A Year in Pictures

It's becoming a bit of a tradition... more for me to remember what we've done, but here's 2009.

In January we said Goodbye to Justin's Great Grandma and Hello to a new President (hint, I like this guy).

I also quit working. I was expecting to work my last 2 weeks, but ended up going in for one (very long) last day. It was full of emotions. I find myself missing parts of work and the most of the people I worked with. At the same time I still have moments where I am so grateful to not work outside the home at the moment (and with the other half of the people I worked with).

In February we blessed the Little Man and hosted around 50 or 60 family members at the house. I think we used every square inch of our main level.

In March the Little Man and I flew to Phoenix (by ourselves!) and stayed with Kathy. It was nice to be in warm weather and be with friends -but it was a little touch on the little guy. He was a trooper -despite all of the driving and late nights!

April must have been a slow month. A new Easter outfit for the Little Man...

And we went to the Hogle Zoo for the first time.


I made DOZENS of these eggs...

May... another slow month. The only thing that made the blog (other than baby updates) was our dinner with the people from the Middle East.
June -things are picking up. Justin directed a play (which may account for the lack of anything blog worthy in May).
We bought our tent. We spent a lot of money and were very happy to do so. Justin loves it. I thought it would wear off after the first year, but I doubt it. I suspect you will ALL hear about it again next summer.

Things definitely picked up in July -we had such a busy month. Mostly camping trips to Jackson, and family reunions in Idaho.

A long weekend in San Fransisco.

We also got the Little Man's pictures taken -they turned out awesome.

In August the Little Man learned how to crawl and we attended Justin's 10 year High School Reunion.

September was another trip to Jackson Hole -complete with a hike and Matt and Jenny got engaged.

And scabies. Let's not remember the scabies.

Halloween. That was about it for October.

November was busy. Another dinner with delegates from another country, this time they were from China.

A trip to DC (where we saw the President twice).

Family pictures. They weren't that great.

The Little Man turned One and started walking!

Justin turned 1 away from 30.

December brought many Christmas parties, all of which I forgot to take my camera out of my oversized purse. But... Santa did visit with the Little Man this year.

On (his) First day of Christmas

I kind of feel like I should have started with the 1st day of Christmas... instead of ending up with it. For one thing, the SONG starts with the first day, and now it feels like some kind of countdown or something.

Either way, this wasn't the Little Man's first Christmas, but since he was barely a month old (and we were still fighting with each other on how to actually get him fed and asleep) this seemed like his first one. And, he loved it! Anytime a lot of people, especially kids, and toys that make noise are involved, he has a good time.

He got to hang out with a second cousin on Christmas Eve. He was such a happy baby and smiled and giggled the entire night.

There's a 4 month difference between the two.

Christmas morning the Little Man had some fun with the toy that Santa brought him (Santa figured there were enough grandparents around that would spoil him rotten, there was no sense in going all out this year at home!).

Christmas morning from Melanie Lafeen on Vimeo.

We headed over to Justin's Dad's house to talk to the missionary. I think he kind of got a kick out of listening to the Little Man jabber in the background. Bryan will be home in April, and he's never even met his nephew in person- it should be fun!



After way too many gifts there, we loaded our trunk and headed to Justin's mom's for a brunch/lunch. This time the Little Man was the only little guy there, but he spent a good amount of time there either being ornery or sleeping.




We headed to my parents in the evening. The Hardcastles all came over (we were only missing one uncle by the time the night was over and all of my siblings had arrived again). After dinner and visiting my family did Christmas. Once again, the Little Man got spoiled, but at least this time a couple of toys didn't have to come home with us. They'll be there when we go and visit.



Justin and I knew how tired we would be so we had planned on sleeping over that night. We were glad we did, because we didn't finish opening presents until almost 10pm.


We went to a movie and I hung out my friend Kathy a bit on Saturday (Big Matt had his first baby-sitting experience with Jenny -and all three of them survived!).


It was a long day, one that I continue to say we won't be repeating in years to come, but I've learned enough to say never say never!

We hope everyone else had a great Christmas with friend and family!

On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

My Grandma gave to me... Soap!

For most of my childhood I had two cousins. Two sisters, about my age. So, it was Annie, Me, Haley, and Jodi, all within 4 years of each other. For Christmas we would sit on my Grandma's yellow couch and would open our gifts at the same time (when it was our turn). We figured out at some point that we often got the same gift, just different colors and/or sizes.

One year we picked the gift from Grandma and didn't realize that year we had TWO wrapped presents from her. So, we all opened our gift at the same time, my sister and two cousins got watches... and I got soap!

It was a big joke that Melanie must have smelled, been dirty, didn't bathe regularly etc. And that's why Grandma gave me soap. My Grandma was quick to point out that we all got watches AND we all got soap -I just happened to open the wrong package first!

Thanks Grandma!

3rd Day of Christmas

My dad took all four kids with him to pick out a gift for my mom. I'm not sure if it was out necessity, or if he thought it would be fun for us to know what he was getting for my mom. I think this was a mistake.

