What I've Bought For Baby Gooding (Ellie) So Far// How I Plan To Save Money// Nursery Sneak Peek

 Happy Wednesday everyone!!

You know I am a huge shopping addict but also that I am a couponer and I love to save money. I am so excited to purchase all the baby girl items but I also don't want to break the bank so I thought I would share what I've gotten so far for our sweet girl and how I'm trying to save money.

If you haven't already heard our baby girls name will be Ellie. I ordered this cute name puzzle off of Amazon because I had one as a child and I just think it's so adorable. This was $34.18 on Amazon and I think it was completely worth it. I also used it for our name and gender reveal so we were able to share her name with the world!

Another Amazon purchase was this bookshelf for $34.38 which I would not recommend. It's pretty flimsy honestly and I wish I had held out for a more sturdy bookshelf but since I rushed into it this what we have!

So far the only books I've put on this shelf have either been on clearance, were books I already owned or were gifted to us. I had several of my childhood books still so I love that I can pass those down to Ellie. I've also done a ton of scanning at Walmart to get books for less than $1 each. We've also been gifted a few books and I of course had to put them in rainbow order :)

The stroller was gifted to us by my mom! She has been so unbelievably generous and I know she is so excited for her first grandchild. I will point out several items she's purchased for us and I can already see how spoiled this little girl is going to be.

The dresser in the background was mine as a baby so that was completely free. You can also see the wooden toy that my friend Brittni gave us to borrow. The Huggies diapers were all purchased for less than $12 total for three packs at Dollar General. I have been couponing diapers whenever I get a chance! I am working on building up a big diaper stockpile and getting an array of diapers. 

I couldn't help myself picking up this Doodle on Amazon for $20.64. With two big sister doodles Ellie needs to represent them! 

My mom purchased the crib for us which was so generous. The crib mattress was passed down to us from my friend Brittni. I did purchase a mattress protector at Walmart to keep it safe, I can't remember the exact price of the mattress protector but it was cheap. 

The wallpaper was my major splurge.... I purchased this off Etsy and it was very pricey for the four panels we needed. I think it was totally worth it though.

This rug will not be staying, we will be purchasing a new rug. I am looking for a pink rug but I haven't found anything I love yet for a price I'd like to pay. I'm going to keep looking though!

I have a fun project that Tim will be doing and this closet should look totally different soon! I've been storing things we will gift Ellie for future holidays on the top shelf (all clearance items). I ordered a Belle dress for her from Disney, which again... couldn't help myself! I also picked up a cute robe at HomeGoods for her. 

On the floor I have a bunch of toys that Brittni has passed down to us. We have two little seats we purchased for $9 a piece when we thought we'd be having twins. Since we got such a great deal on them we will send one to my moms house since she will be watching Ellie two days a week. We have an outdoor shade area that Rachel passed to us which has never been used. I also have a ton of diapers, wipes, bottles, etc that I've gotten for free with all the registry boxes/bags I had signed up for. I will be sorting through everything soon and getting this much more organized so I will share that later on. 

I've started organizing her drawers as well. Everything in these drawers was either purchased on clearance or purchased for us. My mom of course bought the Minnie Mouse sunhat and the Carters sunglasses. I have purchased a ton of bows and hats for her- all on clearance. 

In this drawer I have bibs, burp cloths, socks, and mittens. I bought these drawer organizers on Amazon and so far they've worked out great! I may have to purchase some more. 

Quick question for you. How much of all of this did you have for your baby? How many bibs/burp cloths/ etc? I don't want to have to do laundry daily but I also don't want to purchase too much. 

My mom purchased this changing table/dresser for us as well. I've started filling it up with clearance clothes! In the bottom drawer I am keeping bigger size clothing. We've also received a few outfits as gifts already too. 

This middle drawer is filled with newborn, 0-3, and 3-6 clothing for now. I am trying to keep everything sorted but I might have to move some of the bigger sizes into the bottom drawer if we have more clothing in smaller sizes. I went a little crazy in the Walmart clearance section and I've also been watching Kohls clearance and Old Navy clearance to grab items as I see them. When I organized everything though I realized that I don't have that many items and definitely need to pick up some more! 

