lego land (vacay part 2)

A big highlight of our trip was going to Lego Land! Burke and Hewitt were really the perfect age to be able to go on everything. They had plenty of things for younger kids as well (Tosh and Liv were really great sports about waiting for the older kids...). We had a great time and the weather was perfect.

Some photos from Monday:

The boys with a pirate Lego guy!
Waiting in line:

T and L waiting on a bale of hay bale while Dad, Burke and Hewitt were on a roller coaster:

The park was decorated really cute for Halloween. The kids loved the Lego ghosts and skeletons.

Liv getting a good look at one of the thousands of things built out of Legos:

Tosh driving his Lego car. This ride is for 3-5 year olds and it rocks! He must have gone on this 7 or 8 times (short lines).

Livvy on the train :

Floating into the mist on Fairy Tale Brook:

Love this roller coaster shot!

Everyone had the opportunity to fight (Lego) Darth Vader:

The boys had a BLAST building Lego cars that they could race down different tracks (think Pinewood derby):
Tosh would literally jump up and down while his car raced!

What a fun day!

Photos from Thursday:

Hewitt wanted his picture taken with everything! Here he is inside the Adventurers' Club:
Mummy Burke

This is just one of the many cities featured in "Miniland USA." The boys are watching the pirate scene at "Treasure Island" on the Lego Las Vegas strip. Amazing!

This was a crazy ride with a robotic arm that had 6 levels to choose from (the younger boys were only allowed to do level one and Burke could do level 2). Burke wants to go back when he is taller so he can do the higher levels. This was one of the many rides where I was happy to sit out and hang with Livvy.

Hewitt's turn:

This last one is awesome. Hewitt's face is hilarious!

san diego vacation (part 1)

We had such a great week. We returned home last night and I laughed when I realized that between my two cameras I took about 800 photos this week (that may be nothing to you, but that's a lot for me)! Because there is so much, I'm breaking our trip into three posts, and am going to hit the highlights and things that I want to remember down the road.


The drive took a little over 6 hours. Not bad at all. The kids did really well, although we didn't get there until 8:30 or so (Rob worked most of Friday) and the younger kids were getting a bit fussy and tired by the end.


A few funny things from the drive:

When we were driving through Maricopa, Hewitt saw the 'M' on the mountain and said, "Look, there's an 'M' on the mountain for 'mountain'."


As we were driving into the resort:
Hewitt: Where are we going to live now?
Rob and me: We aren't moving, we are just on vacation.
Tosh: This is Californ-i-a?
Hewitt: I hope they speak the same language in California!
Tosh: This is very Christmas! (looking at the lighted trees)


So our suite was pretty incredible (and we got a smokin' deal!). We had plenty of room and I really enjoyed watching the sunrise from the balcony on Saturday (Tosh was up very early on day one, but got better about sleeping in). What an incredible view!





Our first day (Saturday) we did a lot of exploring around the resort. The kids love doing this and were so excited about the trails, the real teepee by the tennis center, the *free* orange juice in the lobby, the grassy fields, and the playground. We played for a bit and then Rob took the boys swimming while Liv napped and I vegged by myself in the room (lovely!).


I caught some cute shots of Liv giving Rob "five" at the playground:


We hit the beach that afternoon (see "vacay part 3") and everyone was very worn out and crashed soon after dinner!


We went to church on Sunday morning and then drove to see the San Diego Temple. Unfortunately, the grounds were closed, so we took some photos through the fence and visited with a few other families from the Chandler/Gilbert area, on vacation as well.


The color of the sky is pretty incredible (I didn't boost this photo). What a gorgeous building:


I tried to get a good photo of all four kids, but it went something like this:



This next one is decent I guess, but certainly not what I had in mind...



On Sunday evening, I was able to meet up with Elaine Cole, one of my old singing directors. My sister-in-law's parents live in Northern San Diego and are good friends with Elaine Cole and her husband, Tom. They invited the Coles and us to dinner that night as a big surprise to Elaine (thanks Jodi and Garry!). I haven't seen Elaine in 20 years! It was so good to catch up and to hear Tom talk about joining the church eight years ago. They are wonderful people.

On Tuesday, I hung out with the boys while Liv napped and Rob did some work from our room. We explored around the lake on the property and played a great game of freeze tag. My boys are getting pretty fast and so the sprinting was a pretty good work out. I should play that with them more often.

On a park bench by the lake:

Love this close-up of Tosh and those blue eyes:

Exploring:

On Wednesday evening, my friend Shey (Elaine's daughter) was able to come to dinner at our hotel with her husband. I had brought homemade spaghetti with me from home and it was great to throw that together with a salad after being at the beach all afternoon.

