THE PEARCE FAMILY: November 2009

Halloween at the Pearce's

TRICK OR TREAT!

This year we were Willy Wonka Characters (since I already had most of the outfits)

Grin (willy wonka) Jaxon and Gavin Oompa Loompas, Mom (the Candy store owner the one who sings "the candy man" (I swear I am not as large as I look I hope) and Ella our GOLDEN TICKET

The crowd so my family loves to trick or treat so they all come in time to go with the kids we really look like a mob going down the street I LOVE IT!

Marcus our cousin (GI Joe?) Michael friend (sports fan) Jaxon (Oompa Loompa)

Ella loves trick or treating she was a trooper our cute Golden Ticket

Jaxon watches grandma hone roll around in the leaves you have got to love Grandma

Gavin in his Oompa Loompa costume

The Party Tables

Sister Debbie (a soon to be mummy) her husband (a soon to be a pop)

Mar'cus cousin (G. I. Joe) and Angie sister (play boy bunny???)

Brett bro and his family the wizard of Oz

Grandma a pirate and Aunt Millie Alice in wonderland (we are thinking of borrowing that costume next year look how perfect her shoes are

The Astle family pioneers and Indian's

The whole party so so cute I LOVE Halloween!!!

So I got this idea from Gardner Village to do Breakfast "With a Witch" I debated back and forth whether to do it or not. But in the end I decided it sounded too fun. So we invited 14 families in the neighborhood (pretty much everyone around with kids) over for Breakfast with a witch we had. Ghost pancakes, mummy sausages, Hot chocolate, and cut up fruit. Everyone said they had a great time and it was really quite fun. We served over 40 people. I dressed as the witch and only had one boy who seemed a little disappointed when he came to the door he said "Your not a witch?" But we did have one little boy so scared of Willy Wonka at the Birthday party I was a little worried about getting Too dress up.

Jaxon and Gavin with a few friends and the Witch

The Witch and the Cook Grin stayed home that morning cooked all the pancakes what a great sport not to mention stayed up with me the night before wrapping mummies until 1:00am

The breakfast pumpkin cream cheese muffins the mummies and ghosts

The group digging in fun fun!!

The Burton Carnival

So Grin had to work during the carnival and I couldn't say much because I was demanding too much already from him this week. So me and the kids head to the carnival. They did great staying by me. But the first game we played was ring toss and both boys won 2 litter pops so we had to carry them around the whole time which was fine until Ella (who hadn't had a nap) decided to be a little two tired and started laying down on the ground. Which added a lot of wait to the already heavy two litter bottles fun stuff right!

A Joy school Field Trip

A field trip to the corn field. It took us a while to find the place but once we got there the kids had a ball listening to a pumpkin story and all about different kinds of pumpkin's and squash. They also ran around in a hay maze. To much fun. Did I mention of LOVE fall!

Carving Pumpkins

Jaxon Grin Gavin Ella

For family night this week we carved pumpkins. Jaxon is getting so big he did his whole thing himself cleaned it out designed it and carved it. The other too not so much. I helped Ella and Gavin and Grin well Grin did his own.(ok he helped with the others too a little:) I love this time of year!

Top Ten October 19th-31st

10. Grin plays football and we go watch then we have dinner with the Pearce's and the Tim's the kids have a blast running around the football field.
9. Jaxon start Competition Basketball and has his first game. They lost 14-32 but they are playing against 3rd graders so we have our work cut out for us.
8. Our Cousin Edyn has a birthday and we go to a polka dot party so so fun! Happy Birthday Ede.
7. Joy school goes on a field trip to the pumpkin patch the kids have a ball in the hay maze Ella has an accident thank goodness I thought to bring another outfit. The excitement is too distracting to little potty trainers.
6. I do art start at Jaxon's school for the first year this year how sad it is I am suppose to do it monthly it has been a crazy few months.
5. We have the Burton El. Annual carnival. The kids all dress up and have a blast doing carnival things and winning prizes
4. We do "Breakfast with a witch" so so fun all the neighborhood kids and there moms for breakfast see upcoming post
3. I finally get a door on my broom closet we haven't had a door on it since we moved in 6 years ago YEAH!!!
2. W carve pumpkins Jaxon did his all on his own.
1. HALLOWEEN see upcoming post

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.