Another argument, another poll

For the record, Michael and I barely ever argue for real; we have "disagreements." And he doesn't mind if I say "Stuff it, Michael" as long I back down and bow out gracefully when I'm wrong. (But of course I'm never wrong, so that's a moot clause to our "disagreements.")

So anyway, two questions for you:

:: Do you pronounce the "g" in words that end with -ing. For example, do you say "running" or "runnene"?

:: Do you pronounce pour, pore, and poor the same or differently?

cole blogs:funny things from CARS 2

These are some of the funny stuff from CARS 2

-Finn says "Finn Mcmissile, British intelligence" then Mater says "Tow mater, average intelligence"

-Lightning Mcqueen grabs on to Mater's hook,Mater starts his rocket boosters,and they pass Francesco.Francesco says "enough for one dream".Then agent Shiftwell goes there in rocket form,and Francesco screams "WHAT IS HAPPENING".

-Mater has escaped from the clock in England,and is now trying to get Finn and Shiftwell out of there.Finn says "there's no time" then agent Shiftwell says "go and get some new dents".

Oh Christmas Tree

Nat the Fat Rat has been doing a series of posts on blogger Christmas trees, and after drooling for the past thirteen days over all of their impeccably designed and artfully arranged decorations, I've found myself suffering from Christmas tree envy.

It's ridiculous really. Similar to the lawn envy I suffered from last spring, I've been coveting something I've never wanted before and don't even believe in. Those designer Christmas trees are gorgeous and I certainly wouldn't mind having one in my livingroom (if someone else paid for it), but to me, a Christmas tree is mostly an opportunity to display all of the kitschy, tacky, and unusual ornaments I've collected over the past 33 years.

Some that are 30 years old.

Some that make me smile.

Lots of bears

A few that my kids have made.

And a few that they've collected.

The star I found new in the box at Goodwill.

And colored lights.
White lights belong outside. If I could find some of those old-fashioned giant bulb colored lights at ye ole Goodwill, I would totally snatch them up.

It's a simple tree, but it's all ours.

Music Lessons: Avett Brothers

Eli: "I like it because it's fast."

Me: "I thought you were going to say you like it because of the drum."

Eli: "Oh, yeah. I do like it because of that."

(Eli has wanted to be a drummer since he was a wee little guy. Maybe someday when we have a bigger house or a garage...)

AVETT BROTHERS OFFICIAL

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Another Day, Another Themed Birthday Cake

Rylan, how old are you now?

And what is your most favoritest toy/movie/video game in the whole wide world?

Happy Birthday, Baby!

Rylan loves all of the Cars stickers that he got from various friends and family for his birthday and can't understand why the rest of us aren't as thrilled about them as he is. In the past two days, we've had this conversation twenty billion times:

Rylan: Which sticker do you want?

MomDadEliCole: I don't want a sticker.

Rylan: (incredulously) Why????

MomDadEliCole: I don't like stickers.

Rylan: (incredulously) Why????

I am currently wearing two stickers. Cole and Eli have miraculously gotten away without wearing any today. Michael wore one to work. The couch got four. It can't say no.

Thanks Giving

Late one night, I lay with Michael's arm tucking me tight in bed while my boys slept soundly down the hall, and I thought to myself, "I could not be happier." And then, being the pessimist realist that I am, in my next thought I acknowledged how fragile that happiness is and what tenuous threads tie the people that I love to me.

So with that fragility in mind, I wanted to take a minute to share some gratitude for the people I love.



I've been meaning for awhile now to write a post about my siblings and how truly awesome they are. I am amazed at what great grown-ups they turned out to be. (They must have phenomenal parents.)

Miriam is the best person in the world. You might think you know someone better, but you would be wrong. There is no one else as caring, giving, and open-hearted as she is. Kellie and Josh can back me up on that.

Kellie is so likable. If she were in a Miss America competition, she'd be Miss Congeniality for sure (and I hope she reads that as the complement it's meant to be). I've never met anyone who doesn't love to be around her, and I think they'd all agree with me when I say that she deserves every bit of happiness life can give her.