Also, I want to point out that Brittni's sister Katie was getting rid of a bunch of toys and offered them to us and you can see some of them in the bottom right of the above picture. I am so thankful for so many toy hand me downs because I know how expensive kids toys can be! We obviously want to purchase plenty of items for her new as well but knowing that we have plenty of hand me downs as well makes me feel like we don't need to run out and buy things immediately. 

The top drawer of her changing table has diapers and wipes. Brittni gave us some small diapers she had leftover from her girls and the other items have all been free from signing up for random things online. We received a free package of Hello Bello newborn diapers by filling out a form online and then received a bunch of diapers in our registry gift bags. 

I read online that diapers should cost no more than 20 cents per diapers and wipes no more than 2 cents per wipe. I've been trying to stick to that when I see deals and have managed to get quite a few so far!

Look at those proud big sisters! They have no clue what's going on, but they do like hanging out and wrestling in this room!

I picked up the Belle doll from Disney, some of these blankets and stuffed animals were gifts and the toys were all on clearance. The star blanket was a surprise sent to us by Rachel, the soft white blanket and little bear was given to us by my mom right when we first found out I was pregnant. The pink and white blanket that you can see on the right hand side was given to us by my mother in law who knows someone who hand made it. My uncle and his girlfriend sent us the bunny which was such a sweet surprise. 

One more peek at the crib and gorgeous wallpaper! 

I've been trying so hard to buy everything on clearance or a sale, and I think I've done pretty well so far but I have definitely splurged on a few things! I am currently 22 weeks pregnant so I still have plenty of time and will be doing a drive by baby shower but I want to make sure we have everything we need for her. 

I should also mention we did purchase the SNOO when it was on a 15% off sale. I picked up the snow and two sets of sheets for it which totaled about $1400. It will all arrive in August and be here before she is born. I do need to get back on the snow website to order swaddles for her that work with the SNOO. 

How many outfits do I need per size? What items are your must haves for babies? Please share with me!!

Baby Girl Name Reveal...

 Today I'm sharing Baby Gooding's official name!

Our baby girl will be......

Ellie Olivia Gooding! 

One of the first times Tim and I talked about having kids I mentioned that I loved the name Ellie for a girl and he said he loved it as well. It stuck all these years and we knew if we had a daughter her name would be Ellie.

When we were thinking up names for twins we decided if we had two girls Olivia would be the second girls name. Although we will never be 100% sure we both agree that we think Baby B was a girl. While we will never get to meet Baby B here on Earth, we wanted to honor her and have given Ellie the middle name Olivia. Since Baby B was absorbed by both me and Ellie she will always be a part of us and although it might seem strange it just gives me more peace about the entire situation.

We've are so excited to meet her and have a private ultrasound scheduled for this month so Tim can see her move and hear her heartbeat for the first time. Unfortunately, he has not been allowed in any appointments or any ultrasounds throughout this pregnancy due to covid. I'm hoping Ellie will be bouncing around during our private scan so he can truly get to see what I've been seeing this whole pregnancy!

I hope you all have a wonderful day! Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the internet :)

Baby Freebie Items! (Get all these items for free!!)

Hey everyone! Much faster turnaround this time huh?! I promised I'd be back sooner and here I am. Today I want to share all about the FREE baby items you can get. Seriously, free items! 

If you know me or have been reading here for awhile you know that I love to get items for free and love free samples. Once I got pregnant I of course signed up for all the free items I could find online. Things have been trickling in and I want to share all the free products I've gathered so far. 

Huggies Bag

Just for signing up with Huggies they sent me a care package for baby! One pack of size 1 diapers, a onesie and a pack of wipes. Since I know diapers and wipes are expensive I will take any free ones I can. I know lots of mothers have opinions on different kinds of diapers but honestly I want to have a variety so I can test them out. I can always save extras for future babies or share them with friends if they don't work for us.

