From the Makers of Malachi Comes...

...Niece or nephew #3!!!
That's right, my brother and his beautiful wife Missy annouced today that they are expecting their second cutie pie in early April! That's only two months after we are due!
He or she has a tough act to follow with Malachi - he's such a well-behaved baby and cute, cute, CUTE!!!

As for Amber, she just has a couple weeks left before we get to meet sweet Elijah.

Career Women

Not to step on any toes, but...

A new study shows that career women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat on their husbands, less likely to have kids, and if they do have kids, less likely to be happy about it.
A career woman, according to this study, is a woman who has a college degree and works more than 35 hours a week, earning more than $30,000 / year.

Check out the article on Forbes.

A couple random thoughts

Thought #1:
Last night dad was talking about speaking in tongues. "The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep to be uttered."
Have you ever had one of those days when you need to pray and you want to pray and you try to pray, but it all just comes out wrong or unfinished or cliche? I have had so many of those lately. The best thing to do, I think, in those situations is to either a.) pray scripture or b.) pray in tongues. I need to pray in tongues more. I always forget about it. I forget that I can ask, and the Spirit will pray exactly what I needed to pray wtih all of the words I couldn't find.
Note: If you don't speak in tongues or don't believe they're for today, all I can say is you're missing out. It's such a blessing. It's listed in the Bible as one of God's gifts to you, free for the taking. You just have to take it. God doesn't give bad gifts, and they don't have expiration dates.

Thought #2:
I got mad at an old lady at the grocery store today. I felt like the biggest jerk-head ever afterwards.
She must have been in a hurry and was pressuring me to go faster in line than I was going (not that I have much control over the speed of the check out person or the fact that she forgot to scan my coupons and had to call a manager over). I was already crabby because I hate the grocery story (can I get a witness?!!?), and I gave the little old lady a nasty scowl. What a jerky thing to do. I guess there are two solutions: 1.) walk in the spirit or 2.) hire a full-time grocery shopper. (Position starts at $15/hour, plus mileage) :)

Thought #3:
Since I'm already in confession mode:
I also got mad at my puppies today because they were following me all around the house every step I took. One under my left foot, the other under my right, constantly tripping me and getting in my way. I finally locked them outside for a while. Poor guys - they only follow me around because they love me.
But that's not the point. The point is that getting that frustrated with them made me scared for when I have children. I don't ever want to get so frustrated with them for innocent things that I send them away from me, cut them off from fellowship.
I'm not the most patient person, but I'm working on it, and I pray that God will grace me supernaturally to be gracious towards my kids...and my dogs. You can pray for me too.

Thought #4:
We're "On Air at the Fair" at the WCCO booth. If you're there, stop by to watch my live noon program! I won't actually be at the fair, but I'll be in control of everything you see happening there. :)

That is all. Have a blessed day.

Showering Elijah

Yesterday we my sister Amber's baby shower. Special thanks to Tina Shaffer for putting together a beautiful "sleeply time" theme with stars, teddy bears, and bed time stories. It was really cute. Then at the end instead of playing games we had craft time...paiting personalized bibs for little man (Mine is the "I love my Aunt" one).
Elijah John Peterson is due Sept. 22nd. We can't wait to meet him!
Here are some pictures of the shower.

Butterflies

Today, Jesus gave me the greatest anniversary gift - I felt the baby move for the first time. What an amazing and mighty God we serve.
The doctor had told me that I should start feeling the baby sometime soon, so I had been paying close attention. Today JP and I took a nap, and I decided to lie awake for a while and see if I could feel anything if I concentrated on it. Sure enough, there were those "flutters" that all the other moms kept telling me about! It was the most amazing thing!
This is a picture of a baby at 15 weeks. He or she is almost 5 inches long now. If you shine a flashlight on my belly, he'll respond to the light. It's just so incredible.

Procrastination pays off!!!!

It's hard to believe, but on Saturday JP and I will celebrate our one year anniversary. Although...I don't know if it's harder to believe that it has ALREADY been a year or that it has ONLY been a year! :) I mean that in the best way - sometimes I feel as though we've been married forever. I can barely remember what life was like before marriage. We've been through so much, one year seems too short.
Anyhow, that wasn't he point of this post:
Yesterday I got an anniversary card from our wedding photographer. I'm ashamed to write this, but one year after our wedding, I still have not ordered any prints. Not for us, not for family, not for the wedding party - none. Granted it took MONTHS AND MONTHS to get all of the mothers to make their selections (love you all dearly! Gail, you're hardly included in that, you were so fast), then when I finally got the proofs back, it took me months to make my selections.
The photographer's card was just the motivation I needed to get the final order ready to go - and here's the best part: because I procrastinated, I get to take advantage of our photographer's "Anniversary Specials!"

Order 3 8x10's and get 1 5x7 free
Order 3 5x7's and get 2 4x6's free
Order 10 4x6's and get 5 4x6's free
Plus one complimentary 5x7

Those specials are going to end up saving me between $200-250 on wedding photos!!! Praise the Lord!

While I'm at it, let me take a minute to put in a good word for our photographer, Karen Feder. She did an amazing - AMAZING - job and cut us the best deal I've ever heard of. She is also extremely talented at baby pictures. I told her to expect my call in February. :)
Check out this link to see some of my & JP's wedding pictures posted on her website.

