Preparing for TAB

If taking care of a baby is as much work as preparing for a baby... we're in trouble. I guess that means we're in a lot of trouble.

Bump at 27 1/2 weeks

We've been getting lots of questions about TAB (Talla & Alex's baby), so I thought a quick post might be helpful.

Our baby boy's estimated due date is June 16, 2015. Our other big addition has an estimated due date of June 15. This means we'll either be moving in while I'm about 40 weeks pregnant, or while we have a newborn to contend with. Lucky for us, we also own Sheridan so we can determine our move out date.

The house construction makes preparing the nursery a bit difficult. The best we can do is pick everything out and hope it comes together as we've imagine it. We've decided to make "bedroom 3" the nursery. We anticipate spending a lot of time in there and love the light this room gets. Plus, it used to be Alex's bedroom so it has an awwwww factor to it. :)

Here are two real nurseries that have given me the bulk of my inspiration for Tab's nursery:

Source: http://www.lesueurinteriorsblog.com/2012/08/julians-nursery.html

Source: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/10-sophisticated-grown-up-nurseries-183291

As you can see from the photos, we're not really going for any particular theme. The colors will generally be navy, white, gray, and touches of red. My belief is he won't remember or care what the room looks like so we need to make it comfortable for us adults. 

We've scored a basic white crib, navy and white striped swivel rocker, and a beautiful Persian rug off of Craigslist. We plan to use an old dresser currently in my dressing room for the changing table. Now we have to figure out the paint color and art/decorations. We're going back and forth between navy or gray walls. I'm leaning more towards navy and Alex is in the gray camp.

Besides the nursery, I hear there is a whole lot of stuff the baby needs. My friend Kelley helped me register at Babies-R-Us a few weeks ago. She's a mom so getting her perspective was incredibly helpful but I've since edited the registry quite a bit. I found a lot of comparable items on Amazon for a lot cheaper, thought a lot about what I think we can do without, and tried to find more environmentally friendly products where possible.

We don't expect gifts, but some family and friends have asked for a bit of gift-giving guidance. Hopefully this helps: 

1. We have a universal registry on Amazon.com and are also registered at Babies-R-Us

2. As much as possible, we're trying to make decisions that are economical, practical, and environmentally friendly. For example, we usually prefer things made with natural materials (cotton, wood, etc) over synthetics, and in some cases, prefer used over new (except for the car seat, we're happy to receive used items found on Craigslist or elsewhere).

3. We didn't register for many specific clothing, toys, or books. We look forward to seeing what others pick out in these areas. 

4. We're not big fans of the super cutesy/cartoony baby products and are trying to select things that are gender neutral.

Again, we definitely don't expect anything from anyone. The best gift of all will be introducing you all to our little man!

Outside plans

In the last post I shared a little about what the inside of our new house will look like. Here are some pictures and drawings that compare what the house currently looks like on the outside, and what we hope it will look like after construction is complete.

Building

Unbeknownst to us, we started building a life together in September 2011 when our paths crossed in our neighborhood park, Midwood Park. Alex was playing basketball and I was walking a friend's dog. We were the only two in the park. We had met on previous occasions, but this serendipitous meeting was different. Special. We ended up spending the whole day together, the first of many.

After getting engaged, we started thinking about where we wanted to live long term. Charlotte wasn't in question, but the neighborhood and home were. Sheridan has been a great place to live, but we both agreed it wasn't what we wanted forever. We looked at lots of homes in lots of neighborhoods and kept coming back to the house Alex lived in when we met. The house on the park. The park that we love. It wasn't for sale, but we contacted Alex's old landlords and, after some back and forth, landed on a selling price. In June 2014, it was ours.

We were thrilled to have the house due to its location, but knew it was too small for the family we envisioned. We rented it out on Airbnb to help cover the mortgage while we figured out our plans. We spent six months working with an architect, meeting with contractors, and closing on a construction loan. We've finally moved from planning to execution!

The plan we settled on more than doubles square footage of the house. The yellow highlighted section below represents the original structure.

As you can see, the plan includes an updated front porch, a larger kitchen and dining/sunroom, a great room, a master suite, and a covered back porch. The original living room, office, two bedrooms, and bathroom will get some upgrades, but no major renovations.

There are so many decisions to make when planning addtion. My worst fear is investing all of this time, money, and energy in this project and then spending the next 20+ years wishing we had planned the addition differently... Deep breath. We're trying to take this one decision at a time.

