Funny Words

Here are a few of John's funny comments:

1. Upon arrival at his friends house for a play date he says; "My mom has a bad case of the diarrhea's, so my dad brought me." Such wonderful honesty! Of course it was the mom that told me this. Good thing we are good friends : )

2. While putting on his pajamas; "My bottom's face hurts when I sit down like this.(sits down) But when I stand up (stands up) it says "Oh thank you! That feels better."

No More Pony Tails

Well our little girl is growing up! She has been telling me for a month now that she wants to get her hair cut. She wants it short like mine and her friends Ella and Kaylee. Dad did not want to loose his little girl and neither did I. Besides, what will I do with all of the cute hair bows and clips I have for her? So we let her get her hair cut. And isn't she just the cutest thing ever! We think so. Although dad is still trying to adjust to her new look, she is very proud of it and admires herself ever time she is in front of the mirror.

Alison painting bags for her teachers Christmas presents. The before look.

Best Buddies

Her new look!

Our Singing Star

On Saturday, December 8th we went to John's school for Breakfast with Santa. The kindergartners performed three songs at 8:30 am. We were nervous if John would get up to perform, but to our amazement, he got up and in the front row! He did a wonderful job. Here are some pictures and video of the kids singing. Enjoy!

Proud John

So proud, he got to hold the biggest bells!

John waving

Can you guess which reindeer is John's?

Did you get it right? He said, "I cut his head off so I made two."

"Jingle Bells"

"Snow Pants"

"Must Be Santa"

The "Real OC" Tree Lighting Cermony

On Saturday, December 1st we went to downtown Oregon City to watch the tree lighting ceremony and see Santa arrive on the Firetruck. We went with our best friends the Edson family. Their dad works on Saturdays (he is a Sheriff) so Mark got the honor of being the only man in the group! Both moms were glad to have him there, especially when we needed someone to walk back to the car in the rain and bring it to us!

So the night was typical Oregon weather, rain- rain- rain! We bundled up in our warmest wear and took umbrellas for all. We took the elevator down to main street. If you don't know we have a public elevator that takes you from the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill, and it is free and has an operator! With the wind blowing and Mark leading the way we arrived at the same time as Santa and Mrs. Clause. The crowd, rain and noise started to get to John, so we almost did not hear the count down to the tree lights. With a flip of the switch it was done! Alison loved it and wanted a closer look. John did not and from that moment on complained, whined, and was just a true joy to be around.

Santa moved across the street into a furniture store where you could stand in line, outside, to wait to sit with him and take your picture. It took about what felt like 10 min. for our little group to agree that we were going to stand in line to wait for Santa. That began the 45 min. wait which was accompanied by John's endless, and I do mean endless, complaining about anything and everything! We tried to leave but he would not have it! He was going to see Santa and complain the whole time. At one point the mom behind us told her little girl, "I can't hear you because of the whining boy in front of us!" How rude : ) It only hurt my pride a bit because it was true. And

I knew for sure that when we got up to Santa, John would refuse to sit by him or talk to him.

Boy was I wrong! John and Alison both went up to Santa and sat right down. He even knew their names and called them over to him! Not bad for little Oregon City! When asked what he wanted for Christmas, John replied, "Things you don't know about." He was referring to his wish list that he had left at home. But with some prompts from mom he was able to say Transformers and was shocked to discover that Santa know about Transformers and had seen the movie!

Alison said, "Lots of things." Again with my prompt she was able to name something off her wish list. All in all it was a cold, wet night I did not want to repeat any time soon. That night when I was putting the kids in bed, they both had only fond memories of the night and how much fun it was. At least I have 365 more days before we get to do that again.

Alison, Mark and John
Loves from Daddy
Jennifer, Alison, Santa and John
Kids in the rain
Kaylee, Jake and John
Alison and Kaylee
Jake and Kaylee showing how all the kids felt waiting in line!
Alison, Mark and Santa

Our Ballerina Star

On Friday, November 30th and Saturday, December 1st our little Alison was in her first performance of the Nutcracker. To be in the audience or back stage with the girls (and some boys) was a "Crackup". For most of the kids performing they had only had 10 weeks of dance lessons. Alison was a solider and a great one at that. She received a ballerina Barbie from Dad and Mom after her Friday performance and her friend gave her a Dora balloon. On Saturday, John gave her a little ballerina Barbie. She was all smiles and talk for those two days! I thought she would never go to sleep on Friday night. So without further adieu, here are the highlights from Alison in the Nutcracker........

Alison is on far left. Keep your eye on LaRue to her right and her pants!

Thanksgiving

At this time of year I am all the more reminded of all of the things I have to be thankful for. My family, both immediate and extended; friends; school; the gospel of Jesus Christ; teachers; those fighting for our American freedom and rights; modern medicine; health; all of the advancements made that I get to enjoy and take advantage of.

