The Nursery: Bedding

One of my favorite parts of this pregnancy has been dreaming of our baby's nursery. With a two-bedroom apartment, we had to do some rearranging of the previous office/guest bedroom into the nursery. We moved my office into our room so we had room for the crib, changing table and rocker. We still have our futon in the nursery to accommodate guests (or us when guests are staying in our room) so to be honest it's a bit tight. But we are grateful for this apartment that God has given to us, plus we know we won't live here forever.

One of my worries with not finding out the sex of our baby was how we were going to decorate the nursery. Babies R Us has either pink and purple for girls or blue and sports for boys. So we started with our options being sparse. As always, God provides! The first time Ryan and I went to Babies R Us (it was very early in our pregnancy) we agreed to only browse the store but save registering for a bit later. But as we walked through the bedding selection, we fell in love with Carter's Animal Parade. It was my incredible husband who saw it first. In my previous shopping of bedding ideas (mostly online) he hadn't been a fan of the ones I had shown him. So when he actually spoke out about the Animal Parade collection, I immediately stopped walking to take a closer look. After looking at every item in the collection, touching it for quality and softness and some extensive talking about it, we decided that was the one we wanted for our nursery.

Here comes the beauty of the situation.....we continued browsing and then discovered that the Animal Parade collection, yes THE Animal Parade collection that we wanted for our nursery was on CLEARANCE!!! I turned to Ryan and said this, "Oh my gosh, we can't register for it. It's on clearance which means it won't be available closer to when we will need it. We HAVE to buy it NOW!!" Then I flashed him my sweetest, biggest smile!

We walked out of Babies R Us that day with our 4-piece bedding set, an extra crib sheet and a window valence. That was all this particular store had left of the collection. While in the store, we had an employee call other stores in the metro area to see what they had left in the collection. You better believe that over that week, we visited at least 2 other Babies R Us to pick up the remaining items in the collection; diaper stacker, changing pad cover, wall decals, lamp, wall hanging, receiving blankets, very soft fleece blanket and mobile. Every piece was on clearance and we paid as little as $5-$10 for most of it!

The more I see it, the more I love it. Here's why: I love the colors, I love the animals, I love that the animals have a carpet over their backs, I love how soft it is and I love that the print has a Moroccan feel to it. Now I have never been to Morocco but that is what came to my mind when I first saw it. And I will be honest, the giraffe is my favorite! Stay tuned for more pictures of the wall decorations and finished nursery!!!