 

I also won't say no to free clothing. I know baby girl is going to go through a ton of clothes so having a onesie from Huggies might not be the cutest outfit ever but when everything else is covered in baby spit-up and poop I will gladly put her in a free onesie! 

Walmart Baby Registry Box

For just creating a Walmart Baby Registry (you can keep it private) you get a whole box of fun items!

The items we received are all picture above but include a pacifier, bottle, diapers, baby shampoo and wash, dry shampoo, baby food, and a ziplock container. 

Unfortunately these three items would expire by the time the baby was actually here so I did go ahead and donate them. 

Noobie Box

For the Noobie box you do need to pay a small shipping fee but I was so excited to get all the samples I had to do it! I thought the Noobie box had a few good things in there but I'm not sure it was entirely worth the shipping. I have heard great things about Water Wipes though so I think it's great to get a sample of them!

Baby List

The Baby List haul was by far the best of all the ones I received! There were four bottles, a few wipe packets, a couple of diaper samples and a bunch of other items. I would highly recommend the Baby List sample pack, even if they do charge for it.

Amazon Baby Registry

I thought I would be more impressed with Amazon's freebie bag. To be totally transparent you do need to create a registry and have a certain amount of items purchased off of it (I think it was $10) but since you are putting items on there you want purchased anyways it's not a huge deal. I did like the cute onesie and how it was gender-neutral and it will look really cute on baby girl!

There's also a freebie bag you can pick up at Buy Buy Baby but unfortunately the closest one to us is over an hour away so I'm not sure if we will ever make it up there to pick it up. 

I would also recommend to sign up for any diaper and formula programs you can find. They will send out free items or coupons which is great!

I should also mention that we did receive a bunch of coupons and will be using those going forward to purchase any items we might need.

That's all I picked up for baby freebies so far! If I manage to find any others I will definitely let you know. I also am thinking about sharing some more baby content- like a nursery update and what items we've picked up so far. If that's something you would be interested in definitely let me know!

Welcome Rory!

 I know I promised I would be better about updating the blog. I have a TON to say and life has been so busy lately.  I have a list of posts to write up and do plan to get better about updating as we go forward.

Today I wanted to share the newest addition to our family! No, not our baby girl who will be arriving in September.....

Meet Rory!

Last July/August Tim and I had been struggling with infertility for over a year and were looking at starting fertility treatments. We knew we wanted to bring a sibling into our home for Sophie and that she would love having a sister so we put ourselves on a waiting list for a goldendoodle puppy. The day I found out we lost Baby B we received an email that we could pick up Rory on April 4th. It was a true miracle. 

Rory's first weigh-in at the vet came in at 13 pounds! Sophie was 18 pounds when we brought her for her first vet visit so Rory feels significantly smaller than her big sister did. We keep commenting on how fragile she seems but luckily she's been a great eater and we can already feel her getting bigger every day! 

As far as puppies go Rory is extremely easy-going. Our vet and vet tech kept commenting on how easy-going she was during her visit. She loves to play and has been in heaven with the huge selection of toys we have collected around here. When she gets the zoomies it is absolutely adorable and she can often be found sleeping on top of a pile of pillows.

I'm sure you're curious about how big sister Sophie is adjusting to having a sibling. Well, she couldn't be better!! The first day we were very nervous and Sophie definitely seemed a little jealous. After that initial jealousy, we haven't seen it since. The two of them are best friends and play together, cuddle together and just generally enjoy each others company. Rory is obsessed with her big sister and Sophie is very sweet about letting her cuddle. It is so adorable and I love watching their relationship. 

I am excited for Rory to get a tad bigger so I won't be quite as stressed out about their wrestling matches but I love to watch how Sophie rolls on her back and lets Rory climb all over her. They also play a ton of tug and Sophie has always wanted us to chase her around the yard and she finally has someone who will do it non-stop.

Overall adding Rory to our family has been one of the best decisions we have made. She is sweet, snuggly and so playful. While having a puppy is certainly stressful and I'm not sure I would recommend any pregnant woman to add the stress of it to their life I am so glad we did it now before having a baby. We will all be adjusted before we get thrown for that loop in September. 

