Giveaway!!

All right; we are hosting our very first giveaway on this blog!! MyMemories.com has graciously offered to give away their digital scrapbooking software to one of our blog readers. This software is very fun, easy to utilize, and creativity-inspiring. I really enjoy it! So, enter the giveaway for a chance to win the MyMemories Suite software!

To enter:
Go to http://www.mymemories.com/, choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout, and comment on this post telling me which one you like best.

Extra entries:
Follow the MyMemories blog (http://blog.mymemories.com/) and comment letting me know
Follow MyMemories on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/mymemoriessuite) and comment letting me know
Follow MyMemories on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/mymemoriessuite) and comment letting me know
Follow this blog and comment to let me know (if you have been following previously, that counts; just comment to let me know you want to enter) ;)

The winner will be announced on Saturday, September 10th. Last chance to enter is September 9th.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE enter and make our first giveaway a success!

(Examples of projects I've been working on with MyMemories software coming soon!)

What is Love?

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
(John 15:12-13)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
(1 John 4:7-10)

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Do you ever stop and think about how much it cost to die on the cross? "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5) The Bible says it all- "Greater love has no one than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends."

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (1 Peter 1:3)

We serve an awesome Creator and Savior!

(Scripture quotes NIV. Photo from Bing.)

Lyceum is starting up soon!!

In two weeks, to be precise!!! Schedules for this fall:

Mom:
   1st hour: free
   2nd hour: teaching Lyceum Choir (younger)
   3rd hour: teaching Lyceum Singers (older)
Sylvia:
   1st hour: Girls' Book Study
   2nd hour: Drama!
   3rd hour: Lyceum Singers
Knut:
   1st hour: General Science
   2nd hour: Drama
   3rd hour: Lyceum Singers
Cecily:
   1st hour: K'NEX: Bridges and Structures
   2nd hour: Choir
   3rd hour: Beginning Knitting
   4th hour: Flute Studio
Thor:
   1st hour: K'NEX: Bridges and Structures
   2nd hour: Choir
   3rd hour: Building Systems
Gloria:
   1st hour: God's Princesses
   2nd hour: Choir
   3rd hour: Five-In-A-Row
Bjorn:
   1st hour: Kinder-Capers
   2nd hour: Choir
   3rd hour: Wee Little Rest

We can't wait!

School has been going fairly well, but it takes up a lot of time, which is why I haven't been posting lately. Sorry about that; I'll try to do better! I'm also blogging at Week In Feminine Dress this week, so I've pretty much been reserving all my blogging energy for that. :)

We've had a pretty busy couple of weeks! School... volin lessons... FLL field trip... birthdays... choir rehearsals beginning at church... going to a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat... parties... more school... more parties... more school... see, I have LOTS of excuses for not blogging!

So anyway... I got started blogging... and ended up redesigning the entire blog for fall, changing the "Meet the Petersons" and "Photos of the Petersons" pages into a beautiful new "Meet Our Family" page, and doing 3 blog posts. :)

What do you think?

FLL Field Trip

On Tuesday we got to go with Knut's First Lego League group (and families) to a dairy on a field trip. It was really interesting! We learned about how the milk is pasteurized and made into different products, how the cows are kept healthy, what some problems are in raising dairy cows, and much more!

The yogurt-cup-filling machine

If this picture doesn't make you laugh I'll be very surprised...

We got to watch the cows being milked...

without cows

with cows

different angle...

cows eating

If you want more cow pictures, I have a bunch!! :D :P

Happy Birthday Gloria!

The new 6-year-old! :D

Gloria had the Woolevers over for dinner... all except Mr. Woolever and Landry, who were at a Boy Scout event.

Mmmm...

Mmmmmmm...

BLOW, Gloria, BLOW!

Gloria and Marlie

Allie, Marlie, Gloria, and Cecily (Don't you just love Allie's red curls??? :))

Gloria was quite happy with her new watch. She's begun to tell time, and this will be an added incentive for her to learn quickly! :)

Happy birthday Gloria! I love you!!! :)

Random Pictures

from just before school

Just so I don't neglect this blog entirely. ;)

Happy Birthday Papa!!!!!

Thank you for not being average or boring. :D

Thank you for always teaching us and training us to live for God.

