finishing Hannah Claire's nursery

I came home from work one night this week and Kevin had put together the crib all by himself and set up the crib bedding. It was so sweet of him to go ahead and do this. Kevin and I set up the changing table and hutch this weekend. It felt so good to get into the closet and open up baby care items that I've been saving for so long. I have kept tags on baby care items and clothing "just in case" something went wrong.

You can click on any of the above pictures to get a closer look.

When Nancy, our artist, called me at work and told me about her plan to paint two blue birds on a branch near an empty nest, I got really teary eyed. Hopefully our nest won't be empty for very much longer. We're ready for you, sweet baby.

Video: Hannah Claire Gets a Plum Tree

The painting was finished today and Kevin brought the furniture home tonight. We're busy putting the furniture together, but had to share the video that we made tonight. It was Kevin's idea to set up our video camera to take 1 second of feed every minute for 7.5 hours, and then the it was sped up 4 times to make this video.

The plum blossom is the national flower of Taiwan. The blossoms are common subjects in Chinese art. They are beloved for their resilience and perseverance in face of adversity. Plum trees bloom most vibrantly during the winter after other plants have shed their leaves and before flowers appear.

Our child was a preemie, emerging unexpectedly nearly three months before she was due. She's faced a lot of challenges in her short life, and we're amazed by her already. We love you, sweet girl. It's been seven weeks since we've had pictures and updates on you. We worry about you. We pray that you're growing, learning new skils every week, and feel love all around you. Wo ai ni.

otherwise occupied: painting the nursery

My mother called tonight for the Hannah Claire update. Well, there wasn't any update. No news to share. We've been busy at home with a little painting project. It will get much more interesting next week when we have an artist coming to paint Hannah Claire's nursery walls.

We've put on three coats of dark gray magnetic paint on one wall, two coats of primer on four walls, and two coats of beige color on the ceiling and four walls. Yup, that's a lot of paint. Sedona has been locked out of the "wet paint" room and she's not happy about it. She sits outside the door wanting to be with us while we are painting with an occasional whimper.

I don't know about you, but painting a room tests a marriage. I can't believe the huge amount of paint that has been spilled, splattered, and sprayed onto the floor. We do have a huge canvas tarp that covers most of the floor, but somehow paint managed to leak through it as well as splatter on parts that the tarp isn't covering. I've heard lots of four letter words over the last four days, and I don't think any of those words were GOOD, PRAY, EASY, or NICE. We bought a powered paint roller so we (that means Kevin) wouldn't have to go up and down a tall ladder over and over to fill up the roller. In theory, this was a great idea, and one can paint faster with a powered roller. In practice, two relatively inexperienced painters don't do well with a machine that leaks and splatters paint all over the place. There was also an incident where a hose was left on for over five hours, but we won't get into that. Let's just say that I'm very glad that we're all done except for a couple of touch ups that we can finish tomorrow night. Thank goodness we have a solid floor covering in the nursery and can wipe up paint spills easily. If there were carpet in that room, it would have to be replaced for sure.

I chickened out of painting the walls pink. I was fearful of a Pepto Bismol effect.