After Hardin

40

~ TESSA ~

The closer we walked to the door to the nursery the more excited I was becoming. It felt like a thousand butterflies were fluttering their wings in my belly. When we got to the door, Christian asked us to close our eyes with a look of pure excitement on his face. Kim and Christian led us into the room.

"Open your eyes," Christian said. I slowly opened my eyes nervous about what I would be seeing. I stood speechless as I took in the room. The walls were painted a light grey and the trim was white. The wall behind the two white cribs was painted in thick white and grey horizontal stripes. On the wall opposite of the cribs a white tree was painted on the wall with orange birds flittering around the leaved branches. There was a soft teal couch pushed up against that wall.

In front of the bay window were two dark grey oversized stuffed rocking chairs with matching footstools. The windows were covered with a gauzy white curtain with another set of curtains pulled back to frame the windows. The second set of curtains were white and teal chevron patterned with the bottom foot being an orange material that matched the orange of the birds on the walls. In the window hung a mobile featuring zoo animals in the same colors that the room was decorated in. In between the chairs sat a small table that had a small grey lamp with a spring green and white chevron lampshade.

Both the couch and the chairs had throw pillows that matched the material on the curtains. There were also throw blankets along the backs of all three places to sit. In Between the cribs there was a large grey changing table, big enough to change both babies at the same time. The wipes and diapers were stored in between the changing areas. The coverings on the changing pads featured a geometric spring green and white pattern.

I walked closer to the cribs and found that the bedding pulled everything together. The dust ruffles were a solid teal color. With the fitted sheet being grey and white chevron pattern. The bumpers were spring green with a white elephant print, and the ties were the same orange color as the curtains.

There was a large stuffed giraffe and elephant sitting in one corner of the room opposite of the windows. There was a toy shelf with some toys for infants and books, so many books. A large, plush teal rug spread out on the floor in front of the toy shelf.

The room was huge. I couldn't stop the tears from falling down my face and I took in how amazing the room looked, and how much Christian and Kim put into making this room amazing for us. I spot the things that Karen and I picked up on our shopping day included in the room design.

"Well. What do you think?" Kim asks me. "Your silence is driving me insane."

"It's so much more than I thought it would be. It's beautiful. I don't know if I can thank you enough." I throw my arms around Kim's neck.

"I didn't do any of this. This was Christian's project." Kim says to me.

"Christian, this is amazing. Thank you so much. I can't believe how amazing this is." I give him a bear hug.

"There's more for you to see. Go through that door and check out the attached bathroom and the closet." Christian motions for us to go through the open door of the bathroom.

The bathroom is painted in the same grey color with white trim as the bedroom. The color and zoo animal theme was carried into the bathroom. There were buckets of bath toys in baskets on the ledge of the large soaking tub. The closet was huge and was almost half full of clothes for the boys already. There were packs of diapers in sizes from newborn through size two waiting to be used, and there were just as many boxes of wipes. Receiving blankets were folded and ready to use. Just about everything that I would need was ready and available for me.