Anders Pierce

Anders was born at 5:38pm on Tuesday, 3/20. He was 9lb7oz and 21" long.

Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

Ice Skating

School it out for the Christmas break! Yay! We celebrated and went ice skating tonight with our friends, the Whitmans, and had a great time. I have lots of great pictures, but loved these pictures of Greta with her friend Tessa. They loved skating but had almost as much fun sitting while waiting for their turn with dads.

These capture Greta's personality. She is silly and goofy and cracks herself up.

Brian was a great sport and took turns skating with Elsa, Ava, and Greta.

It was a perfect evening too, no wind and temperature in the 60's. Definitely a California Christmas!

Ava's Pilgrim Doll

For the month of November, in addition to talking about the pilgrims, the 2nd graders work on their personal ancestry. The classes read the book "Molly's Pilgrim" and they are given a paper doll to characterize a person from a country where their ancestors originated. We are blessed because we have volumes of books with geneology charts, family histories, and personal stories. Ava decided to focus her project on Matilda Pederson Sorenson, her great-great-great-great Grandmother on the Roylance side who was from Denmark. It was fun for Ava to read the family history and call her great-Grandma Roylance to get a personal account. Ava and I had fun looking up pictures of traditional Danish dress and learning about the culture and food.

Then on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, all the kids present their dolls to the class, tell about their family history, and share a food item from that country. It is a real Thanksgiving feast with foods from all over the world - China, India, Japan, Canada, and a variety of European,South American, and African countries. Ava did a great job presenting her doll and telling a few stories about Matilda. The one that particularly amused and disgusted me was about them eating rabbits. Great-Grandma Roylance told Ava that they would cut off the rabbit heads but that the eyes would be open and that the head would bounce around on the ground for a few minutes. Then they would skin and fry the rabbits. I thought Ava would be surprised, if not totally turned-off. But she said, "Well Grandma, maybe you could show me how to cook rabbits sometime because we have lots of them in our backyard." I don't think I would mind a few less rabbits destroying our grass and flowers!

Brian was able to be there for Ava's presentation. It is so great that he works so close to home so that he can step out and be in the classrooms. He also takes an hour every Thursday to volunteer in Ava's class. He is a fabulous dad!

And the three of us - me with my big belly! Jumps-a-lot (Greta's name for the baby) is growing and is healthy!

Sunday Pictures

Elsa's teeth are quickly straightening out with the help of braces. She is growing up way too fast!

This is Greta's typical smile. She is a complete joy, but is full of a lot of spunk and sass. (I think that is from me.) She amuses me and Brian, but often frustrates Elsa and Ava because she makes a mess in their room and has learned the art of teasing (that is definitely from her Dad).

Ava has this new smile, which makes me laugh. Brian says it is her "get-out-of-trouble smile".

Fall Harvest Festival

Fall passed quickly with school starting, a birthday, funeral, triathlon, school projects, and a weekend in LA. It definitely doesn't feel like fall with temperatures in the high 70's and 80's. Halloween snuck up on us, so we decided to go to Underwood Farms for the harvest festival and pumpkin patch.

 

Or course, we picked the busiest weekend to go, right before Halloween. But it was lots of fun. There were the usual activities - tractor playground, giant stacks of hay, and the petting zoo. Since it was the harvest festival there was pig racing, food stands, hay maze, and a giant corn maze where we go lost and spent over 45 minutes trying to find our way out along with multiple other people.

 

We had fun playing, enjoying the attractions, free refills on snow cones, and the wagon ride to the pumpkin patch.

 

Greta was excited for the pony rides!

 

We were lame and didn't carve pumpkins, but the girls each got sugar baby pumpkins with the intention of painting them. We didn't even get around to doing that! (We did use them later for home-made pumpkin pie.)

Ward Halloween Party

We joined our friends' Ward Halloween party, which is always a fun event every year. They have a variety of chili to try, lots of dessert goodies, and fun activities for the kids including a haunted maze, crafts, and a trunk-or-treat. It never disappoints.

Elsa decided she wanted to be Carmen Miranda so that she could wear hoop earrings. Otherwise, she needs to wait until she is 12 or 16 (depending on which parent you ask). Ava saw a Medusa costume in the Chasing Fireflies catalog and knew right away that is what she wanted to be. I didn't want to pay for the costume and shipping, so decided to make her costume. It was a labor of love, but a fun one. We picked out the snake-like fabric and I made up the pattern since I couldn't find one that was like the costume Ava wanted. I had a friend help me with finishing details and her surger was very helpful with the gold tissue cape. I stayed up until 2am the night before and barely finished the dress in time for the party. I was still hemming it at 6pm with everyone waiting to leave. I was proud of my accomplishment. The costume even has a zipper! Ava was thrilled with the end result, and Elsa asked if I would make a fancy dress for her out of the same fabric. Like one she could wear to church. HA!

Elsa with Charlee and Callie.

All the kids waiting for their turn in the haunted maze.

Greta wanted to be an owl from the moment she saw it at Pottery Barn Kids. My friend's daughter was an owl last year and she lent me the costume. Thanks Andrea! Greta loved putting on the costume and flapping her wings and hooting around the house. Here is Greta with her friend London. It was London's mom, Carrie, who helped me with my sewing project. She is an amazing seamstress, as you can tell from her daughter's exact replica of Rapunzel's dress.