Josh is such a good father. Who saw that coming?

And did I mention that I have phenomenal parents?



I've never been the type of person to have a ton of friends, but boy, the friends I've had have been the best.

Ada, I took you for granted, and you were a real trooper to put up with me. I was lucky to have you as my best friend in high school.

Leigh, teenage me thought you were the coolest person she'd ever met. You were the Rayanne Graff to my Angela Chase. (If only there was a Jordan Catalano in that metaphor...) You're still cooler than me.

Kati, I will never get used to calling you Kate, but either way, you're still awesome. You're the reason I had a social life in college. My mom can't thank you enough.

Robyn, my very first memory of you is this time we drove down to Nashville for a church dance, and you had to pee really bad but you were wearing some body shaping undergarment that made peeing complicated. I laughed sooooo hard and knew right then that you were a person I wanted to know better. (And I hope you forgive me for sharing that story on the internet.)

Melissa, you are the best friend I've ever had, and I miss you all the time. Couldn't you guys move to Raleigh? It's much warmer here. (Just sayin')

And to all the other friends I've had in the six different states I've lived in up to now, and especially to those of you here in Raleigh, thank you for taking the time to get to know me 'cause heaven knows, I'm not the easiest person to get to know.


Recently, I was telling a friend about the time our apartment was broken into, and she said, "Wait, your car was broken into, one of your apartments burned down, and you had an apartment that was broken into?"

I said, "And Michael totaled one of our cars. And our van was crashed into in the parking lot by some drunk in the middle of the night. And we had a slow water leak that completely ruined our kitchen..."

It's true that we have had quite a few crazy experiences in our marriage, many of them financially burdensome. But overall, I would still say that I have led a pretty charmed life. I've never gone hungry, I've always had a good solid roof over my head and a warm bed to sleep in, and none of my loved ones have died of anything but old age (though that one time in college, Emily, you came way too close for comfort, and I still hold that against you. :)

I could not be more lucky, and I could not be happier.

Countdown to Christmas 2011

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

1. Decorate tree.
2. Shop for Holiday Magic Angel gift.
3. Attend stake celebration.
4. Go look at Christmas lights.
5. Make Christmas cards.
6. Celebrate Rylan's birthday.
7. Read a holiday book.
8. Gifts for family.
9. Make food gifts.
10. Visiting teaching.
11. Home teaching.
12. Deliver secret elf gifts.
13. Daddy picks dinner.
14. Rylan picks dinner.
15. Cole picks dinner.
16. Eli picks dinner.
17. Attend ward Christmas party.
18. Momma picks dinner.
19. Make gifts for teachers.
20. Make gifts for friends
21. Watch a holiday movie.
22. Travel to Tennessee.
23. Celebrate Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa.
24. Christmas Eve.
25. Merry Christmas!

For the past two years, the boys and I have put together some kind of disposable crafty advent calendar, but this year I decided I wanted something more permanent. The numbered squares in the picture above are pieces of felt that I spent all afternoon sewing together. (I have some seriously slow sewing skills...Luckily, the time-consuming nature of this project made it possible for me to finally catch up with The Sing Off. Yeah, Pentatonix!) Besides the activities listed above, each square also contains a scripture about Christ.

May the holiday fun begin!

2010's advent calendar
2009's advent calendar

The Making of the Peters Family Band:My Perfect Man

After I wrote that last post about how Michael and I met, I sat down and figured out exactly when all those events took place. Turns out, we did NOT date for five months like I've been telling people for years. I must have changed the dates in my mind because the truth is much, much worse. When we got engaged, we knew each other for just less than five months, but from our first date to the day Michael proposed was only three months.

Three months!

Michael and I both agree that if one of our boys tries to pull a stunt like that, we will put a foot down.

Three months...how ridiculous.

You may have been wondering how I knew so certainly from the very start that Michael was the man for me. Well, I'll tell you...it was the sideburns. That might sound like a silly answer, but in a church with a whole lot of this...