My dad was getting a camcorder. It was just as the small ones were coming out, "small" is relative of course. Remember the huge ones that you carried on your shoulder that fit full sized VHS tapes? Well, it was smaller than that.

Jodi and I were besides ourselves with excitement. We could barely keep the secret and anytime we were around my mom we would laugh and look at each other and put our hand up to the side of our head (holding an imaginary 'small' video camera' -what can I say, we were excited).

I never asked my mom if she figured it out with our stellar secret keeping abilities. If she had any idea, she didn't let on. She acted VERY surprised and a little mad. Actually she started crying and kept telling my dad this was her Christmas, Birthday, AND Mothers day gift for the next 3 years.

We didn't care- we had a cool little video camera.

On the 4th day of Christmas

Here's a few 'sneaking' stories that I remember.

One year I asked for a few tapes. Yes, tapes. There were two packages of 2 tapes wrapped under the tree. I wanted to know what they were, so I slowly and carefully pulled the tape off and slid the tapes out of their wrapping -being careful to not disturb the paper so I could tape them back up. It took my two or three different attempts before I was successful. The tapes I unwrapped were BLANK! I had also asked for blank tapes to record things as well. All that work for nothing!

I remember sneaking into my parents room when my mom was in the shower to look at the big black garbage bag Jodi and I were sure had presents in it. I was too nervous to look at everything, the only things we actually saw were some gloves and scarves.

And lastly, my mom is a list maker. For everything. This includes Christmas presents. (I'm the same way, but mine is an excel program on my laptop.) One year my sister took it out of her purse and told me I was getting contacts. I was so excited! I had been asking for a while, and my parents had decided to give them to me as a Christmas gift, so they had been telling me for weeks that I was too young for contacts.

That was the last year that I ever tried to sneak and find my gifts. As excited as I was to get contacts, I knew everything I got for Christmas that year (because Jodi had told me everything else on the list too). It was such a let down- to not have any surprises. I think the thrill of searching for gifts is definitely in the searching... not the finding!

The 5th Day of Christmas

I'm not sure why I feel like mentioning this memory, but I can't seem to remember any of the many more memories I am planning on writing down at the moment.

This is a short story about a Christmas moment that wasn't.

Two years ago I got very exciting news. So exciting that I decided to keep it to myself until Christmas morning. I couldn't believe how excited I was, Christmas seemed like forever away. I bought a special gift and wrapped it up as nicely as I could. Then I waited so I could share it with Justin Christmas morning, just the two of us.

I never got to share the gift and exciting news. A few days before Christmas I had a miscarriage. Instead of opening up a delicate newborn sleeper to announce my news, Justin and I had to endure a few moments of hurt and loss. Of wishing and wondering and praying.

Christmas seemed very empty that year.

I am grateful for that experience. I know a small amount of pain and longing that so many of my friends and family have and continue to experience. Our story had a happy ending, and this year we get to share our Christmas morning with the Little Man.

The light of my life, and the person that constantly brings a smile to my face.

On the 7th Day of Chistmas (and the 6th)

I guess I need to step it up a notch if I'm going to get 12 days of Christmas in before Christmas this year.

Okay, this one is not for the young at heart -there may be a few spoiler alerts.

There are a few advantages to being the oldest. I think in some ways you get to be a 'kid' longer. Although in other ways, I think you grow up a lot faster. But, in this instance, when you're the oldest you don't have older siblings to tell you Santa may not be 'real'. I didn't have older siblings to spoil the game, but none of my friends were the oldest -so I believe this is where the seed of doubt came in.

I remember one year (I think I was only 6 or 7) when I was reading Santa's letter to the kids. I noticed that Santa had handwriting JUST LIKE MY MOM'S! I don't think I shared this information with anyone -even my sister at this point.

It was probably the next year, after mulling over this fact for 12 months that we (Jodi and I) had decided that the Santa possibility was probably not possible. That year both Jodi and I had asked for dolls. Not just any dolls, but these anatomically correct dolls that were pretty popular at the time. We just happened to be home when the box's arrived in the mail. Ya, we peaked -and were SO excited! I was talking to my mom and she had no idea that Jodi and I were no longer 'believers' at this point. We were both afraid that if we admitted to not believing, we wouldn't get as many gifts. Nice little kids, huh?

Christmas Eve the kids went to bed. Either I got up because I heard something, or maybe I was trying to prove one way or the other that Santa didn't exist, but I walked into the living room and my dad was playing my keyboard I asked for. I think they attempted some excuse about Santa dropping this off early for the night, but I was convinced.

Not only was Santa not real, I was indeed getting the keyboard I had asked for!

Christmas present

I've been busy remembering Christmas' past and I didn't want you to think we're ignoring Christmas present.

We went ornament shopping on Monday and got the Little Man 'a baaaaaaa' -or in other words, a ball. You see, he get's REALLY excited when he see's balls. So, that was only fitting.