With that in mind, we do need to make final framing decisions immediately. There are a five things I'm questioning. Please weigh in!

1. Currently, the washer and dryer are located in a hall closet in the original part of the house. Initially, we thought leaving it there was the best decision. Friends with families have commented that we will probably wish we had a laundry room rather than a laundry closed.
2. The new half bath is a bit bigger than necessary - almost the same size as the full bath in the original part of the house. What if we move the washer and dryer into this space instead?
3. We still want to land with 2 1/2 bathrooms - so if we went changed the planned half bath to a laundry room, then we would need to take part of the master closet for the half bath. This would also result in four doors in the kitchen/great room open area - is that going to look funny? Will we have enough closet space if we do this?
4. We will have vaulted ceilings in the bedroom. We originally asked for a partial wall here to close the bed space off from the rest of the master suite. Our thinking is this would help if one of us is up moving around while the other is still sleeping. We still like the idea of a partition, but think we could do something less permanent and more artsy than a wall. So, the thought is to remove this little wall.
5. We had visions of having a little private porch accessed off the master. The more we look at the drawing the more it seems unnecessary to access the shared (not private) porch from the master. So - door or no door to the porch from the master bedroom?

All in a yearI

On February 9, 2014 we hiked up Crowder's Mountain to Kings Pinnacle. It was a warm, sunny perfect kind of day. When we reached the top, Alex told me I was the love of his life and asked me to marry him. The picture above was taken on February 8, 2015. A similar warm, sunny perfect kind of day on a mountain, but with a year's worth of memories added. And it was a full year!

Shortly after getting engaged, we both started new jobs within our same organizations.

We took an adventurous road trip around Puerto Rico for our annual Maycation.

In June, we closed on our soon-to-be dream house.

We were married in September.

And in October found out we were pregnant!

In between these adventures, we had lots of opportunities to spend time with friends and family. Some of these memories include Easter and Thanksgiving at Alex's mom's house in Maryland, a few visits to my sister's place in South Carolina, hosting a houseful for our engagement party, taking an annual friend's trip to Lake Jocassee, and visiting the extended Fitzpatrick and Griswold families in Minnesota and Wisconsin over Christmas.

On more somber note, I traveled to Connecticut in November for my grandfather's passing. He lived a long life (he was 94!) and the family used the opportunity to celebrate his life by spending time with each other. It was the first time since 2008 that all six of the Rittenhouse siblings were together.

The next year promises to be just as full as the last. We have a lot to do to prepare for our little man's arrival in June, the biggest item being completing our family home. More about that soon.

Party Party Party

This past weekend a group of my girlfriends hosted an engagement party for us. The theme of the party was "Celebrate the Night in White." Most of our immediate families traveled in for the event (Sheridan slept 14!) so we had a house full. It was a nice preview to what we can expect for our upcoming wedding weekend. It was great to have the opportunity to spend time with friends and family throughout the weekend in different settings. I didn't get a shot of everyone at the party, but here are a few pics of the event.

That's batty!

Last spring Alex ventured into the attic to figure out what was preventing our whole-house fan from opening. His head and shoulders were just barely in the attic when I heard a high-pitched yelp and he jumped down. He saw a bat. He described it as a very large bat with a pig nose that slowly turned its head to stare at him.

The bat must have liked her little habitat because she invited some friends to join her. This spring we heard what sounded like baby bats moving around and squeaking. We also saw bat guano and other drippings on the front of our house near the attic vent. Our guess was our little friend had a few babies. Alex insisted that we couldn't do anything about the bat and her babies until September. If we removed the bat from the attic now her babies would die.

So, we did nothing.

Tonight, Alex decided to sit out front at dusk and wait for the bats to fly out. He expecting to see one or two bats. I thought he was being silly.

About 40 minutes into his bat watching he called me out to see a little bat flying above our house. We weren't sure where it came from but thought it was cute. Then, suddenly, I saw a big bat fly out of our attic. Then I heard the clicking of another bat climbing up the vent to fly out - and it did. And another. And another. And another. 25 in total. 25 BATS!! The babies probably aren't flying yet so who knows how many more are up there. We love sharing our home with others, but I'm not sure how I feel about this bat situation.

Where you been?!

Despite the silence, there is a lot happening at Sheridan. We've traveled a bit, made lots of wedding planning progress, and bought a new house. A house we hope to make our forever home.

Here's our next starting line: