Because I haven't

Haven't blogged, but have intended to. What is the current status with the Petersens? Most of you have the update, but it is fun to read. I will also add pictures. Hmmm, where to start.

Joe. He has his meeting in Atlanta this week. Pray. Then pray some more please. Making lots of cakes and loving it. It is really fun to watch him. He plans to teach all the kids, once they are old enough. I think that is awesome. I will never have to bake a cake again!

Heather (me!). I miss food. My crazy stomach cramping thing is really starting to get old. I have found if I eat no more than about 1 cup of food at any one time, I do pretty well. This is doing great things for my metabolism and I am losing weight. I'm pretty sure it is cheating to get sick and not eat every time I need to lose weight, but it works! Young Womens is crazy, but it always is about this time. Being a mom is as tiring as ever with all the sports, but exciting. My colonoscopy and biopsy were normal. Blah blah. It took 1 nurse, 1 doctor, and 3 anesthesiologist to get the I.V. in. At this point I was going into shock and hyperventilating. So, they put me on oxygen and knocked me out. So much for routine. The bruising was rediculous. Never, ever, ever, let anyone, under any circumstances, put a needle into the inside of your wrist. EVER! PAIN! This is a picture of two of the attempts. There were 6!

April is really starting to get in to softball. She is the youngest on her team, but you wouldn't know it. She is missing friends, but now that summer is here, we are hoping to have more play dates. She is no longer attending 4H meetings, because of some things that happened. She is still planning on entering the fair in August. She is getting entirely too grown up. She told me the other day, she was tired of people telling her wht to do. She knows what to do, just tell her to do it. Umm, o.k.? She is really doing well with piano. She has even started teaching Joe.


Chloe is still Chloe. Need I say more. She takes life as it comes, cries sporadically and laughs a lot. She too is enjoying her softball. Chloe has made it her goal to keep up with Daddy in piano. She is doing well.

Ethan is still recovering from a nice crash with his slide. It left a nice black eye. Ethan insists he won the battle. He was very excited to have a black eye for t-ball pictures and disappointed to see it healing. Ahhh, boys will be boys. I don't have a great picture of the eye, too bad.



Collin broke his baby toes running through the kitchen. Yes, boys will be boys part 2. He keeps slamming it against things and it is crazy swollen. I think I am going to have to put him in shoes round the clock for a while. And his birthday's coming up. Or at least he has been telling me, for 3 months.


David is roly poly and lovin solid foods. He is starting to move around quite a bit and is just about to break through tooth 3. Chews on everything. Crib included. Despite what he may think, we do not consider these things to be acceptable solid foods.


Whew, how is that for an update? Enjoy the pics.

I've been busy

These are the three graduation cakes that it did in the last three days. The eight inched was nothing special except that the recipient was not expecting it. The very green cake was for a nonmber friend of the bishop's. The won it from the YW fundraiser. The last, and best, was for my cousins party. If was funfetti cake with a custard layer and rasberry creme flavored frosting. It was really fun.










- Posted from my iPhone

A job

I wanted to tell you all that I got a job! It's only one hour per week, but I am still very excited about it. I get to help teach a 5th grader English. The pay is good, but I'm more excited about the challenge. Her last teacher was a native Chinese speaker who learned English as a second language and she got explanations in Chinese. Now, all of her explanations will be in English. Her English will improve because she doesn't have the crutch of using Chinese to understand English. The challenge for me is trying to explain things using the English she already knows. Yesterday was my first day and it went well. I can explain most things quite easily, using English explanations, hand motions and the little Chinese I know. I just had one major obstacle. For the life of me I couldn't explain what a law, law firm or lawyer were.

Anyways, just excited, and wanted to share.

Firsts

Another post about Jaime's firsts, only this time, unanticipated and undesired firsts.

Tonight we attended an American style reception to welcome a U.S. Consulate General speaker from Shanghai. We were invited as native English speakers to help the English students practice their conversational English. Many girls wanted to hold our Jaime Lynne, and one lady insisted on holding her while Justin and I ate our American BBQ (yum!). Well, she ended up holding Jaime the entire evening. Most of the time I wasn't even aware of where she was at, since I was engrossed in English conversations with small crowds of people that gathered around me to ask questions. When she finally got back to Justin and I she had stains all over her shirt (from a tomato, no biggie), crumbs all over her face (from a cookie, NOT okay!) and a mosquito bite on her cheek. I kind of freaked out... I thought those stains were from the BBQ and that someone had fed her beef. Not as serious as I had thought, but still she hadn't been allowed flour, sugar or chocolate before tonight. It was hard to handle, but I had dealt with this before. Some ladies in Taiwan gave Jaime her first taste of real food without my knowledge or consent while I was in the temple.

When I got Jaime back in my arms she squirmed and fussed much more than when I had let her go. I chalked it up to the fact that I was just one person who wasn't exciting, as opposed to several Chinese girls gathered around her, all trying to make her smile, giving her toys and food. I don't know what I've gotten myself into.

Soooo Cold!

Ummm...where is SPRING? It is snowing at my house this morning and I am feeling rather glum about it. My kids just walked into the kitchen armed in their coats hats and gloves to go outside. Every half hour or so I peek out the back windows to mourn over my budding and snow covered garden. Here's to hoping it doesn't freeze. It's looking so vunerable. Don't get me wrong...this is Utah and we actually pray for moisture here. I suppose we were just hoping for rain insteasd of snow. Love you all and I'll see most of you in a couple of weeks...yeah!

So cute!

Ok, so Jacob just came up to me to tell me that he loved his birthday. He loved his presents. He loved his food. He loved everything about it! Then, he went back to play in his new sandbox. It was the cutest thing ever, so I just had to share. 4 year olds are SO cute!

Happy.....

Happy Birthday Jacob--4 years old--already! And...Happy Anniversary, Justin and Jodi!
Hope you've all had a great day!

Prompted to Pray

Many years ago, long enough that I was still driving the little white Ford pick up truck, I had a sales call in Albert Lea, Minnesota to renew a contract. When I got up that morning I had a very strong prompting to pray for the Lord's blessings to be with me and prepare the way. Well, I got busy and was running late and rushed out the door. Driving I received the prompting again and told myself that I would pray when I arrived before going on the call. I arrived and rushed in as I was late, forgetting the promptings and my personal promise. Not only did I not get the contract signed, I lost the account. In retrospect, would I have got the contract signed if I had done what was needed and prayed? Not sure, probably not but I will never know what difference it would have made.

Wednesday I was faced with a very difficult situation and was headed to Atlanta to resolve a customer dissatisfaction issue. Again I was rushing and as I sat down to start the car the prompting to pray came very strong. I have learned to listen and immediately stopped and took the time necessary to pray and ask for guidance and Heavenly assistance in my challenges of the day.

The meeting was intense, the customer, certainly very upset and exercised. I however, was able to remain very calm and actually took some actions and used techniques that I had never used before. The result was an agreement that will help us move forward and resolve the issues. Now, the meeting ran long and both my colleague and I had a 13:40 flight. We rushed to turn the car in and arrived at the terminal at 13:05. We were already checked in so we really did have the time we needed. OK, we just were not planning for the fire in the train tunnel. No one was injured but access to and from the outer concourses was halted and we missed our flights. I was fortunate to make the next one and keep my commitments here.

As I had my evening prayers and pondered the events of the day, my testimony of pray was strengthened even more. Have a great weekend and "Err you leave your room this morning..." Love Dad

The mother of all bruises

Well.... Maybe not really, but hurt non the less. And yes...when Heather gone, I always injure myself. Except this time I don't know how.
It extends from the second joint on my thumb and down my wrist.



- Posted from my iPhone

I awoke to an awesome sound

Saturday morning above our camping tent was this.




- Posted from my iPhone

He scored!

One of the little girls on Michael's team did a great job breaking through the defense and taking the ball to the goal. She was only stopped by the goalie who came to kick it away from her but instead they both ended up on the ground. Michael happened to be standing there, so he kicked it in! Yippee! He does a good job of going towards the goal to wait for the pass, this time it paid off! Congrats Michael on your first goal!

