Acker Family: Merry Christmas 2008!!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas 2008!!

It's been a busy year and my intentions were to mail out a traditional card, but seeing as it is Christmas Eve, I guess this will have to do. Today was a great day! The young women have been gathering presents from ward members this month and Santa showed up to help us deliver them! We helped wrap, gathered and delivered to 6 families and heard lots of excitement, gratitude and talk of miracles! It was wonderful to be a part of giving this year as we have been so incredibly blessed at a difficult time in our world! We were able to get a few pictures with us and Santa before the deliveries started! This will be a great Christmas memory!
Here is a poem we put together to send out in the mail, I guess it will be posted on the blog instead! Maybe next year....

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008

C …is for Chem-Dry, which has been such a blessing in our life. It has provided well for our family and allowed us to work with great people, including Derek’s sister Robbin who moved here from Denver to be our office manager

H …is for Home, after 6 years in Wichita, we now call it home and really have grown to love this place and are grateful for the great friendships we have formed here and opportunities we have had to learn and grow

R …is for reading, Grace has become quite the reader this year in first grade and loves to read and write everything! Sure makes life a lot easier for all of us

I …is for Isabella who is in Pre-K and loves her new independence

S …is for Sophia, our 16 year old German foreign exchange student who is living with us this school year. We know was meant to be part of our family and we are grateful for this year to be have her

T …is for time, being able to be a full-time mom at home allows me lots of quality time with the kids and new hobbies like reading books and creating our family blog

M …is for the messes that Brock makes, although the first year can be hard, I wouldn’t change it for anything

A …is for the athlete Jaxson has become. As a second grader, he loves basketball, baseball and soccer and is excited to add football on next year. He is very lucky to have a dad with so much free time to spend with him practicing on his skills

S …is for the Savior who is the center of our home. We are thankful to have this wonderful time to reflect on Him and all He has done for us!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2009!

Derek and Kristin Acker
Sophia(16), Jaxson(8), Grace(6), Isabella(4), Brock(1)

2 comments:

Kerri said...: Hi everyone! Love the Christmas pics with the kids and "SANTA" everyone looks great! Hansons miss you all!; December 29, 2008 at 12:19 PM
Jessica said...: Hey Kris and family, I'm so far behind on my emails I'm just barely looking at this! That's cool you have a foreign exchange student. I would love to do that someday. I'm glad to see you're all doing so well!; January 29, 2009 at 2:36 AM

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Funny moments in the Acker home!

Sooo many eggs were colored here on Easter and I am really into eggs right now. I was so excited to eat hard boiled eggs and cracked one of the colored eggs and it was raw! I guess Brock got excited and got into my fresh eggs too!

We were reading through these and Grace wanted me to tell the story of when she was about 6 and Jaxson 7 and I was pregnant with Brock and they had just learned about the birth canal and we were at a closing for a business loan with several professionals signing papers and Grace says, "ok I get how the baby comes out, but how does it get in there?" completely out of the blue.
A few weeks later, we were at the dentist (a good friend of ours) and he was looking at my root canal and Grace was watching very intently. After a while she exclaims, "How does the baby fit through there??" Ha Ha...that was quite the explanation to the Dentist and hygenist!
Jaxson wants us all to make sure we remember Brock's last and most memorable imaginary friend was and sometimes still is Orange, that lives in Mississippi where he swims in the pool and drinks hot chocolate(must be memories from our Mississippi/New Orleans trip and hot coco in the French quarters). Brock is now moving up to real friends, his first pre-school at the YMCA, his best friend was a little girl names Erin. Now he is at pre-k at Earhart and just can't get enough of Sara Bull!!
Derek was gone this week and Grace had state assessments every day but Friday so we all were really diligent in getting to bed early and up early for a good healthy breakfast! The kids must have seen it was taking a toll on me because they kept telling me, "Mom, it will be all worth it Friday morning, we have a surprise planned for you to help you relax since you have been working so hard this week." After Grace did amazingly well with a 93% on her tests, Friday morning came and went and they were actually more grumbly than normal. After they got home from school I asked them what happened to my "surprise". They told me they were going to get ready on their own, let me sleep in and make me breakfast in bed before they left for school, but I didn't wake them up early enough...ha ha! Well, I guess it's the thought that counts! LOL!

I tend to burn the most calories on my elliptical when I watch biggest loser while I work out and Brock is never far from me playing with his toys. He woke up one morning and said he had a dream about biggest loser and he was 16 pounds!! ha ha...he picks up more than I realize I guess!!

Grace came home from school saying she got the melted hershey award? When she took out the certificate, we realized it was the Milton Hershey award(founder of Hersey's chocolate) and it was given to her for being the most generous, nominated by teachers! Way to go Grace!

Brock looked at me the other day and said, "Mom, I love you", then he looked up and said, "Jesus, thank you for making my mom!" awww

Kids are all playing a game downstairs and I hear Bella yell, "The ghost is clear", Jaxson says to her, "It's the COAST is clear" and in her know-it-all voice she says, "No, it's the GHOST because it means you can go because there are no ghosts around anymore!" So Junie B. Jones that girl is!

