THE PEARCE FAMILY: December 2008

Top Ten December 7th-21st

10. Jaxon Plays in his first Piano recital he does such a great job and was so proud of himself.
9. We go to American Fork to celebrate my sister Millie's birthday. She has a party at her apartment the kids had a blast singing karaoke and dancing to music and playing dog pile on all of her guests.
8. I teach young woman's and am glad that it is over for another 5 weeks
7. I have a Christmas party in Logan with my Freshman Roomies. What fun it is to get together and catch up and reminisce. I love those gals
6. We go to Grinner work Christmas party and have a good time trying to gamble away two thousand fake dollars. I am a much better gambler when it is for pretend
5. I take the young woman shopping for sub for Santa they have a great time shopping for others and wrapping the gifts.
4. Grin spends his day off making goodies and delivering them to the neighbors while I am having parties and going to young woman's what a wonderful Hubie I have!!
3. Jaxon has a ball playing in all the snow and makes and awesome snowman all by himself.
2. We go to the temple with the Hone family. I love going together as a family and being together in such a wonderful place. We then have dinner and do the Nativity and sing sing sing.
1. Christmas parties Christmas parties Christmas parties we end the week (or start the next week) with another party with Grin's family. I love the holidays but man they are busy

Kids say the darndest things

So we were driving in the car the other day and jaxon says

Jaxon, "Mom I am trying really hard not to step on anyones toes."
Mom, "why is that?"
Jaxon, "Because I don't want to have to kiss anyone"
Mom, "what do you mean"
Jaxon, "you know mom missle toe"
Mom, "what"
Jaxon "I don't want to have to kiss someone if I step on there toe"
Mom, "Jaxon that isn't exactly how it works, Mistletoe is a plant that people hang above there doors and if you stand under it you have to kiss"
Jaxon, "OH"

So so funny

Jaxon is also very into the girls and came home on Thursday telling me that he kisses a girl named Oliva on the cheek. He and his buddys are chasing the girls all the time at resess he says because the "ask him too" but usually it is not about kissing but he has now developed a crush on this little girl after she told him she was on her list of "boyfriends". ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! this can't be happening already.

Top Ten 2008

10. Jaxon Goes to 1st grade full time school and start loosing his teeth 2 so far

9. Gavin Cuts his ear and has over $2,000.00 dollars worth of stitches (that's 2 thousand dollars mom and dads cost we could have had a another baby not that I would have chosen that)

8. Ella learns to walk, talk, eat on her own, fight back, play pick-a-boo (see her post it goes on and on)

7. Grin and I both leave our 20's behind and inbark on the world of the 30's

6. Grin and I go to San Fransico for his 30th birthday and experience all that goes with such a liberal city.

5. Grin and I getaway again in september for a spur-of-the-moment UEA weekend in St. George and Zions

4. The Hone Family Vacation first at Echo for 4th of July Camping then in Wyoming at Flaming Gorge and the Rondevous. Then in Park City for the Gingerbread weekend

3. My Sister Debbie, My Brother Brett, and Grin's Sister Julie all get married (not to each other)

2. Grin and I Run the Wasatch Back an all night run from Logan to Park City

1. We remodel the kitchen and Survive to tell about

Gingerbread Weekend

Gingerbread weekend was a great success. We have been doing this for at least 6 years and we have a blast. The boys spend most of there time constructing their "houses" even the little kids do a great job decorating their houses everyone but Ella did a house. We love being together as a family and making a mess. My mom is so great she makes all the gingerbread for us and brings all the icing and glue. Thanks mom, Although I do have to say that this year I spent a night helping it is such a project we spent 4 hours cutting out and cooking and we did 6 houses. I believe she did about 18 in all WOW!!!

Grinner's a little anti traditional and always goes for the ball stadium's this year a soccer field

Everyone's houses

Ella just had fun running around in her cute socks and begging for treats

Jaxon likes to eat as much as he decorates

Cute gavin did his house all on his own

8

Ok manda here it is I know I am a totally blog slacker.

8 shows I watch

1. Curious George
2. American Idol
3. One Tree Hill (terrible I know)
4. anything on HGTV after 9 pm
5. Dora the Explorer
6. Home on the Range
7. Charlette's Web
8. Psych

8 Resurants I love

1. Cafe Rio
2. Bajios
3. Firehouse Pizza
4. P.F. Changs
5. Rumbi's
6. I have to agree with Amanda on the Blue Bird
7. Applebee's (oriental chicken salad)
8. Mimi's Cafe

8 things that happened today

1. I ditched out on areobics because it was ball day and I hate my exercise ball
2. got jaxon off to school
3. finished my wreath for my mirror love it.
4. went to talk to a morgage man about refinancing our morgage
5. cleaned up the tampons like everyday after ella gets ahold of them.
6. fixed lasagna in the crockpot for dinner
7. went to see the lights and temple square with the young woman rode front runner there for the first time
8. actual looked at the blog and did a little updating

8 things to look forward to

1. Christmas shopping finished
2. Christmas day
3. Jaxon being out of school for a few weeks
4. doing all the fun activities that Christmas brings
5. Hawaii in Febuary
6. Grin's next day off
7. Gavin and Ella in school full time
8. our refinaning finished

8 things on my wish list

1. a day of no messes to clean up
2. kids that listen and obey
3. new dinning room furniture
4. the economy to get better
5. a house that cleans itself or better yet that never gets dirty
6. eating what ever I want and never having to worry about the consequences
7. baseboard in my house
8. new doors in my house

8 people I tag

1. Mindy
2. Camille
3. Hancey
4. Keisha
5. Kim
6. Brett
7. Jamie Roundy
8. Cherstie

Top Ten Nov something-Dec something

It is feast or famine around here hopefully I can get to a feast on this blog soon we will see. here are a few things that we have been up to:

10. Jaxon starts Junior Darts basketball he loves it so much and we have a ball watching him try and be like his dad.

9. Grinner goes to South Dakota and hunts Pheasant. He has a ball on a fancy farm where they bread them and package them for you to take home Hunting????

8. My niece Ali is the the Nutcracker so we all go and watch it was great fun. Her school owner has in's with Ballet West so some of the performers come and perform they are truly amazing.

7. Thanksgiving at my Mom's house with Uncle Al's family too. It is so fun to see your cousin's we just never get together anymore thank goodness we still take the time once in a while.

6. Gingerbread Weekend in Park City My whole family goes somewhere and makes gingerbread houses every Christmas. Everybody has a blast designing their houses (or in Grin's place ball stadium of some sort this year a soccer field) and spending time together.

5. Me and the kids and Grinner when he wasn't at work stay in park city until Thursday. I worked on quilts and the kids had a blast playing the wii and hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa

4. I have an overnighter girls night with some of my favorite girls we have a blast talking about old times and shopping shopping shopping!!!

3. We have our ward Christmas party I brave it alone while Grinner has to work and we all go on a hay ride the kids had a blast. I survived

2. Jaxon practices and practices to get ready for his piano recital it might kill his mother but at least he should get through his pieces on Thursday.

1. Ella has learned all sorts of new things in the past few weeks she can now tell you what the cow, dog, and cat say and she also folds her arms during the prayer I love fun milestones.

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.