The long awaited reveal!

I haven't been trying to hold out on you, I promise. I just wanted to take pictures when there was a good amount of natural light, and things have been busy lately! Anyhow, here is our nursery at present (warning- large amount of pics coming at you!):

A view from the door

Going around the room to the left. My glider (which we both love to sit in) and fabulous curtains!

Love the alphabet letters! 

The sofa bed with a cheap slipcover we got on clearance! woo hoo!

Arent they cute?? LOVE THEM!

The blanket from the bedding and the cute things from Kirklands. 

These letters were decorations at the shower my sister threw me, and Mr.Pate thought of putting them on the door. I think its cute! The animals were in a diaper cake McKenna made for our church shower. 

Mr.Pate thought of putting up a rack for the diaper bags, such a smart man. And there will be two of those white owls up (thank you Whitney!) but one fell. 

This is from my sweet friend Nancy and has the life verse we picked out for Griffin on it (Col 1:9-11). 

The Crib! 

A top shot! Love the crib bedding- thanks Mist and Ash! That giraffe thing is a playmat that is super cute and soft! Thanks Rhoyce! 

This banner was used at the gallatin shower too. Love!

A cute gift from April that worked out perfect for the room. 

A little shelf we have hidden in the corner. 

We are getting a modern looking birth announcement framed and will put it in that spot to the right. 

We went with cubbies. 

More letters from the shower. Love reusing! 

The cute monkey Sarah made us!

Cute frame McKenna painted us!

Are these totes the cutest things or what?? You can actually stick your hands in the mouth and get stuff out! Thanks Kristen!

The picture that started it all... haha. 

A view of the organized closet... so many clothes! 

Mr. Pate put up a closet organizer with a bunch of shelves for us. We have lots of things in their own plastic tubs to stay organized. 

And that's it folks. We are still arranging things on the cubbie thing and the wide open spot next to the crib is going to have his birth announcement framed on it. Ill be sure to post that when we have it (which will be when we have a son! Ahh!! 

Overall I am very pleased. The room is bright and cheery, has some good modern touches but is fun and kid friendly. What do you think? 

A bit of a tease

It's not completely ready, but here is a corner of Griffins world:


- Mrs.Pate via my iPhone

It's coming along

We have been busy people in the Pate household, working hard to get the nursery done. I promise I will share it with you soon, nut right now this is taking up most of my time:






The decorating is almost complete actually, and we are trying to get everything organized and in it's own home by this weekend. Yay!! You can actually see our fireplace and the stacks around the house are getting much smaller! Woo hoo for progress!

And can I just say Griffin has enough 0-6 month clothing to put him in a different outfit everyday without repeating... Goodness!


- Mrs.Pate via my iPhone

We are being invaded

We have officially started in on the nursery! Yay! But before I get to pics of that, I thought I should share with you what my house had looked like the past few months.

A crib has lived in my living room in front of the fireplace:


Corners of my living room are stuffed with baby things:


My entire sunroom is covered with baby stuff and randomness:






I love and feel blessed that we have baby stuff that can overtake us, and I am not taking that for granted. But it is hard to live with piles all around when you are a type a type of lady.

All I can say is I am glad Baby Griffin won't have to live in front of the fireplace!! Ha!

- Mrs.Pate via my iPhone

The Elephants have Arrived

... In the nursery that is! Ha! This past weekend, Mr.Pate hung blinds and the curtains in the soon-to-be nursery (which happens to currently be a mid-twenty year old guys room for now- yeah he doesn't mind the change! ha). Woo Hoo! I love them!!! What do you think?

Please ignore everything else in the picture because it will change. They came out as the pop of fun color and modern element I was hoping for. Yay! 

Our bedding also came in last week, so Mr.Pate and I spread everything out on the table to try and pick a paint color. Here is a look at that process: 

A look of everything for the room so far...

A better view of the cute bedding blanket (Thank you Mist & Ash!!)

View of the bumpers and crib skirt

A close up of the two colors we are thinking about... 

So as you can see, we are thinking a light yellow for the walls. I am leaning towards the "Summer Sun" on the right, and Mr.Pate is leaning towards the "First Light" on the left. Any thoughts or suggestions?? 

Thats the nursery progress thus far... stay tuned as the room develops in the coming months. What do you think?

