Pregnancy Announcement!

There are a million-bajillion ideas on Pinterest for how to announce your new pregnancy, and ours is nestled in there at about #7,006,4356 ....but to us, and to me, it's as special and new as the little gummy bear swimming around in his/her little "apartment" in my tummy.  We're 9 weeks along with our second babe, and wanted to share a picture that captured the spirit of our family. 

With so many bright, bubbly, giddy announcement ideas out there, I felt a little left out. I'm more of a moody, introverted soul. So is my husband and son. I don't mind rainy days and cool weather, and I even prefer moss and ferns to grass on most days. There are plenty of announcement ideas that capture the sunset-y, honeymoon glow of pregnancy, but there wasn't anything that really summed us up. I didn't know what I wanted exactly, I just knew it had to be a little moody. 

For me, the parenting journey has been steeped in contrasting hues. My first pregnancy was a story of beauty and pain, as I chose adoption for my first child. There was no fanfare, no baby shower, and most of the time I tried not to think about what was happening. 

I met my husband a few years later and discovered that the whole "soul mates" thing is real. I knew from the moment we locked eyes that I was going to marry him. We got married and after a couple of years, started down the path of parenthood. Aside from normal soon-to-be-parent anxieties, things were going pretty well. I did, on occasion, have flashbacks to the trauma of my first pregnancy, but overall it was a good experience until about halfway through. I was four-and-a-half months pregnant with my son when my youngest brother took his life. To say that the remainder of my pregnancy (and the beginning of motherhood) was traumatic is a massive understatement. 

This is why I needed a "moody" pregnancy announcement this time around. It hasn't been all sunshine and lollipops, but we have seen God's love and compassion through it all. And the beauty that he has brought from the ashes is far greater than any sing-songy nursery rhyme I could come up with. 

So there you have it - the inspiration for these rainy-day, cloudy, cool-weather photos to let the world know that hey, life is still good, still worth celebrating, and still beautiful in more ways than we can imagine. 

That face!!! Oh mah word.

I wish I was this photogenic...*sigh* :)

Can I just keep him this size forever? Pretty please?

It's kind of hard to see, but I'm holding a little sea pebble to show baby's size.
I don't know about you, but using food for scale is a little weird. People eat food :(
That's why I chose a rock. No one eats rocks.

Proud parents! I wish I'd have put my hair back in a ponytail for this one, but oh well. 

Another thing worth mentioning: We didn't hire a professional photographer for these pictures. I was using my Nikon, and I took the ones of our toddler, and my sis-in-law took the last two. I used free photo editor Pixlr to make a few adjustments, and voila! I can't even imagine how much a professional would have charged us. Anyway...I'm glad we packed the nice camera! I don't think my phone would have done the job as well :)

DIY Vertical Entryway Table

The Problem:  We have no space for a traditional entryway table, but need somewhere to set mail, keys, phones, spare change, and receipts-that-we're-never-going-to-use-so-why-don't-we-just-recycle-them?

The Solution:  A vertical entryway table. It has all the practical function and visual charm of a floor table, but it uses zero floor space. It's completely customizable, because you can easily make one yourself!

So that's what I did, and here's how I did it...(please excuse the crummy photography)

 First, I did lots of scheming and plotting. Then we took a family trip to The ReBuilding Center, one of our fave places to hang out, and I went on a mini shopping spree :)

 *drool*

I spent a lot of time sifting through dingy old hardware. I love it. I picked stuff out that I figured I could maybe use somehow, even if I didn't have an exact plan in mind. That's a dangerous shopping strategy, but I got two giant fistfulls of vintage hardware for $3, so it wasn't too risky.

 I don't know about you, but I could almost frame this pic and hang it on the wall. 

I want all of the old heaters. 

It has nothing to do with my post, except that I saw it at The ReBuilding Center.

You could make a pretty stellar kitchen island with two of these badboys. 

Okay, so we picked out two long boards to be our vertical beams, and a random slew of weathered and interesting planks for our horizontal ones.  We spent $8 on lumber.  You read that right.

So here we go.

First, take off your jacket and look super cute.

Next, measure and cut your boards to the height you prefer.

Miraculously, both our vertical boards were the exact height we wanted

and required no cutting. I don't even know how. My husband (the tall one)

nailed a few scrap boards in at the top and bottom as spacers, and for structural support

so I could work without worrying about if it was getting all wonky.

I'm the queen of wonkifying things.

Measure twice, cut once. 

Or in this case, have hubby cut them.

Eventually I'll work up the courage to use his table saw.

Here's the top of the organizer, laid out on the kitchen floor.

I cut and arranged boards in the way that seemed most aesthetically pleasing to me,

and screwed a few into the middle of it before unscrewing the support boards.

After I had a few boards in the middle, I didn't need the support boards anymore,

so they went buh-bye and I put the rest of the boards on.

Here's the whole thing before I took out the support boards. I just laid out the boards to get a feel for where I wanted them, and started from the middle, working my way up. 

Pausing for a play break :)

He's actually really good with a hammer.

Hubby screws the Vertical Entryway Table (VET)

into the wall while I support it from the side and take pictures.

Thanks, Honey!!

Bam. 

Okay, it's actually pretty cool just as it is, and if we didn't need a place to set stuff, I would have just left it as-is. (also, I forgot to mention that I did a quick spray paint job on that large middle piece. I went with a green-to-white ombre fade. 

This electrical plate is getting a new lease on life as a small, inspirational plaque that we'll have next to our phone basket (which I'll explain later).

Here's the [almost] finished piece. 

I went out to my fave thrift store and found everything I needed.

This is the only new item we bought: letter-size wall pockets from Office Depot.

I covered them with old flannel (I used Mod Podge, but I'm sure a glue gun would work great), vintage ledger sheets, and an old map with place names like: Huckleberry Mountain, Whiskey Rock, Teepee Gulch, Packsaddle Mountain, Maiden Rock, Idlewilde Bay, Beaver Creek, North Snow Peak, Spruce Mountain, and Dixie Queen. 

Seriously, I just want to pack up and move there right now.

This is a vintage desktop organizer I found for a buck or two. Hubs can toss his keys, employee badge, loose change, etc. and not worry about the todd' getting into it.

At the very tippy top is this olden-timey stitchery thingy. 

I couldn't really think of a practical way to use that space, since it's so close to the ceiling,

so I opted to make it pretty instead.

Mmm-kay...this is my favorite part of the VET!
It features a phone basket, which we are committed to using (no, really) so that we're hands-free in the evenings. There's a little Northwest bouquet of twigs, moss, and lichens which I gathered from our yard, the street, and one of our neighbor's yards (with their permission) after a string of nasty windstorms.  Did I mention the illustrations? I totes stole that idea from Flower Patch Farmgirl. She ripped an illustration out of a kid's book and just put it up on the wall. I was all, "You can do that?" And apparently you can. 

Fun. Just so much fun to build this!

I think I'm going to try making a few smaller ones and selling them.

These are coat hooks for our toddler's jackets. 

They also double as a mini sensory board, since all of the parts move in one way or another.

There you have it.  A vertical entryway table that packs a lot of punch!  There's something for everyone, and it's pretty easy on the eyes (my poor photography notwithstanding).