Halloween 2010

What a fun day it has been!!! For Halloween this year, Amelia is an ewok! Don't know what that is? Learn about it HERE.



I worked this morning and this afternoon we took Amelia around to see family members in her costume. She gave each person a card and a piece of candy! I was glad we were able to find something fun to do with her all dressed up this year.

Amelia got pumpkin buckets from her Grandma Rude and her Auntie Liz and they both gave her applesauce! Our little ewok loves applesauce and couldn't wait to eat it:


Once we got to Nana's house she had another surprise waiting for her...




...her very own ball pit/tent! Amelia has officially taken over my parent's house. My sister now refers to it as "BooVille" (Amelia's nickname is Boo.)

Now, just for fun - here is Jason today:


No, it's not a costume. He just really loves the Vikings. He doesn't normally wear his helga-horns, so maybe it actually is kind of like his Halloween costume in a way?

Hopefully everyone has had a great Hallo-weekend!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night Amelia and I had a girls night with Lisa and Marie! Lisa had her own pumpkin patch this year and it yielded around 30 pumpkins, wow! She gave some away but still had around 15 left so she invited Marie and I over to carve some. Amelia wasn't too interested in the whole process at first. She just kind of stared:



We eventually just let her run around and play and she eventually joined us on her own and found herself a chunk of pumpkin to "teeth" on:



It was pretty funny!

We had a lot of fun carving but it is hard work!



Marie got really into it and that's probably why she had the best pumpkin...and she finished first! Here are our finished products:


And a close-up of each one:


Lisa also carved this one yesterday afternoon:


We had a lot of fun last night and we hope to make this a Halloween tradition! Next year, Lisa's husband wants to try and grow giant pumpkins. Wouldn't that be fun? I hope they do it!

Go Giants!!!

Amelia is supporting her pick to win the World Series this year:


Clearly she is sending them luck as they won last night! Thanks for the hat, Marcie!

I found this link to the meaning/reason for the panda hat, for those interested or curious.

She IS Nana's Girl

Amelia's has become a big-time Nana's girl:



She wouldn't even think about eating yogurt if it was coming from mommy. Only Nana.

**We spent the night at Nana and grandpa's house last night because our power went out so we had no light on top of no heat and considering the weather we have been having we decided not to stay at home. I saw on the news today that the storm that we are in right now has characteristics of a class three hurricane. I'm serious. The whole midwest has been affected by this wind storm that has lasted the past two days. I'm glad it looks like it is finally over!

Teething is Hard Work

Oh, teething. Poor Amelia and her teeth. Like I said in my last post, our girl is teething like a maniac right now. She is literally getting nearly a dozen teeth all at the same time. Five have broken through already and at least five more are on their way from what we can tell.

Ever wonder what a baby getting all her teeth at once looks like? Wonder no more...


(yes, that is blood on her chin and in her mouth)

Each evening she gets cranky and upset. Can you blame her? Luckily her Nana thought to freeze go-gurts for her to consume through the pain:


After her mouth goes numb she does better, yay! I cannot wait until she has her teeth in and we can put this teething business behind us!!! I am getting a little nervous to see her with a full mouth of teeth. I mean, after 20 months of gummy smiles now there will be teeth in there...it's gonna take some getting used to!!!

Another Week Gone By

I am really struggling to get online lately. We now officially don't have any Internet access at grandpa's house so when I get to my parent's house I am doing online bill/banking maitenence among other things before I can get to this blog. As you can probably tell over the last month or so, I don't get to blogging often anymore! I am trying and for now will do my best to continue to post at least once a week.

We haven't been up to much. Jason and I have been fighting colds this week (I think I have beat mine!) and we are just doing our best to keep Amelia healthy! Speaking of Amelia, she is teething like a maniac! I guess that is what happens when you only have 2 teeth and 18 months old... They are popping up all over her little mouth this past week. The poor thing hardly wants to eat and the only thing we can do is hand her a bowl of ice to chomp on. I am not sure how many teeth have broken through at this point but it is more than 5, I know that for sure!