...Michael was a rare find.

In this picture, Michael has traced his sideburns with some kind of glow in the dark facepaint. I don't know...it seemed cool at the time.

Other reasons I fell in love with Michael:

: : He was a returned missionary and he played in a rock band. On our first date, Michael took me to his band's rehearsal. While I watched, they wrote a song. Afterward, Michael said he hoped I hadn't been too bored, and I was like, "You just wrote a song!!!"


: : Our phone conversations went like this:

• "How was your day?"
• "Fine. Yours?"
• "Good...I really don't have anything to say."
• "Me either."
• "Okay, I'll talk to you tomorrow."
• "Okay."
  

And he was totally fine with that.


: : He was almost as smart as me. ;) And yet just as stupid as me. A few months before we met, Michael was doing dishes and discovered that he'd run out of dishwasher detergent. "I'm sure dish soap will work just as well," he thought to himself. An hour later, he was frantically cleaning up bubbles as they spilled out of the dishwasher and all over the kitchen.

Michael's roommates loved to tell me that story, and all I could think was, "But has he ever forgotten his shoes on the way to Opryland?"


: : Many of our dates involved me reading a book while Michael watched TV. Perfection!

For the First Time...

...one of my boys responded with a character (rather than a flavor) when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday.

You get Super Parent Bonus Points if you can identify the cake - and party theme - that he requested:

Our little Pokemon fanatic.

Downtown in Our Crazy Home Town

Way too early for a Saturday morning, we headed downtown to catch Raleigh's annual Christmas parade.

Here's a bit of trivia for you: Raleigh has had their parade on the weekend before Thanksgiving for the past 63 years. So don't complain, all you grinches. They aren't going to change a tradition.

I have to say, though, Raleigh has a pretty interesting way of kicking off the holiday season....

There were storm troopers.

A giant toilet.

A half-deflated Animal balloon that I'm not sure made it to the end of the parade.


Didn't Jesus have a llama?

I hear tell that this fellow was on some TV show that I never watch. He is much cuter on his poster than in person.

In my opinion, the highlight of the parade was when one of the horses crapped in the middle of the road, and then we watched on the edge of our seats for the next half hour to see if one of the bands would march right through the crap. No one did (phew!), and eventually, another group of horses passed by with a designated crap-picker-upper. Everyone cheered. Highlight of the parade, I'm telling you.

Rylan would probably tell you it was the monster trucks, though.


In the photo below, Rylan had just dropped his hot chocolate. All of their expressions are priceless!

I have already scoped out our seats for next year. They will be closer to the courthouse on the far side of Fayetteville...The sun came up over there a couple hours before it reached our spot, and I saw people taking off their coats while I was huddling up with Eli to keep warm.

Christmas Parades Gone By

• 2010
• 2009
  

Give a Kid a Camera...

Rylan's turn...

My turn...

11:11 on 11/11/11

Van Gogh

In Eli's elective this quarter, he learned about famous artists and then attempted to copy their masterpieces using a computer drawing program. Almost every day, Eli came home from school gushing about how much fun he was having in his elective. Today, he brought home a CD of his finished projects. My favorites:

Hey, whaddaya know! I'm a Mormon!

Thank you, Amy, for the flowers!

My Mormon.org profile was finally approved. It took a week and a half, during which time someone somewhere out in Utah was looking over what I wrote to make sure I didn't fabricate any falsehoods about the church or teach incorrect doctrine. I was on pins and needles, but phew! I passed... ;)

Take a look!

Speaking of which, on the drive home from church on Sunday, I decided to bear my testimony to my children because it was fast Sunday and I realized that I have never once shared my testimony during fast and testimony meeting in front of my children. And the reason I have never done so is because of what happened while I was trying to bear my testimony while driving home from church: Tears started streaming uncontrollably down my cheeks, and I got so choked up, I could hardly get the words out.

So if any of you dear friends happened to pass me on the road after church on Sunday, I was crying because I'm an emotional fool. Not because Michael is out of town on my birthday.

