Rory's Room

And 7 months later, this little lady has a nursery! We were living with my parents in California for the first 4 months of Rory's life and so we held off buying a lot of nursery items until we moved here! Once we made it here, I was so excited to get her room going! I found these amazing city prints from Rifle Paper Co. and decided to base her nursery theme off of them! Sam and I love to travel together and so we decided that a travel/adventure theme was perfect for Rory!

My mom made the amazing quilt for Rory and it is my absolute favorite! I feel guilty that it mostly sits on her crib and is rarely used, but one of the few times I had Rory playing on it, she pooped all over it. So, lesson learned.

Some of the cities up on the wall have significance to us too, which is awesome. London is where Sam was born/where his family is from. New York was one of the first major cities Sam and I went to together. Rio is sort of cool, because she was born in 2016 and that's where the Olympics were this year (stretching, I know). And Paris is somewhere neither Sam or I have been to but want to go together someday!

The little teddy bear on her crib was my teddy bear that I got when I was a little, little girl after I got in a car accident and the hospital gave it to me and I have loved it ever since. His name is Mr. Fluffy and I hope she grows up loving him like I did.

This little girl has about 50+ bows and I could never find something to organize them all. I didn't want all of the bows out hanging on something because I knew I wouldn't keep up with it and so I found this cute map box that it perfect for holding all her cute girly bows. 

Also if you haven't heard of Little Unicorn, their products are my obsession. Everything they sell is so beautiful and I swear by their swaddle blankets! I use them every day!

 

The fabric banner above her dresser is made from the banners that Sam and I had at our wedding! I just cut them shorter and added some navy fabric to it! I love that there's little memory pieces like this in her room.

 

My sister-in-law Laura made Rory some ADORABLE blocks that have her name on them, and I love them up on her shelf! She also made her little footprint plaque, that I will probably turn into an ornament this Christmas!

I also painted a watercolor portrait of Sam and I from some maternity photos we took and I like that there is a memory from my pregnancy in here as well.

The little elephant puzzle/figurine thing is from Ukraine that Sam's other sister Jessica brought  back for us! I love elephants and Rory has lots of elephant things, so it fits perfectly!

I love this space almost as much as I love the little girl who lives in it!

the name game

Naming this little diva was SO HARD! I felt like I talked to Sam about it every single day, called my best friends way too often to discuss it, and just altogether stressed way too much. The pressure is REAL when you are naming your baby. You want the name to be a reflection of their little personality and personally I had so many requirements. I wanted the name to be different, but not too 'weird', short and simple, classy but not too traditional, girly but not too feminine, and it goes on and on and on.

And then all those other classic road blocks come into play when you are trying to figure out a name. Like I would love a name, and Sam would hate it, and vice versa. Or I would like a name but if I knew someone with that name that I didn't want to be constantly reminded of, then it went out the window. Or if you like a name that is just too popular at the time your baby is born. Or if your family members already have the names you want hahaha but really it's tough.

So finally, by like 36 weeks pregnant we had 5 NAMES. Hahaha I know, too much. But I wanted to have lots of options so that I didn't feel like I had to choose out of 2 or something. But, then I didn't want too many options or else I knew I would just spiral and never decide. I had made these really cute name cards before hand with all of the name options on them and we decided we would name her when we saw her. It actually came in handy to actually see the names next to her face and try to picture calling her them.

I won't share all 5 names just because I learned the hard way that you really don't want to hear people's opinions on your names before hand and we might use them for the next babies.. ;)

Once she came we didn't know right away what her name would be but we both agreed to narrow down the names to 2, Wren and Rory. We had a really cute middle name picked out for the name Wren that I had wanted for a long, long time and it just doesn't work with the name Rory and so I was totally leaning more towards Wren JUST so she could have the middle name I wanted. But, it just wasn't fitting right. And then we really couldn't figure out a middle name for Rory that would work so that was sort of throwing us off that name.

It was about 26 hours after Rory was born and we still hadn't decided on the name, and the birth certificate people kept calling our room asking for the name and so I finally told them to not call us back until 3:00 pm that day and then we would for sure have the name. So it was literally 2:45 pm and we STILL hadn't decided.

Well, then Sam finally said to me that even though he liked the name Wren, we shouldn't name her something just so she could have the middle name we wanted her to have because in reality her first name is what was more important (duh) so we should focus more on the first name rather than the middle.

So, I said "Ok well what about Rory Lee?" Sam's middle name and his dad's middle name is Lee as well as my Grandpa Fardig's middle name. So I liked that it was sort of a family name from both sides and it was a really short, cute, and unisex middle name. Sam (who wasn't totally sold on the name Rory) automatically said he really liked that and so we decided to just think about it for a minute and Sam went and looked up the names online just to see if they had any meaning. Wren came up as a name of a small bird, and Rory came up to be the name of the last king of Ireland and when Sam told me that we both really liked that idea because she was born on St. Patrick's Day and we liked that little connection.

Sam took Rory and was holding her and we literally had 2 minutes left until they were going to call and so I just said to call her Wren and then to call her Rory so we could sort of imagine calling her that and to see how it sounded and felt. He looked at her and said "Hi Wren.." and I liked the way it sounded but I just didn't feel like I thought I would when we decided on a name and so then he said "Hi Rory..." and I automatically just started crying and just remember nodding my head and saying, "That's it!" and seriously 1 second later the phone rang and it was the birth certificate office asking for her name! The timing was awesome and I was SO HAPPY because I love, love, love the name and when I first told Sam about it like 3-4 months before hand he said no and I was so bummed.

Out of all of the names we had, I really really wanted her name to be Rory, but at the same time that was the name I least expected her to have! And now when we look at her I can't even imagine her name being anything else. I love it!

Side note: I've always loved the show Gilmore Girls and me and my sisters were constantly watching it growing up but I never ever thought about the name Rory until I saw it while on Pinterest as a nick name for the name "Aurora"! But, I don't mind the connection to Gilmore Girls because it's the greatest show.

RORY LEE, WE LOVE YOU!