Texas Adventures - part 1

I love our Texas visits! Jenna and I rode to Texas with my Mom and Dad and stayed for almost 2 weeks. Chris and Jacob flew down half way through our visit for 5 days. We had lots of fun visiting, letting the kids play, shopping, and eating yummy food. I have lots of fun photos to share - including a photo session with the whole Davis family!!

Jill's friend lives on a ranch and invited us to come bottle feed baby goats. It's the same ranch we visited last summer where Jenna got to ride a horse and fell in love with the cutest little dog!


This calf greeted us on our way to the ranch. Believe it or not, this is their "driveway". Gorgous!!!
She only had 2 bottles so the kids had to take turns. The goats were so tiny and friendly - the kids loved them!!

The tiniest one.....the girls just loved this baby goat!!

The cousins (minus Jacob and Marcus) posing at the ranch.....

Grandpa with the trains....

My dad has been a fan of trains since he was a little boy. I don't know the whole story of how it started, but I know he had a train set when he was little. For as long as I can remember there has been a train layout in my parents' basement. This isn't just any train layout....it's double decker with buildings, lights, tunnels, mountains, billboards, and little people. No one ever runs the trains except my dad....and it is the entertainment for family when they come over - especially the little kids.

When Jacob was little he was obsessed with Grandpa's trains. When my Mom was staying with us after Jacob was born, my Dad went and bought a new "It's a Boy!" train car to add to his train set (and for each grandchild that followed). I have pictures of my Dad showing Jacob the train set going around their Christmas tree when Jacob was only 6 months old. When I mentioned we were going to Grandma and Grandpa's house, Jacob would always say " Which Grandpa? Grandpa with the trains or the other Grandpa?" Jacob would stand at the basement door crying for the trains when it was time to leave after a visit to my parents. Grandpa (and Grandma) came with us when we took Jacob to ride Thomas the Train and the Polar Express. And Jacob got to ride along on a train engine with Grandpa when my sisters and I got him "engineer for an hour" lessons for his retirement gift. Of course Grandpa bought Jacob a train set of his own too!

I know my sisters and I didn't always appreciate the trains when we were growing up (that's what happens when you have 3 girls and no boys). I honestly didn't even know anyone else who had a huge train layout in their basement. But, I have such great memories of the trains ....and now so do my kids!

photos taken in October as my Dad was running the trains for my cousins' kids at my Grandma's birthday party

Snow days!!

We've been home for the past two days due to a snow storm. It's been cold, windy, and snowy (with a little sleet mixed in) so we haven't gone anywhere. Just lots of family time together and trying to keep warm!

Jenna went outside to play between "round 1" (Monday night) and "round 2" (Tuesday afternoon/evening) of the storm while Chris worked to clear the driveway.

Look Brenda and Jill.....no more Cowboys coat and camoflauge pants. He has graduated to coveralls now (and our neighbor's snowblower b/c ours decided not to work - ugh!).

Jenna wanted Chris to "make it snow" on her with the snow blower....

Warming up inside and making chocolate chip cookies (THANKS to our neighbors for a cookie mix in a jar Christmas gift!!)....

Family game time after a comfort-food dinner (beef and noodles and mashed potatoes - YUM!)

More snow and wind this morning.....

Neighborhood snow-blowers meeting......

By this afternoon Jacob was going a little stir crazy indoors.....so I improvised and created a "boot protector" so he could go out in the snow for a little while.

94

I'm a little (okay...a lot) late blogging these, but I wanted to be sure I shared them! My Grandma D. turned 94 in October and our family (minus a a few who couldn't be there) got together at my parents' house to help her celebrate.

LOVE these photos of her with her cake!!

Christmas Morning 2010

Christmas for us was very laid back this year. We were not able to get together with all of my family at once. My parents came to visit before Christmas on their way to Texas. Unfortunatley, I have no pictures of that - probably because we opened gifts at 10:30 at night and were all a little bit tired! Christmas Eve was a little different for us this year. We began going to a new church this past year and absolutely love it. They do not have the traditional Christmas Eve service though. We decided to come up with our own little tradition though - dinner together, followed by some devotion/scripture time as a family, and then movie time together. It was so nice to just spend time together as a family.

Christmas morning was spent with just the four of us - unwrapping gifts from Santa and each other.

Apparently Ernie had an accident similar to Jacob's....we found him with a cast on and his leg propped on a pillow a few days before Christmas. :)

Traditional Christmas morning picture...

Jenna's biggest request from Santa this year was a pink digital camera....

Jenna knitted all of us scarves for Christmas (with a little help from Grandma C.).... Jacob's biggest request this year were Xbox games and an airsoft gun...

Since we didn't have to be anywhere until early afternoon, we were able to spend lots of time relaxing and playing with our gifts!

Jenna got this book from Scott, Brenda, Marcus, Carsyna and Payton and absolutely LOVES it!

Family photo....not sure why I had us pose in front of the tree....you can't even see it! HA!