This Is What I Do

So, all growing up, I used to get canker sores--not occasionally, but frequently. I would get them if I ate too much citrus or if I had too much sugar or really too much of anything. It was my body's way of saying, "hold it sister."
Then, one day I decided to get married. The wedding planning was pretty stressful. If you've ever been married, you'll know what I mean. My body really didn't like that I put it under so much stress, so right after Derek and I tied the knot and boarded a plane to fly out for our honeymoon, my lip started tingling. This was a new sensation for me. I'd always had canker sores, but I could not figure out why my upper lip was feeling numb. Oh well, the wedding was over, I was ready to have fun!
Well, the day after I woke-up from the plane ride and went into the bathroom to get ready, what did I see? My first ever cold sore. It was nasty. You see, I already have large lips, so anything on top of them really makes a scene. I was a bit devastated because after our honeymoon, we were headed back to Derek's hometown to have our reception. I would be meeting all of his friends that I'd never seen and now I looked nasty. I started crying. I really did. I couldn't help it. Here I was, supposed to be looking so incredibly beautiful and now my lip looked like a mini crater had erupted.
I survived the reception and no one was mean enough to mention how terrible my lip looked and eventually--WITH MEDICATION--the cold sore went away. I had to take amoxicillin or some other drug like that. I'm telling you, it was nasty.
Last fall, we were in the process of buying a house and moving and accepting our first real job and we decided to take a trip to San Diego. It was a great trip, but I got sunburned and guess what happened? Yeah, another nasty cold sore. Let's see, if you'd describe the first one as Mt. McKinley, this one would have to be Mt. Everest. I'm telling you, I could see it from my peripheral vision. The thing is, I was slathering on the abreva like you're supposed to and it was only getting bigger and bigger and grosser and grosser. By the time I went to the urgent care, people were gawking at me. I blogged about this event here. The picture doesn't show up anymore I don't think, but use your imagination if you must.
Well, this last week I allowed myself to get a little worked up when a doctor bill came. It was my own fault. I opened the mail on Friday after everything had closed, so I mentally stressed over it all weekend long. Of course, on Monday, when I finally called about it, it was nothing! And, Derek is leaving town for the whole weekend. And I'm pregnant and feeling chubby. You know how it goes. Blah, blah, blah.
Right now, it's just a mere baby cold sore and I'm trying to calm myself down and hope it doesn't get any worse. But that just seems to stress me out--trying to not stress out about the cold sore. What a vicious cycle.

The Amazing 4D Ultra-Sound

So, I realize that there are those of you out there who are kind of weirded out by seeing a baby in such early stages of development, but I, personally, find it fascinating. Today we went in for a nuchal translucency screening. It is where they administer a 4D ultra-sound to test for birth defects and down's syndrome. I love it because they spend about 40 minutes just looking at your baby. I had this done when I was pregnant with Owen also. They also said the preliminary results of the tests look positive (no birth defects) for those of you who are wondering.

And, because I didn't give all the details in the first post:
Our baby is due the middle of October (the nurse told me the 14, the Doctor said 15 or 16, so I'm saying sometime in the middle).
We are very excited to have this baby coming. We waited till 12 weeks to tell everyone because it's a safer time in the pregnancy.
The doctor told me that he would not make me go a week past my due date as I have had to with Ryanna & Owen because Owen weighed 9 pounds, I can be induced at 39 weeks if all looks healthy.
My body has never gone into labor on its own, so I'm planning on being induced.
We don't have a name for either gender decided on. Derek has already been trying to pin me down, but I want to wait till I know boy or girl and then the negotiations will begin. Ryanna was a very easy pick for us, Owen was a very difficult decision to reach--but we absolutely LOVE both names. That's what I want is a name we both feel good about, not a name where one of us feels that we had to settle.
Now, back to the photos.

Our baby is not quite 13 weeks old and already, you can see the head, arms, legs, eye buds, hand development and feet. You can also see the heart beating and the tiny brain. For me, it is just simply amazing to think that life has developed so quickly.


The first shot is the frontal view. The second photo the baby has her (I'm just picking a pronoun here) back to us. When we started the ultra-sound, she was sleeping so peacefully, but the technician needed her to wake up. Once she was awake, she kept rolling over. So, here is the newest Petersen.

Pop Quiz

This picture makes you feel:

a. Excited!!!

b. Curious?

c. Surprised

d. Sick, in fact you wondered why you'd been feeling exhausted and sick for the last while now.

When you see these results, your husband will say:

a. Yay!!! We continue to populate the world with our beautiful children.

b. Are you sure? Did you take it right?

c. Nothing, he's asleep.

d. Good, I hope it's twins.

Your friends will say:

Here's your turn to answer with your favorite and correct response.

