She always wanted wings

January 1997





January 2009

Boys will be boys

Some of you all may have seen these pictures already, but I couldn't resist posting them here.

The day after our March snow, Jamison decided to visit the little creek behind our house. If you look closely, you will see that while he initially tries to stay out of the near freezing water, the boy in him just has to get wet.

It's pictures like these that make me forever grateful for Tim getting my super cool, extra special lens for me last-last Christmas. It was a lot of money, but the pictures I've been able to get with it has made it twice as valuable.

In like a Lion...

Eragon Games

SarahBeth has a wonderful teacher this year. Each month they have been assigned different book report projects and have to read all different genres of books. In February, the report was on a "fantasy book" and had to be presented in the form of a board game. In spite of a short and busy month, SB insisted on creating her own pawns for the game.

The book Eragon is about a boy who receives a dragon egg and it's the last of the dragons. You can see in the pictures SB gave each player 2 eggs, a dragon and a sword(not pictured). She formed those pawn with her own hands out of clay and painted them. She also set her own alarm to ensure the final details were implemented and the project was perfected. We were busy that morning making sure it would transport safely, so I don't have any final project pictures...but you can see her effort and creativity. Fantastic. :)

Jamison's Christmas Present

This year Santa got Tim Jamison a 1,000,000,000 piece k'nex monster project-y thing-y. Tim Jamison has loved putting it all together. So much so that he was determined to finish before he his daddy had his shoulder surgery. Here you see Tim both of them enjoying the fruits of his their labor.

Building Museum Building

A few weekends ago we headed to the National Building Museum...the same place Tim and I attended one of the 2004 Inaugural Balls. They were having a Family Engineering Day and the place was packed with kids and some seriously patient engineers and lots and lots of simple projects. Good times!







Of course, Jamison's personal fav was the room infested with Legos.

Belly Buddies

When I was pregnant with Jamison, Tim was briefly deployed to Afghanistan. During that time I was privileged to surrounded by other pregnant wives in waiting. One of those gals currently lives down the road from me. This guy here was born the February after Jamison's December birth. They met in real life for the first time this fall and now have a standing Thursday playdate. They were in China while we were in Alaska. The Army makes it a small, small world!

February-so far

First a little cross country exploring


Then a LeighAnne choir concert. I lack the desire to edit the photos, but trust me, it wasn't a satanic choir concert. :)



Then an unheard of 70 degree weekend with my nieces.





Followed by SarahBeth's first starring(in my opinion) role as a bridezilla in the 5th grade play.


I'll elaborate on SB's play later, just wanted to bring you all up to date. Been a rough, busy and sad month, but the weather has made it all tolerable. Oh, and Happy Late VDay!

Here's where the grandparents roll their eyes and sigh

No matter what your political bend is, you have to admit, Presidental Inaugurations are powerful things. The peaceful transfer of power for over 200 years is awe inspiring. The rest of the world can hate us, but America does it right...no matter if it's your guy up there or not.

We didn't go. I feel a little bad not taking the kids to be a part of history, but the thought of taking my children into that huge mix of people plus the constant post September 11th "what ifs" overrode any history making desire. None the less, it was a day off for everyone so we all stayed in our jammies and watched the country get along for a few hours.

That evening LeighAnne and I headed to the grocery for milk and lo and behold:



an Obama Cookie Cake!!!!!

So, being that 2/3 of the household was for Obama...and it was feeling like a bipartisan kinda day, we had the ultimate patriotic dessert after dinner. Maybe we weren't a part of history, but we made historical memories that day!

Forever...or fourteen minutes of grateful

So. Dad brought a honeybaked Ham for Christmas day. We ate all day on that sucker, had multiple leftover sandwiches AND used it in our New Year's Day bean soup. 2 days after New Year's, we scraped the beans off of the bone and gave it to Kenai. What a happy, happy dog.

2009

Well, Christmas and 2009 arrived without too much fanfare. Popa, Poppy and Grammy arrived a few days before Christmas...about the same time LeighAnne's fever hit. Kenai was, as always, the perfect nurse and stayed with LA for every temp spike.


Lucky was always nearby, but I truly believe, in typical cat manner, her investment in LA's illness was all selfish. She loved how snuggly LA was during those temp spikes...


In the meantime, SarahBeth really stepped up to the plate, culinary speaking...and tolerated Jamison a bit more. They even worked together on some delicious New Year's "pigs in a blanket". I was really proud of both of them and their delicious additions to the New Year celebration.

The house

Here's some front of the house pictures. We've been working on the landscape out front, and the back patio is covered in slate. Very nice. Our townhome backs up to a park so we have a ton of privacy and more than a few squirrels, racoons and deer.

Kenai is thrilled to come across something a bit smaller than a moose, and all squirrels should tread lightly around the Davis household--because the cat and dog want nothing more than to taste them some yummy rodent!

OK Already!

I've started about 12 different posts in order to try and finish the whole cross country saga, but I get caught up in the details or find myself spending 15 minutes looking for the perfect picture. So how 'bout I just bring us to VA and catch up on the trip later?

We got into the house on 22 August and our household goods arrived just before Labor Day weekend--I think. It's all a big blur of boxes in my memory. None the less, we have been digging out from under that mess for the last several months. Having little to no storage space has got to be the biggest challenge I've ever faced in moving.

Our townhome has more living square footage than our last house, but the 4th bedroom is downstairs, so the girls share a room upstairs. In order to keep them happy, we went to IKEA and bought loft beds for them both. It's a little tight all around, but they have a lot of "personal space" and seem to enjoy the room. They also share a great walk in closet so they have more than enough floor space to clutter up with dirty clothes.



They started school after Labor Day, and so far so good. As a matter of fact, I'll say that SarahBeth is having a waaaay better experience than her previous school. And, while nothing will compare to Alpenglow Elementary, both girls have found their groove here and seem settled. The hard part for me is the fact that their school friends don't live nearby, so I feel a bit out of the loop on all the friendship stuff. Can't keep up if you aren't standing at the bus stop with all the other moms.

Anyhooo, we were blessed to walk into a newly painted home that matched the majority of our previous furnishings, but I decided the kitchen needed to be "kicked up a notch" so right before Christmas I painted it red. More brick red, but red none the less.

Here's the before and afters on it...




The After...


OK, that wasn't much of an "after", but you see...red...brick red.

Wow. Could this be more boring?

I will post more sooner than later. Promise.