Merry Christmas

This Christmas has been a unique one this year.  We are ready to say good bye to December 2009 and move on to the next year.  My only goal for next year is to stay out of the hospital!  Did not enjoy having hernia surgery on Dec 3 and then having complications and having a second surgery on Dec 20.  Hopefully now I'm not the mend for good.

We have been especially grateful to friends and family that have been extra kind and caring for us this season.

For anyone who may not have gotten our Christmas card this year or we didn't have your address, here it is.  Photos were taken by my wonderful sister-in-law Kyleen.  She did an amazing job!

     Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family!  As we look back on this year, we are grateful for so many blessings, especially having each of you in our lives.  Please know that we think of you often even if we are not able to communicate as frequently as we would like.  As we celebrate the birth of our Savior we are so grateful for the blessings of the Gospel in our life and the peace that we feel at Christmas time as well as throughout the year.

Jessica is 12 this year.  It is amazing to watch her grow into a beautiful young woman.  She is now participating in the Young Women’s program at Church and is enjoying making new friends.  Her greatest success this year was negotiating a later bed time to the disappointment of her siblings.  She is still fully involved with ballroom and has joined the Drama Club at school.  Jessica has started babysitting as of late and does a wonderful job.  Mom & Dad are grateful for her helpful and willing attitude.  She will be going to Jr. High next year.


Ashley is definitely the most sweet and tender child of the family.  She will turn 10 in March and is enjoying Fourth grade and will be representing her class in the school Spelling Bee this month.  She has joined Jessica in the Ballroom program and is enjoying learning new things.  She is still taking piano lessons and has improved a great deal this year.  She also loves time spent in the Church Activity Days program.


John is just as full of life as always.  We keep thinking he will tone down a little with age, but alas his volume button still appears to be broken.  John is 6 and is in school full-time this year.  He is a math wiz and loves reading anything he can get his hands on.  He also loves playing soccer with other kids at school.  He would spend all of his free time on the computer if he had his way.  He is really an amazing child and brings a great deal of joy to our family.


Christine has spent this year trying to adjust to no children at home during the day.  Oddly the free time she thought she would find, manages to fill up as quickly as it appears.  Her big accomplishment this year includes double surgeries (foot & hernia) (Update -- triple surgeries -- had complications after hernia and they had to go in again on Dec 20).  She has promised to limit her hospital visits in the future.  She continues to be involved with Pampered Chef and the Relief Society at Church.  She remains the Master Scheduler and keeps the family running like a well-oiled machine.


Mark’s year has been fairly uneventful.  He just celebrated 11 years working at Thanksgiving Point.  He is serving in the Elders Quorum in the Church and finds it both challenging and rewarding.  He loves spending time with his family and is constantly amazed at how quickly the children are growing up.


Our year as a family has been marked by some great times together.  We enjoyed a trip to Oceanside, CA for a Jesperson family reunion and a stop at Disney Land.  It was great spending time with Family.  We also spent time in Las Vegas, NV durring spring break visiting both Mark’s sister and Christine’s brother.  We enjoyed the blessing of being able to participate in the open house and dedication services for two new L.D.S. Temples in Utah.  We realized that this will be the last year our children will be in the same school, and suspect things will only get busier from here on.


We are so grateful for this time of year.  We pray you are all well and that you will have a meaningful and blessed Christmas and year to come.

Love,
Mark. Christine, Jessica, Ashley and John Peterson

Sensor Button

Wouldn't it be nice if we could put a sensor button on our children.  Know what they are going to say before they say it and then stop them.  John's latest funny . . .

I had hernia surgery on Dec 3.  I went from not even knowing something was really wrong to almost overnight not being able to eat.  My hernia had become incarcerated which meant from the time I really knew what was going on until the surgery I was on a soft foods/liquid foods diet.  That included Thanksgiving Dinner.  I enjoyed some mashed potatoes, squash, and stuffing.  But even that got me in trouble.  It is easy to stick to a soft foods diet when you know if you don't you'll spend hours on the bed in pain wishing it would just pass.

