22 Weeks and Nursery Tree

Hey everyone, so it's been quite a fun week this week as Avery's nursery is really coming together. I'll talk more about that later, but for now here's some belly pics! I'm at 22 weeks right now and I feel great! Sometimes I can hardly tell I am pregnant...other than my growing belly!

My new view when I look down.

21 weeks

Somedays I wake up and I'm like, "I think she grew overnight! Look at my stomach!" This week she is around the size of a papaya, I remember back when she was just a little olive and then a peach, boy do the weeks go by fast! The other pic here in the pink shirt (wonder why I'm wearing that color?!) is from Week 21 where you can really see the change in my belly. Keep growing Baby Avery!

Another fun change has been feeling her kick, which has really picked up this past week. She tends to kick most right after I've eaten, and especially after dinner when I drink my pregnancy tea. Her new favorite time to kick also seems to be right when I lay down to go to sleep. The kicks are getting stronger now and B can even feel them, which has been really fun. We'll be sitting on the couch watching TV and I'll be like, "Give me your hand!" He loves it when she gives a few real strong kicks ( : As I'm typing this now, I just had my "Peachy Kale smoothie" and she is kicking away, so I that must her way of saying "Hello!" to the blog world.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have been busy with my mom working on Avery's room and our main project this week has been a cherry blossom tree which she drew and painted onto the wall above her crib. Here's a little how we did it....

1. Here's the post where I talk about where I got the idea from, and from there my mom drew out a sample tree and traced it onto a large piece of paper. Then she cut it out and we put it up on the wall where we were planning to paint it (with pretend paper flowers and leaves, and an outline of a monkey). This really helped us to decide on the placement, size, and color of the tree without having to paint it and then want to change it.

Our "rough draft tree".

2. Then we bought the paint (small samples from Home Depot that only cost about $3 a piece...no need to buy a whole quart for our small little project!). Then she traced the "paper tree" and took down the paper.

3. Next it was time to paint! Here she is painting away...talk about having a "Grandma Glow" going on! ( :

After about 2 days of painting (with a few breaks to plan our early baby shower and shop for a few items for the nursery) we were done!
Here's the finished pictures:

As you can see it hangs over the crib a bit, which I love! In case you're wondering, we were going for the "cherry blossom tree-look" mainly because Brandon and I love Asian decor and I love the simplicity of it. Hopefully Avery likes it too!

Here's a fun detail of the tree: a little monkey we like to call Marley. In getting ideas for this tree, some other trees I found online had cute little monkeys hanging from them, and so my awesome and creative mom drew up this adorable little guy. I love him!

Little Marley the Monkey

Another detail of the tree I like is B and I's initials that we painted onto the tree, as though they were carved. Kind of a fun way to personalize this tree even more.

Our initials.

Here's my mom (aka the creative genius behind this
awesome tree).

Here's one last pic of the tree, crib, and recliner that you can see when you stand at the door to the nursery. You can see I have some sample fabric in the crib to help me decide on what I want to use to make her bedding. I'm sure I'll have a post coming up about that soon! But for now it looks like stripe and polka dots. As for now, my mom and I are just kind of taking it one project at a time and on the agenda for next week is some type of hanging letters to say her name on the opposite wall of the tree...let the fun continue!

Has anyone else ever created wall art like the tree before in your baby's room? If so, what did you do? I'd love to hear your stories! ( :