Wednesday, December 31

We did a little more shopping today and Simon got something he has wanted for months - a Rockwell watch! Tonight, we partied at my parents' and said goodbye to 2014. Although it's been a tough year for a lot of people I love, our little Pearson family has had a pretty great year. Welcome 2015!

 

 

Tuesday, December 30

Since Simon usually has the week off between Christmas and New Year's, we've made a little tradition of going to Olive Garden for lunch then seeing a movie. Last year I believe we saw Frozen. This year, we saw Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. It was super cute! We went to lunch with my parents, the Muffett's, Jenni, Halle, and Brielle. Unfortunately, Jen and fam didn't make it to the movie but it was fun being together for lunch.

 

 

Monday, December 29

We made Ricki's 6-month check-up a family event! She's doing great. She weighs 16 lbs 13 oz (61%) and was 27" tall (86%). After her appointment, we went to the mall and a few other stores to do some returns and some fun shopping (at Bed, Bath, and Beyond)!

 

Sunday, December 28

Today has been a strange day. First, our church got cancelled today! I think this has happened about 3 times in my whole life so definitely noteworthy. I guess there were some electrical problems at the church and possibly caused a small fire. The picture was taken at about 1:15 pm and our ward goes at 1:00 (notice the empty parking lot). Second, my grandma lost her dear brother today. Uncle Doug has had deteriorated health for the past 5 or so years. Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Jim rushed back from Mackay to say goodbye to this wonderful man. He passed away around 7:30 tonight. My heart is broken for those left behind but rejoices for the reunion he is having in heaven and also knowing that his body and mind are finally whole again. Goodbye Uncle Doug.

 

 

Saturday, December 27

We went to dinner with all the Pearson adults tonight but of course, I failed to get a picture. We had a lot of fun visiting at dinner and then for a while at our house afterward. I did want to mention though that we FINALLY watched Christmas Vacation this year. We couldn't find it for a few weeks but I was inspired to check downstairs and voila, there it was! Yay!

 

 

Friday, December 26

Both sets of grandparents came over today to check out what we got for Christmas. While the Pearson's were here, Kendra insisted on doing Viv's makeup and nails. It was so cute! She is one darling little girly-girl!02

 

 

Thursday, December 25

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas this year! Our family got just what Nick wanted, an Apple TV. My joy came from the kids opening their gifts and experiencing everything Christmas. It is a magical day again thanks to my 4 littles.

 

 

Wednesday, December 24

Yes, that clock behind me says 2:22...am! I stayed up a little late trying to get everything ready and perfect for Christmas. I shut my eyes at 2:30 and woke up at 7:00 for a full day of fun! I'm sometimes thankful it only comes once a year.

 

 

Tuesday, December 23

It was Daddy/Daughter Day. Each year we go with dad to help him get gifts for mom. This year, he was pretty much done but took us out anyway cuz it's a tradition. We had lunch at Olive Garden. We love this tradition!! Tonight, we fed Ricki her first bowl of rice cereal. She really liked it but eventually started gagging on it. She is 6 months tomorrow!

Monday, December 22

Zack, Grandma Sharon, and Jenni had fun with my phone and sweet Ricki. She was giving Aunt Jenni big loves. I adore that cute little face!

 

 

Sunday, December 21

Church was amazing and spiritual today. I love the reminders throughout the Christmas season of what this is really all about. I am thankful for my Savior. I am thankful for His birth and I am thankful for the atonement. I hope that I can help my kids remember Him this season and throughout the rest of the year.

 

 

 

Saturday, December 20

Oh man, today was so fun! We started out at Kendra's Gymnastics Winter Showcase. She is doing great at gymnastics and improving quickly. We're so proud of our girl! Afterward, we went to Grandma Howard's to make Brazeli's. I usually miss out on this tradition for some reason so I was very happy to make it this year!

 

 

Friday, December 19

"He's Comin' to America"! Simon was sworn in today as a U.S. Citizen. They did a very nice ceremony to welcome all 35 new citizens in. Simon was the only one out of all of those people from the United Kingdom. We're thankful that he's decided to join the rest of us in his citizenship. :)

 

 

Thursday, December 18

Happy birthday Grandpa Jim! We are so thankful to have this man in our lives. He takes amazing care of our special grandma and he's the best Grandpa Jim we could have ever asked for!

 

 

Wednesday, December 17

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! The kids purchased gifts for each other and got them wrapped right away! There is very little organization under this tree but I love the love they've put into this.

