Davis Family Party

 We got together and had a talent show after dinner.  Slayder told us about his many pets. Drake showed off his sick six pack and then did a belly dance.  Harlie demonstrated her hula hooping skills and followed up with jumping rope!  Mahorni, Moroni and Bridger all sang their favorite primary song "Follow the Prophet".  Chloe sang the song she performed for school, "no L" and Seth did somersaults over pretend fire, WOW!  Gwen and Tai sang Rudolph the red nosed reindeer and then had everybody join in with them, thanks to Grandma and her antlers!!!  I took video footage of all of this but it was too dark and you can't actually see anything. Sad...

Don't leave Luke out of the silliness!

Josh and Grandpa lead us in a new game called Ho Ho Ho, where Josh would draw the number out of a hat and the prizes were grocery items that he thought were so funny, like soup or apples!!!

 The best was when he would announce the next prize as a poisonous apple, whaahaa ahhaa haaa ha!

 Jenn and Nate got Grandma this amazing checkers set with pictures of all of us as the pieces: 

 These sweet beauties with their matching Christmas Jammies:

 Mom found Jared's cabbage patch doll that Grandma Rita made for him years ago:

Jared is transitioning into a new type of music, can you guess what he is shaking his groove to now a days?

 This was what the kids got Dad for Christmas this year ~ he is so hard to shop for...

The food was great, desserts were fabulous {i still need the recipes} and fun was had by all.  We focused more on the kids this year and finally have enough kids to be able to draw names with Jenn and Nate's family were they aren't picking their own brothers or sister...  Grandpa Bry took a moment to talk about Joseph Smith and Jesus with all of us and it was so wonderful to have my children raise their hands and the answer wasn't Santa or presents but about the baby Jesus!

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Sugar Rush

I appreciate Kate so much for watching Seth while I go to my mom's each month.  Chloe has been very jealous of how much time he got to spend with Tai and Gwen and it just happened that when we were leaving the Thomson Christmas Party, Seth dropped his candy house...

I promised we would make him a new house and I hoped to repay Kate for her generosity

Chloe's House:

 Seth's House:

 Tai's House:

 Gwen's House:

 Luke just wanted more marshmallows, Thanks Seth...

 I'd been dying to make my own house:

This has been a tradition from when I was growing up.  My Grandma Thomson would bake gingerbread cakes and we would lather them with icing and pack on as much candy as possible.  For those that took their time and actually decorated, she would supply little plastic trees, glass mirrors for ponds, and miniature woodland animals to be added to the decor.  Some day, I'll get there!!!

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Spreading Christmas Cheer

I'm having a hard time... Yesterday I had plans to go to the grocery store to get all of my families needs to last us through the insane crowds out there. Dan decided to take the car to work and I decided to make some of Grandma Rita's melt-a-way cookies and some carmel's for Dan. I was talking on the phone with my sister Wendy and she told me she was going to make some of her fabulous cinnamon syrup for her neighbors. The light bulb went on and I decided to do the same {I am literally a sheep ~ following anyone and anything}! Dan got home from work a little later than usual but I just rushed out without the kids and booked it to Costco to pick up the gift tags that I whipped up from the photo department and some milk for Dan ~ he'll only drink Costco milk. There were a few more groceries as well as having to stop for gas but then I was on my way to walmart to find the rubbermaid that Wendy called me about. They had a red lid, cost only $2/5 jars and she told me exactly were they were. I made it to the housewares department and the shelves were bare wherever there was supposed to be a jar or container that would hold 2 cups of Christmas CHEER! I got a call from Dan at 6:00 asking how much longer I was going to be. I hadn't even started to fill my cart and the amount of people in the Clinton walmart was insane. I left and went home! I had to go to a different store to find my syrup containers anyway... We had a delicious dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and then I raced back out to my Syracuse walmart. I was in luck, they had everything I needed and I got everything on my list!!! I started to make the syrup in the biggest pot I have as soon as I got home and quickly realized that I shouldn't have quadrupled the already Steeneck size recipe... I had to pull out my next largest pot and split the ingredients. There were sugary drips all over the stove, the pots and me! I planned to wrap the carmels, ice the melt-a-ways, and make a cheese ball before I went to bed and ran upstairs to get the recipe for the cheese ball of my computer {I made one two weeks ago from memory and added way too much sugar...} Laura called and we were giggling over some mail. I went back downstairs to the stench of burning sugar and brown thick syrup running over the pots, covering the flat top stove top, running down the oven door and into the drawer and pooling on the floor! Everyone else was already in bed by this time and I quickly mopped up the mess. I scoured the stove top in fear that I ruined the finish. I had a decision to make. I already had more than enough whipping cream to make more batches of syrup {I had calculated what I would need before I left but when I get to the store and am faces with quarts and pints I just loose it}. I already had the containers ready to be filled. I already had the gift tags. I had to go somewhere other than walmart because they were out of karo syrup. I raced to Maceys and scored big time. I walked out of the store and realized that I forgot to get more cinnamon. I was going to run out for sure. Even though I was parked in the 'expectant mother' parking spot and was really close to the doors, I just kept going and stopped at Smiths for the cinnamon. I got home and rinsed the pots that had been soaking in hot, hot water. I started it again and pulled up a stool and sat down at the stove. Stirring. Stirring. Stirring two pots of sweet sticky syrup! One pot started to boil first and I timed it and took it off the burner. The second pot was taking its sweet time and I {wait for it} turned my back to get the cheeses out for the cheese ball. It started bubbling over and I caught it before it went onto the floor! I set the covered pot aside to cool and started to clean the stove top again. I started mixing the cheese ball and really let it get good and combined on high speed. I started to pour the syrup into the Christmas jars and once I was done I started the process over again! One more pot of syrup to go. I started boiling eggs in the other pot. While the 5th pot of syrup was getting warm, I made the icing for the melt-a-ways. Without any other syrup problems, I started to wrap the carmels while the last batch was cooling. I got the last load of dishes in the dishwasher and the last bit of syrup in the jars. In 6 hours time I went to 5 different grocery stores, made 80 cups of cinnamon syrup and scrubbed burnt sugar off of my stove top 3 times. Now I just have to talk Dan and Chloe into delivering {fewer than planned} Christmas Cheer to our neighbors when he gets home from work.

