Christmas Day

     Christmas at the Davis house is actually fairly well organized. Pretty unexpected, I know. It goes smoothly because we have the following rules: 

• You may NOT come upstairs until Mom and Dad are ready. 
• All presents must be opened one at a time. No rushing! 
• If you ask for a present, you receive yours last. 

     And that's pretty much it! Here are some pictures of our Christmas morning. 

Here are the kids waiting to go upstairs. This is actually how the boys sleep. I like to sit on them.  

I'm not really sure what Isaac is looking at... 

This year we did a daily devotional called The Jesse Tree that leads up to Christmas Day. Unsurprisingly, we got behind on the reading, so we had to skip a few to get to the last one. 

Emma made all the boys these awesome scarves. They are so adorable. 

Dad's alway begging us to make him snickerdoodle cookies. But we never do. So, I baked a whole batch just for him on Christmas Eve!  

Then... I ate a lot when he wasn't looking. Whoops! 

This has to be my favorite picture of all the pictures I took that morning. I worked for weeks on Mom's Christmas present. It's a specialized meal planner with categorized shoppings lists that covers 5 weeks of meals. 

She was so happy she cried!!! 

*Thank you all my Facebook friends who donated recipes for this gift! We are so excited to try them all out. 

This is probably Landon's favorite gift. It's a giant toolbox completely full of candy and junk food. 

A pre-teen boy's DREAM. 

Kate was the most excited to receive something she already owned. A while back she saved up and bought an iPod touch... which she then accidentally broke. Mom and Dad sneakily stole it and got it fixed for her. 

I love this picture too. Emma had been begging for cowboy (cowgirl?) boots forever. She was convinced she wasn't going to get them - thanks to our amazing acting skills. Boy, was she surprised when she opened this box! 

Ally bought me these insanely tall heels! I love them. And will always wear them with these socks. It is so attractive. 

Just kidding... 

Isaac expression is PERFECT in this photo. 

Landon and his Chiefs stuff... 

Well, that was our Christmas. I hope you enjoyed looking at the millions of pictures! It's so hard to just pick a few... 

Happy New Year everyone!!! 

Christmas Time!

Miracles do happen! I logged onto the blog to finally fix our little problem... but it had fixed itself! Absolutely nothing was wrong. I am so thankful! I really do not like trouble-shooting problems. 

Anyway... 

So much has happened since we left off, that I can't really catch up. Therefore, I'm just going to start with Christmas. 

Kansas is bipolar. It's December and the weather is always changing. Somedays we don't even need a jacket and the next we're bundling up just to walk to the car. The boys were so disappointed we didn't have snow, so they decided to simulate sledding. Using various wheeled toys (such as: wagons, trikes, bikes, and scooters) they sped down the hill in our backyard. 

You may be thinking, "What? Isn't that a little dangerous?" 

Why, yes. Yes, it is. But they are boys, and this is what boys do. A little scrape is worth the memories. 

Actually, at the end of the day, no one got hurt at all! I think that counts as another miracle. 

With Christmas also comes cleaning! The way less fun side of Christmas, but it's necessary. 

This is how we organize the jobs. 

I LOVE this picture! 

Mom... does not. 

Jonah likes to help whoever folds the laundry. 

Mom decided to make cleaning fun by adding Santa hats! 

Yeah... still not fun. But the little kids looked cute!

While we slaved away, Jonah was enjoying running around and around our coffee table pulling a trashbag. He was giggling like a maniac. So. Funny. 

Well, there you go! That was the beginning of our Christmas. 

We hope your holiday was as good as ours! 

Technical Difficulties

Hello!  Julie today.

I told Glynne that we need to let you know we are having problems.  Not with each other :) but with this blog.  A couple of weeks ago, Glynne told me she wasn't able to upload any more photos - blogger said we'd maxed out our allotment.  Ok.  Now what?  Glynne looked into the problem and told me we need to decide if we want to pay 3.00 per month to man this blog.  After we pay, I guess we get to upload more photos and continue on.  Boy, 3.00 - I don't know if we can part with that much each month :).  Of course, we should pay it!  That's only 36.00 bucks a year.  We have to continue on.  Now, I just need her to do it.  I don't have a clue about things like this.  So that's why we haven't been updating much; we're stuck.  And until Glynne fixes things, not much will be happening.

I will tell you about the things I wish I could blog about:
-Our 9 foot real Christmas tree.  It's so incredibly soft - a Frasier fir.  And ...we didn't have to wear gloves up to our elbows to decorate it!!
-Jonah.  He's getting a personality.  When I unload the dishwasher, he likes to hand me the silverware ONE AT A TIME! Each time I say thank you, he claps for himself two times: clap - clap.
-We moved our house around.  The dining room became our living room and our living room is now in the kitchen where our dining room used to be.  It works.  It's also much more fun to clean - well, that was last week.  Now it's not so fun anymore!

We are looking forward to Christmas.  It seems like it should be sooner than a week away.  We're enjoying a Jesse Tree devotional and that has helped keep us focused on the point of Christmas. 

