Or the “cowboy” bed as we like to call it.. Mrs. Brown asked what it looked like so I took a snapshot of Jasper brushing his teeth.   He really likes to cuddle and lay on it, just not SLEEP on it unfortunately (he’s still sleeping on the floor.)

You can see how Jeff tied the crib bumper into the slats to make it like a cozy day bed, we just had to wrap the extra around the back on the right side.   It looks so cute and cozy, but like always, Jasper has to do things HIS WAY, which he has decided means the floor.

The other side effect of the transition from crib to toddler bed is that Jasper REALLY likes to cuddle with mommy or daddy (preferably both!) right before bed on the floor.. in fact he’s pretty much given up wanting to read books in favor of just snuggling.  Of course I don’t mind because snuggling with Jasper is at the top of my list of favorite things in the world – despite the fact that he’s the squirmiest thing ever!

It’s funny, I can remember when we bought this crib the fact that it would later convert into a toddler bed wasn’t even a factor in my decision – it just seemed like it was a lifetime in the future that we would need to do that. But now that the time for the transition is here, I was really grateful that the decision was just a matter of switching out the front piece that took about 1 minute vs. having to actually go shopping, wait for delivery, assemble the thing etc..it kind of took the hassle out of the whole situation!

I would definitely recommend that anyone in the market for a crib consider a convertible for that reason.

With the countdown to the big day just 10 days and counting (ahhhhhhh!) I’m definitely feeling the pressure.

Here are the things that I’ve accomplished so far:

1. Ordered the mod monkey plates, napkins, party hats, monkey pinata, cups etc from 1stwishes.com.
2. Ordered a slew of other things from Oriental trading including monkey bubbles, monkey head cups,  monkey bean bag toss game, pinata candy and toy assortment, yellow party bags for favors, monkey masks and foam balls so we can play “dodge the coconuts.” Dodge the coconuts is like dodge ball, except instead of throwing the ball AT the other team you throw the balls up in the air and the kids have to try to not get hit by the falling “coconuts”.

Created and ordered a poster from PoseterBrain.com. For $20 shipped you can get a large 3 foot x 4 foot poster printed. We will spray glue and attach it to foam core to create our “pin the tail on the monkey” game.

Left to do:

1. Make marshmallow fondant (which I’ve never done before so wish me LUCK!)
2. Make a practice cake because I am soooo not a baker. The cake I am going to ATTEMPT to make is only 6”, so I think I will have to make cupcakes too!
3. Design and make a birthday banner (I already bought the supplies).
4. Plan Menu! We’re doing a BBQ, but I have to figure out what drinks & side dishes to make/buy. I was thinking of maybe ‘jungle juice” for the kids and Banana daiquiris for the adults (in addition to beer & wine of course!)
5. Make favor tags for the goody bags and cupcake toppers.
6. Figure out WHERE in our little property we can fit 30 people! If we want to use the yard for some sprinkler and other games for the kids, we will have to fit a LOT of seating under our pergola. Speaking of seating I think we will need to rent some chairs too.
7. Design and get thank you cards printed
8. Not really party related, but I need to squeeze in some time to do Jasper’s cake smash photos. Which requires me finding a cake to smash that I like for pictures (no, I’m not going to attempt to make that one!).
9. Make Jasper’s One Year video/slideshow.
10. Make him a shirt with a mod monkey on it using inkjet tranfer paper.. or just buy this one from Etsy!

Hmmm, I think there are a few dozen other things that I’m forgetting, like that we have to eradicate the ant problem down on the lawn so we can play games there, and powerwash the wicker chairs and oh about a million other little things to get the house ready for so much company.

Party at chucky cheese is sounding really good right about now!

