Petersons Never Give Up: Just the 3 of us

Sean started work at the children’s hospital on the first day of the month. We have both been really scared and kinda dreading this experience. I was mostly afraid of the long hours and long commute, but one night while expressing to Sean that I found so much comfort in knowing that he would be having such a valuable and educational experience he told me that he was nervous it wouldn’t be a good experience. We have both been pleasantly surprised with lots of different things. First of all when he was on day shift he left at 5:15 am (which is hard on him, but us lazies who sleep till 8 am aren’t used to seeing him in the mornings anyway) and was home between 7-7:30 each night! That meant the kids got to see him and play with him and be put to bed by Daddy! The attending Physician and other residents at the hospital are great to work with and the educational experience is top notch which was has made the long hours so much more manageable for Sean! He had last Wednesday off and we went to see Kung Fu Panda 3 which was so much fun, but that meant he had to work on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday was unusual because he was switching over to night shift so he stayed up till 2am on Saturday night then woke up at 10am to go to church, left after Sacrament Meeting to take a nap, then left for work at 4:15. Switching to night shift is a crazy business! The title of this blog is because for the last 2 months I have felt like the kids and I do so much together without Sean because he has been so busy! We are so thankful to have good friends and Grandma and Grandpa to keep us company. Here are some pics from the first week in February: The kids and I made strawberry freezer jam because Brett is addicted and won’t eat any other jam! It’s seriously one of the staples in his diet =) I need to get some new matching mason jars!

Kung Fu Panda 3 was a darling show!

Brett loves preschool so much. Every 8th class, he gets the turn to bring home the snack bag. We are supposed to send in something that starts with the letter that week. The letter was O last week and we thought of oreos, but one of the other kids already took that. So after lots of suggestions, Brett decided he liked the idea of making sugar cookies in the shape of the letter O. The kids helped me make the dough and cut them out. Then later that night Sean used a little medicine cup to cut out the middle of the circle cookies. We sent them plain to school and according to Mr. Brett, all the kids LOVED them =) The next day we made frosting and the kids got to frost the cookies. They chose this yellow-green color which was an interesting choice, but still quite delicious!

Since Sean had to work on Saturday, we decided to head down to the dinosaur museum. We have only been there once and it was on a $2 Tuesday which meant it was seriously packed. It was fun, but I wasn’t that impressed. Since we get in free with our pass, I decided we might as well give it one more try. It was so much more fun when it wasn’t crowded! Here are the kids roaring with dinos behind them.

We like each other =)

They have this fantastic exhibit there with sand and water. It is supposed to help you learn about erosion because you build up walls with the sand and bury the dinos and the water washes the dirt away. Brett and Alana played here for an hour and had so so much fun!

On Saturday night, the kids and I went to Old Spaghetti Factory with my parents. I ordered this giant thing of spaghetti with the idea of taking half of it home to Sean, but I could hardly eat any! Lizzie Jean is taking up more and more space and leaving less and less for food (which is nice in some ways since I didn’t gain any weight at my last prenatal appt). Sean was excited to have this when he got home and the kids were thrilled with the balloon animals at the restaurant.

Alana is looking so gown up to me! Also this last week she has decided that these sparkly shoes are her favorite!

Alana snuck into a picture I was taking of the toys.

Tangled was always part of Star Wars right?

A few years ago, my sister introduced me to these fun love notes from Our Best Bites website. They have great prompts on them and everyone loves checking their mailbox everyday for fun notes and treats.

Here is our stack of already sent love notes! Brett especially is disappointed that he mostly just gets stuff from mom, but someday he’ll be grateful =)

This last week Sean started night shifts. Its kinda rotten. He basically works 13 hours at the hospital, drives for 1.5 hours, sleeps as much as he can, eats rushed meals, showers, and gets about 30 minutes to see his family a day. Luckily he is almost through and by Monday we will be back to normal 70 hour work weeks for 2 more weeks and then on to some much better schedules! My food of choice lately is plain cheerios with a little sugar sprinkled on top. Speaking of Miss Lizzie, I feel like I have had a lot more discomfort this pregnancy as opposed to the other 2. Sean tells me its about the same and that I just don’t remember, which I absolutely believe. Last week I was having LOTS of contractions and was only 31 weeks which feels super early for so many braxton hicks contractions. My doctor had told me to go in to L&D to be monitored if I had more than 6 in an hour. I really felt silly going and didn’t want to. Sean is a doctor and knows a lot about labor and pregnancy so I waited for him to come home Friday night to ask what he thought. I had a terrible day where every time I tried to lift anything I would have a contraction and I was frustrated because I really needed to get laundry done and garbages taken out. After describing how I was feeling and having a good cry, he said he didn’t think I needed to go in. I asked for a priesthood blessing and later that night my Dad and Sean gave me a blessing. I was told that I have the gift to be healed which felt so right because I have had several other times where I have been blessed to be healed and it has happened very quickly. I felt so much better emotionally after the blessing and the contractions have gone down significantly. At my appointment this last week everything looked great and Lizzie is growing perfectly and has a healthy heartbeat. Only 8 more weeks!

Brett asks me all the time if we can play Angry Birds but not the one on the iPad. I saw a game similar to this in an article and made my own this week. These cups and little spiky balls have been a huge hit for all kinds of games and fun!

We finally had TWO playdates this week with boys in our neighborhood. Here is Brett playing trains with his friend Will. I never got a picture when Bo came over.

Brett was particularly bummed last night when he only got to play with Daddy for 10 minutes “I hate February Mom!” We went to Target for some retail therapy which really helped =) I was so pleased that the kids chose this toy and decided to share because it was too much for just one of them. They have spent tons of time playing with it and each other so nicely today!

Brett and I put together his Valentines for his class party tomorrow, he is getting so great at writing his name!

Sean suggested we go to the arcade one night to help keep us occupied. Grandpa and Grandma went with us tonight and we all had so much fun! It was sad when this Wheel of Fortune game didn’t work very well:

Deal or No Deal was a big hit! One time we had 1 point in our case and thats what we got and another time we had 200 in our case and we settled for 32. The kids thought it was great, and Brett especially felt like a huge winner!