Bye-bye Spidee....Hello Ball Lover!

This past weekend we decided it was time to paint Aidan's new room before we made the complete transition from crib to bed. He had been taking afternoon naps in his big boy bed for a week and a half but we had not added nighttime. We didn't want to confuse the boy by putting him back in his crib for naps and night while we were painting.

Here are a couple of before pics:

When we bought this home the family had two boys that shared this room. The decor was spiderman. The mural of spiderman was not all that bad but they didn't do a good job with the rest of the room and the boys beat-up the room rather good as well. Jamie had originally wanted to keep Spidee but when I started talking about this room long term he came over to my side and agreed it was wise to redo the room now. I must say I was not sad to see him go.
We had a bit of prepping to do before we could paint (fill holes, and smoothing out rough patches) and Aidan decided that he was going to help out. He was so intrigued with the sanding block and the screwdrivers. He did whatever his daddy did and with lots of concentration. It was so cute. Heather came over to help us paint for a couple of reasons; one she loves to paint and two because Aidan was around and one of us had to be with him and keep him pre-occupied. It definitely went better than what we anticipated ahead of time.

Here are a couple of the after pic:

Right now the only thing that is in the room is his bed. We have taken out all of the toys in helping us with the transition. We also have not put anything on the walls yet. When we bought the bedding (at Walmart) there were wall stickers that came with it. We have to wait a month before we can put them on the walls so as not to peel paint off the walls. So, it looks a bit bare but it looks so much better than before.
Here is Aidan's bedding. It is a sports/ball theme! The kid has always loved balls. I believe that ball may have been one of his first words. Here he is pointing out all the different balls on his blanket. The one you can see that he is pointing to is a basketball. When I saw this bedding I knew that this is what we had to get for him. At the time, he didn't seem to care but as soon as we put it out on the bed he was crawling all over the bed say "ball, ball, ball!"

It was difficult to choose what colors we wanted to use for the walls but in the end Red and Tan won out.

Last night was Aidan's first night in his big boy bed. The short story is.....he did great! He slept the whole night in his bed and did not fall out! We read a story in bed before turning out the lights and then covered him with his new fleece ball blanket and we didn't hear from him at all until 8am! Jamie and I couldn't believe it and we are ready for a regression of sorts (if it happens) but so far so good.