Let me start off by saying I LOVE our house.  I LOVE that we own our house.  Back in California, Mark and I lived in 2 different one bedroom apartments.  The first one was in a great area of Menlo Park, and was wonderful.  Quiet, close to shops, A/C, new, it was pretty nice.  Except for the steep rent check.  In retrospect, we were paying WAY too much for that place, and when we finally realized it, we moved in to our second apartment.  This apartment was not in a great area (we lived literally on the train tracks), no A/C, water/toilet that randomly stopped working, and it was further away from our work.  BUT, we saved almost $1000 a MONTH.  That tells you how much we were paying for our first apartment!

Anyway, when we moved here and were able to buy this house, we discovered all the perks and pitfalls of owning our own house!  We have so much space in our house, and we our free to decorate and paint and do whatever we want to the place!  Plus, there's the potential to increase the value of our house by doing some of the projects we have decided to do.  Another perk... our house is SO quiet.  We can't hear our neighbors conversations through the walls, or car alarms going off on the streets, or trains zooming by our place every 20 minutes!!  Amazing!  And, I never realized how much I would like this aspect of home ownership, but we are really getting to know our neighbors, and they are amazing!!  We have the kindest, most friendly neighbors, and our street is so kid safe that the little neighborhood kids all play outside together.  We haven't been here that long, but we've already been to a few neighborhood BBQs, one neighbor's baby's christening, and a New Year's Party.  Now, only minor downside... not many people our age are home owners, so our neighbors are all quite a bit older than us.  In fact, we are closer in age to some of our neighbor's kids than we are to the parents.  BUT, we love love love it nonetheless!  Another perk of our house (sorry to be bragging, but it's such a beautiful day here and I'm just feeling in a happy mood!) is how close we are to the inlet.  Now we aren't right by the beach per se, but just a few minutes of driving gets us to this big inlet, which is a bit warmer than the ocean, and it's shallow, so a great place for swimming.  Plus, there are no waves and there is a little beach area, which is perfect for the kids in the summer!  We went and had a picnic there last night!

Now, the downside.   There is ALWAYS something to be done.  The larger the house (and our house is by no means LARGE), the more cleaning there is to do on a regular basis.  I feel like I need to vacuum all the time!  And of course we have our large lawn, which needs to be mowed constantly.  And don't get me started on the weeds!!  Those things need to be pulled literally every other day, and that tends to be my job.  BUT, I have such bad allergies, that when I spend time out pulling weeds, I feel miserable for the rest of the day!  So I constantly am putting off weeding, and then our yard is a DISASTER!! If I could, I would just hire someone to come and remove all the weeds, and then I could just do maintenance.  But that's not really a possibility, so I will just have to do it myself.  Boo. 

Also, now that we live in more than 800 square feet (apartment size), our energy bill is outrageous!! And we barely even use our heater or A/C!  We do have a ventilation system that filters the air, so that's on quite a lot (it helps with my allergies so it's worth it), but I think we're pretty good about turning lights off and conserving energy when we can.  Oh well, it is what it is.

Alright, I must go.  There is work to be done!  I need to take advantage of not having a big baby bump yet, because once that comes, I feel like the amount of work I get done gets greatly reduced. :)

Well, Mark and I had high hopes for our backyard, and it's turning out to be a bigger pain than we had anticipated.  We built that mini retaining wall with only a few minor hiccups, and then we moved on to building/extending our patio.  Here's the "before" picture, before we even moved in to our house...

You can see the current patio, and then the little grassy area behind it.  Well, the problem is, that grassy area is pretty much useless and a waste of space.  So we decided to make it into another patio area by putting down some pavers.  Easy enough, right?  Well, the reason that the grassy area is a waste of space is because the people that planned out this yard completely neglected to factor in any sort of drainage system.  And since we live in Wellington, where it rains A LOT, this is a big problem.  So with the grass, when we get any amount of rain, the water just pools there and we get a huge disgusting mud pit that takes weeks of sun to dry up (and weeks of sun in a row is pretty rare here).  So we thought we would change it to a patio space, and then at least we could still use that area when it rains, and our useable backyard space would increase by quite a bit.  Well, obviously, we had to start with the root of the problem, which was the drainage issue...  So there actually was a drainage pipe in place already, it just was not put in properly.  Which led to this...

