What a week...

       Very busy, and filled with good and bad. We started off with my 27 week midwife appointment. (I'm a week off on my appointments, they're a week before most people's) So, I'm now 28 weeks along (as of Friday) and things are going well. I got the glucose test done to see if I have gestational diabetes, and no news is good news, so... I'm thinking I'm good there. I've had a net gain of 13.8 lbs since the beginning of my pregnancy, but I did lose about 5 to start with. Still doing pretty good there though. Hoping that this trend continues, and I don't have as much to take off when he gets here. My blood pressure was good, I measured right about on for 27 weeks, and Jacob's heartbeat was in the 150s, which is right about normal. We're doing well, and I'm officially in the 3rd trimester, with only 12 weeks to go. Wahoo!!!

 

So, here is my 28 week picture, taken this morning. Sorry, I know, I should wear light colored clothes while doing this. 

      That evening, I started dehydrating some apples, to help me with my sugar issues. That was all fine and dandy until I started the cleanup, and started feeding the apple peels through the disposal unit. (Oops) Needless to say, because apparently most people know you aren't supposed to do that, it clogged the pipes. and both kitchen sinks were unusable that evening. I even tried our plunger to fix it, but our plunger is old, and broke on me. Right where the stick attaches to the cup, the rubber broke all the way around, and the stick went right through. All sorts of fun and exciting. (said with sarcasm dripping from my voice) The next morning, our apartment's maintenance guy came out and was able to get it fixed, but it sure made cooking or cleaning very difficult. We had even tried Liquid Plumber, and it didn't work, so we had no use of our sinks.
      I spent much of my time this past week doing various cooking things. I had agreed to bring rolls, pies, and a jello salad to Thanksgiving dinner, but with my problems with exhaustion, and being pregnant, I knew that if I were to try to do all of it Wednesday and Thursday, I would be non-functional and ornery when we were at Thanksgiving, and I didn't want that. So I did what I could to spread it out over multiple days. It worked out really well actually. I love spending time in the kitchen baking, and I've really missed that since I started trying to cut out sugar and refined flours. So, when I wasn't in the kitchen, I spent a bit of time trying to find sugar free dessert recipes, that would actually taste good, and didn't any of the fake sugars, that are so high in chemicals, that to me, they can be called straight-out poison. So, I'm hoping to do a bit more baking over the next few weeks, and get some of those recipes done, and make sure they taste good, so that I can actually do one of the things I love again.
      Thanksgiving was small, but good. My older siblings were both elsewhere for Thanksgiving, so it was my little family, and my 2 younger siblings at my Mom's house for dinner. It was wonderful and relaxed, and we had great fun laughing at the interaction between Billy and Melody, as they sat there and quoted movies the entire time. Nathaniel was even able to get off work a couple hours early, and made it there just in time for dinner! I was so happy about that. The holidays have been mixed emotions, as we're missing a couple people that should be here, so while I had agreed to have Nathaniel work Thanksgiving, (so we'd have Christmas off), as I watched my family around me, I missed him greatly while unsure as to whether he'd be able to make it in time.
      I don't do Black Friday. For one thing, I personally tend to watch sales throughout the year, and so have most (if not all) of my shopping done before then. But more importantly, I think its too crazy. This year there were counts of gunshots and pepper spray of all things! There is no way I'm dragging myself out of bed at 3am (or not going to bed at all) to face that type of thing, just to get a deal that I can find at other times throughout the year, or on "Cyber Monday" in a couple days, without even braving the cold, let alone the dangerous crowds. I did go out, but we needed bananas, and I needed a few more crafty things to finish some gifts, but I don't think going to Costco for bananas, or the fabric store for a sale that I saw just 2-3 weeks ago really count as "Black Friday shopping". Unfortunately, with all the various places I went, and putting up Christmas decorations, and everything else I did, Friday evening wasn't so good, and I ended up zonked on the couch before Jessica even went to bed. (Luckily I have a wonderful husband who put her to bed for me.)

      Saturday started out good, and continued to be good for the majority of it. I got a lot of time to work on the crocheted gifts I'm doing for Christmas, and it looks like I may be able to get done some of what I'd hoped, more so than I'd planned. Yay! We also had a family get-together, pie night, since the older siblings were elsewhere on Thanksgiving. Right up until the end it was fantastic. All of the kids were adorable, (especially when one started talking about how he thought he had heard his toys coming to life in his room, and so it was just like Toy Story) the food was good, the pie was delicious, and things were going good. Right up until the end, which made for a very sour end, and a rough night. I made a comment that hurt one of the members of my family, and based on later conversation, may make it so that they aren't around as often, because they feel judged. I love that person, and all the members of their family, so I really hope it doesn't come to that, but it was rough. I'm still having a hard time with it, because I hate to have people hurting, and more especially because of something I said. (Sorry, I know that's all very vague, but I want to keep their privacy intact.) But anyway, yeah. Lots of good, but unfortunately, some very sharp bad to go with it.

And, here is just a cute picture of Jessica. (I want to end on a good note).  She apparently decided that she missed having a crib, or something, because she decided that her toybox would be more comfortable to take a nap in.