THE PEARCE FAMILY: April 2008

Boxelder bug Parade

Ok so this is a story that I have to remember and think it is pretty funny to share as well. We were walking Jaxon to school yesterday there was a group of boxelderbugs on the sidwalk and anyone who has seen boxelderbugs in large groups knows that there will be at least one "couple" in the group enjoying themselves. Well this group was no different. The kids sat and watched them for a moment and then Jaxon said "Mom look they are having a parade, see those two right there stuck together." Oh how soon that inocence will go quicker than I can even imagine. but I will never forget the real reason bugs are stuck together it truly must be a parade.

PROGRESS!!!

The show "In over your head" ( I think that is what it is called) rings a bell where professional teams come in and fix the projects that dumb people like myself (grin won't take any of the blame) get into and can't finish well I am starting to wonder if we should write in and admit our defeat. We did however make good progress this weekend. A few weeks ago Grin got the 220 run and we now have a stove in the basement! So we have been cooking down there for a while and got everything out of the cabinets. Yesterday Grin's dad and Brother came down and we removed all cabinets that we could (except the sink I am waiting to the last possible moment because the sink in the basement is a bar sink and you can't so much as rinse out our cup let alone pans etc.) They also framed out the alcove for the desk, removed the soffit and re-Sheetrock, and finished mudding the wall in the garage that we need to install the old cabinets on. Everything looks fabulous in a disastrous sort of way.

So I had a couple of you say you wanted details on what is going on so this is for all of you who are interested.

Floor Plan. for those of you who have seen my kitchen, the pantry(old washer dryer location) has been removed and the fridge will go there. We are making an island with the sink in it so I can see out to the backyard and watch the kids while I do dishes (yeah for that)

This is the long wall elevation. the blue is my existing paint color which will stay. The cabinet is the "style" of cabinet, shaker, very simple. the dark finish will go on the island and the desk and the lighter will be all other cabinets. It is just a shade off of natural maple the wood species is maple.

This is the desk and double oven/pantry wall elevations

Island elevation with sink and dishwasher I believe this is going to be the trickiest part getting water and electricity to the island and saving my existing tile YIKES!

I still have to make a decision on the counter top and cabinets are suppose to arrive in a month so as you can see there is A LOT to do and I can't help but wish that it was sooner. I am starting to wonder just how much gyp bd a baby can eat and still be OK. It doesn't matter how much I vacuum she still seems to find some somewhere.

Ella pulls herself to stand

WOW I can't believe how quickly time goes by a few weeks ago March 27th to be exact we went to get Ella from her nap and found her standing up. She now pulls herself up to anything she can get ahold of and is crawling around like crazy I hate that they grow up so fast but it is also very fun to watch them learn and discover new things.

Our First Trip to the E.R.!!!

Well we have survived our first big accident. Gavin fell off the sofa last Thursday and cut his ear open. I was sitting right by him and picked him up just as he fell only to find that it looked like a chunk of his ear was missing. I grabbed a rag and held it to his ear with much resistance from him he was of course screaming his head off and thank goodness cartilage doesnt bleed very much. (just one of the many things I learned in this adventure). This is of course good for my sanity but not so good for stitching them up after the doctor looked at it (of course this is at 5:00 so we are now at the after hours clinic and can't see our regular doctor) he thought that a plastic surgeon should do it because of the lack of blood in cartilage and also because cartilage cannot be sewn so you have to be extremely precise in just getting the skin or the cartilage will tear right apart like paper. So off I head to the ER anyway long story short the plastic surgeon was in surgery until 8:30 that night so we had to go back and they had to put him basically under to do it. So around 11:30 that night we were finally home and in bed. What a day. But now I can say I survived my first stitches (I stayed home with the other two when Grin took Gavin to have it sewn up and was actually grateful that I they didn't do it earlier so I didn't have to watch probably the only way I survived it). I did however go with him to take them out and he was a trooper. It is looking good now and hopefully with any luck there won't be much scaring oh the fun of being a mom. The pictures are a little blurry because a hurried and took them in the ER and was a little worried about getting caught so sorry althought it might make it easier to look.

Here we GO!!!

I am posting the before pictures of our kitchen so you can all see the mess that we are getting ourselves into and so I can mark our progress. It might help me put up with it all if I can see some progress as we go along. So here is a before and a after one day shot of our Kichen remodel.

The Dinosaur Museum

Our dad took the monday after easter off and we headed to the Thanksgiving Point Dino Museum. The boys had a blast playing in sand making Dams, drawing Dinosaur pictures, drilling out fossils, and making their own Dinosaurs. They are already talking about going again. We really had a great time. We really should just take the day off more often and do something fun as a family it was really energizing. It was our last day out before we start the kitchen remodel which mean s every spare moment of time we have will be working on it.

Easter Sunday's Best

I love dressing the kids all alike its cheesy but o-well it makes me happy. here they are in there Easter sunday best!

"Rain Rain bring it on"

We had a great easter we went and spent the weekend at Grandma and Granpa Hones house. All of the kids got umbrella's and golosha's from the easter bunny. They had a grand time dancing around pretending it was raining in the basement. Mom had a great time taking pics of the umbrella's and baskets

Half way through the year Grin changed Jobs. He still works for Ken Garff but is now the Used car manager at the Ken Garff Nissan dealership in Riverdale. He is loving the change and has started going to Auction to buy used cars. He is really enjoying this new aspect of the job and has had the opportunity to travel to Pennsylvania a few times to an exclusive Nissan Auction. He is now the 1st counselor in the Elders Corm and loves spending time playing with the kids and teaching them sports and watching as much sports as he can football, Basketball, Baseball, Golf, Hockey, Tennis, Poker, Soccer, (did I miss any) pingpong? if it is on Espn it is worth watching am I right?