Late Night Thoughts

• The curtains for our nursery are done. I just wanted long panels, so it did not take my sweet friend at church long to make that happen for me. I am dying to get them up and see how they look- even if they wont really stay. Hopefully later this week we will do that and snap a pic or two for you. Hopefully. The curtains are the thing I am most excited about in the nursery so far! 
• My sister & brother in law bought our bedding for us and it is en route to our house now! Yay! My sis is in New York City this week with one of her best friends and they came across a Buy Buy Baby store, which is where the bedding is from. So they snapped these two pics for me so I could better see what the bedding looked like. I really like it. It fits the color scheme we want, has the animal theme and has numbers and letters. Woo Hoo!
• My sister also got to go to Carlo's Bakery (Home of the Cake Boss!). Jealous. 
• I am still wanting to share some posts on what I am learning in our Bradley Class, but I am finding it difficult. With kids and parenting there comes a lot of pressure and judgement I think. People judge every decision other people make, whether its if they chose to work or stay home, how they discipline, if they breast feed, etc. I just do not want my blog to be a place where people feel that pressure. If you are not into Natural Childbirth then I have no beef with that, its your experience and you should do whatever you want. Its the same thing with cloth diapers. I am super excited about them, but I could care less how you diaper your children. You know what I mean?? So I hope to share more of what I am learning soon, but I just want to make sure I share it in a way that is informative and not preachy. Because natural childbirth people can be down right pushy! 
• Along that line, I am not even sure I would classify myself as a natural childbirth person. I just want to be informed and then make decisions from there. Imagine that- I want to know something... Ha!
• One of my student workers came in yesterday and said he needed to ask me something. Then he asked me if he had filed his taxes.... which I told him was probably a question for him and not me??? Ha! Then he said that his friends had gotten money back and he had not. I had to inform him that the government was not going to send him any money until he actually filed his taxes. Poor kid... these are the kind of life lessons I need to remember to teach my kid. 
• I have trouble breathing when I talk. This started after my thyroid surgery, but got better sometime last year. Since I have been pregnant it has been creeping back in and now I cant carry on a conversation without gasping for air. Seriously. It is ridiculous. The funny thing is, it is only when I talk. It doesn't happen when I work out and I still workout quite a bit so I do not think its because I am out of shape. I think I have forgotten how to breathe while talking. I do not know what I am doing wrong, but something is not right. How do I even go about fixing this problem??
• I am at an ugh point with my hair. I really want to cut it into an inverted bob again, but I know that come baby time I am going to want a ponytail. It is just blah right now. 
• I am suddenly falling asleep, so it is time to bid you adieu...

Guess what's here??

Our fabric for the curtains in the nursery:



And our animal alphabet wall decals:



Not the best pics ever, but I am loving them both!!! I think they are both cute but kinda funky and I love that. Yay!!

- Mrs.Pate via my iPhone

Today is the Day...

Today is the day we (hopefully) find out what gender our baby is! Woo Hoo!! I am sooo excited and not really sure how I am going to focus through the work day until then. Our appointment is at 3pm followed by my 20 week appt with Dr.Gass at 4pm. 

Here is the deal blog friends- we are having a gender reveal party with our family on Sunday... so until then mum is the word. Sorry, you will have to wait till then. Just wanted to go ahead and let you know that so you werent expecting a post tonight or anytime soon. 

In other news, nursery ideas are coming along. The picture below may be a "mood board (Young House Love style)" of my plans for right now. Still not completely set and several things to decide, such as a paint color. Maybe tan, light yellow, blue, green... I just do not know. Hummm.... but here is a sneak peek for now:

The blue fabric will be used for curtains and a cute minky blanket, the other things are the wall decor so far and then middle is bedding I found on Buy Buy Baby for $99 (plus 20% off) for 6 pieces! The cute owls are from a friend and will be painted some fun color for a pop. There you have it for now. Ill update as it progresses. 

Happy Thursday! 

A Tale of a Nursery...

We have two and a half weeks till we find out what the gender of Baby Pate is, but that has not stopped me from constantly thinking about what his or her room will look like. Nurseries are addicting! Ha! So, while nothing has been decided on color or bedding etc, we do have a few things for sure....

This canvas will be our base point for the whole room. It has a funny story really. We bought this picture from Kirkland's last May... I got pregnant in October.... Yep we bought it before we were pregnant. And we were not even specifically trying to have a baby. But I saw it and knew that if I ever had a baby I would want this, so I begged Mr.Pate to let me get it (it was the last one on clearance). We actually bought it the night Mr.Pate's grandma passed away, so it reminds me of her every time I see it and I think thats pretty neat. Anyhow, it is the color scheme that we always gravitate towards in our house and it is babyish but with a modern look to it. Very us. I LOVE IT!! And it has funny animals like a---

 Narwhal! Ha!

We also recently bought these two pieces from Kirklands bc they were on clearance and seemed to fit.

So thats a sneak peak into the makings of our nursery so far. Colors that are being talked about for the wall are a light yellow, greenish blue or slate blue. I have no problem with a blue room for a little girl, but I am not sure the rest of the world agrees with that. We shall see!