And now...

I am going to attempt to start and finish a post to cover our Christmas 2010. Apparently I am waaay overdue on posting or at least that's what my awesome-wonderful-baby-sister keeps telling me and a certain cousin who will remain nameless (Kari - cough - cough). Did I mention I may be coming down with something?

So, here I am to update. And let me just warn you, there's a lot to cover! I will try to stay on point but I will admit I do feel a little "Captain Random" today...

The holidays were fast and furious, as I'm sure yours were too.  I never got around to doing anything this year for Advent but I have some really neat ideas cooking up for next year.

We did successfully decorate our tree and over the course of the month, Kohen single handedly broke nearly all of our glass ornaments. If you're thinking, "What was she thinking putting them on the tree with a one year old in the house in the first place?!" I don't blame you, they are my thoughts too.

It only took 2 photo shoots but we successfully took pictures for our 2010 cards. I posted a little preview a few weeks ago. They turned out really great! Aside from our family pictures for the card, I didn't take as many pictures this December as I have in the past. Not really sure why. But that's beside the point.

Here are my favorites from Round 1:

 Davis Family Christmas 2010

 A swinging T.

 Ko eating up some "daddy time".

 Mommy makes a good play-ground, apparently.

Round 2:

I loved how their singles turned out! They fit them perfectly.

 Trying to get them to look in the same direction is always a challenge.

This was the best close up of all 3 of them.

I love their stinky little feet. 

Other happenings around Christmas:

The boys and I went and helped Memaw decorate her tree. If you look closely at the tree you will note there are a LOT of ornaments right at 3ft and under. We had a good time. It's nice living close to family again.

We went to "Breakfast with an Angel" at Glen Meadows Baptist Church in San Angelo, where some of our family serve in ministry. This is a picture of the boys with the Angel, who happens to be their Aunt Jessica! Don't the boys look thrilled? They really do love their Aunt Jess, it had just been a long morning. 

 T at his Christmas party at school! I got to go and hang out at his party with all his little friends and the other mommies. It was fun :)

 Here he is with his teacher and classmates about to play a game.

These were the little gifts he gave his friends. They were pretzel snowmen, so yummy and fun to make!

Our morning to open presents:

 Sleepy eyed and ready to open presents! Well, all except for Kohen, he was not about to go without his milk. Presents or not.

Finding their little treasures in their stockings with Daddy there to supervise.

A puzzle for Peyton, the puzzle master!

 Trucks for Kohen, he loves anything with wheels!

 A magna doodle for Tristan, he loves to draw!

The boys got these balloons in their stockings. They are the "punching" balloons, like from when I was a kid! I cannot tell you how much they loved these. We spent $4 on them. Hours of fun. Who knew?

The boys were so great opening their presents. They were thankful and excited with each gift. We love giving our children gifts and being able to watch the joy and excitement in their eyes. Such a beautiful thing.

Dah dah dah!

Okay, THIS is what I got for Christmas! I know, right?! I was so incredibly excited and really overwhelmed. There are no pictures of me or B opening our presents. The camera died while the boys were opening theirs. I couldn't find any more batteries but B insisted he go ahead and open his presents without the camera. Then, when it was my turn to open presents, he put new batteries in it and videoed me... that should have been a clue that I was getting something really good, but I had no idea! He is the best! (And yes, that's what I am typing on even now... Hehehe. I'm still giddy about it!)

Family Christmas Festivities: 

 T telling Gram and Papaw all about his presents.

Davis Christmas get together.

 Time for presents!

 Can you see Aunt Kayla's cute little baby bump? That is Baby Finley! 
He's expected sometime this Spring!

P opening a bag of goodies and T got a Puppy! Just kidding about the puppy. She was a gift but not for us, Praise the Lord. Their Aunt Jordan got a boxer puppy for Christmas. But if you were to ask T, he would tell you we need to get a puppy. Ahem, moving along...

Ko and Uncle David on Christmas morning. There are two things you need to know about this picture,
1. Kohen wouldn't go to anyone else but Uncle David after he woke up that morning for the longest time. He loves Uncle "Day-bid", as the boys call him. 
2. This is 1 of the 3 pictures I took Christmas morning. I know, I am ashamed.

 Our Sushi lunch with family before we went shopping with our Christmas cash we got from my Mom and Dad. Hmm... Not sure why I only have a picture of the food. I do remember it being really good but the company was even better! We had a kid-free shopping trip thanks to my Aunt Bev, who watched the boys for us. That was a HUGE gift in and of itself! It would have been perfect had we not been missing Jeff & Lori and their boys. But thanks to Skype we did get to visit with them. Thank you Lord for technology!

