Nursery Tour

The time has FINALLY come. Now that Jude is over a year old, I decided it was about time to take some pictures of his room and post them :) I really love the nursery! I think it turned out to be a calm, serene, and really classic baby's room. It also ended up being pretty gender neutral, in my opinion. It does have a lot of blue, but it's such a light, soft blue that I think it would work for a girl, too. All that to say, if we ever have another girl, I might just add some girlie touches and leave the nursery as is. (Wouldn't that make my husband happy?! HA!)

By the way, I really didn't want to use the flash in these pictures, but it was hard (for me) to get the camera settings just right. So some of the pictures have a little bit of a funny hue to them. You get the idea, though :)

Here is the view of the room when you first walk through the door. We originally didn't do the stripes on the wall, but after living with the room without the stripes for a few months, I just felt like it needed something. So we took a little of the leftover wall color, mixed it with some cream paint, and did the stripes just on that one wall. I LOVE the way it turned out, and it just really made the room feel more "finished" to me.I also didn't originally have a rug in the room, but I thought it needed a little more color since the bedding was so muted and the walls were neutral. I knew I wanted a very muted rug, too, and I was having a hard time finding one locally. So, I looked on Overstock.com and found this one. I was SO nervous about ordering a rug online since I couldn't really tell the true colors on the computer screen, but I took a risk and just did it. I ended up being really happy with the rug. Again, I think it was just a good finishing touch for the room. Another thing that we did that ended up being somewhat of a waste of time was painting the ceiling blue. We picked a very pale blue from the bedding, and it ended up being so light that you really can't even tell it's blue. If the room had white crown molding, I think the blue would be more noticeable. I still love the blue ceiling in theory, but I think we probably could have skipped this step ;)This is a view of the other side of the room with Jude's changing table. I love that all of our upstairs rooms have window seats. I decided not to go to the expense of having window seat cushions made for the nursery window since a nursery is a somewhat temporary room. I decided to just add some pillows and call it a day :) This rocking chair was my great grandmother's, and I think that's really special. I found the lampshade at a baby boutique, and it matches the fabric I used for Jude's bedding exactly. I was so excited to find that! Speaking of the bedding, I LOVE it. I'm a huge toile fan, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it no matter how over used it is. Haha! My grandmother made the bedding for me, and she did a great job! One of my favorite things in Jude's room, and the thing I get the most compliments on by far, is that painting over his bed. My dear friend Ashley did it for me, and I just love it so much. I told her I wanted this verse and I sent her fabric samples, and she did a great job. (The frame is chipped -- I've been meaning to touch that up.) I love that this verse hangs over his bed. My biggest prayer for Jude is that he will be a servant of Jesus Christ. There is nothing I want more for my children.

I also framed Jude's birth announcement and hung it in his room. It worked out so well that it matches his room perfectly! I could not be happier with how the nursery turned out. I love sweet, traditional, serene children's rooms, and I think this nursery is all of those things :)

Love

Ever since the first time she saw him, she has been smitten.July 17th, 2010

Now, there are few things that make me happier than seeing how their relationship has developed over the past year. She asks about him first thing every morning if she wakes up first.He kicks and squeals when he sees her. She is a little Mama and always looks out for him.He always laughs at her silliness. Of course, it's not all fun all the time. She is bossy bossy, and he has quite the ear piercing scream when she makes him mad. And, out of all the toys we own, WHY do they always want to play with the same one. Never fails. But all of that - the good and the bad - is just part of having a sibling, and I'm so happy they have each other. I know their relationship will continue to change over the years, but my prayer is that they will always have this same love for each other that they have now. It might look different when they are 14 and 16, but I pray it's there nonetheless. I love my sweet sister and my little brother!

Weaning

**This is a post about my experience weaning Jude. It's long, and probably more information than 99% of people really care to know. I just wanted to document this experience for myself, though! So, if you're not interested in a post about breastfeeding, you should probably just skip this one :)**

So, Jude is now officially weaned. I'm SO happy that I was able to breastfeed him for a year. He never had any formula, and I'm really proud of that. (NOT because I think formula is terrible. I'm just proud of setting a goal for myself and reaching it.) Aubrey self weaned at 10 months old. I really wanted to nurse her for a year too, and I tried everything to try to get her to keep nursing (pumping, trying to get her to eat all the time, fenugreek, etc.), but it just wasn't happening. So, I was even more happy that I was able to successfully breastfeed Jude for a year.

I did end up giving him some cow's milk about 10 days before his birthday. I was going to Memphis for my girls' trip, and I was going to be gone overnight. I knew I wouldn't be able to pump enough to last him 2 days, so I mixed some cow's milk with breastmilk a few days before I went just to get him used to it. He then had a little breastmilk and some cow's milk while I was gone. Here's the drawback though: he would only take the cow's milk from a bottle. I was REALLY hoping to go straight from nursing to a cup. Jude just would not take the milk from a cup, though, and at that point, I just had to get him taking the milk before I just left him. So, I gave him a bottle of cow's milk, and he took it fine.