Spring

Ummmm, has anyone seen spring? I have been looking for it for three weeks. People keep telling me this is the time, but I just can't seem to find it. We planted a garden with hopes it might draw spring out, but alas we had to cover it to protect from freeze. We started softball practices thinking surely this would work. No, just bitter cold or canceled practices. I hear in other parts of the world people have found it easily. If you have some Spring, would you please send some our way?

Just an update

I thought it was about time I blogged. Marquie down loaded some of the pictures from my camera, so I can even do a picture story. Things have been hectic, but fun at our house. Of course, you all know, Marquie might describe it in other terms. She is taking her AP English test this morning. Diana spent the evening and night with a Mexican exchange student to celebrate Cinco de Mayo (which, by the way, she told us is not Mexican Independence Day, just a celebration of winning a revolution). And, Dad is in Atlanta this week, on the West Coast next week, and in Europe the following week, which is also the week Diana leaves for home...then ya'll are coming to visit us for graduation!

We had a fun week with James and Liz and the boys. It was sad to see them drive off yesterday morning. Michael's baptism was very special, and he bore his testimony to us in family council Sunday evening. And, we had a fun day on Tuesday at the zoo. Also, James and Dad and I attended the All Virginia State Choir performance last Saturday with Marquie. It was not her best big choir experience, but then, it's hard to beat Craig Jessop.

"Your a Good Man Charlie Brown" was fantastic--no really. Marquie was incredible as the twitterpaited (I really have no idea how to spell that) Sally Brown. I've had neighbors stop me on the street to tell me what a great job she did. She pretty much "stole the show", but I do have to say all the cast had great performances. Now we are in rehearsal for "The Sound of Music" that performs on the weekend of the 22nd of May. Marquie's recital is next weekend and she's pretty freaked out about that. And, we have a choir concert on May 30. That should pretty much wrap things up for us with craziness.

Oh yes, Marquie is headed to Johnsburg this weekend for Prom. We finally got her dress taken apart and put back together to her satisfaction. It is lovely--she is lovely. Someday, we'll post pictures from that prom.

I couldn't find baptism pictures, but will post when I do and there is also a picture of JoAnne and Greg and Chelsey's visit.

Random Mind Vomit

My favorite quote from church yesterday was "The Lord has a plan for each of us. But if we knew what it was now we wouldn't like it." Spoken by a man that has just been rejected from all of his publishing agents. I kind of feel like that now, with us waiting in the wings to find out what we'll be doing with our lives this fall. I have faith that it will all work out. Heavenly Father told us (well, Justin) that we will not know the path before us. And boy was he ever speaking the truth!

Justin teaches Sunday School and he's a Godsend to this branch. With 2 years of missionary service and 2 and 1/2 years of MTC teaching fresh under his belt, he really teaches the gospel well. We had a first-time member of our branch comment that Justin should be a motivational speaker because she felt so motivated after he taught. I agree that he is very motivating. I just can't be prouder of him and what a good job he's doing.

We went shopping today, and got a lot. We actually had two heavy shopping days this weekend and it feels...awesome. We got many things that were needed and some that were just wanted, and shopping here doesn't break the bank.

There's a new phenomenon happening with the Chinese ladies. I've had two ladies lately who've kissed Jaime on the lips! It makes me uncomfortable. Also, I gave Jaime to some lady in the store today and totally forgot about her for a few minutes. All the sudden I realized neither Justin or I had her and flipped out, only to find her being passed around amongst the shop attendants.

Another thing that has been on my mind a lot is parenting. It seems so soon that I'll need to know how I'm going to be as a parent: what I'm going to emphasize, how I need to be so patient, how I'm going to show my love, how I'm going to discipline, how I'm going to teach the gospel. I prepared and gave a talk on parenting, talked to people, observed parents, and pondered it a lot. So far, my conclusion is that it's all about love and example. I think that's what it comes down to.