Rachelle Marie Petersen

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Life update in a nutshell

Andy sent one of our supporting partners this little update. I thought he wrote so well, it was a great idea to share with all of you!

"Our second daughter, Rachelle, was born a month ago, and AnnaSophia will be turning 3 in a couple days on Halloween. She is a great little helper with her younger sister, but we are certainly worn out by the end of the day after chasing her and also caring for a newborn. Our ministry to high school students is going well, but the number of students attending has dropped this Fall. That has been hard on morale at times. Much of it is just due to the ebb & flow of upper classmen graduating & having less underclassmen, but some of it is also due to curriculum. I have been trying to lead the students through deeper bible lessons & challenging them to take on spiritual disciplines like sincerely committing to reading the Bible every day. Although I have seen spiritual growth in several students lives because of this, fringe students have become less interested & have stopped coming. It's kind of a Catch 22. It's frustrating to see less faces at our meetings, but it's exciting to be closer to actual discipleship than just ordinary "youth group meetings! -Andy"

I hope you enjoyed! -Robyn

A Favorite Baby Picture

I love this picture Andy took with his cell phone when Rachelle was just a few hours old.

Good Morning!

This morning while I rock Rachelle to get drowsy again, I'm trying to send a post via email to our blog. So I'm trying to see how the post will appear once I email it.

In Student Venture news, we recently had our fellow staff members, Gary Warrick & Debi Emery, take several students & a college volunteer to Houston, Texas for a SV prayer conference, called "It's Time". It was a powerful experience for them & has stirred not only our group, but SV students & leaders across the US, with motivation to increase prayer & evangelism on their campuses to ensure that every teenager has a chance to hear about a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We are excited for the students who went; please pray that they would not become discouraged or disillusioned now, returning to "normal life".

Thanks for your love & prayers.
Robyn

Rachelle Marie Petersen is here!

We are so happy to have a family of 4 now! Rachelle Marie Petersen was born on September 21st, 2011 at 7:47 a.m. She was 8 lb, 6 oz and 19 1/2 inches. She began to nurse well right from the start and it is so wonderful to have a baby in our house again. With a newborn it's hard to tell their personality, but I think Rachelle likes to cuddle a lot. (Or maybe I do! :)) She also likes to have her diaper clean and dry and does not like to be strapped into the car seat! We'll see what else she develops personality-wise.

AnnaSophia is adjusting well and is very alert to Rachelle. Her most common phrases are: "Is Rachelle awake, Mommy?" "I think she's awake!" "She's looking at me!" "We both have eyes." "I'm taking care of her." "It's ok, it's ok." (last one said in an almost falsetto when Rachelle is crying.)

We are praying and learning lots of patience as the challenges of a newborn are combined with a very eager, 'helpful' toddler.

One little story, tonight at bedtime, AnnaSophia sang/made up her first song.

"Oh, I had a little froggy
and he liked to get in water;
so I called him over to me
and I named him Froggy.
Oh, my little froggy cried
and my little froggy begged;
My little froggy got out of the water.
buh-buhduh-buh-buh
Some Froggy"

We've been singing and making up songs about animals for her to the same tune/rhythm that she made up this song... Much of the song is lifted from those songs, except that she just sang it straight out to Andy (and had chosen the animal, and all his little characteristics/actions) needless to say, Andy and I were pretty proud. :)

We are so thankful for our two sweet daughters.

Funny things a girl says

As many of you already know, we are expecting baby #2. :)
I am still gaggy at times and Sprite is my friend. Today I emptied a generic water bottle and put my Sprite in it. AnnaSophia wanted some and so I said "you can try it."
She took a drink (barely  a sip) and made that  I-just-tasted-something-horrible look. Then she said,

"I can't like it. It's pop."

That made me giggle. At this age, she hasn't learned to say "I don't" , so she always says "I can't". It has made for some very funny situations!

Thought you all might enjoy!

Helping Mommy!

Today, after I got home from shopping at ALDI, AnnaSophia helped me put away the groceries. She's becoming a big helper. It's amazing all the things she can do with just a little instruction. In fact, she's watching me type this and read it aloud right now.

Here she's helping put away the apples and oranges.

Some other fun and sweet things lately:

1. Hearing her sing "Jesus yuvs me zis I know for bibuwl tows me so" after church yesterday. She's been singing a lot of little songs lately.

2. Her giving hugs to our 'baby'. :) Yes, if you didn't know, we are expecting number 2 baby and AnnaSophia loves to give it a hug every day. :) which means an additional hug for mommy's waist. I love it!

I am realizing that I don't have a lot of profound things to post on this blog (I had been waiting evidently for hours of time and some stupendous thoughts, so no posts since November. :) but I am learning to give myself grace and understand that something ordinary and simple is just as good and wonderful. :)