 This is my Mom's Christmas village. David took this picture with his phone! I think it's really cool...
and Christmasy so I thought it was a good one to wrap up with.

We had an awesome 2010, and Christmastime was the perfect way to wrap it up! Fun with lots of family and friends. Laughter, gifts, talks about our Savior and commitments as a family to serve Him more next year. Beautiful times, pictures or no pictures :)

As Tristan used to say after he was finished praying, "That's all I got!"

For tonight anyway. I will post soon about spending New Years in Mexico, what we did and how I got there. Also, a recent change in my diet! ;) 

See you soon!  

the good, the bad and the cup

There are days and then there are those days.

Have you ever had one of those days? I'm sure you have. We all have.

I am putting off my very overdue update from all the goings on around Christmas to post tonight about my week this week. Because, it just so happens I've had one of those weeks. The kind of week that the not-so-good things outweigh the good things.

Thankfully the things that have made my week so rough aren't too bad. Not earth shattering. Just little things that add up. Things like... bad attitudes, no naps, a cake not baking correctly, ruining dinner, hit the snooze too many times, stumped my toe, ran out of milk, forgot to order checks, cutting teeth, my mouth being sore, B forgetting to pick T up from school. Things like that.

And then there is... the cup.

First of all, let me just say I have a pet peeve that has to do with cups. I don't like the boys having more than one cup during the course of one day. One cup, per person. If you decide you want something else to drink, we will wash out your cup and go from there. For the little people at least (I don't make B use a coffee cup all day whenever he wants something else besides coffee to drink). Strange as it may seem, it's just a thing of mine. One cup, per day.

Late Wednesday morning when I went to give the boys a refill of milk in their cups, I couldn't find Peyton's cup. After looking for it and not finding I asked him where it was and he says, "I don't know." I searched high and low, all the while Peyton is saying "Mommy, I want some more milk." (insert pet peeve here) I did NOT want to get another cup out when I knew somewhere in the house there was a perfectly good cup waiting to be found and used. But, I did have a two year old asking for milk, so I gave in. Against my better judgment I got out a different cup.

The rest of the day I am intent on finding this cup. I am a woman on mission. It is here, in the house, somewhere and I am going to find it. Not to mention it has milk in it... and I am the "dishwasher" so, I must find the cup before it starts doing that gross separating thing milk does when it goes bad. Yuck. Am I right?

Must find the cup.

Wednesday evening gets here... still no cup.

Thursday morning rolls around and I am packing for a weekend away visiting family. I am washing clothes, packing the suitcase, checking things off of my mental check list of things to do before we leave. All the while there is one thing in looming in the back of my mind. Where is that cup?!?

With the thought of being gone for the next few days I am really getting concerned about this cup sitting and souring. We are going to be gone for 3 days. And oh my word, I need to find it.

I searched under the beds.
in the closets.
in the laundry hampers.
under the tv cabinet.
under the couches.
in the couches.
behind all the curtains.
in the window seals.
in the toy box, twice.
in the bathtub.
in the van. (even though I know we didn't go anywhere that day)
in the cabinet where I keep the boys cups. (Could I have cleaned it and put it away and not realized it? No, thank goodness. I was relieved not to be that crazy.)
in my writing desk.
on dressers.
on shelves.
under the table.
in the chairs.
in backpacks.
in purses.
in the diaper bag.
on the bookshelf.
outside on the front porch.
under the sinks.
in the pantry.
in drawers.
under the recliner.
under blankets.
behind the toilet.

I kid you not, I looked everywhere in the house and I didn't find the cup.

Oh, did I mention this is one of the new cups that we got the boys for Christmas? The ones they opened in their stockings? Oh, yes, the cup is one of the new cups. Even more frustrating lovely.

The replacement cup I gave Peyton, was the 4th new cup I bought for Christmas. Since we have 3 children and I bought 4 cups, one cup has been safely tucked away in the cabinet. Never even been seen by the little people. They have been completely unaware of it's existence... until now. Peyton was overjoyed to have a new new cup. I tried explaining where it came from but it kept getting lost in translation. He was a bit confused, but excited nonetheless.

When Brandon got home Thursday after picking Tristan up from school, Peyton greeted them both showing them his new new cup.  When Brandon realizes it's the 4th cup he looks at me and says, "Still no cup, huh?" I followed his question with a huge sigh and shook my head in shame.

He then turns to the very excited Peyton and says, "Do you know why you have this cup?"

P, "No..."

B, "Because we can't find your other cup. Remember? The one mommy has been looking for?"

P disappears for a few seconds... and then returns holding the cup. 

B says, "Honey..." and starts laughing.

I am in complete shock, mouth dropped wide open. There it is. The cup. I am speechless.

