This is not a drill: Shawn Johnson just revealed her “surprise nursery” for baby Bear! And it is unbearably cute!
When the Olympic gold medalist was pregnant with her third baby with husband Andrew East, they decided to wait until the baby was born to find out the sex. However, they didn’t want to wait on the nursery, so they hired interior designer Lori Paranjape to secretly decorate the baby’s room. They forwarded her the information on the baby’s sex without looking and the two baby names they wanted for either a girl or a boy, and she took over from there!
In the video posted to Instagram, Paranjape tells the camera, “We are doing Operation Surprise Nursery. We know the gender, they do not.” She and her team repainted a huge vintage model airplane to hang up in the baby’s room, with Bear Madison East’s initials “BME” and his birthdate painted on, as a reference to East’s love of planes (he’s a pilot, too!). The room features white wallpaper with brown flowers, a “B” monogrammed shower curtain in the attached bathroom, and framed signs of football plays in honor of East’s former NFL career to personalize the room.
“This is the nursery of my dreams,” Johnson captioned the post. “Thank you @mrsparanjape for creating the most perfect space for our little Bear. We are so in love 😭.”
The Easts also posted a video of the full nursery reveal to YouTube, where they shared more tidbits about the nursery, including the fact that East saw the wallpaper at one point and thought it was pink with flowers. “I thought we were having a girl. But it turned out, I was wrong,” he explained with a laugh.
In the video, Paranjape told the couple, “There’s no baby on the planet that this room could be for besides yours. It only makes sense for you.”
During the reveal, Johnson called it “the most peaceful, beautiful room I’ve ever seen.” She also shared that her dad did the wainscoting on the walls before it was painted. How cool is that? The pretty room has a brown crib, a dresser with changing table mat on top, a cozy white chair with brown blankets for snuggling, and soft stuffed animals and books. There’s even a little bear-themed basket as a head nod to his name!
In the YouTube video, Johnson also reveals her and East’s unique sleeping tradition when a newborn is at home. “I bring in a little twin mattress and frame, and we have him sleep in his crib from day one and one of us sleeps on the twin bed in the nursery.” Interesting! Whatever works, right?
Tons of people commented on the nursery reveal. “The self control to not look at the nursery before the baby’s arrival is something I don’t possess 😂,” one person wrote. That would be so hard!
“Every little detail is stunning 🤩,” another person wrote.
“Gorgeous! We put airplanes in our son’s room when he was small also, now he’s 25 and an Officer in the US Air Force 🇺🇸❤️,” someone else commented.
Some people didn’t like it, though. One person judgily wrote, “Not a fan of the brown and definitely not a fan of that big airplane right over the crib! What were they thinking?? I prefer the traditional cute little boy colors! This looks like grandpa’s old den turned nursery!” Um, if you don’t prefer it, then don’t use it for your baby! It’s as simple as that.
The former gymnast and East welcomed baby Bear on Dec. 12. They are also parents to Drew, 4, and Jett, 2.
“The third time around feels so surreal because even though we’ve done this twice before, there’s still so much nervousness and excitement around the days leading up to the birth and then so much magic once you get to hold your sweet baby in your arms for the first time,” Johnson said in her FamilyMade newsletter. “It really never gets old.”
She added, “You spend your whole pregnancy wondering how you could possibly love another baby just as much as your first two and then in an instant your heart expands and basically triples in size, it’s incredible. Being a mom is truly my favorite thing.”
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