10 years

So my sister in law did a blog post about the past ten years, and at the bottom asked what we have done in the past ten years. Reading hers was fun and interesting so I decided to do it myself.

2000: I was a Freshman/sophomore in High School. I worked at the Pizza Ranch. I spent New Year's in Florida because the high school marching band was marching in the Citrus Bowl (maybe the Orange bowl...I can't remember.) We took buses from Pella. It was a big deal, because it was fun, we brought in the new year at Epcot center and parents were freaking out that because it was 2000 that maybe gas pumps would stop working and we wouldn't be able to get home.

2001: I was a sophomore/junior in High School. I saw Utah for the first time when I went to my brother Brandon and his wife Wizzy's wedding. I played high school soccer and still worked at the Pizza Ranch in Pella.

2002: I was a junior/senior in high school. Still worked at Pizza Ranch. I spent the New year in California because my high school band marched in the Rose Bowl parade! It was a lot of fun, I even saw Eddie Murphy at Disney!

2003. I graduated from high school! I headed off to my first year at Calvin College in Grand Rapids Michigan. I had great friends, but didn't like college. So I went home after the first semester.

2004: I went back to college in the fall. After working at the Pizza Ranch and at a cafe I realized that I needed more in life! This time I had a lot of fun, I roomed with my best friend Bianca. I headed East to watch my brother Jeremy get married in Ohio.

2005: I was a sophomore/junior in college. I spent the fall semester in Honduras. I had a blast traveling around Latin America and learning Spanish!

2006: I was a junior/senior in college. I had a lot of fun just living life. I partied, I lived freely, I learned a lot in class. Life was good. I also met the man who would be my future husband in August. I worked with Pizza Ranch as a corporate Store Opener/Trainer. I helped with the Iowa City Pizza Ranch. There I met Mr. Scott Pearl, one of the assistant managers. We flirted, we hung out while I worked there for 2 weeks, then I went back to college. We continued to talk on the phone randomly and soon it developed into a relationship. I would try to visit him as much as possible.

2007: I "graduated" from Calvin. Well I at least walked across the stage and got my diploma holder. No diploma yet though. I'm 3 credits short, because of the semester I took off. I thought I would have to go back another semester, but wasn't going to do it for just 3 credits. I moved to Iowa City to live with Scott and another guy named Dave. I got a job as an assistant manager at Brueggers Bagels. In November we got engaged!

2008: In March a job opportunity opened up for Scott and me to be managers of a new Pizza Ranch in Mt. Pleasant Iowa. We accepted and Scott became the general manager and I was an assistant manager. So we packed up our stuff and moved, a month before the floods destroyed the house/apartment we were living in. On October 18 Scott and I got married!

2009: Jan 1st I found out I was pregnant! The year was busy with preparing for a baby, working at the Pizza Ranch and driving back and forth to Iowa City for Dayzy and Chayse. On September 12, 2009 William David was born and life has been great ever since! In November Scott was demoted at work for who knows what. So we are currently searching for new jobs in the Iowa City area.

We are very excited for what 2010 has in store for us! It's been a crazy last decade for me and as a couple it's been a whirlwind since 2006! We hope to find careers, not jobs soon, a place to call home, and open a new chapter in our life! We hope that 2010 treats you all well also!

Christmas X's a few

Ok I know I already did a Christmas blog, but seriously we have sooooo many! But we love every one of them, and consider ourselves lucky to have so many people to share this time of the year with!

But I would like you to know that they are not easy to plan out.

We Have:
Grandma and Grandpa Heersink's
Grandma Roma Pearl's
Grandma Janey and Grandpa Tom Toycen's
Grandpa Jim and Grandma Janice
Our own personal Pearl Christmas

Plus on top of it, we share custody of the kids with Scott's ex, so we have to plan when we can have Dayzy and Chayse, work around work and everybody else's schedule! WHEW! But we manage to do it every year. Oh yeah and like I mentioned before Christmas Eve is Chayse's birthday so that day is always split between us and his Mom and Step Dad.

It's enough to tire one out....Just like it did to William, during presents time!

So It's a crazy fun few weeks around the holidays. At least this year we missed the crazy weather too. Thankful for us personally it wasn't bad getting to where we needed to go. Unlike my brothers ad their families who headed west and forged the snow!

Our Final Christmas at Grandpa Pearl's

Thanks to Grandma Janice for the new cute outfit...which was needed because William had a blow out in the outfit he wore there!

One last picture of William with Great Grandma Roma Pearl, she came to Grandpa Pearl's Christmas, which I'm sure she enjoyed because she got to hold William a lot! At her house Great Aunt Teri was in all her glory holding William, and even Daddy's cousin Lisa got to hold William for awhile...and during that time he managed to spit up and poop on her!

