Belated 4th of July Pictures

We never buy our own fireworks (I hate seeing my money actually 'burn up').  But we do go over to a neighboring city to watch their fireworks for free.  The place to be is at Sunrise Mall.

Here are just a few of the pics I got watching fireworks in 3-D...

This vidoe is taken in 3-D

I love how the Fireworks set off car alarms.

He is Risen! Happy Easter Everyone

This Easter, remember the sacred name, life, and sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas to ALL! 



pic takem from here

From the Stamps family to yours, We wish you all the best on todays celebration of Jesus' birth 

Happy Thanksgiving

picture taken from here

I hope that on this Thanksgiving day, all are well and with loved ones.

On this day, I am very thankful for everything that I have been given.  I am thankful for a wonderful husband (he is all that I ever dreamt of and more), for the precious children that I have been given, for family and friends that are dear to my heart.  Most of all, I am thankful for all of the trials that I have in my life... they have made me who I am today and have taught me so much.  I am also thankful for the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.

Christmas Nativity Exhibit

You are all invited to join in this festive season to come and experience the wonder of Christ's birth depicted in  over 400 nativities from around the world. 

The 5th Annual Granite Bay Christmas Nativity Exhibit is finally here!  This is my all-time favorite time of year and exhibit to go and see.

The Exhibit will be on display from December 2-4, 2010.  Thursday, Friday, & Saturday from Noon - 9 pm. Held at 6460 Cavitt-Stallman Rd., Granite Bay, CA.  Admission is FREE.

There will be some Musical Performances included each day.

Oh, if you have never been, this is a MUST SEE!  Room after room filled with all different kinds of Nativity Sets, all donated for showing by people/families in our very own community.

Davis' Hopper Fun

Horrible... driving in the rain at night

Lovely... Family Get-Togethers

Here is to a wonderful evening.  Oh my, I am still on my high (pure excitement) from spending an evening with my cousins and their families.  We missed a few key players, but hope that in the future, we can get all cousins and their families to a Davis' Hopper.

Family get-togethers are known as Hopper's in the Davis' family.  Why Hoppers you may ask?  Well, that is a very good question.  I think that they are called Hopper's because it sounds way more fun than a 'get-together'.  Not sure though, so I will have to ask and find out why the Jim Davis (my Uncle) daughters started calling them Hopper's

We celebrated Thanksgiving early this year with the Davis' family.  Oh how I love to spend time with my family and letting Nat and the kids get to know my side of the family (most holidays in the past have been spent w/Nat's family).  It is sooo nice to rekindle, and reunite with my family.  I can't believe that it has been almost a year since seeing some of these wonderful people.  Now, we just need to plan a day/week/month so we can get the whole Davis' clan together for a reunion.

All I can say is, we Davis's KNOW how to have fun!

This is just a small portion of the Davis' Cousins clan.  We were missing quiet a few of the cousins and their families.

9 Days 'Til Thansgiving

Our countdown to Thanksgiving has begun...

click the above pic and it will take you to the calendar

Yesterday, was the first day of the countdown, and we were asked... 

"If you could make your own pie, what yummy things would you put in it?"

I say pumpkin or apple, the kids all said, ICE CREAM!

What would be in your pie?

Today, we are to do...

Call a relative, just to say, “hi.”

Which we plan on doing tonight, or would that be tomorrow morning since we are calling Japan?  The kids can't wait to call, talk, and see their cousins (thank heavens for Skype).

Thankful for Crafts

O.K., ok... I am a little on the less creative side tonight.  I was looking up some crafts for the kids and I to do for Thanksgiving over at Family Fun,  and saw this.  I hope to make a better one for next year, but this will have to do until then.  I was happy to see that there is a way to Count-Down to Thanksgiving.
I am still coveting this one for Halloween, and plan on making it next year. 
I did manage to already make some crafts, with the help of Nat and the kids... 

