Calling all parents--I need help!

About ten days ago, we had a very rough night with Niev. She was not wanting to sleep in her crib and just cried. It was literally an hour and a half and she still was not calm or asleep. Now Niev has never really had a problem sleeping. She has slept through the night at 8 weeks old and then been a dream to put to bed since she was a babe. This was a rare incident with her not going to bed as she should. Both Ian and I were fried with no patience or sanity. We were grasping at straws. We had talked about moving Niev into her big-girl bed (a mattress on the floor), but the conversation always went the same way:

"When do you think we should move Niev into her big bed since we now are expecting this new baby in December?"

"I don't know."

End of conversation. (Note to reader: Most of our conversations do no go this way. We do make headway, but on this topic both of us were clueless.)

This night really had us trying all sorts of tricks and having her "cry it out" was not working. So we decided to try her big-girl bed. It was still a pain to get her to sleep, but eventually she fell asleep with Ian lying next to her (Trust me, neither of us liked this, but we were desperate. We had tried everything else). Of course this only made her ask for us to sleep with her. Our solution was that each night after this, we would set a chair in the room and each night the chair would get closer and closer to the door until finally we were sitting in a chair outside her door. Then for two or three nights, we could just do our routine, plop her in bed, leave the door slightly ajar and viola! she was back to our dream sleeper.

First night in her big-girl bed!

Now I have a few question/problems:
1) She can climb out of bed so the past two nights, the minute we put her in the bed, she starts climbing out of bed.
2)She wakes up in the middle of the night and won't go back to sleep for over an hour! Just cries and cries unless we lay down next to her in her bed.

Now I have read several articles on this (which tell me that I did EVERYTHING wrong leading up to the transition) but none of them talk about what to do if your child gets out of bed right as soon as you start to leave the room. I don't really know how to put a child back into bed when their body hasn't touched the bed for more than a split second. Or how do you get them to lie down long enough to stay in bed without rewarding their behavior by giving them the attention that they are desiring at that moment? She hates her crib now. She cries if we even mention her having to sleep in it. So I know she wants her big bed. I am at a loss as to what else to do.

Stay on a routine--check.
Let her sleep with a favorite blankie/doll--check.
Have a nightlight--check.
Let her read in bed--check.
Make a big deal of her sleeping in her big bed--check.

Ian does remind me that this hasn't been that long since we put her in her new bed, but I just have been really spoiled by Niev. She has raised us as parents way more than we have raised her as our daughter. I just am tired of dreading bedtime. Plus, in 16 weeks, we will have a new baby on our hands. I am not very good at multi-tasking so I need this problem to be solved. If you have any advice (or even some empathy) this would be much appreciated. Just consoling me that this will pass and I won't have to do this with our next one because they will share a room, etc. will almost make the last several night worth it.

Just so you know that we still love our daughter and think she is the cutest! In case you were worried.

Eating something chocolaty--I had just asked her if she wanted me to eat it because it was too gross. Hence, the face!

Her jammin' to her tunes!