On Frozen Pond

Anyone who has been to my parents' house knows that they have a big pond in the back yard. This pond has been a source of anxiety for me since my kids were born. They can't go outside without supervision because they don't know how to swim. The pond has also been a wonderful source of fun for the kids. They catch fish, throw rocks, feed the fish, play in the water, and sometimes they even get to go ice skating! I have only seen the pond freeze that solidly once before. The kids had so much fun "ice skating" in their shoes and trying not to fall. Nicole was a little more reserved; Tyler was an animal. He didn't care how many times he fell, how wet his pants got, or how cold it was! He loved the frozen pond! The real trick was running from the grass, sliding on the pond and trying to make it to the other side. The pond is oval and we were sliding on the narrow part. It was a lot of fun. Here's some pictures of our time on the ice. I have a cool video, but I can't figure out how to get it on here. My video link seems to have disappeared!

Why?

That was my only question. Why? Why would you do this? Why would anyone do this? Why is the fire extinguished? Why are you hiding under the table? Why does our kitchen smell like a campground latrine in August? I wish I didn't know the answers, but I do.

Here is a cup.

Here is my fireplace.

 Here is my daughter.

If I asked you to come up with some scenario with those three things, what would you come up with? Hopefully not what ACTUALLY happened. Nicole had to use the restroom and for some weird, twisted, unbeknownst to us reason chose to do her business in a dixie cup. Yes people, a dixie cup. Not even a full sized dixie cup, one of the minis. I guess she didn't know what to do with the evidence of her crime -- at the Davis house we ONLY go potty in the toilet-- so she decided to BURN her evidence. So she dumped it in our fireplace! She extinguished the flame, put out the pilot light, and the pee was sizzling all around the fake logs. Ben and I were sitting on the couch and I heard this strange sizzling noise. I knew the fireplace doors were open and I was afraid something was getting ruined. Instead, I got into the room and Nicole dove under the kitchen table (I think she thought I wouldn't see her under there) and I saw the mystery liquid sizzling in the fireplace. I didn't know what it was at first, but as I got closer to inspect the damage, the smell hit Ben and I and we both looked at her and said, "Is this pee?" She didn't even deny it. We sent her to her room for the longest time-out of her life. When we asked her why she did it, all she said was "I don't know." Well, I don't know either, but I kinda wish it had happened to somebody else.

The pee was all over the rug too, so we had to move the furniture and hose it off outside. Then I had to mop the kitchen TWICE to get the pee smell of the floor! Nicole said she wants to learn how to be a "real mommy" so I let her mop up her nastiness. I should have done that anyway.

So now my rug is dripping wet outside.

I'm not sure where I went wrong, but my daughter is crazy and it's probably partly my fault.

Overdosed on Cupcakes

Don't judge her. We've all been there. You eat a cupcake and think, "wow, this is really good, I should eat more!" Then after a while you feel like you just want to die. Lesson learned, stop when you're ahead.

(oh please, we never actually learn this lesson, we just keep binging over and over again as our bellies and thighs and bottoms get bigger and bigger.)

Yet Another Home Improvement Project

We have been working on our kitchen since we moved in. This is what we've done so far:

-changed the pink mini-blinds to white stylish ones
-painted the whole room
-took down some sweet florescent lights and put in can lights
-ripped out carpet and linoleum and put in hardwood floor
-replaced the stove/oven
-added a built in microwave
-refaced all of the cabinets doors and drawers
-new faucet
-crown molding on the top of the cabinets
-replaced the pink tile around the fireplace with travertine
-built a mantle
-added a cool light over the kitchen table
-AND NOW WE HAVE DONE OUR BACKSPLASH!!!

Honestly, I don't think there's much else to do besides replacing the dishwasher and fridge (we really want a black fridge, but don't get us started on that!) and the countertops. I don't mind the countertop at all so we're in no hurry. We probably won't do anything with it unless it gets ruined. With three children, that's a serious possibility, but for now, I think we might be done. Here's some pictures of our new backsplash.

hmmm... those look like roses on the counter... could it be? YES!!! Ben bought me flowers for no reason at all. Just another reason my husband is better than yours.

