A walk at the Temple

Brian was out of town this weekend, the kids had been sick so church was out of the question. Sunday was still a wonderful day. We watched conference in the morning then rode to the temple and walked around. It is so beautiful and peaceful there. It feels so calm, quiet, and it has a feeling like how I think the Garden of Eden might have felt. I love this picture of Celia. She has so much personality. She yelled "Temple Right There, Yay" when we drove up. Yes she picked that flower, Shh..:)

Sons and Daughters checking out the pretty water in the fountain.

Joseph was happy to take a picture of Emmy & I. In fact, he thinks it could be the start of a career in photography for little Joe.:)

Joseph took this picture of the beautiful Sacramento Temple.

Celebrating another Davis Girl~

It was great to see the baby's room, everything so carefully thought out to bring this baby to a loving warm home. This is Lisa and her friends admiring the new baby's room.:) What an exciting thing to have another girl in the Davis Family!

What a gorgeous blanket made with love by Rah Rah for Holly. Lisa was very pleased.:)

It was lovely outside and a very nice time chatting and enjoying the yard and yummy clam chowder Rah Rah brought.:)

Beautiful Lisa and our Hostess Autumn~

Everything was beautiful including her gifts. Lisa and this new little one are very loved.

Dressing up is fun to do. to do to do to do..

Gotta have your pink star wand to say bibbidy bobbity boo with and sing songs while prancing around in your tiara and snowwhite dress!

Pretty happy!

Daddy did a great job finding this super darling Dora puzzle for Celia. She raised it up and told Dora to say cheese for the camera!

Warmline Special Family BBQ

The Tluceks and the Davis' participating at the drum performance!

We were invited to a family picnic sponsored by Warmline, a resource for families with children with disabilities. It was at Fairytale town across from the Sacramento Zoo last Saturday. They gave all the kids these great T-shirts and walking in we saw a life sized Cillford the big red dog. Also there was a humpty dumpty that had Celia quite captivated. Next, we went to the face painting table and Spencer sat down and was pretty interested. I was quite surprised because I don't ever remember him liking his face painted before. He chose the basketball by pointing to it on the paper tablecloth. We were pretty pleased and even though he touch it before it dried, it was a successful face painting experience!

Emmy wanted to be a dog, but a kitty will do and it looked so cute with her favorite sweatshirt!

There was an African Drum performance. they asked for volunteers and Emmy took Celia up there, she loved to shake the instruments, dance and had her picture taken with the group.:)

Joseph loved the BBQ and music, it was a great time for all of us.

Moo, Celia wanted in with the cow. There was a giant barn with a high Slide, Spencer loved it and they went down three times!

All done, too much fun.~

Home with the Kiddos~

Last Friday the kids had no school. We got to have our neighbor Makenna come over to play with us. Because Celia had "program" we had to stick around the house for the whole morning. We came up with fun things to do. Joseph and Kenna drew pictures and wrote in their journal notebooks, we scootered and bike rode out front in the culdesac, and played a lots of sing song games. After a while I asked Emelie to grab her material box and we made quilts. The one below is Joseph's however the color is all wrong. It really is a dark red and deep navy denim.:)

Celia drinkin' her drink in a tupperware cup. To cut down on dishes, each got a colored cup they can use all day. The kids like having their own color.

Everyone loves Spencer's swing including Makenna!

Starting to make some vocal sounds:)

My snuggley little Joseph loves pictures with mom, especially if sunglasses are involved, it makes it cool.

Old fashioned play time, its great to see how much fun the kids can have with a jump rope. This one has Dora on it so Celia carries it around and plays imaginary with it. This picture was ring around the rosy and Emmy was getting tangled:)






We straightened our hair! :)

Birthday Boy

We love it when the grandparents come over to visit.
Emmy & Rah Rah

40 and still a youngin. Look at all the long hair! Brian is pretty blessed to have so many beautiful curls~

Birthdays are a big thing around here. Brian received lots of wonderful books and games for his birthday, a date out and lunch with his parents at our house. Celia is still singing happy Birthday to Daddy. Rah Rah made a beautiful card with a picture of Brian holding baby Emelie on the front. Celia loves it, she carries it around everywhere. It was somewhat confusing to her though to have the baby in the picture be her big sister! This will help when christmas time comes around and we start talking about baby Jesus. I can just hear her saying nope thats not Jesus. Hopefully, she will forget about it soon so I can scrapbook it with the homemade card I made him too.~ Taco Bar was the menu with salad and grapes. I put the grapes in the salad because there wasn't enough room on the table, hehe I thought it was brilliant.:) Rah Rah and Papa came over and we had a lovely time talking together. Rah Rah made a great carrot cake, Mmm was so yummy.

Whoops.

