What Was I Thinking??

Last week I went to a craft show and was totally inspired to start being creative again. I called

Chad's Aunt Karin and asked the details of the next craft show that she was doing... next thing I knew, I was committing to a show on December 18th... What was I thinking?!! Anyway, a while back Aletha had done some baby shoes that I thought were so adorable and I thought I'd just try making a pair to see how simple they were and this is how I have spent my day I also made about 15 hair clips. I wish the photo showed all of the detail because they are darn cute. I am a little burnt out on making shoes so this may be the entire collection for the show. Anyway, I am starting to get excited and nervous all at once. Luckily it is a pretty small event with about 10-15 vendors and it should be a good one for my first EVER.

Winter Portraits Of My Boys...

December 1, 2010 portraits... ENJOY!

The TOP 10 things I LOVE...

... about the Tri-Cities. I have been meaning to post about how much I LOVE it here for a while now but it seems like life has been so crazy.

In no particular order:

• CONVENIENCE (Location) -Everything I will EVER need is within 15 minutes from my home.
• ALL of the Restaurant Options
• Clothing stores are EVERYWHERE!
• Winco/Costco/Target
• Big Lots
• Hobby Lobby/Craft Warehouse/Joannes
• Parks - ALL of the parks here are AMAZING!
• Recreational Activities (golf, bowling, movie theater, shopping, children's activities etc.)
• Photography locations :)
• OPTIONS, OPTIONS, OPTIONS

Just a word about options, I no longer have to go to Walmart for...

... groceries.

... a new top for a last minute event.

... gifts for EVERY occasion.

... shoes for the boys when one has been misplaced.

... craft supplies.

... ANYTHING unless I decide that I want to. :)

Here we have stores for specific things and not just one big store that has a little of everything... AND I love it!

Davis Family Photos

Yesterday I did family photos for Chad's family. Yes, I set everyone up, got them looking good, I put my camera on the tripod and ran into the shot each time... I think they turned out pretty cute. I was also able to do some with just the brothers, Dan and Lisa and some of Nathan and Paloma. I LOVE THE LOCATION! That place is GOLDEN when it somes to taking photos.

Finally Captured This Two Year Old's Smile

Okay, I know that has been a while since Dawson turned two, but I have attempted pictures a few different times with him... on my own of course. He just runs away from me every time so this time I decided to BRIBE him with some Halloween candy. As you can see it did the trick.

Charlie Brown And Snoopy

Happy Halloween!! This year we decided to make our boys Charlie Brown and Snoopy since everyone is always telling us that Dawson looks like Charlie Brown... it didn't hurt that they were fairly simple costumes to make either. :) I painted the crazy stripe on Dawson's shirt, I thought I'd better get it kind of large for him since Charlie Brown's shirt is really long. I think that I may have gone a little bit too big but oh well... I think it will work. Oh... and I think that Jett's costume turned out so cute!! Not bad for a person that is not super crafty huh?! LOVE these cuties!

What CRAZY Person Uses Cloth Diapers?!!

Me that's who!! Well we are trying them anyway. We will see how this goes. I have a lot of friends that use them that have been trying to talk me into them for a while now. I always thought people who used them were CRAZY. We only have to use them for 6 weeks for them to pay for themselves and if we like them... well then I will never have to buy diapers again... well not as often anyway. The kind that I got is supposed to fit from birth until the time that they are out of diapers. They are really cute and actually very simple. Wish me luck!

Happy 2nd Birthday Dawson!!

This year for Dawson's birthday we were just going to keep it very simple and have a little family outing and do something really fun but that the last minute we decided to invite some family and friends and go to Chuckie Cheese's... I am glad we did because Dawson couldn't have been happier. He is obsessed with driving so he drove anything that you could possible drive and threw every ball that he wanted to throw. We had a little cake and opened some presents. It was still very simple but he enjoyed EVERY second!I cannot believe that I have a 2 year old!!!

September Photo Dump...

Cal-i-FORNIA Knows How To Partay

Last week we had the opportunity to go to California to visit Chad's grandparents. It was a really great time! They live near Sacramento in a beautiful home with a beautiful pool, fun yard and they could not have been more hospitable. We enjoyed many wonderful memories both at their home and at Chad's uncle's home in Los Altos. The first couple of days were spent enjoying time playing ping pong, watching Dawson follow Grandpa Ivard around from one super fun activity to the next and Grandma JaNeen go wild over sweet little baby Jett. Ivard and JaNeen offered to entertain the boys for a day while we went to San Francisco.

I have never really been to California before so it was really fun to see the sights and enjoy the day with Chad and Parker and not have to worry about chasing Dawson everywhere. We went to the Museum of Fine Arts Exploratorium. It was AMAZING! I felt like a little kid running around and playing with everything. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge which was really neat because I have seen it hundreds of times on TV. We also drove down Crooked Lombard Street which is really an interesting thing to see as I have never seen anything like that before. The last thing that we decided to check out in San Francisco was Fisherman's Wharf, it was a fun little place with lots of vendors and cute little shops and restaurants. There were some really great ships there as well.

