Summer with the Pearces

July
Over the 4th of July we spent a few days at our Sister-in-law Heather's cabin in Island Park.  I am not sure why we do not have any picture.  The most amazing thing that happened there was that we managed to get Cyris in the water and he liked it (after a while)!!  He even played fetch in the water like a real dog!!

Our friends Mike, Whitney and Macaroni Hardin visited in the middle of July and we had fun weekend.  We went on a whirl wind day driving through Yellowstone and home through the Tetons and Jackson Hole, went to Jefferson Lake, and reminisced about our collage days (haha that makes us sound old).  Emmett was in his car seat for the better part of 14 hours when we went to Yellowstone and he only lost it right before we stoped in Jackson for dinner.  Basically Em is awesome!

 Whitney helped toughen up Em's outfit even more

Em the sous chef baking a cake for the Hardin's arrival

August

 There is an awesome carousel in Rexburg.

  Maybe Emmett with agree that it is awesome next year.

We went on a 10 day Koontz family vacation to Bedford PA and Washington DC.  It was so fun to hang out with my famliy and go on a little adventure.  

 

 Emmett and Pappy enjoying some swing time

 Our traditional corn husking party.  Even Em got in the action.

 We ate, and ate, and ate all my grandma's wonderful food

 We helped bake rolls and sugar cookies

 Thanks for the fun time grandma!!

 In DC we went to the National Archives and had a tour before the archives opened.  It was awesome to be in the gallery with the Constitution and the Deceleration of Independence with no one in the way!

 We went to the Air and Space Museum

 The Natural History Museum

 Walked along the Mall

 And one of the days ate at Fado's, the most wonderful pub in existence!

After our fun vacation it was back to our daily routine, but with a toddler it is certainly never boring!

 Thankfully carrots can be rinsed off

 This little boy LOVES bacon!

 Best Buds!

 Mom's sous chef

 Emmett thought Cyris was board so he brought him all of his toys

 Em's sunglasses finally came in the mail and he loves them so much he has to wear them around the house.  Em and daddy are expert block builders,

 as well as best buds

 oh have I mentioned that these two are also best buds :)

September

The most exciting news, I am officially graduated!  I finished up the last edit and turned my thesis in to be bound!

Emmett's big accomplishment, potty training!!  We have moved on to wearing underwear!  He loves it!  His motivation to sitting on the potty is his potty watch which plays a little song when it is time, and M&Ms.  He gets some when he sits on the potty.  Today was our best day yet!  He would start to pee and just make his undies slightly damp then stop and run to get me.  He would then sit on the potty and finish peeing!!  There was only 1 accident I had to clean up off the floor in the 4 hours he was in undies!  He even kept 1 pair of undies dry for 1.5 hours.  His record for most undies was 3 pairs in under 30 minutes.  Today when it was time to put a diaper back on for naptime he was very angry and still wanted to wear his undies!  We are excited about getting out of diaper and into undies!

 Well there you have it.  Our summer in one post!

A day in the life of Heidi and ways to not feel overwhelmed by house work

I love schedules and lists.  My life just runs smoother that way!  Now that I am FINALLY done with school (well almost) I can have a normal routine.  Here is a day in the life of Heidi:

6:00 am wake up, treadmill, shower
7:00 am get Emmett and have breakfast before Greg leaves for work
8:00 am clean up breakfast and doing 5 minute rule and daily chore, balancing check book and paying bills
9:30 am Get me and Em ready for the day
10:00 am walk or play outside
11:00 am errands or just chill
12:00 pm Greg comes home for lunch
12:45 pm Emmett nap, clean up lunch
1:00 pm Work
4:00 pm Get Em and snack time.  Start dinner or play outside
5:00 pm Greg gets home and dinner prep
6:00 pm Dinner, clean up dinner, play, and evening walk
7:15 pm Bath and bedtime routine
7:40 pm Em goes to bed
8:00 pm Hang out with Greg
10:30 pm Bed

Everyone loves a clean house and few people I know enjoy cleaning.  Well I found a great cleaning schedule for me that makes it so my house is always clean and that the cleaning is not overwhelming!  Above I mentioned 5 minute rule and daily chore, they are explained below.