Mark had to dig up the entire drain (bye bye lawn), slope it properly, and test it out to make sure we're on the right track.  And we're talking digging through clay here, so this is no easy task.  Our backyard looks a mess, but finally we think we have the drainage done correctly, and we can cover it up and start the actual patio... because right now, it looks like this...

We really are trying to get this (and the building of the fence) done before July, and really, it needs to be done before May because that's when the winter weather returns and we get lots and lots of rain, so we need to get this finished.  Hopefully soon (and by soon I mean in a couple of months) I will be able to upload some pictures of the finished product. :)  Pretty soon I'm going to finally upload finished pictures of our decorated house!  Probably a "before and after" kind of thing.  Although that would require us to finish patching up some of the painting!  

While my appetite has returned, and I have been able to start exercising a little more, I wouldn't go as far as to say my energy has returned.  Making it through a full work day is definitely a challenge, and I have been getting more and more headaches as the weeks go by.  But I must say, probably the worst symptom I currently have is not the nausea or headaches, but the fact that I have to get up every 1.5-3 hours at night to pee!!  I don't know if I'm tired because I'm pregnant, or so tired because I wake up between 3 and 5 times EVERY single night to use the bathroom.  Oh what I would give for a full, uninterrupted night's sleep.  I suppose it's preparation for a newborn, yes?

According to some of the books I've been reading, I will definitely be showing by now (or at least gained about 5 lbs), probably needing maternity clothes, and probably would have felt the baby move by now.  So that's a negative for all three.  Not showing, have not gained 5 lbs (but I did gain one!), and haven't felt any sort of fluttering-like movements as of yet.  I have definitely learned not to believe everything I read, or listen to the advice of every well meaning person who wants to offer it to me.

On a more exciting note, only 2 weeks until we find out if we're having a boy or a girl!!  I can't wait!  And then the next day we leave for our wonderful vacation. :)

My appetite, that is.  Finally, I don't feel nauseous, and I even feel hungry more than just once a day.  Today we went to dinner at my in-laws' house, and they made a lovely roast lamb, potatoes, and veggies.  And the the hugest fruit salad for dessert.  I ate more in that one meal than I have eaten since I found out I was pregnant.  Yum yum yum!  It was seriously like I was eating for two, even though it so does not work like that.  I guess we'll have to go over there for dinner more often (especially since I at more green veggies tonight than I've probably eaten in the entire last month combined...oops).  Of course, now that the appetite is back, you know what this means... the weight gain is bound to follow!  I'm going to try my best not to go crazy with the eating though, I hope. :)

I suppose I could wait until my 17 week update to write all this, but I have another good thing to share... I've been able to work out again!  I went for 3 runs in the past 4 days, which is more than I've run in the past 4 weeks, so I'd say I'm doing pretty well.  And I don't feel the need to stop and walk, like I did a couple weeks ago.  In fact, I felt like I could even go faster.  Mark likes to let me know how slowly I have been running by telling me he couldn't possibly count one of MY runs as a workout, so he needs to do something that's actually challenging.  Hmph.  Now I'm not trying to win any races or run a marathon here, but a 20-30 minute run here and there (no matter how slow) will be pretty good for me, I think.  Although don't think for a second that I'm going to be one of those pregnant ladies that runs up until I go into labor.  Yeah right.  Once my belly gets too big, the running shoes are getting put away, and the WALKING shoes will replace them (figuratively of course, since I have, well, only one pair of shoes).  Maybe I'll even take up yoga.  Or swimming.  But not running, nope, not for me I don't think.  I'll keep you updated. :)

Alright, weekend over for us, back to work tomorrow!  Pictures to follow...

