And the verdict is....

      Sorry, I know, I made you wait an extra day. I got home from church yesterday, after spending an hour and a half helping the primary kids learn the program, and I was just wanting to sit and relax. So I didn't write. But I am now! ;)
      So, Monday night we had the ultrasound, and the verdict is....

Baby profile.

      A Monkey? No, but that's what Nathaniel said. They showed us the profile, and I said "it looks like..." and Nathaniel cut me off with "a monkey?" No. I'd been going to say "they're puckering out their lips." Silly Nathaniel. Though, knowing the McBride tendency for climbing, monkey may fit a bit. ;)

Baby face.

       No, I'm not going to post the picture of the gender reveal, because I find no need, but we are having another little boy. Yay! We're excited. So, in late February (or early March) we will be welcoming little Timothy John McBride.

       Then, on Tuesday, Nathaniel got notified that there was a job offer being prepared for him from the company he'd been interviewing with. Yay! The COO is out of town, so they have to wait for him to be back and sign it before they can officially send it to him, but it is looking extremely hopeful. Hopefully that should be at the beginning of this week, but I guess we'll see when it comes.

Marshmallow mummies.

        We didn't do quite as many crafts this week, because I was being ornery, and because Jessica kept pushing my buttons. But, we still had some fun. We used mini marshmallows to make a mummy, which she was able to do pretty much entirely by herself. We also started making some yarn spider sacs (for Halloween decorations), but we haven't finished them yet, and I didn't get any pictures.

Mixing cookies for her preschool class. Gotta bring treats for her birthday.

       Then, on Tuesday we made cookies. Jessica's birthday was on Wednesday, and so we wanted to have her bring treats to share with her class, and I figured it would just be much better if she also helped make the treats. So we had fun with that.

And I was even brave enough to let her help me put the cookie dough on the cookie sheets.

Happy 4th Birthday little miss! Here she is with her special birthday cake pancakes.

     I started a tradition last year to have her have birthday cake pancakes for breakfast on her birthday. I will do this for Jacob, and future kids too, but seeing as Jacob is barely old enough really to be eating the pancakes, he didn't get them on his first birthday. Jessica however, loves them.

And using the birthday present from Grandma Hiatt. She LOVES painting in her book.

       We also got to go visit Grandma on Jessica's birthday, and she got some really cool presents. Her favorite seems to be the "painting book". Its a paint with water book, which makes it so I don't have to worry about mess as much, so its really nice.

Last minute change of mind to want a monkey birthday cake. I think I did pretty good.

      Saturday we had her birthday party. Sadly, the day that I chose seemed to be a bad day for many people, so it wasn't a very large turnout, but Jessica had fun, so that's what's important.

Blowing out the candles.

Cake and Ice cream with friends.

      And last, but not least, my favorite thing from her birthday was her dress that I made. It turned out so very cute. Sadly, its also a tad bit too short, so I'll have to do a bit of an adjustment to get it to be more wearable, and I need to put in a different zipper, because its really hard to get the dress on, though once its on, it fits perfectly.

Adorable red dress, just a tad bit too short, fixable.

Tired

      I look back over this past week, and tired is basically all I really remember. Luckily, I've gotten good at writing things down as they occur, on a little sticky note (on my phone) to remind me of what to write about on here. I blame the kiddos. (The 2 already here, and the one in the process) I blame them both for the tired and for the not remembering. ;) Anyway, with the look at the details, it looks like we did lots of crafts here this week. Both with the kiddos, and by myself. Its coming up on Christmas (yes, I know, a couple months. But for a crafter, that is way too close.)
     So yeah, anyway, here's what we did this week...

Painting, yes in their pajamas under my old t-shirts

 I am trying to have Jessica do themed (so, Halloween) activities every day. It isn't working, but we get a lot of them at least. In this one, we were making black cats out of paper plates. But first, the plate had to be black, so it required paint. I thought it would be fun to have Jacob included...yeah... as soon as the paintbrush went into his mouth, he was done.

