twelve months in a papasan chair

People keep asking how old Jaina is, and I still can't believe my ears when I say, "One." When I was pregnant with her each month seemed like an eternity. Now every month catches me by surprise.

Isn't it fun to see how much she's changed? From that little teeny peanut to that silly little girl with tons of personality.

I must admit, I bought that floral "Rockasan" from Pier 1 cause I knew it would take fabulous pictures. ; ) It has been super comfy, though. The first week or so I couldn't get out of it because of my c-section, but since then it's been an excellent nursing chair. Though I hardly nursed in there since Jaina slept 12 hours a night since she was three months old! (I know, I hate saying that cause everyone gets mad at me.) But if she had been a night waker, I easily could've dozed while nursing in my 'san.

It's almost her 13 month birthday, and I'm trying to decide if I'm gonna keep up the monthly pic. I wonder how long she'll let me do that. I can just see me telling my 16 year old to put her white t-shirt on, it's picture time. ; )

grown-up furniture and my foray into shelf styling

Finally, the results of Zach's game of Ikea Tetris. Alright, here's what we were dealing with before our new purchase.

yippy skippy

It's been this way since Christmas. Before that, we had the tree in the corner.

Aw, look at the little baby with the MASSIVE bald spot. 
Teehee. Her hair's coming in nicely now.

And before that, the TV was diagonal in the corner which was ergonomically pleasing from a TV watching perspective, but it wasted a ton of space.

I've been scouting out these VITTSJÖ shelves from Ikea.

Can you believe they're only $70?

And gleaning inspiration from the "Pin"osphere. 

Drexel Heritage's Pinacle Etagere, formerly sold by Higdon Furniture

via Ikea

via Centsational Girl

I knew how I wanted to arrange the pair of shelves we purchased, but I didn't want to just throw items up there. The art of shelf styling takes time, thought, a collection of objects from multiple time periods, and, honestly, taste. I study everything that Emily Henderson and Jenny Komenda do.  

 Here's a post that Jenny, of Little Green Notebook wrote on arranging books by both color and genre. 

Those of you who've taken the time to style your books know that this took her a LOT of time and thought. 

The results are really pleasing to my eye.

 I've searched all evening, but I can't find Emily's post where she describes her shelf styling secrets. 

(This image is from her portfolio.)

So, without further stalling, here's what I came up with.

 We're gonna call this "during" since we still need some artwork in the center.

It was fun to come up with all of the vignettes. I tried to be mindful of color, texture and height. There will definitely be some tweaking along the way (some has already happened since this picture), but I'm loving the look so far. Here are some close-ups.

  

Those hatboxes are from Rittenhouse Square in Philly! Pretty cool. 

 All of those little boxes were gifts my Dad brought back from his travels.

Pen and ink by my talented sis, Rebekah. (Check out her prints on Etsy!)

Couldn't resist the succulent under glass. It's terribly impractical, 

since I have to take it out to the kitchen every couple of days to get some sun, but so far I don't mind.

I'm loving this old toolbox for CDs. The other things on that shelf will have to go soon, though. 

Baby girl is getting curious.

Here's the before and after, one more time.

Ah, so much better. and it makes the living room look a lot bigger. Now I get to sit back, watch some Rachel Zoe, and figure out what to put on the wall above the TV. 

Featured on Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday and Decor and the Dog's link party.

family shopping day and my husband: the ikea champ

Whew! Back after nearly two weeks. Zach's schedule gave him a lot of daytime hours at home last week, and we were enjoying some great family time. We also went to our favorite store, Ikea!

 

We're becoming pros at the Ikea cafeteria. I used a tiered tray cart for hands-free food selection, we got Zach free coffee with our Ikea Family Pass, and we snagged our free jar of baby food. I saw on the way out that there were paper bibs that said Ikea on them. Next time.

This girl loves her daddy so much.

Ikea Swedish Meatballs

Whatever, haters. They're delicious.

Ikea shopping is fun cause Zach genuinely likes it. Ladies, you know how it is to shop with a guy who is not enjoying himself, even if he's trying really hard. We had so much fun that I forgot to take any pictures. I need to get better at that. You can't be a blogger and not take pictures during shopping trips. ; )

I sat right down in the outdoor furniture and fed Jaina while Zach went to hunt and gather our loot. 

After checking out and sharing a frozen yoghurt, Zach went out to get the van. He came back with a really serious face, and I freaked out cause I thought he locked in the keys.

"We brought the car."

"Yeah?.... I don't get it."

"We brought.... the car."

We brought our our little Pontiac to pick up two six-foot-high shelving units. (My former retail coworkers are rolling their eyes at me, I'm sure.) But my MacGyver husband came through for us, and within a few minutes we were loaded up and on our way.

Impressive, no?

Thanks hubby, for driving us, fitting everything in, for putting the furniture together, and for being on board with what I wanted to do in the living room. Baby, you're the greatest.

Update on our shopping finds soon. I'm so stoked about all of it!

ikea trip

Hello blogosphere! I hope everyone had as restful of a holiday as we did! I loved having my little family together for Christmas, and we even had some snow!

We took Jaina on her first Ikea run the other day. She seemed to enjoy it.

 She looks like she's getting ready to go skydiving.

She's just starting to sit up, so I got her cart cover out for the first time since it has extra straps to help keep her steady.

The trip was for my Christmas present; the Stenstorp.

 Stenstorp from Ikea

I've been looking at this baby for a long time. It's been a childhood dream of mine to have a kitchen island (seriously. i had very practical dreams.), and now I've got this cute little island/cart.

Ikea is probably the most family-friendly store there is. Did you know that if you're buying an adult meal in the restaurant they have jars of baby food for free?!? They have stools for kiddos in the bathrooms and even "emergency diaper kits" in case you forget. It's one of the few stores my hubby actually enjoys going to, so I see many family trips to Ikea in our future.

Here's the Stenstorp at home in our kitchen!

Isn't she sweet? I love the stainless shelves. There's already waaay too much wood in this kitchen, and all in shades I never would have picked myself (except for the antique pie safe. that was my great-grandma's, and i love, love, love it!). The butcher block top is great, and we can always stain it darker if we want.

Relatively baby-proof items on the shelves 

since we're anticipating her independence pretty soon. 

(I love having my Le Creuset on there. 

Hopefully it'll be too heavy for her to move.)

Adorable pitcher and glasses from my grandma's collection.

I've already put my island to good use. We used it to roll out samosas with the aunties the other night. And since then I've dished out no-bake cookies on it and used it to make meringues in honor of Downton Abbey's return. I'm finding it so much nicer to use it for kitchen tasks like chopping and such; rather than facing a wall at the counter. It gets way better light, and I can face Jaina while she's in her bouncy chair.

Speaking of which, I'll leave you with a video of this crazy chick.