Why I use a straightener

It takes about an hour for me to do my hair--that includes washing, drying, and straightening. People have asked me, "well, can't you just use a hair drying and BLOW it straight?" Gee, I hadn't thought of that! Oh wait, you don't have curly hair, you don't understand! So, for all of you who think that I should just use my hair dryer and save myself 35 minutes (give or take) of hair styling time that could be used doing more important things... THIS IS WHY I MUST USE A STRAIGHTENER.

Hair dryer                                              vs.                                               Straightener

The REAL Food Network Star

Tyler LOVES too cook. When I make dinner, he always asks if he can help. He's even learning fractions with measuring cups! He helped me make dinner last night and you can tell that he watches way too much Food Network. He sprinkles the kosher salt on the food in a circle and uses his hand to waft the smell to his face. It's hilarious. Ben and I both learned how to cook at a very young age from our mothers. I know men that would starve--or live on sandwiches--if their wives didn't cook for them. Tyler's going to be a master chef before he hits middle school!

Nicole saw Tyler cooking and immediately had to help too. She pretty much only wants to help when he's helping. She worships him and wants to be just like him. Hopefully she'll pick up some technique while she's copying Tyler.

My Picture Taking Days Are Numbered

This is what happens when I try to take a picture of Tori:

"Oh look! The camera! I'm so HAPPY!!!"

"Okay, that's enough for you, I want the camera now."

"No? You're telling me NO? That's it, I'm going to scowl at you so your pictures won't be cute. Take that!!"

"You'd better give me the camera NOW or I'm going to get REALLY pissed."

Another amazing craft project

Okay. I'm really excited about this one. On one side of these blocks it says Happy Harvest and on the other side it says Merry Christmas!! In a few months when Christmas comes around, all I have to do is flip them around (and maybe a little rearranging) and I have a super cute Christmas decoration too! My mom's friend has a commercial vinyl lettering machine so we painted the blocks orange and then put the letters on. I'm thrilled with how they turned out.

New hair... or is it?

Okay, so I have a reddish tint to my hair naturally. I don't like it. I don't want it there. I try to cover it up with dye but it keeps coming back. I try to dye it "ash" based colors with a green tint to try to neutralize the red, but it doesn't seem to help. A girl at Sally's helped me pick out the perfect dye to cover up the red in my hair. Here is my hair before the dye:

Are you ready to see the great "red free" hair I have now!?!?!?!? I know you are. Here it is!! Yeah, I know. It's exactly the same color. That girl was full of CRAP. Sigh. At least my gray is covered.

Glitter Pumpkins - Conference Project #1

This is what I did this morning for my conference project. I have this terrible habit of falling asleep or zoning out if I don't have something to do with my hands. I think they turned out great!!! I found the pumpkins, glitter, and glue at Michaels. I saw these in the October 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living. It was easy, fun, and I'm thrilled with the result! Now my kids want to decorate their pumpkins with glitter. Wish me luck with that one!!

Nicole is 4!!!!

I would love to do a bunch of pictures of Nicole growing up and show everyone how cute she is now and how scary she looked when she was born, but there are too many to choose from so here's a summary of Nicole's 4th birthday:

7:30 am - wake up and open new clothes from Grandma Debbi.
7:35 am - run around the house giggling because she has new clothes.
7:45 am - finally into her new clothes and ready for breakfast.










8:00 am - eating coco puffs mixed with captain crunch (her favorite breakfast)
8:45 am - she remembers that Uncle David and Aunt Sara sent her a box. We absolutely must open it right this second or we might explode. It's a barbie and some movies. She's in love with the Barbie but doesn't care about the movies because she doesn't know what they are.
9:00 am - off to preschool where we receive a crown with "jewels" on it. We're feeling pretty special.










10:00 am - birthday party at preschool. Daddy made a yellow cake and mommy put green sprinkles in the shape of hearts (per Nicole's request).
12:00 pm - home from school and off to Safeway to pick up her Barbie birthday cake. Meanwhile, we have to tell everyone we pass that it's her birthday and she's 4 now.







