Talen started school!

Talen and I started doing "school" a couple of weeks ago. It all sparked because during the week of Christmas Talen hadn't taken a nap for 5 days straight and so I was convinced that he was done taking them. I wondered what I could do with him to help his days feel more structured and full (now that he wouldn't be taking a nap), so I went down to Ben Franklin and bought a Magnetic Calendar (which he loves) and no we do Calendar time, Letters, writing, numbers and counting, and sometimes music time, where we'll dance or sing. We do it for about 45 minutes a day and then he goes down for "quiet time" which usually ends up being a nap - which is great for me because I was not ready for naps to be over.

Drawing one of his newly learned letters the T... He has a very low 2 year old attention span so it is not uncommon for him to practice his letter writing while laying down, and it's close to nap time.








Cross your T , good job.


























The letter T is a pretty special letter...























"Ta Dah...
Teeeeeeees!"













5 Letter Q's - One of the ways I get him motivated to write letters is tell him to draw a "daddy Q", a "Mommy Q", a "Talen Q", a "little bitty Kenny Q" and then Daddy asked him to draw a "Layla Q" (which is off to the far left - and was the last Q he drew) He drew them all himself and they are all quite perfect in size relative to the size of the family member they represent, you'll notice that Layla Q is slightly smaller than mommy Q, but bigger than Talen Q - quite remarkable. Oh and by the way the letter Q is his favorite letter to draw... over and over.... and over..... and over and over and over again.

Now we have the letter E...
























The way I taught him to draw the letter E was I told him to draw a line, and then to give the line a foot, a belt, and a hat, and surprisingly it made perfect sense to him and he draws them quite well.








... and a funky weird deformed Letter E, with 3 belts, or is it an E within an E - hmmmm - still pretty good.










Overall I'm very proud of my little student and I'm pleased with his passion for "school" and his hard work (he totally loves it and looks forward to it everyday)









Talen: "Mommy are you gonna be my teacher"
Mommy: "Yeah is that ok?"
Talen: "No, you're a mommy"
Mommy: "Can I be your mommy and your teacher?"
Talen: "Ummm... ok."

A Thought

It has been said that Selfishness is the cause for most sins - lying, cheating, stealing, swearing, adultury, idolness, etc - it's all because of selfishness, and that if we could just learn to be selfless the world be a much happier place - more pure and full of joy. Everyone struggles with it because the world teaches you to look out for numero uno, to make money, to do what feels good, to guard your feelings, to guard your stuff, and to do ultimately what is good for yourself regardless if it is unethical, immoral, or just plain inconvenient. Care about yourself first, and then whatever you want second and third and so on.

Getting married is a good step towards becoming less selfish - something you'd never really see coming until you were actually there living the experience. It's impossible to have a good marriage where selfishness is involved. Having kids is the next step towards selflessness and I think is the ultimate step - with every child that comes, the more selfless you get- your almost forced to get more and more selfless whether you want to or not because you're spreading yourself thinner and thinner giving all the time, energy, and love you have left.

I think the real test is being able to be selfless while enjoying it. Doing it because you have faith in the blessings, and because what motivates you is pure love, even when it's rarely fair, and rarely appreciated or noticed, and even when the pay off is never worth the work that you put into it. Doing it purely because of the love of Christ. Never wondering what you're going to get out of it, never feeling sorry for yourself and wishing you could have more time for yourself, giving up your life to share the love of Christ with those around you (with your family being the first recipients). There's a saying that says "God couldn't be everywhere at once and so he gave us mothers" - that's a tough burden to bear- trying to be as Christ-like as possible serving and loving it - never complaining, never wishing your life were different; performing pure service because it's the right thing to do. It's seems so daunting and impossible - to not actually fake it with a smile on your face (secretly wishing you could be somewhere else doing something you actually enjoyed), but to actually become that Christlike person- where you really do enjoy it and where there's nothing you'd rather be doing in all honesty.

Maybe someday after my 10th kid (Yikes) I'll learn what it's like to be that person.

