Kung Fu Girl!

Tonight we had mashed potatoes for dinner. I heard the girls laughing so I looked over and Wynnie had rolled all her potatoes into little balls. I listened to them and heard Wynnie calling Hannah "Master" so I went over and asked them what they were doing.

Turns out Wynnie was making her own dumplings so she could be like Kung Fu Panda...which is her current fav movie! She asks me every time we eat if we can get some "tooth picks" (Chop sticks) so she can eat like China people do! The other day Bruce told her the movie was scary and she told him "No it's not it's good...it teaches you how to fight!"

A day out with the kids!

Today we ventured out to see a movie! We called up Holly and her kids, Mechelle and the boys, and grandma and met down at the Junction to see The Tale of Despereaux! Back in August the girls and I read the book and absolutely LOVED it! When we found out they were turning the book into a movie we were so excited to see it! The girls talk about it all the time! Hannah actually thought we had missed our opportunity to see it because on the radio she heard an ad and it said "The Tale of Despereaux in theaters this Friday" so on Saturday she got all sad and said "Mom, we missed our chance to see Despereaux...it was in theaters Friday, not today!" I explained to her that it was still in theaters and that we would go see it soon. Well, today was the day! I decided we didn't have any other plans and the girls needed a little cheering up (sadness fell over our home last night as the girls learned that Grandma and Grandpa Peterson weren't able to make it up for Christmas!)

The movie was really good (I still liked the book better, but isn't that how it always is?) It was a cute show! The girls really enjoyed it and the message of the movie was great! I would recommend the movie (and the book) well worth seeing (and reading) although it's kind-of annoying to me how they make the rodents in these movies (and books) so dang cute when in reality rodents are EVIL, PURE EVIL!!!!

Art Lessons

Today through the magic of technology Hannah was able to enjoy an art lesson with her Grandma Nancy! Jeremy's mom is a wonderful artist! She is a children's book illustrator and has amazing talent. Hannah has been blessed with this talent as well (thank you genetics!) and she is so excited to have her grandma teach her.
Ever since Hannah was little whenever Nancy is in town all Hannah wants to do is watch her draw and Hannah has been able to pick up what she sees BUT Nancy and Gary don't come into town nearly enough...hint, hint :) Anyway, now we have a web cam so even though Nancy is in Texas they can still see each other over the computer and Hannah can get lessons from her grandma--which I think is awesome!

She had so much fun today! Jeremy said they were on the computer for over an hour and Hannah has talked about it all night! She did some cute holiday drawings:











Hannah already asked me if we could get her a special book to put all of the drawings that she does with her grandma (great idea) so we will be heading out tomorrow to pick one up!

Here's a little clip from the lesson:

Nutcracker Ballet

Christie, Jeremy's campaign manager, called Hannah earlier this week and asked her if she wanted to go to the ballet. Of course Hannah said Yes so Christie sent us four tickets! Later in the week the girls got a package (from Christie) with a nutcracker book and cd in it. Hannah immediately read the book and we have been listening to the cd non-stop! The girls love to dance around the house to the music! Hannah is good at giving them directions "This is the land of sweets" or "This is the dance of the snow princess" and whenever they hear Jeremy they run and hide because he is the Mouse King! It is so cute!

Today we got to go see the ballet! The girls have been so excited all week and today I thought they might burst! They got to wear their "fancy" dresses which made them happy--they love to dress up! We went to the Egyptian theater and the ballet did not disappoint! Watching the girls faces was the best part! They loved every minute of it! We had great seats (we sat on the fourth row) and were able to see every detail! The costumes were amazing. At intermission we took the girls up and showed them where the orchestra sat--it was fun for them to see them all under the stage! This was the first time any of us had seen the Nutcracker and we all enjoyed it--yes, even Jeremy!

When the ballet was over the girls left the theater dancing--and haven't stopped! They will remember this for a long time! It was a great day--Thanks Christie!

Update on Sophie...

Sophie seems to be doing ok this morning. Although, when she first got up she looked at me with sad puppy dog eyes and said "Mommy, mouth, OUCH!" (my heart did break!) She has had breakfast and handled eating well. Her tongue now looks like she just has a big scratch across the top of it...it's not the gaping wound it was last night. So, hopefully she won't get an infection in it and it will be all better in a few days!

On a happier note...

Tonight (before the tongue incident) the girls and I made Chocolate Cakes in a mug! Tomorrow for activity days we are making them so I thought I'd give them a trial run tonight! The girls loved them...they just love to cook and it was fun because they each got to make their own!

