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Bringing Home Baby Girl👶🏼💛

On April 5th 2022 our beautiful Caroline Beth House came into this world at 7:35pm. The world wind of emotions I felt is undescribable as her little scream belted out and she was placed onto my chest. To say I was speechless was an understatement, I was in awe of her. Every part of her, from her tiny hands and feet to her beautiful head full of hair. She was perfection in its purest form. 💛

Our Story

On April 4th (our two year anniversary💕) I headed to my Dr. for our 38 week check up. We did an ultrasound to measure how baby girl was doing, she had been on the smaller side my whole pregnancy so we checked on her every month. To my surprise though we found out that we were needing to be induced and needed to head to the hospital that night. Apparently she had officially ran out of room in my belly and wasn’t going to have enough fluid to last her the next two weeks! Such a scary moment as in my head I knew this day was coming but to have it happen right then and there, my stomach dropped.
We got to the hospital at 6pm and started the process of getting everything set up. I had nurses in and out, pocking and hooking me up for at least an hour and half.😳 My husband and I shared our anniversary meal/last meal just us two and then the fun began! Ha…fun😐

Chick-fil-A to the rescue😂


We started the inducing drip at 7:30 and 24hours, almost exactly, from the start of the inducing we welcomed our beautiful Baby girl Caroline Beth House into this world 🥺 5lbs 10oz and 19in long! She was so perfect in every way and we couldn’t believe how lucky we got.


The whole experience was so crazy and surreal, been expecting baby Girl to come for 9 Months and now she was actually here!!🤯 Our perfect little bundle of joy was here and we couldn’t put her down!

One of my absolutely favorite pictures of them🥺

Delivery overall wasn’t as scary as I thought, definitely not easy, but I had such an amazing team of nurses and my husband that never left my side (besides to go get us food😂) that I felt so relaxed and empowered going into delivering her. We stayed two nights in the hospital just to make sure baby girl was good to go and then we finally got to head home!

Our first Family picture👨‍👩‍👧

BEING HOME

We’ve been home almost a month now and adjusting to new parents life has definitely been a learning curve. I believe we got extremely blessed with Caroline as she really is so sweet and not a super fussy baby (right now at least🙃) but we are working on figuring out sleep schedules and our new home life.

Seeing her grow over these last few weeks though has already killed me. I want her to grow and can’t wait to see the beautiful girl she grows into but I also don’t want her to get any bigger! She is my little Care Bear🐻 and I want her to be itty bitty forever!!😭

I am so excited for this next step in our lives, the greatest adventure we could ever go on is going to be raising her and getting to have our family grow.

Here’s to the small moments of having dreams really do come true!💕

Hospital Bag Ultimate Checklist🏩👝

Getting into the countdown weeks of baby girls arrival I have gone into full on nesting and preparing mode! From rearranging every kitchen cabinet🤷🏼‍♀️, washing all baby girls clothes and sheets, and having our car detailed (if you saw the amount of dog hair you’d understand😐), I feel like I can’t stop cleaning and organizing! One thing I wanted to make sure I got done and was 100% prepared for was the packing of our car and hospital bags though!

When To Pack

There’s no right or wrong time to pack, rather your 24 weeks or 38 weeks packing your bag is something you are in complete control of and it should be a fun experience! I was told to go ahead and get mine packed around 34 weeks by my doctor but sometimes it’s nice to just already have it done so your not having to worry, And you can always add too or take away if you pack earlier! If you pack late too that’s totally fine! I know some Mamma’s that dont pack till 38 weeks or sometimes when they are heading out the door!😬 Either way, what you put in your bag should be what counts!

Checking Off The List

If you know me at all, I LOVE LIST! Like obsessed with list, reading them, and making them, and checking things off them! It’s just one thing that calms my very over active OCD mind!😂 With that, I have spent hours… and I mean HOURS going through every other hospital bag list online, and mommy article on Pinterest I could find to put together what I feel is a pretty solid list of items to bring to help Mommy, Daddy and baby all feel comfortable and have what is needed!

What is going in my bag🥰 Sadly my belly band hasn’t come in yet to be able to include in picture but that will also go in my bag!

Now while I know there are some items on here that some may feel aren’t needed and in turn there may be some items that aren’t on here that you feel should be, this is just my list I have made for myself! Every Mommy is different and has different needs and may want certian other items to help feel comfortable! Being comfortable is absolute key and anything you want to bring to help get that BRING IT!