Thank you for working so hard to support us.

Thank you for protecting us and being willing to lay down your life for your faith and your family. 

Thank you for always loving us.

Thank you for putting our needs above your own.

Thank you for committing your life to Christ and always striving to do what's right in His eyes, not caring about what others think, and teaching us to do the same.

Thank you for being the best father in the world!!!

A Quite Chaotic, Furiously Frenzied, Tumultuously Turbulent, and also slightly hectic week

Yes, that will probably describe this coming week perfectly!

Yesterday was cleaning day, as usual on Saturday. It was pretty bad since we did it on Friday last week, which gave it an extra day to get dirty. Before starting cleaning, Mom went to a yard sale down the street- and as she was coming back, she sprained her ankle! Now she's soo frustrated because she's not able to do anything unless she's sitting down! Papa drove her the one block to church this morning, and she managed to play the organ for the offertory. One of the other 2 organists at church was scheduled to play for the rest of the service, so Mom didn't need to play except for the special music at the offertory. So anyway, on Saturday we finished cleaning the house without Mom's help (Ohhh, my! Was she frustrated! :D) and then I had a babysitting job from 3:00 pm to almost 1:00 am.

Tomorrow, school begins. =C

Tuesday, we're celebrating Papa's birthday (although his real birthday isn't until the 17th) and doing school.

Wednesday... um, Wednesday will be crazy. In the morning, the younger kids (Knut and younger) have an Insects study co-op at the Claytons'. We're also doing school, or at least attempting to do school. At 1:00, Knut and I have drama auditions for Lyceum, which should take at least three hours. And in the evening, we're hosting a choir party at our house. And did I mention it's also Papa's birthday? :D

Thursday, Knut has a First Lego League show and swim day, which Grandpa is taking him to, and we're doing school.

Friday-Saturday, I'm having a birthday party sleepover. And we have school on Friday.

Saturday, we're going to a musical at a church in St. Louis with some friends, and then having dinner at Shady Oaks.


Mom's ankle should be well by Wednesday... hopefully???

Praise God that He's going to be with us all week, even when everything seems soo crazy! :)

The Kidnapping performance video!

Okay, now Papa's youtube account is 'qualified' to upload videos longer than 15 minutes, so I was able to load this 15 minute, 50-something second video without cutting off part of it, but I already loaded New Clothes, Same Old Lie in 3 parts, and I really don't want to spend another afternoon trying to load videos, so you just have to deal with the 3 parts. :) (Sorry for the run-on sentence there!) :D

Anyway, here's The Kidnapping... at least, we missed the first act, but the rest of it is there. :) Basically what happens in the first act is that the king has been poisoned, and everyone is trying to figure out who the murderer could have been. The two maids, Rebecca and Mary, decied to ask the other servants in the palace if they have seen or heard anything strange. Sir Phillip Velocity, who was a close friend of His Majesty and is now a good friend to the Queen as well, wants to have the country searched for the villain. The Queen is encouraging all efforts to find the assassin, but reminding everyone gently to not seek revenge, but justice. The Princess is devastated by the loss of her father and doesn't take part in any of this. Sooo, there's the first act in a nutshell; enjoy the rest of the play. :)




Keep in mind that this was written by the actors. Didn't they do a fantastic job??? :)

New Clothes, Same Old Lie performance video!

Play written by Denise Busenitz: http://actsone.org/. Posted with permission.

Thanks Mom for taking this video!

Sorry it's in 3 parts; the maximum length for a youtube video is 15 minutes.  I am not good at uploading videos to youtube; I had to try multiple times for all three portions to get them to load properly.  Now hopefully they will play all right... :D :P







Video for The Kidnapping coming soon!

Drama Club performance pictures!!

Thank you Clayton family for these! :)

New Clothes, Same Old Lie

By Denise Busenitz (http://actsone.org)

The Royal Court (and Tailor & Madame Sligh)

Logofile, Duchess Grace, Duke of Dane, Bard of Bungle, Tardi, Lady Vogue

The Royal Court and Tailor Sligh

The Royal Coat Fitting

Left to right: Tailor Goodnews, Logofile, Duchess Grace, Duke of Dane, Emperor, Page, Bard of Bungle, Tardi, Lady Vogue

The Kidnapping

Velocity and the Queen

Rebecca and Mary

Rebecca, Mary (fainted), and the Doctor

Queen, Rebecca (hiding), and Velocity

Queen, Velocity, and Guard #1

Rebecca, Princess Genevieve, and the Queen

Drama Club Performance!