:)

And now the educational portion of today’s post:  some fun resources that I found while searching around for 1st birthday party ideas:

GENERAL:

A Blog post with links to tons of real people’s birthday parties.. fabulous for ideas.
Top Party Ideas – theme party ideas complete with invitation ideas, recipes, favors and party games
31 Awesome Birthday Cake Designs
Cake pan for giant cupcake

MONKEY THEMED:

Mod Monkey Party Supplies from 1stwishes.com
Mod Monkey Birthday Party Invitations – yep, I opened an etsy shop, you can grab my design here!
Mod Monkey Pin the Tail on the Monkey  Game – get this from my etsy shop too.
Monkey Birthday Party from Hostess Blog.
Mod Monkey Baby Shower from Hostess Blog
Parenting.com Monkey Cake Recipe
Martha Stewart Monkey Cupcakes
Martha Stewart Monkey Cake (caution, the versions of this cake I’ve seen made by “real” aka “not martha” people don’t look nearly as nice!)
Monkey Party Game Ideas

I’ll probably keep adding more links as I find them. What were your best sources/links for party planning?

The nursery is finally finished! Here is a little gallery of images, I couldn’t get the captions working so here is a list of where everything came from. If I missed anything you have a question about, just post a comment and I’ll answer to the best of my ability.

Enjoy!

Crib: Baby Mod Park Lane from Walmart
Crib Bedding: Orchard Park from Walmart
Monkey Mural: DIY
Safari Mobile above Crib: DIY
Glider: Bought at a consignment sale, but its a dutalier sleigh back
Dresser: Ikea Hemnes 8 drawer Dresser
Drawer Organizers: Ikea Kompliment
Basket with Diapers Etc: Wendy Belissimo from BRU
Mobile above changing table: A shower gift
Art Above the Changing Table: Creative Thursday
Frames for Art: Ikea Ribba in Natural
Rug: Target Dwell Studio Zebra Rug
Nightstand: Ikea Hemnes
Lamp: MiGi Splash Lamp: Available at BRU
Shades: Savannah Roman Shades from JC Penney in Soft Lime

Toys on Shelf: I Love My Planet Toys
Wall Color: Benjamin Moore “crystal blue.”

Partly because I already have one, this adorable owl print that until now hasn’t had a proper home:

I had feared that the actual image size is too small, and it is a bit tiny, but tiny can be cute!

So now I just have to decide on the other two prints.

I have my mind made up on the lion, so it comes down to deciding between Oliver the big polar bear:

or Knut, the baby polar bear:

Up close, I think Knut is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. But when I arrange them in a triptych, I think Oliver’s size is a bit better.. Knut kind of gets lost.

What do you think?

Oliver….

Or Knut?

I know both are adorable and I can’t really go wrong either way.. but these are the little decisions that my Libra brain implodes over, so your help is much appreciated!

I posted before about etsy artist John Golden and his “By order of the management” posters, but he has an adorable “woodland critters” series of prints that I think will look great in Jasper’s nursery:

Here’s a mockup, I think the colors work well.

The only question is which ones? They are all so cute!

Here are three of my favorites close up:

I love that they manage to be modern and whimsical at the same time.

Other prints I LOVE but couldn’t figure out how to use well in a grouping:

Animal Alphabet Silkscreen Poster by Petitcollage – $50

Animal alphabet poster by decoylab – $40

I have also always been a fan of Etsy Seller Creative Thursday and think some of her prints would go so well in the nursery, but the image sizes are quite small, but so adorable I may have to get them anyway:

How are you decorating the walls of your nursery?

Etsy artist John W. Golden created these By order of the management posters because he got tired of saying the same things over and over again to his kids.. pretty smart right?

Some like the “Eat your Vegetables” or “Wash Behind Your Ears” are clearly more appropriate for a Kitchen or bathroom, but others like the following express the perfect sentiment for the nursery and bedtime:

$20 Each, Image size is 5.625″x9.625″ and is designed to fit a 6″x10″ matte opening or frame.

Baby Mod Park Lane Crib

It’s actually surprisingly good quality and sturdy. There was a little mishap with confusing sets of screws.. if you accidentally switch the screws that were meant for the metal pieces that hold and adjust the mattress height on the the track that holds in the bottom drawers, the piece will seem like it’s finished and fine, but the bottom drawer won’t close.