Five Minute Rule: Go though each room in the house and do a quick spiff putting things away, etc.   The kitchen is the longest because it involves unloading the dishwasher, wiping the counters, and doing the dishes.  Bathroom is wiping the mirror, sink and counters, and cleaning the toilet.  Bedrooms involves making the bed, changing the sheets (once a week) and doing any laundry.  Living room/dining room is a quick pick up. 

Daily Chore:
Monday-Sweeping
Tuesday-Vacuuming
Wednesday-Deep clean
     1st Wed, Kitchen-wiping cupboards, trash can, microwave, oven/stove top, fridge, dust, windows
     2nd Wed, Bathroom-cleaning tub and tile, washing bath mats, dust windows
     3rd Wed, Main living areas- vacuuming under furniture and cleaning furniture, dust, windows
     4th Wed, Bedrooms/Office-dust and windows
Thursday-Sweeping and mopping
Friday-Vacuuming
Saturday-Yard
Sunday-Break!

With doing the dishes I clean up right after a meal, put the dishes in the dishwasher and wash the ones that need to be hand washed.  This way the kitchen never feels overwhelming and it is always clean!

I do two week grocery shopping in Idaho Falls.  This means I plan out our menu for two weeks.  This makes it easy when it comes to meal time because I already know what I am going to make and I have all the ingredients for it!  Nothing is worse then trying to figure out what to have for dinner when you should have already started making it.

I love that I get to be a stay at home mom.  I take great pride in my family and the way my house looks and now I have the time to do those things!  Em and I have been having fun going to the library.  We went to story time yesterday and Em had fun.  Tomorrow we are going to go to music time.  We all like to read so the library is our new favorite place!

 These two are so silly together!

This past weekend we had a Pearce family vacation in Island Park and Yellowstone.  It was fun to hang out with everyone!!

A tour of the house

I will give you a little tour of our new house.  I love old houses they have so much character!

The front of the house

 

  

 When you walk in to the right is the play room

And to the left is the living room

 

The dinning room

The Kitchen

Mine and Greg's Bathroom

Then you go upstairs

This is the master bedroom which also serves as the laundry room andCyris room

Emmett's Bathroom

Emmett's Bedroom

 

 

 

We are now the Idaho Pearces!  Greg got a job with AMET as a mechanical design engineer.  The company makes automated welding systems.  We are SO grateful for the wonderful job Greg has with great pay and benefits!  Heavenly Father always has a plan for us it just takes some faith and patience that he knows us and our needs.  We have a always like the Idaho Falls area and have now ended up here!  Rexburg is certainly an interesting town with it mostly existing because of BYU Idaho.  I have seen quite a few Aggie shirts though so maybe Rexburg won't be so bad after all ;).  With some more help from Heavenly Father we found a place that lets us have Cyris.  Greg and I spent 2 whole days looking online for places to rent.  There were two places that would let us have pets, a 700 square foot apartment and a 2000 square foot house.  I don't even know how I found the link to the house because I could not find it again later but we ended up getting it!  It is a cute house with 4 bedrooms and a huge fenced yard.  With the extra bedrooms we have a guest room and an office.  The yard has the potential for greatness if only Cyris would go out there by himself without crying, sheesh!  The only thing we don't like about the house is that is has all wood floors that are very old making them hard to clean.  My OCD has been on overdrive about no body being able to walk around without socks or shoes on.  We did find a great price on some carpets so the main living areas have carpet now and I finally found a hardwood floor moping solution that seems to be picking up some dirt!  Once I find the camera I will take pictures of the house.  I am loving being at home with Emmett and Cyris.  I already have a nice little routine down.  Another amazing blessing from Heavenly Father is that I have a part time job!  At the beginning of May I had an interview with Golder in Tucson.  It would have been a wonderful job and I thought Tucson and the desert were amazing but Greg and I wanted him to work and me to stay at home.  I was offered the position and we accepted that maybe for now Heavenly Father needed us to keep our reversed roles.  2 days later Greg was offered the position here is Rexburg (YAY!!!) and when I called to turn down the position they offered for me to work part time from home doing groundwater modeling!!  I start on the 18th and with the amazing pay they are giving we plan to save it all and buy a house next year!  Picture to come of our new lives in the next post.        

