slot.  It's my understanding that this 10 is changed to an 11, 12, 13 and so on for when games go into extra innings.  Luckily, Friday night's game didn't even go to the bottom of the 9th (hence the hyphen).  

The chalk board is super easy to write on and to erase.  I definitely recommend this product to anyone else with kids.  Benjamin Moore sells it by the quart (about $25/quart...this wall took under 2 quarts) and can be made any color you choose.

In addition to applying the decal to the wall, we also finished "dressing" the crib with the plaid madras bedding and hung some artwork on the tan walls.  The nursery also now features an adorable round rug in the center of the room that looks like a baseball.  We found this last weekend and had to have it.  It's shag-like, made of strips of jersey knit knotted to the rug pad.  Feels so good under your feet and will be soft for our crawling baby one day!

Isn't this rug adorable?!?

So soft and wonderful under my tired feet!

Baseball bat corkboard, infant baby caps (VT and Red Sox...where's the GT hat?!?!), and baseball glove artwork.  If you look closely, you'll see two red stars on top of the navy storage units.  These will be installed on either side of the top corners of the window to allow a baseball penant to be strung across the top of the window.  My mom is making this for my "all star" baby shower...can't wait to get this hung in the room!  Stay tuned for photos once it's all done.

Fenway Park artwork (from Target, of all places...gotta love Target) and foam "B" over the crib.  I decided that we needed a photo of Fenway Park in the room, so that I can point to the scoreboard in the photo to explain the green monster wall :)

Don't you just want to curl up in this bed and go to sleep!??!  Hopefully lil' Fryebaby will feel that way when he comes home with us ;-)

I love the wall so much that I had to post one more photo of it...wow wow wow!

In other news, we have been the lucky recipients of wonderful gifts!  Our other upstairs bedroom (loosely referred to as the play room) is currently housing all the fun baby stuff...swings, mamaroo, exersaucer, playmats, boppy, bumbo, high-tech baby monitor, infant pool tube, vibrating seat, bassinet, and a pak-n-play.  We are also now the proud second-hand owners of a fancy Boon high chair that is on display in our dining room, and a car seat / stroller combo in our foyer.  Slowly but surely, we will be distributing all these goodies throughout the house.  Anything we can do to keep lil' fryebaby happy and entertained, right?!?!

The "playroom"

Our stylish & easy to use pak-n-play (check it out: http://www.4moms.com/breeze)

Isn't this the coolest high chair?  Ours has survived our friends' three growing girls already, and still looks this new!

Finally, before I have to sign off for the day (we have to head to our child birthing classes starting in 45 minutes!), I am happy to report that things are going very well at work with regard to my upcoming maternity leave.  I have been trying to appreciate all the little things in my pregnancy...first, no morning sickness (hallelujah!); second, always feeling healthy and staying energized (woo hoo!); and, now, third...a wonderfully understanding employer and client.  I am working with a fellow project manager from my firm and am commencing the "hand off" of my projects to her super-capable hands.  It is such a relief to know that I already have a back-up in place and will be good to go no matter when lil' fryebaby decides it's time for him to meet the world.  

Cheers y'all!  Go Red Sox!

Welcome to the 3rd Trimester

Long time, no posts!  Apologies for the delay in posting the latest updates.  I'm coming up on 28 weeks and have officially entered the third trimester, which feels like a real accomplishment.  The end is in sight, yet I still have energy and am not too uncomfortable yet.

Check out the latest baby bump from 27 weeks (please disregard the complete and total lack of any "tan"...this baby-carrying body never made it to the pool this summer):

Over Labor Day weekend, Billy and I made significant progress on the nursery.  We painted the walls, assembled the crib and some fun toy storage bins, and set-up all the furniture in the room.  The only piece missing now is the special order swivel glider that will not be here until October or November.  I am very happy with how the furniture turned out, and even happier with the paint job.  We decided to knock the painting out early, while I could still help out.  I was able to tape and cut-in, while Billy rolled.

Before Photos:

We painted three of the walls Sherwin Williams "Toasted Pine Nut" (think Light Khaki).  Check out the fun toy storage bins from Land of Nod (they call these "Storagepalooza") and the fun red cube ottomans.  And the baseball lamp!:

Then, we painted the fourth accent wall "Monster Green".  As you've learned in previous posts, Billy and I wanted to incorporate Fenway Park's Green Monster into our decor / theme for the room.  We decided to paint the entire accent wall with chalkboard paint that was custom color-matched to the real Green Monster wall at Fenway Park.  I actually called a paint shop in Boston to get the color information, as this is proprietary information held by Benjamin Moore.  Here's a look at our own "green monster" wall:

In addition to calling up a paint store in Boston, I also spent a long time online creating my own "custom wall decal".  In an effort to make our Green Monster look just like the one in Fenway Park, I designed a "to scale" decal to match the portion of the scoreboard wall shown below.  The decal will span roughly 10' wide by 3' high and will be applied to our green chalkboard wall.

Once the decal is installed, we will be able to use chalk on our chalkboard wall to fill in the blanks with any opponent / score we want.  You can rest assured that lil' fryebaby is going to grow up thinking the Red Sox are always playing the Yankees, and, of course, are always winning!  :)  

Finally, check out the photos of the dresser, crib, and bedding.  We don't have a mattress for the crib yet, but I went ahead and placed some of the madras bedding in the crib for fun to see how it all looks with our new paint colors.  I love all the red, white, and blue with the boy-ish khaki and green walls.  It definitely says "all boy" when you walk into the room...which I love.

(imagine the scoreboard decal running the length of the green wall over the dresser / changing table)

Besides all the nursery progress, these last couple of weeks have also included a 26-week ultrasound.  Turns out lil' fryebaby is not so lil'.  He's actually tracking a couple weeks ahead of the size charts.  I asked if this means I should expect for him to come early, but was advised that it was more likely that he would come on time, just big.  This didn't come as a surprise to Billy or I, considering our height and build, and I figure if any girl has to give birth to a big baby, I should be able to handle it.  Better than a petite gal trying to birth a 10-pounder!  Maybe I need to re-name the blog "Biggie Frye"...haha!