Home front news

We just wanted everyone to know that we accepted one of the bank's offer-backs on the house we bid on. We went back and forth a couple of times with counter offers and the last one the bank came back with was $105,500 and that was their final offer. So we prayed about it and felt like we should accept it. We would really like this house, and we feel that we should be together as a family as soon as possible. The house needs lots of work, but most of it is stuff we've already done. The yard needs lots of work too, but most of that is just clean-up type of work. We are pretty excited, but trying not to get too carried away just yet. We still have to have the house inspected and appraised. If either of those things turn out bad we won't buy the house. So we aren't quite on the finishing stretch yet. Thanks for all the prayers though. They have helped us greatly.
We had a great Christmas. So far none of us are sick. Jaxson threw up some yesterday but never acted sick and has been just fine today. That wasn't the case for Kurt, Heather and Mom, so we are very thankful. We missed you guys out in Utah and look forward to your next visit with us.
Take care y'all and have a fun, safe New Year!

Bracelet

We received Heather's bracelet in the mail yesterday and I really like it! Thank you! The colors are perfect. I wore it to work today, though, and the clasp part broke. The end which holds the clasp broke apart and some of the beads fell off. The string that was holding it frayed. How can I fix it? Should I just tie some new string around the end and put the clasp back on, or is there a better way? I await your suggestions!

Christmas

Christmas is over! We had Kurt, Heather, Hillary, Charlie and the grandkids here on Christmas Day. We had a real good dinner and opened presents. We did a short program ending with the Nativity Song as usual. I think we need more planning when we do the song, it was pretty caotic. Everyone seemed happy with their presents except Jim, who doesn't think he wants a guitar. Some times you get odd things for Christmas. Dad, Hillary, Charlie and Charile's brother, Les, went to the Motor City Bowl football game Tuesday night. Central Michigan won. They had a good time. Now for the sad news, my brother, Dee has cancer in his lung. He's smoked since he was a teenager, so it's not surprising, just sad. I hope all of you had a nice Christmas. Jana, what happened to The Muppet Family Christmas video?

Christmas at the storehouse

I don't usually go to the storehouse on Tuesdays, but I knew Marilyn was out of town and I thought that they'd be pretty busy today, and I was right! Since we're only open on Tuesday and Thursday, I guess they decided they had to get in before Christmas on Monday. We had a lot of will call people today. We never got a chance to sit down. Thursday will probably be the same. Oh well. Heather and her parents brought their stuff yesterday. Poor Kurt only has an inflatable bed and his lap top. At least the cats can keep him company. We'll see most of you on Christmas, but for those of you who are out West, you'll be in our thoughts. As I listen to Christmas music, it makes me long for the days when Kari and Jana were home and we could sing and play together. I miss you both. I didn't mean to get sentimental, but as a mother, I'm allowed. I love all of you, even the ones that I haven't known since birth.

For All You Gamers...

Eric and I have recently become addicted to the game show network's website. It has a lot of fun games...we really like the one where you throw books at OJ Simpson. But, here is the link to one of our other favorites-Chain Reaction. If you have never seen the show, you might want to read the directions before you start. Enjoy!
http://www.gsn.com/minigames/swfs/chainreaction.swf

One School Down

Hey everybody
As most of you know the Petersons have had a pretty bad week. With all the stress of the accident(Kari's car accident she's OK but the car is not) and dealing with insurance companies and finals and work and Kari's new calling and trying to find a new car it has been crazy. To add to the "badness" of the week the University of Michigan sent me a letter that started out "We regret to inform you". It is only one school of the six, but it was my first choice and I'm growing more impatient as the days pass. Fortunate for us, all of the unpleasentness of this week will fade away with the coming of Christmas. We know we are very blessed to be where we are and as much as we complain about our trials we know that Heavenly Father is looking out for us and that in the end all will be well. We wish we could be spending Christmas with all of you, but hopefully things will turn out the way we want to and we will be closer next year. We love all of you and hope that eveyone has a Merry Christmas.
P.S. Mom we got the CD

News

So this morning Eric and I got a call this morning from the ward clerk that we needed to meet with a member of the bishopric before church...they wouldn't tell me why. So we got into the meeting and found out that I was to be released from my current calling of enrichment activity leader to.......primary chorister!! I have to admit that I am nervous because I have to come up with sharing time and teach the kids songs and I've never worked in primary before. But I am excited. But I am looking for any help and ideas when the time comes-if that's okay? Just thought you would want to know. Love you guys!