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Aaaahhhhh!

I swear on my love for this little boy, I did not pose this picture! He fell asleep on the couch watching a movie and woke up all startled because he needed to go to the bathroom and wasn't were he thought he was. After I settled him down and helped him go potty, I thought he went back to watching the movie. I started making some last minute neighborhood gifts and Chloe went up to bed. I walked right past him and did a double take of him scrunched up on the floor underneath the Christmas tree.

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Ward Christmas Party

While waiting for everyone to arrive and the party to begin,

the children were invited to write letters to Santa:
Something was wrong with the combination of my camera and the lighting in the gym but these were the best shots of the night. All of the leaderships were asked to perform a skit and our Young Women's president asked me to be involved in ours...

I make a pretty believable snowman:

The primary presidency invited all of the kids who had lost a tooth or had a loose tooth to come up and sing along with "All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth!"

After dinner, Santa came to pass out treats for the kids and to pick up their letters.

Dan kept telling our tired kids that Santa really wasn't coming, lets just go home...

It was only 8:30 or so but they were very tempted to go home and go to bed, but as soon as the big man showed up they were wide awake and so excited that he came to our church!!!

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Carving Pumpkins

Last night we were scheduled to carve pumpkins. Chloe and Seth both decided not to eat their dinner. Instead of begging and pleading or prodding and punishing I simply told them that if they didn't finish their dinner they would not get to carve pumpkins tonight. You see, I was too tired to do it and this was way more convenient! So they sat ~ untouched on the dining room table waiting for tonight.

And Chloe and Seth were waiting to see what I would make for dinner tonight to determine if they would choose to eat. I gladly informed them that Halloween is going to be here very soon and tonight was the only night left we had available to cut pumpkins. I told them that I was o.k. with not carving any pumpkins this year. We could move them back out to the front porch and just let them rot away until Thanksgiving, uncarved and unloved...

They ate their dinner: Seth was not as gung-ho as Chloe, he thought it was very gross!

Every year we say that we are going to save some seeds to plant in the spring but every year we are so glad to be finished carving, that we clean up the slimy, stringy orange guts as quickly as possible and put our proud pumpkins on display.

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Sugar Cookies

Since our house has been sick, all of my energies were used to get both husband and children better. There was hours of snuggling on moms lap while they were burning up with fevers, nights while I stayed awake next to them, stroking their hair in anticipation of their next whimper. I read so many stories to my babies that I thought that I too was coming down with the swine, because my voice went horse and my throat was scratchy. There were days that they would have no fever and Chloe and Seth would play and argue like they were feeling fine, but that swine can be tricky and fooled us twice into thinking all was well ~ during the night one or both of them would burn up with fever and we started over from the beginning. Chloe missed nine days of school and her very first field trip, Dan missed three days of work and we all missed his cousin George's mission farewell. But we are getting back to normal ~ as normal as we were before...

It seems that we have had to cram a months worth of Halloween activities and traditions into this final week of October. I finally got around to making pumpkin sugar cookies for Dan. I was able to wrap them all up and send them off to work with him and got away with only eating two!!!

These are his mother's sugar cookies, they are the best!

It is the only cookie dough that I am tempted to eat. Seth sat so patiently waiting for me to tear the excess dough away from the pumpkin cutout. He was very happy that Chloe was at school:

But we did save her the last little bit from the last cookie cut!

It is such a simple act that shows my love for Dan ~ I try to make him a batch of sugar cookies each month. But it was so nice to have everyone feeling better, both healthy and happy, to make some pumpkin cookies! Yum!!!

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Farmer Dabb's

If you've never heard of him and never bought wreathes from him, you are missing out! Just google Lyle Dabb in Ogden, UT for directions to his stand. He makes these fabulous wreaths and they are so affordable. He picks pumpkins each day and has hay bales and corn stalks from his fields ready to go. He is so fun with the kids, too!

I thought it was so funny when he donned this funny jack-o-lanter head and posed with my kids. I about lost it when he sneakily put the carved pumpkin on Dan's head:

Tai wasn't sure what to think about it, but the blogger in me decided that I needed a picture of me as Mrs. Pumpkin Head and even though it was hard to get the blasted thing over my pigtails:

Farmer Dabb didn't give up!
He even entertained the kids with magic pumpkin tricks including

pulling a mini pumpkin out of Gwen's ear!

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