We here at the Davis house had a nice Thanksgiving, and we hope you did as well. Mark and I ate turkey and all that goes with it. The kids enjoyed a cheese pizza and jello. We were able to sit together and enjoy a wonderful meal of all of our favorites!

I am also thankful to be a mother. I will admit that this has not been very easy for me, and I often feel like a failure. To have children to take care of is a challenge, to have some with "special needs" is a whole new challenge. All of my training and knowledge of tending to children has been questioned and challenged from the start. It is so hard to open up to others because as we all know we don't really know what it is like for someone else until we walk in their shoes.

Once this precious gift from God arrives in our lives we want the best for them, always and forever. I am thankful for modern science and those who spend their lives researching, studding, counseling and working out new ways to solve old problems. At least at this point in our lives we have had a wonderful week. It has been the first time I can say as a mom that we had a good, normal week. I have not had to worry about my child and their constant well being or my own well being. We have been able to perform daily tasks that are daily for most families, but have not been for ours. We all need a little extra help sometimes and thankfully we have found ours.

Obviously I am speaking about John in particular. What a joy he is to our family. I am elated that he has been receptive to trying something new and willing takes it. It is an overwhelming feeling that is hard to put into words when you see your child that has been struggling finally find some peace and "normalacy". I am opening up something very personal to me to a lot of you. I only do this because I have started to use this as my journal and I just had to get the words out.

Thanks to all of you who love and support our family. I am appreciative of all of the words of support, physical support, acts of kindness, prayers and friendship you give us. In short I am thankful for all of you. I am thankful for my savior Jesus Christ and for all that he has done for me. I am thankful for a loving Heavenly Father that I know lives and loves me. I feel his presence and guidance every minute of every day. I am thankful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and for the peace the gospel brings to me. I am thankful to be alive and experience life, the good, the bad, the hard and the down right difficult! Thank you again for listening and loving me and my family.

Love,
Jennifer

School Days

john- just wrote his own name. This is his Kindergarten school picture. I don't know what happened to the scan, I will re-try at another time. Both kids have now joined me and can't seem to keep thier hands to themselves. What a great day we are going to have!

Disney Princess on Ice

Our Princess

Last Friday, November 2nd, I took Alison to see Disney Princess on Ice. She had so much fun! Here eyes were wide open with excitement as she watched each of the princesses come out for their story. Her favorites are Ariel, Belle, Cinderella and Snow White. If you ask her what her favorite part of the show was she will tell you the thunder storm during Ariel. We carpooled with some friends but our seats were not together. So when we arrived I took her to the gift stand first and she picked out the Cinderella light up spinner she is holding in the picture. Then I saw the Minnie ears, which we needed on Halloween night, so I bought them for the dress up box. We also bought her a Princess t-shirt, which she wears proudly. Then we saw that you could have your picture taken with Ariel, so we had to do that. I asked her if she wanted me to be in it with her, she gave me the hand and said, "no, just me." We bought our popcorn and then headed to the seats. Thanks to the Internet I have found some better pictures than the ones I took. So here are a few for your viewing pleasure.

It was such a joy for me as a mom to see her eyes filled with wonder and excitement. I could just imagine what she was thinking as she saw these Princesses in person. I knew she was going to have great dreams that night. It brought back memories for me of going to Disneyland and seeing the characters in person and feeling the magic! She asks daily if we can go back to watch the Princess on the ice. Both kids are more excited to go to Disneyland now. We are working on planning a trip. If this show comes to your town, I highly recomend it.

Trick or Treat

50's Fun

Princess Minnie Mouse

BFF Jake and John aka Optimus Prime



at Trunk or Treat

Optimus Prime, Cool Dude, and Princess Minnie

Okay, so now I have time to finnaly finish posting our Halloween night fun. We started at 4pm and went to the local shopping center to trick or treat at the stores. That is where we saw the best homemade Optimus Prime (OP for short) costume ever! We just had to take a picture of it.

For those of you that don't know, Transformers is the big and one and only thing at our house right now. Alison was actually supposed to be OP for Halloween as well, made me buy her the costume and everything. Then a week befor she said, "I am going to be Minnie Mouse because there is only one Optimus Prime." Sounds like her brother got to her, what do you think? I thought for sure she would change back to OP on the night of Halloween, but she held firm as being Minnie Mouse. However, when she has her friend over for a play date and they dress up, Ella puts on the princess dresses, and Alison puts on OP. You win some, you loose some.

Then it was dinner at McDonalds and the kids kept asking if McDonalds was handing out candy. I had to tell them no. They were very sad. The McDonalds here has an ice cream case, where you can choose scoops of ice cream or "Dippin Dots". So then John wanted to know if they were handing out ice cream instead of candy. That boy just never gives up.