After Jeff tried forcing it multiple times while I looked on in horror (YOU’RE GOING TO BREAK IT!!!) he finally conceded that something must be on wrong.. and noticed that it was the screws keeping the drawer from going in and realized the mistake.

Apparently the directions aren’t too clear in this regard, because reading the Walmart review of the crib we are not the first people to have made that error.

At any rate, it’s fine now and looks great. My only confusion is over how the bumper gets secured in the corners.. there’s no open slat in the corners to string it through! You can see where I tied them in the front in the center of the railings, and same in the back. But there’s really no way to secure them to the sides that I can see…

Where do you tie the bumper in on the corners?? 

I find this odd given that the crib is SHOWN with bumpers in the product picture, in fact they use the same bedding set we have! Why don’t the manufacturers  put in a little hole to string the bumper through at the corner? I don’t get it.

I guess it doesn’t matter too too much because we plan on having Jasper sleep in our room for the first 0-? months in the co-sleeper he got as a hand me down from Daphne:

By the time he’s old enough to get moved into his crib, he’ll probably be able to move around enough that we’ll have to take the bumper out anyway… so it’s almost purely decorative. Still, I’d like to know how it’s supposed to go on.

Any insights?

That means that we can go pick it up and put it together Sunday, so hopefully I’ll have pictures of that for Monday.

In the meantime I’ve been posting over at becoming-home about my nursery decorating ideas and finally think I’ve gotten somewhere, here’s the photoshop plan:

The Lamp in the picture only takes a 25w bulb though, that seems rather ridiculous doesn’t it?

I also received notice that my soft lime Savanah Roman Shades were shipped from JC Penney. Should receive those sometime early next week. I just wanted to let y’all mom-to-bes know that these shades are on sale at JCP just incase you were stumped like me trying to find shades in various solid colors.

There was lots of concern from the commenters at becoming-home about me taking on the mural project at this point in the pregnancy and wall decals were suggested as an option for the tree.. that sent me off researching and I had NO idea there were so many custom vinyl wall decal companies!

You can essentially get any design or even photograph printed as a wall decal for really reasonable prices.

Here are just a few of the companies that I found doing this in case you are interested in something similar:

Reuseable Vinyl Decals from Wallhogs.com

Regular Vinyl Wall Decals from Customvinyl.com (they even have some examples of nursery applications)

Directdecals.com

Wallstars

Even Blik does custom jobs, but I don’t know how reasonable they are.

I have to say though, the idea of wielding a ginormous 4-5 foot sticker actually may frighten me MORE than the idea of just buying a cheap artograph tracer or other projector and painting one one.. but maybe I’m being stubborn?

In any event, I spent hours and hours combing overstock.com for nice vector tree illustrations either to buy and use or as inspiration for Jeff to illustrate something (he is after all an illustrator!)

I made my lightbox public, you can see it here if you also were thinking about doing a tree mural.

Have a great weekend, hopefully I’ll be back Monday with lots of cute pics of baby Gemma and Daphne from our BBQ tomorrow..

We also bought the hemnes bedside table, but I’m totally not loving it:

It’s too high, which is no big deal because we can cut down the feet a bit, but I just don’t like it overall, I think it’s too skinny too. Blech.  Maybe we’ll take it back. I also really need a shade for that spindle lamp, which is also too tall for my liking, but the color works well so I may just use it anyway.

I really want this zebra rug (only $69 from urban outfitters) but Jeff HATES zebra about as much as I love it. Wouldn’t it look so cute though?

Still haven’t decided about the blinds/shades yet. I bought the Alvina yellow and white striped drapes that match the yellow and white stripes inside the hemnes drawers, but I’m not sure if I like those either. I guess I’ll have to take them off and putt them on to see. Here’s a pic of them hanging out in the window:

It’s hard to tell, but the yellow is actually a good match for the yellow in the apple tree bedding set.

More decisions!

I think the elephant is my favorite, but unless he makes an early appearance Jasper will be a Leo, so the Lion seems most fitting:

Giraffe, Alligator and Lion available at Sprout Home. Elephant and others available at Romp.com