Claire

Did you think we had abandoned this blog? In a sense, I thought so myself. This is definitely the longest we've gone without posting, so I thank you for your patience with us as we adjust to life as new parents.

Since I can't come up with a better way to fill you in, you get bullet points for this post. Here are some highlights of the last couple of months:

• Claire Elaine Peterson* was born on January 22nd, 2010 at 2:28am... two weeks after her due date.
  
  
• Katy (Pratt) Wogsland arrived just in time from Seattle to help us at home for the first 10 days. THANK GOD!
  
  
• We were blessed beyond belief with countless meals and notes for Claire's first 3 weeks at home. Don't know how we would have survived (or eaten) otherwise.
  
  
• Tony finished designing another mailer for Great Lakes Church, inviting 70,000 families in the area to come check us out.
  
  
• We launched another season of Growth Groups with an incredible number of sign ups, and our weekend attendance at GLC grew to just over 1,000.
  
  
• We had just over 60 people at our most recent 101 Class make a commitment to partner with GLC as members! Love welcoming more people into this family of faith!
  
  
• We baptized just over 40 people at our most recent Worship Night! (That same night, I left Claire with the provided childcare for the first time. She did great! I was a nervous wreck!)
  
  
• Because of the incredible amount of people (and KIDS) we are seeing at GLC, we brought on another staff member, Matt Stennett. Matt, along with his wife Crystal and their little son, Jace, moved across the country from Seattle (although both of their families live here in the Chicago area) a couple of weeks ago. Great additions to the team!
  
  
• Tony and I made the tough decision for me to "stay home" and quit my job in Racine. This means the three of us are now home together full time. I'm excited for this opportunity and my new job as Claire's mom. Definitely eating crow, as I told many many friends before I had her that staying at home with her was just not something I'd ever be interested in. What the heck did I know?
  
  
• Claire is really good at being a baby, growing every day, sleeping more than I'm comfortable sharing with other new moms, smiling, and "talking" to us.

And now, for our feature presentation, Claire!

Claire Elaine Peterson from Tony Peterson on Vimeo.

*We named our sweet girl, Claire, after the song Clair de Lune by Debussy. This is a song Tony introduced me to when we first began dating 6 years ago... said it reminded him of me. He insisted I walk down the aisle at our wedding to this song, it meant so much to us both. It is the song playing in the background of this video. Her middle name, Elaine, is my middle name and a family name on both sides. We pray she knows how much we cherish her.