New Year's Eve

The Brandon family drove up from St. George to spend New Year's with the family and I talked them into going out to dinner. Of course we went to The Old Spaghetti Factory (we've gone there before on New Year's - I guess it's becoming tradition!).

At our table was Don, Karen, Grammy, Katie, Luke, Poppy, Grant, Dustin, Laura, Grandpa and Grandma Riches, Ean, Joe and Jay. Poor Jay wasn't feeling very good and so he didn't eat anything. The rest of us did and it was so good. Dustin and I discovered how good mizithra cheese is on pasta.

Lucky Grandma Riches received a neck and shoulder rub!

Luke had a great time. Here he is using his noodles as floss. Silly boy.

Luke loves it when Katie comes to visit because she dotes on him so much. They have a special bond. We love Katie and miss her a lot.

More Lukey-isms

I love that he is wearing a cape - he wouldn't take it off for anything

Lucas really does say the darnedest things and there is always something that makes us laugh. Sometimes Lucas is quick to say berate us for laughing at him, he really doesn't appreciate it. But he has become quite the talker! He is constantly talking and asking questions. Oh the questions he asks, if only they were easier to answer.

Lucas loves to stand on the fence in the backyard and watch the neighbor kids. (What comes to mind is the neighbor from that Tool Time show.)

Can I have a beneto bar? (granola bar)

"Look mom, a Pitaco!" (Lucas has been watching lot of Toy Story 1 and Mr. Potato Head turned his facial features into a 'Picasso' in the movie.)

"Let's turn a moobie on for me." (Lucas is convinced that he needs to watch a movie every night before he goes to bed.)

"I can't find my Bull-zoder. Do you know where it is?" (Bulldozer)

"Where's my quonkey truck?" (concrete truck)

Dustin had a chiropractor appointment and had taken Lucas with him. While waiting for the doctor to come in, Lucas asked Dustin if they were waiting for the "make you feel better guy"? (the chiropractor, Dr. Vance)

Lucas has also informed Dustin that he doesn't like the peanut butter with the nuts in it, he likes the slimy one! (Dustin's favorite kind of peanut butter is crunchy whereas Lucas likes creamy.)

Lucas has taken having a new brother in stride but he was a little curious when I was nursing Grant. He wanted to know where he was getting his food from when we told him that Grant is actually drinking milk. So the next time I was feeding Grant, Lucas comes up and asks if Grant was eating from one side and drinking from the other.

Lucas has discovered that he likes eating hangabers. (Hamburgers)

Lucas had informed Dustin that he needs to get Lucas his own ladder since he's a big guy now. (Yes because that's exactly what we want our 3 year old to do - play on ladders!)

Grant has turned into quite the little talker. Whenever he starts "talking" we try and engage him by saying things like "And then what happened?", "Uh huh", and "Really?". Luke has now gotten into the action because Dustin heard Luke "talking" to Grant in the backseat of the truck, saying the same things we say, as they were driving somewhere.

Grammy, Poppy, Uncle Jay and Uncle Joe were coming to dinner and Luke knew they were coming. Grammy is the new favorite and so Luke was asking every couple of minutes, when is Grammy going to be here? Finally he grabbed the timer sitting on the kitchen counter and turned it 20 minutes and said when it went off, Grammy was going to be here. I knew it was going to be more like an hour and a half so I turned it back farther. Ironically enough, as soon as it did go off, Grammy had arrived!

To distract Grant while changing his diaper, I have started to tell him the story of the Little Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly. He loves it and Luke loves it. One night Luke asked me so many times to repeat the story over and over and he started to fill in some of the blanks. One of the lines he knows is, "perhaps she'll die." Only when he says it it's, "Pershaps she'll die."

