Pumpkin Demo Day

What's even more fun than carving a pumpkin? Having a pumpkin demolition day! Avery loved pounding in the screws, pulling them out with a screwdriver, and then using the hack saw to cut the pumpkin up into little pieces. I have to admit, I enjoyed it as much as he did! Or maybe it was the weather, it was clear blue and 70 degrees out. I can get used to Fall here.



He loved pounding the screws into the ground.




I'm not sure why he was spreading the pieces around, but Venus liked it. She was following behind him trying to eat the pumpkin.

A visit from two special people....

Grandma and Grandpa Davis! G and G Davis drove from WI to come see us. We had a great time seeing them and all miss them already.


Daddy and elephant on their way to go trick or treating.


The leopard didn't want to join in because of the weather; it was wet and cold outside.


Halloween is a big deal in our neighborhood. Our association hires a police officer to direct traffic. There were a lot of kids and I easily ran out of candy after only an hour.


Alia enjoyed playing with the pumpkin pieces.


Our pumpkins. We didn't carve them until Halloween because it's too warm and they rot quickly. The little one was already rotten and smelled awful!


Our pumpkin decided to be a pirate for Halloween.


For Avery's school treat we carved out oranges and filled them with fruit. Grandma and Grandpa helped make the treats. It was a fun family activity.


Our finished treats.


I was able to go to Avery's Halloween party at school.


Avery


Alia

Halloween Treats

If you need a fun idea for a dessert for your Halloween parties this year, here are two I came across.


This one is from my Taste of Home Simple and Delicious Magazine. If you can find black shoestring licorice, I think that would look better.


I made this one last year, it's a dirt cake. The tombstones were made from the pepperidge farm cookies and the ghost is just cool-whip I put in the freezer so it was stiff enough. I cut this idea out of a magazine while in high school so I don't remember which one it came from. It must have been from whichever one Mom subscribed to at the time.


This one I haven't made yet. I plan on making these for Avery's preschool party. I needed to be a little healthier for school! This idea and picture are from Taste of Home Simple and Delicious.

....another Davis Adventure

For those of you that have known us for awhile you will know that we have a knack for interesting adventures. From getting attacked by a rouge donkey after canoeing 7 miles down a stream without water, to getting lost, dehydrated and almost walking off a cliff while backpacking the Grand Canyon, we seem to have more than our share of interesting adventures. This latest adventure while not as thrilling as others is a typical Davis adventure. I hope you all enjoy our most recent adventure.

For Brandee's birthday we decided to go to the beach and camp at Edisto SP in South Carolina for an extended weekend. The trip started off on a fairly good note. I got off work early and made it home with enough time to pack up and leave at a leisurely pace. I tried packing the car but there was too much stuff, so I unpacked everything and took a second try at it packing as carefully as I could. To my surprise it all seemed to fit rather well the second time (I’m an awesome packer, or so I thought). We were in a hurry after my slow packing so we hit the road as soon as I shut the trunk. After about an hour Brandee realized that we forgot Avery’s headphones. No big deal, we always forget something and if headphones are the thing that we forgot this time, we can deal with that. The whole family was able to listen to a Charlie Brown movie turned up way too loud.

When we got to the hotel Brandee asked for the pack of diapers. I paused, thinking, I remember packing them the first time but then I took them out and set them in the stroller with something else…….Hmmmm…….what else did I forget to put back into the car? I remember thinking I shouldn’t put these in the stroller, I will forget them. Brandee then asked for the wipes. WIPES!? I can’t find them either, maybe that was the other thing. We got by on our diaper bag supplies that night

The next day we had to backtrack to get diapers and wipes so our 1.5 hr trip to the beach was now 3 hrs. No sweat, we had all day. The sun was hiding behind a thick layer of clouds and the wind was strong and cold but we were hopeful that it would be warmer and sunnier at the beach.

Fast forward to the campsite. We couldn’t reserve a beach site so we reserved one just off the beach. Except it was really just off of a swamp. When we pulled in it was sort of like a scary movie set. Spanish moss hung off the big trees that encompassed our site and the swamp came right up to the edge of our campsite which in my mind gave the gators easy access to our tent at night.