For all the moms and wedding party members out there reading this - the pictures will be here (relatively) soon! :)

Hogwarts School Day Camp

Being a TV person, I get a lot of mail from PR agencies looking for coverage of various events around town. I was disturbed by this one that I received today:

Enter the world of Harry Potter to learn about the world around us during "Hogwarts School" Day Camp, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday-Friday, Aug. 14-18, at Lake Minnetonka Regional Park in Minnetrista.
Explore how "magical" animals including owls, toads, snakes and dogs are trained and cared for. Make potions to transform water into floating "balls" or make fire burn with many colors. "Divination" class will explore stars and constellations, and in "Herbology" learn about edible plants. Follow the Marauder's Map and enjoy butterbeer and chocolate frogs. Learn some Muggle magic.

I feel sorry for the children whose parents would opt to take them to this event. Sure, you may think it's all fun and games - "they're just mind puzzles" - but this kind of stuff opens up the doors to all sorts of real spiritual elements. Maybe you don't believe in witches or diviners, but I've met some before. They're very real, and the spiritual realm is a very serious thing. Any parent who would take their kids to a "divination" class, in my mind, must be crazy. It's like inviting demons to come and mess with your kid's mind.
For the record, I've seen the Harry Potter movies and I know that they are very entertaining. Doesn't mean I'd ever let my kids see it, though. No way, Jose.

This is Funny

Pictures from Boston

Us with our friends, Chris & Erin, who now live in Boston. This picture was taken on a warf near the acquarium overlooking the main seaport.
(Special thanks to Brenda Larson for making this picture "less blue" for us.) :)

We stumbled across this carnival in an area on the north end of Boston known as "Little Italy." JP is a goofball.

This one goes out to Chris Good

Well, it happened. I would have hoped my shiny new car would have made it longer than two weeks, but today I got in a fender bender. It was just the cherry on top of my already less-than-desirable day. And the accident was my fault. No excuses.
The car is fine - just a couple scratches in the front. It's just the idea of it being brand spankin' new that makes it so frustrating.

In other news...
JP and I just got back from a long weekend in Boston. We helped moved our dear friends, Chris & Erin Leckrone, out there. We are totally bummed that they will be so far away for four years, but we had a fun weekend regardless - unpacking their new home and sightseeing. We saw some really neat historical stuff - toured Paul Revere's home & The Old North Church, saw the Bunker Hill Monument and "Old Ironsides" (U.S.S. Constitution), tour a harbor boat tour, ate at some nice restaurants, walked around "Little Italy" and in general just enjoyed each other's company. I hope we get to go back to visit them soon!

JP also got his stitches out today. His wounds are looking much better - they've really healed quickly. It still hurts him if he bumps his elbows on things, and his knee has been really sore...so please keep him in prayer in those areas.

That's it for now! :)

Angels Watching Over Us

We had a scary situation occurr this past weekend. I was getting ready to go to church on Saturday when I got a call from JP - He had just crashed on his motorcycle.
He told me not to worry, that he was okay but banged up, and asked me to come pick him up. When I got there things looked much worse than he had described them. His clothes were covered in blood, his arm had huge gashes out of it and was bleeding like crazy, he had road rash on both arms and legs, and the bike was in shambles.
I took him to the emergency room and six hours later (at 1:00 am) we left there. He had to get six stiches in his left elbow, which had a huge chunck taken out of it. His shoe fell off, so his left foot was pretty beat up and missing some chunks of flesh. And he has road rash on his knees, arms, back, and hips.
We can only be thankful to a Mighty God who protected JP in so many ways. He wasn't being wise - he had started out with a helmet on but had taken it off because of the heat. He wasn't wearing any protective gear at all...only jeans and a t-shirt. He was trying to do a wheely and ended up giving the bike too much throttle, and it flipped backwards. He ended up falling to the side and rolling instead of falling straight back, which was nothing short of the hand of God. Had he fallen backwards with the bike, he would have landed on his back, smashed his head on the ground, and the bike would have landed right on top of him. As it is, he doesn't have one single scratch on his head. Divine protection. Amazing Grace.
As crazy as it sounds, the accident was actually a blessing in disguise. I think it scared JP quite a bit. When I got to him, he almost immediately started apologizing for not being responsible with his life when he has a wife and child on the way (side note: I started my second trimester this week!). He has decided (on his own) to get rid of both bikes. The one is totalled anyhow. And he's recommitted his life to being the husband and father God has called him to be.
I just can't thank the Lord enough for keeping my husband safe. When everything settled down and I was finally able to think back over what all had happened, I wept at the Grace God had over the whole situation. There's no reason JP shouldn't be in intensive care. There's no reason I shouldn't be making funeral arrangements. We are simply living under the Grace of a merciful and loving Lord.
Here are a couple of the "tamer" pictures. I'm hesitant to post some of the more gruesome ones. I may try to set up a link to a separate page that you all can opt to look at or not. Still, you will see blood if you look below, so brace yourself!
We love you all and appreciate any and all prayers you can send our way, especially as JP is still in significant pain as he goes through his healing process.

Gay Gee

This is just too funny not to post.
Our dear friends' oldest son, Isaac, is one and a half and is just starting to say a lot of words, including names. Recently he started saying "Awa" (Audra) but up until last night he had never said JP's name.
Well last night at dinner we finally heard Isaac's rendition of "JP" - "Gay Gee" or just "Gee." We laughed so hard we almost wet ourselves.
Isaac, you are too funny!!!!