Dustin and Luke were packing clothes for our Thanksgiving trip to St. George and Luke asked Dustin what he had packed for him. Dustin said he packed 4 shirts, 4 pants and 4 underwear's but Luke said, "No Dad - they're garnets!"  (garments)

Dustin is teaching Luke my phone number and how to call 911 in case of an emergency. When they were showing me, Dustin asked Luke 3 or 4 different times, "what's mom's number again?" Luke would then repeat it - except he keeps forgetting the nine. Anyway, after the third or fourth time that Dustin asked Luke what it was again, Luke asked Dustin, "Why do you keep forgetting?" (because Dustin had asked him so many times)

Dustin was making lunch and Luke wanted a "chocolate sandwich", Nutella with PB, and when he opened the bread they discovered it was all moldy. Dustin explained that the bread was moldy and if we eat it, it could make us sick. To which Luke replied, "Well you're already sick so why don't you eat it?" (Because that's really gross- Ick!)

Shaving

Luke has been begging Dustin to shave his head for awhile now but I wouldn't let them do it before Christmas. They had to wait until after we had taken all the pictures we usually do at Christmas. I don't know what it is about 8:30 at night but that's when Dustin gets the urge to get his razor out.

He stripped Luke down and started to buzz. Well Luke didn't like that because then it made him itchy and so Dustin had a hard time finishing. He managed to get most of it though. Not my favorite look for Luke though. Oh well, Luke was happy.

Of course they had to shower afterwards to get all the hair off. Nothing like going to bed at 10 pm.
(Grant slept through everything. Lucky him!)

Happy Birthday Poppy!

Poppy turned 58 today and he made his annual prime rib dinner. I think he's silly for making his own dinner but it makes him happy to make his favorite meal and have his favorite people (his family) around him.

It's okay because I am more than happy to eat such an awesome meal. :)

Poppy's favorite cake is German Chocolate cake and I am more than happy to make him a birthday cake. I just wish I was better at it. Four years in a row I have attempted to make him a cake from scratch and four years I have FAILED! (Apparently no one else thinks this but me.) Sure the cake tastes great and no one complains (except me) but it looks AWFUL!! I follow the recipe but my cakes always fall. DANG IT!! I always think that this time it is going to be better but it's not. Oh well - maybe next year.

Christmas Morning

We had a pretty quiet morning. Luke slept until after 8 am. When he finally woke up - the fun began.

 Grant actually opened his own present. Of course afterwards he wanted to play with the paper and nothing else

Luke made us a present for us at pre-school - they were ornaments for our tree.

Dustin's presents

Luke's presents

Mom's presents

Grant's 

What a cute baby!

Riches Family Christmas

Christmas Day afternoon is always spent at Grandma Riches' (aka Grandma Bear-Bear) house. It used to be that we would open presents from G&G Riches but now we just get money, which is totally fine by all who receive. Now, instead we do a white elephant gift exchange. Which I might add is truly a good time. Luke started first because he was the youngest there.
The gifts he opened were a fish bowl with a plastic fish (I thought this was truly a genius gift and the fish, named Gus, now lives on my desk at work). He also opened one for Grant as well, since Grant was sleeping, and he opened a
The gift I opened was originally a box of chocolates but Dustin took them from me since it was an awesome gift so I picked another one and received a travel coffee mug with an awesome neon green sweat band and a sunglasses bag. Apparently that gift was so cool that Brad took that from me and I had to open another one of hazelnut hot chocolate mix that I knew Dustin would love.

Don, Karen(holding Boomer), Ean and Katie(holding Winston) Brandon.

Katie had a marvelous gift which included a can of nuts. Keep in mind that Katie is very allergic to nuts, she was not very impressed by the gift. So she gave it to Don and opened a mug full of candies and a pad of paper. Karen got a stuffed elephant with a blanket.

McKie, Colton, Marianne, Mark (holding Twix), and Libby (holding Snickers) Peck.
Connor is not in the picture because he is on his mission in the Marshall Islands - he did call on Christmas Day and we had a chance to talk to him and hear some humorous things happening to him on his mission.

Mckie opened a toy ball shooter and she gave it to Luke (who LOVES it by the way).

Grammy and Poppy

The Original Pierce Family
Joe, Laura, Mom, Poppy and Jay Pierce

Jay got the BEST gift - a package of senior diapers so everyone let him pick another gift and he picked another winner - Christmas pillow cases. Poor Jay!
Joe received a really cool bike horn and Poppy opened up a package of Spree candy canes and mint chocolates.