I guess that's all.  Hopefully, we'll get this blog thing all figured out.  I'll tell Glynne she has to fix it before she can ...hmmm I can't think of anything...eat??? That'll go over real well.

Have a wonderful Christmas!! Julie

Funny!

This is Julie today.

Ally just cracked me up.  You may not find this funny, but I did!

Here's what is going on at our house when she said her "funny."

1.  Landon is gathering items to bury for an archaeological "dig"

2.  Isaac is trying to locate something to put freshly dug dirt in - school project

3.  Jackson is yelling at me to come look at something he has cleaned for me

4.  Kate and Jonah are driving letters to the mailbox in the golf cart 

5.  Bryan is cleaning a coyote skin

6.  Lentils are boiling on the stove for another school project and the timer is going off

7.  Glynne is yelling at me to drain the lentils because she's busy

8.  Emma is yelling about a stink (middle eastern food smell)

9.  The phone is ringing - sorry we didn't answer - as soon as I'm done writing this

blog I'll check and see who called

10.  Now Kate is back from the mailbox and is changing her shoes

This is when Ally (who's in the middle of an Ancient Civ. test) yells from the kitchen table to Kate in the family room.... 

Kate - why are you putting black boots on with brown pants!!!!

Really? Has Hilary Duff from Cheaper by the Dozen moved in with us??  There. A scene from the Davis household!!  

Thankfulness

     It has been such a long time since my last post! I've been having some technical difficulties with my laptop. It refuses to upload pictures to the blog. Super annoying, I know. Anyway, this month is the month of thankfulness. It's almost over now... but I wanted to do a thankful post anyway! So, I walked around the house and asked everyone what they were most thankful for.

Jackson: I'm thankful for Mom and Dad. Um... Also, I'm thankful for when we got our new house.

Isaac: For Christmas and snow and plants. And food. And people. That's it.

Kate: Um... Family. And that we have a good church to go to. I'm thankful that Mom had another child, and for all our animals.

Landon: I'm thankful for my cat, Black Ops. Our family. Actually, I'm thankful for all of our animals. And our land. Oh, and my shotgun. But that kinda goes with family since they got it for me. Yeah.

Emma: I don't have to go to public school. I'm thankful that we live in a small town and that Dad has a good job.

Ally: Well... I'm not thankful for your (Glynne's) ringtone. It goes off all the time. Can't you use vibrate or something? Anyway, I am thankful for Jonah because I love him and it's almost his birthday.

Glynne: I'm super thankful for Jonah. He's one of the best things in my life right now. I'm also especially thankful for my awesome parents and family. I'm so blessed to have them. This may sound weird, but I'm really thankful for bipolar Kansas weather. Otherwise, it'd be boring.

Dad: I'm thankful that Jesus loves me. For my wife and family. And for my parents.

Mom: Obviously, I'm thankful for the normal things. I feel like I should say something really deep... Oh, I'm thankful that Jonah can finally sleep in his own crib for the whole night. And that Jesus died for me. I'm thankful for heaven where I will eat as much food as I want and decorate all the time.

On a side note, Landon's birthday was this past Saturday! He turned 12!!! I cannot believe he is already that old. It. Is. Crazy. And he's so tall too. I'm dreading the day when my little bro will beat me in the height department. It'll mean he's growing up. :( 

Have an AWESOME Thanksgiving! 

Snowflake Ballerinas

A while back, I saw this image on Pinterest (Is it just me, or do a ton of my blogs start that way?)... 

And I knew that Katie and I had to try to make them! Katie is a master of paper snowflakes, so if anyone could do it, it would be her. 

A few days ago, she posted this picture onto my Facebook wall. 

Beautiful, huh? I was so excited to try my hand at making some. 

So, we planned a Harry Potter movie/snowflake ballerina cutting night! 

We had to rewind the movie a few times because we forgot to pay attention... but we had a great time. 

I just adore them! 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet. In the picture, they're hanging from the ceiling, but I'm not sure I want a bunch hanging from my ceiling... 

Eh, I'm sure I'll figure out something to do with them! 

Have an awesome week! 

Jewelry by Ally

November is the month of thankfulness. I'm thankful for so many things that if I tried to do a blog on all of them it would be... impossible. So, I'm not gonna try that! Instead, I'm going to talk about a sibling I'm thankful for. Ally. It's awesome that my sister is also one of my best friends. She is super good at lots of things, but my favorite thing she does is art. Drawing, painting, photography - she's good at it all! Another form of art she's recently become fantastic at, is jewelry design. I love it cause she makes me stuff! I wuve you, Ally. 

Here are some pictures of rings, earrings, and necklaces she's made. Some she's given to me, and some I've just stolen from her. I think she takes that as a compliment. Inside. 

Deep inside. 

This is a recycled t-shirt pom pom necklace. It's too cute for that name. We should come up with a better name.  

Aren't they all amazing? I adore them. 

Comment on which piece is your favorite! 

Maybe we should have a competition with jewelry prizes... That would be fun, right?