Catch-up Edition

The girls were very proud of their snowman

Dad thanking Kara for the chocolate she gave him

Things we have done since last we wrote:

Mom took the girls to see "Enchanted" at the movie theater. When it was over, Kara said, "I really liked the dragon part."

The girls also got to see "Bee Movie" and "The Water Horse." That's more movies in the theater in 2 weeks than Joy and Brenda saw all of the previous 12 months.

Joy and Brenda celebrated their 9th anniversary.

Joy took a whopping 5 days off from work. With weekends and paid holidays, that was an 11 day vacation. Can you believe he didn't want to go back afterward??

Mom and Dad were feeling sick one night at bedtime, so we asked Amy to read us a story. She read 6 pages of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" out loud all by herself. Some of it she had memorized (how many times have we read it to her??), but some words she had to figure out on her own.

Brenda sang in a Christmas choir concert and in a church Christmas program.

Joy and Brenda got a skookie for Christmas.


Interesting stuff:

-Want a free windshield?


QOSROIT: What was your favorite part of the holidays this year?


Love,
The Petersons

How Does She Do That??

Not a video game addict:
Kara fell asleep playing Nintendo.

Matching bookends (the books are invisible)

According to Kara, kitties have "pawses."

Brenda is now a professional seamstress. Two people are paying her (!!) to make their choir blouses.

The first grade classes at Amy's school are going on a field trip to see the Nutcracker ballet. She is so excited!!

Joy has been having problems with pain in his hip, so he's seeing a chiropractor for a 12-visit treatment plan. Hopefully this will help.


QOSROIT: Where are you in your holiday shopping?


Love,
The Petersons

To Grandmother's House We Go

Amy having a ball at the park

Kara helping Grandma with Thanksgiving dinner

There is a sign on a door in Joy's office building that says, "I have flying monkeys, and I know how to use them."

While we were visiting Joy's family for Thanksgiving, Kara had to use the potty, but she was so tired she fell asleep on the bathroom floor with her pants down!

When Amy had her 6 year doctor visit, she had a flu shot and didn't cry at all!!

Brenda didn't cry when she got her flu shot either.


QOSROIT: When was the last time you got poked with a needle?


Love,
The Petersons

Gobble Gobble

Sleeping Beauty (on the couch)

Amy's friends at her carnival birthday party

This year, Brenda is thankful for modern medicine.

Joy is thankful for his excellent job.

Amy is thankful for her cats, as usual.

Kara is thankful for spiders.


QOSROIT: What are your Thanksgiving and Christmas plans?


Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,
The Petersons

Happy Birthday, Dear Amy

Out little kitties on Halloween

The birthday girl

Brenda saw her surgeon last week for a follow-up, and he said it looks like things are healing nicely. He also said that he suspected that the gallbladder had been infected at least since Brenda's first pregnancy!

Joy has come up with an interesting way to try to get Kara to stop picking her nose. He told her that the spider that used to live in her belly button (see 7/5/07 POSROIT) has relocated to her nose. He warned her that if she stuck her finger up there, the spider would bite it.

Amy turned six last week, and she read her own birthday cards! What happened to our baby??

Kara is no longer Kara. She has become Baby Kitty. She spends her days meowing around the house and saying things like, "Baby Kitty wants Daddy Kitty" and "Baby Kitty is hungry."


Interesting stuff:

-Lugnut + Shotgun = What was I thinking?


QOSROIT: Have you ever had an organ removed?


Love,
The Petersons

Pumpkin Fest

Amy at the pumpkin patch

Kara and Grandma carving


The finished products:
Evil Cat, Spider and Pumpkin Pi

Kara's latest favorite word is "nasty." We don't know where she learned it, but lately everything is nasty, e.g. "I don't like potatoes. They're nasty."

Amy got to go to a "slumber party" this weekend. The girls wore pajamas and did all the (G rated) things girls do at slumber parties, but they didn't actually sleep over. She loved it, of course.

Brenda had her gall bladder removed last Monday. The week before, her back was in constant pain. She tried ibuprophen, acetaminophen, massage, yoga, muscle relaxers, deep breathing and even saw a chiropractor, but nothing would touch the pain. Sunday night it was finally so bad that she asked Joy to take her to the hospital at 3 am, figuring that at least they could give her some morphine!

Once we got in and saw the ER doc, he didn't hesitate in making the diagnosis. He set her up on IV pain meds and scheduled the surgery for as soon as the surgeon on call could do it. The morphine and Dilaudid didn't make her feel better either, but the surgery sure did. The first thought she had after waking up was, "Hey, my back doesn't hurt anymore!" The surgeon told Joy that it was pretty nasty in there, completely filled with infection. Now, after a week of recovery, Brenda is still pretty tired and not able to be up and around for more than an hour or two at a time, but she is not in pain anymore.