Below is the list, but I will also share links to some of the items that I bought below it so if you want to look into them you can for your own bag!!🥰

ALSO below all the links is the PDF file for this list, so if you would like to download and have you can!

Now I will have a separate bag for baby girl, her diaper bag, and a bag for her Daddy. So really we will have three bags going to the hospital with us. I know, too much right?? Welll what can I say, I am a huge, “rather have and not need then need and not have” person! 🙃 I will have all baby girls stuff in hers and then my husband’s will have his things along with the bathroom essentials and extras in his.

Everything going in baby girls diaper bag👶🏼🎀

FYI TIP🤫

One thing I did get told by other moms is while the hospital does have everything you need for baby; wipes, swaddles, pacifiers, creams, and everything else, to make sure to also bring an empty bag with you for all the hospital stuff when you get ready to leave! All that extra stuff in the room is for you and all that is 100% yours to take home so make sure to take an extra little sack to grab all the goodies!!😁

Again, this list is just one I have made for myself that I feel will help make me more comfortable while going through the most vulnerable moment in my life. Please make sure you bring whatever makes you comfy and remember that on that day the greatest blessing of your life is on their way! 👶🏼

Links to Hospital Items

Hospital Bag Ultimate Checklist.pdfDownload

If you have any feedback or questions I would love to hear from you! Links to my social medias are below and always open💛

https://www.instagram.com/malmariehouse/

https://www.facebook.com/PeaceOut121310

Top Baby Gifts 👶🏼

Over the last few weeks we have got and received so many wonderful gift from our baby shower, friends and family surprising us, and we ourselves stocking up on wanted items. I wanted to share a list of some of our favorite gifts we have received as I know I have a few expecting mommy friends, and if your anything like me, having a list is always helpful! These are great baby shower gifts or if you know a Mamma that would love one of these share this with her! All items below will have links to where to buy as well🥰

First Gift:

Changing Station Diaper Bag – Hands down best Diaper Bag out there😍
No more having to change baby on those nasty restaurant stations, or worrying if your at someone’s house not having a spot! This bag is perfect for any Mamma!
It is super easy carrier, has so much space and sooo many pockets to help keep organized!
Insulated bottle pockets, four deep pockets on the inside, and even a pocket on the back for wallets and other important items!
Also, it can charge your phone🤯 it has a built in outlet to plug straight into your phone and charge on the go!
But the absolute best part… it’s a changing station!!! 😍 It has a pop out station that is super easy to put together!
If your a Mamma looking for a diaper bag or know one that needs one definitely look into this one!! Ours was a gift off Amazon and hands down one of my top favorite gifts!!💛

Second Gift

Baby Brew Bottle Warmer – This product was seriously mind blowing! It’s a portable bottle warmer that can heat breast milk or formula bottles anywhere anytime! 🍼 It is so small and compact that it fits perfectly in virtually any diaper bag! It has an 8 hour charge life and can heat a bottle in about 5-7 minutes! 😆 That is huge for any Mamma on the go trying to hurry and get baby that yummy foods! It has temperature settings specifically for breast milk, formula, and other liquids too! 🌡 While I only got the warmer, Baby Brew also has a formula dispenser that puts the perfect amount of formula in your bottle with just one little push! One thing to keep in mind though is the warmer only fits certian bottle brands buy itself, like I have found it fits Avent bottles just fine but if you use a different brand you will need to get an adapter. Their site has a list of all the adapters they currently have in stock, most are all common bottle brands but definitely want to check that before purchasing!!😘

Third Gift

Medline Thermometer – I know a thermometer doesn’t sound like an exciting gift but this was so cool to me. It is a head and ear thermometer that talks out loud to you, buuuut it also reads food!!🤯 You can put it up to any bottle and it will let you know how hot it is. This is amazing for trying to heat those bottles in the middle of the night, being half asleep, and then worrying if it’s too hot or cold for baby. Definitely a great baby shower gift!

