Let your light shine

I recently started something new with Finley during our "school" time. I found this great set of "lessons" from here. It's called Raising Rock Star Preschoolers. I created the assessment notebook that she provides on her blog and assessed Finley. And then we started the letter Ll. Each letter has a color, a number, a bible verse, bible story/devotion, and several activities. It's all neatly arranged on a foam poster board. Check out her blog for some great ideas!

Anyway, our first verse was:
  "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven."

     Matthew 5:16

I thought it was a long verse, and worried that Finley wouldn't get it. Especially since this would be the first one she's ever memorized. But she got it! I want to tuck God's word in her heart and this is a perfect way to do that. Even sweet Rowynn got excited about the verse. Every time we would say it she would run to the playroom and point up at it. It was so cute!

Here is a video of Finley saying her verse.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

***This post was mostly written back in January, but never posted...so here it is now. The videos are also from January, at the time she was 2 1/2.

I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault for teaching my 2 year old her lowercase letters. I've spent the last six months or so slowly teaching Finley her letters. All 26 letters. It was a long, painful process, but she knew all her letters and I was one proud momma. And then I realized that I'd have to now teach her the lowercase letters. All 26 letters. Again. I pretty much crawled into the fetal position and chewed my hair. Okay, so maybe that's exaggerating a bit. Or maybe not. I did pretty much ignore it. I mean, we had just learned the uppercase letters and I worried that telling her that this was a "R" as well as this "r" would be confusing and result in her forgetting everything I'd taught her. Obviously, I got a bit over worked by those 26 little letters. And it really wasn't that bad, I just didn't know how to go about it. We did some matching activities, big to little letters and I would point them out when we read, but it wasn't until we started reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom that it really clicked. And in about 3 days she learned her lowercase letters. Seriously...three. stinking.days. All that pent-up angst for nothing. We would read and re-read and read the story. And then we read it some more. And at the very end it has a list of letters that we would say together. And that is the tale of how my sweet girl learned her lowercase letters.

We also have Chicka Chicka 123 which has done wonders with her learning numbers!

And for your viewing pleasure.

What we did in March

Totally  behind, but I wanted to do a re-cap of all our fun March activities!!

We went with my in-laws out on their boat and fed some (rather large) ducks and geese on Saturday morning! The girls loved feeding the giant geese and duckies and really enjoyed riding in Grandpa's boat!

My hubby and I celebrated 6 years of marriage and the next day my wonderful, amazing, quirky, silly, sweet hubby turned 31! Wow, he's old! Hehehe!!! We had a wonderful weekend to ourselves-we even splurged on a hotel stay!

Our best friends the Sraders, came over at the end of March for a birthday celebration (for Maile) and we consumed a yummy cookie cake, hot dogs and s'mores. The kiddies enjoyed bubbles and a campfire and then Kyle & Finley as well as Jeremy & James camped out in the back yard. Maile and I hung out inside with the littler ones and chatted while the others froze their boo-tays off! They lasted most of the night, those brave souls!!

James & RoRo checking out the tent

Both of my girls loved Mrs. Maile's pink chair!

Daddy reading a Bible story by the fire before bed.

Getting the fire ready for marshmallows.

Srader Family

Davis Family

Easter 2012

Yesterday we celebrated Easter! The girls woke up to some goodies in baskets from Momma & Dada! The princess crowns, necklaces, sunglasses, chocolate bunnies, bubbles, and glow sticks (or glow straws as Fin says) were a huge hit! As was the sticker books and bubble bath. After breakfast we snapped our annual Easter picture outside and then headed to church. What marvelous hope we have because of that empty tomb!

When we got home we had a wonderful meal, prepared by my sweet hubby! Baked chicken with potatoes, corn on the cob, and purple hull peas. For desert we had "Resurrection rolls." I saw the idea on another blog and Finley loved getting to help! She took a marshmallow, which represented Jesus. We talked about how Jesus never did anything wrong, He never messed up, never sinned. Then we dipped it in butter and rolled it in spices (cinnamon and brown sugar) to represent how His body was prepared after death. Then we put Him in the "tomb," which was a crescent roll. Once baked the tomb (rolls) were empty! I drizzled them in chocolate, topped them with cinnamon carmel sprinkles and we served them with ice cream! Oh.my.word. SO GOOD!!!

We really enjoyed the long weekend and time to spend with our family. Happy Easter!!!

Davis Family
Easter 2012

Easter Weekend

Our weekend has been packed full of fun! My parents came in Thursday night and we've been enjoying our time with them so much. Friday we took the kiddos to Gatti Town. Always a big hit! The girls ate tons of pizza and mac-n-cheese and enjoyed playing the different games.

Friday night Kyle & I got a rare date night while Mimi & Papaw took the girls to dinner. Saturday we had our annual Easter Egg Hunt at our church. Grandma & Grandpa met us there and we all watched as the girls hunted eggs, played games, slide down the inflatable slide, and enjoyed yummy snacks.