President Hinckley was and is of my heroes. He inspires me to be better and to me he was a perfect example of selfless service. He has been gone now for almost a year (January 27, 2008) but I think his life legacy will inspire many for years and years to come.

"Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds" - President Gordon B. Hinckley

The Johnny Jumper

So Kendal is way too big to be playing in one of these toys - It's designed for door frames and we don't have any door frames on our main level - so therefore we've never installed this toy - well Jared jimmy-rigged it for fun and below are some fun pics.






Talen always has to throw himself in front of the camera when he feels he's not getting adequate attention.

Favorite Clip of the Week

So I've decided to start a clip of the week from, a movie or TV show that I have watched during the week that made me happy.I hope they will bring a smile to your face. Don't be fooled by the title screen below. The clip has nothing to do with Selma Hyack and her rather exorbitant bosoms:) The clip is from a TV show called "30 Rock" starring Tina Fey...Enjoy.

Just a little background - Tina Fey's character is waiting to adopt and so she's extremely baby hungry and therefore talking to and noticing every little baby and child around her. I call this clip "Unfortunate Baby Hunger". It's so funny.



See I knew you'd laugh

Bed and Breakfast in Charlottesville

OK so we didn't actually stay at a bed and breakfast but it felt like and was better than a bed and breakfast. We went to this amazing home out in Charlottesville owned by one of Jared's friends parents. They had 220 acres of land, horses, chickens, a guest house (gorgeous), a pool and jacuzzi, and a beautiful home. They fed us dinner and breakfast, we played games, stayed warm by the fireplaces in every room, enjoyed great company and even took a dip in the jacuzzi. Talen got to feed the horses and collect the fresh eggs in the morning from the kitchn. Kendal got to eat and eat and eat all night long (seems to be her favorite thing to do these days)and everything was just so enjoyable.

The great thing about the experience was that the guy who owned the property is retired and used to be in the advertising field - he went to school, worked for a few years, started his own agency, sold it and now he is happily retired with no worries about finances. As I layed in the fluffy bed in one of the gorgeous guest rooms I hoped that I was experiencing my future... here's hoping. Anyway there's not many pictures- we decided to enjoy ourselves and not worry about taking pictures, but Jared's friend took a few for us below. I hope to go back a few more times.

The Davis Family quartet (in the making)

This video makes me smile. The tuner we're playing with is for a guitar so it doesn't actually work for what we're all using it for in the video (which I guess makes it even funnier). Kendal loves to sing - whenever we're at church singing or just singing around the house she's always eager to chime right in. So the whole goal of this video was to get her to sing. Anyway... Enjoy.

Happy Birthday Jared

Jared had his birthday last week on the 30th of December below are some pics. He's getting old. 28.

So a little bit about Jared, well he's hot, he's cute, he's funny, he's a fantastic father, a pretty good husband, and an ok student. In his spare time he enjoys making fun of his wife as much as he possibly can (and since I'm perfect he has to be extremely creative), playing video games, reading Time Magazine, watching football, cooking up something tasty to eat, did I mention watching football, and eating ice cream.

Anyways...


I got Jared an Aero Garden. It's an indoor herb garden for those with no gardening talent whatsoever - basically it's completely idiot-proof. He's been wanting one for awhile. Talen took this photo for us by the way (it was his first time we trusted him enough to do it - he had a really hard time getting us in the view finder and then pushing the button at the same time - it's amazing how much coordination something like that takes that we don't even think about as adults)


Talen got him a remote control Airplane - he was probably more excited about it than daddy.


Kendal got him a new frisbee and a new soccer ball to play with outside.


Mommy wrote him a little song on the guitar...no I'm not good at the guitar, but yes I do try to plunk around on it now and again.


This is his cake - don't laugh. I tried really really hard to make this beautiful chocolate orange cake for him - and well... it was an utter and complete failure. He was a good sport and ate it anyway. Some of you may be wondering where Kendal was for all of this - because the silly cake took me so ridiculously long to make we didn't even celebrate until like 8:30pm, which would mean that Kendal was toasty and asleep long before then.