...was nice.  All 2 days of it.  We had two days of amazing weather- warm, sunny, very little wind.  I wore shorts and a tank top and was totally comfortable.  Even got a little sun burn.  Well, it has now been raining for 24 hours, and it's raining hard.  It's cold, windy, and apparently 2 days is all the summer weather we're gonna get for now!  Rain is in the forecast for the next few days, at least.    People always ask me when the best time to come visit NZ would be, and I have absolutely no idea.  I probably would've said now, but if you came in January you might be sorely disappointed.  Maybe February is a better bet?  And of course I can't generalize for all of NZ, this is specific to Wellington, which is apparently known for cold windy rainy weather.  It appears it's quite lovely weather up north.  Hopefully it will be like that in 3 weeks when we go on our little vacation. :)

Until then, we'll bundle up in sweats and jackets, armed with umbrellas and hot chocolate, and stay indoors. 

Week 16, here we are!  I was hoping things would be getting better and better as the weeks progressed, but that appears not to be the case.  This week, for some reason, morning sickness returned (boo) and appetite decreased a little.  Maybe next week I'll feel better?  This week baby is almost 5 inches long, about the size of an avocado, or something along those lines.   The other details that I have read about this week are not quite as interesting.  Things like toe nails growing and scalp patterns forming... :)

As for me,  still no weight gain (so still at -2 lbs from pre-pregnancy), and clearly this is due to lack of appetite.  I have been horrible about exercising, although I am trying my best.  I make myself feel better about it since my days at work with the babies involve quite a lot of walking and moving around and lifting/carrying those boys, which is plenty tiring.  That counts as exercise, right?  Plus if I were to exercise too much, I'd probably lose even more weight, and I'm not sure if that would be the best thing in the world at this point (or at least that's what I keep telling myself).   I still don't think I'm showing though, I just sort of feel fat, which I'm not quite sure what that says since I've LOST weight, but we'll just blame it on the pregnancy anyway.  One of the moms I work for told me that she didn't start to really show until she was 25 weeks pregnant!  I don't think it will take that long for me, but really, what do I know?

I've been pretty good about not buying anything baby related since last week.  Not to say that I haven't been looking, but no purchases were made so I'm sticking to my goal of no purchases until after February 12.  

In other news, Mark and I have booked our very first vacation since moving to New Zealand.  We have been trying to plan it for a while, and we figure we better go now while (1) there's sun (2) I'm not enormously pregnant (3) we don't have a baby in tow and (4) my parents offered to pay for it.  So, I searched and searched, and we decided to venture up North to the Bay of Islands, and have a very relaxing, beachy, sunny (fingers crossed) vacation.  We are only going for 3 days, but it will be wonderful!  If you look below at the picture on the right, in the right corner above the trees, you can see 2 tall twin buildings... that's the resort we will be staying at.  YAY!  Right on the beach.  And we're going Feb 13-15 so that's only a few weeks from now, so I won't have to be one of those hugely pregnant ladies in a bikini (not that I would ever be caught wearing a bikini in public while pregnant, oh no no no).

My once huge appetite is now a thing of the past.  I'm left with very few foods I like, and even more foods I HATE now!

Cravings- I wouldn't call it a craving, maybe just a strong food preference...
1. FRUIT! Berries, peaches, nectarines, watermelon, YUM
2. Frozen coke from McDonald's.... don't ask, it's just delicious.
3. Apple juice
4. Chinese food

Things I like to eat now that I didn't like before being pregnant...
1. Tomatoes- but only the little cherry tomatoes.

Things I used to like, but no longer do...
1. Chicken... especially fried, like chicken strips or chicken nuggets. EW.
2. Pizza with anything on it other than just cheese. (i.e. now I will only eat cheese pizza)
3. Pasta, of any kind really.  Yuck.
4. Cereal with soy milk.  This used to be my faaaaaavorite snack.
5. This list really could go on forever, because I now eat very few things that I used to.