Between the surgery and a vacation day, Joy only had to work 2 days last week. However, he is completely exhausted from taking care of his wife and daughters all week!


Interesting stuff:

-For your "Unbelievable!" file: wind through a loophole


QOSROIT: Halloween plans?


Love,
The Petersons

Hip, Hip, Hurrah!

Amy in her dance class

Kara enjoying a popsicle on a crisp autumn afternoon

Brenda sang with the choir at the Harvest Moon Hurrah (the city's annual arts festival) on Saturday.

On the way to the Harvest Moon Hurrah, Kara said to Grandma, "I'm wearing underwear. Are you?"

For family home evening this week, we took a drive up the canyon to look at the gorgeous fall foliage, but Amy was bored. When Mom suggested that she take a deep breath and enjoy it, Amy responded with, "Not gonna happen, Mom."

Joy is very excited about the new digital camera we got. He is having the time of his life playing with different settings and features.


QOSROIT: What piece of technology could you not live without?


Love,
The Petersons

Make a Wish

Cake & ice cream

Kara loves the new Dora quilt
that Grandma Peterson made for her.

Joy had a hectic week in Oregon. He (and the rest of us!) is happy to be coming home.

One of Brenda's college roommates, Cinde, came over for dinner last night. They were up until 1:30 talking and catching up!

Amy started a dance class on Monday. She loved it! Big surprise. She was particularly excited about the tap portion of the class.

Kara was looking for some friends to play with in the neighborhood. As she knocked on a few doors, Mom tagged along just to make sure she would be OK. Nobody seemed to be able to play, so Mom suggested that she try the girl down the street. Kara's face lit up, and she said, "OK! But Mom...can you not come with me?" Hard to believe she's only three.


QOSROIT: What friends from your past are you still in touch with?

Love,
The Petersons

Happy Birthday to You! You Live in a Zoo!

Birthday girl

Birthday zoo

We got an inch of snow last Saturday! It was still September!

Kara turned three on Sunday. She had her doctor's visit today. She is 32.2 lbs and 37.5 inches tall. She was such a brave girl for her 4 shots!

Amy is adjusting nicely to her new school as well as to going all day. She's still not too thrilled about getting up in the morning, though. She gets that from Mom.

Joy is leaving for a business trip to Eugene, OR on Sunday.

Brenda is jealous that her husband gets to travel to such exotic locales.


QOSROIT: Where is the most unusual place you have been?


Love,
The Petersons

Onward and Upward

One of Amy's first kindergarten assignments.
Note the "imaginative spelling."

Amy finally got into the charter school. Her first day was yesterday. She was a little nervous, but she did just fine. She's making new friends already, and she got to bring home the Share Bear (their version of show & tell).

Kara is daytime potty trained. Hopefully soon Mom & Dad will get a nice break from buying diapers!

On Friday Joy and Brenda attended a fireside presented by the BYU football team and their head coach, Bronco Mendenhall.


QOSROIT: What elementary school(s) did you attend?


Love,
The Petersons

Growing Like Weeds

Our camera died this week, so we will be posting blasts from the past for a while.

The kids helping Mom cook

Another adorable picture from the 4th of July

Amy is starting to get the hang of reading. She knows about 30 sight words and can either sound out a lot of other words or guess them from the context.

Kara has officially given up her nap.

Brenda is actually quite relieved, since now she and Kara can go shopping while Amy is in school. No more fighting or screaming fits in the middle of Albertsons.

Joy had his first appointment with another family in our ward to help them get started on family history on Sunday.


Interesting stuff:

-A continuous flow intersection opening in Salt Lake


QOSROIT: What is your least favorite intersection and why? Come one, we all have 'em!


Love,
The Petersons

Goings-On and Such

Brenda and the girls with Aunt CJ
(Brenda's best friend from AZ)

Kara insisted on a picture,
and this is what we got
when we told her to smile.

On the way to Amy's school, there is an overgrown yard with a lot of wasps. As we were walking by last week, Kara said, "Mommy, we have to stay away from the rumble bees."

Another reason Brenda loves fall: choirs start practicing Christmas music.

Joy got a jury summons form in the mail. What a lucky guy. Now we'll have to wait and see if he's actually called.

Amy is having a HUGE growth spurt. For the last couple of months she has been eating more at dinner than either Mom or Dad. Mom took the girls' measurements (2 or 3 times for accuracy, mind you) to prepare to make Halloween costumes, and Amy's hips were 24.5". A couple weeks later (after she bought the pattern) she measured again, and this time Amy's hips were 26".



