Surprise!

Well I pulled it off...and it was better than I even imagined. As most of you know Tye is going to for double surgery next Tuesday, two days before his birthday. He was really disappointed because he knew that meant nothing fun for his birthday. What he didn't remember is that his Mom is phenomenal and loves to have parties! Needless to say I planned a big surprise Birthday party for both Tye & Tate on the same day. (Their birthdays are so close, It's always been easier to throw one big party).

I almost didn't pull it off. Tate got in the car one day after summer school and said, "Are you sending my friends letters?" I said, "No, why would I send your friends letters?" He said, "I don't know, but that's embarrassing, send your own friends letters!" I was trying so hard to keep a straight face, but planning a surprise party for Kindergarten class was going to be tricky.

I ordered the cakes:

Tate's of course with Horses

And Tye has been telling me for weeks he wanted a "Colts" cake, no shocker there.

Pizza Hut was nice enough to host 30 kids 6-9 years old!

We had a neighbor tell the boys he was taking them bowling and he brought them down to meet all their friends. They were both totally surprised, shocked and embarrassed. Tye's face went red immediately and Tate wasn't sure what to do, so he just kept looking around.

As Always, you have to sing Happy Birthday...

Make some wishes and blow out the Candles..........

Open Presents (my kids favorite part).

Eat pizza, breadsticks, rootbeer and cake & ice cream.

And then head to the Tundra Lodge, a huge indoor waterpark in downtown Green Bay, it's one of our family's favorite spots! (What I was thinking taking 25 kids to a waterpark...well let's put it this way, I wasn't thinking!!!!)


The fun never ended as the kids went from pool to pool trying out all the activities.

By the end of the day, the kids were exhausted, I was exhausted, but it really turned out so much better than I even imagined. I love my boys, and so happy they had such a great day!

I had to include one last picture, Tate was so tired by the end of the day he actually fell asleep while Wes & I were cleaning up......so sweet!

Moments

Life consists of little moments that make being a mother somewhat rewarding.

Tate drew me the following pictures while he was at school:

Interpretation: I love you Mom - my life no good if you "wrt" (weren't) my mom - would "B" Sad! It made me so happy that he was actually thinking of me during the day. A few seconds later he pulled out the next one.

Interpretation: I love you mom - thank you for being my mom - I am sorry if I have "ban" bad - i will never "frgt" you!

I wasn't even upset or remember him acting up that morning (trust me there are many mornings that I need a fire truck to put out all the fires in this house) - but loved the drawings of us together.

Wes was sitting there admiring my pictures and Tate pulled out the following for him.


Interpretation: Don't worry Dad, I still love you to.

Pretty cute, but I love the tiny little smiley face at the bottom of the page.

Little moments like this are few and far between, so I Cherish them every time they happen.

Fathers Day Pictures

Finally, it was warm enough to take some pictures of the kids for Wes - I printed them on a Metallic paper and they turned out perfect for his Office at work....a great Fathers Day present!

The Week

It's late Saturday afternoon and my entire family is asleep. Honestly there are only 3 sounds in the entire house. 1. The Dryer, which is constant. 2. The AC, which I finally turned on this week. (Shocker, June 20 and the AC finally comes on, were actually supposta hit 80 today which would be the year high, but I'm not counting my breath). 3. Me typing . It's crazy!! No TV, Radios, Fighting, fridge bring opened 73 times a day, my name being screamed.....I could soooooo get use to this, but I know better.Our week was pretty normal, )no pictures to post that might cause a divorce), just a regular week.

I have a tradition to take the boys pictures the first day of school and the last. So this week was their last day of school so I had to take a picture. (They are also going to a new school next year so I wanted a picture of them in front of the old) Tye was totally embarrassed...Tate is still to young to care.

When I was climbing back into the truck, this is what I saw.....

Wes shaking his head at me wondering why I do "crap" like that as he calls it and sissy moving her car seat up to the front seat because she wants a "friend" to sit by.


So since school is out you can imagine the condition of my house, my nerves, my food storage, my patience, my laundry loads, my everything.....All of you Moms know exactly what I am talking about. The first couple days it's nice to not be a drill Sargent and not pack lunches and actually get to relax for a few minutes in the morning. But by 9:36 - you are desperate to find something to keep your kids entertained, out of trouble and not fighting. I have a suggestion, it's not the cleanest thing in the entire world but it keeps my kids entertained for hours!!!

A MUD HOLE

We are landscaping sections of our back yard so I have a big pile of mud. The kids spend hours at there digging and making Dams. It's all fun until I make them use the hose and wash off before they climb into my tub. Tate HATES washing off with the hose because "it's tooooo cold" he just sits out there and pouts until he finally comes to grips with it. I had to take this picture because he just sits out there and talks to himself about why he doesn't want to use the hose.



Baseball, Baseball & Baseball.

Practically every night of our life consists of some sort of baseball. I do enjoy watching the boys play. This week I actually brought my camera along.

Wes is Tate's coach and he plays on the Marlins.

Tate can seriously hit the ball! He is a great hitter, now the outfield ..... he'd rather play with the grass he gets so bored. But I love his little face in this picture, getting ready to hit the heck out of the ball. He's hit so many home runs this year I've lost track.

Go figure, Tye is the opposite. He's great in the infield. He switches back and forth from first to short and does a great job.