My doctor was concerned that it was going to be much bigger than they thought when they got in there, so no in and out surgery for me.  He had me plan on spending one night, but I got the privilege of spending two nights in the hospital.  I think he wanted me to stay another night, but the dollar bills were adding up in my head.

Just like any good church group, our wonderful Relief Society brought meals into our family for several days after I got home.  And the meals that were brought in were amazingly good.  At least the little that I tasted or smelled them.  I'm still not eating all regular foods yet.

Well, a week after surgery a sister in our neighborhood needed to pick something up from me.  I got it ready and gave it to Jessica to give to her since I still wasn't feeling fabulous.  The afternoon she came I was in the bedroom and both John and Jessica answered the door.  From what I could tell she was asking the kids how I was doing and if there was anything she could do.

THAT is when I wish I had a sensor button on John.  The next thing I hear out of his mouth is "You can bring us dinner."  At this point I grab my robe and decide to emerge from the bedroom.  By the time I reach the front room he is informing her that he does NOT like chicken enchiladas (the rest of us love them by the way) so if she could bring something else that would be great.  Now this is the type of woman that would probably have gone home and cooked something up and returned that evening with dinner.  Luckily I caught her before she left.  Mark's parents were actually at the house that afternoon to help me and had taken care of lunch and were planning dinner for us that day as well.

All I can say is out of the mouth of babes . . .  It only made sense to a 6 year old that every other woman who had come into the house that week had brought a meal, why not this one as well.

Family Pictures

My brother's wife, Kyleen, was once again kind enough to take our pictures for us. She did an amazing job.

 

They were angels for at least a few pictures

Jessica -- Age 12

Ashley -- Age 9

John -- Age 6

The men of the house

The Girls

October Recap

How is it the middle of November already? Where did the last two months go? How is Thanksgiving just a week and a half away. Good news is Black Friday is almost here and we can't wait for that! But before November is gone I thought I'd recap October.

We started the month in our favorite way. General Conference weekend we spent at a cabin above Sundance Resort. My mom's employer owes a couple of cabins and is generous enough to let us stay a couple of times each year. Because all my siblings are out of state we got to invite Mark's family to join us this time. We were able to catch the last of the fall colors. How would you like this to be your backyard?

Saturday morning we found a surprise.  Our little niece was getting ready and turned around to find this in the bathroom.

So Mark's Dad came to the rescue

And we released Mr. Bat back to his normal habitat

These three ladies were the lucky ones to share a bedroom with Mr. Bat

Paige, Carole, and JaCee were much braver than I would have been.

The rest of the weekend was not so exciting.  Just wonderful food, lots of family and sitting by this

watching General Conference.  It doesn't get much better than that!

The next big event of the month was the Stake Road Shows.  They had the youth in each Ward in the Stake perform a 12 minute skit.  Jessica was one of the sheep and delivered her line wonderfully!

We found some time during Fall Break to squeeze in our annual trip to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point

And even had Mark join us for a picnic lunch!

The girls were brave and concurred The Beast!

I was happy to stay outside and wait with John.





The kids had a blast on all the rides and I spent a lot of time watching them play. I'm still dreaming of the day when I can walk and stand without being in any pain.  Hopefully that day will come soon!

But the kids still had a blast even though we didn't go through the main corn maze this year.  Sorry we missed Larry Miller's head.

And of course we finished the month off with some pumpkin carving.

Our friend Lori came over and joined us one night.

And we got them carved in time for Halloween!

Here is our crazy bunch getting ready to head to school for some parties!

Happy October!!  Thanks for a fun month.

Happy Halloween

Mark was busy at work one day and created this.

Happy Halloween!  Love Us!

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The Pumpkin Patch

Grandma Pat has started planting pumpkins every year in her garden.  For the last several years we've been able to get pumpkins from her patch.

She had a good crop this year, even if they are small.

Ashley and John were our official pickers.

And we had enough for her, us and several others.  Thanks Mom!

Rocket Launcher

We have an amazing Primary Presidency.  They decided to have a Primary Carnival and the kids were able to earn tickets by saying their prayers, having Family Home Evening, etc.  They were very generous and my kids averaged about 50 tickets a week.  Our kids looked forward to it for weeks.  The day finally arrived and they were not disappointed.

