It Takes Two, Make Three

Our son Van William Peterson was born December 7th, 2011 at 11:15 pm. He was 7lbs 5 oz and is incredibly beautiful!

Labor isn't very easy. I figured it wouldn't be but it is a completely different story when the process starts and you think to yourself, "Self, let's do this tomorrow, when I expect it, and maybe then I will be ready." But of course when he wants to come he will, and I just had to tell myself that eventually it would end.

I was doing pretty well during the first hours. I didn't want to go to the hospital in case it was a false alarm and so I waited.

When we went into the hospital the nurses all looked at me like I was an idiot because it is my first baby. They took their sweet, precious time setting me up and the nurse was surprised to see that my contractions, indeed were consistent and I was dilated to a 3.

They put me in a room right across from the nurses station, which posed a problem when I did start getting noisier and they started to come in and tell e to get an epidural.

I wimped out and got the epidural and some how within 20 minutes of having it I was dilated to a 9...I feel as though I was misled-since only an hour before I was told I was a 5...I will have other children so I will try natural again. At least I told myself I was going to wing it, I never did make a decision one way or there other. But I will admit I feel a little disappointed in myself. At the same time, the epidural was absolutely lovely and I enjoyed having my son.

He is gorgeous!!

Rod feels a little ripped off considering Van looks exactly like me. He does have Rod's hands and feet though!

I am going to love being a mom. I never knew I was capable of loving someone so much. He is now the most precious piece of my life. I hope and pray that I will be able to always convey that to him-and more importantly that he will understand. When he doesn't, I hope that I can teach him that his Heavenly Father loves him even more, so he never feels alone or unloved.

It strengthens my testimony of a Father in Heaven. I know that He lives and loves me. I also know that He can forgive all things and that He hears all of my prayers. I have a greater knowledge because I know that I want to be able forgive my son of his mistakes and teach him a better way and I always want to hear all he has to say. I never want to miss a moment and since I know that my Heavenly Father is eternal and loving He never does miss a moment of our lives.

Gethsemane Fine Art

Rod and I are starting a new adventure!

Please visit our website:

http://gethsemanefineart.com

So fresh and so clean

Rod has been working everyday after work the past couple of weeks on the outside of the house. Here is just one section. We had these weird "western inspired" beams. Rod tore them off and made beautiful "faux" wooden beams. Our new trim color is sealskin, almost black but not quite. It is really coming together. I need to post a picture of our garage with the new color and darker trim. Our house is evolving from the giant cardboard box that we bought less than a year ago.

You can see the darker color on the roof trim of the house and you can see the original color where Rod is covering it up. It is going to be gorgeous!

We had our puppies groomed!! They look so cute. They are getting along so much better now. Scully had Cash on the run all this morning. I have never seen Scully run so much! She likes having Cash around. She always has to be by him though, just to make sure he is not receiving any attention she deserves.

Cash is so tall! We cut his hair short and found the skinny dog underneath! Scully is so stocky compared to him!

I miss Cash's furry face. I have a feeling that I will like his hair a lot better once it grows out some and I wash them and bring the curls back in his ears.

Scully modeling! For a grandma she is pretty cute. Her hair was out of control. She went from a little rasta to a poodle princess!

Week 32 and 2 dogs

This is week 32. I don't think it has quite hit me yet that in a couple short months we will meet our baby boy! I am getting larger and he moves around a lot. Rod and I were laughing at him today in church. We can watch him flopping around and kicking from side to side.

We also got a new standard poodle to be friends with Scully. He is her grandson formerly known as Jacques. He is now known as Cash. Scully and Cash are still working on their relationship. Cash likes to bark in Scully's face and Scully likes to attack him.

Since Scully does not know how to play with him yet, Rod wrestles with him. As you can see Scully just tries to bark at them. He has so much energy and always wants to play.

Happy Birthday Husband!

Rod turned 26 last Saturday. We spent the day working. Rod worked his guts out on the yard and I cleaned house (doesn't sound much like a celebration). We now have 2 mulberry trees in the front yard. I can't wait until they get big and shade our yard! To celebrate we bought a new computer. Hallelujah!

I wanted to post some random pictures that had yet to make it to the blog.

Here goes:

After Rod and I met at BYUI we both had to go do our student teaching. He was in Arizona and I was in Vegas. Rod came up with his friend Daniel with the purpose of asking my dad for permission to marry me...AWWWW. My dad was not very cooperative, he kept changing the subject. But my dad thought it would be great when Rod proposed a drawing contest between the three of us. Rod was upset that he failed miserably. I so won, but Rod proclaimed Daniel the winner...whatever.

My dad was the model. It was the only cooperation we got out of him that night.

I took this in Snow Canyon, the weekend we came up t St George and Rod proposed. My handsome man!

We got married here!

Rod has done some talented things during his 25th year. He had a group of the girls from SunHawk enter a street art competition and they won first place with Bob Dylan!

He also grew out his hair for his 25th year...Thankfully a few weeks ago he cut it off! But he still pouts about it from time to time.

The only thing we got from the 16 or so fruit trees we have in our yard. Ok, we have a few peaches too but they were not all that wonderful. I like this one because this pear is still hanging on.

Rod and I have been working on an art project together for the last few weeks. I drew most of the figures for it and Rod kept me motivated by saying he would bake me cookies.

This was his batch...they all turned out like this. Is it terrible that when Rod is anything less than perfect I have to document it, just for proof?

