A Special Thanksgiving

Our family has one very, very special reason to be thankful this year! And I mean VERY VERY VERY special!! :)

It has to do with cuteness... and something very small... and something very special... and something very exciting.. and something that means we need a new car... :P





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Yes, this is an announcement saying...



Another baby is on the way!!!!! 

He or she is due June 19th, Thor's birthday! However, as this family has yet to have a baby born on the exact due date, Thor may not be sharing his birthday after all. :)

Plans

For the next month or so, I expect to be very busy, so I will schedule a few blog posts for in my absence. They will appear...

November 24: "A Special Thanksgiving"

December 3 "Fun Quotes"
December 10 "A Typical Peterson Schoolday"
I may or may not pop in and post a couple other "newsy" posts from time to time, depending on my availability. However, considering I'm somewhat behind in school and don't really want to be doing schoolwork all summer this year... don't count on it. ;)

First Lego League

First the big news: The Robo Raiders have advanced to Regionals!!!

Next the other news: We found the camera memory card! :D

Pictures at last...

 Joe the Cow

 Robo Raiders table

 Dividing up the candy :)

Joe the Deflated Cow and Knut the Comedian with his Llama

The Robot Runs!

Robo Raiders ready for their turn

Pep talk

Robo Raiders' second robot run

 Cameron and Jon at the table; the rest of the team on the sidelines (only two people were allowed at the table at a time)

Scores for the Robot Runs

 Knut the Very Happy Cow

Knut the Cow getting hugs from his teammates

"Cow Eggs"

The Cow and Jared posing for pictures

The Cow was very popular... he was photographed numerous times by numerous people and even interviewed! I didn't get to hear the cow being interviewed, but Knut told us most of what was said, as he was in the cow suit at that time. :)

...

(At the end of the interview:)

Commentator: Do you have anything else you'd like to say?

Cow: MOOOO!!!!!!

Drama/Lyceum/Etc.

The drama performance went really well yesterday! :) The dress rehearsals were very crazy, though... one of the lights smashed, a costume got torn, several props were missing, etc. Ms. Jo stopped the rehearsal at one point to pray that God would take care of everything... and He did! There were a couple problems with lighting during the performance, but other than that everything went very well! :) I just can't believe it's over. This semester has gone by so fast!

Lyceum is over, too! This was the last Friday of the semester, so now we won't have it until February... if it works out to have it this spring at all. It was a wonderful semester, though... Mom had more than twice the usual number of people in Lyceum Singers... thirty total! We had our first Lyceum Singers "concert" a couple hours after Lyceum ended. It was outside of Dr. Jazz, a restaurant in Lebanon owned by a family whose daughter is in Lyceum Singers. There was a Victorian lamplighting festival happening that night, and we were singing about an hour before the "official" performers were due to begin. Our program took much less time than we had anticipated... only 15 minutes! It sounded wonderful, though! ;)

Note: The FLL post is postponed until we can find the camera memory card with all the pictures.

Last week Grandpa had a heart attack. This week Knut set the lawn mower on fire. What will happen next week?!

The title pretty much says it all.

Yes, Knut set the lawn mower on fire today.
Yes, it still works.
No, he did not do it on purpose.
Yes, he was on it at the time.
No, he was not hurt at all. (Praise God!)
Yes, life around here is very, very, very, very, very, very, very interesting at times.

Thank God that Papa was working across the street and could run over and put out the fire in time to save the lawn mower! :)

And, to answer the questions Papa put to me as soon as he had the fire out,
NO, I didn't get pictures; I was busy spraying the burning leaves with the hose!
And YES, it's going on the blog! :D

[Post about Knut's FLL competition coming soon; right now I need to go finish school. ;)]

Grandpa is home from the hospital and doing well! :)

Praise God for his mercy!

Grandpa had a heart attack early this morning.

Grandma called 911 immediately, and the paramedics were there in a matter of minutes. If Grandma had waited longer to call 911, or if the ambulance had been slower, or if... (insert other factors here), Grandpa could be in heaven right now. Praise God that none of the "if" factors happened, and that Grandpa is recovering just fine. Prayers would still be appreciated, though. :)

Mom and Grandma drove to the hospital this morning at 4:15, and got back around 8 when we were all waking up. We were a little surprised to hear the news. ;)

*insert interesting post title here*

Lots of things that have been happening lately: (note: after this post, don't expect another for at least a week; it's going to be reeeallly crazy...)

We actually watched the last game of the World Series! First time for everyone except Papa. :) We don't have TV, so we got it streamed from the Internet...

It was actually really fun! We celebrated the Cardinals' victory with cookies. ;)

Knut took the camera to Lyceum last week and got some crazy pictures between classes and during Drama. Normally he wouldn't be allowed to take pictures during Drama, but they were rehearsing "the chase scene" of his play for the entire hour-and-a-half class period, and Knut (horrors!) is not involved in "the chase scene"! It might be a good idea to not post those pictures except with specific consent from the people in them. ;)

This is Vern. He is a glorp.

STAY AWAY FROM VERN.

That is all you need to know.

There is an annual free Halloween parade/costume contest in our town that we always enter. Ever since we first entered, four years ago, there has always been a Peterson in a prizewinning entry. This year we carried on that tradition...