Birthdays!

Happy Birthday Chayse!

Chayse turned the big 5 on December 24th! I met him when he was just a year and a half old. I can't even believe that he is already 5. Time sure does fly by.

So because the poor guy gets a birthday the day before Christmas I wanted to separate a time out for him to get a little party. He is in love with Monsters Vs. Aliens so he wanted that for a cake. He always likes to look at them at Wal-Mart. Well I'm not paying like 20 bucks for one of their cakes. So I decided I would attempt to make one myself. I think it turned out pretty well! It's B.O.B. Chayse really liked it!

Every party has it's pooper!

And of course the other amazing birthday celebrated is Jesus's! We went to Pella and had a lot of fun because both my brothers and their families were also there. I haven't seen Brandon and Wizzy for awhile and Patrick has grown so much! I see Jeremy and Hilary a little more, but still not often enough and their son Samuel has grown a foot I swear since I last saw him in August!

Ok So the major Christmas news we've had is a little funny and a little maddening.

So usually in the mornings I get up and go to work, Dayzy and Chayse are usually up watching t.v. while I'm getting ready. Scott stays in the bedroom for awhile taking care of William and sometimes he sleeps in a little longer. (the kids wake up at like 7 a.m.) Anyway they decided to open their Christmas presents either before I woke up, or while I was getting ready, or after I left for work. We didn't notice it all day long. I did look over at the tree and thought that it looked like there were less presents but thought nothing of it.

Scott and I didn't buy presents for each other, and only bought for the kids because money is a little tighter this year. So there weren't a ton under there to begin with. Anyway that night was fine the kids played in the living room and we had a normal evening at home. Chayse fell asleep watching a movie on the couch and so I let him sleep there and was going to have Scott move him when he got home from work. So I went to tuck Dayzy into bed and found a toy on the floor. It was a Bakugan toy. I was like, "huh...Dayzy is this from Mommy's? Because I swear we also got Chayse this toy." She just said uhhhh I don't know. I then saw the box/ plastic to it. Then I saw the wrapping paper. I asked if they had opened presents. She admitted it right away.

Come to find out that they had seriously opened almost all of their presents and all of Chayse's birthday presents! They hid them in their room, they also hid the wrapping paper in their room. That means they knew what they did was wrong. I told Dayzy that I'm taking them all away. And I searched their room for the presents and they had to find the rest the next day.

Ok so what do you do when this happens? I put this as my status on facebook. Most people laughed, many told us to re wrap them and give them back.

NOPE! Scott and I decided that they had to learn their lesson. So I took all the toys away that they opened, and even the ones they didn't open. If they had left it in a box it got returned. If it was opened I re gifted to my nephews, or sold some toys to a guy at work. They got nothing from us, no stockings either.

Amazingly they've been really good about it. They realize what they did was wrong, they didn't complain. Santa didn't bring them presents at my parents. (yup they woke up early to look) They asked where the presents from him were. My mom asked if they had been naughty and they said yes. Chayse lost out doubly because he opened birthday presents too! He got 1 movie that I hadn't wrapped that he hadn't opened. They saw my nephews get what they had opened and said oh I really liked that...but then walked away.

I know many years from now we'll laugh about this and probably bring it up every Christmas. But I was so mad! Half the fun is seeing the kids' faces when they open them. I wanted to see their reactions.

But on the plus side, Scott and I work opposite schedules and the time we do have off together has been spent going to family Christmas events. So we didn't know when we were going to do our family Christmas at home. Now we don't have one! :)

Swimming!

Tonight we decided to go swimming as a 2nd year tradition for Chayse's family birthday party. The poor guy has his birthday on Christmas Eve. He's too young to realize he gets double presents at Christmas, and none the rest of the year. He'll get his presents and cake on his real birthday when we go to Pella to spend time with the family. So for his family party though we go to Fun City in Burlington, IA.

They have an indoor/outdoor waterpark. Obviously the outside is closed. So the inside is open with 2 slides for bigger kids and a pretty big play area for younger kids. It's only $3 a person and a lot of fun.

Tonight though it was not being manned, so I had to search for someone to ask what was going on, and to explain that the internet said it was open. So after the worker searched for awhile and found someone else that had no clue what was going on, they decided we could go in for FREE! But there was no life guard so we couldn't go on the big people slides. Which whatever, that's fine with me. So William got to go swimming for the first time!

He loves bath time so I was excited to see how he did in the water.

