Happy New Year 2017!

I don't know how time flies by so quickly sometimes.  How is it 2017 already?!?  Where did 2016 go?  How is it that Christmas is already here and gone?!?

And how is my baby 3 months already?!?

Little Harrison was born on September 23, 2016.



That's right, it has already been 3 months since I had this boy.  Life with a new baby has been amazing, crazy, tiring, challenging, everything I expected and more!  As you may have noticed, I have been very quiet around here, but I wanted to take some time out to really cherish every minute with him, because newborns grow way too fast!  I didn't want to miss a single thing.  It has been really nice to take a little step back from work, become re-inspired, and refresh the soul! 

Unfortunately, though, this 3 month "break" of baby snuggles all day in our jammies has ended.  January is "back to work" month and I am very excited for new clients, new projects, new opportunities for Jessica Stout Design, and looking forward to all that 2017 has to offer.  Stay tuned to see what Jessica Stout Design will be up to this year and what we are working on already this year.

Fall Home Tour

I know it's been 90 degrees this week and still technically summer, but the cooler temps we had last week really got me thinking about Fall!  I think now that it is September, Pumpkin Spice is back at Starbucks (and everywhere else), and football has started, we can officially start talking all things Fall!

 With less than 2 weeks until our due date, every weekend is huge for us because we don't know if it will be our last weekend before we become parents or even the weekend we spend in the hospital having a baby!  We are soaking up and cherishing every last day we have of being just the 2 of us because we know how much our lives are about to change.  This past Labor Day weekend, I slept in on Saturday morning and didn't really want to get out of bed, knowing this could be my last Saturday to sleep in and just lay in bed.  Labor Day weekend for us was a great time to get some home projects done (organized the garage, outdoor projects, gardening) and time to just relax as we didn't have a lot of plans.  But one thing that was on my agenda for the weekend, was getting my home decorated for Fall!

Being so close to my due date, I knew it was now or never.  I didn't want to think about dragging out Fall decor with a brand new baby.  So I decided to take this long weekend as the perfect opportunity to get this completed.  After planting mums for our front porch and front of the house, I was really in the Fall spirit to decorate indoors.  (We always go with yellow mums for Notre Dame football!)

We moved into our new home in April of this year, so it was fun to think of new ways to decorate here.  And this is my first year to have a fireplace mantel to decorate for all of the holidays and seasons as well, which is very exciting!  Here are some ideas you can take from my home and incorporate into your home this Fall season!

The orange plaid pillow is from Joann Fabrics craft store this year and the "Our Nest" pillow was from Tuesday Morning, bought last year.  The fuzzy stool is from World Market.

The gourd on the mantel is actually artificial!  Bought from Michael's craft store.

When we moved into the house, I decided to swap out my old entry way table for this longer one from World Market, called the Everett Table.  It fits so much more decor, which I love! 

We intentionally had the builders paint the walls white and we haven't repainted anything yet (except the nursery) and I am actually really liking the bright white!  So, we will probably keep the walls white for a while.  I have ideas and plans to add wainscoting and shiplap around some places, so it may be smart to paint when we do those projects.

I recently painted this buffet table I had Mindful Gray by Sherwin Williams.  If you remember it used to be bright mustard yellow!

I like to layer things when decorating a long buffet table like this, with lots of different items and different heights.  All of the pumpkins you see here or in my Fall decorating, are all from Michael's craft store.  They have a great selection of artificial heirloom style pumpkins that are great for decorating.

This rather frightening photo to some holds lots of meaning to us.  This is actually a photo from the Chicago Tribune of my husband's great-grandfather who owned and operated a meat packing business in Chicago at the time.  So while it may be a bit disturbing to some, we think it is a really neat photo to have. 

All of the floral arrangements were put together with random stems of flowers, berries, or feathers that I already had.  There is no rule of thumb here, just throw whatever you have together. 

The wood tiered tray is from The Painted Fox Home online. 

I think this makes me officially ready for the baby to arrive.  We have less than 2 weeks until our due date and I think I am driving myself crazy with wondering everyday if today is the day!!!  We are just SO excited to meet him! 

It's a......BOY!!!!

Over Mother's Day weekend, we revealed the gender of our first baby arriving in September to our family!!



The big news is out!  I am expecting!!! Half way through at 22 weeks now!

I haven't been able to post on my blog lately because I have had A LOT going on in my life.  In January, my husband and I found out that we will be expecting our first child mid-September.  In January, we also broke ground on our new home we've been working on building the last 6 months.  In the past 2 weeks, we found out our baby's gender and moved into our new home!!  The past few months have been a whirlwind and unfortunately, blogging just has to take a back seat to ensure this busy momma gets the rest she needs right now.  But now that I have so many new and exciting things happening, I can't wait to share everything with all of my followers.

My husband and I found out the gender of the baby at the doctors office about a week and a half ago.  It's been tough not spilling the beans to our family and friends in the meantime, especially when they were asking us a million questions to see if we would slip up and reveal it early!  Well we didn't, and the gender reveal party turned out great!!  It was a great time to have some of our closest family over to our new home and surprise them with either a little girl or little boy addition to the family!!

I still can't believe I'm getting a little baby boy in a few short months!  For some reason, throughout this entire pregnancy, I kept thinking it was going to be a girl!  I have a lot to learn about being a boy momma!!



























My neice Emersyn has always thought the baby was going to be a boy!  And here are some other predictions from my family.






















These pictures crack me up!  You would have thought I was surprised it was a BOY too even though I had known the gender of our baby for the last week and a half before this!  We found out "the old fashioned way" at the doctor's office during the 20 week ultrasound.  I think I was just so excited to finally share the news with our family.  (and maybe still thought pink balloons would magically pop out!  haha!) Meanwhile, my husband is a little less surprised because, duh!, he knew it was a boy!  :)

This Papa Bear is pretty excited to be having a baby boy!! ;)

Luckily, since we just moved into our new house a week and a half before this, we had a ton of boxes to hide balloons in for the reveal.  I wrapped the box in brown craft paper.  Painted a heart on the front with black paint.  Hung a blue banner and pink banner to the front to dress it up a bit, which was just made out of scrapbook paper.  Then wrote all the words on the front with a chalk marker.  Party City has just about every party theme possible, so I bought most of the blue and pink decor from them.  I made the 'BOY OR GIRL' banner out of scrapbook paper.  The "blue drink" was blue gatorade and the "pink drink" was pink lemonade.  The drink dispensers I recently bought from World Market and I love that you can fill the center with fruit.  I had to buy a separate drink stand from Target to go with it.  

Thankfully we moved into our new house just in time to have a few family members over to announce the news.  It made the gender reveal that much more special to be in the new house we will be bringing this little nugget home to!