And here is a project on hold. We are painting the house brick by brick and repainting grout lines. Then we are glazing it to make it appear old. This might take a while.

That is how life is anyway, brick by brick, if we did it any other way it would cheapen the experience. Because look at how cool this looks in the end!

So again Rod Happy Birthday!!!

Baby!

Here I am at 20 weeks! I didn't think that I was getting that big until I looked at this picture...
Scary!
I feel the baby move everyday now. Yesterday I was playing guitar and singing and he moved up to the front of the left side of my belly, so everything was lopsided. I figured he either really liked it and was trying to hear a little better...or he hated it and was pushing his little bum out at me in hopes of escaping haha. I love him already!

We got to see pictures of our little baby boy last Wednesday! We are both so excited! I can't repeat it enough. Rod was sitting in the chair looking up at the monitor and started yelling, "I see it, I see it!" (He was referring to our little man's manliness).

Our baby was so stubborn. He faced my back the entire time which made it difficult to see his little face. It was amazing to see his little heart beat.. You could see all four chambers, which I though was pretty amazing.
These two pictures are of his arms and the bottom picture is off his feet. He kept crossing his legs. He was pretty squished because I am still fairly small so they put me on the "gallon challenge". I have to drink a gallon of water a day! Which actually, has not been that bad. Plus I am motivated to give our son a little more room.

These are he manly parts. Hehe.

Here is his face. Like I said it is not much. Not only would he not turn around, even though the technician kept prodding him with the ultrasound paddle, he put his little fists right up by his face!

Here is our baby's spine. He is at a 3/4 view which makes it kind of interesting to look at.

Kanaarville Hike

Rod found out about this hike and we threw our stuff together and we went! I love 3 day weekends!

The hike was out in Kanaarville, which is outside of Zions. I was a little nervous because I was not sure if my body could take it.

The first part of the hike is a dry dusty road but the majority of it was gorgeous and a nice break from the 105 degree weather, because it is in the water.

Had to take a "belly" picture. This is me at 17 weeks! I have a feeling the next 3-6 weeks our baby is going start really growing...
A lot of the hike we were ankle deep in refreshingly cool water! Please excuse my ugly, white leg.

Rod didn't want me to carry the camera around, which is a good thing, considering my coordination. I did get one of him. I hope he will forgive me that it is blurry.
Isn't he cute?

The canyon was so beautiful!

This is where I almost wanted to die. The log is not very tall, but it was so scary! Rod had to help me up and I thoroughly tested his patience.

The falls! This was a great little getaway. We need to do this more often. This was a great hike, especially to escape St. George's summer, but more importantly to spend time together that is not just the drive to and from work!

Next post should be pictures of our baby! We are so excited to find out if it is a boy or girl!

One whole year later...

One year of marriage has been endured.
About one year seems to have passed since I have last updated too.

Here we are only a couple days married enjoying the end of our honeymoon. Please ignore the fact that I look pretty dorky. We stayed at Zions National Resort in this sweet cabin and watched buffalo roam in the fields.This is us today, trying to look serious and magazine worthy. For our one year anniversary we decided to get out of town for at least one day and revisit the honeymoon destination. This time instead of watching the buffalo, we ate part of one in a very tasty omelet.

For those of you that have been asking for a baby bump picture this is it for now. I am 13 weeks along with the little one right there. I am due the first or second week of December. We are really excited!

Below are some pictures of the landscape where we were staying. It is right outside Zions National Park. After our night stay we drive back through and I got to see it for the first time. It is beautiful.Outside of Zions we stopped and looked at some gallerys filled with overpriced, but very cool, metal sculptures and sweet pottery. We found this sweet car and felt the need to pose.

We took some pictures of us at "One Year" This is how we have turned out. We are both still sane, a little more patient, and a lot more in love.

For my birthday Rod took me to get my hair done.
The black hair, which was a little too much for me has been replaced by a beautiful brown, thanks to the talented workings of Rod's cousin Taunie. Thank you!
Rod surprised me with a gorgeous bouquet too!

Rod on the other hand, has not cut his hair since we were married. He likes it this way and it grows and grows and grows on me. He is finally getting to play basketball because we have been assembling our fence the last three weekends. It is tough and I don't even do much! But the summer is just getting hotter and hotter and no matter how early you start it still tries to kill you. The fence is awesome though! And we only have a few more weekends to go before we finish.

Here is the reason I have not updated in the last couple months. Rod and I have been working two jobs since the end of March. The 2nd week of March SunHawk, the residential school we have worked at the last year, announced a mandatory meeting. Rod and I were not too excited about going but did anyway. We made jokes about what it would be about and laughed when we suggested, "They are going to gather us all in a room and tell us we're fired!"
Well that was the truth. SunHawk announced they were closing and that we were all fired. To make it more intersting, we all had to wait in line to receive a little green folder that had our "termination date" within it. We stood in line like new students receiving your school schedule for the year.
Rod and I have jobs until August. They decided to keep us until the end. We will miss the people we work with and the kids we teach...and the close proximity. Things change in life.
I got another job a week later at Horizon Academy and Rod got a job at Diamond Ranch Academy two weeks later.
So we have no social lives. We work and work and work and then we sleep on the weekend.
Everything happens at once too. We get fired, get news jobs, and then find out we are pregnant all at the same time.
Life is Grand!! And it is all worth it.
I am eternally grateful that Rod and I were sealed in the temple and that we have the gospel to help us through what life throws at us.
That way when someone says you are "fired" you can laugh and know that things will work out eventually, as long as you try your best.