Getting ready for Christmas!

The Davis annual gingerbread house building--these collapsed the next day due to humidity.

The Davis Family Christmas "Tree"

We don't have enough room on the tree for all the ornaments, so we put some on our doorknobs

One more picture!  I took this picture in October, someone's festive porch in the mountains.

Pumpkin Kitty, Bunny, and the Ocean

Happy Halloween from the Davis children!

Happy Easter!

Greetings, Earthlings!

We've mostly been packing and cleaning our basement and selling things on Craigslist and giving things away on Freecycle, getting ready for our move. But in between we had some good moments and I thought I'd give you a few good kid pictures.

Our visit to the Crayola factory, a cute (if slightly retail-focused) crafty kid museum. We stocked up on the model magic with our tokens (they had crayons and markers first that our kids wanted to buy but their mom encouraged them to hold out--I mean, why buy a four pack of crayons when we have a zillion at home? or a green marker? Plenty of those in the bin!). The model magic clay went right into the plane toy department, my stock pile of toys to try to keep them busy during our 3 hour flight and 4 hour layover on departure day.

Egg painting!

I love this dye (Doc Hinkle's) which is more like paint, my mom finds it for us every year.

Happy Easter! Or as they say in the Orthodox Church:

"Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!"

Valentine's Craft Idea

So after I saw what a few cheap pieces of wood, some beads, and some glitter could do for a Christmas craft (thank you, Becky), I decided to stop by to come up with one for Valentine's Day. We bought some light-weight wooden hearts (two of each pattern) and flowers and some pinky-purply beads, some even shaped as hearts. We decorated them, hot-glued two identical shapes back-to-back to the end of some fishing line, and then strung some beads on. To complete it, we glued two more identical wooden shapes to the other end. The we added the glitter. I am finding that last step quite transformational. A little glitter really takes it up a notch, I'm telling you. Happy Valentine's Day, grandparents! :)

A Very Davis Christmas

Thanks, Becky, for this cool decorative craft that kept us busy and knee-deep in glitter for days. A trip to Michaels, some fishing line, some marker and glitter, some jingle bells, and viola! The kids are excited about the tree and the cookies! And we had to do the Target dollar spot festive headgear.

Mommy Camp

Mommy Camp kicked off this week.  I decided that while we are not going to pay for camp for our 3 and 5 year-old, there was no good reason that we couldn't make a "camp" schedule for the summer.  So on This week we made our calendar for the 12 weeks of summer.  It's really tall, it wouldn't all fit in the picture.  That way the kids can look and see when we're going to Lancaster to visit Grandma and Grandpa, when we're going to South Carolina to visit Meme and Granddaddy, and when we're going to the beach (those are generally the three questions I get asked daily).  We went to two parks for picnic lunches and playdates, and we went to the zoo.  We had our first piano lesson and we made string bracelets for our first craft.  I am a little tired, but I have to say that it would be way worse to not really have any structure to these three birds in the nest days.  Plus, "camp" only really lasts between one and three hours.  Grocery store visits and life have to fit in around this stuff.

Here's our weekly schedule:

Mon:  Micah work with Mommy on reading, math, writing practice/Jesse work on independent "workbook"--then switch.  This day will also be a theme day.  Monday was summer kick-off day, and I don't know what else we'll do (sports day, letter "c" day, water fun day . . .)

Tues:  Craft, outing

Wed:  Piano lesson, pool

Thurs:  Mommy project (I have no idea what this means for tomorrow, maybe gardening?) with boys; playdate.

Fri:  Daddy off work (most of the time, for the summer only)

So we're excited.  The kids are really looking forward to "Camp Week" when I plan on setting up the tent in the yard for the week for the kids to play in.  I'll have to post highlights.  :)

Happy Garden Day!

Micah was off school for voting day, this rainy day, and I decided we needed an event for our morning.  So I designed a garden scavenger hunt.  How many tomato plants can you find?  Pick a scallion.  Things like that.  Our final step was an edible craft, a vegetable rabbit.  Just thought I'd post some pictures, they were so cute.  The ears are radishes, the bodies are carrots, the whiskers are radish stems, the noses are peas, the mouths are thin strips of apple, the eyes are raisins, and the tails are cauliflower.