Lately

Just some things we have been up to lately. 

We got to spend the day with baby Jack. We always love for him to come over and Brooke gets especially excited. He even came to swim lessons with us. 

Something I have to remember about having a one year old in the house is how BUSY they are. He is into everything. And one of his favorite things is to play in the utensils and move them around. Well I went to make dinner the next day and after I turned on the oven I smelled a weird smell. So I opened up the oven to find this. 

I know this boy's handiwork anywhere. 

The girls decided to dress up like Cinderella for my last doctor's appointment. They were the hit of the office.  

We've been working in the yard, like all the time. The kids have been helping out with raking the leaves. 

And doing the trimming. 

And finally a belly shot. I'm pretty sure its my first one. This is 23 weeks. I can't believe how active this little baby is. 

Carson had a study trip to Krispy Kreme. He was so excited for this field trip. He talked about it for weeks. 

He even got to make his own donut. He had a lot of fun.

He came home talking all about making donuts, eating donuts, and even getting a drink. Such a fun place the donut shop...where dreams are made. :) 

Updated house pictures

We got our cabinets painted over the break and the hardware finally arrived last week and Aaron put it on over the weekend. Oh how I love it. It looks so great. I'm just so happy with all the changes we have made. I came across some before pictures this weekend and I can't believe how different it looks. 

I can't even imagine life without this wall down. 

Still finding furniture and making some minor tweaks but loving it, just loving it. 

Talent Show!!

Our sweet boy surprised us last month telling us he wanted to audition for his school talent show. We have been so surprised to see him come out of his shell so much this year. As the event got closer he started getting really nervous. He asked me if maybe everyone could just perform at the same time so that everyone wasn't watching him. :) 

Here he is waiting in line. We so love him. The girls were so excited to sit and watch the other performers and counted down until Carson. Carson was busy keeping track of how many people were in front of him left to go. 

Then it was go time. 

He played beautifully. I was very proud of him. I facetimed Aaron so he could watch too. 

Afterwards I was pretty exhausted. We had gone from school to piano lessons to grabbing dinner to the talent show and I was ready to go home. But then my sweet boy walked up to me and said, "can we go get a special treat?" 

How could I say no to this face? 

Boys Only

For Christmas my friend Jamie and I got together and got our husbands a trip to Utah to go snowboarding for a weekend. It was as complete surprise and Aaron was SO excited. I'm so happy that he got to do this. I'm not the best gift giver but this was a home run. :) 

They flew in on Thursday night (Aaron went in straight from New York) and stayed at Spencer's house. After getting their turkey sandwiches packed for lunch on Friday they head out to board in Park City. 

They opened it up and closed it down. They made it the whole day and had a great time. Aaron was so worn out by the end of the day. 

That night they got together with Spencer and Kellie's family and had The Pie for dinner. After a shower and a change into comfy clothes he enjoyed the evening relaxing and getting to bed early. 

On Saturday Spencer joined them and they head out to Brighton. This was Aaron's favorite day. They had a ton of powder and just had a blast all day long. Jedd and his boys joined them for a few hours too. 

Aaron said it was his favorite weekend in a real long time. 

Saturday night they went to Cafe Rio (oh the jealousy). Aaron had so much fun this weekend. He is hoping this will be a repeat event every year! 

When the cat's away...

While Aaron was away on his super fun boys' trip this past weekend I decided to plan some fun stuff for us to do to keep us busy. I know Aaron is gone all the time but we're used to him being around on the weekends and I knew the kids were going to miss him. Lucky for us the weather really cooperated for a couple of days. We spent the afternoon at our favorite park. I took about a million pictures. We had such a great time and I can't believe how big my kids are getting. 

Lots and lots of running = happy mama and happy kids. 

On Friday we went for a bike ride. I did it people, I took the kids on a bike ride by myself. I didn't think I could do it but it happened and I'm so happy that we have reached a phase where we can all go on a bike ride together. After we got home Carson got right to work making us nachos. I love this boy with all my heart. He insisted upon making them completely himself. 

Friday afternoon we met my fellow single Mom, Jamie, at the Children's museum. It was great timing, not very crowded, and just the right amount of time to spend there.  

 

Millie got a great tattoo necklace. 

Then Saturday night was party/movie night. Lots of snacks, cuddling, and penguins. Oh could I love these girls any more than I do?  

Then on Sunday after church Daddy came back to us and the kids wanted nothing to do with me for the rest of the day. 

Bike Riding and more bike riding

So Millie loves her new bike. She rides her bike all the time. It has been pretty cold for us here in Austin so she just brought her bike inside and makes the loop through the kitchen around the living room and down the hall - over and over and over. On New Years Day we went to the church and rode around the gym for awhile. 

We have gone out and braved the cold as well to get in some hill practice. We just love watching this girl work so hard at something. 

After riding in the cold hot chocolate sounds just about perfect. 

I'm so sad to see these kids go back to their activities. I'm sure going to miss this. 

Happy New Year

This was our best New Year's Eve ever. We had so much fun. Carson made our schedule of events, of course, and we stuck to it all night long. We told the kids they could stay up as late as they wanted as long as they took naps. So everyone laid down and took a nap and the kids went pretty strong. 

We started with dinner. With our kitchen out of commission because of the cabinets being painted dinner had to be pretty simple. So I brought the quesadilla maker out into the dining room and we made quesadillas and warmed up some soup. Kids are so easy to please. 

Then it was time for the Wii. First we did some Mario Brothers, then it was on to Just Dance. This is my favorite game to watch my kids play. 

Then we moved onto Mariokart. The whole family also loves to play this game. 

Brooke sported her Cinderella dress most of the night. 

Then we needed a Sonic run to keep us going strong. Slushes, blasts, and sundaes for the win!

Then we settled in at home for a movie. I was loosing steam at this point. The kids were still going pretty strong but Brooke finally had to go to sleep. 

After the movie it was almost midnight and Aaron found a countdown from New York and the kids watched that and counted down and then they were out like lights. Such a fun night. 2015 was a great year for the Pierson Family. We had a lot of really big events this year and I am so excited for what 2016 will bring us!