Baby Gear!!

Our baby countdown is at 72 days, 22 hours, and 51 minutes. Having delayed almost all baby gear acquisitions this long, we decided it was about time to go shopping! I'd been itching to get a crib for awhile now. I kept my eye on Craigslist, but many of the nice, used cribs offered on the site cost about as much as buying new at Target or IKEA. So we took a road trip!

We brought Frankfurter with us, the plush rat that Mike picked out for me at an IKEA in Germany with Beni and Katta.

Katta & Beni, who are also now expecting a little one!!

We picked up the Gulliver Crib and teething rail:

We're both happy with the look and apparent sturdiness of the crib so far. It also converts to a toddler bed by removing one of the sides (and lowering the mattress, of course). We've already got it set up in the guest room / computer room / nursery.

We splurged on a nicer mattress in hopes that it will hold up through toddler-hood and perhaps another baby or two. We picked up a baby blanket and a two-pack of fitted cotton sheets. I wish now that we had picked up another set of sheets, as they are pretty nice sheets and less than half the cost of sheets at Target.

We had lots of fun looking at baby toys.

And met some of Frankfurter's American cousins:

Although IKEA carries many awesome toys, we managed to restrain ourselves pretty well in that area, but we did end up splurging $4.99 on a mobile for over the crib:

We also got Max a couple of these toys for $0.49:

And we grabbed these sippy cups. I know baby won't need these for awhile, but I'm hoping they are as functional as they are cute!