My own "House of Testosterone"

If you read my previous entry you know that I got a book called House of Testosterone for our anniversary. I have finished reading it (it's only about 180 pages) and I must say it was AWESOME!!!! It makes me feel so good about the kind of wife and mother I am. I really think everyone should read it! You will laugh and say to yourself "YES, I do that too!!!"

Anyway, reading this book got me thinking about my own "House of Testosterone". Here are a few things I thought about:

At my house, this is not an unusual sight. Clayton loves to stare out the window at all the cars in the neighborhood (he knows which neighbor drives what car). Lately, Noah has decided to join him. Clayton is teaching him about our neighborhood cars. Literally, Noah is receiving his "automobile education".

Clayton is always ready at the window to greet our visitors. I think this is the first thing most people see when they come to our house and the last thing they see when they leave (usually Noah is right with him, but when I went outside to take the picture, Noah had to come with me).

I had a presidency meeting Tuesday night and didn't get home until after Justin had put Noah to bed. This was how my baby looked when I got home (in case you can't tell, the onsie is snapped OVER his pants and the socks are pulled up to his knees). Can we say "Nacho Libre"? Justin thought this was the funniest thing ever.

This is what the deck in our backyard looks like. Cars and balls. I have to admit I am becoming quite the automotive expert. I can identify all kinds of cars now (thanks Clayton). Our current favorite are Toyota Highlanders or "Toylanders".

This cracks me up. A friend gave us this car the other day and the boys have been fighting over it ever since (Clayton told me that he is pretending that it is a Toyota Highlander just like Vanessa's). Here is what they look like when it is their turn in the car:


Here is what they look like when it is NOT their turn in the car:


Justin's mom got Clayton a Big Wheel for Christmas and the weather is finally nice enough for us to take it out! Clayton LOVES riding around the neighborhood. I think he looks so grown up. Although I have had to say (more times than I can count), "Bikes are OUTSIDE toys only!!!"

My boys also love their cartoons. Fortunately we have been watching a lot less TV now that it is decent out. However, this is Clayton's new favorite TV watching position. How on EARTH is that comfortable!?!

Finally - notice anything?

Lately Clayton has to have pockets ALL THE TIME!! He freaks out if his outfit doesn't have them. Then he stuffs them to capacity with matchbox cars. Justin and I don't always notice this though. He once came to church with TWELVE cars shoved in various pockets. We didn't realize he'd done that until our pew had been transformed into a little Matchbox parking lot. Here he only had 10 in his pockets. Not his personal best, but definitely noteworthy. (BTW he can tell you the make and model of all these cars.)

I love these boys. They definitely keep me on my toes. I know that Little League and Boy Scouts are right around the corner and I need to take some time to focus on the things that they do and who they are now. Someday, "Mom, where are you?" isn't going to be the first thing Clayton asks in the morning and Noah isn't going to run to me for comfort every time he gets hurt. It makes me sad to think about what I am going to loose as the boys grow, but I sure am glad that I get to have these experiences and memories now!

6 years!

Wow, time sure flies when you are having fun! As of Saturday (the 24th), Justin and I have been married 6 years! I can't believe it! In August it will have been 10 years since we met. Crazy! In honor of our six years together, here are six of my favorite things about him:
1. He's a hard worker. No matter what it is he's working on, he wants to do it well. I appreciate that he is setting this example for our boys. I hope they inherit his work ethic.
2. He's so smart. He has got to be one of the most intelligent people I know. Whenever I have questions he can (usually) answer them. Whether they are medical or not! Impressive. He's going to be such a great doc!
3. He's a people person. People LOVE Justin. He makes a killer first impression. He is willing to help anyone with anything. He can always make time for service. I am so impressed by him.
4. He cracks me up! He has this amazingly sarcastic, dry sense of humor that I love. He has such a quick wit and he can be so dead-pan about it. I love that I am married to someone that I can laugh with every day!!
5. He's dedicated to the gospel. He is so devoted to his calling. He has thought of the best ways to teach his primary class! He really prepares ahead of time and thinks about the kids. He is teaching our boys how to be good priesthood holders.
6. He is so dedicated to our family. He loves us more than anything. The boys absolutely adore him! They rush to the door to greet him when he comes home at the end of the day with shouts of, "Daddy, Daddy!" I love to hear that. He is my best friend. I don't know what I'd do without him!
Our Super-Romantic (cough, cough) Anniversary Date:
We did our anniversary up right this year (...hee hee...)! We began by actually hiring a babysitter! It has been YEARS since we actually paid someone to watch our kids (I know, we are TOTALLY high class).
We started our evening at Outback Steakhouse where we proceeded to take 10 years off our lives by eating chili fries, steaks, alfredo pasta, chicken, and shrimp. Sooo worth it!
After dinner we decided to go to Barnes and Noble Bookstore to look around. It is one of my favorite things to do and, because Justin loves me, we went. Then he let me buy this book:


