Some Ham With Your Dinner?

I have entered the busiest 2 months of the year. Not only are they the busiest holiday seasons, but most of my family's birthdays are in these months also, not to mention the fact that Trevor will be 8 and we have decided to go to Utah for his baptism over Thanksgiving. I find myself rushing from one project to another fighting off cold after cold from lack of sleep.

How do I manage to stay sane?? Lots and Lots of ham:

Ok, so maybe I am not sane, maybe my whole family has lost it....oh well, who will notice right?

The Davis Thankful Tree

For Family Home Evening on Monday we made a thankful tree. I got the idea from my cousins blog and adapted it a little. We decided to go to the park to gather real leaves that had fallen. Then we made a tree trunk out of butcher paper. We wrote things we were thankful for on the leaves and hung them up. It was interesting to hear the things my kids would come up with. Some of them took a little tweaking but I think we covered the basics. I told them that every time they were feeling grumpy or sad they could walk by the thankful tree and remember all the blessings we have. This technique actually worked for me as well when I walked past it with a grumpy baby who had been crying for an hour. I walked past the tree and saw Ashton's name on one of the leaves. Pausing to remember how grateful I was for Ashton to be in my family made it a little easier to deal with the crying fit. I am thankful for all the many blessings in my life.

Posting about Posts

Ahhhh, I finally had a chance to do a little meditation today. You might ask yourself when would a busy mother of 4 have a chance to meditate and the answer would be while I vacuumed out my car. To some this might not be a good chance to find some inner peace, but my car REALLY needed vacuumed out so I had a LONG time to listen to the hum of my new vacuum. New vacuum you might ask, yes, new vacuum. My old vacuum that I learned and grew so much with finally bit the bullet so we bought a new bright green one. The suction was fabulous AND it came with an extra belt and filter, but I noticed when I turned it on that it didn't quite have the same umph as when it was brand new about 2 weeks ago. I knew it was not the belt so I thought hmmm....maybe it is the filter. I pulled out the filter and it was CAKED with dirt. It was a wonder any air got through there, so I pulled out the new filter put it in a vuala! Good as new (It made me wonder if maybe my old vacuum just needs a new filter.....it was over a year without cleaning or replacing it.....) Then I thought "Oh! I should blog about this" (I know...it is pretty sad when you blog so much about vacuums) I thought oh it could be a cute little update to the vacuum post.

As I thought this through I realized there were several blog posts that needed updating so here you go.

Remember how I told you I shrink all my shirts? Well I am proud to say that I hang dry ALL my shirts, however, this means that I have fewer shirts to wear everyday. How can this be?? Well you see, I hang my shirts up in the laundry room to dry, then I leave the laundry room and shut the door behind me (usually in an attempt to forget how much laundry I have) Then fold and put away the "dryer-dried" laundry. Then the next week (or so) when I do laundry again I see my now dry shirts hanging in the laundry room and think "Oh there you are!" Then I walk out and leave them there with the new wet shirts that need to dry thinking that I will just get them all at once. It didn't take long before nearly ALL my shirts were in the laundry room and none were in my closet. *sigh* I don't (yes spell check had to add the apostraphy to this word) think I will win this battle.

I used to post about my weight loss goals and progress, but as I sit here eating gum drops I dint (figured I would throw dint in, instead of don't this time) think I will update that one......However, once while we sat and had ice cream during the Biggest Loser show, we saw a commercial for a local biggest loser contest. The winner would get a 47" flat screen TV! Bryan decided to enter and has been doing GREAT. He now rides the bike not only during biggest loser, but every morning and nearly every night! He is down about 20 lbs and still going strong. I don't think he started out big enough to win the contest, but maybe!

And one more thing. For those that read my messy car post....Bryan wanted me to let you know that "his" car is spotless.....given that my name is on the deed just like his, the kids NEVER ride in his car and the only time it is driven is to work and back, I just wanted to say "good job honey....way to keep "your" car clean!

Valuable Skills

We broke out our wii fit so that we could do some exercising. No our charts are not full yet so the kids can not play any other games on the wii, their friends can not play. The only thing we can do is the wii fit. However, they have gained some valuable skills by exercising on the wii fit. Nathan is a prime example. We have never owned a hula hoop, so naturally he did not have any hula hooping skills, but oh how that has changed! He can do a virtual hula hoop as good as the rest of us. (if you have never seen it the wii fit has a virtual hula hoop game where you swivel your hips around to keep the hula hoops going...pretty good workout if you ask me...anyway) So this begs the question; Can he hula hoop in real life. Well the other day he says "MOM!! Mom!! Watch me Hula Hoop! After watching him (and taking several minutes to recover from the giggles) I grabbed my camera and had him do it again. And now to share with everyone:

Happy Birthday Ashton.....A Little Late

So, you know that week of hibernation where I sewed like a mad woman to finish those amazing costumes? Well during that week, on October 29th to be exact Ashton decided to turn one. I managed to pull myself away long enough to make a cake and buy some presents and even have some family and friends over for cake and ice cream.
Some fun facts about Ashton's first year of life:

*He has NEVER been a good eater
*He started out life a couple of ounces heavier than Trevor, but has since become my most petite baby. He usually weighs in at less that 50%
*He was an early crawler and walker taking his first steps around 9 months and walking all the time by 11 months.
*After learning how to walk he quickly learned how to get up AND down the steps and will now throw his toys down the steps, crawl down and get them, crawl back up the steps and do it all over again.
*There was no fooling him at Trick or Treating time. If people skipped his basket he screamed at them...I kid you not!
*He is a PRO at losing pacifiers....and finding them: One night Bryan and I had searched the house top to bottom, even checking under beds and couches and carseats for a single pacifier. When we finally gave up and figured we would just let him wear himself out and crash without one he came walking in the room sucking on one. We have NO idea where he found it. (I think he has a hidden stash)
*He could not be more loved by his brothers and sister, mother and father.More pictures of the fun day

Ashton ate his cake until there were no crumbs large enough to pick up. He even tried eating his plate. The next morning I found him standing at the garbage can fishing out the cake plates from the party to finish them off as well!

Super Mario World and Mario Kart Wii

Halloween at Last

And without further delays......I think the pictures will speak for themselves:

The Mario Brothers!!

Koopa Troopas-Jace & Ashton
Donkey Kong-Trevor

Toadstool-AddieToadette-Kaylee

Yoshi-Nathan

Daisy-AndreaPeach-MeThe Davis Family:

The Tucker Family:

The Whole Group (without one green shell that accidentally got left at home!)

The Whole Group (after the Mario Brothers saved the day and ran home to get said green shell!)

So there you have it. It was a fun journey, but I am EXHAUSTED!! It took me all day to recover my house from the week of sewing that took place (that is why the post took so long to put up.) We had fun at the party and are enjoying our spoil of candy (plus the free doughnuts we brought home from the party!)...Until next year......or maybe the year after that....or maybe......