Baby Names and Nursery Themes

As young girls growing up, my sister and I often talked about what we'd name our kids and how we'd decorate their rooms and all the fun stuff that goes along with having a baby. Of course its all changed since then and the names and nursery themes I liked back then aren't the same as now, but I always had fun thinking about it and planning.

Jake and I have decided on a definite boy name, and have been pretty set on this name for quite some time now. Our boy name is, Jackson Thomas Smith (we're thinking we'll sometimes call him J.T. for short). :-) I love the name Jackson and Thomas was my Great-Grandfather's name. Jake also likes this name because his favorite Civil War General was Thomas Jackson, so its kind of a play on his name. Jake's initials are J.T.S. so they would have the same initials. "J.T." was what they sometimes called Jake's Grandfather (his name was John Testrake), so thats part of the reason we're thinking about using that as a nickname. Plus we have a nephew named Jack on Jake's side, and at family gatherings it might be kind of confusing to have a Jack and a Jackson.

When my sister was pregnant with Landon, 4 years ago, we spent many days baby shopping. While we were looking for bedding for Landon, I ran across a couple I liked. This is the one I really liked for a boy and I still love it and plan to use it if we have a boy.

If we have a girl, the names that we have picked out are... Rylee Elaine Smith and/or Haylee Renee Smith. If at some point we end up having 2 girls, these will be their names, but we haven't decided which one we'll use if this baby is a girl. We are spelling both names with the "lee" because Lee is my dad's middle name. Elaine is my Mother-in-Law's middle name and Renee is mine and my Mom's middle name. Haylee is what Jake's name was going to be if he would have been a girl, but probably spelled different :-)

I'm going back and forth on baby girl bedding. Back when we were shopping for Landon, I fell in love with this bedding...

However, I ran across this set a little while ago and I really like it too...

I just love the girly feel to this room. Pink and brown is one of my favorite color combinations and I absolutely LOVE the chandelier. So I think I'm leaning more towards this second nursery, but I haven't totally made up my mind yet.

So these are the names and nursery themes we have picked out, whether its a boy or a girl. We're looking forward to finding out the gender, hopefully sometime in May. I can't wait to start buying stuff and decorating their room.