HILARIOUS!! Whether you have all boys or not, this book is definitely worth a read (although I'm sure it's funnier to those of us who live in a "House of Testosterone"). I am not done with it yet, but I have been laughing hard so far! Seriously, I cannot say enough good things about it. Read it!!
We decided to end our ultra-romantic anniversary night with a trip to the grocery store for our Memorial Day shopping. Awww, how romantic!
It was a great anniversary! I couldn't have asked for a better night! Anything Justin and I do together, whether it's a weekend getaway at a B&B (which we haven't done since we had kids BTW) or just grocery shopping, is so much fun. We have a great time together. Someday it will be nice to be able to do romantic getaways and gifts for our anniversary, but I really like that we keep it low key right now. It fits our personality and who we are as a couple. He's my best friend and I can't imagine not wanting to be with him, no matter what the activity! I am going to end this post with pictures of the two best things that have come out of our marriage so far (I wanted to post some of our wedding day pics, but our scanner is broken, so maybe next year):
Clayton wanted to look like Daddy at church today, so Justin let him pick out one of his ties to wear. It makes me laugh so hard! The back part of the tie comes down to his knees!

Clayton took this picture of us right before church today. I love it. This is typical Noah. If Clayton has it, you better believe Noah is reaching for it!

Justin, it has been an amazing 6 years and I can't wait to spend 6 more amazing years with you! I am so blessed to be your wife! I love you!!!

Natural Progression??

First there was:

Then:

And:

Now I find this:

And this:

For crying out loud! What's next!?!

Flat Stanley

Last week, we had a fun visitor! Clayton's friend from Vegas, Jessie Day, had to send Flat Stanley to someone in a different state for her preschool class. For those of you who don't know what (or who) Flat Stanley is, it is a children's book about a boy who gets flattened by a falling bulliten board and then travels the country in the mail and learns about all different states and cultures, etc. We got to have him for two weeks before sending him back to Vegas. We had to take him all over town to see and do authentic "Vermont" things. It was a lot of fun. Everytime we left the house, Clayton would ask me if Flat Stanley could come. It was pretty cute. So here are some pictures of the things that we did with him (Clayton and Flat Stanley are pretty small and hard to find in some of these pics, it's kind of a "Where's Waldo" thing):
We took Flat Stanley to UVM to see where Justin goes to school. It is such a pretty campus. It's very green and the buildings (well, some of them) are really old and very cool! We also went to Battery Park because it has an amazing lookout over Lake Champlain (it also has a really great park). I love Lake Champlain. You can take a ferry across the lake and it takes you into New York. I think that's awesome!
We also took him to our favorite place in downtown Burlington, Echo Aquarium!

We also took Flat Stanley to the boardwalk. It was such a great day to go! The weather was gorgeous!
Clayton wanted to walk on the docks. He was fasinated with all the planks and ropes! He kept running without watching where he was going. It's a wonder he didn't fall into the lake!!
This is a view from one of the docks. The boardwalk and downtown Burlington are behind him.
We also took Flat Stanley to the park with us. Noah had a great time trying to bury him in the sand!
Finally, we took Flat Stanley to one of the Ben & Jerry's scoop shops around town. Ben & Jerry's ice cream is based in Vermont and we love it. I had to put this pic in because these employees were so great! They thought it was so cool that we were doing the "Flat Stanley" thing that they gave Clayton and me free ice cream!!!

Here is Clayton and Flat Stanley enjoying their free ice cream (mmm, New York Super Fudge Chunk)! I wanted Clayton to pretend to give Flat Stanley a bite but he looked at me and said "Mom, Flat Stanley can't have a bite. He doesn't open his mouth!" I guess he told me!

Here is our family with Flat Stanley on his last night in town. Noah wasn't too happy to sit for the picture (he wanted to get back to eating Clayton's leftover ice cream).

I hope you enjoyed your virtual tour of Vermont through Flat Stanley's eyes! Perhaps it will inspire some of you to want to experience it in person! I really love living here. If it weren't for the freezing winters and the fact that my family was on the other side of the country, I would seriously consider spending the rest of our lives here.
It was so great having Flat Stanley visit. Thanks Natalie and Jessie for sending him out to us!! We hope he had as great of a time as we did!

Happy Mother's Day!