We went into the field behind our house and picked some fall colored leaves and some twigs so I could make these.  I also picked some berries from our tree out front to add to the vase.

a Fall Bouquet of wonderful

a Thankful Tree

(we will be putting leaves on it once we write on them what we are thankful for)

Happy Halloween Everyone





Harry Potter

Ninja

Cleopatra

Raggedy Ann

Tonight is a night for staying in and handing out candy.  We did our Trunk-or-Treating last night.  We had a good night hanging out with friends from church, enjoying all the yummy foods and games. 
Now, if we can just get some Trick-or-Treaters to come, we will be happy campers.  We live in a neighborhood that doesn't have many children living around us.

Horrible... sewing through a bug

Lovely... freshly baked bread spread with Jam

Happy Hallows Eve eve Everyone.  I hope that ya'll are in good spirits this GOOOOLish season.

I know it is late in the game, but I found this BOO game, and it sounds like sooo much fun.   It is a good way to get in the spirit of the season, fun and best of all, it is building memories for the kids.  But since I found it so late in the month, it will have to wait til next year.

Bland to Creative

Horrible... real spiders of any kind, just thinking about them makes my skin crawl

 Lovely... Quality time with Nat and the kids, they are the BEST

After we went to the Pumpkin Patch, the kids decorated their pumpkins for the FHE activity last night.

 Before

 After

Mummy, Witch, and Dracula.

We haven't decided if we are going to decorate/carve the huge one.  I can't stand messes that are eeeewwwy and gooy.  I thought about just drawing a picture on it or coming up with a costume for it.  Although, some roasted pumpkin seeds do sound delicious right now, so I might just have Nat cut into it tonight.  To bad it's too big to fit in the oven, a nice soup cooked in the pumpkin would be nice.

Craftiness

It all started when a dear friend of mine sent me a link and now I have been bitten by the Craft Bug.  Here are just a few of the things that have been crafted up.  More to come soon that the kids have made.  I don't know why, but I love decorating for the holidays and I am always on the look out for new ideas.  My fave ideas are the ones that I can take ordinary household items and turn them into something new...

Our Friendly Ghost Guests

Material Flower Balls

An eclectic Pumpkin Patch

Heading Back in Time

We are heading to the 11th Annual Gold Rush Days in Old Sac today, on this fine Labor Day.  What a way to start out the second week of school with a field trip!  Better hurry, today is the last day and it is going on from 11-4.
Nothin beats going and wishing that I could bring back those days back.  It is my altime fave time period.  Simplicity is the best.  We will surely post pics when we get back.

Happy late 4th of July!

I hope that you all had a good Independence Day.  I know we had a good and relaxing one. 

We spent the afternoon with my (Nic's) parents, had a BBQ, and played with their new toy... a remote control car (they need to get a couple more).  Afterwards, we came home and popped 3 batches of popcorn, grabbed some bananas and apples, filled a gallon pitcher of water, loaded up in the car and headed to Citrus Heights for their fireworks show. 

We would normally stay here in Rsvl, but, do to budget cuts, the city isn't doing their fireworks show from the County Fair Grounds anymore, so we did some research around the local areas and found that Citrus Heights were doing some. 

We got there, and found a parking spot in the mall parking lot, pulled out our chairs, water, popcorn, and fruit and sat and waited for the show to begin.  Yes, that was our dinner.  We had fun 'people and dog watching' while waiting for the show to start.  We even got some free 3D glasses out of it.  At first, we thought that they were going to have a special show afterwards, but know, the glasses were for watching the fireworks with.  SOOOOO cool!

(these are without the 3D glasses)

(and these are with the 3D glasses)

Merry Christmas a little late!

We hope that all of you have enjoyed your holiday season.

We had an enjoyable Christmas with my family on Christmas Eve, and Nat's family on Christmas Day and through the weekend. We had a housefull, 7-14 people where at our home this year. Everyone enjoyed their homemade gifts that we made. I think that this is a tradition that we will continue to do. The kids had a lot of fun making all of their cousins gifts. Me, I already have gifts planned out for next year. Nat, he got a late start, so there were some IOU's in his gift giving, but I can't blame him, who would want to work with wood in the DARK after working all day, so, technically, he only had a couple of Saturday afternoons to get the work done. What a PROCASTINATOR! (I can call him this, he said it first!)

This is a picture of my dad with an ear flap hat that I crocheted for him.

This is the wooden spoon display that Nat made for my mom.

This picture is of the kids as we celbrated Christmas with my folks.

