Scrapbook Mania

I love to scrapbook! But up until recently I haven't had the chance or the space to really get back into it. In January we made some updates to our office, which is now basically my craft room. A dream come true! The perfect place to put all my junk craft supplies. One of my birthday presents was a nice big table which allows me to layout all my pages and organize.

Every year since Seth and I have been together, I've made a scrapbook. UNTIL we got married and I've been seriously bad about it. I'd kept all the mementos and printed most of the pictures, just haven't pieced each year together. I have been hard at work these past few weeks in attempt to finish before Carolyn Jo arrives! This is what my craft room looks like on a daily basis right now and it makes me so happy!

I am working backwards and have now completed 2012, just two more years of memories to go. I have already started collecting for Carolyn Jo's first scrapbook which I vow to keep more up to date! I'd love to have family and friends contribute to her scrapbook by writing a letter to her. If you're reading this and I haven't had a chance to tell you yet...It can be about your relationship with her mom or dad, how excited you are to meet her or even your hopes and dreams for our baby girl! It is sure to be something she will treasure for the rest of her life!

Why Carolyn Jo?

Unlike most couples, our baby name (for a girl at least) required little discussion. When I first told Seth he was going to be a dad, out of excitement we decided right then and there. I've always loved family names, and we have so many special people in our lives!

For a boy we knew we wanted to use the name James. To any siblings reading this, we might have a boy one day and are still staking claim to the name! My father and grandfather are both named James. Seth's father and both grandfathers have James in their name. Clearly it was a no-brainer. The other boy name was a toss-up between Ralston (my other granddaddy's middle name which I love) and Otto (a well-respected mentor and friend of Seth's). It's probably a good thing that we have a little bit more time to think on the boy name as we were not ready to come to a compromise just yet.

As for the girl name, Carolyn was my #1. That was the name of my grandma who I much admired and lost her battle to Breast Cancer when I was in elementary school. Read more on her in this post. Coincidently, it is also Seth's mimi's name! Crazy I know! Seth lost his other grandmother when he was young and wanted to use her middle name, Jo. So Carolyn Jo it was. Simple as that! We did toss around using my other grandmother's name too-- Lily. We are pretty blessed with some amazing family names, right? But there is already one Lilly in the family (Nick and Samantha's dog) and the verdict is still out if my mom will go by Lily for her grandma name!

Shout out to my cousin, Carolyn Ann, also named after my sweet grandma. Happy Birthday Carrie!!!

Picture of my Grandma Carolyn and Grandpa loving on me as a baby!

Some of the first items in our nursery-- Baby blanket made for me by my Grandma and my favorite book she used to read to me at our sleepovers!

The Bump

Well, she's definitely growing! And moving around more and more everyday! Here are a few pictures as of lately. I'll try to be better about taking. Time is just flying by so quickly!

Practice Makes Perfect

We've all heard it a million times, pups are great practice for babies. And I sure hope it's true! We love our little guy so much, and I know he is going to make the BEST big brother. Recently, we had the most "just like a baby" experience with Knox. For those of you that don't know, we send Knox to daycare two times a week for a half-day. I can't think of any place (other than swimming at the dogpark or hanging out at his Grandparents house) that he'd rather be. We originally started taking him around 6 months to get some other dog interaction. But he loves it so much I can't imagine not taking him. Pets R People 2 is a cageless daycare and has become like family for Knox. He gets so excited and goes in barking like a crazy every morning to let his friends know he is there. I sure hope Carolyn Jo loves daycare as much as Knox!

Anyway, I'm at work one afternoon and get a call from daycare. They've never called me before so I was of course a little worried. They explained to me that Knox was playing with another dog and got an injury. The other dogs nail had poked Knox pretty deep and he was bleeding quite a bit. They suggested I come pick him so I could see if we wanted to take him to the Vet. Luckily I work close by and rushed over. They had doctored up the spot on his side and shaved some of his hair to make sure it didn't get infected. When I arrived, they gave me an incident report and all. After having Dr. Ryan (Seth's brother is pre-vet and serves as our on-call Vet most of the time) diagnose the situation, we decided he was just fine. Instead of running home, I brought Knox back to work with me so I could keep his infection clean and dry. Everyone at the office loved seeing Knoxy Bear and he sat by my side and napped the rest of the afternoon. To top it off, the injured pup got an ice cream treat on the way home for being so good1 I couldn't help but think after that situation that Knox truly has been the best practice for us as parents!

Here are a few pictures of Knox at Daycare!

The owners made Knox pupcakes on his 3rd birthday!

Playing with his friends

Fall 2012 picture

Christmas 2012 picture

 Candid from Christmas 2012. This is how tired he is everyday when we leave!

We just love this place!

The Nursery

I hate I haven't shared very much about my pregnancy or the excitement of our sweet little GIRL! Yes, we have known for 6 weeks now and I haven't even shared that important little fact on here yet. But most of you already know that! I do, however, get lots of requests from family and friends of belly bump pictures and nursery updates so I promise to do better about sharing!

Let's start with the nursery! Once we found out that Baby Rohling was indeed a girl, we (well mainly me) were anxious to get to planning for the nursery! I love pink for little girls rooms! BUT I had a bad bad personal experience in High School with my pink room. After begging my parents to let me paint it pink for years, they finally gave me the go ahead and I HATED it. Lasted two weeks before I begged them to let me repaint again. Anyway, I couldn't bear the thought of purchasing pink paint! So we decided to go with grey and pink accents. I think Knox was happy we opted out of pink for his room, too! Thanks to pinterest I found so many beautiful nurseries and ideas!

I love the board and batten look and considered it for a while! 

The pops of teal are too cute!

Classic and relaxing nursery!

Loved this one with yellow instead of pink! And the stenciled wall. Looks like such a happy place!

This is my inspiration board for Carolyn Jo's room! It has taken a little different route than I initially envisioned but I love it! We picked the color right off the bat (thanks to Tina's co-worker Suzy) and the bedding from Land of Nod not long after. Then we've just been working to find cute, fun and inexpensive items to coordinate or replicate. Y'all know me and I'm doing this on a budget so we've enlisted my wonderful and talented dad to build this RH Baby dresser look-a-like and will of course have some DIY projects along the way! More details and room pictures to come!