B, "Peyton, where was it?"

P, "In the box."

Me, "What box?!?"

P, "This one..."

 
See, what I mean? It's definitely been one of those weeks.

"Tis the season to be snotty..."

 Christmastime has always been one of my favorite times of the year. The songs, the food, the sweaters, all the decorations, the sometimes cold weather (we do live in TX you know). But now as a mother of many small children I find myself dreading this season! The cold and flu season, that is. Where there are snotty nosed kids running around everywhere, spreading more than holiday cheer.

We are just recently all well. Insert a huge "Praise The Lord!" We just wrapped up antibiotics for two of our little guys and cough syrup for all of them to fight off coughs and stuffy heads. I pray when we go back to the Dr for their check up, we'll be ear infection free!

In the meantime of getting well, we've enjoyed getting our house decked out for the season. Decorations, lights, tree... Oh the tree. I wanted so badly to get a real tree this year. Growing up I wasn't privileged to having a real tree due to stupid allergies (mom, dad and brother). But I'm not bitter. Nope, not me! Not at all... Just fyi, my mother is giggling right about now.

I guess with all of my whining or um, "asking" my wonderful husband finally agreed to get a real tree. So toward the end of last week we loaded up and headed to a tree farm. It was a great (and cold) experience! I wouldn't have minded so much except for the whole... you know... trying to get children healthy thing. Yeah, cold and windy probably set us back a day or two in the snotty nose department.

Also, the boys had "Pajama Day" at Parent's Day Out that day where they watched Polar Express and had some really cute treats based on the movie. They were so cute in their pj's so we decided to leave them in them for out tree picking. What I didn't count on was it being so cold! We tried to stay bundled up as best we could. Cold or not, we had a blast!

 Ready and excited to pick out our tree!

 My handsome men.

 Trying to stay bundled up!

 Isn't the wonder and awe in your child's eyes a beautiful thing to behold?

 We rode on a trailer pulled by a tractor (which was way cool to our little guys) and took a tour of the tree farm.

 This picture is a little blurry but I LOVE the expression on Peyton's face! 

 Snuggling while we look for trees. 

 Now we're on foot among the trees searching for "the one". 

 I love this man.

 The littlest tree hunter.

 This is one happy momma to be out in the cold picking out a real tree with all of her guys!

 Daddy stealing some snotty sweet kisses.

Here's our tree!

Tristan was measuring it to see how tall it was. 

 Daddy helped a little.

 Now we get to cut it down! 

With a little help from Peyton... 

and Tristan... 

(and supervision from Kohen) it's done! 

Talking about what we'll do with it when we get home.

Kohen sharing his thoughts. He has lots to say these days... We just wish we could understand him.

We are so proud of our tree. We had so much fun! And who knows... maybe we'll do it again next year!

Our Cards!

Rejoice Lord King Religious Christmas 5x7 folded card

Create beautiful photo Christmas cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Everybody say, "Cheese!"

I know I am overdue for an update on how things are going around here since the move. Over the past few weeks we have gotten more and more settled. There are still a few boxes here and there, but for the most part we are settled in. This house is becoming more like home. But something hit me this week... I looked up from unpacking and situating and realized... It's Christmastime!

You're thinking, "Hello! Duh, just like it comes every year..." I know, I know. But this year it really crept up on me.

I'm sitting here drinking a cup of hot peppermint cocoa (yum) and thinking about the many things I would like to get accomplished this holiday season: Christmas pictures and cards, Advent Calendar (yes, I know I'm late), Gifts, make Kohen a stocking, get and decorate a tree... my list goes on. One thing I can cross off of my list is trying to figure out where I'm going to get my Christmas cards done because I'm using... Shutterfly!

They have a HUGE selection of Photo cards! I have always been impressed with their quality of products no matter what the item. They have great gift ideas like... Calendars, Photo books (which are my favorite, by the way) and they even have mugs! And much more!

Here are some of my favorite designs out of this years Christmas photo card collection...

Aren't they adorable?! But don't you worry... I'm saving my very favorite for our card that we will be sending out. I wouldn't ruin a surprise like that. ;)

You should check out their website and look for great deals like, "Buy one get one free" or "30% off of cards" or even free shipping! If you sign up as a member you get these great little emails about awesome one day deals! Also free online photo storage! (I am a big fan of the members perks)

Oh, before I forget... they are doing this amazing Christmas promotional right now for us bloggers. If you're a blogger and interested in receiving 50 FREE photo cards then you should check this out!

Well, I hope to be back with you soon. I promise to give a better update on life soon-ish. But for now I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas Season!

Now if I can just get my snotty kiddos to smile for our 2010 Christmas photo...