Peters' Place

Cherubs Singing

2015-10-25T22:02:00.000-05:00

The Cherubs sang in the church today & they did a super great job! Dexter is in the green...he definitely got into the songs!

UV Splash 5K

2015-10-25T21:50:00.002-05:00

Calan ran his first 5k this weekend with me. It was so fun because not only was it close at Arnolds Park, but we were splashed with colors and as the night set in, we glowed in front of the black lights. Calan thought it was the neatest experience, even though his feet killed him in the end! I was impressed with how much he (we) actually ran. We'd run a while, then walk, then run more, etc. The fact that one of his very good buddies, Griffin was there with his family too made it that much more fun for him. Good times!

Dexter's 6th birthday!

2015-10-21T22:05:00.000-05:00

Dexter had a Monster Truck Party!

Birthday craft was monster truck costumes. Here they are awaiting to be painted:

Car races:

An acrobatic birthday candle blow

Sunday Fun

2015-10-04T22:14:00.000-05:00

Last boat ride of the year (& Gary even suggested it!)

Mother-daughter lunch at Dry Dock

The Sunday School kids joined in on a church mission project "Just Feed One". It was a great intergenerational activity for a good cause. I think the kids were amazed at how much (or little) was considered one meal. So much less than we, as Americans, eat for one meal!

Calan's 8th birthday

2015-09-19T22:19:00.000-05:00

We took Calan and his buddies to Sky Zone is Sioux Falls for his 8th birthday. Such a fun time celebrating this fun loving, determined, hard-working kid!

Little Mozart's

2015-09-14T22:40:00.000-05:00

Calan's last Little Mozart's class. Can't believe he started class with these kiddos and his teacher, Elizabeth Knudtson, in February 2012. For over 3 years he has been learning about piano, music and learning to love the challenge of playing new and more advanced songs. Now he has begun lessons all on his own and is still loving it!

Elizabeth, Calan, Asher Knudtson, Elliana Antoine

Ally listening to the kids with Amara Antoine on her lap. Little kids just cling to Ally!

2015-06-21T11:27:00.000-05:00

Ally & Gwen Gerhke sang at our outdoor (drive-in) church service. They sang in front of about 100 vehicles, so likely twice as many people. What an awesome experience for them!

Happy Father's Day!!

May

2015-05-31T21:56:00.000-05:00

So excited we purchased our first boat! A Chapparal 22 1/2" boat with black trim. The kids are super pumped to spend the hot Okoboji days on the lake.

Dexter's last day of Pre-k with Miss DeMuth

Dexter's Pre-K Graduation!

Despicable Me

2015-05-11T10:12:00.005-05:00

Calan was in tumbling at Dawn's Dance Connection this past year. The recital was yesterday & he did a great job with his cart wheels, somersaults, bridges, etc.

NAM 2015

2015-05-10T23:02:00.000-05:00

Ally was in the National American Miss Iowa pageant last weekend & had a successful couple of days! She was a semi-finalist among 97 the pre-teen girls AND Ally ended up with 2nd runner up in the talent pageant, which was an option portion. There were four required parts to the pageant, which were community service, formal wear, interview & personal introduction. We were so happy with how hard she worked & how well she did. This girl is going to make something of herself someday!!

Dear brothers were very supportive of their big sister!

Gary was her escort in the formal wear portion:

Singing & playing "The Hanging Tree", from Hunger Games-Mockingjay

Personal introduction

Here she is on stage as a semi-finalist!

Walked away with 2 trophies & a semi-finalist certificate & rose.

Lost tooth

2015-05-05T11:03:00.000-05:00

Can't believe Dexter is only in Pre-K & already lost his first baby tooth! He was pretty pumped!

April Foolin'

2015-04-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

Gary was fooled really good at work this year on March 31st. Rod at work had an official looking e-mail sent from a Spencer Chamber member to remind everyone that "Business Before Hours" was being hosted by Winther, Stave & Co the following day. We were to arrive around 7 AM and make sure all the tax returns were cleaned off of our desks & be ready to greet people from 7:30 to 8:30AM. Some of us got the joke, but not Gary! He totally fell for it and was so worked up about the terrible timing that he was darn near ready to fire Rod (well, probably not really!). Luckily G didn't fire Rod before finding out he was merely the instigator of an April Fool's joke. Gary said that was the best joke ever played on him on April Fools!

That night before going to bed, I played my own little April Fools joke on the fam'. Nail polish on Gary's soap and saran wrap on the kids' bedroom doors. Gary got a kick out of the nail polish...he figured out something was funky with the soap. The saran wrap I put on the lid of the shampoo & twisted shut to blocked his shampoo was noticeable on the bottle top, so he figured that out before even trying to get it out.

Dexter walked right thru the saran wrap at 2:30 AM when he went to the bathroom. It didn't phase him one bit. Calan saw me (yeah, my fault!) and he stopped, looked down and said "Mom, I see it!". When Ally came out she blamed Calan for it, ha!

Well in the end, we all had some laughs! It made the day just a little bit more fun. :-)

2014-12-27T14:19:00.000-06:00

First time Gilligan has worn a sweater. He didn't like it!

Boy cousins:

We had fun with our PJ Christmas!

Tommy & Ethan

Merry Christmas!

2014-12-25T08:30:00.000-06:00

2014-12-22T08:51:00.000-06:00

Cal's piano instructor at his Christmas recital-

Dexter at his Pre-K Christmas program:

Calan as a gummy worm:

Dexter at the church program:

2014-12-15T08:35:00.000-06:00

Christmas cookie day

Guitar recital at the Milford Library, playing the Charlie Brown song

Ally singing a solo at the church Christmas program

Calan had a cute duet in the church program

Dexter sang in the Cherub choir - so cute!