This year for Mother's Day all I wanted was to get some new pictures of the boys. I love having their pictures taken, especially because Noah is at that age where his look changes so dramatically every few months! The last time they got their pictures taken at a studio was about a year ago, so I figured we were due for another photo session!
We went to Sear's Portrait Studio and I have to say, I was really impressed. We had the first appointment of the day (which I LOVE because then you never have to wait). Our photographer was really good with the boys, Clayton was very adamant about the fact that he did NOT want to be there and Noah kept running out of the room every chance he got! She never appeared to get frustrated and was great at getting the boys to laugh and smile for the pictures! I would highly recommend Sears for all your portrait needs based on this experience!
So, here are a few of my favorites!
Of Clayton:
This "rock" is really random, but I like this one anyway!

I think he looks so grown up in this picture. I can't believe how big he is getting!

This is my favorite one of him. He posed himself and it is just so classically Clayton. I realize that his shoes are dirty. I tried to clean them before the picture session, but that dirt is ground in there! Oh well, I suppose it adds to the authenticity!

I just love his big smile!

Of Noah:
This is my absolute favorite one of Noah. I think this picture really captures who he is! I know it isn't really "posed" or anything, but I just love that you can look at this pic and tell what kind of a kid he is!

I like the "something smells bad, but I'm working through it" expression on his face!

This is just a handsome picture of a handsome boy!

I love this one because it sums up the photo shoot for Noah! He is escaping and so happy to do it! This picture made me laugh out loud!

Of both boys:
I like how tightly Clayton is holding Noah. I think it's really sweet. They are such great brothers!

I just think they look really handsome here. I ordered this one for the living room!

I can't get enough of this picture! I think it looks so good! I love how blue Noah's eyes look and I love the expression on Clayton's face (he is actually looking at me and smiling which I think is part of what I love about it)!

It was a great photo shoot and I am really excited to get my new prints and update all our pictures! This was a really great Mother's Day gift! Thanks Justin, for letting me do this!

My Dad

I know that I am probably a little biased, but I have the best dad EVER!!! Those of you who know my dad know how truly amazing he is. He is one of the most humble, hardworking, selfless, Christlike people I know. He is the calm in the storm that is the Peterson family. We are such a loud, exciteable, crazy group of people (and we love it that way) and he really is our anchor! I really hope that I can be like my dad when I grow up. I hope that people talk about me like I hear people talk about him. Growing up (and even now) I never heard anyone who had anything even remotely negative to say about my dad. I always heard about what a selfless child he was (he built bikes for my aunts for Christmas one year), how honest he is in all his dealings, and how kind he is. I love my dad and I am so grateful that I get to be his daughter!
I had the good fortune of having my dad fly back with me and stay for 5 days. If you read my blog regularly, you know that our flight home was ROUGH!! My dad though, as always, was so calm and kind and really helped me get the boys home in one piece. Another wonderful thing about my dad is that he is EXTREMELY handy and he likes to keep busy. While he stayed at my house he kept himself busy. He likes to have several projects to do and while he at my house he got so many things done (for me).
We also tried to have a little fun. Unfortunately, the weather while my dad was here wasn't that great so we weren't able to do everything that we wanted to. We still had a lot of fun though. So here are a few pictures of my dad's visit (some of these pictures may be repeats, but they're good ones so it's okay).
We went to the aquarium (we go there a lot, it's so fun). This is the lookout. I think Lake Champlain is so beautiful!

They had a really fun exhibit that dealt with construction. This part of the exhibit was a big tub of dirt that had all kinds of trucks and tractors in it. It was fun to watch my dad and my kids play in it together. You can see that it appealed to boys of ALL sizes!


My dad was teaching Noah about the importance of a helmet on the jobsite!

Clayton really liked the scales exhibit.

Our favorite permanent exhibit, the waterway, was back open (it was closed the last time we went and the boys were so sad)!

These frogs were just cool. They looked like toys! I can't believe that frogs can be these colors! Crazy!

They also had a really cool event called the "Mud shot". They let the kids throw shovels of mud off the deck at a large target. Clayton LOVED this!


Of course, while my dad was here he stayed busy (I don't think he is capable of sitting still)! He put in a fabulous new light in our living room (which I already posted pics of) and he drywalled and textured our downstairs bathroom! He really is the greatest!
Before:


After:


I still need to put flooring in, but other than that, this bathroom is good to go! I love it! Thanks dad!
We also got a lot of use out of our new fire pit while my dad was here. It was so fun having him teach Clayton how to make a S'more. I can still remember when we would make S'mores together when I was a kid!!



It was a great visit and I was really sad to see my dad go. I wish that we lived closer, but I think it makes me cherish the time that we do spend together even more. I love you dad! Thanks for an amazing week!!