Isabella is a very good student, not at all interested in the social aspect of school like Grace. Each they start at a color and work their way up through 5 colors, with purple being the highest. Only once in the the first year and a half did she come home with the second color and that was because I forgot to put her homework back in after checking it, every other time it's been purple. So, today Isabella comes home telling us what a mean substitute teacher they had and she tried really hard to be extra nice so the teacher would be nicer, but said it didn't work. She then explained that the teacher gave her a green(second highest color) but when I looked at her paper she had colored in purple. When I asked her why, she said she knew the teacher had meant to give her purple, so she made the change for the sub!
"I may be small, but I'm still the boss" (t-shirt from daddy)

Grace was riding in the car with friends on her way home from achievement days and they were all discussing what they wanted for Christmas and all the kids were naming expensive electronics etc. and after being asked what Grace wants, in her very timid, high pitched voice, she says, "All I want for Christmas is a pair of shoes"! Sweet girl! As a side note, she has plenty of shoes and has requested many other items already, but the shoes are one item I didn't like...so she's pushing that now!

When Sophie first got here, Brock was really giggly and the kids said, "Do you think Sophie's cute?" and he emphatically says, "NO!!"...and then a few moments later he says, "I think she's beautiful!"

Signs of having an older sibling!!

-I scored a great parking place at preschool today and Brock said, "You Rock mom!"

-Brock says, "Mom, I love you, you know why? Cuz you're hot!" (then he lays he cheek on my arm)-"See..touch your arm, it's hot!"

-I was painting the bathroom and leaning over and Brock says, "Mom, your bum looks like a hippos!!"

None of my kids have been into imaginary friends until Brock! Poor kid is alone all day while his siblings are at school so he has come up with many friends and it cracks me up to hear him having conversations with them! His first friend for many weeks was Wagon, then after awhile Watermelon joined him. They both live in Heaven by Jesus! Just this week he has added two more, they are Dorn(door), Penny! All boys, but Penny is a girl! He is such a funny boy with such a creative imagination and I want to make sure we remember these things long after he's advanced on!:)

Yesterday driving home from stake conference Brock says to me out of the blue, "Mom, you have the same backside as Grandma!" Everyone laughed, but me, I was a little curious exactly what he meant as I questioned him and then he pointed to my hands and said, "that backside of your hand looks like Grandmas!" Ha ha, we all got a chuckle, not sure if that's any better or worse, I'd really rather not any front or back side of any of me looks like any grandma!!

When something would scare Brock he used to say, "that freaks me out", well he must have heard us using the word scare instead of freak lately because now he says, "that scares me out!"

When Derek encourages me to go out for the evening, there is usually a price to pay...disaster tends to strike when dad's in charge. So last night was my monthly book group and I came home to a clean and quiet house! I was so thrilled and jumped in to snuggle in bed with Derek and asked him about what seemed to be an uneventful night. Like it was no surprise to him he calmly says, "Brock locked us all inside his room (yes we have his lock on backwards for emergencies) and after trying to break down the door, Bells finally came up with a solution. We took off the screen and I lowered the kids out of the window." Pause..."Derek, did you get the screen back on?"..."Kris, I saved that for you!" Well, I guess putting a screen on is easier than putting 4 kids to bed or cleaning up after one of their typical moms gone parties!! No wonder the kids think he is so cool!!

Brock is laying in bed crying out our names and Derek and I kept telling him to go to bed! After repeating our names and in full tears for a few minutes this was our conversation:

mom-What do you need Brock?

Brock- A towel

mom- You have your bath towel hanging in your room

Brock- That's too big for me!

mom-What do you need a towel for?

Brock- To cry into..I need a little towel to cry into!

dad to mom- What kind of things do you teach him during the day?

mom to dad- I have no idea where he came up with that!

So dad takes him in a little hand towel...

Brock- Thanks dad!

He buries his face in the towel and goes to sleep!

Derek and I don't know if we should laugh or cry! He is too sweet!

Grace and I have been sick in bed for a couple days now and we've had lots of good talks and snuggles! Today she was talking about having more brothers and sisters and I asked her why she thought I would have more and she looked at me surprised and said, "why, ...are you retired?" LOL!

Grace came home from school saying that her homework was to show me her "Reverence Book", I was a little surprised and curious to see what the school was teaching her about reverence. So she hands me a math book and I'm trying to make sense out of it and under Mathematics it says "Reference Book" ha ha...I explained to her the difference, I wonder how she was putting it together this whole time...how confusing is language!

After cheerleading practice, Grace informs us that the cheer coaches(teenagers) said if they get in trouble or fight at school or at home that the parents can tell the coaches and they will make them run extra laps. Then she said, "They can't get up in our business like that, don't ever tell them if I do anything wrong!" She is so cute!

After the kids got home from school, I was super tired and just sat down on the floor by the wall to fill out some papers and Grace came walking around the corner and said in the most surprised voice, "Why are YOU in timeout?" LOL...reminds me of something I said when I was little with Dad sitting in my timeout spot!

Last night at football/cheerleading practice, Derek and I sat in the car watching the other kids and Brock stayed in his car seat watching a movie. As we were talking Brock yells out, "shut-up", we thought we heard him wrong but he kept yelling it. So Derek gives him a little lecture on that is not a nice thing to say and we continue talking. Then after a moment he yells, "shut-up please" as we try and keep ourselves from smiling too much I turn the volume up a little and he says, "thank you", then I realized he might have been saying, "turn up" this whole time. I guess we'll see when he uses it again! LOL

So after cheerleading practice one day grace says, "I little(yes she says the t's) mama, she is so cute" (Grace is one of the very few white girls!) and few days later Grace asks me if she can have a nick name, sure of coarse, what do you want? And she says with a smile, "lil' mama"? She's got it down now!!

So after football practice this week, Jaxson says, " I feel like some fried(carry that out) chicken"! Ha, we never eat fried chicken...again, he is one of few white kids on his team!! Funny what they pick up.

Reminds me, when Jaxson was in Pre-K, he was the minority and came home from school one day asking me why he doesn't get to watch BET!!(Black Entertainmant Television!)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas 2008!!

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