Ally's 11th birthday party

2014-11-28T22:09:00.003-06:00

For Ally's 11th birthday, she had a "glow party". We had fun with it...glow bracelets, necklaces, light up balloons, made glow in the dark ice, glow cupcakes (which didn't work as well as I hoped), glow in the dark finger jello, etc. Of course, I had to invest in a black light to make all this work so well....& it was worth it!

Tonic water is the key to making edible food glow. I didn't have plain gelatin, so I used some blue berry jello to drip the cupcakes in to make them glow. Not worth the work, but it was worth a try!

The glow ice was made out of pure tonic water. So although this tastes bitter, if your drink is sweet enough, it works just fine!

Dexter loved organizing all of the glow sticks. Here he made a robot!

With their masks on in the dark:

& masks on in the light:

Our photo booth:

Happy Birthday!

2014-11-09T06:55:00.000-06:00

We went to St. Cloud to celebrate Anne & Gary's birthdays. The kids just love the Holiday Inn there, where they have 2 big pools, a kiddie pool, and 2 hot tubs, as well as two full sized volleyball courts, 2 basketball courts & a very big gaming area. We went to "Big Hero 6" at the movie theatre, which was given a BIG thumbs up by all of us, plus Nehn, Anne's friend. The theatre was super-nice, where we could order pizza, which I thought was nice! Also we were able to take in an ice hockey game too.

Volleyball

2014-11-06T07:03:00.000-06:00

I coached volleyball for Ally's team this fall along with Stacy Titterington and Amy Pas. We had a bunch of really great girls, who improved a great deal this season. We played for 6 weeks at the YMCA and won all but one week, where we went 1-2. The girls had such a good time and so did I coaching! Go "Hot Tamales!"

Dressing up

2014-10-31T23:05:00.000-05:00

We had a month of a lot of dressing up! From Homecoming week to Halloween, it seems like I had to help plan outfits every week!

At Okoboji Middle & High School, dress up days were fun, creative days while the Elementary school continued with their "color" days. Ally is dressed up here as an 80's girl, in her favorite throwback cartoon character (which can only be thrown back 10 years, ha!) and then a day where she dressed up in MY old school stuff, which in this case was a Lakeland Raiders State Softball shirt.

Calan was able to dress up as his future "dream job". That dream job was to be a mathmatician. Not sure I've ever seen another kid dress up as that before!

I was lucky enough to get to spend the morning with Dexter's class on Halloween. The entire class dressed up in their costumes! What a great looking bunch of kids!!

Playing their parts to perfection:

Thing 1 & 2, two transformers and Spiderman to top it off.

Dexter's 5th birthday

2014-10-20T22:19:00.000-05:00

Dexter turned 5 years old in October and was so super excited to have a birthday party with some friends! The kids painted pumpkins, played "pin the pizza on the Ninja Turtle", took their shot at the Ninja Turtle pinata and ran around having fun like 5 year olds should!

With his "Ninja Turtle mask on:

After all the kids got their shot at the pinata, we let them hit it without the mask on.

Ninja turtle legos (yes, there is a theme here!):

Ninja turtle cupcakes:

Ninja turtle decorations!

On his birthday, really, really early in the morning (note the boys' boxers :)) Dexter opened up his presents from us:

2014-10-12T16:36:00.000-05:00

This autumn has been amazing! Nice weather & beautiful, long-lasting colors. This picture of Dexter is on the north side of our house & it is a bush that we were just certain died...well here it is looking pretty darn good! Glad we didn't dig it up!

Our church had a hayrack ride/family games/soup dinner. The kids' favorite part was gaga ball. Even Gary got into it!

Pumpkin Patch

2014-10-03T16:35:00.000-05:00

This year we tried out a new pumpkin patch. We went to Center Creek Orchard in Fairmont, MN. Ally had a couple of her friends, Lexi & Lauren Duffy come along with us. It was a fun little trip!

Minecraft Birthday Party!

2014-09-19T00:17:00.000-05:00

Calan celebrated his 7th birthday with an ultimate Minecraft birthday. I have never and will likely never again, put together such a cool (I may be prejustice) party!

Everything with labels!

Creeper juice - printed labels over the original kiwi juice labels:

Sprite bottles with labels taken off, then used a handmade stencil & used permanent marker to color in the "creeper face":

Good food....

This was dark chocolate that NO one (except me) ate!

Whipped up some brownies (from a box), added some grass (green frosting from a can) & printed the creeper faces on green cardstock paper. Taped a toothpick to the back and walaa...."grass"!

Blue raspberry finger jello "water":

Sour apple finger jello (on a referee plate....I ran out of plates!) aka....slime:

Red M&M's:

Rolos:

Pretzels:

Good old rice krispie bars with printed labels on toothpicks:

Printed this banner from my computer:

Creeper face (7" square plates + 4 black napkins (because I ran out!):

Goodie bag table (TNT liqorice bundled with computer printed labels, magnetic strips for the kids to cut out and make their own Minecraft worlds on their refrigerators, bookmarks printed from my computer printer, fun plastic toy diamonds, and "gold" boxes with candy inside):

Calan with his explosive birthday cake! (I had someone else make this cake):

Nope, it didn't actually explode..................& the craft of the day was Steve heads:

"Steve" heads....boy was this a fun birthday!

Molly's 30th birthday

2014-09-16T17:06:00.000-05:00

Molly turned 30 in September, whether she liked it or not! :) She wasn't too excited about the new decade, but the kids sure enjoyed celebrating with her!