Shey and I started singing together when we were about 10 and did so until she moved to LA (she got a contract with Motown at age 15). She hasn't been able to make it to any of our reunions and I haven't seen her since then! Her husband is a fantastic guitarist and the guys talked "music" while Shey and I talked and caught up on the last 20 years. After dinner we all went to roast s'mores at a campfire on the resort. By the way, next time you make s'mores, try using a chocolate almond candy bar. Pretty awesome.

On Thursday morning, I was able to catch some cute photos of all four kids:

I got these next ones right after I asked,
"Who wants to go to Lego Land?!"

memory mondays

Here we are on vacation (and having a fabulous time I might add)! I forgot to bring the cord to download photos to the laptop, so thought that it would be a good time to begin a segment on my blog that I will call "Memory Monday" where I will share a random story or photo from my personal or family history...

Being on vacation naturally stirs memories of other vacations. Our last family vacation was actually to Phoenix. It was in February of 2009 (I was pregnant with Liv) and we drove from Utah to Arizona to check out the area as we were pretty sure that we would be moving there.

It was a LONG drive (11-12 hours) and we stayed that first night in a hotel close to Rob's work, before moving to the condo in Scottsdale for the week. Rob loaded up the cart with our stuff, and took the cart and boys out to the van to load while I did the last check of the room and gathered the final things before departing. We went to church and then drove around for while before driving north to Scottsdale.

Later that afternoon, we unloaded all of our stuff into the condo and I began unpacking. I hadn't seen our pillows or the boys' quilts so I asked Rob to go outside to get these things out of the van. This lead to a discussion where Rob told me that everything WAS out of the van, and I suggested that everything must NOT be out of the van and eventually went out to check for myself. Rob was correct, and our five pillows and all of the boys' quilts/blankets were missing.

We called the hotel and sure enough, they had found our items and had them waiting for us at the front desk. We were about 40 min. away so we ended up swinging back by this hotel the next day while we were out house hunting. A hotel staffer had put all of our items into a huge plastic sack labeled "Peterson" and it was funny how big and conspicuous the bag of stuff was. Rob made fun of me for *missing* these items on my "final check" of the room and we both chalked it up to my pregnancy brain. In fact, I think he gave me a hard time for most of the week...

When we arrived home late the following Sunday evening, I got the biggest kick out of one of the messages left on our home phone: "Mr. Peterson, this is 'so and so from the hotel' and we are calling to let you know that we believe we have some of your belongings here at our front desk. One of our patrons saw these items fall off of your cart as you were departing this morning..."

Ha, ha! In Rob's defense, he did have all three boys and the cart of luggage all to himself. Oh, the things we end up remembering the most.

when wildest dreams come true

I took Burke and Hewitt to the pediatrician today for well check-ups. We've always known that Burke is a pretty skinny kid, but didn't realize that his BMI (Body Mass Index) is currently in the 1.84 percentile!

Imagine Burke's delight when the doctor requested that he start eating more fats such as extra butter (on bread and veggies), and eating MORE ICE CREAM. She said, "Make him lots of ice cream shakes. You can even add fruit in with it and he should like that."

Ya think?

I made a vanilla shake with a bunch of leftover birthday cake in it after dinner tonight. We call that "cake shake" around here. I guess Burke has science on his side now when he says things like, "I'm starving, but hungry for dessert only." He wasn't too thrilled when he was still expected to finish his dinner before he was allowed any dessert...

hewitt's story

In honor of Hewitt's birthday, I thought I'd take some time to capture his birth story. This is one of my very favorite stories to tell (and I'd be surprised if you haven't heard it already). If birth stories aren't your thing, then skip the text and just enjoy the photos.

Hewitt was due on October 4th. Since Burke was almost a week overdue, I was expecting the same with baby #2. I was quite surprised when I went to the doctor on Wednesday, September 29th, to find that I was already 4.5 cm dilated! Rob was in MBA school at the time, and when I reported the news that the baby might be coming sooner than we expected, I was told, "You really can't have the baby until Friday, because I have papers and tests until then." I did my best to stay relaxed, but was very nervous on Thursday evening when I started to feel horrible and began throwing up (again). Somehow we made it until the weekend. All during General Conference on Saturday the 2nd, I relaxed in the rocking chair and listened to my "hypnobirthing" CD. I had high hopes that this birth would be a much better experience than Burke's birth and took steps to control the outcome as much as I could. I switched from an OBGYN to Certified Nurse Midwives, hired a doula to assist us at the hospital, and took hypnobirthing classes to learn to relax and focus!