 

 

Red Dress

So, Jessica has been begging for months to have a "red dress". So I decided that making her one for her birthday would be a great idea. So, this was the finished product, which I finished... on Tuesday? I realized after the fact, that with her birthday in October, the little flutter sleeves may not have been the best idea, but we'll get her a little white cardigan to go over the top of it, and it should be fine then. 

This is Jessica's "smile". At least I took out the red eyes, it looked almost demonic before. 

        Another craft we did this week was to make pumpkins out of yarn. The instructions I found had us cover a balloon in glue, and then wrap it in yarn, I don't think it worked very well, it was almost impossible to get the yarn off the balloon, and have it retain shape. But it did work. And it made Jessica happy, and hey, messy play. I'm working on it. Messy play is not my strong point, but I am getting to the point where I can do some controlled-messy play.

"I'm not as think as you drunk I am."

       Anytime he sees thee flash of the camera, Jacob insists on getting his picture taken. Out of the 5 I took, this one looked the least drugged/drunk. Plus it had his huge grin. 

Deciding on pumpkins?

      For our last Halloween activity this week, Jessica and Jacob got to pick out pumpkins which will then allow us 2 more activities in the coming weeks. :D

Jacob, after deciding (on the one directly in front of him) trying not to be blinded by the sunlight.

Jessica-sized apron.

     Jessica has also been wanting an apron for a while, and since she keeps using my favorite one whenever I (rarely) let her help me in the kitchen, I figured birthday was a great time for that too! Yay for birthdays! Now I just hope it fits, seeing as my model was asleep when I made it. ;)

      Also this week, Nathaniel has had a first and second interview with a company, and it is looking fairly promising. So, I'm hoping for good news there this next week. It would be awesome.
      And I know, you're probably all looking for information on whether we're having a boy or a girl, since I'm over 20 weeks now. Sorry, still no ultrasound. But its scheduled! We will have our 20-week (okay almost 22) ultrasound tomorrow night! YAY! So next week it will all be revealed.

20 weeks!

     Yup, I have officially passed the halfway point in my pregnancy and am over 20 weeks along! Yay! No, I don't have the answer to your question yet. I haven't even had my 20-week appointment, let alone the ultrasound. I'll meet with the midwife on Thursday, and she'll give me a list of their recommended ultrasound techs, at which point I'll call one of them to get an appointment set up for the ultrasound. And yes, we do plan on finding out the gender, and yes, we do plan on telling people, so don't worry. ;)

Here's me at 20 weeks. Yup, I get fairly big, fairly fast. It has slowed down though, I'm not terribly much bigger than I was at 16 weeks. 

     This past week was really a bit rough. We tried all through the beginning of the week to get me a new phone. Mine is having... struggles. It keeps doing things I don't tell it to do, instead of the things I do. So we'd planned on switching me over to Nathaniel's old phone. Got everything set up, and suddenly, we weren't able to activate the phone! But they'd already taken my phone number from my carrier, so now my phone number was in limbo, and neither phone worked. Grr. Nathaniel spent almost all day Monday and Tuesday working on it. By Wednesday morning, when it still wasn't working, we just switched me back to my old phone, and will try a different method at the end of this billing month for me. Too much hassle so far.
      For some reason, I was struggling with anger a lot this week too, so instead of taking it out on the kids too much, I spent the week knitting, and Sunday  morning I finally finished my sweater! I was so excited. I'd been really wanting to knit myself a sweater this winter, but I wanted to make sure that with me getting to be 9 months pregnant during the coldest part of the year I would be able to have some growing room in the sweater. (Without stretching it out) So, when I found the pattern for this sweater, I thought it was perfect!

Super-comfy, super warm, and since it's made with bulky yarn, super fast. And I didn't think it had anything too difficult either. (I didn't see the cables, which I've never done, until I was about halfway through with it.) And then I found some super cheap, super soft bulky yarn, in my favorite purple (that I often get compliments while I'm wearing it)
     So, I knitted it up, and here it is!

Finished sweater.

Close up on the detail work. Cables at the raglan sleeve attachment. Gorgeous, and not as difficult as I may have thought.

And here I am wearing it. 

