thepedersons.net

Greetings friends and family~

It’s been an exiting year for us! Kendra Irene joined us on February 24 between snowstorms! As of the posting of this letter, she is almost 10 months, and Eric turned 4 years old in September. It’s amazing how fast the time goes! To see pictures of the family and our various adventures, go to our Pederson Family Shutterfly website.

We sold our boat last Spring (which was a very sad day), but we replaced it with a pop-up camper and spent 5 weekends this summer enjoying the great outdoors. It’s too hard to pick a favorite as each trip had it’s own great highlights. Yogi Bear at Jellystone in Fort Atkinson was a hit with Eric; it was also our first real trip. Blue Mounds was a great state park with a nice pool. The weather was stormy, but only at night. During the day we took a trip to see Cave of the Mounds. For the American Family picnic in July, we camped with Deb’s family at Arrowhead Campground, which had a very nice heated pool, although we spent the majority of our time at Mount Olympus waterpark. Then we had a fantastic time at Tunnel Trail Campground, where we enjoyed some quality time with friends from Minnesota. Eric had just learned to ride his bike with no training wheels (thanks to a neighbor friend who works for Trek for the tips on making this happen), so it was a perfect time to hit the bike trails there to see the tunnels.

This year Eric started Preschool at Monona Grove Nursery School 2 afternoons per week. He loves his teachers, Linda & Diana, and has had a great time making lots of friends and playing. It’s a wonderful program. He asks just about every day, “is today a school day”? If only that would last throughout his school career! When not in school he is a big helper taking care of his sister, although he can often be found playing with his new friends (our neighbors) Christopher and Wyatt. It’s been so nice having playmates so close by.  He will be in kindergarten with Christopher in 2010. He also loves spending time playing with his cousins Lucas and Brianna.

Kendra is a hoot! She’s now sitting up, but not quite crawling yet. She’d rather be holding our hands and walking around than on her belly trying to figure out how to motivate. Tough on our backs, but gives our chiropractor some good business. She’s babbling a lot and doing some sign language, but most entertaining are her numerous facial expressions and her head bopping (think Will Ferrel & Chris Kattan from Saturday Night Live - the Roxbury Guys, Steve and Doug Butabi,). She loves to imitate everything her big brother does, so we hear lots of screaming, laughing and car driving noises. Eric can make her laugh like no one else. Her repertoire of words include uh-oh (she looks at the floor to see if anything dropped if someone says this unprovoked), ma-ma (to mean mom, milk & more), ny-ny (night night), da-dee (daddy), eh (for Eric, although there have been a few times when she has pronounced Eric perfectly), and na-na-na (not sure what that’s in reference to, but it’s probably from Deb saying “no no” too much).

Spencer is now 9 ½ years old! He’s definitely showing his age, but he and Eric are great pals (most of the time) and love to play together. He’s even started to drop his toy in front of Kendra, hoping to “train” her to be his playmate, too.

In these tough times, it’s been nice to know that Curt is appreciated at his job. So far, American Family has only let go of contract employees. We are hoping it will not have to go farther than that. Curt is also teaching a class at Madison Area Technical College. After a slow start with only 3 students in his first class last year, things have picked up a bit, and he is enjoying this side job. He’s also always dabbling in some extra-cirricular web development. Hopefully the latest one will actually pay out! He is still playing bass in the band, currently named Sour Face Ann (for this year). If you bug him enough, maybe he’ll post some of the original music they’ve been working on! Then we just have to get them to play out!

Deb has been lucky enough to stay home with the kids and experience their extraordinary and everyday antics. During this phase of Kendra’s life, Deb’s lucky to get anything done, especially with a preschooler around to entertain as well! She’s looking forward to Kendra’s switch to one nap per day, so we have more time to do things outside the house without skipping a nap and creating a crabby kiddo. Deb’s participation in MOMS Club® Madison East has been a great support to help her keep her sanity during this phase of stay-at-home motherhood. Deb’s also been taking care of a few friends’ business websites and volunteering with our neighborhood association, which has kept her professional skills from totally evaporating.

We hope this message finds you and your family healthy and happy! We are looking forward to what the New Year has in store!

Love, The Pedersons ~ Curt, Deb, Eric, Kendra & Spencer