After lunch out with the whole bunch, we came home to rest before an evening of fun. We made purple cotton candy, played outside, flew our kite, dyed eggs, hunted said eggs, roasted marshmallows over our fire pit, and watched a movie. The girls did so well dyeing the eggs. They really enjoyed it and we only had a couple of cracked eggs. All in all, it has been a fabulous couple of days! Tomorrow we'll go to church to celebrate the fact that the tomb is empty and our hope is alive!

Grandma & Rowynn

Finley showing hunting eggs

Rowynn got some too!

Of course after Finley found one she wanted to sit down, open the egg, and consume the yummy candy inside!

The gang (minus my dad, who took the picture)

Her happy place!

She LOVED the bunny!

The girls were getting a bit tired!

Mimi making cotton candy.

Finley requested purple cotton candy, big shocker!

Dyeing eggs.

"Look at my purple finger!"

Finished product!

Finley loved finding the eggs.

Rowynn loved eating the eggs.

"Look Momma!"

A very long update

So it has been a while since I last blogged!! Blame it on the fact that my cord that connects my camera to my computer and allows me to upload the millions of photos was lost until a couple of days ago. Actually it was in the first place I looked for it, I just hadn't gotten around to looking for it until a couple of days ago. Same thing, right? It has been a crazy hear so far and I haven't felt like blogging much. But I do want to keep track of what our sweet little family does, so I'm gonna do an update.

***Warning: This will be a long post. With lots of pictures. But I want to keep a record of our family happenings so here goes.

December:
A couple of days after Christmas we loaded up the kiddos and drove to Louisiana to celebrate Christmas/my birthday/New Years with my family. We went to Natchitoches to see the lights, always a fun tradition.

And we also decorated a tree in the woods for the animals. Let me explain. For years I've loved the book, The Night Tree. Only I couldn't remember the name of it. I just remember reading a magical story in elementary school about a family who would hike through the woods on Christmas eve and decorate a beautiful pine tree with popcorn garland, apples, oranges, and nuts. They would sing songs and enjoy hot chocolate and leave the decorated tree for all the animals of the forest to enjoy.

 I would always tell Kyle about this magical book and he would sweetly nod his head the way he often does when I become mildly obsessive about something. I searched and searched for this book. I couldn't remember the name of it or the author, just the general story. Finally a few months ago, I happened to stumble across it on amazon and started jumping up and down and excitedly called Kyle and told him all about my awesome magic book. I ordered it and when I finally held it in my hands, it was even better that I'd imagined.

Anyway, I told my parents about the magic book and explained my desire to decorate a tree in their pasture. Being the loving, indulgent, parents they are, they agreed. So I spent more time that I'd like to admit stringing popcorn and making apples and oranges into ornaments. And we hauled our goodies into the woods and decorated a tree. On our neighbor's property. Without their permission. We're such rebels. We laughed so hard. My vision of the perfect tree, like the one in the book, fell flat in about 2 seconds, but we had so much fun. I don't even quite remember what was so funny, you would just have to had been there. But in the end, the tree was decorated and my child-hood dream was full filled. I don't think the rest of the fam was as quite as excited as I, but they didn't let it show.

 I turned 26 and we rang in 2012 with my crazy family!

January:
January was a blah month. Between getting back into a routine for all our holiday travel, a severe cold that plagued our house for 3 weeks and by back being completely out for a week, we were pretty much on survival mode.

Throwing pretend snowballs (our snow covered mountain is in the background) during our winter theme

Working on our nursery rhymes

Playing the piano that once belong to their great-grandparents

Having fun at the park with our friends

"Wee!!!!"

February:
And then February came. Got back into our routine, I finally saw the chiropractor and our family was well once more. And then super bowl Sunday came around. I woke up from an afternoon nap and immediately rushed to the bathroom to do some serious vomiting. Afterwards I felt better, weird, but better. On a whim I decided to take a pregnancy test, you know just cause. "Wait, why are there TWO pink lines!?!?"

  Once the initial shock wore off, I was really happy. Kyle was on cloud 9 from the get go. We were hoping to had a third bambino to our clan latter this year/early next year, it just happened a little sooner! My due date is September 30, three days after my youngest turns 2. So I'll have a 3 yr old, a 2 yr old, and a newborn. And I thought life was crazy before! We are so very excited!!!

The next weekend we went to my hometown for a family gathering and the girls made cute little Valentines to pass out to my family that said:
                                                     "Roses are red
                                                      Violets are blue
                                                      Our mommy is pregnant,
                                                      In September she's due!"

Our parents already knew the good news, but it was fun to share it in a different way with my sister, grandparents, and aunt and uncle. Everyone was thrilled, although my aunt and uncle had the BEST reaction ever, I think we really surprised them!

Valentines day came around and I made the girls heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and filled little goodie bags for the girls-crayons, stickers, and home-made cards from their daddy & I. Kyle brought his girls some flowers and a jar of pickles for his preggo wifey!

 

And that's all for now. I'm pretty sure I set a new word count record in blog land!! I hope to post tomorrow about March, and later in the week I've got some fun school stuff and cute videos to post. Hopefully I'll post sometime this week instead of three months from now!