12:30 pm - lunch that includes plain pasta, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and capri sun. Her favorite. I decide to give her vitamins because proper nutrition just isn't going to happen today.
12:35 pm - I'm running around like a crazy person trying to put up pink streamers and balloons for the birthday girl.
1:00 pm - Lia Belle and Grace come over (in full costume) for the Barbie birthday party.
3:00 pm - Party's over and Nicole now has more jewelry for her non-existent jewelry box that was supposed to get here a few days ago from Target.com and mom is sweating bullets!
4:00 pm - The UPS guy shows up with the jewelry box. Whew!!
4:01 pm - I put the jewelry box on my bed and try to find the wrapping paper so that this whole mess can be behind me. then I hear her yelling, "Mom! You don't have to buy me a jewelry box any more! I just found one!" Sigh. So much for my big moment of "greatest mom ever". Oh well, she loves it, that's the most important part.
5:00 pm - We're all too full of cake to eat anything for dinner. More vitamins.
6:30 pm - Grandma Belva, Grandpa Wiley, Grandma Lisa, and Grandpa John all show up for the family birthday party. We have presents galore, MORE chocolate cake with pink sprinkles and vanilla ice cream. (I wrote exactly what she wanted)







8:00 pm - Nicole goes to bed and says, "Mom, I had 3 birthdays today. First I was 4, then I was 5, and now I'm 6!!!" Carefully explaining that she's still only 4 leaves a confused look on her face, so I tell her she can be as old as she wants tonight, but tomorrow she has to be 4 again. This compromise seems to satisfy her.

She's the greatest little girl that a mother could ask for. I don't know what I'd do without her and I never in a million years thought that a child could be so maddening, cute, and funny, all at the same time. Thanks for being such a good girl, Coley.

p.s. I may have also given Tori a piece of cake :-)

This is why...

This is why I don't let Tyler play with my camera:
(I have hundreds of these self-portraits)











This is why I should do Nicole's nails instead of letting her get a pedicure with Grandma:
(sorry, it wouldn't rotate)










This is why babies shouldn't go to Mardi Gras:

You should be jealous of me

Here are two reasons you should be jealous of me:

First, what could this baby be eating that is making her so happy? Why, its broccoli! Yes, my daughter is eating broccoli. I am counting it as a personal victory.













Second, I have the greatest garbage can in the universe. The only way it could be better is if it emptied itself and put in a new bag. I can hear you saying, "a garbage can? seriously? what's so great about it?" Well, my friends, let me tell you. It has two compartments inside, one for garbage and one for recycling. I love that! Also, it has one of those little pedals to step on to open it. I need something with a lid because of my crazy baby, but it's nice to be able to open it with my foot so that when I have my hands full, I don't have to worry about it. The coolest part (in my opinion) is how it closes. How it closes? Yes, you read it correctly. It closes in slow motion which is wonderful for my little baby's fingers! It closes flush with the sides so she can't get into it! Well, almost flush, she can worm those chubby little fingers in there sometimes. I found a barbie in the recycling this afternoon. I don't think anything will stop her. She'll just have to grow out of it... I hope.

It's not just adults...

You know how when you're feeding a baby you tend to open your mouth when you want them open their mouth? Well, it goes both ways. Here's a little video of Tori feeding me some chips:

Sigh

Does anyone have an empty basement with good lock on the door that I can borrow for about 25 years?

All right people. It's time.
My mom and I are renting out the whole theater again (at Cinetopia in Vancouver) and if you want to come, you'd better let me known ASAP! Last time, we got a small theater (only 86 seats), this time, we are getting 144 seats! So, not only could you come, but you could bring friends!! Wait, it gets better. Because we are getting the whole theater, we get to see it on November 19th at 5:00 pm instead of waiting up until midnight or seeing it on opening day (November 20th)! So you really will be seeing it before anyone else! Plus, because the movie isn't actually open yet, there won't be huge crowds. So, please, if you want to come, leave me a comment on here, send me an email, call me, text me, whatever. Just let me know so I can reserve your seat.

Hawaii... summed up

Ben summed up his Seattle weekend with a video; I'll sum my Hawaiian weekend up with just one picture:

I had a wonderful trip with my mom and now I'm glad to be back home with my family.