QOSROIT: How tall are you?


Love,
The Petersons

Gooooooooooooooallllllllllllll!!

Amy at her very first soccer game

The Rainbows with Coach Jan

Go, Amy, go!!!

As you can see, Amy played in her very first soccer game last week. She loved it! She really went after the ball and doesn't mind falling down so much anymore.

Since it's college football season, we've been teaching the girls to roar like cougars. Mom, Dad and Amy were watching the BYU game together on Saturday. Amy roared, and suddenly we heard this from down the hall, where Kara was supposed to be napping.

Brenda has all the materials she needs to make the girls' Halloween costumes. Now, if she could just find some time... . Anyone have any we can borrow?

Joy is going on a business trip to Eugene, Oregon the first week of October. He must be a VIP, because he's flying Delta and staying at a Marriott.

QOSROIT: What do you wish you had more time to do?


Love,
The Petersons

Back to School (for the First Time)

Kara being her goofy self

Amy on her very first day of school

Amy's first day of kindergarten was yesterday. She has been so excited. When she came home yesterday, she couldn't remember what she had done, except reading a story called "Super Kids" and coloring a picture. She said she made some new friends, but she doesn't remember their names.

Kara is becoming fiercely independent. She wants to do everything herself, from putting on her shoes and socks to buckling her seatbelt to pouring her juice, and she throws a fit if we try to do it for her.

Brenda is excited, because the mountains are changing color. Fall is just around the corner!

This week was Joy's turn to have the stomach flu. Lucky guy.


QOSROIT: If you could make one wish right now, what would it be?


Love,
The Petersons

The 2007 Cougar Kickoff

Soccer Kara

Cross Country Amy

Cougar girls

Things Brenda has done during the month of August: got the stomach flu, attended the BYU organ workshop, got sicker, caught up on her magazine reading, recovered very slowly, won an official practice jersey at this year's Cougar Kickoff, and...um...well...that's about it.

Amy figured out all by herself how to blow bubbles in gum.

Kara is officially dressing herself, as long as Mom makes sure all the clothes are right side out!

Joy is counting down to the first BYU football game of the year: 10 days, 2 hours and 33 minutes.

Interesting stuff:

-Bored? Try carving crayons.

-"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence. (if you're a visual learner, try this version)


QOSROIT: What is the strangest sentence you've ever seen?


Love,
The Petersons

A Bit of Summer Vacation

Kara enjoying a sparkler on Pioneer Day

From the "Things Kids Do When Mom & Dad
Aren't Watching" file: diaper decor

We went to a lake on Saturday with Joy's family. Once Amy saw her cousins having a blast in the water, she forgot her fears and splashed around right along with them. She and Rachel and David played shark together, which was basically a swimming version of tag with one person as the shark rather than "it." Kara was a little timid at first too, but before long she was "swimming" back and forth from shore to Mom & Dad. Both girls made more progress at being comfortable in the water in one afternoon at the lake with positive peer pressure than in two weeks of swimming lessons.

Joy and Brenda had a nice little getaway last week. We left the girls with Joy's sister's family and went to Cedar City. Woohoo! We saw Twelfth Night at the Shakespearean Festival and the next day Harry Potter. Both were awesome. We also drove through Kolob and up to Cedar Breaks National Monument. If you've never seen it, we highly recommend it. It's completely indescribable.

Interesting stuff:

-Snow sculpture championships

-Badly translated product slogans


QOSROIT: What is your favorite natural wonder?


Love,
The Petersons

Mmm...mmm...good!

Kara on her bouncy ball

No. these are not storm clouds.
It's smoke from a fire that started
yesterday afternoon about 30 miles south of us.

Kara was pretending to race from the kitchen to the front door on her bouncy ball. When she reached her goal, she shouted, "The crowd goes wild!"

When Brenda was a kid, she found great delight in grossing out her dad by eating marshmallows in applesauce. Quite tasty, actually.

Amy is following in her mother's footsteps. Yesterday she invented a new delicacy: crackers with ham, cheese and banana slices.

Joy is thoroughly disgusted by his daughter's culinary masterpiece.


Interesting stuff:

-Do you support a ban of dihydrogen monoxide?

-Salt Lake City's tap water is the best

-More affordable solar power production through the magic of carbon nanotube complexes and Buckyballs


QOSROIT: What is the strangest food or food combination you've ever eaten?


Love,
The Petersons

Kids' toothpaste tastes a little too good these days...

A spectacular sunset brought to us
by our friendly-neighborhood wildfires

The best position for drawing pictures

Kara came wandering out of her room the other night (when she was supposed to be sleeping) asking for a wash cloth. She had opened and emptied two tubes of toddler toothpaste all over the front of her nightgown.