When I got home from my trip, my plan was to keep nursing him a couple of times a day until his birthday, at which point I would wean him. I never had any plans or desire to nurse past a year. I know breastmilk still would have been good for him and a lot of people do it, but it just wasn't something I felt like would be best for our family. Until his birthday, I was planning to keep giving Jude cow's milk along with nursing him a couple of times a day just to keep him used to it until I weaned him entirely. I didn't want to quit giving him the cow's milk, and then have to "re-introduce" it in a week when I weaned him. So, this is what we did for several days. I usually nursed him in the mornings and then sometimes at night. He would get cow's milk the rest of the day.

The week of his birthday, I decided to go ahead and wean him. Originally, I thought a slow, gradual weaning would be best for both of us, but it turned out to be harder on Jude that way. I felt like when I didn't nurse him, he didn't think about it or want to nurse. He was perfectly happy with the cow's milk. But then after I nursed him, it's like it reminded him of what he was "missing" and he wanted to nurse more often. By this point, my supply had gone down so much that I really couldn't have nursed him more often even if I had wanted to. So, I felt like it would be easier on him just to quit cold turkey. (It wasn't really cold turkey though, since he was only nursing one or two times a day.) And it was. One day, spur of the moment, I just didn't nurse him, and he has never seemed to think about it since. It's like he's already completely forgotten about it. Which is as it should be, in my opinion. The weaning process was actually very easy for him, and I'm SO happy about that. It would have broken my heart if he had been really upset about it. I think this was a really good time to wean him, because he seemed to get more and more attached to nursing as he got older, so I think it would have been harder the longer we had waited. Weaning somewhat suddenly was actually harder on me than it was for Jude! I had a few uncomfortable days, but that passed pretty quickly, and everything is back to normal now :)

I'm happy that with both Aubrey and Jude, weaning just sort of happened, and I didn't have a "last" nursing session that I was aware of. Of course there was a last feeding with both of them, but I didn't know at the time that it would be the last, and that's good for me. I think it would be too sad and emotional any other way!

So, that's where we are now. Unfortunately, Jude is still REFUSING to drink cow's milk out of a cup, so he is getting three bottles a day. I have tried several different kinds of cups, but he's just not interested (he will drink water out of a cup if he's really thirsty, but NOT milk). I have no idea what to do about this. I know we need to ditch the bottle, but I'm worried that he'll get dehydrated or not get enough calories without it. I'm planning on talking to his pediatrician about this at his one year checkup, but I couldn't get him in until August 19th! Any tips on getting a baby to take milk from a cup?

This post is getting too long, but one more thing: Ever since I weaned Jude, I feel like he's starting to like other people more and more. He's always been a sweet, social baby, but he's definitely been a mama's boy. He still loves me, but he's really decided he loves his daddy lately. Sometimes he prefers David over me these days, and that's kind of bittersweet for me. I LOVE that our children love their daddy. David is an amazing dad, and he deserves for our children to think he's awesome. I also think it's very healthy for children to be comfortable with people other than their mother who love them and take good care of them. But I don't want to be replaced! Haha. I know that Jude still loves me, though. I think breastfeeding was such a wonderful thing, and it definitely contributed to the bond that I have with both of my children, but it didn't create the bond and the bond doesn't depend on that. I am bonded with my children because I'm their mother, and I love them. And that definitely doesn't change with weaning :) I'm so thankful that I was able to provide my child with the absolute BEST thing for him his first year of life. Breastfeeding does require a few sacrifices, but it is so fulfilling knowing I'm giving my children such a good thing!

Jude's First Birthday: Part 2

Jude's birthday party started off with dinner. Everyone just sat where ever they wanted, and we enjoyed just chatting. Jude has quite the fan club as you can tell from these pictures :)

At 5:23 PM, we did have to take a moment to get some pictures of Jude on his birth minute. I held him up to my stomach just to be funny, and I think he was a little weirded out. Ha!You can see his adorable outfit pretty well in this picture. I bought the outfit and then had it appliqued and monogrammed. I thought it turned out super cute and was perfect for the barnyard animal theme.

After dinner, we watched a slideshow that David had made in honor of Jude's first year.

Dark, grainy picture. I'm DEFINITELY still figuring out these camera settings :-/

Then, Jude (or, I should probably say, Aubrey) opened all of his gifts. Jude loves balls! He's all boy!
This gift from David's parents was a hit with Jude AND Aubrey. They spent a good part of the rest of the evening fighting over it. I can't believe that's started already!
Gramzie and Aubrey posed for a picture while they were patiently waiting on cupcake time! :) Look at Aubrey's adorable barnyard dress courtesy of Miss Ann Peyton Herrington. Loved it! After presents, it was finally time for cupcakes! We were all excited to see if Jude would like his cupcake. Aubrey wasn't a huge fan of cake or sugar on her first birthday, but she quickly got over that in the weeks that followed, and I can now say that she has a HUGE sweet tooth :) Jude liked it when we all sang to him. Then it was time to dig in! He wasn't so sure at first......but then he warmed up and dug right in!
Aubrey was a fan, too.
After we got everyone cleaned up, we went outside and sat on the deck and just visited while the kids played. Jude likes his new outdoor table and chairs from my family and my grandparents :)
Even Knightly got some love. Ha!

Sitting outside watching everyone have fun and enjoy the evening was the perfect end to Jude's first birthday. It was such a sweet, fun day, and we're thankful that our families were there to celebrate with us!