The snow cones were a huge success, especially since it was a warm afternoon.  I was grateful my kids earned so many tickets so I could "borrow" tickets to get a snow cone myself.

But the biggest hit in our family was the rocket launcher.

Powered by the children's force.  They got to step on the 2 liter bottle which forced air through the tubing and launched the paper rockets they made.  Even Mark got into this event.  I've never seen him so excited about a project.  They determined we had to have our own.  So the next morning they headed to Home Depot to get the supplies and came home and started building.

All the kids got to help make it.

And the loved constructing it with Dad.

Somehow I don't have a completed picture (I'll post later)  But it is just as much success at our house as it was at the Primary Carnival.  Thanks Christensens for the great project!

Jessica's Birthday Party

Jessica fell in love with the movie Hairspray, so she decided that would be her birthday party theme this year.  We bought cans of hairspray and wrapped these invites around them.

I've never been very good at back combing hair, but we tried our best to get some lift in the girls hair dos.

We gathered all the makings for a really good movie night

And added a few friends

And I think the girls had a great time!

Hopefully we didn't annoy the neighbors too much.  This is what Mark thought of all the noise of a house full of tweens!

And that his oldest is turning 12 in a few days.

The next day we stopped by the mall for her birthday present from us.

Pierced Ears!!!  She barely even flinched when they did them.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Jessica!

Costco

Dear Costco,

Normally you are one of my favorite places to go to.  But since I have becoming walking impaired I cringe at the thought of visiting.  Seriously, you only have 3 electric carts and 1 of them was broken today.  Macey's has 4 carts and they are 1/4 of the size of your store with much fewer people wanting to use the electric carts.  The only thing that made me continue on my voyage into your store today was the fact I had to pick up the birthday cake. And must they be in the farthest spot in the whole store.  I may have purchased more items if I could have been without pain in your store.  But no, as long as the Boot is on I will have to avoid your store.

All I can say is thank goodness Mr. Lortab was waiting for me at home.

Sincerely,
Walking Impaired.

Singing In The Rain

Last Sunday we had an awesome thunder storm.  We had sent the kids outside because they wanted to bounce a ball and it was driving us crazy.  About 15 minutes later we heard the thunder and rain come.  When we went out front we found the kids playing in the rain storm in their PJs

But we could not stop them from having fun.

Mark decided to teach them "Murder in the Dark" how he played growing up.

When a car came down the street they would yell murder and drop to the ground.  If you get caught in the headlights of the car you are out.

The next day I found out the neighbors behind us could hear our kids out front.  It was one of those magical nights you could not take away from the kids.

Farmers Market

I had been wanting to go out to the Farmers Market at Thanksgiving Point for the last several weeks, but with my foot surgery I hadn't been able to do much walking.  Last Friday we finally made it, with a little help from a wheelchair.  It was a bonus week because the En Plein Air festival was going on.  En Plein Air means "in the open air" used to mainly describe painting.  They have artists of all kinds come and paint all week all over Thanksgiving Point and they display what they have painted and sell some of their work.

Mark said to have the kids wear shorts because there was a water feature they would love.  Jessica didn't believe me, but in the end she loved it as much as the other two.

They were all dripping wet after playing.  They got to pull levers and it squirted water out of different spots.  They loved hiding on one side and waiting for a sibling to walk by and soak them on the other side.

It was a challenge to try and stay on him after getting wet.

But in the end I've decided taking children to the Farmers Market is not beneficial to me.  They got wooden swords (which I'll probably regret) and birthday gifts for friends and in the end all that was left was enough money for a cupcake to share.  I really wanted some of the jewelery, but I guess that will have to wait for another time.

Saturday night Mark and I went to Salt Lake.  Okay, I wanted to go to a friends get together in Salt Lake and I needed a designated driver since I'm still taking some strong meds at time.  On our drive up past the Point of the Mountain we saw this

There must have been at least 50 hang gliders.  In all the years we have lived here we have never seen that many at once.  This picture doesn't even begin to show how many there were.  It was awesome to watch.

And to thank Mark for being my designated driver we stopped at Cheesecake Factory before coming home, yum!