 

 

Tuesday, December 16

Today was a fun and busy day. It ended downtown at Abravanel Hall where we watched the acapella group Voicemale. It was a really fun night with all of the family including the McCullough's, my parents, and Gma & Jim (but minus Kenny). I love things like this to get into the Christmas spirit.

 

Monday, December 15

My crazy day - 9:15 Hair appointment, 10:00 Houston's funeral, 12:30 Bowling, 3:30 Christmas shopping, 5:30 Nick to piano, 7:00 Simon's branch Christmas party...it was nuts. The highlight, although it was very sad, was Houston's funeral. The family did an amazing job and Denise... I have no words for how amazing Denise is. It was a wonderful tribute to such a great man.

 

Sunday, December 14

We celebrated Jim's birthday today. We gave him a crossword puzzle book (because we love to do crossword puzzles!) and a can of cashews. The kids loved helping him open all of his gifts.

 

 

Saturday, December 13

Today was a day of Christmas parties. It started out at the church with our annual Christmas breakfast and we ended the night at the Olsen's for their annual party. It was so much fun! We had a complete blast!

 

Friday, December 12

My family went to a Christmas concert downtown that we weren't able to make it to because of Simon's work schedule. They also went out to Jenni's birthday dinner so I watched Brielle and Halle while they went. It was like a big sleepover at bedtime. I love these little faces.

 





 

Thursday, December 11

It is with great sadness that I have to write about the passing of my sweet friend's husband. Houston Holbrook, Denise Thibeault's husband, passed away after a 19-month-long battle with AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia). The way she has handled both his fight and his passing is nothing short of a miracle in itself. She is truly an inspiring and courageous person and I can only hope that I'd handle a situation like this with as much beauty, grace, and dignity as she did. She's amazing! Houston defied all odds by hanging on for so long. The doctors were baffled as to why he hadn't died long ago. He was a fighter. They both held out hope until the very end. Now he is with the Lord, whole again, and Denise has eternity to look forward to with him. My thoughts and prayers are continually with his family and especially his sweet wife.

It was at our June bunco last year that Denise was saying Houston wasn't feeling well and that he had gotten his blood drawn that day to try to figure out what was going on. The very next day, he was diagnosed with AML. Here we are at bunco tonight, remembering the Holbrook/Thibeault family. As we finished up our game and headed home, Houston was passing. We had a very fun evening (and we were lucky to have Sarah with us) but Houston was on everyone's minds as we played and visited.

 

 

Wednesday, December 10

My sweet sister feeds me lunch every Wednesday when I bring the preschool kids home from school. I had just missed Jenni who ran to get Jade from her preschool so I was outside with the kids while we waited. First of all, note that it is Dec 10, there is no snow on the ground, and it's super warm outside. I think it hit 60 today! Second is how cute this "race" was. Zack and Halle lined up at the edge of the driveway and said, "Let's race". Halle said "GO" and they took off running together. When they were about half way through the front yard Halle yelled, "Zack, are we winning the race?". SO CUTE! They for sure both won!

 

 

Tuesday, December 9

I had a hard time picking just one picture for today. Zack, Ricki, and I went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A with Grandma Sharon and here sister Phyllis. It's always so nice to get out and be with grandma. Tonight, while Kendra was at gymnastics, the boys, Ricki, and I ran over to the library to return books and to play for a bit. The boys had a blast in their kids play area. It was a great day! (WAY better than last Tuesday!)

 

 

Monday, December 8

I am possibly the worst friend ever. I was at home cooking dinner when my phone rang at 7:15. It was Candace calling to see if I was coming. Ummm....totally forgot I had made dinner plans with my two favorite gals. Oops. I dropped what I was doing and ran out the door. We had a fun evening visiting over dinner at Red Robin - even though I showed up a half an hour late.

 

Sunday, December 7

We celebrated Jen's birthday at my parents' tonight. Everyone pitched in and got her a Kitchen Aid mixer. She was very happy and we were so happy to be able to replace her old mixer that she had broken.

 

 

Saturday, December 6

The kids and I have been wanting to decorate the house for Christmas for days. I told the kids the house had to be cleaned first. I don't see the point in putting Christmas up in a dirty house. So I spent a good portion of both Thursday and Friday cleaning and while daddy was at work today, we brought all the boxes up and got started. It took almost all day but we were done and took the empty boxes back downstairs before the end of the day. Mission accomplished.

 

 

 

Friday, December 5

Happy birthday to the best sister ever! I love my sister and simply don't know what my life would be without her in it. She is the most thoughtful, loving, caring, and giving person I know. I am so thankful that we are best friends in addition to being sisters. I hope she had a happy happy birthday.

