Our Little One's Life: Month One to Three

Wow, does time fly?!?! The older I get, the more true this statement seems to become.

Our little one is 3 months old! I wanted to write a post that was dedicated to her first 3 months of life (of course, pictures are included, keep reading). 

To sum up the first 3 months of life, what can I say? Goodness she is growing and changing daily! Here are the memories and milestones of our first 3 months of enjoying being first-time parents:

·     Month 1- Payton began to get to know her family and had MANY firsts, such as diaper change, bath, feedings, meeting family/friends, etc. She started to lift her head up and LOVES looking around. When upset, she will show her perfected pouty face (complete with the bottom lip sticking completely out). After each and every feeding, Payton loves to stretch and pose for us. What a miracle she is!

·     Month 2- Wow, what a talker we have. Payton loves to babble to us throughout her day and at night when she doesn’t think she needs to go to bed! At 8 weeks, we were blessed to have a baby sleeping 8 hours through the night. Words cannot express how excited I was to get some sleep! During this month, Payton also smiled at us, on purpose! Mommy and Daddy took Payton with them as they looked and talked to daycare providers and finally selected the perfect daycare. She is such a happy baby. We wrapped up the month with Payton beginning to develop her little laugh.

·    

Month 3- The best sound in the world is your child’s laugh! We can’t get enough of Payton laughing! On 8/4, she was baptized by the same priest that married her Mother and Father more than 4 years before her birth. The baptism was also her first long road trip, about 3.5 hours one-way. She did great! Payton also started daycare, which was much easier for her than it was for Mommy. At the end of the month, Payton was almost rolling. 

       About the pictures: We wanted to take monthly pictures for the first year to include in her baby album. Just like with pregnancy, we couldn’t just snap a picture quickly. Each picture was planned to match what was going on in her life at that time. We used scrabble tiles in a scrabble holder to mark the month.

Life is just much more enjoyable when you take the extra moment to put a creative spin on it!

What milestones did you highlight for your children?

Eleventh Letter to My Little One- Happy Birthday

 

Happy Birthday

She is HERE! Our little one, Payton, was born late April (2013) and we couldn’t be more thrilled! Without boring everyone with too many details (we will save that for family and Payton when she is older), my final letter for my pregnancy journal covers a bit about our birth story.  

5/1/13

My Little One,

You have surprised us all by arriving early, but only by 3 weeks! Your father and I wouldn’t have had it any other way! Reflecting on the moments that lead up to your first appearance, we should have known you were coming soon.

Mommy and Daddy decided a few months before you were due to have the kitchen remodeled (a brave decision on our part because we knew there was a chance the kitchen may not be finished when you were born). The day before your birth, we had to run to the closest Menard’s (a few towns away) and we spent most of the day with Mommy walking around picking out our new kitchen backsplash and tile. Afterwards, we went to a friend’s house for dinner. Grandma Betty came to visit as well and arrived at our house just before we returned from our long day shopping and visiting friends!

After catching up with your Grandma, your mother went to bed at around midnight. At 4:15 AM, she got up to go to the bathroom and, upon returning back to bed, realized her water had just broken. After waking your Daddy up, who thought Mommy was joking, Mommy tried to catch some sleep before your big debut! Although nerves kept Mommy awake, Grandma and Daddy had no problem sleeping and getting ready. We checked into the hospital at about 10AM.  

The craziest part about being in labor was that the fire alarms (not kidding) went off at about noon! The whole building had to evacuate because of a small fire. While sitting outside, other patients were nervous that Mommy could go into labor and give birth at any moment! You stayed inside (thank goodness) until we were safely back inside of the hospital. At 4:55PM, you entered this world! You were 6 pounds, 18 inches, and stole your Mommy and Daddy’s heart! Your birth will forever be one of our best days ever!

 

Our Little Family

Meeting Mommy

You decided to come early and therefore we had no choice but to bring you home to a gutted
kitchen! In the end, everything worked out amazingly well. We got you and a new kitchen!What memories you are creating already for us my love!

                                                                                                                  Love You Always, 
                                                                                                                 Mommy and Daddy

For those of you who are super curious, here are pictures of the gutted kitchen and the (mostly) completed kitchen:

Isn’t amazing how a child changes your world in ways that you could never imagine until they existed?!?!

Letters To My Little One, The Collection

When I first found out I was pregnant, I knew I wanted to create some sort of record of my pregnancy to show my child later in life. I decided to create a special scrapbook that would show not only pictures from my pregnancy, but would also include letters that were written especially for our little one by both me and my husband. As time has passed, I am so thankful I chose to create letters. As I read the letters from the beginning, I am pleasantly surprised at how some of the memories had faded and now come rushing back to me at once!

I chose to share these letters with you because when I first made my decision to write letters to my unborn child, I did some searching on the internet for inspiration. I did not find exactly what I was looking for. Therefore, I created my own vision and am hoping that someone will find my ideas inspiring for their own project. 

Here is a quick guide to the 11 letters I wrote my little one:

1. Finding Out We Are Pregnant

2. Meet Your Father

3. Telling Our Immediate Family the News

4. Hearing Your Heartbeat For the First Time

5. Ending the First Trimester

6. A Song To Our Little One From Us

7. Daddy's Birthday

8. Gender Vote- Are You A He OR She?!?!

9. Ultrasound/ Gender Reveal?!?!

10. What I Want To Teach My Child
11. Birth Story

What creative ways have you used to create your pregnancy scrapbook/journal?