FIrst Christmas present!

Aaron and I have started a tradition to exchange an ornament every year when we put our tree up. Last Christmas Jen lived with us so she is now included in our tradition! This year Jen gave Matea not only her very first ornament but also her very first Christmas present ever! Naturally, it is a pink sparkly shoe. :) Perfect ornament from Aunt Jen!

Misc. Matea

Matea found a pair of sunglasses to play with the other day,

and I thought they looked cute in her hair. :)

We have some decorations hanging from the windowsill and she was quite enchanted with them!

Attempt #2 at hair.

Christmas season...

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and Christmas is arriving at the Peterson household. We spent Wednesday to Friday morning at mom and dad Peterson's house with Brandon and the Libby's to celebrate Thanksgiving. Saturday morning we got up and headed out to Pine Knob Tree Farm with the Bailey's to cut down our Christmas tree. We have been to this tree farm for about five years now, and it has become a fun tradition.

We pulled out our Christmas/winter decorations which turned into "lets re-arrange the living room so you can see the tree from wherever you sit." So, we have furniture lining the walls of our living room which in theory I don't like, but it is perfect for Christmas.

I also found that I had finally accumulated the perfect Christmas decorations for our old house, and for our new house nothing seems to fit. So, once again, I am going to slowly accumulate decorations for this house, and by the time I have what I want we'll be moving, I'm sure! :) Good thing I only decorate for Christmas, I can't imagine doing this for all holidays.

Anyway, we were bad parents and let Matea play with the Christmas lights so we could take some pictures. So far she hasn't gone near the tree....we'll see when that happens. I'm going to try to put to use some of the photography skills I acquired at my class last spring and see if I can get some cool pictures of the tree. If I get some, I'll post them!

Favorite Things!

I thought I'd make a few posts documenting some of my favorite things. Unfortunately I can't give away all my favorite things like Oprah can, but I thought it might be fun! So here goes...

STUFFED SWEET POTATOES with pecan and marshmallow streussel

We made these for Thanksgiving last year - they will be made again this year. And next. Here is the recipe.

my PINK SIGNATURE TRENCH COAT
Stacey and Clinton on "What Not to Wear" always say you should have a "signature trench coat." This fall my lovely sister found me a pink coat that I LOVE. It looks a little different from the one in the picture, but the color is similar. It was exactly what I wanted! Everyone should have a "signature coat!"

FLAVORED COFFEE CREAMER
Pumpkin Pie Spice is currently my favorite. We try to not buy International Delight because Aaron says that the container has an "engineer flaw" to it or something - it drips and gets sticky. Anyway, we prefer the CoffeeMate containers but International Delight has much better flavors. So there.

GUITAR HERO
LOVE THIS GAME! I am now on the second level. I don't own it, but I play it when I can when I'm at friends' homes.

KEEN SHOES
They are ridiculously expensive (for me!), but completely worth every penny. I'd like to get a pair of boots for the winter. Aaron and I each have a pair and are by far the most comfortable shoes we own!

YOU'VE GOT MAIL.
best movie ever. watch it when you are happy, sad, bored, melancholy, tired, content....
ELF.
second best movie EVER. This has become a holiday tradition in our house.

That's all for now...maybe I'll have a part two in a few days. Any suggestions??

crawling!

Ok, I think the video is finally working! I've been having technical difficulties this afternoon.

Anyway - Matea learned how to crawl on Friday! She did it the first time when I was at work. I got home and I was able to get her to take a few "steps" throughout the day. Saturday morning I was curious to see if she remembered her new found skill, and lo and behold, off she went towards a toy! She has not yet figured out that she can follow us from one room to another - we'll see when she figures that out.

Here is a brief clip of her crawling. You get the general idea. :) You can also see that she is trying to pull up on me at the end - she is now trying to pull up on everything and LOVES standing and taking steps. It'll be interesting to see if she will be walking by Christmas.

vote!

Happy Election Day! Yep, I dressed her in red, white, and blue.
Here's to NO MORE POLITICAL ADS for another 2 years...
till they start campaigning for the NEXT presidential campaign.

first hairstyle

Today I gave Matea her first hairstyle. I have been thinking that I need to start trying things since parts of her hair are getting really long. I really wanted to try to do twists, but I think the sides are still too short. I put it in six puffs instead. I definitely need to practice doing straight parts and getting her hair tied closer to her scalp, but I think it looks ok for my first time! I do prefer it to be out and wild though, I think.

I know these pictures aren't the best, but they get the point across. I love that expression Matea has in the last picture. She is constantly making faces!

This past weekend I went to a cabin with 3 of my girl friends. We had a blast doing absolutely nothing. Literally. It was really fun to be gone and not have any responsibilites or anything to do for the weekend! Aaron and Matea had fun - it sounds like they had a somewhat busy weekend which was the exact opposite of mine!

We have a busy week ahead of us with Jesse and Jodi's wedding on Saturday, but it should be a lot of fun. We're hoping to get Matea in the pool at the hotel this weekend!