Here's the cake in the microwave (2 min 45 seconds...no more...no less...the instructions are very specific about this!) It rises up out of the cup a little and the girls loved to watch it (It actually became a contest between them "Mine got higher than yours did!" Gotta love sisters!)

Here they are enjoying the wonderful cakes they made!

One cake was probably more than enough for all of them but I had to let them each make their own...it's the experience of baking!...next time we will just make one!

Poor Sophie....AGAIN!

Tonight as we were getting the girls ready for bed Sophie went up to their room. She usually gets a wild burst of energy right before bed time and has been known to run around, jump on beds, climb up to Hannah's top bunk, etc... basically get a little crazy! Tonight was no exception (I'm sure) but as she was by herself we are not exactly sure what happened all we do know is Hannah was on the stairs and she heard Sophie cry so she told us Sophie was hurt. When I went upstairs Sophie was coming out of their room and blood was gushing out of her mouth. I grabbed her and took her to the bathroom and after the bleeding slowed down a bit this is what we found:







I had Jeremy come in and look at it and in true Jeremy fashion when I asked him to tell me how big and deep it was he told me "I can't look at it again...it makes me what to throw-up!" He gets a little (A LOT) queasy...he's not one for blood and guts! I called the doctor to see if there was anything they could do. They told me they don't stitch up mouths that I should just give her some ice water to drink not let her eat anything tonight and by morning it should be ok (or at least a little better!) They said tongues heal quickly and she should form a nice canker sore over the cut (I'm sure she going to love that!)


Here I am trying to get Sophie to stick out her tongue for the picture:






When I was on the phone with the doctor Hannah headed straight for her pad of paper and pen and drew this nice picture of Sophie's "tung" (tongue) and what it would look like with stitches:

She is a true artist...she would be totally lost without her paper and pen!

Sophie seems to be doing ok. She has tried to rub at her tongue a couple of times and you could tell it was bugging her a little bit, but she is asleep right now and we will wait and see what tomorrow holds...stay tuned!

Peterson Politics

Barack Obama has become a bad word in our house! The girls hate him...Wynnie is by far the most animated about it! Whenever she hears his name she scrunches up her face (If your a Toy Story fan: she puts on her angry eyes) and then she says "No more Barack Obama in this house!" I don't know what she will do if he wins the election! We will have to have a quick lesson on respect...we can not like the man but we can respect him as our President---hopefully (fingers crossed) we won't have to...I mean, I guess it's always a good idea to give your kids a lesson on respect (there doesn't seem to be enough of it in the world) but hopefully he won't win! I do know where she is coming from though...Jeremy LOVES to listen to talk radio. So much so that if the radio is on a different station and he comes into the room he will change it to talk radio...it doesn't matter who is listening to what...the radio will be changed...it doesn't matter if he is just passing through the kitchen on his way to his office...he will change the station! And talk radio LOVES to talk about Barack Obama! We hear his name at least a thousand times a day...it gets a little (A LOT) tiring! So I understand where the girls are coming from. The other day we were at the store and Hannah picked up Barack Obama's book.

Hannah: Look mom it's Barack Obama! We need to get this book for dad!

Me (a little surprised): Really...

Hannah: Yeah we need to get it for dad so we can stop listening about him on the radio!

Me: You're right, although I don't think your dad would appreciate it

Veterinarians!

Today was our primary program. The girls did great! The program was wonderful! After that we've kind-of just had a lazy day at home. Just hanging out. The girls have been playing and once again their imaginations just amaze me! They set up a little vet office (our couch.) And they were taking care of their stuffed animals. They had a little table set up with tissue, medicine, and soap. Wynnie was the doctor and Hannah was the nurse. Hannah took great notes (a detailed description of the problem, the time the animal came in, when they got their medicine, and how long they had to stay!) Once again---they just make me smile!

Here's one of their patients: Ella the cat (I think she has a smile too!)

Sherlock Holmes Hannah

Today Hannah got out her magnifying glass, put on her hat, and made sure she had her notebook and pencil. She then went around the house looking at things through her magnifying glass and taking notes. She came up to me showed me her notebook and said "Mom, I found a yellow thing the shape of a triangle on the wood floor in the dinning room!" She was SOOO excited! I couldn't help but smile. I said "Good work decective Hannah you solved the mystery....your mom's not a very good house keeper!"

Elementary dear Watson!

Dinosaur VS. Spring Chicken

Jeremy was in the newspaper today. The Standard did a piece on all the candidates. Hannah walked in while we were reading the article online. Here's our conversation:

Hannah: "Dad, is that who you are running against?" (pointing to the picture of Neil)

Jeremy: "Yes"

Hannah: "He's old"

Jeremy: "Yeah, he's a dinosaur"

Hannah: "If he's a dinosaur what does that make you?"

