Georgia's birthday was awesome; we're waiting now for our thank you cards to arrive so that I can send those out - she was very loved and VERY spoiled. Here are some of the details from the day. :)

Since Georgia shares a birthday with my Mum, it was only fitting that the OTHER birthday girl got a cake too!

It's been a little while since I last showed you progress pictures of baby girl's nursery. {Here's the last batch.} Truth be told, I've been avoiding the nursery since then - I felt like I had SO much to do, and there was no point organising it until I had accumulated more things & had more of an idea of what I still needed.

A few days ago, my lovely friend K came and helped me lug all of the baby shower gifties upstairs and start organising things. Despite our efforts, there was still a stack of things to do, so I took advantage of the rainy day weather & dug in. Hubby kindly put up the mirror & canvases that I've been harrassing him about, and I set to work on trying to get everything else packed away and in an easy-to-access place.

Enough blabbering: time for some pictures! Here's the rocker and Ikea cabinet, all filled up & organised.

In those wicker baskets are burp cloths, bibs, pacifiers, story books & baby toys. The owl mobile was hand crocheted by a friend overseas, and the print was lovingly made by Joy @ How Joyful. Do you recognise the quote? It's from 'our' Lifehouse song and it totally suits how we feel about this beautiful baby girl too.

Moving on to the other side of the room... which you might recognise from the last post. :)

This side hasn't changed too much, but I swapped the linens to match the wall a little better using sweet gifts from our baby shower. Want a closer look? I'll give you a clue: elephants and owls and patterns, oh my!

Here's the opposite side of the nursery, featuring the change table and chest of drawers.

The owl lamp was a total splurge, but I fell in love... and the mirror was reduced to $35, bargain find!

After I finished putting things away, I sat down in the rocking chair to rub my belly, and take it all in. It's bizarre to think that in eight weeks, a little person will call that nursery home and will be using all of those goodies. I'll be changing nappies on that table, and dressing our baby (!!!!) in the oodles of clothes I've washed and stored.

I think I'm FINALLY happy with how the nursery is panning out. After a little more construction, some curse words while sticking up the tree decal & a whole lot of shuffling things around, here's how it's looking at the moment.

I'd originally wanted to lay the Ikea shelves under the window - but hubby didn't like the idea, as he thought it would be too crowded with the rocking chair. Since you guys suggested it too, I overruled him, and we gave it a shot - thankfully, it's a pretty good fit! I'm on the look out for some baskets for it now. :)

There's still plenty of room to move things around on the far wall, so I may end up adjusting the change table and drawers eventually - but for now I'm not fussed. The main part for me was getting everything to fit comfortably, keeping the room neutral and making sure that the crib would be the feature of the wall. I love how the cherry blossoms turned out - even if they were a pain in the butt to put together in the right way.

Now that the basics are done.... I have NO idea what to do next! I started doing a few soapy loads of laundry, starting with baby's linen and sheets - so I made the cot up yesterday. Other than that, I just have to decide where I'm going to FIT all of the baby stuff we've already accumulated. It won't stay this empty for long!

There seems to be a little discrepancy on when the second trimester actually starts, but I've always believed it was from 13 weeks - so I'm sticking to it. This morning, I hit that magic number & that magic stage of pregnancy. It's onwards and upwards (& hopefully outwards, belly wise) from here!

I've come to the conclusion that it's REALLY hard to take decent photographs of our home. One of the perks of our home design was that it came with dozens of large windows, perfect for natural light - not so much for quick snapshots taken on my phone!

Now... how about a virtual tour?

We'll start with downstairs, since that was all I got around to cleaning today.

As you walk in the front door, the formal living room is off to your right hand side. It's mostly empty for now, save a few moving boxes. There are two square windows in the room, as well as the regular windows, and we'll eventually be placing a lounge underneath them. It's on order, and due to arrive in March. Can't wait!

In the meantime, we have a gorgeous glass and timber dining table set up. I'm loving the mirror that we found, too.

We haven't hung much up on the walls yet; we have loads of wedding photos and canvases ready to go, though. Thing is, we've lived in apartments for so long, I'm terrified of hanging things up and ruining our walls! The mirrors were the first thing we tackled, and it took ages. Now, back to our tour...

As you walk through the hallway, the internal garage entrance door is off to the left, while the laundry, linen cupboard and downstairs bathroom is off to the right. I love how our colour scheme in the powder room turned out - which is good, since we opted to do all of the bathrooms in a similar pattern.

And then, my favourite room - the one you saw a sneak peek of a few days ago. It's our open plan kitchen, lounge & dining room. First up, the kitchen. I love how open it is, with lots of cupboards and lots of space.

The door you see there is to the pantry. It's not a full walk-in, but more of a 'lean-in', with a nice corner side shelf for extra storage. If you stand directly in front of the island bench in the kitchen, you look out over the lounge area. You can chat to people sitting on the lounge in front of you, or watch television while you're cooking. Yes, please!

See what I mean about all the light? Oh hey, I just realised Oscar was lounging around in those pictures, too. That's his spot, right there. The lounges are actually a deep chocolate brown {almost black} and the rug is a sandy beige colour. It really pops against the timber floorboards! Off to the left of the lounges is our biggest splurge.

And last but not least, the dining part of the room. The furniture here is matching timber too, and we've kept it fairly simply decorated to start with. There's so much potential to add things and change things around, but that'll happen in time. This is another mirror that I'm in love with {that frame!} - Jase bought it for me just before Christmas, when I fell in love with it in a furniture store. I'm really happy with how it turned out: the size is perfect!

And there you have it; the downstairs of our home, in a nutshell. I'm all unpacked down here; upstairs is a different story! I thought I was done - but turns out I have more work to do. The low cabinet that the television is resting on had a big dent in the side upon installation, so it's being replaced this week. I'll be busy unpacking and repacking those cabinets again soon. :)

So... got any decorating tips for me?

Why, hello there... from our new house!

We moved in on Thursday - and it's starting to feel a little more like home and a little less like 'the new house'.

There's still loads to do. Blinds are being installed this week, the cable television is being put in, and if we're lucky and the weather is good, the driveway should be laid on Thursday. And let's not even talk about the unpacking, or the cleaning, or the organising. I'm slightly {completely?} obsessive-compulsive about how I want things to be, so it's probably taking me a little longer than it would a regular person... but I hope it'll be worth it in the end.

Oscar and Evie are loving the new place just as much as Jase and I do. They've gotten really comfortable, really quickly - and they've already scoped out their new favourite places. Oscar is up and down the stairs constantly, which we're hoping will help him loose his gigantic pooch belly. Evie is getting bigger every day, and is such a snuggler. The last few nights have seen all four of us relaxing in our new living room - Oscar and Jase on one sofa, Evie and I on the other. It's lovely.

I don't have too many pictures just yet, but I promise once the house doesn't resemble a pig-sty, I'll get a whole batch up here for you. In the meantime - how about a sneak peak? It's not the greatest one, with all the sun glare and what-not, but it's cozy all the same.