Projects that suck up my energy and time

I have always had the desire to create a picture DVD for my grandparents that documents their marriage and all of us that have come from their union. Well, I never had a program to do it before, but I decided this was the year. They also celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year, so I thought the timing was perfect.
The problem lies in the fact that they reside in Colorado while I live in Arizona. One time while I was visiting, I was able to chronologically organize a bunch of snapshots through the years. When I say chronologically, I mean to the best of my memory and realize that I was not even alive for a lot of these photos.
I was able to convince my grandma to let me take those a year ago. The best photos are in a box at her house. Yes, a box, they should be on the wall or burned to a CD so all of us can enjoy them, but at least they're safe I guess. There's only a few things my grandparents really guard--jewelry, guns and photos. You psychoanalyze that. My aunt did manage to scan quite a few photos for the 50th Anniversary celebration, so that she could make these huge posters. She provided me with a copy of the CD and it has been a great resource for my project.
This is the very reason why I have been neglecting my blog. I have easily spent over 30 hours thus far (and I'm STILL not done) trying to create this thing. It's about 30minutes long with each photo taking up 5 seconds. Yes, that's over 400 photos. I scanned probably 150 of them myself. I have had to crop a lot of them and tried to improve color on a few.
Needless to say, my husband and kids have been awesome in giving me the time to do this. Especially my husband. I usually wait till the kids are in bed, but poor Derek has been incredibly understanding that his wife is bound and determined to finish what she set out to do.
So, I thought I'd post of few of me as a little girl, so you can enjoy my cuteness too.

Family Photos Arizona style

Saturday my friend, Sheri agreed to take some family photos for me. We headed over to Freestone Park which is a beautiful park. I had heard of it, but never been there, however, I definitely plan to go back. Anyway, she brought her camera and her daughter and took a bunch of pictures of our family. Crazily enough, it was a windy day (as you will witness with some of the hair) and it was a bit chilly as well. Being that we have adapted so well to the heat here, that means it was probably like low 70s and we were freezing.

Tell me which of the photos is your favorite of our family. I want to enlarge one and frame it for our wall. Let me tell you, between Ryanna looking anywhere but the camera for most shots and Owen being obsessed with watching the ducks and the water and my hair flying everywhere, it was a miracle that we got anything good. Oh, and yes, that is a bruise on Owen's forehead. Don't ask me, I don't know how it happened.

Remember, please tell me which number is your favorite and why, so I can decide which one is best! That means all of you too who never post comments. Don't try and be sneaky. I know you're reading this and not posting. Obviously the other shots are simply for your enjoyment.

Photo #1

Photo #2

Photo #3

My Sunday Munchies

Okay, I don't know if I'm the only one that suffers from this ailment, but I have to confess that immediately when church is over, I need to eat. I'm not talking about going home and casually perusing the cupboards and making a healthy meal either. I'm talking about, the car comes to a complete stop and it's about all I can do to help my husband get our children out of the car, get myself changed from my Sunday best to my pj's (YES my pj's--discovered the comforts of lounging around in pj's much too late in life and have been desperately making up for it by trying to wear them every Sunday for about six months now), and run like a hunted animal down to the kitchen where I grab for the quickest item that can be shoved in my mouth.


So, I could easily explain away this phenomenon by stating that it happens because our church goes through lunchtime, so of course I'm starving when I get home, but let's be honest, if our church started after dinner, I would still come home and want to shove food in my face. Healthy--not really, Satisfying--in a sick, I have no self-control type way.


I would like to end by confessing that once I've found a certain satisfying object and have inserted it into my mouth, the fat girl rampage ends there, but that would not be honest. Actually, on Sunday my mind tends to go into overdrive thinking about all of the yummy, homemade treats that I could be making. I usually start with either chocolate chip cookies or cinnamon rolls. To my credit, I usually make neither like today. I can't give myself too much credit though because I had a little bit of peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory left, so that was enough for me. I'm not kidding when I say I like dessert and I like it rich!


Anyway, Sunday usually continues on with our whole family eating random items for meals at random times. Ryanna had toast, peaches and a couple bites of my corn chowder soup for dinner. Derek never ate dinner I think and Owen had some chicken nuggets, peaches and one bite of my soup. I hardly ever get to eat all of my own food. It's my new diet called "be a mom your kids will eat half of your food" diet. It's probably saved me thousands of calories by now thus allowing me to eat things such as...well, peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.
Sidenote #1: The above pictured cheesecake, is not the abovementioned flavor, but it would do in a pinch.
Sidenote #2: Do not be fooled by the frozen boxes of The Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes that are sold at Costco. They don't even come close to touching the flavor and texture of a fresh made piece from the restaurant.
Sidenote #3: You will soon discover that I have a penchant for sidenotes. They just feel good and let you know what I'm really thinking.