Visitors, Ultrasound, Applesauce, Riding...

Life keeps trucking! I am officially HALFWAY done with my pregnancy today!! We had an ultrasound on Friday.

First let's back up to last-last weekend. The Jess's came!! To be more specific, this Jess and this Jess:

We had FUN!!! We spent Friday afternoon playing with Rhya and catching up. Then the party kicked into a higher gear when Shanda, Kylie, Karena, and Jerome arrived. :-) We ate food, talked, laughed, stuff ourselves silly with DQ ice cream cake (thanks to Shanda's b-day!), and played a game. We didn't get to bed until after 11pm and I was pooped. Man, you'd think I was in my mid twenties and pregnant or something. :-)

Mike and Kristina had us all over, including Jodi and Dustin, for a lovely Sat. am brunch! After our food settled we took off for Barn's Bluff. Here's the whole group:

This is the 2nd time we've had the Jess's come and we are looking forward to many more visits!

Back to the ultrasound:
Proof of the upcoming daughter/sister:

Can you see the three lines?

The baby never stopped moving so the doctor had plenty of confirmation of the girl parts. He said that it was tricky to get clear pictures because she was moving so much. Sounds like Rhya #2. Everything looks fine and dandy. My placenta is in the back of my uterus, there is a healthy amount of amniotic fluid, and all of his baby checking turned out fine!

These brownish 3-D pictures look kind of strange in my opinion, but here's her face with her mouth open:

Here's a profile of her fingers and foot by her face:

She looks so human it's hard to believe that she still has twenty weeks left to develop! I've felt her move since 17 weeks, but am looking forward to the 'interactive' stage of pregnancy where I can feel her even more (bigger movements, hiccups, jumps, noises that make her jump, etc) :-) We won't talk about the upcoming waddle walk - relieve oneself every 30 minutes - sore feet stuff. :-)

Moving on to this past Sat:

My wonderful/helpful/game for anything mother and I canned 68 quarts of applesauce this weekend. Only two didn't seal, so I call it a success. Yum. Rhya kept stealing apples from various bushel baskets. She filled up her little shopping cart with some, put, two in Tyah's crate, and took random bites out of lots. 

Dianne F. and a Beasley family I have never met came out to the farm. The oldest boy is intrigued with horses, so Dianne asked if I'd be interested in helping him get a little 'horse' fix. :-) There were four kids total, ranging from 5-11. They were adorable. And fun. And outgoing in a pleasant way. 

I gave mini lessons to all the kids and the horses did great. We stayed in the round pen for a couple of hours and then I took the oldest on a trail ride. He was so exuberant about everything and had tons of interesting tidbits on horse knowledge. We cantered up a hill but in his eyes we were wildly galloping. We barged through some brush and he viewed it as a daring charge. :-) We crossed a steep embankment I looked back to see his eyes huge with a mix of slight fear but overall excitement. :-)  He somehow stayed on Tauntsie the whole time. I was wondering how he was doing, and towards the end he said, "MAN my legs hurt!!" :-) Too bad I didn't get any pictures, and somehow Shutterfly's October folder is still bursting with pictures. It's not full yet, either. There will be cozy little Tigger Trick or Treating tonight. :-)