Not a baby anymore...

My little girl isn't a baby anymore. :( Yesterday was a little bit sad for me, because we broke Grace's crib down and stored it under the stairs. I must say though that the last 2 nights Grace has slept in her big girl bed by herself!!! I think I mentioned in a previous post that Mom and Dad gave us a mattress to go on the twin bed we had in her room. Well, Friday while we were out shopping I bought the bedding I had picked out at Target. I bought all the bedding (minus the bedskirt which we will have to go back for) and Mom bought her the curtains! When we got home I got everything washed up while we were doing Christmas decorations, and put it all on the bed afterwards. I was so pleased with the way it turned out!!

This is a view from the hallway. I don't have any before pictures of her room, but obviously before the bedding and mattress weren't on the bed and it was just the frame and box springs. Also, instead of those curtains there were some white sheer ones and a valance that matched her crib bedding. The big bed usually stayed piled up with stuff and it drove me crazy because it was always cluttered!! I've also got several things to hang on the walls, but I want to eventually get her a new chest of drawers and move the bed so it's not up against the wall, so I don't want to hang anything just yet and make unnecessary holes in the walls. The white thing hanging off the side is the bed rail we bought to keep her from falling out of it at night. It snaps up when she goes to bed, then you can fold it down during the day. Very handy.

This is a view from the far corner by the window, and when her crib was in there her dresser was over under the mirror and all those stuffed animals were pushed over in the corner in between the dresser and wall. I'm really not happy with the way the mirror looks because it just looks out of place, but again I don't want to put anything else on the walls yet, and I moved the dresser over to the other wall to even the room out a little bit more.

Here's the view from the mirror wall. As you can tell the dresser is really small, and not in the best shape but it along with the bed was given to us so I can't really complain! It serves the purpose for now. The crib used to sit where the dresser is, so once it was gone that side looked really bare and odd so that's why we moved it! Anyways, the brown on the wall is the cork board that Gene put up so that the kids can put up pictures or posters in their rooms and not poke a bunch of holes in the walls. All the stuff that's on there will eventually hang on the walls, and I want to just put snapshots up on the corkboard. It's all just been sitting up in the top of her closet though, so I wanted to put some of it out. The yellow canvas on the bottom left corner is the one that Leah made Grace and I LOVE it! The middle one is Grace's birth stats that Mom bought me, and the other one is 2 attached frames with pictures of Grace in them.

So, I'm very excited about the transformation and the fact that it's finally a little bit more organized and girly! Grace likes it too, and always wants to go up to her room! I think she was really starting to dis-like the crib because it was like a cage! Saturday night was the first go at the big girl bed. She did pretty good all things considered. We had taken her up there that evening when we got home from the parade to get some pjs and she crawled up in it and didn't want to get out. She just kept saying "night, night" and pulling the covers up! So, after dinner and her bath she started winding down and I asked her if she was ready to go night, night in her big girl bed and she just looked at me and said "yea!" So, she gave her daddy night night hugs and kisses and took off upstairs. She crawled up in her bed, but kinda started fussing once she realized I was serious! She did fuss off and on for about 20 minutes and Gene came up for a little bit and sat with her while I read her a book, but then he snuck out after she laid down and got still. I stayed up by the head of her bed letting her play with my hair until she drifted off to sleep. I was able to stand up and get out of her room without waking her up, and she looked so sweet cuddled up in her bed.

I was in bed by 11 that night, and it felt great! Grace did wake up a little after 1 am and crawled out of bed and started fussing. I didn't go get her, and after just about 7 minutes or so she crawled back up into bed and fell back to sleep! Success!! I woke up right at 9 yesterday morning and she was still snoring. I went upstairs to check on her, and she was snuggled up on her pillow with Nemo under her covers!! So cute! She ended up sleeping until about 10:30.

Last night was a little bit better, and she didn't fuss hardly at all. The only down side now is that I still have to stay in there until she falls asleep, but hopefully after just a couple more nights she'll start going to sleep on her own. She's already done so much better than I really anticipated, considering I have rocked her to sleep pretty much every night of her almost 2 years! I'm very proud and relieved, so I thought I would share that with you guys!

I'm headed to get stuff ready for work now! Happy Monday!