First doctor's appointment

On Wednesday I had my first doctor's appointment after learning I was pregnant. It was such a neat experience!

First of all, I really like the clinic I go to, and I like my doctor. Kari recommended her, and I'm glad I listened. She's very efficient, and no frills, which I like. They are full service-- have a lab, do the ultrasound, do the exams, everything is right there. It was nice.

I didn't realize they would do an ultrasound on my first visit, but they did. Jason didn't come because he had class, but if we would have known they were going to do an ultrasound we would have scheduled it better. Oh well, there will be more ultrasounds for him to see. But it was amazing! I could tell where the head was, and see the little starts of legs and arms. I could SEE the heart pumping...but what was truly amazing was the heart beat! They must have had the machine hooked up to surround-sound speakers because it was echoing all over the room (or maybe it only seemed that way to me). It was WONDERFUL to see the little life inside of me. If I can find a scanner, I will post the ultrasound picture on here.

My baby, however, was too small for the date I gave them as my estimated due date. I thought I was 11 weeks along, but they said I was probably only 10 weeks. They pushed my due date back a week, now it is July 7th. I'm glad I still have so much time to get ready. Click here to see the what my baby should look like now, it's interesting!
Thank you for your prayers and well wishes!

Job news

I haven't received the official offer yet, but I got a call yesterday from the HR guy at Creative Solutions that they will be offering me a position. It's quite exciting, because although I had a brief interview there on Friday, we were expecting that I would need to do another, longer interview before an actual offer would be made. I'm excited to go back; I'll be working on the team that I wanted to transfer to when I was there.

Now the plan is that Heather will move up on Dec 18, drop our stuff off, and then head on up with her parents and stay with them until Christmas. I'll be going up Dec 22/23, hang around in Michigan for the holiday week, then come back down to North Carolina to work the first week of January here. Then back up, and probably start at Creative Solutions on the 15th. Then we'll be back in Michigan for good! Hooray!

Festival of Trees

Hey so on Saturday Eric and I trekked down to Sandy to see the festival of trees. For those of you that don't know what that is, people, wards and companies put together themed trees and they are auctioned off to anyone who will buy them-families, companies, etc. All of the money that is raised goes to Primary Children's Hospital-definitely a worthy cause. It is a pretty incredible sight to see all the trees and the many themes. Also, people have smaller 4" trees or so and centerpieces or wreaths or gingerbread houses-pretty much anything someone can make and sell is there. It is pretty cool. So, I took the camera-my camera doesn't have a flash so the pictures are a little blurry, sorry- and here are some of the things we saw.

This is the decoration around one of those smaller trees.

This is a Cheetos tree and the picture above is a sign that was on the middle...if you can't read it it says, Cheestos from Heaven. This was Eric's favorite.

The picture above and the picture below I took esp. for Mom. The top picture are some crocheted angels and the one below is a nativity mobile the size of a Christmas tree made from wood.

Just one of the many gingerbread houses that we saw...one of the more elaborate ones.

Elvis's blue Christmas

This is a candy cane tree and it was my favorite.

I hope you enjoyed our little trip to the festival. Have a great week! We love you!

dreams

I had a very strange dream last night and thought I'd share.

I was in a motel room with Hillary and all of her kids. They were running around like crazy and it was hard for us to hear each other. Hillary told me that she had thought of the best names for my child and said I just HAD to use one of them! I told her I'd listen, but wouldn't make any promises.

We sat down at one side of the table. Kari appeared at the other side of the table (you know how that happens in dreams) and she started telling me how great these names were Hillary picked out. Hillary pulled out this deck of cards with all these pictures on it and started laying them out on the table. She said she couldn't remember all the names she had chosen without seeing them with these cards. Weird.

After rearranging the cards for a while, she told me a couple names. I can only remember three of them--Warren, Linda, and Buenos Aires. I asked her what we would call a kid named Buenos Aires and she said, "Buenos, of course!" Haha! The name she really wanted me to use, though, was Linda. Hillary and Kari kept telling me over and over again that was the best little girl's name. I started getting defensive because they were teaming up against me for my own child's name!

I started getting tired of their suggestions and went to talk to Mom and Dad. I told Dad and he said to tell them to leave me alone because he had already bought a little dress with the name Leah stitched on the front of it. (Leah is actually a name Jason and I are considering.) I started laughing at him because we didn't even know if we were having a girl or boy yet! And then I woke up. Isn't that strange? Buenos Aires!!