Then we headed over to the church for Trunk o Treat which started at 6pm. We were done and home by 6:45 where we handed out candy. The kids were so funny. They enjoyed running to the door each time they heard the bell. I had playdough and fruit snacks so that each of them got to put something in the bags. Alison has told me that she is going to be a Care Bear for Halloween next year after seeing someone in costume. As we were pulling out of the church parking lot to head for home John proudly exclaimed, "Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and the next day is Christmas!" Both kids cheered and were so excited. Oh if every day could be a holiday with candy and presents!

A Spooktacular Family Home Evening

Witches Fingers and Monster Scat on a Log!

Monster Toes and Mummy Face Pizza!

Minni Witches Brooms!

These are a few of our favorite things! Well at least I had fun making them. We also had frozen blood(jello), pumpkin seeds(cheese Sun Chips), and pumpkin juice(orange soda). John really got into the spirit of dinner, not so much the food. Alison got into a lot less of both. Since they are older and really understand the holiday, I thought this would be a fun thing to do. At least Mark and I had a good meal, and so did my neighbor. That night befor bed I told myself that this would turn out to be one of those fond memories for the kids, even if they don't remember that they really didn't touch their food. The next morning at breakfast, Alison told me, "Mom let's just have regular dinners okay? No more halloween dinners." Well there went my theory about fond memories about the food! We had fun using Ghostly Table Manners- thought you would enjoy seeing this!



After dinner it was time to carve the pumpkins. This is what they really wanted to do. John kept saying, "Give me the knife!" Thank heaven for the wonderful pumpkin carving tools.

Carving Time

Squeeze Time!

Alison decided that this was the best thing about carving pumpkins! She had so much fun squeezing the insides.

Happy Halloween

"Sit by my sister, Yuck!"

On Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch as a family. We all had a really good time. This year we went to Fantasy Trail. You follow a lighted trail through the woods and stop to look at the various "spooky" decorations. They even have a huge pirate ship with a maze and a suspension bridge! After picking pumpkins from their well picked over an empty patch (we literally took the last 3 that were not rotten, broken, etc) you follow the trail back. Along the way the kids stopped to go through the Jail House maze and slide down the slides. Then comes the "haunted" castle. It is a lot of fun. I was surprised that Alison did not want to be held when we went through it. John led the way, of course, and Alison was following right behind him!

After School Activities

This year Alison is taking ballet classes. She is in a 10 week program that will run year round. She is really enjoying it. She will be performing in the Nutcracker as a Solider on November 30- December 1. If how the kids do in class is any indication of what the performance will be like, it will be quite a show! Bless the teacher for her patience.

John is just as active as ever and so we felt that gymnastics would be a good fit for him. He has had 4 weeks of classes now, once a week for an hour. He is finally understanding that he has to pay attention to the teachers and do what they tell him. He keeps telling me that he just wants to do whatever he wants to while at gym. Poor guy, just hates to have rules. This last week they finally used the balance beam, rope swing, and bounce boards. He was in heaven!

Our Family

This is life!

John 5 years old

Alison 3 years old

July 2007

In July we had our family photos updated. This is a small sampling. John is in Kindergarten now and loves it. His favorite thing to do at school is recess. However, he does enjoy music class, computer lab, math and science. Alison goes to pre-school and loves it. She is so excited that this year she gets to stay and do things. The teacher tells me that she can see so much of John in her. From the way she chooses to play Lego's and trains with the boys to things she says and does. Of course we can not forget how she too likes the mud when it is time to play outside just like her brother. Mark is doing well with his job. Still travels, but is trying to come home on Thursday night instead of Friday. Jennifer is trying to keep up with the kids. She just got done doing a fashion show for the stake Young Women Standards Night. If I can figure out how to post video, I will put it on here for your viewing pleasure. Hope all is well with all of you.

Sean's Mission

The Thompson Family

The Missionary

Jennifer just went home for 5 days to say goodbye to Sean. Sean has been called to the Taiwan Taichung Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He enters the Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, October 17. We love Sean very much. It was so wonderful to be with all of my family again. When I got home the kids looked at a scrapbook my sisters and I put together and John started to cry because he was going to miss uncle Sean.

Family Vacation

This year we went to Eastern Oregon. It was a lot of fun. We went rockhounding at Richardson's Rock Ranch in Madras, OR. The thunder egg is the state rock and we were able to dig them ourselves! They are geods, so when you have them cut open you have a whole new suprise waiting for you. Jennifer was put in charge of the ward youth conference trip and she took the youth there as well. Then when Grandpa and Grandma Davis came for a visit, we took them.