Thank You!!

I just wanted to say, thank you Amberly for the wonderful Christmas presents! I especially loved the quilt you made for Baby Peterson! Homemade gifts from the heart are the best and baby will get good use out of it.I wanted to say thanks to Mom Peterson for all the Christmas presents! We especially loved the marshmellow guns! The girls had a lot of fun attacking the boys one night...the dogs loved the marshmellows as well:)

Despite being stranded at my parents' house for most of the time, we had a very nice Christmas with my family! Thanks for taking us all in and digging our car out of the snow mom and dad!!

A little bit of everything

I have a few things to blog about so I thought I would combine all the things into one giant post, so bare with me!

First of all, WE ARE GOING TO GRAD SCHOOL!!! Derek found out yesterday that he was accepted into Johnson School of Business at Cornell University! He still has three more schools to hear from though so the final decision wont be until later. We are both very excited and Derek is also relieved that he doesn't have to fill out any more grad school essays. He celebrated with some wine and this is what ended up happening.

He ended up rollerblading in the house...and spilling my water all over the coffee table. Oh well, he was having fun!

So the last couple of days the Seattle area has gotten hit hard with cold weather and SNOW! We decided to head over to my parents' house Tuesday night so that Wednesday Derek could put the snow tires on my car. We want to go to Leavenworth this weekend and the passes don't look very good. Both Derek and my dad ended up working from home yesterday so we had a fun day at my parents' house making christmas cookies, hanging out, and watching the dogs play in the snow. Peyton absolutely loves the snow! When we got home last night she slept the rest of the evening all the way through the morning.

For those of you who no my sister, you will probably picture this next scenario better than those of you who have never met her. She came downstairs yesterday upon waking in her snowpants from about 20 pounds ago, a pair a boots that seemed a little to small, and her big coat. That in general was a little suprising considering Jenny isn't much of an outdoors person. She informed us that she was going to go outside to make a snow angel. Now this I had to see! Have you seen the movie the Christmas Story with the little boys? Enough said! Here is how to make a snow angel Jenny style:

1. Find the perfect spot in the hard and hope there is no dog poop, then lay down in snow angel position.

2. Spread arms and feet back and forth to make the snow angel.

3. Finish snow angel and then lay there for a minute to try to think of a plan on how to get back up.

4. Roll over on stomach and try to push yourself up.

5. Get up on knees and then try to stand all the way up with dogs in the way.

6. Fall back over and roll down the hill a little ways with dogs in your face.

Don't worry, she eventually got up and even had the energy to go through steps 1-5 again to make a second snow angel. Thanks goodness she didn't find any poop!

Oh, did I mention that Bella loves the snow too.

Yes, that is snow all over Bella's legs. My mom spent half the day defrosting Bella. It would get so bad that she could hardly move. I guess they got about a foot more of snow last night and Bella can't walk outside at all today.

The preggers picture take two (Derek)

Lacie's mom was getting after her that she should be gaining weight more quickly. If you compare the two pictures you may notice that in about an hour Lacie grew significantly when compared to the tree! Yes, there still is a tree behind her.

The preggers picture (Derek)

A few people have asked why we haven't posted the naked belly pictures on our blog. The answer is that we both think that it is somewhat odd that women love to take this considering they are at their plumpest during pregnancy. BUT since people keep asking...here you go!

(If you look closely you can see a Christmas tree behind her...I just got called a name for typing that. I sure do love my Lacie.)

Brrr i'ts cold outside! (Derek)

This weekend we were going to head up to Leavenworth for the Christmas lighting ceremony but we looked at the forecast and changed our mind (we aren't quite ready for the sub 15 degree weather). Instead we hung out with the in-laws and played Wii. Lacie loves it when I get so entranced in a game that I lose track of what's going on around me. Last night it started to snow and we ended up waking to a beautiful snowscape.

We braved the weather and picked up a nice dresser/changing table for the little one on the way. It is exactly what we were hoping to find and the lady that we got it from even hooked us up with a hanging diaper bag, crib skirt, quilt, and bumpers that all match! We are also going to buy her crib from her in February when her kid is out of it. It is nice to get a few major furniture items out of the way. Back to braving the weather though, as it turns out the Mazda tires aren't that great on packed snow/ice considering that we took two minutes to move on a main street. FYI, I am a huge fan of de-icer windshield washing fluid because without it you are stuck stopping at gas stations to clean your windows when the normal fluid freezes.

After picking up the dresser we headed to our in-laws to drop of the dresser (they are great and are letting us store the furniture there until we make room). Before we got to their place we met them for lunch at the Mongolian Grill. Mmmm!! Peyton was very happy when got to the in-laws because she was finally able to get out of the car and play. Snow to her like catnip to a cat...she went nuts. When we finally headed home this is what happened...


...a few minutes earlier they were both passed out. Now I just hope that the weather cooperates and dumps some more tonight so that I have an excuse to work from home.

50s Party

Last Sunday my mom threw a 50s themed birthday party for her aunt Lorraine who turned 70. I have to say my mom did a great job and went all out with the decorations, 50's style food, clothes, and games. There was hot dogs and hamburgers with french fries and onion rings as well as Coke in the old style bottles. Along with birthday cake, my mom also served root beer floats and ice cream sundaes for dessert. We also had a hula hoop contest (pictures to follow...they are hilarious), a straw shooting contest, and a bubble gum blowing contest with the 50's bubble gum. It was a lot of fun and my aunt really enjoyed herself! We had about 20 family members there!

The host:

My brother, dad, and uncle DaveThe Birthday Girl

My cousin Brad: The hoola hoop pictures are so funny!!My aunt Ann

Bubble gum blowing contest

Derek's right again!!

We had our ultrasound today to do measurements to check for Down Syndrome and hopefully to find out if we are having a boy or a girl. First of all, all the measurements came back normal and the baby looks healthy. It took awhile to get a view of the crotch area with the way the baby was positioned, but we finally got a good view to determine that we are having a boy!

I now know why I never got the break from having to pee in the middle of the night too. The baby is sitting very low and I swear he has been sitting on my bladder! Also, I have been feeling the baby move on a regular basis for over a week now and that is a really cool feeling! I think he especially likes it when I sing Christmas songs in the car. Either that or he is trying to cover his ears! I like to believe he was dancing along with his mama though;) I thought for sure it was going to be a girl and we have quite a long list of girl names, so we need to start working on some boy names. Derek is very excited to be having a son as well!!