One of our friends who came to meet Rory said it best when she said, "You guys seem to thrive on chaos."

I can't even disagree with that statement because we just love to have some sort of project going on. If there's not something going on then life gets too boring! 

Life Lately

 Just like that another 2 weeks have gone by.... We've been doing a lot of hanging around the house lately so not a ton has been going on. I am starting to feel slightly better so I am working on organizing, cleaning and decluttering. I really want to get as much unnecessary stuff out of our house before our baby comes. If we have organized systems in place that will be even better! I've started to organize the nursery and started picking out furniture and created my registry. So things are moving along! 

How cute is this little girl? Little does she know we will be welcoming a new puppy Easter weekend, and then a human baby will be coming in September. She is in for a huge shock of not being the only child but for now she is soaking it up. 

A couple of weekends ago Tim and I grabbed Adirondack chairs from Home Depot because last year I was desperately trying to find some in June and they were sold out everywhere. I wanted to make sure we got our hands on some so we can have some nights around the fire pit this summer and invite friends over and actually offer them a chair! I lobbied for 10 chairs, Tim thought we needed 6, so we compromised with 8. 

Just some more picture of my sweet baby sleeping on the couch.

We spend a lot of time at home and she's clearly comfortable here. 

This girl loves her daddy!!

I'm sharing this here before even posting it on my personal facebook and instagram pages...We got the results back on our NIPT testing. Our baby is perfectly healthy and is a......

GIRL! Tim was golfing so I called him on FaceTime and told him the amazing news. He told our friends he was golfing with and they gave him a pink golf ball. This is just such a cute picture and I am so thrilled to be having a baby girl. Tim will be the most amazing girl dad, he is so sweet and a calming presence. Sorry for gushing but I just love my husband and my little family so much!!

Of course I had to go to Walmart and buy all the clearance baby girl clothes I could find! I am going to continue hunting for clearance finds and sales. I want to make sure we are prepared for baby girl but don't want to go broke in the process!

So that's what life has been like around here lately. I will keep you updated!!

First Trimester of Pregnancy

 Woohoo! I am officially out of the first trimester and have all my energy back and feel great!

Totally kidding.

I am out of the first trimester and have the tiniest bit of energy back, but I'm still exhausted 98% of the time. Still going to be around 8 every night and spending most of my days lounging around. I am so grateful to be working from home during this time. 

Today I want to share a bit about my first trimester of pregnancy because this has been totally different than I imagined as someone struggling with infertility. Let's start from the beginning...

December 21st- December 24th...

On December 21st I took a pregnancy test because I had been taking Clomid during December and thought we had a good chance of getting pregnant. I only had the cheapo Amazon tests in the house so I took one and had the tiniest, faintest line. When Tim woke up I told him that I thought I might be pregnant, but I wasn't entirely sure. He told me he wasn't going to get too excited yet because the line was so faint. Over the next few days I bought some more substantial tests and the lines kept getting darker and darker.

I finally believed it when I took a Clearblue test and it clearly read "pregnant"

My moral support while waiting for the tests to complete.

I received a call from my doctors office letting me know that my levels looked great as far as clomid was concerned and I excitedly told them I was pregnant. They told me they would call back to schedule all my appointments.

We can't keep a secret...so on Christmas Eve told my parents when we stopped by their house in the afternoon. We told a few of Tim's family members on Christmas Eve and then managed to get his parents together to tell them on Christmas Day. We also told a few friends on Christmas Day as well.

In January I got to go for my first ultrasound!

Due to Covid I had to go in by myself and Tim wasn't able to come inside with me. I was thrilled when the ultrasound tech told me we were having twins. I skipped out to the car and told a completely shocked Tim. 

We were over the moon about having two babies. For two weeks I planned and hoped for my two babies to stay healthy. I wanted them both.