Oh what fun we have had this year

 

Emmett LOVES to read.  He likes to sit in his little rocking chair and look at his books.  When we say it is time for bed he goes into his room and climbs in his chair ready for his bedtime story.  I am so glad he loves reading, to me reading is such a wonderful adventure!

Em had his first hair cut back in January.  We have a barber that lives just down the road from us so he had his first haircut at Bob's Barber.

 

 He thought sitting in the barber chair was so cool.  He felt like a big boy!  He held still for the most part and did get mad or scared!  It was defiantly time for a haircut too, he had a mullet!  I let his mullet grow out because his hair curls at the bottom and I loved it so much.

Emmett is such a good eater.  He eats veggies and meat, the things kids don't usually like to eat.  I am SO grateful he is such a good eater.   He is a pro at using a fork and spoon and a cup without a lid (as long as he remembers he is holding his cup).  He must be a hobbit though because like in this picture he is having his second breakfast.

 The slide is one of his favorites.  He says GO before sliding down.  He also likes to stand at the top and dance, very safe I know.

 Emmett and Cyris are best buddies.  This box entertained both of them for quite some time.  Emmett always asks for Cyris first thing in the morning and follows him around all day.  Cy is such a baby that sometimes the baby is scary and he tries to run away, which only makes Emmett laugh and chase him.

 "Potty training" is going great.  I put it in quotes because we aren't officially potty training just teaching him what the potty is and to like to sit on it and recognize when he pees.  He knows already!  He pees at least once a day when we put him on the potty and when he is playing he will stop what he was doing and get on the potty and go!  Sometimes we do not get his diaper off in time but he realizes that he has to pee and then goes and sits on the potty!  I have heard so many horror stories about potty training and I feel that it is because as parents we are not teaching our kids form the beginning to listen to their bodies.  By ignoring all aspect of using the toilet until they are 2 or 3 is a detriment to potty training in the long run.  Kids only know that when you go potty you use your diaper and therefore the potty is such a scary and foreign concept.  They have not been use to listening to the signals their bodies give them about going to the bathroom and it makes it frustrating to learn.  Okay I will get off my potty training soap box now :)

A couple weeks ago we took Em out to play in the snow.

As you can see he did not enjoy it.

Emmett is such a happy, easy going boy.  The dog kennels are his little forts

 He likes to climb up on anything he can

Sometimes he gets stuck and needs some help.  He did not appreciate us grabbing the camera and taking this picture before helping him out.

 This little boy loves his Aunt Nikki and he loves his dessert!  We took him to Aggie Ice Cream and he went to town!

 He especially loves his furry buddy Cyris.

 Me and my sister Nicole are members of the An Tus Nua Irish Dance troupe and LOVE it.  We started to learn Irish step dancing when we lived in Germany and are so glad that a certified school opened up not that long ago in Cache Valley.  We had our big St. Patty's Day show this month and had so much fun!

 Em decided after the show to steal some of the leprechaun's gold!  Greg and Em were so sweet and came to both nights of the show.  Emmett is a Michael Flatly in the making, he dancing all day long now!

 He is a John Deer boy through and through, making his Great Pappy and Pappy Koontz proud :)

 Here is Emmett with his Grandma Pearce and cousin Hayzlee.  He loves to play with all his Pearces.

 Best cousin buddies!

 All the nieces and nephews had to get a picture with Aunt Lizzy before she leaves to Sumara Russia to serve a mission.  We are so proud of you Aunt Lizzy!  Em loves his Aunt Lizzy!

 Such loving Pearce siblings :)

 These two could play all night as long as Em is in a good mood.  I realized we need to work on sharing and being soft to others.

 Cyris has a pretty hard life wouldn't you agree

Greg has been so great and keeping our family running with my crazy school schedule.  He has a job interview with USU tomorrow as and engineer with the facilities department.  We are praying and crossing our fingers this is the job that has been waiting for us!

Only 9 more thin sections and the last couple pages of my final report stand between me and graduation.  I hope this chapter of our lives (school and unemployment) is about to come to an end.  In the mean time we are just having fun being together and helping each other with our responsibilities.  I love me family SO INCREDIBLY MUCH!!!!