I'm in trouble today with myself because I forgot my camera! We went to Brian's summer/fall work party today at Oak park. It was a great time. There was a wonderful play structure near our shaded party area. I was so happy for all the huge beautiful trees because it was over a 100 degrees out. So highlights I missed out on taking pictures of were Celia's love of the giant bubble wand, Brian doing a gunny sack race.. yes he was winning for a minute there 'till he lost his balance, and Joseph and Emmy turning the water balloon toss into a water fight amongst siblings.. hehe. Joseph was pretty soaked. The kids decorated lunch bags for collecting candy from the sun shaped Pinata. "Too bad we can't use a bat" said Emelie lol. It was a pinata like in Celia's Dora the Explorer book where everyone takes turn pulling a ribbon. It was the last ribbon that was the lever, but they ended up shaking out the candy. Spencer did SO well out there. It really was an enjoyable time and the kids were full of wonderful fun, food and candy by the time the day was over. Next time, I will definitely have that camera in my belonging before I leave the house, I seriously doubt I'll ever get the chance to capture Brian in a gunnysack race again though, darn. Next Saturday is Fairytale town and I am determined to be ready to take pictures galore.:)

These are a few of my favorite things~

I got a new nightstand:)

I love my picture of the temple with my family Demdaco figurines. I've been collecting them over the years from important family events like births.~

President Hinkley's Bees

Be humble, Be grateful, Be still, Be prayerful, Be true, Be clean, Be smart, Be involved, Be positive.

My Yellow rose bush. Yellow is for friendship~



My seven up plant. This is the most pleasing plant, it smells like 7up, has soft lamb ears, and flowers in bunches of peach colored blossoms.

My bell peppers are growing this year, sometimes the weather has been too hot in the past, but we are making it this year, Yum!

The first signs of fall on our apricot tree.~

Smiley Joe~

I have a new Camera.:) I'm still learning how to use all the cool features and super zoom, but I am so excited to post some pictures of objects I had to take pictures of because I have a camera again!

Nice Hidden Accountability.

Celia has tutors coming to our home now. Its very exciting that they are going to work with her on any little thing she needs like language and self help skills, including toileting(Yay),and even helping her to be safe in public. The drawback is someone will be coming to my home early in the morning and going throughout the house daily! I can't stand it if my house is messy and people come over, I have a real problem with it. But, since we have a big family and 4 wonderful mess makers I had just been a little less social and let my home get cluttered on days when I didn't have the energy to do much about it. Those days are gone, I'm afraid, and I'm turning a new leaf! Three days in a row, I've managed to set straight and keep things in order for our tutoring sessions and the rest of the day. It's really wonderful to have an uncluttered somewhat clean home. I hope I can make it a permanent thing hehe. I know Bri would absolutely love that lol and Spencer too for that matter. Ironically,( since he is a Royal Mess Maker) Spencer thinks its the best thing ever when things are straight and orderly! He cracks up and laughs and smiles and hugs me over and over. Will the pressure of visitors and the praise of the family be enough?! I hope so, wish me luck!~

What tah do when?

I was asked to teach Disaster Preparation for this last Tuesday's Enrichment meeting. It was themed "Back to School" and my portion of the meeting was the fire drill. I had Red Hots to pass out to the ladies so they could feel the heat of the disaster scenario hehe. I had thought a lot about what I wanted to say, but encountered various mini emergencies that helped me to know what to teach about! A few Saturdays ago, we had a babysitter and the power went out right as we left...No air conditioning, microwave or anything that would use electricity. The kids had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner because what I had planned for them needed to be microwaved. It was around 103 degrees out and luckily our home had been fairly cool from earlier the AC blasting. It lasted two or three hours without power and everyone was fine, although the house warming up was quite nerve wracking for our respite worker. Then, we heard news of a fire on Sunday afternoon in Auburn that was so fast most families had around ten minutes to evacuate. A volunteer at Joseph's school lost her home in that fire and is relocating near our neighborhood until her home can be rebuilt. Some other incidences were a friend at church had a migraine and I had no pain reliever for her, and finally Emmy's school had a precautionary lock down due to some unrest and potential violence going on in a home near her school.

There are so many types of emergencies and being prepared to face them takes a little work. Spencer's Alta Regional worker gave us an emergency plan for our family to keep him safe, due to his special needs. Great info is in that guide. Some things I really liked about it was the variety of info all in one place, emergency contacts including email address, encouragement to make a plan to reunite( family home evening is good for setting that in place) and info about having a prepared vehicle and having papers in an easily accessible place and having small change.

I've been through a few earthquakes growing up and being together with family again becomes the highest priority I've found when disaster strikes. So we really need to let our children know where we'd meet and who to contact to get information about other family members. I'm now making sure we have a radio to get updates on news in the area if there is a problem, flashlights for power outages, extra medicine for my kiddos in case there isn't a way for them to refill and get he important need medicines right away. Also, I am going to be making copies of important papers and have it in a portable folder for fast evacuation. And redoing my 72 hour food supply and storing up water for my family for 3 days. I'm not thinking its doom and gloom time, just that things happen and I don't want to be caught off guard with no flashlight, water, means to get the things my family needs..I think it will give me peace of mind as well knowing I've done all I can to help my family in this regard.~

Celia the Builder~

Hammer Time~ Celia really looks like I did when I was this age in this picture.

Celia doesn't know that she is really into boy things! We are having a neighbor boy stain our gazebo this week. Celia was pretty interested in all the work tools and things she found for the job. I followed her around and had a great time watching her wear her bike helmet on the "construction site" then listened to her sing songs about the hammer, count the many paint stirrer sticks, and chant "Up and down" with the paint brush. Eventually, she started a sword fight with me and said "eeh yah eeh yah" since that is her sword fighting sound.