We unfortunately lost baby B which was very traumatic. I went in for my first OBGYN appointment and my doctor tried the in-room doppler to find the heartbeats and couldn't find baby B. This was on a Thursday and I unfortunately had to wait until the following Monday to get another ultrasound. The ultrasound tech tried abdominally and couldn't find a heartbeat. She then tried transvaginally and still couldn't find a heartbeat. Then a second tech came in to confirm. That appointment was so emotionally trying. I am tearing up thinking about it now. I broke down sobbing, Luckily Tim was waiting in the car for me but I still wish he had been in the appointment with me. 

I have more to say about vanishing twin but I will save that for a separate post. It is so difficult to grieve one baby and still be happy for the healthy one. 

At that appointment they did take pictures of baby A for me and did offer to take a picture of baby B but I declined that. I know that baby B had stopped growing around 7 weeks and didn't want to see the difference between my babies forever.

A couple of weeks ago I had another ultrasound for nuchal translucency. It was difficult to go back into the ultrasound suite (luckily it was a different room than my previous one), but watching baby A bounce around inside of me, wave at me, and kick their little legs gave me so much hope. I couldn't believe how much my little baby was moving and although I wish with all my heart I could've seen two little babies in there, my heart was happy to see my healthy little nugget.

I am officially 13 weeks pregnant as of last Friday and am due September 3rd. 

So besides the technical stuff, what has this pregnancy been like?

Symptoms: 

• Severe exhaustion. Literally I'm in bed by 8PM every night and am pretty much a sloth during the day. 
• Nausea. I haven't thrown up, but I think that's only from sheer force of will. Luckily the nausea has eased a bit, but at points I was feeling nauseous all day long.
• Aversions to meat and many other foods. I honestly couldn't stand the smell, sight or taste of meat- any meat. I was able to eat steak tips on Saturday night which was an improvement. I also didn't want any vegetables but I was able to eat a salad on Saturday as well, so things are definitely looking up.
• Beige foods. All things beige- mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, cereal, muffins, teddy grahams, ritz crackers, pretzels. Everything needed to be starchy and very plain in order for me to eat it. While I love all those types of foods it's hard to survive off of them.

Boy/ Girl Guesses?

I honestly have no idea at this point! Tim keeps switching back and forth with what he tells me he thinks. I have gotten a couple of boy guesses, solely because Tim's family is filled with boys. His brother has two boys and his sister is currently pregnant with a boy and due in June. I did submit our ultrasound pictures on Facebook and two people guessed girl, so we shall see. 

Future Appointments

I have an appointment this Thursday to see my OBGYN but I don't know what more I'll find out. I did do NIPT blood work but with the crazy weather in Texas my blood got delayed in the mail and didn't make it to the lab in time. I just redid my blood draw on Thursday so I'm hoping I will hear on that soon because it should include the gender. We will find out for sure at our 20 week anatomy scan appointment, but we will have a good idea after the blood work.

Our situation is somewhat different because NIPT predicts the gender through blood work but because I am technically still carrying two babies (until baby B gets reabsorbed) if either baby is a boy the blood work will tell us that the baby is a boy, even if only one is/was. If it says girl that means that both babies are/were girls. I am not counting on knowing for sure and am not planning on sharing the gender until after the anatomy scan when we are 100% certain. 

Overall we are getting excited to start planning the nursery and knowing who our little baby is! I think that pretty much catches you up. I am planning on writing up a post about vanishing twin syndrome because it was something I had honestly thought wasn't as common as it is. I will keep updating you through the pregnancy, maybe on a month basis? I also am going to try to update the blog more often. I haven't shared so many things that are happening and definitely need to do so!

Have a great day everyone!

Baby Gooding

 

Well now you know why I've been radio silent around here.... Baby Gooding is scheduled to arrive September 3rd!

I am the worst at keeping secrets, so it was easier to stay away from the blog. Also, I've felt awful and exhausted 98% of these first few months so I honestly haven't done anything. 

This pregnancy hasn't been the easiest and I will share more on that in the future, but the short version is- today we should've been announcing twins. If you've never heard of vanishing twin syndrome I'll be writing more about that soon. For now we are focusing on the next six months ahead, and the little human we will be welcoming in September.

Oh, and our first baby who doesn't look thrilled by our announcement....