Weekend in Seattle

Well, I had a great weekend. I got up at 6am on Saturday, played some basketball, took a shower and headed to the train station. My office took the train to Seattle where we took in the Mariners-Yankees game, and since Kristi was off in Hawaii, John was kind enough to let my buddy Eric have a ticket to the game as well. When we got there, a bunch of us went to Serious Pie and ate some amazing pizza. I then met up with my bro-mance (according to Kristi)Eric, and we wandered around Seattle until game time. Eric thought it would be funny if we, every time we saw a Yankees fan (or whenever we felt liked it actually) to have one of us say "Hip, hip!" and the other would shout "Jorge!!!" This is in homage to the excellent SportsCenter commerical below.



We found this endlessly amusing. When we got to the box, every time Mr. Posada came to bat, right as the pitcher would throw the ball, I would again shout "Hip, hip!" and the entire box would shout the Jorge part. By then end of the evening, it seemed like we had the adjacent boxes and/or surround fans chanting right along with us. That or our group just got really loud. I'd like to think it was a combo of both.

We also chanted this on the train ride home (where our engine broke and we sat on the tracks for 2 extra hours) and when we exited the train. This will now be forever funny to me, even though I am sure it annoys the heck out of everyone else. But I laugh, Eric laughs, and the rest of the office laughed (at least at some point). And good times were had by all. Thanks a lot E.

Dirrrrty

This is what happens when you give a baby a bowl with Nutella, peanut butter, and caramel. I may have also given her the spatula with some chocolate cake batter. Any wonder why she's so chunky?

The funnier (and more embarrassing) portion of my past...

My dad is hilarious. Any of you that know him know just how funny he can be. Anyone who knows "Bucky" probably envies and feels sorry for me at the same time. You see, Bucky is my dad's nerdy, semi-retarded alter ego. Bucky has showed up at some pretty funny places; court, parent/teacher conferences, job interviews, business meetings, parties, weddings, BBQs, relative's homes, and a thousand other places. He has this whole character developed and he's hilarious! We all love Bucky, but only once you know that it's just my dad and that he's just playing. Before you realize who it is (sometimes not until after he takes off the teeth and glasses) it's awkward and uncomfortable. Most people have a look on their face that says, "what am I supposed to do here?" or "Is this guy for real?" I won't bother telling you the Bucky stories because I wouldn't do them justice. Worse than that, I would take the hilarity out of the situation and that would be blasphemous!
This picture is from yesterday and it doesn't really show the whole Bucky costume. Sometimes he has a janitor jumpsuit on or a really bad suit. There's a thousand different things that he could wear, but the essence of the Bucky costume is the teeth. They are really quite disgusting. My dad is about to have some oral surgery done and his Bucky teeth won't fit any more. Now, seriously, Bucky has been part of my life for a very VERY long time. Bucky met my 2nd grade teacher, he scared my boyfriends, he has made me laugh harder than I have ever laughed in my life. So, Rick, when you're done with his mouth, will you make him some new Bucky teeth? This world is a better place with Bucky. :-)


p.s. Tyler and Nicole are old enough to realize that it's still grandpa, but Tori is scared to death of him. She gets as far away from him as she can! When he takes it off she runs to him again.

First Fish

Nicole caught her first fish with my dad. She thought it was going to be so great, but when the fish actually came out of the water, she wanted nothing to do with it. I love the look on her face in this picture! I think her favorite part was finding a worm for the hook. That night in her prayers she said, "... and bless me that next time I can catch two fish, or three fish, or four fish..." It was so funny. I don't think Ben and I did a very good job concealing our laughter.
p.s. this happened in the pond in my parents back yard and yes, we put the fish back in the water after we took the picture.

Free Time

When the kids go to bed, I usually just sit down and read or watch tv. I'm too dang tired to do anything else. Well, last night I decided to do something creative instead! I know. I'm proud of me too. :-) This is what came of my creative free time:

I was going to put up a picture of how cute they look on, but those pictures were just cheesy and embarrassing so I left them out. You'll just have to use your imagination (or check them out at church next Sunday!)

Tori's Camera Face

This is what happens when Tori sees me taking her picture: