Finishing the Mural, Setting Up the Nursery

So, whether we are really really finished yet or not, we decided to draw a line in the sand and stop tweaking the nursery wall, thinking it could go on forever and wanting to get the rest of the nursery set up.  So we touched up wall paint this morning, removed tape, touched up and completed a few of the creatures (ie, fish and turtle) on the wall, and added several birds to either side of the main mural, hopping and flying between window and tree and door frame and tree.  Just in case it's a boy instead of a girl, we also backed off the pink a little bit and made sure we had a few blue birds on the walls.  After it was all done and the crib was back in place we took a few photos and stitched them together as a panoramic below.

The finished wall mural, with added birds and the crib back in place.  We added the frog night light to the pond also, but it's not shown in this picture.

Yesterday, we went to IKEA and bought ourselves a dresser unit to go into the nursery, and assembled that after our painting chores were complete.  We also set up the closet organizer, got a bunch of the toys, stuffed animals, accessories, clothing, and other stuff out for re-organization.  Not all of it has made it back into the closet...

Also while we were out yesterday, we found this great organic/eco-friendly kind of baby product place called "Nurtured Family" (here's a link: http://www.nurturedfamily.com/) on the recommendation of a random lady in IKEA who had a very nice baby carrier strapped to herself.  While we went with the idea of looking at baby carriers, they were pretty pricey, and we ended up buying some owl toys, owl book-ends, and a bumblebee bib that we thought were cute.  We are thinking about maybe going back for one of their free classes on baby-carriers and cloth diapers (not that we are going that route, just curious and it's free!).  So, below are a few more photos of some close-up bird shots, the closet (now more organized), and the assembled dresser, owl toys, and last but not least, the diaper genie!

The right hand tree and window, with birds added.  We've got to figure out what we are going to do now curtain/valance-wise so as not to obstruct the hopping and flying birds.  As you can see, they lead in a line from the top of the window to the tree branch on the mural wall.

We did a similar thing over the closet door for the left-hand tree, but we also took it all the way down to the light switch as well.

The closet door opened, to show the closet organizer installed and mostly full already.  We are still sorting and organizing a number of items, but this was a great addition from our registry!

Part of the closet organizer, one bag filled with toys (that's one of the new owl toys), and also the bumblebee bib mentioned before.

The new dresser from IKEA, freshly assembled next to the changing table.  You can also see some green boxes on the changing table shelf - those are organizing boxes we found at IKEA, and we are still toying with getting the corresponding shelves.

On top of the dresser, two little owl book ends around the children's books we already have, along with some classic Pooh picture frames that Tamara already had.  We'll have to fit our lamp in here somewhere if we get it off the registry.

Another view of the top of the dresser.

Another owl toy, this one with a sleeping owl and night sky on one side...

...and a day time sky and wide awake owl on the other side.  There is a mirror, rattles, etc., and the baby can turn the owl back and forth...pretty cute!

And finally the assembled diaper genie, yay!

We've still got more decorating and organizing to finish before the nursery is complete, and we'll share more photos as we get closer and closer...Keep checking back, we're nearing the home stretch now!