It's almost time

Not for the baby, for our vacation!! Markus and I leave late next week for our Caribbean cruise. I've been doing some planning and packing, made the requisite trip to Target to stock up on travel necessities (and more, as usual), and starting the packing list. I had to buy some new clothing, and some new bathing suits. I've been pleased with my pregnancy weight gain - only 5 pounds so far and I'm 5.5 months along. I was thrilled to discover that I really just needed new bathing suit tops, since I'm more "top heavy" (shall we say...this is a family blog after all) than usual. My mother will be dismayed to read that I bought not one, but two!!, bikinis! I figure that my body could look a lot worse, and the one pieces don't really do my figure any favors. I'll have to take a nice bikini shot and frame it for my mom. :-)

I did some last minute ordering online last night; snorkel gear is coming our way early next week. I decided to order it after thinking about the fact that rental equipment would be in other peoples' mouths (the snorkel would, anyway). I figure we'll be on different beaches or on snorkel tours for 6-8 days so if we use our snorkel gear just twice each, they'll pay for themselves. I bought an underwater camera, too, in case we see cool fish! We probably won't load pictures while we're sailing, but I'll post our photo albums after we return.

We're in a post-holiday/pre-3rd trimester lull right now. After we return from vacation, we'll do more serious baby shopping for furniture, the stroller we want (it takes 9-12 weeks because they're custom made), and the bigger items. We do have a car seat, courtesy of a Christmas delivery at Pop-Pop and (Name TBD) Stapleton's house. Speaking of which, please pass along any grandmother name suggestions for my mom. We already have lots of Mom-Moms in our family, Markus' mom will be Grammy, and Grandma doesn't fit my mom. We found some funny ones, like Momma D, Diva D (my mom's name is Debbie) but are always on the lookout for a good grandmother name. Do send your suggestions along if you have any!

I'll be 6 months along when we return, I can't believe it! The morning after our return we have our next ultrasound (our 3rd one, I love seeing the baby). In big baby news in our world, I felt the baby move for the first time last Thursday night. It felt like the inside of my stomach was flicked by someone's finger. Then, last night I felt movement again so I decided to play with the baby. I would push and press my stomach and I felt movement 3-4 times. So cute! We're also all booked for our baby classes - pediatrician night, getting ready for baby class, childbirth classes, and breastfeeding classes for me. Those all take place in late March and April; plus, after our return and I'm in my 6th month, I'll start bi-weekly checkups. It's amazing how quickly the calendar fills up!

The house is fine, thankfully. We painted our hallways over the last two weekends and are glad that's finished. That was the final remaining painting project in the house - we've now repainted every room in our house! The walls look so nice and fresh now that the scratches and scrapes from moving in are covered up. We took the opportunity to move around some artwork and change things up a little in terms of our decorating.

Not much else to report right now. I'm in Indy next week, come home for a day of appointments, and then we leave for vacation so don't look for any posts until after we return. Oh, and don't worry - I'll spare the general viewing public the shots of me in a bathing suit. :-)