He did fine, but the water was a little bit colder than I would have liked it to be, so after 10 - 15 mins I took him out. Dayzy and Chayse had a lot of fun too, because they were the only kids there for most of the time. We put life jackets on them and Dayzy even swam around the whole pool! Chayse learned to trust Daddy and had fun "swimming" also.

It was fun and a great way to spend a random Monday night!

Snow Day & Santa

So at Pizza Ranch Santa came to visit!
He was kinda awkward and I really like the Santa's that have real beards, not fake ones, but you gotta take what you can get.

Again Chayse did not want to sit on his lap. But he did stand away from him and tell him what he wanted! :) Dayzy and William did sit on his lap again.

If you've been watching the weather channel you can see that it's a WHITE OUT in the Midwest. We've gotten 6ish inches and lots of wind. On top of that last night it rained so we have ice also. This all translates into a SNOW DAY from the Pizza Ranch and a SNOW DAY from school! We've had the kids longer than usual because the roads are too bad to bring them back to their mom. That's ok! We love having them!

They are getting cabin fever. So I did go into work today, because if we were going to be closed I need to go to Wal Mart anyway and it's really close by the Pizza Ranch. So I went into work for 30 mins and then we got the call we were not going to open for the day. So I headed over to Wal-Mart to buy stuff to make Christmas cookies! We had fun, and the kids did awesome. We still have to teach them about portion control on the frosting...we do want it to be edible.

Smiles

Does it look like his hair is getting redder?!?


Look at that cute double chin!


William sleeping on big sister Dayzy


He is watching t.v. in this picture, he very much likes to be faced outward so he can see what is going on, and when the t.v. is on (which is almost always) he points his attention that way.

It's been a while

Yes to those of you faithful readers...if I have any, I'm still alive, we all are and doing fine.

Since everything has happened at work I've sprung into going back for 5 shifts a week as the person in charge. Therefore I close on Sunday nights and work at least 7ish hours during the day shifts. And I am tiiiiiiiiiiired. William is still breastfed so it's extra pumping for me, and I still get up with him atleast 2 - 3 times at night. So I spend my evenings napping on the couch with William or watching movies with Dayzy and Chayse. My house looks like it's exploded but oh well.

We've heard a little back for opportunities for Scott. They ( a hiring agency for restaurants) wanted to have permission to contact references and to do a credit check. I think the guy called on Monday...so hopefully we'll hear something this coming week! But we were not given any kind of time line. The restaurants thrown out were Ruby Tuesdays or Red Robin. Because neither of those restaurants are in Iowa City, were assuming they are in Cedar Rapids. I'm ok with living there and I've been told it's a lot cheaper to live there than in the Iowa City area. The drive will be a lot less than Mount Pleasant.

We had a good thanksgiving in Pella with my parents. It was my family of 5, my parents, and my Grandma! The food was good and Dayzy loved helping anyway she could. My dad is a big black Friday shopper. I decided that I wanted to do it this year. So we all went! Dad made us get up at 2:30 a.m. Dayzy and Chayse were up before Scott and I and they were chipper and ready to go! We were at Kohl's in Des Moines by a little after 4 a.m. We then hit Wal-Mart, Bass Pro Shop, the Jordan Creek Mall, and went to eat at Prairie Meadows. By that time everyone was getting crabby and tired. Poor Chayse had a few meltdowns because he was tired, but they were Grandpa's little helpers so he got to deal with those.

I allowed my dad to show the kids the buffaloes in Prairie City on the way home. We saw some right by the car and the kids thought it was awesome! (and maybe it was so awesome because the buffalo was licking his nose and then eating it) We then went home and everybody wanted to nap. Well the kids slept in the car and didn't want to nap because I don't think they wanted to miss out on anything. They didn't sleep and then they were told by Scott to go downstairs after they had gotten up once. But they got up again a little later and woke my poor Dad up. So he was on grandpa duty and had to play while the rest of us slept.

If you're wondering how William did...he did awesome! If we couldn't grab a cart I had a front back pack with him in it. He slept the whole time! He was awake a bit when we got home and I wanted to nap, but after awhile he fell asleep again. It was fun, but Scott and my mom said they wouldn't do it again. I loved it, the rush of getting in the crowds getting what I wanted. But we had nothing major to purchase and just went for the fun and the few good deals.

Now the tree is up, and I can't believe how time is flying by. I don't think it feels like Christmas because it hasn't snowed here yet! I have about half my shopping done. But I need to get more for our brother sand their wives/fiance, our parents, and birthday presents for Chayse.

Question to the moms out there:
Were tighter on money this year and since William is 3 months do I really need to buy presents for him and put them under the tree? He'll get atleast one from Santa because the other kids still believe in him. What have you done in the past for little ones?