Ice Skating with YW

A few YW...notice the leaders are shorter then the girls.

The Leaders

With J.R's schedule so nuts sometimes we have to combine family time with my YW commitments. Elliot loves the girls so it works!

Who knew Elliot would like ice skating so much? He laughed the whole time. I think he thought it was so funny that he couldn't stand up by himself. Understandably he didn't last long because I think his little arms were getting sore from us holding him up. But, overall it was a great little outing.

The YW in our ward are so fun! I'm learning so much from those girls! It was a major old age shock when I first was put in the YW. I think I still felt like I was 18, but then quickly realized I am actually much older then that now. It took a minute to adjust, but I feel like I've found my place and LOVE my girls so much!

My sweet Elliot - Journal stuff

This is such a precious time for us. We love reading before bed. Elliot especially loves the books that have songs that go with them. Like, the Clifford book and Down by the Station. He sings along right on pitch. We play a game where I sing and he tries to match my pitch and he's really quite good at it! He must have a few musical genes in him. :0)

A few Elliot updates:

He loves to play with his train set. He got a new battery powered engined named "Lady" It never gets old hearing him say her name. He can't says his R's or his L's. "Wheahs wady?" "Go wady go!" "You can do it wady" "Good job wady." I LOVE IT! Sometimes I think about hiding her just to hear him ask where she is. It's a guaranteed smile on mommy's face.

He also loves dinosaurs! He watches Ice Age Dinosaurs all the time. (I don't love the movie - some lines are not that appropriate, but right now he's still young enough that he doesn't have a clue what they're talking about and he usually only pays attention when Rudy or the TRex is on) It's also the cutest thing to hear him say TRex. "Twexss" He seems to hold out the S sound a little longer then necessary. He has a sticker board and always chooses the TRex stickers to put on when he's especially good. Then he always counts how many he has so far. "one, two, fwee, fouw, five, six, seben. Seben Twexsess!" LOVE IT!!! Yet another smile all over my face.

He's loves to count EVERYTHING! He counts 1-9 then starts again at 4. Not sure where that pattern started because he used to count 1-4 then 6-10 (skipping 5 for some reason) I guess we drilled 5 so much that he's forgotten about 10 now. I'm not sure? With a little coaxing he'll give 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 a try too, usually without much success though. At least he's trying. :)

He's still the pickiest eater on earth. Right now the only thing he'll eat is fries and pancakes. He hasn't had a pancake binge for a while so I guess it's about time to rotate back to it. I'm sure we'll be back to chicken nuggets before too long. I wonder when hot dogs and macaroni and cheese are going to come into play?? This is one area where he didn't get any of my genes. I love food.

He's sings along to anything he hears. Even to chimes ringing outside on a windy day. He loves to stop and listen to them then try to match their tones. He sings along to the radio even if he's never heard the song...most songs have a short repeating phrase so by the second chorus he knows enough to belt it out. He knows every tune and almost every correct word to all the Disney & Nickelodeon cartoons.He tells me to sing "do do do" if I don't know the words or if he's making up his own tune and he want's me to give it a try. What a cutie pie!!!

We're still working on the potty thing. We talk about it all the time and occasionally he'll want to jump up on the seat and give it a good effort, but no results just yet. I'm not opposed to being patient. Potty training scares me.

My heart just aches when I think of how much a love this kid. He fills my day with such joy. Even when we have a grumpy day or things just aren't going quite right, it doesn't take much to remember what a blessing he is to me!

I LOVE YOU ELLIOT!

Baby it's cold INSIDE

Thankfully it was a rather warm weekend because Saturday night our heater quit working and didn't come back on till Monday morning. J.R. was on call Sunday and I have NO IDEA how to manage a heating system so Elliot and I spent the day wrapped in several layers thinking warm thoughts. By that evening when J.R. got home and we had exhausted all our ideas, we decided to call in a maintenance guy. He said he would be over around 9pm, but didn't call till about 12:30am and then said he couldn't be there for another 30 minutes. 1AM??? Seriously??? (there was a huge Colts football game that day so I have suspicions that was what held him up) We were long gone asleep by then so we decided to ride out the night. We were prepared with tons of blankets and fully dressed in ski gear. Elliot slept in the middle to add to the body heat. Luckily because of the weather it wasn't as cold a night as we were prepared for. J.R. checked the temp Monday morning and it had only dropped to 60 degrees. But still, that's pretty darn cold. Then, by some random miracle the heat just switched on. We hadn't touched it all night and Monday morning it just decided it had tortured us enough and switched on. Hummmm....weird! We decided not to recall the service guy and just wait it out for a few days. It's been going strong all week. Thank heavens, because the temp outside dropped dramatically this week.

Side story:

When we were waking up Monday morning Elliot was doing the morning ritual of trying to drag me out of bed to play with toys and watch cartoons. He handed me my glasses, phone and started pulling off my blankets one by one. After pulling back the last blanket he stood back as if in shock and said, "WOW, that's a lot of blankets! I'm gonna count them. 1,2,3,4,5,6. 6 Blankets!" It was hilarious. He just couldn't believe his eyes, as if it was the craziest thing he'd ever seen. I couldn't stop giggling and was then more then happy to get up and play with him. He's so funny and cute!

After that cold weekend I'm much more sincere during prayers when I thank Heavenly Father for a WARM house. :0) We're so blessed!

Outlet Oops!