The girls started swimming lessons this week. Amy took right to it, even after being timid through the whole thing last summer. She went all the way under the very first day this time.

Brenda's PDA had a near-death experience this weekend. Joy managed to resuscitate it, but most of the applications have to be reinstalled, and a lot of data was lost. Brenda is counting her blessings, though. At least she doesn't have to go back to pen-and-paper grocery lists.

Now for an item from the there's-something-you-don't-see-everyday file: Joy nearly hit a deer (yes, a deer) on a road in our neighborhood this morning.


QOSROIT: How technology dependent are you?


Love,
The Petersons

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Amy & Daddy working on the bike

Kara and her friend Kate enjoying fireworks

For some unfathomable reason, Kara is convinced there is a spider in her belly button.

Brenda loves to tickle Kara's spider.

Amy has decided that she prefers to address Mom as "Mother," just because.

Joy is enjoying his summer smorgasbord of US national team and RSL soccer games.


Interesting stuff:

-Blind Melon for cats


QOSROIT: What is your favorite patriotic song?


Love,
The Petersons

Extreme Makeover: Master Bedroom Edition

Before:

After:

Joy and Brenda spent last weekend painting the master bedroom the lovely shade of Laurel Mist (row 3, col 2). It was a lot of work, but well worth it.

When we went to the library park last week, Kara was fascinated by their big ride-on lawn mowers. She said, "I see two lawn maulers!"

Amy is learning to ride her bike without training wheels. She told Dad, "I'm never having training wheels again!!"


Interesting stuff:

-The art of pencil carving

-Lego sports stadium

-Have you ever wanted to kick down a door? Now you can!


QOSROIT: Laurel Mist is a dumb name for a paint color. Can you think of a better one?


Love,
The Petersons

Joy and the girls on the slide at Orem Summerfest

One of two hummingbirds
who found their way into our garage
and couldn't figure out how to get back out

Amy has recently developed a desire for privacy, mostly from her sister.

Kara has figured out how to open doors, much to Amy's dismay.

Joy played McGuyver this weekend to free the hummingbirds from our garage. He constructed a net out of a light bulb pole, a hanger, a laundry bag and duct tape.

Brenda registered for the BYU organ workshop in August. Woohoo!!


QOSROIT: What is your middle name?


Love,
The Petersons

Purrrrr...

Amy cuddling Aurora. Rora is thrilled.

Taz found a nice cozy spot to cuddle up in

Amy is taking an art class offered by the city's Youth Arts Festival for the next 2 weeks. So far they have painted with toys and made paper mosaics. She loves it!

Kara runs around the house singing all day. Last week it was "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." This morning it was "Do As I'm Doing." So she really does pay attention in nursery after all!

Joy is really getting into his new calling. He's learning about the Personal Ancestral File and the church's records online. They have information on one line of his grandmother's side that goes back to the 700s.

Brenda bought a double needle for her regular sewing machine so she can do a coverstitch hem on Amy's pants. To give you an idea of what that means, most T-shirt hems are coverstitched.


Interesting stuff:

-Solar panels on electic cars. Well, duh.

-Calculate pi with hot dogs

-Win your next rock paper scissors tournament

-Who is your movie critic soul mate?


QOSROIT: Who is your movie critic soul mate?


Love,
The Petersons

What Will They Come Up With Next?

The best way to eat olives

Kara's idea of a bucket seat

Kara's latest version of the alphabet: "A B C D E F G H I J K Elmo N O P...."

Last week, Brenda discovered that although we can't seem to get a decent restaurant in town, Spanish Fork now has a shop on Main Street that sells Segways. Yes, Segways.

With some supervision (i.e. nagging), Amy has managed to keep her playroom clean for a whole two weeks.

Joy has a new church calling. He was released this week as Perfecting the Saints committee chair and called as a family history consultant. He spent this weekend becoming an expert on name extraction.


Interesting stuff:

-How fast can you solve this puzzle?


QOSROIT: What is the biggest mystery of the universe?


Love,
The Petersons

Soakin' Up the Sun

Amy and her friends sunning themselves

Daddy's girl

We successfully switched over from winter to summer clothes for the girls. Kara is enjoying her new "allovers" (overalls).

Amy is learning to add and subtract.

Brenda got a bread machine for Mother's Day. We see lots of experimentation in our future!

Joy (along with his wife) is enjoying the Jazz playoff run. With a win tonight, they will officially be in the Western Conference finals.


Interesting stuff:

-An owner's manual for your lightsaber

-A new take on "mommy brain"


QOSROIT: Do you have any big plans for this summer?


Love,
The Petersons