Family

I just wanted to say how lucky I feel that I have been blessed with such a great family. Whenever people ask about my family I feel almost guilty telling them how great everyone is. I don't know how common it is to have your siblings/parents be your best friends, especially when there are six kids in the family, but I can truly say that my brothers and sisters (and their spouses) and my parents are my best friends. I was telling Bryan how lucky I was to have people I can call when I am feeling down and they always care about me and whats going on in my life. Sheesh, I can't even go a week without blogging without someone noticing. Anyway, I don't want to go on and on, I mostly just wanted to say thanks to all of my family members and the love and support that you give me.

AZ Does It

The first grade classes at the kid's elementary school always do a musical performance of AZ Does It. It is a really fun musical teaching the letters of the alphabet, their sounds and functions. They have been practicing for a while and we have the CD of all the music here (which we listen to every time we are in the car.) Trevor was super excited. Unfortunately the place was PACKED! So our seats were not very good, but we did get some video and pictures. The schools out here are growing like crazy. Last year they had 3 1st grade classes, this year there were 5. That is a lot of people to cram into the schools cafeteria! But we had a great time and Trevor did awesome. He is a really good singer and looked dashing in his ABC vest! (the video is kind of long, I tried to pick the shortest song, but it was still long)

Ok, Ok, Ok

I would say that I have been really busy so I haven't had time to do a post, but that would not be entirely true, I have been reading....darn books. I am almost done with my book and almost decided to read this morning, but for the sake of family relations I decided to blog instead, so here goes:

We have finally finished our fence. No more pesky neighbors telling our kids not to play in their own yard. It took us a full year start to finish, but in all fairness, Bryan did work a lot and I did have a new baby during that time, so cut us some slack. I think we did a great job. We did have some awesome help from our friend Michael as well as Barlow and Andrea (we did not make Andrea do hard labor, but she helped out a ton by watching the kids so we could both work) None of our help had ever done this type of fence before, so we had to figure it all out on our own (a little help from Goggle, every now and then.)

Trevor and Kaylee have been keeping busy with school work and piano lessons. Kaylee's writing is getting really good. She creates some great stories now. She is very creative (Trevor could only write non-fiction stories in Kindergarten, but Kaylee writes all sorts of stories) and Trevor is now reading books that are at a 5th grade level. Here is a sample of their piano skills (they have only been in lessons for about 9 months I think):

Nathan keeps me on my toes and laughing still. He is a very observative boy. When I take time to do my hair or make-up in the morning (after he asks if it is Sunday) he tells me how nice I look, or he will compliment my clothes. He is always singing around the house and I got a pretty good sample:

Ashton is growing up super fast. On Sunday, he got a hold of a pink marker and did a number on himself. At first I thought he was bleeding, but then noticed it was to pink to be blood. I am starting to have to baby proof my house again. I have to fix my vacuum before Ashton becomes a human vacuum.

Anyway, that is whats going on at the Davis house. We are all in great health and are still recieving blessings beyond measure!

Big Boy Ashton

I know, I know, to many posts all together, but I couldn't help posting this one! Ashton is starting to sit up for extended periods of time, and I happened to have my camera with me the first time he did it, so here you go, my baby is growing up!

Bike Rides and Picnics at the Park

Bryan surprised us all by getting the morning off of work so we decided to take advantage of the time we had with him. We got up and ready and took a family bike ride to the church. We played some basketball there. (I beat Bryan in a game of around the world, and he beat me in a game of PIG) Then we rode our bikes home. As soon as we got home Bryan had to leave for work, and the kids and I packed a picnic lunch and headed to the park. We had a lot of fun there playing, eating and throwing rocks into the river. Unfortunately it started to rain so we had to come home. Then we were able to rest for a while and get the house clean. The kids worked so hard that I let them earn $2 each for their efforts. $2 at our house is a fortune, I normally do things one quarter at a time. They could not believe that they had earned 8 quarters!! After a long day, we put the kids to bed and enjoyed watching the Office (which was over really fast!) As I reflect on my day I realized that I had learned a lot of things. Here are a few:
1) Kaylee is growing up faster than I realize. She rode her bike with training wheels the entire way. It was the first time she has gone on a bike longer than just to the corner and back. She learned how to get up and down from the sidewalk to the road so quickly, after just a couple of tries she managed it without having to have a push at the end.
2) I LOVE the Playtex bottles. You know the ones with the liners in them. I have always liked this kind of bottle, but it was especially nice when we were riding our bikes home and Ashton got hungry. Now for those of you who are not familiar with Ashton's eating habits he is a very sporadic eater, sometimes he only goes 2 hours between feedings and other times it is 6-8 hours. But whatever the time frame, when he decides he is hungry he will scream until he gets fed. Anyway, I was able to squeeze the air out of the bottle and he could drink it from a sitting position. It was great.
3) I really like doing stuff with my kids. Don't get me wrong, I have always like doing stuff with my kids. But this week has shown me how much fun we really can have together. It does not all have to be work work work. I would have loved to have gotten more housework done, or at least a little laundry done this week, but the time I have spent with my kids has been priceless. We are thinking about extending our word of the day for longer than just spring break, and I think I will let the kids plan the menus more often. They love knowing what is for each meal.
4) I am grateful for inspired church leaders who help me know which directions to take my life, for having been raised by great parents who taught me well, and being surrounded by friends and family members (whether physically surrounded our just being able to communicate online or over the phone), and a husband who knows and loves me more than I can understand.
5) My life is truly blessed.

Green Kitchen

Well, thanks to Andrea's help over the last two days I was able to finish the kitchen. I still have some touch up work to do where the tape was, but here are some pictures anyway. The kids all helped with one more wall and played really well while we worked. (I did bribe them with 2 quarters if they played upstairs while we finished) Ashton has decided to roll over every time he is put down on his back, but he does not like to be on his belly, so he cries a lot, oh well. I tried to tell him "umbrella" but it did not work, I guess we should have picked out a new word for the day. Oh well.

Umbrellas & Dummies

Day two of spring break was (for me) even more fun than day one. I broke through the spousal opposition and painted my kitchen walls! I went with a fairly dark green. Unfortunately I only almost finished the first coat, so there will be no pictures until tomorrow. The kids had fun, I let them help a little bit, then later on Trevor wanted to help some more, so I told him that he had to get all the little kids to play upstairs, then he could help. He energetically offered to turn on a girl movie "Ariel" (which convinced Kaylee and Addisen and you guessed it...Nathan too) that going upstairs would be fun. Then told Kaylee he would probably be reading in his bed. He went to his room and made a dummy in his bed with pillows under the covers and a hat on the pillow. Then he propped up a book to make it look like he was reading in his bed and snuck downstairs. It worked pretty good, he did get to help for a while before the younger kids wandered downstairs. The word of the day was umbrella, but we were so busy and having so much fun that we didn't have to use it at all! Go figure, so we decided to use the word umbrella today as well. Trevor wrote a story yesterday about how much fun he was having on his spring break. It made all the work worthwhile.



Oh yeah!!! One more thing....Ashton rolled over!! He has been really close for over a week, but last night we put him in bed and then when we came in to check him he was sleeping soundly on his belly. Guess that means no more putting him on the couch, and I have to keep my floors clear of small objects (yeah right, like that is really going to happen!) Maybe we should just pray really hard that he does not choke on any small objects!