Home, is this a quiet where you should be alone.

Finally, I broke back into baking today. It feels great.

For the past two - maybe three - months I haven't felt like doing much of anything around the house. I load the dishwasher every couple days, I vaccuum when I absolutely have to and I do laundry once a week. Other than that, the nausea/vomitting/fatigue of the first trimester really wore me out, and housework (and baking) took the backburner.

Finally in the past week or two, I've gotten some of my energy back. I don't feel like I have to sleep 12 or 14 (or more) hours every day anymore. And I have desire and motivation to clean, cook and bake. Yay!

I've been promising my husband (and myself) brownies for the past few days, so today after work, I finally made them. Then I was still in the mood to bake, so I made mini Oreo cheesecake cups, as well. Mmm, we will be enjoying these delicious treats for the week, at least!

In other news, my belly has definitely popped now. I'm almost 17 weeks, and here are my last few "bump" pics:

13 weeks:


15 weeks:


16 weeks:


Two weeks til our next appointment, and probably about one week after that will be when we find out if we're having a little girl or boy! We can't wait.

It's kind of weird (and nice) that I'm finally feeling like myself again. Besides my slowly growing belly, I feel a lot more "normal" now. Much less nausea and hardly any throwing up, eating normally again (though still far more frequently) and I finally have some energy again. This weekend was great. I managed to clean the kitchen completely, as well as the living room. Paul managed to fix my vacuum, which has been out of commission for a couple months now. It was apparently just clogged (in the hose). Either way, I vacuumed the entire house, and it felt awesome.

We also finally transferred the dogs' crates to the office, out of the "baby room". Now the "baby room" is empty, other than the bunk beds that are used when we have guests spend the night, and a dresser. The dresser is an old one, that Paul is going to sand down and re-paint, and we'll also upgrade the handles. It will (hopefully) be good as new, for the baby's clothes. Oh, something else also now resides in the baby room. We bought it on the weekend and Paul couldn't wait to get it put together (a little early, honey, don't you think?).



It's our dream stroller, the Maxi-Cosi Foray, that we found on sale at Babys R Us for half price. We both love it, me especially because it goes along with my "plan".

I am not a big fan of "travel system" strollers, like this one:



To me, they are bulky and, while I'm sure convienent, just not my style. Instead, we will get a convertible car seat, which will stay in the car at all times, and be in use from newborn all the way up to toddler, and it also converts to a booster seat for older kids. This is the one I'm eyeing up currently:



I (we) plan to "wear" the baby as often as possible. The stroller will be for long walks, afternoons at the mall, etc. Otherwise, baby will go in the carseat and then be transfered into a sling, wrap, baby carrier of some sort. Surprisingly, Paul is looking forward to this, as well. My mom bought me this sling for Christmas (though mine is green and white):



And I'm also a big fan of this one, the Ergo baby carrier:



Wow, okay, that was a pretty long "baby stuff post" that I wasn't even planning on doing. Oh well. It was kind of fun.

I'm off to have a snack and play with the pups for a bit until Paul gets home. Mmm, veggie taco salad for dinner tonight. I'm so glad to have my usual appetite back!

And our lives will be forever changed.

Wow. Okay, so it was brought to my attention that I hadn't blogged since November. I feel horrible about this - I never meant to stop at all.

Not that it's an excuse, per se, but I've been sick, nauseous, tired and lazy for the last two months. Why, you ask? Well, because I'm pregnant! We found out back at the end of November, but only just "came out" about it on facebook, ie, everyone, yesterday. We had my second appointment with the midwife and we heard the baby's heartbeat! It definitely makes it feel more real now, and the fact that my ultrasound/when we find out the sex of the baby is only five weeks away is insane! We are so excited and have recieved so much love from family and friends, we were completely overwhelmed. This baby is going to be SO loved.

To rewind a couple of weeks... we had a great Christmas! We loved having my Mom here with us for a week, as well as my brother and his girlfriend were here for five days. New Years was good too - quiet, but still nice.

Also, I got switched to a new, way better shift at work, since telling them I am pregnant. I used to work mostly nights, 5pm to 11pm approx., sometimes until 1am. My new shift is 11am to 5pm - it's amazing. Besides the fact that the bus ride to work makes me super nauseous and I usually get sick when I first get there, I love working days! I'll hopefully be staying on this shift until I go on maternity leave, in June.

Now I'm off to get caught up on other blogs, as well as do more research on strollers and car seats. :D