A Place To Lay My Head

After a very long wait, my mom and dad finally ordered my crib!  My dad was pretty busy this summer and fall finishing his Ph.D dissertation and defending it so major decisions for my arrival were put on hold for a while.  Once he was done, my mom had a list of about 1,000 choices for items such as this crib, a stroller, a pediatrician, day care options, etc.  Oh, and a name, they really need to talk about one of those for me!!  I think the final choice for the crib looks good and will look better with the bedding being made by my Nana Kosten. Thanks Papa Kosten for helping my dad.  The directions were pretty confusing but it went together really quickly.  My mom and dad now just hope I get lots of use out of it by being a good sleeper!

Painting Day

With a little help from my Grandma and Grandpa Vitek, my nursery is painted!!  After much debate on paint color (see post below) and an "Are you sure you really want that color?" from the Home Depot paint guy, the day arrived to take the first formal step in making the former office into my nursery.  It was a fun day for everyone, including a break to watch an exciting Michigan State victory in football.  The color is pretty bright but I think once we get a crib, dresser, and curtains, it will be a fun color to be surrounded by as I grow up!

 My mom tried to her hand at spackling.  Needless to say it took both my dad and Grandpa Vitek an hour to minimize, sand, and dry the huge gobs she put on the walls. I think Grandpa was quite disappointed in her home improvement efforts!

 Grandma Vitek was a trooper and helped trim the whole room.  She and my mom made a good painting team!

The final room....it looks much less like green highlighter in person!

Indecisive!

Indecisive....that's exactly what my mom was when it came to picking a color for my nursery!  This woman can make decisions all day for twenty-nine 5th graders but, when it came time to pick the paint color for my nursery, she could not make up her mind.  After four trips to Home Depot, dropping $20 on little paint samples, gathering opinions from a few family and friends, and spending more than just a few minutes sitting on the floor staring a dried paint splotches, she finally decided on "Hidden Meadow."  My dad and I are more than just a little worried about how she will handle helping me make the important decisions in life!

Preparing the Nursery

The room my parents are using for my nursery has been a very nice blue for many years. They actually kind of like it but, since they don't know if I'm a boy or a girl, they thought they better use a neutral color and bedding. After looking online for hours, my mom still could not find bedding that she liked that would be good for a girl or a boy. My Nana Kosten is really good at sewing so my mom thought it would be a nice, personal touch to have her make the bedding.  They spent a fun day looking all over Grand Rapids for just the right fabric and this is what they decided on:

The polka dots will be my crib bumper and the stripes will be my crib skirt.  Looks like lots of fun to me!!

Sharing The Big News

     Two days after my mom and dad learned about me they went to my Grandma and Grandpa Vitek's house for the weekend.  I bet it was REALLY hard not to tell anyone there!! (Especially when my Grandma Vitek kept talking about having a baby!)   I bet it was even harder that Sunday when Mom and Dad took all four grandparents out to brunch at Charlie's Crab for Mother's & Father's Day. I don't think they had wrapped their head's around the news quite yet and wanted some time to let the thought of me soak in!
     A few weeks later Mom and Dad had a Memorial Day lunch with the Kosten side so they thought this was a good time to tell everyone about me.  We let my cousin Sophie tell Papa Kosten that she was going to have a cousin.  Instead, she kept asking him when she would have a cousin.  Needless to say, he told her he didn't really know!  Everyone was really excited and I can't wait to meet my cousins Ellie, Sophie, and Will!!
    The next weekend we went to Grandpa and Grandma Vitek's to tell everyone there.  For a few weeks, Mom had been trying to arrange a time for Aunt Lexa and Uncle Drew to all be together and their plans kept changing throughout that week. It didn't look like everyone would be able to make dinner and, normally, my mom would have been understanding about their plans changing.  Boy, did they make it hard to keep it a secret WHY it was so important we all had dinner together!  They told Grandpa and Grandma Vitek about me by having them open presents that were the books I Wanna Go To Grandma's House and My Grandpa Coaching Third by Janet Sinke. She grew up with Grandpa Vitek in St. Johns and writes beautiful books about grandparents and grandchildren.  Everyone was really excited there too - Grandma kept saying "That's so cool!" and "I think I need to sit down!!"