Our Davis Fam

We feel super excited about the new and improved Davis Family. We have gained some really sweet cousins and a beautiful, capable, and generous sister/auntie. Here are some of the pictures of them from our trip to Idaho.

Matt always seemed to catch Ane at the end of the day when she was a bit on the grouchy side. So I had him feed her a bottle. She's always cheerful when someone will feed her.


I'm pretty sure Uncle Russell was behind this one. Personally, I'm not a sand fan and the idea of being completely surrounded by it is a little disconcerting. But these guys all seemed to love it. They were in the sand almost 90% of our trip.


Yes, that's a fish in their hands. A DEAD fish that they found. Eeeew. After they finished showing everyone their prize they went somewhere and buried it. They swore to me that afterwards they washed their hands...but I'm not sure I'm buying that story. Don't they look so proud of themselves? (That's Kaden and Sheldon.)

These guys had so much fun together. I absolutely ADORE Kaci. I wish we had some pictures of she and I riding together behind the boat. We had a blast. I think Malia was a bit cold in this pic.


These girls were so great taking turns riding. This one is Addison, Malia, and Kaci.


Here's li'l Lincon. (On the right.) What a doll. I think that's a cousin of his on Kami's side that's sitting with him.


Eli seemed a bit unseperable from all her boy cousins. I kept finding her goofing off with all of them. This was at the wedding.


I took this next one, because it seems Eli needs a lesson on personal space. I love Lincon's face that he's giving her.


Their wedding was beautifully done. They didn't want a lot of fanfare for the whole thing, and I thought it was done so sweetly. Their whole new little family stood together during the ceremony. This pic I think Liz took with my camera, and I don't know if she knew what she caught. Check out Mason...

For those of you who have yet to meet the new cousins, from left to right...Lincon, Cameron, Mason, Sheldon, Kaden, Big Matt, Kami, and Kaci.


I LOVE this picture, just for all the boys' heads. You can't see Lincon's very well, but he's doing the same thing.

We are so blessed to have these new family members. Thank you for a great week, guys. We wish you and your family the best of times together. Have fun with each other!

Yelling Epiphany

Naki and I had quite the epiphany lately. It wasn't a pretty one. But I am so super grateful that we were in the position to receive and experience it. It suddenly became apparent to us that the tone of voice we used with the kids that you usually reserve for extreme situations, like, say, your house is on fire! or something along those lines, was the tone we used the most. Not okay and not good at all. Duh. No wonder we were struggling so much with the way the girlies were speaking to each other. They were being modeled the perfect way to NOT speak to your family that you love and adore. So we took extreme measures and taped our mouths shut. Just kidding. But sometimes it takes everything I have to speak calmly and not blow steam out of my ears when I've called the same person's name 50 times and still without a response. But already we've seen a difference. It just feels more peaceful around here. The night we got home from our Family Reunion was somewhat stressful. Just a bunch of tired kiddos and a lot of work ahead of us...not always a peaceful situation. Plus we were accidentally locked out of the house with several people about to pee their pants! But I knew that we were working succesfully towards our goal when after all was said and done and it still felt so calm and warm, that Lose came to me and asked if we could read a scripture together before we went to sleep that night. I hope that we can keep getting better and better at this because it just feels a bit more like heaven around here, even if I have to tape my mouth shut sometimes.

Are you sure all of your limbs are still attached?

We got home from our Davis Family 2009 Family Reunion last night. The first thing Naki and I did after unpacking, cleaning out the car, washing as much sand out of everyone's hair as possible, unloading all the food stuffs from the road trip, was upload this video. We were dying to see it on a screen bigger than our camera. The fun part is at the end. It is, from left to right, Naki, Line, and her Uncle Matt Brousseau. Apparently, unbeknownst to any of the inner tube riders or Grandfather Davis, the driver, the inner tube had been slowly losing air on the same side that Naki was riding on. The end result was this...


Don't worry...this didn't deter any of us from getting right back on as soon as the leaking air was fixed. It was so much fun! Truly, I didn't know what I'd find when we circled back around to pick him up. Naki told me that it's been a long time since he's felt a hit like that. Glad to have you alive and all in one piece, Babe!

Matt and Kami, here we come!

I'll be missing in action for a bit. . . we're celebrating the newest members to our extended Davis family in Idaho with a beautiful wedding ceremony on Wednesday, June 24th. Matt is marrying beautiful Kami and is gaining 4 new munchkins (whom we are dying to meet!), Kaci, Sheldon, Cameron, and Lincon. So, in the process of going to dance classes, softball games and practices, shopping trips to prepare for the trip, laundry desperately needing to get done for packing purposes, and another bazillion errands to run, we'll be out of reach for a while. Think of us fondly, relaxing in the boat on the lake, playing games with cousins, late night chats with the adults (hopefully the kiddos will accomodate by actually sleeping), and hopefully not gaining back any of the weight that we've managed to lose thus far! Till we get back...

Wordless Wednesday, sort of...Our Little Mommas

Oh, the laundry...

I opened up my bills for the month and thought my power and water bill were fantastically low. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for being so wise with our water and power use. . . and then I walked down into the laundry room and realized that those machines hadn't been used for a VERY long time. No wonder the water and heating bills were so low.

Food from the Clouds

Last night Naki taught our Family Home Evening. The Lesson was about having Gratitude in your life. I realized that I needed to vocalize my gratitude for recent blessings from Heavenly Father. Several months ago Naki and I analyzed our budget needs and knew that we would have to have more income to meet our needs. He searched and searched and searched for a second job and nothing seemed to work. We decided that there was a job available, but for me instead. As we worked towards that goal, neither one of us felt peaceful about that decision. We prayed and fasted one Sunday to find the right solution for our family. That same evening Naki received an email from a friend of his asking him if he was in need for a part time job, and that the facility where he worked was looking for some part timers. Not only did he get the job that we needed but they brought him in at the Supervisor pay. What timing! It's interesting to me how Heavenly Father works, because we've been in this same position before, except that the 2nd job never came when we could have really used it. I've learned that He gives and he takes, and that my timing isn't always His timing.

With this tight budget of ours, we are watching our grocery bill very closely. We were a bit frustrated yesterday when Naki's car, (which we just spent a hefty amount of $ to get running smoothly to pass safety and emissions), decided not to start. After a jump he was on his way to work, only to have it not start again later on. With our tight budget, we knew this repair would have to come from the grocery budget. Imagine our shock and gratitude when later that afternoon we discovered 5 HUGE boxes on our front porch, just filled with canned goods, cereal, light bulbs, granola bars, etc. etc. As we were standing there, just overwhelmed, Eli said, "Heavenly Father sent us Food from the Clouds!" We are indeed blessed, Eli.