We start unpacking and I’m mentally going through our checklist. Tent, check, food, check, bed, check, sleeping bags………..”Hey Brandee have you seen the sleeping bags”………..THAT’S THE OTHER THING I PUT IN THE STROLLER!!! Well this sucks, no sleeping bags. I’m thinking we pack up and go to a hotel, but Brandee says “lets see what we can do” We set everything up, play at the beach, eat dinner and generally have a good time. Now, time for bed. Two problems, the airbed is only big enough for Brandee and Avery and we don’t have sleeping bags. It is now in the upper 40’s and our assortment of blankets isn’t looking too promising but we think we have it figured out. We ended up using a couple of blankets and a picnic tablecloth. I wore all of the clothes I brought, wrapped myself in our hammock and slept on two suitcases next to the airbed so that we could sandwich Avery with our body heat. The night went surprisingly well. Avery, Alia, and Brandee were all warm enough. I stayed fairly warm but kept falling in between the suitcases and the bed. All in all, it went surprisingly good considering the circumstances.

Morning! Yes, we can get up and warm up. I had it all figured out while shivering in the corner of the tent. I grabbed the kids and dashed to the van. Started it up, cranked the heat, took all the seats out and grabbed all of our food. We all basically sat in the warm van, ate and played for most of the morning. By now the sun was out and we headed to the beach. We had a great day playing on the beach, although it was too cold to swim. We of course got a little geocaching in where Avery found the weirdest toy. He played with for it for the remainder of the trip. He named the toy pink make-up. It was a pink characther of somesort with only one arm.

How can you not have fun at the beach!

Alia staying warm peeking.

Alia took a nap in the pack and play in the van so Avery and I bundled up and played at the park. I am holding pink make-up.

Alia got tired out from our full day and fell asleep in the hammock.

On the way back I picked up a space heater with a grin and decided that we would beat the cold this night. Our sites had power and the bathrooms had hot showers so after the beach we got some dinner and hit the showers. I took Avery and Brandee took Alia. Alia had a blast in the hot water. Brandee filled up our wash basin and used it for Alia's tub.

I got the kids ready for bed and quickly plugged the heater in. I laughed as soon as it turned on. It was a radiant heater, a detail I overlooked at the store. Which I guess basically means a halogen light boxed up as a heater. It was like the rising sun inside our tent. Yes it was bright but it was warm so we crawled into bed and went to sleep with our tent aglow. Avery woke up at 2:00 am thinking it was morning, and shortly after that Alia thought it was morning too. After deciding that cold was better then awake kids at 2:00 am we turned our blazing sun off and went to bed. I'm sure we could be heard throughout the campground because both kids were crying loudly.

The next morning we repeated our warm van breakfast and packed up and came home. Lessons learned this trip.

-Always double check the house, garage, and anywhere else you might have stuff before leaving.

-Kids are tougher than adults. We were secretly complaining, but the kids never noticed and had a blast the whole time.

-Keep a positive attitude and everything will usually be fine.

Here is my incriminating photo of what I left behind.

Ladybugs and Birthday Parties

This year Scott made me a ladybug cake. It was amazing!

For the last month Alia has switched from making spitting noises when she is unhappy to making a squinty face. I caught it on camera today and thought I would share it because it makes me laugh. The other video is of Avery. Notice his ears, he said Alia was being too loud.

Muscadines and Scuppernongs

We have been making our own jam for years, but this year we ran into a problem. Moving from MN to GA in June really threw off our jam schedule. Nothing was even ripe when we left and almost everything we usually pick was already done down here. I say almost because to our rescue came the muscadine and scuppernong. Yeah, that's what I said too, a what? Ok so here is the cliff notes on muscadines and scuppernongs. A scuppernong is a type of muscadine which is a type of grape. It can get confusing around here because most everyone knows what they are but use another name. Here's a few examples of what I mean, "suscadine" "scuplin" "suppeydine" "scuppeydime" "big bubble" "big tough grape". Ok, I added the last one hoping it sticks because I can't remember scuppernong. Anyway they have been picked, processed and made into jam. I'll have to give an update after we test it out.

Place your bets

This weekend we joined the Mom's Club and went to a local farm to celebrate fall. We had a great time, but we were wondering when fall was coming. You see, the temps this weekend were in the 80's. While I am glad we didn't get the snow WI got, I would like to see the temps a little more fall like. My favorite part of the farm was this:


Pig Races! Nothing can be more exciting, except maybe watching your children enjoy the races.






I think Scott really enjoyed launching corn into a field with this corn cannon.


Starting the corn maze


Playing in the corn


Cow train. It was fun watching Scott get in and out of his cow.




Ending the night with smores.


I think this is a cotton bush. We were excited to actually see one in person. It looked like little cotton balls were hanging on the bush.

Alia and Banana 8 months