New Bathroom Sink Installed

While this has been some time in the making...we finally have a bathroom sink installed! We are certainly grateful to everyone who has helped us reach this point. Michelle thought of the design, Dad Petersen and Uncle Kyle were responsible for the steel construction and assembly. Uncle Jared did the tiling. And I was able to do the installation. And there you have it, a nice bathroom sink.

Our boys are not content with the built-in step shown at the bottom of the cabinet. So most of the time we'll find Michael and Aleky sitting or kneeling on the counter top. It is a good thing that this vanity was built "Petersen-tough" to handle the demands and work load our family will put it through!

Thanksgiving with the Family

We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful family and we look forward all year to each opportunity to gather together with our extended family. The Petersen's side of the family has quite a few cousins who are all very close in age. Each time we get together the cousins will do everything together and they go non-stop until the late hours of the day. While cooking a Thanksgiving meal that comes in handy since all of the kids stay occupied. I find it quite amazing how few accidents and crying actually occur with so many little children in such close proximity for an extended period of time.

In any case, we had a fabulous Thanksgiving meal hosted at Aunt Melissa's house this year. We created a table for the kids and most of the cousins (3 families represented - Boels, Joneses, Kims) were able to fit. Now eating was not a high priority item for the kids (especially my boys) but they stayed put because they had to wait for their cousins to continue playing.

These kids were found hanging around.

Cynthia heads up the nail decorating activity while the mommies work on dinner.

Parent enforced curfew, the boys decide to camp out in the family room so they can all be together.

My boys discover the Nerf cannon. They set up a sniper nest at the bottom of the stairs.

We had a very enjoyable time visiting with family. We certainly appreciate the Boels for allowing all of us to visit their home and share in their hospitality.

New Addition to Our Family

We are excited about the newest member of our family. In anticipation of growing family we have decided that we need a vehicle that will allow the entire family to travel together. Our search has led us to "Big Red." I hesitate to call it Clifford but that is the name that immediately comes to mind.

The vehicle has the cloth seats which we prefer because the leather seats all seem to wear much faster and look much worse over time. We were hoping for the bench seat option for the front but didn't get it with this suburban.

The engine looks to be in fairly good condition so we felt pretty good about finding this deal. I think that as long as we take care of it, this vehicle will get our family to Grandma's house and back at least a few times.

Halloween 2009

Our boys have been very excited for Halloween this year. David has been talking about it all month long. He is old enough now to remember the various holidays and to get excited about them. Donovan is also getting very excited about the holidays too. He picks up on the enthusiasm from David and it multiplies. Michael is excited that his brothers are excited and he wants in.

This year Michelle decided to to Star Wars costumes. She was able to put together three young Jedi costumes; Aleky's costume was about half done so he got to be a Musketeer instead. We decided to stay in our neighborhood this year and visit our friends here. The boys were just excited to knock on the doors, say "Trick or Treat" and get candy. Of course, we were excited for our boys and to visit our friends and neighbors.

Our longest stop, by far, was at the bishop's house. They decided to hand out cooked hot dogs and hamburgers instead of candy. We stopped and had dinner there, along with the nice hot chocolate they provided. It also gave us an opportunity to visit with other neighbors who stopped to share the food.

However, in spite of the food already shared we ended up with a lot of extra candy as the bishop carefully unloaded his bowl of candy into Donovan's bucket (behind Michelle's back--he was very sneaky!).

It was a lot of fun running around the east half of the ward. We ran out of time before we could visit the west half. Regardless of the shortness of time I think the boys got more than enough candy for a single night.

We're still trying to decide how best to handle the influx of sugar. We've heard some parents let their kids eat as much candy as they want on Halloween night and they dispose of the rest. Other parents distribute the candy over time to even out the sugar to a manageable level. Some dentists (I've heard) will trade toys for candy. So far, we've decided to go with the even distribution of candy over time but haven't settled on this option as the only option.