I can't believe it's over!!!!

Both plays went very well- I wish I could have seen them from the front! :)  Everyone did so well. Thank you guys for being in Drama Club and for all the effort you put into memorizing your lines and movements, projecting, and coming up with costumes!

At the dress rehearsal on Friday we were getting really worried. I hadn't planned nearly enough rehearsal time for either play, so we didn't get to run through the whole play for either New Clothes, Same Old Lie or The Kidnapping- but that wasn't the biggest problem. The room where we were had the big air conditioning units for the entire building in it- and they were really loud. They almost completely drowned out the actors' voices, and we weren't able to turn them off. The thermostat was in a locked box on the wall, and the key was only in the possession of the City of Mascoutah! When the room was cool enough so that the a/c would turn off, it was perfect- we could hear everyone's lines very well. The problem was that the room wasn't always cool enough, so they were on most of the time. We didn't have any microphones, and even if we did we wouldn't be able to plug them in- there weren't any working outlets in the room! Papa was making phone calls to see if there was anywhere else we could do the performance, and Mom, Mrs. June, and Mrs. Phillips were trying to figure out how we could 'trick' the air conditioner into 'thinking' it was cooler, so it would turn off. Mrs. Phillips had the idea of putting an ice chest under the thermostat during the performance. We weren't sure whether it would work, and Papa had gotten permission to use one of the rooms at Zion LC, but we had already rehearsed in this space, gotten set up, and advertised with this address- we decided to stay put and pray that the a/c units would stay off. Papa also brought some choir sound boards to put in the place of a backdrop to help the sound bounce off. We dismissed everyone, finished setting up, went home, and kept on praying!!!

Saturday: Cast members arrived at our house around 9:30. It was CRAZY trying to get makeup and costumes on for 16 people in 30 minutes, but thanks to tons of help from moms it got done and we were all at the Civic Center by about 10:10. We had lots of people setting up chairs while Haleigh and I got everything set up, prayed with the cast backstage, and other last-minute prep.

Papa was going to pray to begin the performance and also run the video camera, but Saturday morning he woke up dizzy. He managed to get to the Civic Center, but then he was feeling really bad and had to go back home. I asked Mom to run the video camera and Mr. Phillips to pray for us, and we got started. The performance wasn't perfect- we had a few awkward moments with forgotten lines and curtain problems- but it was very good! The a/c stayed off the entire time- praise God! (Of course, that made it pretty hot even with all the fans, but it was nice to get back home and cool off.) After the performance, and after we cleaned up the props/set/costumes/etc., everyone went to our house for a potluck lunch/party!

I still can't believe it's over. Wow! Praise God for how well the performance went, and for how fun this was! I've had so many people saying "let's do this again next summer!" and I must admit, I'd love to do it again. :) We'll see if it works out!

(pictures to come)

Meet Our Cast (repost with updated pictures)

The performance is tomorrow at 10:45 a.m. at the Leu Civic Center: 213 N Market St, Mascoutah, IL.

Please come!

New Clothes, Same Old Lie

(By Denise Busenitz: http://actsone.org/)

STARRING:

Chad as The Emperor

Kalei as Duchess Grace

John as Logofile

Caleb as Bard of Bungle

Joe as Tailor Sligh

Carin as Lady Vogue

Jared as Duke of Tardi

Knut as Duke of Dane

Johnathan as Tailor Goodnews

Caris as Madame Sligh

Zach as The Page

The Kidnapping

STARRING

Taylor as The Queen

Shelby as Sir Phillip Velocity

Sophia as Rebecca

Cecily as Mary

Kalei as Princess Genevieve

Thor as Guard #1

Cecily as Guard #2

Building the Porch

It's been put off for years, but Papa is finally getting around to building the back porch! We decided to skip our vacation to Montana this year so that he could get it done. It's looking good! At the moment it's just a 'deck'; it will be a screened porch but the roof is nonexistent right now. :)

It went from this...

To this...

To this...

To this...

To this...

To this.