Video of Emmelyne getting a hair cut!

Here's a short video of Emmelyne getting her hair cut for Locks of Love (about 45 sec)!

I have been tagged

Well ...I have been tagged. Thanks Rachelle. Here are 6 not overly interesting and slightly quirky things about me:

1. I am a Paper Girl. I could never translate all of my "lists" to a PDA. I like good old fashion paper and pen. There was a time in my life that I could have kept Franklin Covey in business. I have now settled down with a planner that I absolutely love and that I have used for the past 3 years. Amy Knapp's Family Organizer. It works great for me and my family. I love to collect office supplies. You could find any type of post it note in my house. My favorite post it note product has to be the lined tablets that are about 4x6.

2. I have completed a New Year's Resolution: I have read 10 non self help books. I do not have any problem reading it was just that I always felt like I needed to "bettering" my body, my mind, my family, my parenting skills, etc that I was not taking time to enjoy. Some that made my list this year: Harry Potter #7, Two Brothers #1, #2, #3, #4, Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse.

3. I love the smell of Pinesol. I could clean everything with it. To me it says clean.

4. I would love to learn how to dance. I have taken 1 dance class in my life. That was a gift that I gave to Charles for his 30th birthday. We learned West Coast Swing. Other than that I know nothing. I would love to ramba, salsa, jive and even hip hop if I thought that my body would actually work that way. Maybe I have been inspired by Marie Osmond on Dancing with the stars - look she has 8 kids and is out shaking her groove thing on National TV. Anyone know a good dance studio around here? I am serious. ( I would have to get over some serious inhibitions first)

5. I have a favorite late night snack that I love to whip up. A Chocolate shake. This is not one that I make in my amazing Vita Mix. This is old school for sure. I put vanilla ice cream into a quart Mason jar. Add 3 scoops of NesQuik chocolate powder. A dash of vanilla, and then pour milk over the top. (If I have whole milk it is even better) Then I hand stir the milk shake with a spoon. It is very chunky. It forms these little milk crystals that I love. So yummy

6. I have never PLUCKED! and I have only waxed my eyebrows once in my life!

hope you have enjoyed learning a few quirky things about me.

Kindred Spirits

After Emmelyne was done the first thing that she wanted to do was go show Aubrey. She had called Aubrey in the morning to tell her that today was the day. Aubrey bid a sweet farewell to Emmelyne's hair. She said," Say goodbye to your hair for me. I will miss it." Emmelyne said," I am sure if my hair could talk it would say goodbye too." These girls are too funny. Aubrey was so excited for Emmelyne and gave her the wonderful reaction that she was hoping for. Isn't it a wonderful trait that we can all learn from - Being truly happy for another's achievement. Lessons learned. These two have the same front wiggly tooth that they are working on. I wonder who's will come out first? Are kindred spirits wonderful.

And here is the final product... an A-line Bob. It is really darling and we are all trying to get used to it. The lady at Ulta told us that she would have charged $70 for this haircut normally! She said that it is a difficult cut to get right. She really did a great job and we are thankful to Pari at Ulta in Roseville for donating her skills so Emmelyne could do this.

This is right before Emmelyne needed to part with her beloved ponytail and have them send it off.

Locks of Love

Emmelyne decided a while ago that she wanted to donate her hair to "Lots of Love" once she found out that it was "Locks of Love" that was ok too. I think that she was inspired by Brigham shaving his head in March for St. Baldrick's. Here is her last photo with her beautiful locks. I can not believe how quickly it grew.

We went to the Ulta Salon in Roseville where they will give you a free cut and style if you are donating to Locks of Love. They will even mail it for you. Her hair went all the way to her waist when I straightened it out.

It was a pretty thick ponytail to cut through. It was really dark in the middle and blonde all around the outside.

Krispy Kreme watch out!

Actually, I do not think that they have anything to worry about. Emmelyne and I tried our hand at making doughnuts Sunday morning. You have to find something positive about 12:30 church - we have time in the morning to make doughnuts that take roughly 2 1/2 hours start to finish. We tried a Top Secret Recipe (from the Top Secret recipe site - they do knock offs of commercial favorites) and usually we have had great luck. This time, well, they were NOT anything close to Krispy Kreme but Emmelyne and I had a great time trying the new recipe together. That is the best part. I do have to say that it was all worth it when Brigham came up to me and said," Mom, there is NO WAY that you made these. They look just like you bought them at the store." He knows how to butter me up. If you want to check out this website www.topsecretrecipes.com you will find some really fun knock offs. They have changed their website and now some of the recipes are free and others you have to pay to download. We have had great luck with Girls Scout Thin Mint cookies, Chili's Boneless Buffalo wings and Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza to name a few.

Running with the Big Boys

After everyone left the soccer party, Rexton was loving being able to run around in the barn with the big kids. I had made him sit in the stroller while there was a big crowd here. He is getting very steady on his feet and running everywhere.