Jason had a job interview/audition earlier this week at Meritage in downtown St. Paul. He was the first of six people that they contacted to come in and stage. He was there for five hours on Tuesday morning and demonstrated his knife skills, made one thing (an omelette) and helped with their lunch in addition to sitting down with the owner/executive chef. He feels like he did pretty well and now it is just a waiting game while they meet with the other five hopefuls. We should know if he got it by next weekend and we are hopeful!

Grandpa Peterson left this morning for Florida, where he winters. Jason and I are staying at his house this winter with his dog, Molly. We hope his travels (he drives his RV down) over the next few days go smoothly while he makes his way to Florida!

That's about it! We lack pictures since we've been feeling under the weather this past week but we'll be sure to have some next time we post! Until then...


...Amelia says, "bye bye!"

Visiting and Visitors

We have been busy visiting with family and friends this past week! Last Saturday Jason and I drove up near Hinckley to visit with friends who recently had a new baby boy!


Baby T is their fourth little one and only boy!

Amelia had a blast playing in their yard with their girls.





Earlier this week my cousin, Marcie, flew in from California to visit for a couple of days.


She hadn't seen Amelia since the day she came from the hospital so it was good she could come! They had some frun at the airport on Wednesday when we brought Marcie there:




Marcie took her up and down the escalators at least a dozen times!

Now my grandparents are here from Indiana for the weekend! What a busy past week we have had!

Three Teeth

Amelia now has THREE teeth!


See it? It's up on top... This is the best picture I have been able to get of it so far!

Fall Fun

Today, my mom, sister, Jason, Amelia and I had some fall fun in Stillwater!


She's a tall girl!


Goat friends!





The fam is watching the Twins/Yankees playoff game now which could get interesting since mom and Kim are Yankee fans and Jason is a Twins fan. Twins are winning so far so Jason is happy!

Changes

Last week I shared about the short trip Jason, Amelia and I took to the north shore. We had planned on this trip for a short time and it turns out it ended up being for a specific reason that we weren't aware of at the time.


Yes, just as the sign says, we went up north to relax and lift our spirits. You see, the day that we finally decided to do it, to make the reservation for a hotel and make our talk of going up north a reality, Jason went to work and lost his job. This was something that was out of the blue, no real concrete reason was given and as you can imagine, he was very hurt.

We decided that even with the loss of an income we would still take the trip and we even added an extra night since we could leave a day earlier since he didn't have to work. We did break our "no charging" rule and charged the hotel room. Other than that we were really good about only spending within our limits which I was excited about!

Our trip was wonderful. I have never seen fall like I saw it up there this year. Jason was able to clear his head immensely and we enjoyed some time together as a family. I think we all needed the time away to unwind, relax and enjoy each other. Jason and I were working opposite shifts to avoid paying for childcare and that got stressful at times since we didn't see a whole lot of each other sometines.

Our trip was a very good thing for us and I am so happy that right before he left for work two Fridays ago we did it - we made hotel reservations - because he lost his job that day. If we hadn't have already made them we wouldn't have taken the trip. I am certain of that. Earlier that day, driving home from work, something inside me said, "just do it. Make the reservations and have a good time." So that is what we did and it was amazing.

Jason is searching for a new job and maybe even a career change. Whatever happens we will be fine, of that I am sure! I have a lot of peace over this. That doesn't mean that I don't feel stressed sometimes when I am paying bills but overall, I know we will be fine. We are still living with grandpa which is a huge blessing and I just found out, about the time Jason lost his job, that I have a permanent job at Target. (I was hired as seasonal for remodel help.)

I am interested to see what he finds for work in the next few weeks and what it will do for our family!

Split Rock & Duluth

Yesterday we were still on vacation and we visited Split Rock Lighthouse and Duluth! Split Rock is celebrating 100 years so it was neat to be there and see it this year! Here are some pictures from our second full day on the north shore:







Those are just some of the many pictures we took yesterday! We got home late last night and I was back at work this morning at 4 a.m. It was nice to get a little break from the normal routine and enjoy God's creations up north. Especially the changing leaves!