Lately I've been living on toast, fruit, juice, and some miscellaneous snacks here and there.  No wonder I haven't been gaining weight... Any day now I'm just waiting for that appetite I used to know and love to come back to me!

(1) He loves me sooooo much.
(2) He works really hard every day, and always comes home happy to see me.
(3) He is willing to go get me certain food items at strange hours... McDonald's on Sunday mornings, random late night outings to the grocery store, Chinese take-out, driving across the city to get Mexican food.  He is very good to me.
(4) He makes me the most perfect ice cream cone you've ever seen!
(5) He is soooo excited about our baby-to-be.  And it makes me very happy.

I could go on, but those are the ones that first come to mind.   Pardon the less than flattering pictures, Mark insisted...

Another week done, still many many to go.  I have nothing really new to report this week.  This could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it... I say it's good!  I have gained 0 lbs (still down 2 pounds from pre-pregnancy), and my appetite is still not what it used to be.  No morning sickness though!  In my opinion, my waist has not changed in size at all since finding out I was pregnant.  Maybe a tiny bit from being bloated, but nothing too noticeable.  I fit in all my clothes (jeans, shorts, everything), and I say the longer I get to wait before buying maternity clothes, the better!

Time does seem to be flying by.  I can't believe we're at 15 weeks already.  And I must say, while when I first found out I was pregnant, I was DYING to get that baby bump, now I think I'm glad I don't have it yet.  I'm sure it will come all in good time, and stick around for much longer than I could have imagined.  So, I'm okay with not looking pregnant just yet.  I hear people start showing anywhere from super early on, to like 25 weeks!  But everyone is different, different body types, height, weight, everything, so who knows when it will happen for me.  I thought since I'm short (5'4") that I would show sooner, but I guess not.  I'll keep you updated.  Especially since most of my friends/family are across the world and will not actually get to see me!

Big things to look forward to: In 3 weeks we will get to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time.  We have SEEN the heartbeat on the ultrasound (160 bpm) but have yet to actually hear it.  We had our first midwife appointment at 10 weeks, and she tried to let us hear the heartbeat but she couldn't find it.  She said it was pretty hit or miss that early on (and I tried desperately not to worry every day until the ultrasound to show me everything was ok).  But anyway, at this next midwife appointment she will try again with the doppler, and I'm sure we'll hear it this time!  And then, one week after that is our big ultrasound, where YES, we WILL be finding out if it's a boy or girl.  I like surprises, but I like knowing and planning much better. :)

I need to start figuring out ways to incorporate pictures on these pregnancy posts.  I just keep writing and forget all about pictures!  Next time, I promise

Okay there were originally only going to be 2 parts to this money thing, BUT, yesterday I found out that I am eligible for FOURTEEN WEEKS of paid maternity leave.  Whaaaaa?  How exciting!  Now it's not as much money as I currently make, but it's pretty darn close, and I just have to fill out this form and I get a nice check each week from the government for 14 weeks!  How sweet of a deal is that?  That can be (a portion of) our first year's contribution to a college savings fund... OR more realistically, it can be a all the diapers and wipes we could possible need for the next 2 years (I hope to God we don't have to actually spend ALL that money on diapers... right?).  And yes, I did decide that there's no way I am doing cloth diapers.  I'm sorry, the kids I nanny are in cloth diapers, and the one baby poops EIGHT TIMES A DAY and I simply cannot handle the cloth diapers, they leak and smell and I get so grossed out cleaning them and ew ew ew ew.  Plus, for some reason, I really can't see Mark changing and dealing with a cloth diaper.  Haha...

Anyway, I digress...  this is the end of "money" talk.  For now.  It's like we won the maternity leave lotto!  It's the little things in life that make me so so happy these days. :0)