the countdown continues

Bake and freeze cakes for Thursday night's family dinner:

Check.

Plan healthy family meals during wedding week:

Check.

Go with Charlotte to jeweler's to have our rings cleaned:

Check.
Enjoy every minute of having Charlotte at home:

Check.

wedding prep checklist, cont.

Three more essentials crossed off of the list:

• One MOB dress, completed and ready-to-wear!

Check.

• One great pair of MOB shoes, worn once or twice to break in:

Check.

• One well-stocked refrigerator for wedding helpers:

Check.

every mother crow

My mother used to say, "Every mother crow thinks her baby is blackest."

Well, I think I'm that mother crow now. After graduating from BYU last April, Charlotte spent the summer interning with LDS Church Magazines in Salt Lake City, working for The New Era (magazine for youth ages 12 - 18). Beginning this month with "A String of Good Examples," her articles will appear in the magazine through February or March of next year.

The internship was a great experience for her; she was able to implement some of her own ideas and was given real writing assignments--not just your typical intern-who-makes-the-copies stuff. I'm so proud of her and have become the overbearing mother who shows the magazine to any captive audience.

Look--her name is in the magazine's masthead!

Yes, I think my baby is blackest.

on a roll

Cross another item off of my wedding preparation check-list:

• Make (and freeze) 26 dozen homemade dinner rolls for reception

Check.

Happy Birthday CJP!

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 84. It's hard for me to believe that six months have already passed since her death. This is the first time in twenty-one years that I have celebrated her birthday without her (that's how long we've lived in Denver). But I decided that today should be a day of celebration, and not one of sadness.

My dad and I went to Sam's Club first thing this morning and bought a beautiful bouquet of Fall flowers. We picked up my sister Karen and her husband Daniel and drove to the cemetery to decorate Mother's grave. The day is bright and sunny, with just a hint of Fall crispness in the air.

After taking a few photos at the graveside we went to a favorite place to have breakfast: the Sunrise Sunset Cafe, a mom-and-pop establishment that serves tasty home-cooked goodness. We enjoyed being together and we like to think that Mom would have liked the excursion as well.

Now I'm home for the afternoon and plan to bake a cake in her honor, an idea Emily and I had separately and simultaneously. I still haven't decided what kind for sure, but I'm leaning toward the family favorite of Chocolate Cake with White Mountain Frosting.

This photo was taken one year ago, on her 83rd birthday. I was trying to remember what I gave her for her birthday last year and can't seem to recall. What I have come to realize, however, is that even in death my mother continues to give gifts to me--the gift of her enduring wisdom, wit, and expertise--and most importantly, the gift of her faith in and testimony of Jesus Christ.

Thanks, Mom. I love you and miss you, and am so grateful to know that you're not that far away.

first an iPhone and now this

{Three generations of Petersen men--all darling!}

My father, an engineer by trade and a handyman at heart, has always harbored a penchant for gadgets and gizmo's. At the age of ninety he has a GPS system built into his car, a recently-acquired iPhone, and an active FaceBook account.

Given that kind of Cool Factor and street cred, it's really no surprise that he would show up one day with bling on his front tooth:

Well, okay--it's really just a chip in his crown, but Dad got such a kick out the young man who asked him (with some degree of awe-struck admiration) if he had a diamond in his tooth, that I just had to document it before we went to the dentist's office this morning to have it fixed.


Thanks to the wonders of modern dentistry (and to our really kind dentist/friend) the new crown will be in ready and in place in time for Charlotte's wedding in just three weeks. Although, now that I think of it, maybe it would have been sweet to have a bit of bling for the festivities.

in the line of duty

While opening a can of black beans for dinner I managed to slice my finger open and bleed profusely. Two hours, a $20 copay, and seven stitches later I have this fashion statement to show for it:


I think I'll tell people I got in a knife fight or something--anything more glamorous than black beans.