Baby Books to Make a New Mom Cry

Now, I don't actually mean that in a bad way. Some of my favorite baby books so far have been the sweet, sentimental ones. And thanks to the postpartum hormones (WAY crazier than the pregnancy hormones, in my experience anyway!) my eyes were rather leaky while reading them to my little man. Whether I was outright bawling, just getting a little misty-eyed, or something in between is directly related to how far removed I was from delivery when I read them. Proceed with caution if you're trying not to trigger the waterworks (is such a thing even possible?!), but I highly recommend all of these wonderful books for any little one's library.

I Love You Because You're You 

by Liza Baker, illustrated by David McPhail

I Love You as Big as the World

by David Van Buren, illustrated by Tim Warnes

Love You Forever

by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw

On the Night You Were Born

by Nancy Tillman

Bunny Roo, I Love You

by Melissa Marr, illustrated by Teagan White

The Runaway Bunny

by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd

Corduroy

by Don Freeman

A Bookish Decorating Project for the Nursery

I can't believe my son is 3 weeks old already! I know that is not really a lot of time, but it just feels like it's flying by already. As my due date approached last month, I kept myself busy with projects around the house and I had some serious nesting going on. One of my favorite projects was decorating the nursery. I knew from the beginning I didn't really want to do a "theme" where we bought perfectly coordinated sets from a baby store, but I definitely wanted to add some bookishness to his room.

I mentioned a while back that I wanted to do this wall art project and frame pages from favorite childhood books of mine and my husband's. But in the end, I had a really hard time tracking down the books my husband remembers and I truthfully couldn't come up with a favorite of my own -- I remember loving story-time with my parents, but there wasn't any one book that stood out in my memory. So, since an unofficial animal theme seemed to be forming anyway after we chose the bumpers for his crib, a lamp for the room, and received an adorable bookcase at our baby shower, I decided to go with three different children's books/series that feature animals: Make Way for Ducklings, Humphrey the elephant, and Paddington Bear:

Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey

Humphrey books, by Sally Hunter

Paddington Bear books, by Michael Bond
(Top two frames)

Paddington Bear books, by Michael Bond
(Bottom two frames)

I am thrilled with how this project came out and it really was very simple. I already had the frames because I got a great deal on packaged sets back when I first started hanging pictures around our house and still had a bunch leftover. This nursery project actually filled up the remaining frames I had, so that was a few less piles of "stuff" laying around our house which is always good! Then all I had to do was buy extra copies (some new, some used) of books I already bought for the baby and knew had artwork I loved and would fit in the frames. I tore out the pages I needed, trimmed them to size, framed them (some with mats, some without), and hung them up.

My Dad was quite impressed with the project and had me send him these pictures so he could show them off (in addition to baby pictures of course -- he's afraid the people at his office are going to start avoiding him!) I highly recommend this project for any book lover looking for easy DIY wall art for a baby's room -- or any room! And the best part is that you get to go book shopping first :)

Where I Disappeared To...

I can't even count how many times I said to myself, "OK, today I will post a baby update..." and it just didn't happen. Someone so small sure keeps me busy! So here I am, finally sharing the happy news of our little man's arrival:

Our first day home -- my favorite picture of us :)

I actually went into labor at 3AM on my due date -- of course I didn't really think it was the real thing at the time, but as the night wore on, it became clear that it was indeed "baby time" as my husband liked to call it. He wasn't born until the morning after my due date, but everything went rather smoothly as far as giving birth goes, so I won't complain. My recovery hasn't been nearly as bad as I feared it would be, but having a newborn has definitely been an huge adjustment -- a wonderful one, but not always easy.

I had a week with both my mom and husband home with us followed by another week with my mom when my husband went back to work. This is my first week home alone with the baby -- I will admit I was really nervous, but we are doing well so far. He's a pretty happy baby unless he is wet or hungry and he loves to snuggle. I already can't picture my life without this little one and we just love him to pieces :)