     Sadly I don't think it looks quite as good on me. Not bad, but not the best either. I think partially because of the haircut, and partially because of the pregnant belly, it wasn't terribly flattering. However, as I said, it is super-warm, so I doubt I'll be wearing it until closer to late December or January, at which point my belly will stick out far enough to show tons, which will make it a little better on the flattery part. So, still pretty excited about it. And hey! I finished a sweater! Now I just need to  get back to work on the Christmas and birthday gifts I've been neglecting. ;)

More roller coasters

     Well, lots going on these past 2 weeks. Most of it was very good, some of it was very sad. I didn't write last week because we were all in a very emotional state. I'm going to write about that all first, so that I can then finish up with all the happy stuff.
      Last Saturday morning my brother's wife had their baby a few months early. (I don't know the exact weeks, but she was due in January) Monday morning we found out that little Zoey hadn't made it. So this week was really rough as we prepared for and had her funeral. She was a perfect, beautiful little angel. She had very long thin fingers, and her nose was just perfectly shaped. Very, very beautiful. One of my nieces said it best, "she looks like a doll, only she's real". What was also interesting (to me) was my son's face during everything. He would look around at everyone crying, and then look at me concerned and confused. He could tell everyone was sad, but his eyes were seeming to say "Why are you sad? She's right here with us still, right there, next to Grandpa." So yeah, it has been a rough week for the Hiatt side of my family.
      Now back to the happy stuff, and cute stories/pictures. So, first of all, Jacob has started semi-talking. We've heard a few words, but are still in the "struggling to get him to repeat them" stage. He has said "mama" a couple times, and even some where it seems he's calling for me. He then, when I went in to wake him up so we could pick up Nathaniel from work, repeated "papa" back to me. I'd said "come on bud, lets go get Papa." He then said "pa-pa". And he has since said it at times when it sounds like he's calling for Papa. More recently, he has now said "ball". And that one was more distinct. We were getting ready to take Jessica to preschool, and he held up a ball to show me and said "ba". He will even do the same if we point to a ball in a book.

Jessica loves reading, and Jacob is starting to love listening, so Jessica will often "read" (recite) to him.

Jessica's "bridge"

 Nathaniel will often play legos with Jessica and Jacob, and he started building the Tron bridges, so she started imitating them. So, despite having never seen Tron, she's building bridges like them.

I love when they play nicely together. 

They do sure both love to play with the legos.
      Let's see, more stories. Last week, it started snowing in the mountains. Jessica's preschool teacher had told them what the weatherman said, so she was extremely excited when it actually happened. And, surprisingly, though I don't much like the bitter cold winters that we get here in Utah, I was excited for the cooler weather of fall as well. And I have been loving it. As I said, not the bitter cold, so not the really windy, much colder days, but I love being able to wear my boots and sweaters and jackets. I like my fall wardrobe much better than any other. ;)
     Last week also started looking up for my schooling. I'm into the home stretch, I've got 9 weeks left of class (with 1 week off in there for Thanksgiving) and I have finally started getting some clinicals. Its starting to look like I may actually be able to reach my goals and become a facilitator. Yay! I had been getting really worried, so its nice to have that ease a bit.
     Thursday evening we finally put up Halloween decorations, and you should have seen Jessica. She was thrilled. I also allowed her to help put up some things, so that was a good activity for her. I'm trying to get it to where we do some sort of special activity every day, preferably with a monthly theme, to get her excited about various things. Especially as we're heading into the holidays. And, because this is me, and this is where my strengths are, most of them are crafts.

October 3rd: Halloween Carousel

 Last year, during after-Halloween clearance, I found a Halloween Carousel kit, so we put it together. Jessica obviously loved it, and I let her dictate where to put anything decorative. However, I was less than impressed with the stickiness of their adhesive, so I pulled out the glue and my scrapbooking sticky dots. Much better. And Jacob has to be in pictures.

October 4th: Halloween countdown chain.

 I cut the strips and the tape, and I showed her how to make the first ring, but after that she chose which color to do next, and put it all together herself. I was actually quite impressed that she did it after seeing it once.

Jacob cheese.

And again, if Jacob sees me pull out the camera and take a picture, he insists. There must be one of him. And besides, who can say "no" to that face wanting a picture?