Speaking of which, today is my birthday. Happy 33rd to me!

Our Angry Jack-o-Lantern

Every year I try to make an effort to do a cool Jack-o-lantern for our porch and for use at things like trunk-or-treats. Last year I did a full pumpkin carving of the Death Star. It took about four hours and was a huge undertaking since every inch of the pumpkin was carved with something. Unfortunately the boys didn't appreciate it at all since they've never seen Star Wars.

This year I decided to go with something more universal to the human experience, Angry Birds. Not only do most adults know those perturbed fowl but just about every kid does too, no matter their age. Last year at our church's trunk-or-treat only the adults recognized the Death Star. In contrast everyone remarked about how cool the enraged feathered creatures were, and several even took pictures.

Rylan Says...

At church today, the young man saying the sacrament prayer made a mistake and had to start the prayer over again. When he finished the prayer the second time, Rylan said, "He said the prayer wrong."

I said, "He made a mistake, so he had to say it again."

Rylan said, "But then he said it wrong again. He's supposed to say, 'Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day.'"

The Making of the Peters Family Band:Love at Third Sight

In honor of our upcoming 10 year anniversary, a trip down memory lane...

Before the talent show. Photo by Dawn Majors.

Meeting #3: April 2001

In the spring of 2001, I drove down to Nashville for yet another Mormon single adult activity - this time a talent show. Because I had signed up to perform, I had to be there early for a sound check, and while I was waiting backstage for my turn, I started chatting with a cute boy (Michael), his brother (Stephan), and his brother's girlfriend (Becky, now Stephan's wife).

It's too bad that we can't recognize at the time which conversations will end up having an impact on our lives so that we can etch them in our memories. As it is, I don't have the tiniest recollection of what Michael and I said to each other that night beyond swapping names, though I have a feeling the conversation went something like this:

Me: "What are you guys performing?"

Michael: "Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead. What about you?"

Me: "Longer Than by Dan Fogelburg."

Michael: "You play the guitar?"

Guys were always surprised that I played the guitar, and this was the answer I always gave: "Not well. My goal was to learn ten songs, so I have enough for a whole set if I ever want to do a show."

Then maybe I asked Michael how long he'd played guitar, and he told me since high school and that he was in a band. And then I realized that I'd just met my perfect man.

Later that night after the performances were over and the crowd was thinning, Michael made a point of coming up to me on his way out the door. "Nice job," he said. "Maybe I'll see you around."

He did not ask for my phone number.

Before the talent show. Photo by Dawn Majors.

Meeting #4: two or three weeks later

Another weekend, another singles activity. This one was a dance on a riverboat. I drove down with a couple friends, and we were standing around chatting when Michael walked past.

What went through my head: There's that really cute guy from the talent show. I hope he'll come talk to me!

What went through Michael's head: Hey, I know her! She was in my mission! And then without even acknowledging me, he walked up to my friend and began excitedly swapping mission stories.

I stood off to the side wondering if I'd completely misinterpreted Michael's subtle hints that he was interested in me at the talent show. But finally several minutes later, Michael noticed me, and we ended up talking the entire dance. Now, those who know me and Michael, and especially those who knew me back then, might be astounded that we had enough to talk about for that entire two (three?) hours, but that phenomenon can be explained easily enough:

• Michael and I had a surprising amount in common, so we had plenty to talk about.
  
• I've never been good at gracefully exiting a conversation, so even if we did run out of things to say, I was more likely to stand there feeling stupid than to walk away.
  
• Michael doesn't get uncomfortable when nobody is talking. Another reason he was so perfect for me.
  

At that point in my life, I had been on a lot of first dates but not a lot of second or third dates. Some people claimed I was being too picky, waiting around for some dream guy that didn't exist. Driving home from the riverboat dance after Michael had finally asked for my phone number, I felt like calling up each and every one of them and rubbing it in their faces - "Ha, ha. You were wrong! He does exist."

We hadn't even gone on one date yet, but I had already decided that someday, he and I were going to be married. I just had to wait until he figured that out.