As for me. It is pretty much same old same old. Clean house house the house by 10 am the next morning it is dirty again. I have Jaxon in joy school with the neighborhood kids and will be the teacher next month. We "remodeled" the storage room it started out putting some shelves in then I decided that we should put floor in, then we put in a water softener and a new water heater. My quick small project ended up a huge major project and cost way to much money but in the end my glasses come out of the dish washer clean for the first time and I am a little more organized which makes me happy. I got a new calling a few weeks ago and am now the primary chorister yikes never complain about your calling because it could always be worse. Teaching relief society was torture but at least it was only once a month now it is every week. The kids are a true joy though.

Jaxon started the 4th grade this fall and is doing amazing . He is crazy smart and can read at a 6-8th grade reading level. I gave him my old alarm clock after Grinner won me an Ihome and wakes himself up every morning. He gets up, gets dressed, makes his bed, unloads the dishwasher, reads and sometimes gets his piano done. This of course doesn't always happen smoothly but he does pretty good. We went to his SEP conference however and learned that he doesn't turn in his work that he does. He read probably 4 books that quarter at home and he had turned 1 in and it was the one I had read to him. My little brother was like that and almost didn't graduate because of it, what a nightmare we are working hard to rectify that situation as quickly as possible. He is playing on a competetion basketball team (The Davis Starts) and a comp baseball team (The Sox) and has practice or games almost everynight year round but he loves it and is always happy to go and willing to get his other jobs done to do it most of the time it makes for great leverage. He is getting so tall and before I turn around he will be taller than me. I bought size 10 pants for him for school last spring and we got them out for school and they are too short so he has been flooding around for months new pants "Merry Christmas Jaxon". It is so fun to watch him grow and develop into who he is going to be.

Gavin is now 6 years old! He is in Kindergarten and having a September birthday the oldest in his class. He is not "in love" with school but I don't have to convince him to go everyday either. He has discovered video games and I have had to spend a lot of my time monitoring how much time he has spent playing them. He still has middle child syndrome and you would think that I being a middle child myself would do better at making sure that doesn't happen but he still seems to be the kids that doesn't get his homework done and isn't reading as well as he should at no fault to his own but because mom seems to be running around after everything else. His sweet little personality I am afraid is reflecting this and he spends his life looking at the world with "the glass half EMPTY" I actually put a glass in front of him and asked him "Gavin, when you look at this glass what do you see, is it half full or half empty." his response, "half empty". I am praying that it is a 6 year old phase some of his friends moms say the same thing that the girls will cry in a drop of a hat etc. Gavin doesn't cry that quick but he lashes out yelling not nice things at us like "I hate you's" and "your the worste mom in the world" or this is the worst day ever" "stupid idiot" well you get the idea. I don't want this to be negative but want to write how he actually is so that someday we can read back and laugh at this funny faze our sweet Gavin went through right? On the switch side (it is kind of like living with Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde) he is the cutest big brother to Kennedi and to Ella most days to. But he will spend hours playing with Kennedi from the day she was born giving her kisses, and talking to her in baby talk. Now that she is 10 months he pushes her around the house on her push toy and sits around playing with her for hours kissing and loving her. He is truly the best baby sitter and my heart just leaps out of my chest when ever I watch him. He is going to be the best sweatest dad. My sisters little girl has been his favorite for ever now and I kept wondering if we would be as cute with his own sister as he has been with her but he is just as sweet and loving. How so much love and tenderness and hate and rage can come out of the same child in a matter of hours is beyond me but I am learning quickly that he just "feels" more than the rest of us and we will all adjust accordingly and search for ways for him to utilize that gift.

Ella is now 4 years old!! I was so excited when we found out that Ella was going to join our family I really needed a little more estrogen in this house full of boys and boy did we get it. There is no "tom boy" in our little Ella she is Girly Girl to the core. We have a trunk full of dress-ups in her room (however rarely are they "in the trunk") and a Mirror above it were she spends hours admiring herself and "possing" in front of it. Then she keeps asking things like. "Do I look beautiful in this mommy" or "am I more beautiful in this mommy", or "do I look cute or no?" of course the answer is alway "Yes Ella you look beauiful in everything". but she just keeps asking. We are constantly in a state of imaginary play, princesses and mommies, dances, and tea parties. She loves to dress up in moms shoes and wear princess dresses. She is constantly wanting a friend to play with and they will play house and pretend all day. I LOVE IT!!! it is such a great balance from the "lets wrestle, fight, shoot each other etc." we just eat her up. She is in preschool and loves it. she can write her name so well and knows every letter and its sound ( and has known them for over a year) and recognizes them all the time when we read. She loves to pier over my shoulder when Gavin and I read and she hurries and repeats the words after him like she is reading right along and truthfully she does about as good as he does. That's a girl for you right!

Kennedi Rose Pearce came into our family on February 11th 2011. She became the 3rd Hone Grandchild to be born on that day (strange). She has grown so fast and becoming such a fun and integral part of our little family. She has such a sweet demeanor and is always smiling at people. She is really quite the flirt and we spend most of our outings with people standing around talking about how cute she is and telling everyone around them things like. "Have you seen this baby", "come look at this baby", "She is the cutest thing, you have to see this baby", "look at those big blue eyes" While she just smiles and smiles like she is telling them "I know I am cute and you should all notice". It is really quite fun for me and Grin because we reallyh get a say in how they look or act right! She is crawling all over and getting into every thing she is a typical 10m old baby and we wouldn't trade her for the world.