Dapper

[da-per]: neat; trim; smart

Those Petersen kids looked dapper in their Sunday clothes!

I had to laugh because the third definition said: "small and active" and if that doesn't describe my children I don't know what does!

Family Photos

You know how these sessions go--you're telling your screaming, frowning, pouting child how much you love their sweet, little smile and how you will buy them a pony and put a swimming pool in the backyard if they will just smile. You're even resorting to saying the most ridiculous phrases ("pickles in pantyhose!"). You're even wondering if those potty words your child always giggles about would make them laugh right now. There is nothing you won't promise, won't say. Really what you want to be saying is, "I will spank you and put you in a time out and feed you liver and lima beans for the next week if you ruin this classy ensemble that I spent hours putting together." But you can't say those things even though you feel them to your very depths because once a child cries, you get that ugly, red, blotchy face that photoshop can't work out. I think these photograhy sessions are such an exercise in restraint and bad parenting.

Despite all this, I get so excited when I see that a fellow blogger has posted their family photos. I don't know, it's so magical to see everyone dressed up all matchy (not too matchy--that's lame) and looking so sweet. I don't know how everyone else's experience is, but I only got about 30 seconds of smiling from Owen. I was all out of bribes and Derek was all out of kindness, so this is what we got. I do love them and I do love my friend for taking them. So, if you're looking for a talented photographer, just let me know!

Turkey Trot

You may remember a couple of months ago when I posted about how Derek and I had started running together in the evenings. Well, like the Petersen that he is, he was certain that our running would be more meaningful if we were working toward a goal. A goal other than breathing and making it home to an EXTRA large bowl of ice cream. I mean really, is there more?

He decided that we should run a race. I promised him that I would only run if he ran with me the whole time. He assured me he would, so I decided I would do it with him. A "friend" (Do you call people friends who ask you to join in races?) we'll call "Debbie" to protect her identity said we should run the Mesa Turkey Trot with her and her husband. So, we signed up.

Derek decided we should follow a training regime for this "race" and proceeded to find about three different ones online. Of course all of these schedules assume you'll start prepping in all seriousness about eight weeks before the race--we only had four.

Of course we committed ourselves to running every single night once we found the schedule, but five minutes later we realized that we have lives and couldn't do that, so we did the best we could. We ran three and a half miles once, 4 miles once and 5 miles once even. Mostly though we ran our two or three miles.

Since we were going to be suffering through this race, it was only fair that when Derek's brother Devin showed up, that we "invited" him to run with us. We only taunted him about not running maybe a couple of times. We were merely building his character. Never mind that he hadn't been training at all. The kid is nineteen and plays soccer every chance he gets--I was much more worried about me being carried away on a stretcher than I was about him.

Needless to say, "Debbie" almost backed out of the race the day before. However, her husband must've been building her character at their home, because she changed her mind. Other friends ran too. There was great fun had by thousands of us on Thanksgiving morning in the chilly Arizona weather.

AND??? I know you're dying to know if I completed the race. Well, I did. I ran every single step of the way--all 6.2 miles and I finished in 57 minutes and I don't know how many seconds exactly. Our mile time averaged 9:28. Not impressive if you actually do this sort of thing in all seriousness, but I was happy to be alive.

We only got one photo when we got home. And, Picasa is being annoying and saved it in some unknown place and I don't have patience to find it now. Grrr!

Even When We Don't Know the Words--

We sing!

Even when we are changing lyrics to secret places like "Edom" and creating situations that didn't exactly play out "Adam following our ways?" We sing!

Even when our Mom plays the wrong notes. We sing!

The Costumes

I had to laugh when I finally uploaded these photos of the Halloween experience. Ryanna was Rapunzel, but looking at her in that wig I think she actually looks more like one of those ladies you see in the mall where you want to say, "Sister, you are 65, cut your hair and dress your age!" It's even funnier when I think about how her wig fell off during the Halloween carnival and I tried to put it back on, but it was such a gob of hair that I did it backwards and so Rapunzel had all these bald spots and really needed some Rogaine.

Owen was a ninja and I'm honestly glad that costume is done. This child is a bit obsessive and that does not exclude research about Halloween costumes. Every day we had to talk about ninjas and I discovered I don't really know that much. How do Ninja's drive with those swords on their backs? I assume they didn't have cars then? What about those dagger thingies? Can't really walk with those tucked into your belt. And shoes--I think they wore slippers, but I'm not quite certain. I'm fairly certain they ate rice or am I just being stereotypical? I just don't know much about a ninja lifestyle.

I know this is blurry, but he's doing a ninja kick and I love it.

Eli was the ever popular hand-me-down-we-are-not-buying-you-a-new-costume-because-you're-too-young-to-care Dragon! I love this costume. He looked adorable in it just like Owen did when he wore it. We had a hot Halloween this year though, so he didn't wear the head part much. That and the fact that his head is not huge like Owen's, so it kept falling down on him.



Since we didn't trick or treat on Sunday, I let the kids hand out the candy and I think they may have enjoyed that better than actual trick or treating. They sat there all night and didn't even let the trick or treaters get to the door before they threw it open with excitement.

And the cupcake picture. It's just adorable. I make cute kids--correction--WE make cute kids. On to Owen's birthday and then Thanksgiving!