After enjoying San Francisco, we headed over to Jim and Lisa's home for a yummy dinner and fun games. We played with the kiddos throwing rocks at the rat nests, checking out a dead bunny, and playing in their amazing playhouse that is almost comparable in size to our apartment. We stayed over night and headed back the following morning to be with our babies. The next couple of days were filled with more family as Curtis and Cathy were able to visit with their children, games, basketball, ping pong, a great lesson at church given by the one and only JaNeen Budge and lots of yummy food and football. It was a wonderful and much needed vacation. I think if Dawson were given the choice to stay and play with Grandpa Ivard, he unquestionably would have. Thank you to all of you Cali-folks for making this trip an enjoyable experience for us! We love ya!

Happy Birthday and Summer

Chad turned 26 on Saturday. To me that is one of those ages that sounds significantly older than the last. Anyway, on Friday we were able to spend an evening with Nathan and Paloma it was very nice. They treated us to some yummy Olive Garden for the occasion and we even had dessert which is rare since we usually eat way to much to even think of having dessert, I must say it was yummy, the entire time I was wondering why people don't eat dessert first just to make sure they have room for it. Saturday we were able to go out with some friends to eat at Michael's on the Lake and attend the Grant County Rodeo. That was also very fun!
The first picture was Chad and I before our date and the others were from earlier in the summer that I found on Chad's phone. This summer has been a really fun one! Swimming, feeding the birds, spending time with good friends, getting in shape and watching my babies grow... I am not sure but I don't think it gets much better!

Jett 4 Month Photo

Can it be?? My "tiny" baby is already 4 months old.

I cannot believe how quickly the time is going these days. I feel like I just had him but I cannot imagine my life without him. Oh and he is already sitting up as you can see and when we went to his 4 month check-up at the Doctor's office they weighed and measured him and I could not believe what they told me... My sweet boy is already 27 inches long and 17 pounds. He is in the 90th percentile for his weight and the 95th for his height. This boy seems to be a clone of his father. We were checking out Chad's baby photos the other day and I was a little freaked out about how much they look alike.

Jett Is Almost 4 Months Old!??

Jett will be 4 months old on Friday. I cannot believe it, time is flying by. We have a little cutie on our hands, he seems to get even cuter every day.

On another note, Chad will be 26 on August 21st...

Dawson and Daddy

This just so precious!

Stress Relief

Today I gave Dawson a bath which is generally a point of the day when I do not have to worry about much because he loves his bath time. I heard Jett start to wake up and left the room to grab him up out of his bed. All of a sudden I hear an "Oops!" come from the bathroom... I ran in to find a heavenly scent permeating from the tub and Dawson holding one of my containers for sugar scrub and the oils from the scrub floating atop the bath water. He had a huge smile on his face in spite of the fact that he knew that I was not happy, which happens more than I'd like to admit. I was flustered and wanted to scream. That was until I noticed the kind that he had selected to spill everywhere and once I noticed that, I thought to myself... 'Heavenly Father must have a sense of humor'. I am sure he is cracking up at this moment and I began to laugh. It was the kind that is supposed to help with stress relief. I immediately went to grab my camera to capture this moment since I felt that it was a reminder to me to enjoy every moment of my life.

P90X Progress

I am trying to keep everyone updated as to my progress on P90x to not only to keep myself motivated but to motivate others. So far with the P90x workouts I have been faithful for 51 days now and lost 10 pounds. I would like to clarify I am not doing the diet, only the workouts. I think that the 10 pounds is great but more importantly I feel amazing and have so much more energy. My body has changed so much and I am so much stronger and able to do many of the things I was unable to in the beginning. Everyone is always asking to see before and after shots and I have been taking photos of myself in a bathing suit once a week since I started just to see the progress myself but nobody will ever see those but me and maybe my husband, sister and mother. I did find these pictures to give you an idea of my progress.

What A Crack-Up

I love it when he giggles uncontrollably!

Surprise Utah Trip & Swing

This last week my mom and I decided the night before we left to go and visit my sister for her birthday in Utah. The following morning we left for our adventure. It was a long drive I think that we decided it took us about 14 hours on the way there because we stopped quite a bit to keep everyone happy and comfortable. Despite the long trip, the boys did amazing. I can really only think of one little melt down Dawson had and that was actually when we were stopped and in WalMart. Jett was sleeping or very happy unless he was hungry or poopy. It was actually very pleasant, well except for the aching butt that we received from sitting in the car all day. We arrived at Aletha's house around midnight and ran around to the back to jump on her trampoline and gave her a call and asked her to come outside to join us... she had no clue that we were coming. The following day we went to a place called Kangaroo Zoo it was a huge warehouse type building with over sized bouncy castles and slides. It was so fun and we spend almost the entire day there running around and having fun.

At one point Aletha and I decided to race through a few obstacles and ending at the bottom of a slide. I decided I was going to win no matter what I had to do and I threw my body over the top of the slide and went head first into the slide where my face was squished right into the slide causing my neck twist and to pop very loudly. At first I thought I might have broken my neck but I tried moving and I was able to so I figured it was okay and got up to confirm that I had won. I DID! Yay me! I am still sore from this little incident but it was totally worth it!

