advice from the vast experience of a one-year mom

Baby girl is thiiiiis close to walking on her own. The baby stage is nearly over! We've had so much fun getting to know this feisty little toddler. Here's a look back at some of my most-used baby items. Hope this helps all you future mamas and papas out there!

1. We are HUGE fans of the Gerber Graduates Rest Easy Spoons. They're shaped more like spatulas, and they have a nice, flat edge, perfect for wiping food off your baby's face. Zach calls it "shaving". ; ) Plus, they have a built in spoon rest so the mouth end doesn't sit on the counter if you have to lay it down for a sec.

2. Our very, very best purchase (well, registry choice) was the Munchkin Nursery Projector & Sound System. She never took a pacifier and never got attached to a blankie or stuffed animal, so this is her comfort item. Anywhere the sound machine is can be home to her. It's crazy, even now, when I'm putting her to bed we'll close the door, turn off the lights, and as soon as I turn on her sound machine she immediately relaxes and lays her head on my shoulder. It's Pavlov's dog at this point, and I am totally okay with that. I am starting to turn the volume down so we can eventually wean her off of it. I don't want her to be the wierdo who shows up to college with her sound machine. ; )

3. She loved to be swaddled, and these little SwaddleMe pods were great. Next time I'll get a few more since she pooped through these on a nightly basis at the beginning. I was not very happy with this kind which were supposed to be for newborns. You couldn't make it any tighter, and she would always wiggle her hands out the top.

4. Bourdreaux's Butt Paste. The hype is real. This stuff is magic.

5. Saline nose drops. She only got two little half-colds all year, but each time these drops worked really well for her. It's scary putting your little one to bed in their own room when their nose is all stuffy. A combination of saline drops, a good humidifier, and a bulb syringe helped clear her out and keep her breathing comfortably all night.

6. I highly recommend having some sort of jumper. We borrowed this Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo, and Jaina loved it. I liked that it functioned as both a jumper and an exersaucer, so we didn't need both. Baby toys are such an assault on the eyes, so I vowed to only ever have one out at a time. Remember this video of Jaina jumping her heart out? She was a big fan.

7. One of my biggest pieces of advice is to put down that frilly dress (or that little man vest) and buy a bunch of sleepers instead. Babies don't go to work or school. Chances are, if you're a stay-at-home-mom, you're not going much of anywhere. There is no need to dress your baby in real clothes every day. I ended up just changing her into a different sleeper every 24 hours. They're cute and cuddly, and you don't have to worry about keeping socks on in the winter. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of fun dressing her up when it's time to go out. I'm just saying you'll get a lot more use out of your sleepers.

8. Ikea's Antilop Highchair = the cheapest highchair in the world! At just $25 with the tray it's a no-brainer. It's not an assault on the eyes, and it's easy to wipe down a bajillion times a day. Also, the legs click off pretty easily so it's not bad to take on vacation and such.

9. The play gym. I was so positive that this was a superfluous item that I refused to register for it. I was gonna set out my grandma's quilt, give her some toys, and she was gonna be just fine. Well, within a few months I was wishing for something, anything, to dangle toys right in her reach so I could wash a dish or put some clothes in the dryer. Zach even set a chair over top of our daughter with some toys hooked to the crossbars for a while (do NOT try this in a home full of other kiddos!). We finally gave in and got one very similar to this Infantino Twist and Fold Activity Gym. It folds up small to take to grandma's, and if you throw a towel over it it's great for shade outside.

10. Bumbos are cute cause you can make your three-month-old sit up in them, but it actually saved us a lot of money cause we were able to use it as her feeding chair for quite a while (instead of an expensive highchair). Again, it wipes down easily and transports well.

11. Finally, SAVE THE BULB SYRINGE FROM THE HOSPITAL. They're the best.

I have a whole separate list of my favorite nursing gear AND a list of my most-used baby Pinterest projects. Tune in next week for those.

None of these companies are sponsoring me in in any way. This is just me dishin' to my girls.

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.