What a week... #2

     So, yeah, I know I just recently posted with this title, hence the #2, but my goodness!  It was a very busy week, mainly because of getting everything ready for Christmas, but it was also eventful otherwise. I spent a LARGE majority of my time finishing up gifts for Christmas, seeing as I made almost all of them. But that was not the only thing going on.
      Monday I had my midwife appointment at 31 weeks. (I'm a bit off, they usually have it on 30, 32, 34, etc. but I started on weeks 13, instead of week 12, so we're off by a week) But since everything has been normal so far, and everything was normal with Jessica the whole way through, they're not too worried about it. Anyway, everything looked normal. I've gained 20 pounds since the beginning of my pregnancy, so that's not too bad. My blood pressure is good, I'm measuring exactly right on for being 31 weeks, and Jacob's heartbeat sounds good. Everything is going well, my blood test came back that while I do not have gestational diabetes, I do have slight (very slight) anemia, so I get to take iron supplements. My midwife earned major points though. I had Jessica with me, and when the midwife came into the room, and I got up on the table to be measured, Jessica backed against the wall, and looked very worried, if not quite scared. The midwife started talking to her, and asking her if she wanted to "push the button", holding the Doppler out to her. She allowed/convinced Jessica to hold the little receiver portion, and push the button to turn it on so we could hear Jacob's heartbeat, and then push the button again to turn it off. Big, big points in my book. And we scheduled my next appointment for 2 weeks out. They're getting closer! YAY! that means I'm getting closer. It's just one more of the nice, visible signs that the pregnancy is actually winding down. So, here is my 32 week picture... taken Christmas morning, so yes, those are my pajamas I'm in, the new ones I made for Christmas Eve.

 

And Yay! My photo-editing software is working again, so the picture is a lot more decent. As good as it really can be using a camera phone and a mirror to get the picture. 

       So, as I said, I spent a lot of the week working on Christmas gifts. On Monday I still had 8 to finish! It was crazy! Luckily, I did finish one on Monday, but then I didn't finish any more until Wednesday when I went to my Mom's house, where I finished 4 of them!. That was fantastic. It left me with only 3 to finish in 3 days. I was quite happy with that, and started believing that I actually could finish them in time. However, the bigger thing that happened at my Mom's was Jessica's first haircut. She didn't cut it very much, just a trim to even up the ends, and then give her some bangs, so her hair wasn't in her eyes quite so much. So, obviously, pictures describe it better than words, so here those are. 

 

These first 2 are cutting the bangs, as you can see, she did really well with the haircut. I was a little worried. 

 

The entire time, she never seemed to have any problems with Grandma cutting her hair. I guess to her it just felt like Grandma kept brushing her hair. However, we did run into a problem. Jessica's hair is so fine, it wasn't cutting very easily. It would literally slide out of the scissors, and these are super-sharp hair-cutting scissors. I've never seen that happen before (though I admit I don't have much experience). 

 

These last 3 are just her looking in the mirror, and showing off/modeling her new haircut. So very cute. 

       

      Wednesday evening, Oscar and Carley (Nathaniel's brother and his wife) came into town, so we also went over to visit them. The next 3 days were extremely hectic for me, and I just kept getting more and more tired, as I attempted to finish my 2 biggest gifts. I also needed to make a few more baked goodies for my dad's gift, but that wasn't a worry to me. I knew it would take me about an hour of actual "labor" to do that. My body was sputtering to a halt however, because I'd been doing so much for so many weeks to get everything done. Luckily, my brain was able to keep me going through Christmas morning. (Unfortunately, not all of Christmas though).

       Christmas Eve we have some traditions. We have the (fairly common) tradition of opening 1 gift on Christmas Eve, and it is pajamas (that I have hopefully made) and an ornament. Our kids at least will get an ornament every year, and I will try to either have it be one they have picked or something that relates to the year. That way, when they get older and leave home, they at least have 18 (or more) nicer ornaments that have some sort of meaning. Nathaniel and I will hopefully get one, but it isn't as important. We then read stories. (4 specific stories, and then 1 picked by each child). This year, we invited some of our nieces and nephews over to join us for the stories. Melindae took us up on the offer, and Amara and Jamie (siblings) brought over Taylor and Sable. Unfortunately, I was running late, and didn't get Jessica's pj's open before they got here, so we had to open a gift in front of them (which I felt was rude, but I wanted it to happen before the stories). So, we opened her gift, and she hung her ornament on the tree. (A little stuffed, almost looks quilted, dog that she picked out.) Then we read our 7 stories (3 kids there) and Taylor and Sable had a treat. Unfortunately, after the left, Jessica didn't sleep very well. (It took her 3-4 hours to fall asleep) Oh well. I guess she could feel the excitement. So, here are the pictures related to all of that.

 

These 2 are Jessica opening her gift, but unfortunately she was shaking the dog too much, so you can't see it very well.

 

 

These 2 are to showcase her pajamas that I made. The only decent picture I got (as far as quality goes) had Nathaniel with a funny look on his face, but luckily (due to photo-editing software working again) I was able to lighten the lower one to the point where it can be enjoyed, even though the quality is not very high.

 

 

 This shows what our tree looked like Christmas morning. So beautiful! And so much giving. I love being able to focus on giving, so that is one of my favorite parts of Christmas.

 

Here are Nathaniel and Jessica next to our tree. I love the little scrunched look on her face, and this shows not only Jessica's pjs (adjusted so she doesn't trip and fall), but it also shows the pajama pants I was able to make for Nathaniel. You've already seen my Christmas pjs, because I'm wearing them in the pregnancy photo at the beginning of the post. So, that was my crazy week, and hopefully I'll get another post today, with Christmas morning/all day pictures, and cute stories in it.