Fourth Gift

Travel Highchair – Not going to lie, this was probably one of the first gifts I added to our registry and we wound up getting it ourselves cause I wanted it sooo bad!😂 It is a travel highchair that you can take to restaurants, friends or family members houses, or just use at your table. It latches onto almost any table and tightens to keep it in place. Definitely make sure you check the tables before you use and put baby in, some round tables they advised against using it and the table itself needs to be thick enough to really get a good grib. Of course always make sure it is latched and secure before baby goes in as well! 👶🏼 We tried it on our counter and it worked perfectly though and seriously would not budge at all!!

Fifth Gift

Nanobebe Bottle Starter Set – This was the first and only bottle set we had on our registry. It comes with so many great goodies and I love that it is specially designed for breast milk! The bottles themselves are so small and compacted that they are great for travel and great for storage. This set also comes with a bottle warming bowl so you can set the bottles in it to heat up instead of having to run under a faucet! The starter set comes with a few breast milk storage bags but we also purchased the Breast milk storage container. Its a shelve that goes in the freezer and is amazing too to help to stay organized and keep all your packs together. If your looking for a great little bottle starter set I definitely recommend checking them out! ☺️

Sixth Gift

Mommy Hospital Bag – So this was definitely something I bought myself😬 what can I say I needed a little spoilness, but this would also be an amazing baby shower gift! A lot of people don’t think to get the Mommy anything for the actual hospital trip or for postpartum but I promise she would absolutely die to have something just for her on the side💛 This bag was my top choice as I have seen other moms pack and use it and the amount of items it holds is absolutely insane! Now while we will have baby girls clothes separate in her own bag this thing definitely could hold all mine and her’s, plus more, no problem! Highly recommend getting you one cause it’s not only perfect for the hospital delivery, it makes for an amazing vacation bag!

Links to Gifts Below:

I would love to hear your feedback on any of these products!! Please feel free to message me anytime on here or on any of my social media sites! I put links to them below so you can follow along with us on this beautiful journey🥰

https://www.instagram.com/malmariehouse/

https://www.facebook.com/PeaceOut121310

Keeping Mommy and Baby Happy and Healthy

There is nothing more ever mother wants than for their babies to be happy and healthy, specially while in the womb. The not being able to physically see them for those nine months is agonizing, there is constant worry and hoping that everything is ok and baby is growing the way they are supposed too be. Of course we have check ups but if your anything like me then the knot in your chest before the doctor says, “everything looks great”, is always there right before those appointments.

I can’t help it, I’m a worry wart! I’ve always been that way but specially since this is my first pregancy and EVERYTHING I am going through is completely new to me and honestly a little overwhelming at times. I don’t just worry, I overthink. I know, not a good combination to have for a new Mom. Thankfully, I haven’t reached the googling every symptom yet so there’s a relief there, but I do think about everything I do, everything I don’t do, everything I eat or drink, everything I haven’t planned ahead for, just all of it!

I try really hard to make sure to calm myself down and know that, one, everything I’m feeling is normal. Two, the more I stress, the more baby stresses so breath. And three, ITS OK! I don’t have to be 100% perfect for this pregancy. If I slip and eat a deli sandwich, which I do try to make sure is fresh at least, its okay. If I wind up drinking two cups of coffee and then some sweet tea all in the same day, it’s okay! I don’t have to constantly keep track of every single thing, and you shouldn’t either! We will drive ourselves mad trying too!

Now, yes it’s important to know what you do and put into your body! It’s important to make sure you are giving baby all the good nutrition they need to grow healthy and happy. They may not be here yet but our jobs as mother’s starts the day we find out about them. So with that I do try and make sure I am eating good proteins, vegetables, and fats. I try to make sure I stay active throughout the week, cause as much as I love my job, I sit and stare at a screen all day for five days a week, so definitely not the best for you in the being active department. Every week is different and it doesn’t always go according to how I want, but I try, everyday I try, cause it’s not just me it’s our baby girl that I have to be healthy for. It’s knowing that if I can push myself now and do this for her there’s nothing stopping me for making this a life style and being better for her when she does get here.

I wanted to include the link to my favorite online workouts, its completely free, and the instructor is seriously amazing! She is my goals for keeping healthy and happy while having little ones.

https://youtube.com/c/PregnancyandPostpartumTV

Her channel, which is on YouTube, has a variety of different workouts for prenatal, pregancy, and postpartum Moms. She has fitness workouts, yoga classes, and a whole lot of tips and tricks on delivery! She even has a nutrition guide to help for meals. Her workouts aren’t crazy either, there are different ones for each stage of pregancy and most with little to no difficulty!

