Don't Ask Me How I Got it All Back on the Plane!

I just got back last night from an AWESOME trip to Arizona where I got to spend some time with my parents and my brother. We had a great time shopping, shopping and shopping for baby stuff. (And, by "we" I mean my mom and me!) Alright, we also did some other stuff, like eat at Buffalo Wild Wings, see the new 007 movie, attend a Hee Haw show (the equivalent of waterboarding torture), make a baby blanket (to be blogged about later) and have a delicious Thanksgiving dinner together!

Mom and I (and we even convinced my brother to go with us a couple times) got a TON of baby clothes for our little Nutter Butter last weekend! Mom and I started off at a craft show at their church and then headed to the mall and checked out a couple baby stores and Pottery Barn Kids where I found a cute baby quilt on sale, but didn't end up getting. We ended up randomly going into a store that was going out of business and all of the Carter's clothes were 40% off! We just couldn't resist a sale like that. We got so many cute outfits and blankets. (For all you ultrasound doubters, many of them are pretty gender neutral and would be just as cute if she turns out to be a he!)

On Saturday, Mom and I begged Ryan to take us to Mesa with his iphone GPS to a couple baby boutiques to look at bedding. I was pretty set in my mind that I wanted to go with pink and chocolate brown (or as Dave would say "our wedding colors" even though our wedding colors did NOT have pink in them at all!). I also didn't plan on buying anything...just looking. The first place we went was just pink overload. They had every shade of pink with frills and ruffles and it was all SO NOT ME! Not to mention, the cute 4-piece bedding sets were all around $500! I couldn't believe it. We went to another store and found some stuff that was kind of cute. The sales lady was extremely helpful and told me about how they could custom design bedding if we didn't find anything that we liked. A custom designed set for TWO pieces started out at $550. Sorry folks, but there is just too much stuff to buy for a baby and spending that much money on bedding was just something I couldn't justify...no matter how cute it was!

Mom and I went to a back wall in the store that was selling Carter's brand bumpers and crib sheets and bed skirts. They were all around $30 each. I told Mom that my plan was to get a pink bumper, a pink and white striped bed skirt, and a cute pink or chocolate brown sheet and be done with it. That night, I had dreams of baby clothes and baby bedding and woke up at 5:45 thinking how the cute polka dot baby quilt from PB Kids would tie in the bedding perfectly. When Mom finally woke up, I told her my plan and begged her to go back to the mall when it opened.

We headed in to PB Kids and I grabbed the quilt. Well, then we started grabbing more quilts and looking at how cute they were. We found the cutest one ever that was pale green and yellow and had cute little fuzzy bunnies and sheep and ducks on it. When we opened it up and looked at the whole quilt, Mom said, "Amanda, it reminds me of your baby quilt." (The baby quilt I slept with all the way through college that is now literally held together by threads.) Well, that sold me...and it turned out that the bumper and bed skirt were also there and they were all on sale! I found 3 different crib sheets that would match and decided that we were going to go with it! If David didn't like it, we could always take it back.

So, Mom and I checked out and when the girl rang it up, we found out that it was on sale even more. I ended up getting $300 worth of adorable bedding for about $120! Mom and I were on such a high from our shopping, it was ridiculous. I came home and added up all of our purchases and what we should have spent and I realized that I saved 56% overall. So, my explanation to David was that I saved MORE than I spent! You can't beat it.

I had to borrow a small carry-on bag to put all the clothes in and then somehow managed to fit all of the bedding and other things I had purchased in my big bag. There was no way I could leave any of the stuff behind!

I showed David all of the goodies I got and he was such a trooper about it. I know guys don't get as excited about all of that (proven by my dad and brother this weekend when my brother secretly un-paused and muted the football game behind me and watched it the entire time I was showing them all of our purchases), but he was really great about showing some excitement! And, he LOVED the bedding.

I'll post some pictures sometime in the future when we get the nursery all put together, but that will be a few months down the road! We meet with the contractor tomorrow night to see his plans for putting up french doors and enclosing the living room/den and converting it to a nursery! We definitely have some work to do in the next five months!

All of the clothes, blankets and bedding laid out on Mom's king-sized bed! (Some of them are gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Cooper and Uncle Ryan.)

Sorry Grandpa Michelson, looks like Peanut is going to be a CNN fan!

The CNN shirts were gifts from my brother. When I broke the news to him that we were pregnant, I told him that he would have to see if the CNN store sold onesies. He said, "Oh yeah, for sure......what's a onesie??" A big thank you to Hala for helping him pick the shirts and bib out! He also got Peanut a little stuffed lamb that can be attached to the crib and plays calming sounds like the ocean or the mother's heartbeat. After we got the bedding, we realized how perfect the little lamb would be with it!

So, a big thanks to my family for putting up with the baby frenzy this weekend! I had such a great time getting to hang out with you all. Thanks again, Ryan, for driving us around on Saturday. I'm glad you had your iphone to entertain you! We can't wait to see you guys at Christmas!