Me: "Hannah, that makes your dad a spring chicken!"

Hannah then sat down and drew a picture:

She makes my heart melt!

What happened to Autumn?!?!?!

We have had such nice weather in the 70's and 80's and about a week of 50's-60's then BAM this morning we woke up to winter!!!

Wynnie came down this morning and we sent her to lay on the couch. We can usually get a little more sleep when we do this, but this morning she went out to the couch then we heard her say "Mom, you need to come look at this...it is really weird...you better bring Dad too...he needs to see this...it's REALLY weird." So we got up wiped the sleepers out of our eyes and stumbled into the living room. She had opened the curtains and was standing on the couch with her mouth wide open pointing out the window. We looked out and the whole neighborhood was covered in snow and it was still coming down pretty hard! Wynnie then looked at me and said "Mom, it's going to be a special day...I love the snow!"

We walked to church in the snow--it was huge flakes and it was coming down hard so I thought for sure by the time we got done with church (3 hours later) the sun would be shinning and all the snow would be melted, but this is what it looked like when we walked home:

By the time we got home (a block and a half away) we were covered in snow!

I hope this is just a fluke and winter is not coming this early!...especially with this much snow as we are still mourning the loss of our snow blower!

Sophie turns TWO!!!

Happy Birthday Sophie!

We had a small (just her cousins) party for her today. It was a Pooh Bear theme...we colored pictures, played pin the tail on Eeyore, then had cupcakes (I think this was the favorite part as cupcakes kept disappearing through out the party!)



Gary and Nancy are in town (Ali is checking out collages so they are going to go up to USU...is she really that old...it seems like yesterday she was just an 8 year old at our wedding!) so they were able to stop by for a little while. It was nice that they were able to come (Nancy helped the girls decorate and get ready for the party) even if Sophie was having a melt down when they left and we had a house full of crazy kids hopped up on sugar running around (this is where all those "missing" cupcakes comes in to play...I'm learning...keep the cupcakes locked up until THE END of the party!) Despite all the craziness it was a fun party!

You can definately tell Sophie is 2! She is so hot or cold...she is being the sweetest little thing or she is throwing a fit...it seems there is no middle ground with her any more! As she was opening her presents she kept saying "Mine...Mine!" I have no idea where she learned this...I think it just comes with turning 2! She also didn't want to open all of her presents (I know this is weird--even for a 2 year old--what kid doesn't like to open presents?) I would try and get her interested in opening one and she would just scream at me! Hopefully she will grow out of it soon!

Here is a picture of her Pooh Bear cake:

Here is a picture of Sophie eating her cake:

And here is a cute video of Sophie singing Happy Birthday...she still knows how to make me smile!

Glad we're on a Health Savings Plan!

We switched to a Health Savings Plan back in spring. On our old insurance our premiums each month were going up to over $1,000 so we switched but it means that now we pay everything out of pocket until we reach our $5,000 deductible. Normally this would work out fine for us and not be a big deal, normally we are a pretty healthy family, normally...I guess there is nothing normal about us!
This summer has been a summer of unexpected doctor visits and today we add another to the list! When we were at my grandmas cleaning up Wynnie was headed inside when she fell and sliced her hand on the screen door. The cut was pretty deep and on the crease of her hand so I knew it would have a hard time healing on its own...so it was off to the doctors office and 3 stitches (and 3 lolly pops--one for each stitch) later Wynnie was back to having a smile on her face!

While we were at the doctors office Wynnie was having a hard time. She doesn't like to be in pain and she doesn't like needles (she gets that from her dad.) I was stroking her hair and trying to calm her down when they were putting in the stitches and we had this conversation:

Me: Wynnie I am so proud of you! You are being so brave!

Wynnie: I'm not brave at all, Mom...I'm crying

Me: Even brave people cry sometimes

Wynnie: Yeah, but I'm crying A LOT!

Me: Sometimes even brave people cry A LOT! (Like when they get the doctors bill for stitches!)

Clean up, Clean up!!!

We went to my grandmas to help clean up and organzie the house (before they put it up for sale.) We found some old wrapping paper and crayons and this kept the kids busy! They had fun drawing out on the back patio (which helped keep them out of the house so we could clean!)

It's Official...

This tu-tu is the new FAV at our house! I think I have a picture of all the kids wearing it! The boys came over to pick us up today and Preston wanted to dance around in it. Then Bruce wanted to put it on! (I'm sure their dad is SOOO glad they have girl cousins to play with!) They do look cute...maybe they have a future career in the ballet?