And, I had to throw this picture in here to show you the hail damage from that storm a few weeks ago. Check out the metal coils on our AC unit!!! I also included the brief video of the storm from that day. It was CRAZY!!!!

Halloween Traditions

So, even though Christmas is my most favorite holiday because of the religious meanings and the warm feelings, Halloween is easily my second favorite holiday. How can you not enjoy a holiday that is based around getting candy? Seriously, I must've invented this holiday in another life.

So, we hit the Pumpkin Patch as is our tradition. It was fun, but I was shocked at how few pumpkins they had as compared to years past. I had heard that there would be a pumpkin shortage this year due to bad pumpkin weather and they weren't joking. I've already bought all the pumpkin filling I think I'll need for the whole year--if you like it--you should do the same.

Ryanna 2010

Ryanna 2007

The crazy face picture was actually the best of the bunch.

My kids loved the farm animals. Eli was actually the most excited--so excited in fact that I couldn't get a good photo because he was running and jumping with such happiness.

Eli used this as a substitute ball and it cracked after one day.

We also decorated the house on the first of October and I added these Halloween blocks as a new decoration to my collection. Thanks to my girlfriends for their great ideas and know-how and willingness to include me all things crafty. My kids have loved switching the blocks to count down the days.

Mine is the one on the left.

We also Boo'd a couple of houses. It's the tradition where you take treats to some friends and leave a cute, little poem with instructions for how they continue the Boo onto some other friends. My kids love to do that too and they are getting pretty good at hiding.

And, last night I pulled out all the stops and we made caramel apples--next year I want to get fancy and do some gourmet style--heath bar or rocky road, we made Halloween T-shirts with these iron-on decals that I bought last year after Halloween was over and we decorated our fake pumpkins with our little push-in decorations.

The lazy parent's way to do pumpkins.

I love how the shirts turned out. To be honest, we were lucky and found Owen's shirt with that spider web already on it. Eli's shirt had all of his stuff on the front and we ironed stuff onto the back. Ryanna's was completely blank though and I love how it turned out.

What can I say, I love this holiday.

Disneyland!

We finally exchanged our good deeds for real Disneyland passes last week. And, since Ryanna has the world's longest Fall Break, it was the perfect time to go. Apparently quite a few other people had the same idea, but it was still fun!

I think that the kids would say that their very favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear ride. They would've gone back again had we had the time. Second to that for Owen would've been Autotopia--driving his mom around in style. He didn't do too badly either. Though I hear Ryanna's a crazy driver. Ryanna went on Space Mountain with me. It was actually called Ghost Galaxy Space Mountain since they had it all scary for Halloween. Owen was just tall enough to ride it too, but Ryanna and I went first to make sure it wasn't too scary for Owen. When the ride stopped, the first thing Ryanna said when she pulled her hands off her ears and pulled her head out from between her knees was, "Owen is NOT going on that ride." Yeah, a bit too scary for him. We did do the Haunted Mansion though--it was a combo of Halloween and Christmas.

I wanted to do It's a Small World--childhood memories you know?--but one of the boats had bottomed out, so the line was frozen and they didn't know how long it would be and then we never got back over there.

So, things I learned:

1. There is NO POSSIBLE WAY to do Disneyland in one day. No possible way. I think we did 12-13 rides and we were there from open to close.

2. The food is super expensive (not a surprise) and pretty much tasteless. I've never had cheese without taste before this. You can bring your own food if you want, but who wants one more thing to lug around? I did hear that the hand-dipped corn dogs are delicious, but I didn't know this prior to my visit.

3. Buying the program RideMax for your Iphone would've been worth the $15. It's an application that allows you to enter in every ride you want to go on and it takes all of the park data and tells you exactly which ride you should go on and which ones to do fast passes on and how to make your time at the park work for you. Since we had never gone before, all of the rides seemed great to us, but now that we've been we'd probably be able to pick out some favorites and use the program to our advantage.

4. There are not characters wandering the park waiting to take pictures with you like when I was little. I don't know if a Cinderella got trampled once or what, but when we did see two princesses walking through the park, they made it very clear that they would not stop for a photo, so I had to snap as fast as I could. Given that we had only one day, I wasn't going to spend it waiting in line for picture opps. However, we did get some villain shots while we were waiting for the parade to start.

5. A bubble gun may be worth every single expensive penny you pay for it. The guy in front of us in the Haunted Mansion line had one and he shot bubbles for his and our kids and it made the time go by so much quicker. Thank you bubble man.

6. Always bring a change of underwear and shorts for your potty trained child. You never know when you'll have ventured to a new part of the park and he'll wait till the last minute to inform you that he has to go NOW! Of course you'll have no idea where the bathroom is for that section of the park.

7. It may just be the Happiest Place on Earth.

We also went to Newport Beach the next day and there were dolphins swimming right by the shore!!! Seriously close enough that a guy who was snorkeling went out and swam with them. We sat and watched in awe. It has been the coldest summer on record for Newport and given that it's October now, you can imagine how that water temperature felt. The kids loved the beach and found tons of seashells to take home.

I also got to meet another biological cousin of mine for the first time! We had a great visit and she took us to an amazing Italian Restaurant.

Lastly, we stayed with our friends, the Bradshaws, in Lake Elsinore. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of that, but it was fun. We had a fun, exhausting, wonderful trip.

And, for a close-up of that big, pouty lip:There were seriously dolphins everywhere!!! See the guy in the water with them?