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.

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

Chow Time at Chili's

Uncle Jay in our car

Ean and Katie (above)

Mommy waiting to be seated at Chili's (below)

Luke is becoming quite the photographer. He loves to take pictures with my camera. He's taken some interesting pictures but lately he has been taking some decent pictures of people.

Grandma BearBear and Grandpa Pop Pop made it into town for a visit and they were nice enough to take us to dinner. Chili's didn't have a big table for us and so we chose to take 3 booths instead. Grandma and Grandpa sat at one table with Ean and Katie, Luke, Dustin, Jay and I sat in another booth and Don and Karen took the third booth with Grant.

It was a great meal and boy were we stuffed after dinner. We went back to the Brandon's to talk while Grandma, Karen and Katie went to Katie's work to check out some clothes. They did a fashion show for us when they got back.

Temple Lights

The day after Thanksgiving, the St. George Temple has a turning on the lights devotional. We didn't make it for the beginning but we did make it to see the lights. They are pretty nice just not as many as Salt Lake City. It was nice to walk around the temple in a light jacket and see the lights. Luke of course was in heaven and was exploring every where. Good thing we had an extra four sets of eyes to watch out for him.

Dustin holding Grant, Poppy holding Luke, Joe with Grammy and Jay sitting in front of him.

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Luke didn't want to be in our family picture. Oh well!

The Boys!

Luke loves manger scenes and he spent a little time looking at this life sized display. You can see the outline of his head in front of one of the animals.

Happy Birthday Grammy!

Today we celebrated Grammy's birthday. We invited her over for dinner and had Chicken Cordon Bleu and Baked Alaska for dessert. It was all very yummy!

We didn't put any candles on the cake but we did sing to her. Then we gave her a nice scarf for her present. We really love our Grammy.

Farewell to Connor

Connor has been called to serve in the Marshall Islands on his mission. We went to his farewell today and we will miss him. He had a great farewell planned, he chose the music we sung and the song that Grandpa and Shauna sang. They did an awesome job of course. He did a really good job speaking, I was impressed at how well he did. I was also impressed with his testimony, I love it when I hear the testimonies from people I love. I'm glad that Luke and Grant have such great examples to follow in our family.

 Good luck Connor! We will miss you.

It seems like Grant is anxious to eat and drink what we do. Dustin was sharing his water with him.

I can always count on Luke eating the bread at any party we go to involving food.

The Birthday Boys
(whose birthdays are on the same day)

Our family picture with Connor, the last one before he departs!

Trunk or Treat

 Our ward had it's annual Trunk or Treat the Saturday before Halloween. There was also a Chili cook-off right before. Our home teacher, Blake Allen, got into line with a muffin tin and I thought it was a little strange but then we saw the reason to his madness. He took a spoonful of each pot of chili and so he was able to try them all. SMART! Next time for sure! It's always a dilemma when picking which chili to try because they all look so good and you always want to try more than one.

After dinner, there were activities for the kids. In the Primary room were games and in the Sunday School room MaryEllen, the Fairy Godmother, told stories. It was all so much fun. She told me that the dress she was wearing was actually her mother's wedding dress that had been shortened. So pretty.

Afterwards we all went outside and the kids "trick or treated" for candy. Some kids were doing the loop a couple times so they could get more candy but once was enough for us.

Grandpa B. stayed with us over the weekend and he came with us to the dinner and activities. We had so much fun with him!

Conference Breakfast

Another tradition. Poppy always makes us Ebelskivers for breakfast and we watch Sunday morning conference together. They take a long time to cook so we only have them at Conference and Christmas morning. But that just makes it all that more special and delicious!

We were so glad that Jay was with us this time. He had a scheduled rotation that he was originally going to do in Mesquite but at the last minute they had an opening in Salt Lake and so he was able to come home for 5 weeks.

 And Grant is so cute, we can't help but take a bunch of photos of him.

We decided to take a drive up the mountains and look at some of the fall colors. So we packed a picnic lunch and off we went. Out picnic backpack was a little on the heavy side. Luke really wanted to carry it but it was too much for him.

Priesthood

 It's tradition! Every time Conference rolls around, we know that we are getting together that Saturday night. All the boys/men go to dinner and then to the church to walk the Priesthood Session and the girls all get together for a little Girl's Night Out.

This time we had the "after" treat at our house and we celebrated Libbie and Jay's birthday. Jay really wanted an applesauce cake and so that's what I made.

I love getting the cousin together - we all have such a great time together, laughing over silly stuff and having a great time together. That's what family is all about, the laughs. Connor has just been called to the Marshall Islands and leaves November 16th. We'll miss him but we know he is doing the Lords work.

 I was so glad that Don and Karen came up from St. George. We really miss them and we love to see them every chance we get.

Holly (McKie's roommate and friend) and McKie
McKie has just been called to the Dallas, Texas mission and Holly has been called to the Scotland mission. They enter the MTC at the first of next year.

Libbie turned 12!

 Funny story - the candles on the cake were "trick" candles and so they lit back up after Libbie blew them out. So Jay, who turned 29 this year, took a turn blowing out the candles. So I held up the cake for him to take a turn. He blew so hard, the top of the cake and the powdered sugar blew into my face.  My face was covered!

Let the good times roll!

Libbie brought a few friends with her.