Thor and the Claytons dressed up as pirates and put together a pirate ship out of big pieces of cardboard, two red wagons, and some black cloth for a sail. Their entry was amazing... and consequently they won FIRST PLACE in the "groups of 2 or more" division!!

Other entries...

Gloria dressed up as a butterfly

Knut and I dressed up as Ninjas. Both of these pictures are of Knut since I was the one behind the camera. ;)

Papa dressed as a cowboy and entered only after tremendous urging. :) Cecily and Rosemary entered as English Princesses, but sadly I don't have a picture of their lovely costumes. :(

That evening we were planning to go to a concert, but we were mistaken about the time. After some friends called us to let us know that THEY were running late we found out our mistake... and so for about five minutes were rushing around FRANTICALLY (and I mean REALLY FRANTICALLY) trying to clean up, get everyone out of costumes and into regular clothes, and get in the car and buckled up. Unfortunately we forgot about makeup... and so Thor went to the concert wearing eyeshadow (at least his scars and beard got washed off!) and Gloria went to the concert with lipstick, blusher, eyeshadow, light eyeliner, and face powder. :)

Speaking of makeup, I found out before the parade that it IS possible to apply mascara with your mouth closed. I don't wear any makeup, so I had always heard (and believed) that it was not possible... but when I put it on as part of my costume, I stubbornly kept my mouth shut. :) Random fact for you.

Stuff that is going on this month and next:

Peterson Family Singers is actually starting up again!! We have a concert scheduled for this Monday, so we've been rehearsing whenever we can to get ready.

Knut's First Lego League group has their competition in a couple weeks, so we hardly see Knut anymore! He's at FLL meetings almost all day on Tuesdays and after Lyceum on Fridays, as well as doing research and work at home for their project. Mom and I got to watch their skit/presentation a few days ago and it was really good! The team has definitely improved since last year.

Lyceum ends in a few weeks, and on the last day of Lyceum the older choir will be singing at the Lebanon homecoming. Also, the SCCCHE Christmas concert, at which both choirs will be singing, is December first!  Mom informed me yesterday that I will be accompanying one or two of the younger choir's pieces. (Yikes! :O) Peterson Family Singers will be doing a piece or two at the concert as well.

The Lyceum Drama performance is sometime in late-ish November... I can't remember exactly when; I think it's a week after Knut's FLL competition. So, that means that soon we'll be down to the wire trying to get our blocking taken care of. There are three plays this year; Knut and I are in different plays. Knut's play is having lots of trouble with blocking ("the chase scene" ;D) and my play has some very difficult period costumes that we're making without much in the way of patterns. I'm not sure about the other play, but I'm sure they're having their difficulties too! :P However, I'm sure the performance will be wonderful... with Ms. Jo (the wonderfully amazing director) it always is!

Bright Lights is still going, and so Cecily and I have meetings pretty much every other week. I also have a leaders meeting once a month, and do some emailing with my small group co-leaders to get agendas/accountability partners/etc. figured out. ;)

School... is my life right now. Other than Bright Lights, Lyceum, Drama, music, reading, working, the computer, and sewing, of course. ;) Cecily, Thor, and Gloria usually finish by lunchtime unless they're not focusing, so school doesn't take up too much of their day. Knut's schoolwork is beginning to take longer (and he's stopped teasing me about how long my school takes... I wonder why??), but he still usually manages to finish fairly soon after lunch. His FLL homework takes up a bunch of his time, though.

Cecily and I have been working at a public school (after school ends) almost every week for the past couple months. One of the teachers goes to our church, and she often has us help out when her class is finished grading students' work, cleaning off bulletin boards, making copies, cutting things out for projects, etc. It's interesting to work there because we get to see the kinds of things they're learning and the kinds of resources they have access to. I must admit that the resources (huge copy machines... smartboards... lots and lots of construction paper... PENCILS WITHOUT ERASERS CHEWED OFF BY THE BABY!!!) wouldn't be unwelcome to us (although we may not be able to fit the copy machines in the house anywhere :P), but then, lack of this kind of resource sparks such creativity (not to mention frugality) that maybe it's actually better to not have them. We could use more "whole" pencils, though... but that dream will never be fulfilled until we no longer have anyone in the house under the age of 3. And I'd rather have the babies. ;)

I have a sewing job for Grandma Joni that I need to have finished and shipped before December 1st. She wants 12 aprons to give to her friends for Christmas, and 7 of them she needs before December. So I guess only 7 of them need to be finished and shipped before December 1st, but I'm going to attempt to ship them all together. Let's see if that works... ;)

The monthly SCCCHE meeting is next Thursday, and all of us will be attending.

Mom and I are coordinating a farewell party for a wonderful family in the homeschool group who will be moving away this month! :( We're not sure yet when it will be.

Church: Choir rehearsal is Wednesday nights for Papa, Mom, and me, and then of course we all go to the  service on Sunday mornings.

Anything else? Um... I'm sure I'm forgetting something... but I'm ready to stop and I'm sure you're either tired of reading or you've just skimmed over most of the post. :) I'll not prolong your agony any longer. Hopefully you are now sufficiently convinced that we are busy and are willing to accept that as my excuse for probably not posting too often in the next few week, neglecting the Daily Family Insanity, and then not giving my lovely repertoire of excuses when I start posting "regularly" again. :)