I need one more gift certificate and I'm waiting on something for Justin and I am officially done Christmas shopping. AND, everything is wrapped and under the tree. Along with about 5 birthday gifts.

I finally took some pictures too. I had the Young Women over last night and they decorated a gingerbread house. I ended up giving it to one of the other leaders -otherwise I probably would have picked it clean of all the good stuff by now.

I decorated this little guy after they left. I was going for cute and Christmas-y. I think it came out creepy and pudgy.

On the 8th Day of Christmas

Man, this is going to be a month without pictures -how boring! We had our Petersen family Christmas party last night -an excellent time to get some pictures (especially of the ugly Christmas sweaters) but, I left my camera at home. How about a picture of Santa?

Here's a short story from a mall Santa.

My mom had the 4 kids at the mall and we took turns talking to Santa. I probably went last and walked back to my mom a little disturbed. -No, nothing 'weird' happened. Other than the fact that Santa knew my name. I was old enough to know that Santa -especially a mall santa- wouldn't know my name. One of my other siblings said that Santa knew their name too.

It kind of freaked me out, and I could tell that my mom was a little weirded out too. She wondered if it was someone that knew our family or something. A little while later it came out that Santa had asked one of my brothers the names of his siblings that were standing in line with him.

Pretty fancy little trick!

9th Day of Christmas

One Christmas Eve my mom was at work and my dad was home with us kids. I had to be younger than 8, since I don't think this would have worked before that.

We were at home and someone unexpectedly came to our home. Well, to be honest, we WERE expecting him, but not so soon.

Santa came over to our house! We couldn't believe how lucky we were. I'm not sure how long he stayed -he had to get back to his sleigh to begin delivering his gifts of course. The thing I remember most about this night, was my dad had to go and help Santa with his sleigh after the visit. We were convinced we heard them up on the roof -because, where else would the sleigh be?

Turns out, my dad's friend Santa, had car problems and my dad went out to help him get his car started.

I wonder why Rudolph couldn't give him a jump.

On the 10th Day of Christmas

Here's one from Christmas Eve.

My family started going to a movie on Christmas Eve sometime ago. In 1997 (how's that for accuracy?) we went to see the new "it" movie -Titanic. It hadn't been out long enough for word to spread on how appropriate it would be for small children.

We managed to get through the awkward moment while in the theatre (you know, the boob-shot) and were talking in the car on the way home. Most of us said we liked the movie and the discussion of that scene came up. My brother, Matt, who would have been 9 years old at the time, said "It was SO obvious they weren't real."

I responded with a "How would you know?", followed by "and by the way, they were real".

I think after that night my parents attempted to go to more family-friendly shows.

Success story

A little over 2 years ago we paid good money (what's bad money anyway?) to a man to take a very large laser and point it towards my eye. It didn't take very long and was mildly uncomfortable, followed by a couple of weeks of dry eyes.

SO WORTH IT -to never have to mess with contacts or glasses ever again. I usually forget what it was even like to have contacts and glasses until I see someone else with them. Especially when we're camping, or traveling, or swimming, or any other place or activity where contacts and/or glasses are annoying. And then I remember, Ahhhh, I don't have to worry about that anymore.

I just went for my 2 year follow up. Two years and one pregnancy (a lot of women's eyes change for the worse during their first pregnancy) later and I still have 20/15 vision.

Thank you, Hoopes!

11th Day of Christmas

Remember those huge VCR's that you used to rent from the video stores? The ones with the colored PLAY, STOP, REWIND and FF buttons? (I looked for a photo on the internet and couldn't find one). Well, that's what we used to watch movies on. We'd rent the VCR along with our movies from Video Express.

When I was 6 or 7 we woke up to a HUGE surprise Christmas morning. We (my sister and I) didn't notice the gift when we first went into the living room. I started reading Santa's letter and started screaming when he (Santa) said he hoped we enjoyed watching movies on our new VCR. We were SO excited! I don't think we owned any of our own VHS tapes and we couldn't wait to go and rent some. My dad (or mom -I can't remember) asked if Santa had left us any movies. We looked around and said no. My parents looked confused, and then suggested we look under the couch. Maybe Santa had accidentally kicked a couple of tapes under there.

Sure enough a couple of Disney movies were just under the couch.

How did they know that?

12th Day of Christmas

I'm going to try to and write down a few (12, maybe?) memories of Christmas past during this month. No pictures. Boring for most, but I'll do it all the same.

My first 'memory' is more of a story I've been told.

I guess when I was very young (3 or 4) I told a mall Santa what I really wanted for Christmas. I apparently failed to mention this to my parents. My mom finally got out of me that I wanted a toy shopping cart. Remember the yellow and orange Playskool ones? I was sure that it would be there Christmas morning.

So, my dad went to Toys R Us (or some other horrible place to be looking for a last minute gift) on Christmas eve to make sure Santa kept his promise.