On her birthday, I was finally able to get furniture in Ricki's room and somewhat arrange it. I still need to clean and bring in the rocking chair but otherwise, her room is complete. We'll just have to push it all to the center of the room when we finally paint the walls. :)

 

 

Thursday, December 4

I am so thankful that my face waited until after Simon's work party to blow up like a balloon. It's a little hard to tell in pictures but the left side of my face (so the right side in the picture) is about double in size. I kinda freaked out about it and called the Endodontist but he said that it was pretty normal. He did, however, put me on a different antibiotic just to be safe. I stayed home all day!

 

 

Wednesday, December 3

Simon went with the kids to their STEM (career) Day. He took a money counter and worksheets and had a blast with the kids. Tonight, Simon & I went to a fancy work Christmas party at Tucano's then came home to find these elves on our porch. We were elfed! It's just a fun tradition our neighborhood does at Christmastime. Thank you to whoever thought of our family! So fun!!

 

 

 

Tuesday, December 2

Instead of a root canal, I had oral surgery! The Endodontist decided that cutting my gums and removing the drill bits from the top would be easier and more effective than trying to go in like a normal root canal. 2 hours, lots of laughing gas, and 5 stitches later... They did remove all 3 drill bits successfully and cleaned out the fluid pocket that is eating away my bone.

Top Picture: Obviously still feeling the affects of 2 hours of laughing gas and pleasantly numb from the Novocain.

Bottom Picture: Lying on the couch in pain, putting on and taking off a cold compress every 10 minutes to hopefully reduce the swelling. Miserable.

 

Monday, December 1

Some days you just need a Diet Coke! Today, I needed a few!! We had lunch at mom's before bowling, went to bowling, and bowled the slowest team on our league. We left around 3:45 and had a plan for mom to help Amie by taking Quinn to gymnastics. Amie texted and said Quinn's gymnastics clothes were in her car so we ran to her work and got them. Mom rode with me to bowling so I ran her home then hit the road in just enough time to get Nick to piano. However, we had a snag. When I was at Costco to get gas, mom called and said her purse was in my van! I waited at Quinn's daycare for mom to come get her purse but by the time I got out of there, I ended up being 15 minutes late to take Nick. Grrr! After all of that craziness, I cracked open a DC and sat back for a second. :)

 

 

Sunday, November 30

My sweet little Zacky won't go to nursery by himself. This is a new thing as he's always loved nursery. I sat in there with him for a little while, until he was comfortable, then went to Relief Society. Tonight, we had dinner at Dave & Viv's and Ryan & Ashley were there. Ricki and Henry had fun rolling around on the floor together.

 

 

Saturday, November 29

Today was a hard day. Amie had to go to her old house and get the remaining belongings that Chad so lovingly (not) left scattered all around. She called me upset so I ran over there and helped box things up for a couple of hours. When I got home, everyone was hungry. We had promised to take the kids to the "updated Wendy's" so we loaded up and went. I had a million coupons so we tried to use them at the register. After 4 people tried to assist in taking our order, everything got screwed up and the manager said I only owed him $6.15. We all got a really nice dinner for six bucks! It was awesome!!

 

 

Friday, November 28

While everyone was out doing their Black Friday shopping, the kids and I mostly stayed in. I did go run a few Scentsy errands and did a quick return at Hobby Lobby but otherwise, we were home. We should have got Christmas out but it didn't happen. The only thing I did was turn around my Give Thanks sign to say Jingle Bells.

 

 

Thursday, November 27

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house. I asked dad to snap a couple pictures of my family for Christmas cards this year. This was the best one. :) After dinner and dessert, mom pulled out our annual gingerbread houses and the kids had a blast making them. I just love our family traditions!

 

 

 

Wednesday, November 26

My day started out better than it ended. The top picture is at Nick's school. I went to help out with their Native American Pow-Wow. It was fun to help the kids learn about the Southeast Plains Indians, have them try fry-bread, and play an Indian game with them. This afternoon, I went to my Endodontist appointment. On the left side of the screen is a tooth with a normal root canal. The one on the right is a root canal on my very back upper tooth. The little white lines you can see protruding from the root are drill bits left in my tooth by the dentist that did my original root canal! You can't see it on this shot but the area above my tooth is filled with fluid and is beginning to erode the top of my tooth and bottom of my jaw bone. If I had left it much longer, I would have ended up having to have this tooth pulled. I have a root canal scheduled for Tuesday. Joy!