I thought I had made it past the "let's put things in the outlet" phase without an incident.....until today. As we were organizing our basement Elliot found a kite. He took it upstairs. Harmless...or so I thought. Next we hear him saying "uh oh, uh oh" over and over. We ran up and sure enough he decided to take apart the kite then stick a piece into the outlet. Seriously?? We caught him pulling on the piece he had stuck in that apparently was not coming back out. The tear in his eye will tell you we had a little chat in time out...mostly because it scared me to death. Thank heavens the piece was plastic and didn't shock him. It took J.R. a while to figure out how to wiggle it out. Luckily there was no harm done - except to the kite that ended up in the trash.

Yet another day survived with a 2 year old running loose!!

Christmas FUN

Cmas morning. Playing with remote control car

Surprise train set

Trying to hold back the Cmas eve excitement for a few pics.

Cmas EVE

A visit from the big man himself (a few days before Cmas)

Talk about a wild Christmas! We had such a great time being home with the family for Christmas. Although we truely did miss our Sun Valley family - after 8 years away, it's about time we were home for at least one Christmas....right??

We got spoiled rotten this year and I'm not even sure we deserved it. :)

We jumped back and forth between families a bit trying to spread the love, but in the end totally enjoyed ourselves. We ate way too much food, played a few too many games, stayed up much too late, didn't quite sing enough Christmas carols but had a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thanks Grandma, Papa, Oma and Opa! Love you sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews! We had a wonderful Christmas vacation! Thanks for letting us stay for so long!

(Turns out I took way more video then photos of Christmas Eve and Day...oh well.)

Leaving a legacy

My dear Grandfather passed away after 91 years of an extraordinary life. He left a legacy of faith that has been passed down to his 7 children, 48 grandchildren and 100+ great grandchildren.

Anyone who had the chance to meet him felt his unbiased love immediately. He was the most unselfish man I've ever met. He taught me so much about being a good person, loving those around you, and building a strong family. I miss him, but cherish every moment I got to spend with him.

I love you Grandpa!

Betty June & Chelsea June

"I love you, a bushel and a peck!"

Pickleville Christmas

All the Davis grandkids surrounded by the cast of "Once Upon A Christmas." With 4 of my siblings in the show, my heart was busting with pride. How do I have such a talented family? You guys ROCK!
The show as wonderful. The music was so fun! Thanks all for a great night!

(seriously T.J....where does your talent end??? I love you and think you're absolutely amazing. I'm so lucky to be your sister)

A snowy Utah visit

Getting ready for the big night!

Tanner
(he's so fun to take pics of...he'll always flash a smile to the camera)

Frosty the Snowman....What a fun snowy activity!

Although our reason for a early visit to Utah was a sad one, we didn't let the chance to enjoy family pass us by. I love my family! The more often I come home, the more I realize how much I love and miss them!
Happy Holidays!!

Visit from Friends

Chocolate Fondue night. The kids loved it, but lets be honest...we did too!

All tuckered out after a long day at the museum

A visit with Santa at the museum. We just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Elliot was so brave. He jumped right on and took off, didn't even bother to see if I was nearby.

The kids loved the slide. We did it several times.

My Best friend. Love you girl!

We had such a fun visit with the Clements! You know you have great friends when we can get together after a long break and just continue where we left off. I love this family so much!! Elliot was so happy to see Logan!
After all the fun day time events the best part of our day was when the kids went to bed and the adults sat in front of the Wii and played Mario Brothers! We laughed so hard! We felt like kids again. Seriously laughing till we peed our pants. Who knew Mario Brothers could be so funny?

Love you Sarah and Glen. Please come back soon! We miss you already!

Disney On Ice

What a fun fun experience! Elliot loved it! His favorite was Buzz Lightyear and Peter Pan. The only hard part was leaving. It was late, we had to say no to all the over priced toys and Elliot was sad to leave...what did that = TEMPER TANTRUM. Once we got out of the crowd and sat him down to talk it through he settled and had fun talking about all the things he saw.
It was a great way to get a "bit of Disneyland" without leaving Indy!

And it begins...

There's not much else that needs to be said....except....
GOOD LUCK mommy!

Toddler Bed

We made the switch! My boy is so big! We didn't have any particular plans, just looked at each other and said let's give it a try. Luckily, he has done GREAT! He loves the bed and loves the freedom. But, his mom is shedding a tear. My baby is growing much too fast!

Next mile stone...potty training.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Making sugar cookies!

Elliot started with the arm over the shoulder move.....is she blushing??

Then he wasted no time to go in for the hand hold.

What a beautiful girl. I love her reaction.

What a great surprise running into our sweet friend at the Preschool and planning a last minute Thanksgiving get together. I was so happy and grateful for her kindness in inviting us over. We had a great time chatting and the kids had lots of fun playing, watching Bolt and making Sugar Cookies. Elliot loves playing with his sweet little girl friend

The food was soooo good! The leftovers were the best part! I ate them for about a week and still loved it on day 7 as much as day 1. YUMMY!

I can't believe we went the whole night with out a picture of the adults. Oops. I guess the kids were just being too cute!

Preschool Feast

I got to join Elliot at preschool for a Thanksgiving Feast! It was so fun to see him interact with his teacher and the kids. I couldn't believe he actually tried some of the food on his plate. This picky eater is nothing like his mother.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hanging Lights

I love hanging lights. It makes for great pictures and it means Christmas is almost here!

Now, if it would just snow then it would really feel like Christmas! (Actually, I'm really happy for nice weather while hanging lights)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

Meeting Kellie Pickler

We happened upon a Kellie Pickler signing at Best Buy the other day. It was a fairly long line, but fun to see her in person. I was surprised that she wasn't more "dolled up." A hat and a little mascara? Common Kellie, we're worth the extra effort aren't we??

ps: go figure. Just when she turned to pose for a pic with us the camera gives out...oh well.