I would highly recommend checking her out and seeing all the different ways to stay active during your pregancy. Rather it being getting a good class in once or twice a week or even just taking some time for yourself to go on a walk each day. Staying active is key to keeping yourself and baby healthy and happy!

Below are a few of the videos thats are my go to for reference!

Half Way There – 20 Weeks Down, 20 To Go

Officially half way there with the pregancy game! Today marks 20 weeks for me and oh my gosh I am so already ready for this little one to be here!

20 Weeks

Just getting through with Thanksgiving and getting to see all our friends and family really makes me so grateful to be pregant now. I love the holiday season but getting to be pregant for the holidays is just so special to me! Of course I can’t wait for next the holidays when little girl gets to be here and we take her to all the fun and she gets to meet and see all her family though!

So far the progression of my belly has not been all I thought it would be but I know it’s only a matter of time before I just wake up with a basketball in front of me! I am secretly hoping I have a good pop by Christmas so we get to do all the cute photos together but even so, Im all for little bump photos too!!

5 Weeks – The day after we found out!
10 Weeks
15 Weeks – She was the size of an Avocado😳

Keeping up with everything now has definitely been a challenge, I mean you have your normal work and life, on top of planning for holiday get togethers and dinners, and now on top of being pregnant. Managing my energy has been something new to learn the last few weeks but it’s been nice to see the growth of not only little one but myself as well transitioning into “mom mode”. I know the craziness has just begun!

So here’s to the holidays and to all your beautiful prego mommies out there going through life, work, this season and growing your little ones!! 💛 You got this Mom!

Catching Up – A lot Has Happened

Oh gosh…as I look at my last post, from August mind you, I realize I absolutely suck at keeping up with anything! Specially now days when everything seems to be going on at once and when one thing is done another thing pops up.

I told myself I wanted this blog to be my outlit, my go to when I needed to escape from everything else. I wanted this to be an Oasis for others to come and feel understood. I wanted this to be a fun and exciting “just mine” project that I grew one day into something more…Well when you never update anything it’s kinda hard to have that, isn’t it?? 🙃

I suck at keeping things up. I always come up with these awesome plans or creative ideas but my follow through is almost non-existent. I mean, I could sit here and blame it on work, or family, but we all know those are just excuses we tell ourselves to help make ourselves feel better.

I will say though these last few months definitely have been some of the craziest we’ve ever been through…and we just bought a house six months ago…

We are expecting our first little Girl next April!!

This is something we have been wanting for a while now and we found out in August that she will soon be here!! The level of excitement we have is seriously indescribable! From praying and wishing she would come to the day the doctor walked in and said, “well your pregnancy test came back positive,” we haven’t stopped smiling.

We had our gender reveal last month and found out our little pumpkin was going to be a sweet baby girl!! 🥰

So yeah, we’ve been a little busy with all the excitement and the parties and the constant planning of what to do next…which is still a work in progress, and one I’ve been told is never ending, but I know I haven’t taken the time for myself here, for all of you, and I do hope that I can get back to it. I hope that I can squeeze just a little bit more of me into my day and focus on this place of mine that really does bring me joy. So I hope you stay tuned and as always feel free to reach out anytime!

Can’t wait to update you again with all the holiday fun we will have this year!! 🎄 Blessed Be!

Gut Health Is Important!

I know. It’s been a good bit since my last post. These last couple of weeks have been more fun than you could possibly imagine!

Did my sarcasm come across okay? I really hope so.

Even though I’m still not 100% I really wanted to be able to update y’all as to why the sudden drop off.

A few weeks ago I started to get extremely bad pains in my stomach whenever I would try to go the bathroom. Now unfortunately my family has a history of gut problems, all of which I will spare you the details of, but simply put, going every 4 to 5 days is kind of normal for me. I know, thats horrible! I should probably see a doctor right! Wellll yeah, I have many many times. This particular case it had been 9 days. Y’all….9 freaking days!! Like Holy Hell! I was dieing! I tried everything from only eating fiber meals, drinking Miralax every day, taking softeners and NOTHING WORKED!! My stomach was to the point that it felt like my intestines were literally tied in knots and someone stabbing those knots with a sharp knife.

Now on the 9th day my stomach had gotten so bad that I just couldn’t anymore, I had my husband run me to the emergency room and we sat there for 5 hours while they did test and everything. The doctor came back and said, “here, just drink this magnesium citrate and you’ll be fine.” I really wish I could put an eye roll right now…

Of course I listened though, I was down for anything at this point! I drank the whole bottle and nothing happened till about the day after. Is it weird to get super excited about going to the bathroom? Like I was so excited, but of course things couldn’t be that easy… I was able to go but the abdominal pain I felt while going was excruciating!! This went on for another two days guys! I was able to get something out but my stomach wouldn’t stop hurting! Finally, on Thursday, I had my husband leave work to take me back up to the emergency room, this time the big one up in North Little Rock! 7 hours later! Yeah, 7 hours of sitting there hurting, bawling, and throwing up every pain medicine they tried to give me they sent me home again. Still not sure what was causing the pain and still no one to stop it. Now, they did run more test, checked my kidneys, and my appendix, which they found blood in my urine so that was wonderful but they checked pretty much my entire insides and still couldn’t pin point what was causing the actual pain. They thought kidney stones but the MRI they did didn’t show any, thankfully!

I can’t explain the amount of anger, sadness, and exhausting I felt though. I was done. Physically and Mentally. I hadn’t left my house, let alone my room for over a week. I couldn’t…it was either my bed or the bathroom and mentally I think it took more than it should have out of me. Physically I couldn’t do anything, all I wanted to do was sleep but of course with work and a home I couldn’t so it was a never ending battle.

I followed up with my primary doctor Friday, last week, and the appointment started just like the rest, me bawling. If anyone knows me, I hate crying. Crying when I’m trying to explain how I feel is awful and I get so mad that I can’t stop crying so it’s just an endless cycle. Anyway, I explained everything to him and gave him all the paperwork from each of the ERs. He called the last doctor I went to and they sat down and went through all my test, my MRI, my blood work, my ultrasounds, all of it! I was there for 2 and half hours. Woooo. Finally he came back in and gave me the news. My stomach muscles were shot.

He said he couldn’t say with absolute certainly but when my stomach was full of crap for those 9 days my intestines got swollen and inflamed. Well yeah makes sense, but he went on to say that since it was like that for so long with me pushing hard everytime I did go the bathroom the muscles around those areas were swollen and inflamed too. Pretty much, I was trying to push a baseball through a pipeline and all the muscles trying to do that work were shot and couldn’t do it anymore. Like straining any muscle in your body, if you dont give it rest it can’t get better. With mine though, I had drank two bottles of that magnesium citrate so yeah I had been using those muscles when I didn’t need to be.

Thank God for Dr. Roberds though! I love doctors that actually listen to you and actually work to help figure things out WITH you, not just for you but WITH you. He was able to give me a shot in my stomach to help the muscles relax and prescribed some medicine that was to help me get in front of this and keep the pain at bay.

Now everything isn’t 100% okay, but Dear Lord do I feel sooo much better! I still have some pains but it’s getting better everyday. I definitely never want to go through this again but I feel like I should say, if you have gut problems, TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR! Don’t wait. Don’t let yourself get to the point where your sitting in pain for weeks on end. Talk to them and figure out the best method for you to help your system run better. It may be as simple as eating a fiber bar once a day, it may be like me and you have to now take two pills a day, drink miralax everyday, and take a probiotic.

Don’t get to my point.

Talk to your doctor, cause I promise your gut health is so so important for how your body runs. How it handles food and gets rid of it. How it effects your physical state and your mental. How is helps you to really be able to do anything. Your gut is more than just where you put food. It’s where your body makes fuel and gives it, so please take care of your fuel system. Take care of yourself!

What To Write About When You Don’t Know What To Write About

Laying here I keep wanting to write to you about Motivation, or Hope, or give you some kind of inspirational words to help you through the day. Honestly I got nothing right now though. I know writers aren’t supposed to tell their readers they have nothing to give them, but really all I have are these words.

I promised myself I would be consistent in my writing though and I would push even when I’ve lost motivation. I promised I wouldn’t loose the confidence I found in myself when I got the courage to start this blog.

So here I am.

Pushing through to make sure I can say, “I did it”, at the end of the day!

And I can!

I don’t know if you will find motivation, or hope, or if it’ll help get you through the day, but these are the words I have for you.

Sometimes having nothing to write about can be a great thing to write about.