After the afternoon session of conference, we left our little apartment in BYU married student housing and drove to Rob's sister's house in Provo to celebrate the 6th birthday of our darling niece. I was having a contraction when we walked through the door around 4:20 and was asked by my sister-in-law, "Should you be here?" :). I was feeling really upbeat, although I was starting to have more and more contractions throughout the party. We ate pizza, opened gifts (including "Hippo" for our new baby), and had cake and ice cream. The time came for the men to get ready to leave for the Priesthood meeting at church. I was feeling very uneasy about Rob leaving, but didn't feel right about asking him to stay either. I was trying to communicate through my eyes he shouldn't go, but I guess we aren't that couple that can communicate volumes with one "look" at each other... So, Rob took off with the men, and Burke and I continued to visit with Rob's mom and three of his sisters. The contractions continued and got more regular and I decided to call my doula to check in with her. Because I was so cheery and normal acting (I could talk normally through each contraction), she told me that it sounded like I was doing fine and that I should call her again when I thought we were getting closer to going to the hospital. A little while later things changed. I got very serious and did not want to be visiting with anyone. I started to cry and Rob's youngest sister said, "I'm calling Rob."

Rob was able to listen to only the first talk of the meeting, before his cell phone vibrated. He drove to up the hill to his sister's house and we headed to our apartment to pick up our bags. I really felt like I had to go to the bathroom and so I walked up the flight of stairs and went inside to go and to grab my pillow. It was there in the bathroom that I first had the thought, "I do not want to have this baby in my bathroom!" It then seemed like a mad dash to get to the hospital. It took us about 15-20 minutes to drive from Provo to the hospital in American Fork. Several calls were made in the car: To the doula and midwives that we were on our way. To my mom: we are swinging by your place to drop Burke off...on second thought, there is no time. Meet us at the hospital! Things got pretty intense in the car and all I could think was that I did NOT want to have this baby in the car. Rob is a wonderful guy and husband, but not the person to deliver a baby! About 5 minutes from the hospital, I swore during an intense contraction and was horrified to hear sweet, two-year-old Burke repeat the word from the back seat. As bad as I felt for swearing, Rob and I started laughing really hard which made the pain and discomfort all the worse.

We finally arrived at the hospital parking lot and my mom met me at the car with a wheel chair (which I needed) at 7:10pm. We headed upstairs to Labor and Delivery and I didn't get much of a response when I told the woman at the desk, "It feels like this baby is coming right now!" They led me to a room and asked me to change into a gown while the got a nurse to check me. I had trouble getting changed mostly because the contractions were coming so fast. It seemed like an eternity (at least 5-10 minutes, but I'm not sure) until the nurse showed up. I felt a little justified when she told me that I was almost at a nine and that my bag of waters was right there and very tight. The baby's head was so low and I felt the urge to push. They moved me to the delivery room and by the time I got on the table I was at a 10 and ready to go. The bag of waters BURST spraying the nurses in the room (so sorry about that). I began pushing and it seemed to take a while but I believe it was only about 10 minutes. I felt some burning and hardly had time to notice who was in the room. The midwife, Jackie Hyland, was luckily at the hospital, and the doula arrived while I was pushing. Our little boy was born at 7:40 pm- the same time as Burke! It was such a relief when he came out! He cried right away and was very pink. A beautiful 6 lb. 10 oz. baby boy with fuzzy red hair.

I was in love, and Rob (still in his white dress shirt) and I both sobbed with joy.

I was a little dazed and delirious over what had transpired. Hewitt was born exactly thirty minutes from the time we entered the hospital parking lot. That is what I would describe as a speedy delivery. In fact, there were still 20 minutes left of the priesthood meeting Rob was attending. We still hadn't decided on a name. Elliott, Emmitt, and Hewitt were the front runners. I was discussing these names and my doula said, "Oh I love the name Elliott!" I think because I was so exhausted I didn't really think to confer with my husband and we just started calling him Elliott John, but really we just kept calling him Burke out of habit :). It wasn't until the next day after friends and family had visited and we kept hearing, "Baby Elliott," that Rob said that he wasn't so sure. We hadn't filled out any official paper work yet, so we kicked the last visitors out of the room and had a good discussion. I remember Rob telling me, "I can't keep calling him Elliott. It isn't the right name." We agreed that the right name for this little boy was Hewitt. Hewitt John. A perfect fit.

Hewitt just after his baby blessing; wearing his Great-Grandfather Peterson's blessing dress:

Other favorites:

Hewitt is what I would call a true original, and he's always had his own way of doing things. I have learned a lot from being his mother such as the importance of patience, and that an increase of love can often be more effective than any other form of discipline. Hewitt is passionate. He is sensitive and defends and sticks up for others. He is creative, funny and independent. He is simply my Hewitt and I love him so much.