Here is a cute video of Talen singing to Jared

Christmas

We had a pretty good Christmas. The pictures below don't do justice what we actually received. Thanks so much to all of our wonderful family members for remembering us and spoiling us rotten. The kids loved all of their presents and Jared and I feel very blessed.

On another note, the only thing that would have made this Christmas a little more enjoyable would be the blessing of health - which was not something we've enjoyed in our home this past week. Talen came down with a stomach bug on Christmas Eve and threw up about 7 or 8 times from Christmas Eve through to Christmas Day evening. He was up all night Christmas Eve begging us for water because he was so hungry (from throwing up) and every time we would give him a drink of water he would just throw it up - so it was a heart breaking and long night - Once in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve Jared awoke to Talen in our pitch dark room sitting on the floor next to our bed. He had managed his way from his bed to our room and gotten one of Jared's bottles of water off of his night stand, unscrewed the lid, and drank it all before Jared woke up, we found him and took him to his room, only to discover that his bed was covered in yet another spill of vomit. He was so desperate for a drink that we was not going to rest until he got it only to throw it up a few minutes later - very very frustrating, emotional and exhausting. Christmas day went ok but then Friday morning I woke up vomiting (among other things). Luckily Kendal and Jared have not caught this very contagious stomach flu yet and we're hoping it will be out of the house soon. Talen and I are mostly recovered, but it is not something I would ever wish upon anyone - very nasty bug indeed.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Christmas Trip to DC

We went to DC a few days before Christmas to see the lights at the DC Temple and to the Air and Space Museum. We also planned to go see the National Tree but we ran out of time.

The DC Temple Visitors Center was decked out for the holiday's with a 90-something collection of Nativity's from around the world as well as a collection of Photography depicting Christ's life called Reflections of Christ (this was my favorite part because photography makes him and his life seem so much more real than paintings)The photography was beautiful. I took Talen around to all the pictures and told him what was going on in them. He loved talking about the baby Jesus and "Jophes" (Joseph) and Mary and the Angels. We got to the picture of Jesus on the cross and he said "oh we need to get some band aids for Jesus... cause he's hurt" I thought that was one of the sweetest things I've ever heard. When we left Talen said, "Happy Birthday baby Jesus, I love you." They also had tons of Christmas trees decorated from all around the world, a musical concert, a harpist and then of course the lights around the grounds. It was a fun little day trip.

Kendal's Birthday

We had a great party for Kendal a couple of weeks ago! I can't believe how fast time flies. I probably sound like a broken record but I feel like I just had her yesterday - This year went by way way way too fast for me. I can only imagine how much faster time flies with every additional child. Anyway she had a great party - our closest friends came to celebrate and to be our family away from family. Everyone spoiled her rotten and we know she is very very loved.

Well a quick summary about Kendal - she hates the word "no" and will cry every time you say it to her regardless of your tone - very very sensative, she loves to do whatever her big brother is doing. She loves to lay down and snuggle on anything soft (pillows, blankets, the dog, stuffed animals, dirty laundry), she finally popped one tooth just last week, she loves to bring us presents from all over the house (usually the pantry), she loves to give slobbery kisses and hugs, and she loves to read books and eat anything she can find off the floor. Her favorite words to say are "baby, boo, hi, and daddy and uh oh." She is a fantastic and joyful little girl and we just hope the next year doesn't go by as quickly as the first did.




Just about a year ago - our tiny little baby girl.



Her new Winter dress and Birthday dress from Grandma.



This was the last present she opened (from grandma) and she loved it! Thanks Mom.


My good friend Aimee Toomey and her cute little boy Brock brought this baby doll for Kendal for her birthday and all I can say is she hasn't let it out of her sight since she opened it.



This photo is deceiving, Kendal may look like she is thoroughly enjoying her cake but she actually hardly touched it.