Our U.S. visit/ Merry Christmas!

Visiting the States:

Sorry the posting has been non-existant lately. We have been busy during the day, and not getting much sleep at night. Besides this, we are having a great time visiting family! Jeremiah has been having fun with his grandparents, his aunts and uncle and the rest of other family. We have also had some snow fun. We cross-country skied, ice-skated, and went sledding with Jeremiah (only the sledding was with him). We've seen old friends, gone into Chicago, and even went on a date! It's been great to have Jeremiah meet family and friends. He's enjoyed it and has been flashing smiles and laughing lots.

Christmas:

It has been wonderful to have our first Christmas with Jeremiah. It definitely has given us a whole new view of Christmas, and a little understanding of what Mary might have felt: that, while giving birth to our Savior, she was also giving birth to a precious, fragile son; her firstborn, who was in her un-experienced care.

Jeremiah Update:

Jeremiah continues to grow bigger! He has also discovered his tongue, and enjoys sticking it out and making noises. Unfortunately, he also has not been sleeping well at night and wakes up 2-5+ times a night. This has been making it very difficult for us to feel rested.

All in all, besides the lack of sleep, we are having a good time visiting Wheaton. Here is a pic. for you to enjoy. For more, go here.

Christmas Tour of Homes

Welcome to a Dominican Christmas!

We are excited to open our home to you. The first thing you will probably notice is the heat. As you stand in front of our house, you will see our down-stairs neighbor's palm tree decorated with Christmas lights.
You may hear fireworks being set off in the distance, as this is a popular thing to do around this time of year. Open the gate, walk up the stairs, and you arrive at our little home. When you open the door, you will walk in to one large room. This room is our living room/family room/kitchen/dining room all rolled into one. We did our best to make it look Christmas-y and homey. First you see our Christmas tree (yes, it is artificial, as they do not have real ones here).

As you look around our room, we have a few shelves filled with Christmas mementos from home.
Feel free to make yourself at home, have a seat on our coach, and play with our baby (it's his first Christmas!).
We'll be watching Christmas movies soon, so stay a while! And of course, don't forget the refreshments- my yearly candy-cane cookies, and the ever popular Dominican Christmas drink- ginger tea (made from fresh ginger!).

So relax and enjoy a very different, but memorable, Christmas!


Be sure to visit other participating homes at BooMama's page.

Note: Unfortunately, we had to take down all our decorations last week, as we were flying to the States and do not want our cat to eat them all while we're gone!

Meet the Daddy

Merry Christmas!

I am so blessed to be married to a wonderful husband and father. Daniel has been so supportive and encouraging both during my pregnancy, and now with a baby. He willingly takes on extra chores when I'm not able to because of nursing, teaching preschool, etc. I look forward to next semester when I'm able to help more (because of not teaching), but I have very much appreciated his desire to serve.

Bundled up and Ready!

While I was pregnant, though all the physical things were def. only happening to me, I never felt like it was "my" pregnancy; I don't know how he could have made me feel more like this was something we were walking through together than he did. And even now, he wants to do whatever he can to take care of Jeremiah. He changes his diaper and swaddles him during night time feedings, he washes the diapers in our "semi-automatic" washer (then I do the spinning and hanging), he plays with Jeremiah, sings to him, and enjoys carrying him in the carrier when we go on walks (keep in mind we live in a very male-dominated society). I am so thankful for him!

Happy Pumpkin Baby

Since this is the meet the "daddy" post, it's all baby related. Later I'll have a post that tells more about the other sides of him. :)

More Meet-and-Greet Monday posts.

Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord, Jeremiah slept through the night! It's been a while since he's done that. We put him down at 8:30, and he slept until 7:00ish. Yay! Sleep for mommy! His nose has seemed much better today, too.

Pumpkin Soup

I love soup! When I was younger I would always order soup at whatever restaurant we went to. I was my daddy's "soup" girl. So, when I saw a carnival on soup, I knew I had to participate!

Here is a pumpkin soup recipe Daniel and I made yesterday. We found it on soupsong.com.

French Pumpkin Soup

2 cups pumpkin, or other winter squash, peeled and cubed
salt and pepper
water or chicken stock, just to cover
2 wedges of Laughing Cow cheese (or some mix of yogurt)
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
Garnish: minced parsley (sometimes we do this, sometimes we don't)

Put the cubed pumpkin, salt, and pepper in a saucepan and just cover with water or stock. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer til the pumpkin is just tender. Purée in a blender, solids first, then pop in the cheese wedges and process til they are melted into the soup. Right before serving, stir in the lemon juice.
Pour into bowls, top each with a sprinkle of minced parsley, and serve immediately.

It's good warm or cold (which is good here, when it is more often warm outside than cold). You can also use yogurt if you would like, instead of the cheese, or in addition to it. We used our local squash here that very closely resembles pumpkin. Yum, yum, yum!

For more soup recipes, click on the image above.

Brief Peterson Update

So, here's what's been going on in our lives lately:

Baby/ Lack-of-sleep Related:
Jeremiah has been teething and has had a stuffy nose for over a month now.
Tuesday night he kept waking up and crying because of his nose. We kept putting saline in his nose and aspirating it.
At 2:30 he woke up, and I fed him, cleaned out his nose, and Daniel changed him and put him back to bed. He kept fussing. We tried putting him in the infant seat because it is more upright (we had inclined the crib mattress). He still kept fussing.
Finally at 3:30 I held him so he would fall asleep. I held him until 5:30. I didn't sleep much.
Daniel got up and took Jeremiah, and I finally slept.
Because I was tired and Jeremiah wasn't feeling very well I stayed home from school yesterday. Jeremiah needed lots of extra attention, probably due to sleepiness.
Last night his nose was much better, but he kept waking up anyway: 11 something, 12 something, and 1 something. I kept sticking the pacy in his mouth, and he would fall back asleep. So, I was able to get some sleep. Fed at 3:30, then he slept until 6 something.
Yes, this is the same child who was sleeping through the night at about 2 months...

School Related:
1 1/2 more weeks unil Christmas break! Next semester I'll be doing tutoring of some sort.
We've had some difficult situations at the school lately. Please pray for the school and for wisdom for the leaders. If you want more info on what to specifically pray for, let me know and I'll email you.

Living Related:
We've decided that we will need to change homes for next year, due to problems here. We keep trying to fix the problems, but they keep coming back. Even though the bat poop has lessened, we can still smell it in the baby room, living room, and our room. It's pretty dusty and it's hard to get rid of the dust, due to the brick walls and high ceilings. Other health concerns include ?lizard? poop in the pantry, some termite issues, and the constant smell of exhaust in the house. These things didn't bother us much before, but are bigger concerns with a baby around. And then of course, there are the things that keep breaking that we needed to repair, because the land-lord won't fix them (water pump, gate, faucet that's almost totally corroded, etc.). So, though we have enjoyed living in this home (and it does seem like home, so it will be hard to move), and are very thankful for having this place, we feel that it is time to find a place that would be better for a baby. However, this will mean a rent raise (not many places are as cheap as this), which is difficult as my paycheck is decreasing.

So, those are the things that have been going on with us lately. We continue to learn more about trusting in God with our future as he takes us through the different seasons in our lives.

Jeremiah the Sailor

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted- between doctor's visits, getting things done around the house, and not sleeping well, I haven't done much online recently.

Here are some pictures of Jeremiah the Sailor:

Go to Beth's site for more meet and greet Monday postings (yes, I know I'm a day late...).