Mud Football

On Saturday night we had Emmelyne's team party out in our "barn". ( We are not quite sure what to call it- so barn is going to have to work for now) It was pouring rain most of the time. Brigham and a few of his friends moved their friendly football game out on to the big pad of dirt (now mud) where the green house was. I am sure that this is only the first of many mud football games that he will participate in. They had so much fun and they were soaked to the bone.

Girl's Weekend

So maybe the reason why I wasn't so "into" Halloween this year is because I was getting ready for my girl's weekend away in Tahoe. I went with some of my dear friends up to Tahoe and we spent a few days scrapbooking, making cards, sewing Christmas stockings, organizing photos, addressing Christmas cards (yes that would be me that has mine ALL done!), and of course eating, laughing and having some pretty intense "therapy" sessions. We were up WAY too late - yes some didn't close those eyes until 4:30 in the morning???!!! Did we think that we were in collage again girls? Well we are not and I am sure that everyone of us felt in as we came back to our husbands and 26 1/2 children! (that is collectively of course) So fun - see you again in 6 months!

Baby Frankenstein

It is official. Our little Rexton has realized that it is now faster to walk than crawl and he is everywhere. It is so nice to get to this phase and have him up off the ground and not getting so dirty.

Here are the other pictures from that night

Halloween Night

For some reason this year I could not get excited about Halloween costumes. We, the Davis Family, has been know in the past for our "family themed" costumes. We have done Peter Pan, Willy Wonka (Charles was Willy, I was a wonka bar and we only had Brooklyn and Brigham and they were oompa-loomps), Toy Story, and Star Wars to name a few. This has always been a group effort. For some reason though I was having a hard time getting into the chosen theme of "Gilligan's Island" My kids didn;t even know what that was until our friends go tthe first sesaon of the show for Charles for his birthday. Once Halloween rolled around I was so embarrassed at our attempt get dressed up that I almost didn't take the pictures. That would have been worse though for sure! So here were: Charles as Mr. Howell
Danee - I was going to be Mrs. Howell of course but I decided wearing my great grandma's real fur stole at Trunk or Treat with Nachos/ Hot Dogs and kids was not a good combination - so I never dressed up. Brooklyn as Ginger - wearing my old Homecoming dress from my Sophomore year. Brigham - Gilligan. Emmelyne was Mary Ann. Hudson was going to be the skipper but then we remembered that he is Hudson and he is not going to wear a costume to save his life. And then there was Rexton - the professor - but like I said I ran out of steam and just dressed him in orange for the holiday. Oh well - I think that my kids will survive. It is all about the candy anyway, right?

Carving Pumpkins

My kids are really lucky to have Charles as their father. He reminds all of us that it is important to have fun. Even when it doesn't fit in the "schedule". We were having a hectic week and time got away from me. It was Tuesday night (the 30th) and we still had not carved our pumpkins. It was past bedtime and my thought was just to scrap it and not do it this year. What a horrible mom I know. Dad came to the rescue and set up shop with the kids and let them have their fun. They are old enough now that they are really doing a lot of the designing and cutting. Brigham could not handle putting his hand in the pumpkin to clean it out. He had all kinds of tools to keep that mushy stuff away from him. He even used my ice cream scoop. All in all I hope that I learned a good lesson - let loose a little and remember that it is not the end of the world if the kids go to bed 45 minutes later because what they will remember is the their dad took the time to stop and have fun with them. Lesson learned- I hope.

The first tooth

I am sorry that there is so much about teeth in these last postings, but we could not miss out on celebrating that Emmelyne lost her first
tooth. She is not normally dressed as an Indian but the kids had just gotten back from the Fall Festival at school and they had dumped out their stash to count the loot. Emmelyne had been working on this tooth for a little over a week and with a little help from mom it came out. It was so loose I was afraid that she would swallow it in the middle of the night. I am sure that there are many more little teeth that will be following. It is so sad because their little smiles will never be the same!

Movie Night

We had a great time a few weeks ago. We had a movie night at our house out in the barn. We had bought some movie screen material off of Ebay for $6.00 ($20.00 for shipping though) and made a giant screen out in the barn. We watched an old Aubrey Hepburn movie "Wait Until Dark". I am sure that it was very scary in it's day. There was a "concession stand" in the back with 2 kinds of popcorn, candies, peanuts, sodas and apple cider. We had another movie night a week later for the kids and their friends. We played Charlie Brown and the great Pumpkin. I think that we have started a new Davis Family Tradition. Who needs a fancy theater room when you have this.

Not for the faint of heart

I know that this is a really gross picture but we thought that it was so funny! Charles was gone for the weekend and so the kids and I decided to have a fun movie night while he was gone. We each had our own "movie theater" size candy and we snuggled up to watch "Hoodwinked" (I didn't think that it was that great). Well Brooklyn had a wiggly tooth and sure enough that Milk Dud did the trick. It ripped that sucker right out! Pretty gross but we had a good laugh. The tooth is still attached to the Milk Dud!