Smile, its Friday

It's Friday. This picture makes me laugh. So, enjoy.

it's over!

Today was the last day of my "maternity leave." It's back to work tomorrow. It won't be too bad...I'll be working 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. It is just hard to believe how FAST this time went. Everyone said it would fly by, and I knew it would...but.... I feel like I was just starting to get in a groove of being a "stay at home mom." I guess starting tomorrow I'll work on getting in the groove of being a "mostly stay at home mom." :)

I haven't taken any good pictures of Matea lately, so, sorry. I'll try to get some pictures up in the next few days.

Till next time....stay strong. ;)

drain tile installation

Here are some pictures from our drain tile installation. Our front and side yard look horrible - thank goodness our neighbors don't care!! I'm getting excited to do some landscaping in the fall. I'm hoping to come up with a plan for plants and flowers over the winter so we can get started as soon as spring shows up.

We are so glad that the construction bit is over - and even MORE glad that our basement is totally dry!! We've had rain off and on over the last week which has been a total answer to prayer. We are getting new carpet installed tomorrow and it is nice to know that everything is dry and the carpet won't get ruined. We are really looking forward to working on the basement and getting it to be how we want it.

(On a completely unrelated note....if anyone knows how to get Picassa to blog more than 4 pictures let me know. It drives me nuts that I can save 8 pictures in the "holding area" and it will only upload 4. Also, I don't know how to add pictures to the BOTTOM of my post. Right now when I upload additional pictures they all go to the top and I have to rearrange them. Irritating. So, any help would be great.)

Ethiopian Food Crisis

Aaron and I sponsor a child through Compassion International so we get their quarterly magazine. The fall issue came yesterday and there is an article about Ethiopia. The famine, combined with skyrocketing food prices, is making things very, very difficult over there. Three other countries that are being hit hard by food prices are Bangladesh, Haiti, and Brazil.

I know these are tough economic times, but if you have the finances available, I strongly encourage you to sponsor a child. The work that Compassion does is amazing and your money goes to the children. If you can't sponsor a child, please consider making a donation to Compassion's Global Food Crisis Fund. They do have t-shirts available where all the proceeds go directly to the fund. (The t-shirts are pretty cool!)

up the shore

On Friday Aaron and Brandon took a half day off of work and we went up the shore to look at the fall colors. It was a really enjoyable afternoon. We went to Gooseberry Falls and hiked around for a little bit and then we drove a little further north to Silver Bay and headed back. I was disappointed that there weren't a whole lot of reds out - I think the maples are further north and/or further inland, but the yellows and oranges were really pretty. I unfortunately didn't get very many good pictures of the colors, but, that's ok! Matea was a trooper and did fantastically on her first trip "up the shore!"

sleeper!

So we've been having drain tile installed over the past week. It's been quite the process (pictures to come in a day or two). I normally am not one to brag, but I just wanted to say that Matea has been the best sleeper. She has slept through digging outside her window, trucks, and jackhammering in the basement right under her floor. She's done great. Anyway, I caught this video this afternoon, and it gives you a sneak peek of what our yard looks like, too. (ugh!!)
Enjoy. :)

playing with her shadow. guest starring Page.

attachment

Over the past week we've had a good thing happen. We have seen visible signs of Matea attaching to Aaron and me. There have been a few instances over the past week where she was being held by someone else, and when she saw one of us she reached out for us to take her. Yesterday I took Matea in to my work for her to meet my boss - I went to give Matea to her, and she turned and reached for me. (good girl!) We sat and talked for a while, and after Matea got comfortable with the new person she was ok going to my boss for a while. Overall, we're really happy about the progress we've seen!

For those adoptive parents that may be reading and perhaps care what we've done to promote attachment - we did all of the caretaking (diapers, feedings, going to bed, getting up) and no babysitters for 6 weeks. We had a wedding scheduled 6 weeks after we got home, so that was how we came up with the timeframe. Matea went in the church nursery 3 weeks after being home. It was important for us to be in church without her.

Things are going pretty good - Matea cut her first tooth the other day, so we've got lots of drool and a constant runny nose. We're heading to Triple Espresso with some close friends tonight - we're really looking forward to that. The most exciting news is that we are getting drain tile put around our house - there is an excavator and a dump truck in our yard. I'll be posting pictures of that probably early next week when they are all done. This is INSANE. Our yard is going to be quite a mess next spring. Oh well! It's all worth it for a dry basement - at least that's what we keep telling ourselves!

photo shoot

We had a mini photo shoot today. I didn't get too many good ones, but here are 3 that I like, the last one is my favorite. I got the idea to have Matea wear just a fun skirt from Staci L Photography - I've been checking her blog frequently and absolutley LOVE her photography - she inspires me to keep on trying. :)

friends

A few weeks ago Aaron and I were in the kitchen making dinner and we left Matea to play in the living room. I peeked in to check on her and this is what I found!

A