We have been very busy & that's why we haven't posted (if you can call it that). We thought our computer crashed, but luckily not, we just had a virus that wiped out all of documents that we have saved to the hard drive (IE: ALL pictures (quite a few hundred), all of my recipes, etc.), you name it, it was lost. Luckily, a friend of ours came over and got us back up and running, but in order to get rid of the virus, he had to totally ERASE everything on on the hard drive. I LOVE knowing people who know a thing or two about computers. But, while we haven't had a computer, let alone, one of my stay at home, homeschooling mom outlets, the internet. How can one survive without it after having it for so long? Well, somehow we managed, barley! These are some of the things that we have been doing: making Christmas presents, and more Christmas presents, and even more Christmas presents, oh, and cleaning the house as well. I forgot what my kids bedroom floors looked like. I would post pictures of what we have made, but that would just SPOIL the SURPRISES, but I will give you a little glimpse of what some of you are getting this year... Keep looking, I know it's here somewhere... Yes, I found it, here it is...

Shh! It's a secret until Christmas. You have to wait for Christmas morning to open up all the presents that we made with love, just for you!

Candy Canes & The True Meaning of the 12 Days of CHRISTmas

This is a beautiful legend of the candy cane. As you watch, do not click on anything (except "START") as it will automatically flip for you. http://www.angelrays.com/fla/legend.html

There is one Christmas Carol that has baffled me for years on the meaning. What in the world do Leaping Lords, French Hens, Swimming Swans, and especially the Partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have anything to do with Christmas? Well, I found out this morning because a friend sent it to me...

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meanig known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

-The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ. -Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments. -Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love. -The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. -The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament. -The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation. -Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy. -The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes. -Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control. -The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments. -The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples. -The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

So there is your history for today. This knowledge was shared with me and I found it interesting and enlightening and now I know how that strange song became a Christmas Carol...so pass it on if you wish.'

Merry (Twelve Days of) Christmas Everyone

Here Comes Santa Clause, Here Comes Santa Clause...

Our wonderful city, Roseville, gets into the spirit of the season. Each year, the city, police & fire depts get together & take Santa Clause all over town. Since we are a bigger city, the Santa Clause parade lasts about a week, doing certain areas and routes on different nights. Tonight, we had the privilege of just going up the street & around the corner from our house, on this very cold night, to see Santa Clause and his sleigh, being paraded around town with police car & motorcycle sirens blaring in the calm quiet night, along with the BIG (ok, not the biggest one in town, but the second biggest) fire truck blaring its sirens as well.

Now mind you, they don't advertise this around town, just on the City website, so, those who didn't know about it, sure got a WAKE UP call, when Santa and his crew came around. Literally, if I didn't know better, I would have thought that there had been a MAJOR accident. I would post the video that Nat took, but since our desk top computer took a nose dive and our laptop isn't set up with the correct equipment to do such needed things, such as post pictures and videos... If you are in the area of my hometown, here is the link to see when he's coming to your neighborhood http://roseville.ca.us/services/neighborhood_santa.asp

Where have I been?

I promise, I'm not hiding out from you all. I have been very busy these past few weeks! We are doing a 'modified' school schedule this month so we can get prepared for Christmas. We have been busily working on handmade presents for everyone in the family. I am kicking myself in the butt for not getting pictures of what the kids and Nat made for our family who live in North Carolina, I think of it now, that the package has already been shipped off. We have decided to make homemade gifts for everyone this year, due to the fact that we are on a very TIGHT budget, and with the economy... it just made more sense to do this. We have had so much fun doing this this year, we will probably turn it into a tradition for every year.

I do have other Christmas gifts to post, that are for other family members, but once again, I can't until they have them and opened them. Well, I do have a couple of pics for some of the gifts we sent, but I will not post those until I am sure that they received the package and have opened it. But as far as the projects that I have been working on, here are a few (these are for my kiddos). I am working on a pair for Charlie, and will post a picture when I am done with them. I am planning on making them all matching hats and scarves as well. (For those of you who don't know me, I am a knitter & crocheter, as well as many other needle works too.)

These Fetchings are for Mareal (fingerless gloves)

These are fingerless gloves for Jimmy.

These are Charlies fingerless gloves.