We also went to Ikea... it is my new favorite store. My sister had this really cool indoor swing in her house for her kids that she had purchased at Ikea. I decided that I also needed one. I put it up yesterday as you can see from the video. So cool Dawson loves it... he was watching tv when I recorded him so he was a little distracted.

Anyway we were only able to stay for a couple of days but it was totally worth the trip to see one of my very favorite people in the world my sister!! LOVE YOU LETH!

My New Little Jumper

It seems like just the other day that we were putting Dawson in this little jumper. Jett is such a little chunker, oh I just LOVE chubby babies! I always go and compare photos of Dawson and Jett at the same age... I was looking through photos of Dawson when he was this age and found this other cute little smiley one. These are both of their first really smiley photos so I thought I would post them both.

A Few New Pictures

This summer has been really great! We try to spend time outside as much as possible but it seems like I get hot really easily and I think it cant be good for my babies so we end up coming in fairly quickly.

Last week Dawson was able to go to Texas with Dan, Lisa and Parker to a Budge family reunion that we were unable to attend. They were gone from Early Thursday morning until the following Monday evening so needless to say I struggled with a little separation anxiety however it seems as if Dawson did not care one bit that he was away from us. It probably helped that they were busy doing really fun things the ENTIRE trip.

Today we were playing outside drawing with chalk and blowing bubbles and I decided to grab my camera and snap a few shots of the boys... Jett is now 3 months old and I need to do some real shots of him, I guess I just need to stop making excuses and just do it... but for now here are a few to hold everyone off.

Video Update On Kids

Dawson's Grandma Lisa has a little problem... she pretty much has to buy him anything that she thinks he might like. Here is her latest purchase, it had to be one with a slide. As you can see he is loving it, I am loving that it stays at her house but that we can go over whenever we'd like to! Thanks Lisa, this summer will be a good one because Dawson has his own pool!

As you can also see Jett is growing like crazy and I was looking at pictures of Chad as a baby and you would not be able to tell them apart and if Chad were 25 years younger they'd be identical twinners! Please disregard my talking how embarrassing. Why don't I just keep my mouth shut!??

P90X Seeing Some Results

So today was officially the end of my second week of doing P90X. I am trying to keep people informed of my progress so that I can stay motivated... I will officially weigh and measure myself again tomorrow but after the first week I had lost 4 pounds and an inch around my chest, stomach, thighs and a half inch around my biceps. I knew that I felt much better and that my muscles were feeling more firm but I was not expecting those results especially since I am not really doing the diet part. I really look forward to doing the program each day and I really enjoy working different parts of my body each time. I have been trying to post something each day on my facebook to keep myself accountable. I love the kind of sore that this program makes me feel. If I do not get sore after working out I feel that I haven't been working hard enough. Also, I am not one that does a lot of sweating... however, during this program I have to say that I sweat like a MAN! Right now, my favorite workouts are CardioX, KenpoX and PliometricsX those are the ones that really make me sweat it all out and feel like I am working hard. I also feel like any stress I may have oozes out of my body. It is weird to say this but I really like Tony Horton he seems to say the right things to get me motivated and feel like I can just "do my best and forget the rest!" I feel like I am accomplishing a goal that I have set for myself and it feels good! I like that I have decided to do this for myself and I am just doing it and not letting anything else distract me from it. I cannot wait to see the final results of my 90 day program. It is EXCITING!

Another Sighting Caught On Video

Finally got it!! kind of... I caught the tail end of a Jett smile... man I have been lucky these last couple days... ENJOY!

Finally Got This On Video

I have been trying to get Dawson to say a few words on video for the longest time but he always gets distracted and wanders off but today I was kinda lucky and got many of them... there are still a ton that we didn't include however, I couldn't think of all of them on the spot and frankly I couldn't remember what I already had him say so next time I will be prepared and write them down first...

Lazy Memorial Day

Well usually we'd be at Silverwood today or doing something else fun with our friends but Chad and Dawson are both sick so here is how we are spending our holiday this year...

Jett Update

I have heard some criticism that I have way more photos of Dawson recently than I do of Jett. The reason that this is happening is that Jett sleeps quite a bit. It seems like every time I have my camera out he is asleep and to be honest you can only take so many photos of a sleeping baby before it gets old. So here are a couple that I snapped the other day of Jett. He is now about a month and a half old.

Lots Going On...

Well we have had a lot going on the last week or so... The boys and I went to Spokane with my mom to see my grandparents that live in Liberty Lake. They had not yet seen Jett so we thought we'd take a little trip to visit. We had so much fun with them Dawson was showing off for them and they loved holding "the new baby". My grandma made sure that I knew that the name Jett was a "unique name", she is so cute I love her! Also, we headed to Ephrata and visited my parents this last weekend since we don't get over there much. Dawson was able to spend some time with his cousins... he loves them so much and had so much fun! This last week I received my new stroller and was able to run/walk it felt so good but made me sore! I feel so out of shape but I LOVE it when you feel like you have actually worked out. Anyway this last week has been great!