Our Baby Boy’s Baptism!

A little over two years ago, my husband became a Catholic and was baptized at our church. It was one of the most exciting days of my life. It may sound strange, but I was actually happier the day he was baptized than the day we got married. As soon as I met him, I had a strong feeling that somehow he would end up being my husband one day. I kept having dreams about it, but was annoyed by the whole concept since he was very strongly against organized religion at the time. I did not want to marry someone who was not Catholic, so this was a big issue for me. Our wedding day was also a little bittersweet since we had just attended my grandmother’s funeral earlier that week…definitely not the wedding that we would have hoped for. I was more excited the day of his baptism since this was something that initially I did not think would ever happen. It was such a beautiful day.

The day our son was born was beautiful and so exciting, but also definitely not the way we had hoped everything would take place. I am noticing a trend in some of the big events for us. 🙂 We had plans for a natural childbirth, and instead everything ended up stressful, unusually painful and full of unknown risks (you can read the details in this post). After such a stressful time, our son’s baptism day was such a beautiful day. E was baptized in the same church where we were married, and where his daddy was baptized. Baby E is so happy every Sunday when we go to mass, and he was particularly happy at his baptism! I have never seen anything like it…he had a big, huge smile on his face when our priest poured the Holy Water over his head! We are so grateful to have such a sweet little guy.

We are also grateful to have had the wonderful Faith Cherisse there to photograph E’s baptism! She did an amazing job capturing the sacrament and capturing E’s funny little personality!

I had intended to take pictures of the baptism reception set up at our house in the morning before we left for the actual baptism. Unfortunately, E was feeling under the weather, and we spent the whole morning dealing with him throwing up repeatedly. I think he may have been fighting off a bug or something since I was up the whole night with him while he was coughing and having trouble breathing. Amazingly, he was in much better spirits once we got to the church! During the baptism reception, I had to spend a lot of time nursing him since his hunger had caught up with him by then. After the party was over, I tried to get some pictures of everything we had set up for the reception. The pine needles had popped some of the balloons, all of the appetizers I made were gone, and things were a little messier than they were earlier in the day. I heard that the appetizers that I made were really good. I will have to make them again so I have a chance to try them myself (and photograph them so I can post the recipes)!

I jokingly told my husband that every party we have for quite some time will have little touches of decor resembling our wedding reception, no matter what the occasion (see our wedding reception posted here). 🙂 In this case, the handkerchief bunting, Grandma’s vintage tablecloths, welcome banner, and vintage mason jars were all remnants from our wedding decor. I also borrowed the concept of potted flowers as centerpieces from our wedding reception decor. My favorite reminder of our wedding was the scent of peonies and stock, my two favorite flowers. I used these two flowers in my wedding bouquets (two bouquets since our ceremony and reception were on two separate days) because I absolutely love the way that they smell. I made an arrangement on our dining table for the baptism reception with these two flowers, and it filled the house with a lovely scent that reminded us of our wedding day(s). 🙂

Water, blueberry herbal tea & regular iced tea.

I previously posted a how-to for these DIY chalkboard label mason jars here.

Peonies and stock arrangement.

Favor bag.

A gorgeous arrangement from a friend of ours. 🙂

Our Baby Boy’s Nursery Tour!

Yesterday’s post explained a little about how I got out of my creative slump a few months back, despite being on pregnancy bed rest. I originally had plans to design our baby’s room in a woodland style theme, with a large tree mural on one wall. However, once I started looking at pictures of baby rooms online, I realized that so many people seem to have had that same idea recently and I got pretty discouraged. Our neighborhood is named after all of the large mature pine trees here, and that is our favorite thing about this area. When we first saw all the trees in this neighborhood, we both instantly knew that this would be our home. 🙂

I wanted to create a nursery design that would reflect our love of the outdoors, and still show my unique design style. The idea of a tree mural had to be scrapped since I could not paint a wall while on bed rest anyway. My challenge was to find ways to reflect the look that I wanted, via projects that I could create while lying in bed. Normally, sewing and painting projects would be my first go-to option, but since I could not sit up and sew anything until recently, I had to use other methods of creating for most of the decorations. Even more of a challenge: I primarily had to use whatever supplies I had on hand in my craft room since I could not go wander around any craft supply stores for quite some time. In the end, I went with a nature/outdoors/garden/forest kind of theme, with a little inspiration thrown in from The Lorax (the mobile over the changing table has my version of truffula trees!).

Despite all of these restrictions, I absolutely love the end result. My husband did an amazing job redoing the walls, adding insulation to the exterior wall, and creating a custom frame for the window trim. We wanted to replicate the look of the trim in our old craftsman rental house. You can see the before pictures of this house here.

Some interesting items worth noting…the tiny rocking chair was given by my great-grandmother to my mom, then to me (I sewed the little “Rockin Cowboy” cushion). The hamper was a baby shower gift from when I was born. 🙂 I found the changing table for free on Craigslist and was originally planning to use it as a plant stand in my patio area outside. When I realized it went well with our crib, my husband sanded it down, repainted it, and made new shelves for it. The daybed was originally intended for our living room, but that didn’t end up working as well as we had hoped. I wanted to make sure that I have a pet-free bed to nap in after feedings, so we moved it into the nursery. The needlepoint pillow in the middle of the daybed was embroidered by my grandma, and sewn together by me.

The framed wall art is a mix of items. I found the vintage Winnie the Pooh prints at a thrift store a while back (actually during my first pregnancy just after we got married). I have been hanging onto them since them, waiting to be able to use them. 🙂 The owl prints were a free printable that I found via The Handmade Home. I sculpted the cross and made the yarn covered “E”. The round empty embroidery hoop on the wall is left intentionally blank for now. Once he is born, I will be making an embroidery design with his name and birth date. The prints with the Bible quotes and the quote from St. Francis are printables that I designed myself. They will be coming soon to the blog as well!

I am so happy with the finished room, and can’t wait for the little guy to join us in his room! The cats love the room so much that I have trouble keeping them out. 🙂 Two walls were intentionally left fairly empty to leave room for all of the photographs that we are bound to take of our little guy.  In the next few weeks, I will be posting tons of DIY instructions on many of the various projects I made!