Shauna and George

Corri, Addie, Adam, George, Shauna holding Mary, and Sara

Grandma and Grandpa Riches
aka Grandma Bear-Bear and Grandpa Pop Pop

Uncle Brad
(Ashley chose not to be photographed)

Sara, Adam and Luke playing the organ

And....GO!

Every year Terri has been inviting the family over after the Christmas Day festivities. She has a buffet dinner prepared and it's very causual. We love going to see everyone and the food is really good too. Ryan and Shelly's twins are so cute. We lined th boys up and it looks like they're getting ready to crawl. Except for Michael, who looks like he's taking a nap. Which one do you think will crawl first?

(Actually everyone is betting on Matthew. He really looks like he is ready to go now.)

The Boys in Blue....Ties

Look what Santa brought the Bowers boys...matching ties!

The Christmas Story and Magic Pajamas

 Christmas Eve at Grandma B.'s
we performed the Nativity story. I found an article in the paper with a script that was part scripture and part summarizing. For our first time, it went pretty well.
Our cast:
Mary = Jess
Joseph = Andrew
Jesus = Grant
the Angel = Grandma B.
The Three Wise Men = Luke
                                     Dustin
                                     Nathan
Shepherds = Tyson
                     Sawyer
Narrator = Laura

The "angel" bearing good tidings

We used robes and receiving blankets as costumes and improvised the manger with a basket and the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh with a Coke bottle, a golden(yellow) mug and a red box full of gold nuggets(chocolates). Grant was Jesus because he's the only baby right now (and because he's almost perfect.).

A Wise Man (Dustin) giving the gift of Frankincense (or Coke)

It was a truly memorable evening. Beside having dinner with crackers (an English tradition), decorating sugar cookies and a scavenger hunt for gifts, we exchanged gifts. The cousins gave small gifts to each other and the adults did a gift exchange. Dustin and I received Cracker Jacks and a gift card to Target and sock monkey slippers. Luke and Grant received p.j.'s from Sawyer and a toy from Andrew and Tyson.
Grandma B. had some small gifts for all the kids. Dustin received the really cool gloves specifically for iPhones and some salsa. Laura got some bath salts that Grandma B. made herself.

 And of course Santa dropped off magic pajamas for the kids. These are pajamas to help them sleep while Santa delivers all the toys.

Luke's Christmas Program

Luke's preschool class had a Christmas program. All month they have been practicing some Christmas songs and they performed them at a retirement home called The Wellington and invited the parents to come watch.

The kids sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a song about Santa using zebras to pull the sleigh. They dance around and snapped their fingers to Jingle Bell Rock. They finished with a rousing Jingle Bells with each of the kids holding some bells. Luke's bells came loose and flew up in the air, it was pretty funny. We are so proud of our little Luke.

The kids all decorated their own shirts - they used their hand prints for the antlers, a red pom pom for the nose and some pieces of a pine tree branch for the top of the reindeer's head. Luke practices really hard all month, it was so cute.

Poppy holding Grant

Not only did mom and dad come to see Luke sing but Poppy, Grammy, Uncle Jay, Grandpa Pop Pop and Grandma Bear-Bear. Luke is loved by so many people.

Dinosaurs

 Luke has a really nice uncle. His Uncle Jay was home from school for Christmas break and he asked if he could take Luke out for the afternoon.

They went to lunch at JCW's - where Luke threw up all over the floor. I told Jay he was lucky he was in public so he didn't have to clean it up. Poor JCW employee. Then they went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point.


There are some really cool features at the museum. They have an exhibit where you can put the dinosaur together. You can decide what kind of a neck it will have and the tail. If there is anything on its back or whatever. Luke had a blast.

 Luke also went on a dig to find dinosaur bones.

Luke also made an impression of a dinosaurs tooth with plaster.

I'm not really sure what this was. Luke says it spins and you can put stuff on it like sticks? He said it was cool though.

They also saw Dinosaur Passage to Pangaea, a 3D movie in the IMAX theater.