This year, he's struggled at hitting. One game he struck out every time and boy that's hard. It's hard because his confidence, you want your kids to do well and when they are frustrated and discouraged you feel just as bad.

I finally told him this. Well your hitting hasn't been that consistent, but if you can hit a home run tonight, I'll pay you 5 dollars. Tate immediately pipes up..."How come you didn't pay me for all my home runs?" (I'd be broke) I finally said, Ok, if Tye can do it, I'll pay you both 5 dollars. Needless to say I paid out 10 dollars, but it was so worth it to see Tye's face after that hit. I love the face he makes when he's trying not to smile.

As for me and my week....It was fabulous! I went to Wasau WI for Youth Conference, I love, love, love the youth in our ward. We stayed in the dorms at University Wisconsin, (which were pretty grim) but it was so fun to see the youth so happy & excited. Here's a snapshot from my door room hanging out with some of the kids in our ward.

And that about sums of the week. Random facts: Wes & I love the show Wipeout and the Newlyweds, were totally cheering for the Mormon couple. My garden is doing great and the pumpkins are out of control. We went on a super fun date with some couples from the ward, My mom is leaving to go home tomorrow and I'm sad. I've got a fun present to give to Wes tomorrow for Fathers Day, the boys surprise birthday party is planned and I can't wait to see their faces. Tye is having double surgery in 2 weeks and I'm having surgery in August. The sun is actually shinning today, which is rare, and finally were heading to the movies and out to dinner tonight - but I'm letting my family sleep as long as they can!

Normal????

I have come to realize that we seriously have to be abnormal. If you question me, you will agree by the time you get done looking at the next sequence of pictures taken from the last week of my life.

Ghost in the Dark: A game our kids beg to play every night. One person goes and hides and the rest of the family searches, and then hides together until everyone has found each other. We've lived here long enough to developed practically every hiding spot in the house. This week I was being pretty clever and was hiding in one of the showers. Tate found me first and we were hudling on the shower floor. Tye finds us next, but because there was no room he stood standing. We were fine until Tye let the biggest Fart directly in my face......seriously BAD BAD BAD hiding spot. I didn't even wait for the rest of the family to find me....

However Wes stepped the game up a notch when he started hiding Sissy. Because she is so small he hides her in spots unimaginable.....the spot for this particular night....


Next picture: The bad things about horses is that they poop....a lot, and Saturday morning I was shoveling it up, cleaning the corral and stalls when a wonderful idea came. --- I have access to a lot of help and a lot of big machinery. Needless to say, my pile was taken care of in about 15 minutes. I'm a genius once in a while - but this is not normal.

That is seriously a lot of crap! (Nicole if you need anymore crap to put in your garden or yard, I have tons!!!)

Next Picture: All day long on Saturday Tye kept asking me for tape. I kept saying I'm busy, look in my scrapbook room. After a while he finally emerged from the trees. ----- He used my tape to cut branches off the tree and taped them all over himself. Yes, you read that correctly, he seriously cut up a branch of a tree and taped it to himself to use as "camo" to spy on us. We are not normal - creative, clever, but seriously not normal.

The planting of the Garden: So it's June, mid June, normal people who know what they are doing had their gardens planted weeks ago. Then we have the Davis family, approx. 4 weeks late and on a whim decide today I'm going to plant a garden. A trip to the nursery and the help of Hector & Jesus - my favorite workers, we got the job done. The kids helped for about 5 minutes. - that is pretty normal.

My mom and I kept making trips on the Golf Cart running back in forth to get supplies & Gatorade. (It actually reached above 70 and we were sweating) My mom yelled at me for going to fast down the driveway in the golf cart. (some things never change)

By mid afternoon everything was planted; carrots, corn, tomatoes, onions, beets, pumpkins, 3 types of lettuce, cabbage, green peppers, cilantro, jalapenos, watermelon, squash, cucumbers, honeydew. Wes was helping hector put the fence up because we have so many wild animals that will come and eat it that we have to try and protect it. Moles, racoons, skunks.......anyone up for a visit?

What I don't have a picture of is today after church we were eating lunch on the patio when Wes decided to let his horses out to graze. We ran out of fencing and sure enough the one horse, goes right in the middle of the garden and starts rolling around like crazy. My kids eyes were huge, and they were all starring at me waiting for me to scream. I did.

Picture above: Normal people put their cups in the sink when there done, not Davis kids.

Picture below: Normal people don't eat food after they have brushed their teeth for bed. Not Davis Kids. The ENTIRE package of marsh mellows In one session, right before they went to bed.

The following picture I'm not sure what is worse. Taylor absolutley refuses to take a bath by herself so we rotate taking baths with her and washing her hair. Usually it's me 98% of the time but Wes actually was doing me a favor. Tate taking a dump and watching the whole thing....is not normal. (This picture might cause a divorce, so if you don't hear from me, let's hope I get to keep my cars - he can have the horses!)

And finally last but not least....I'm an officially trained on the super dooper John Deere Lawn mowing MACHINE - yep that's right, that is me mowing my front yard. It's hard to tell by the picture but that machine has three hydraulic mowers that expands more than 10 feet - and yes that's me in drivers seat. There is seriously nothing about my life that is normal any more.

Eleven

Well today's our 11th Wedding Anniversary. I've spent all morning long working on the slideshow below - as I started tearing through all those old scrapbooks I couldn't believe the amount of memories we've had. One of the best traditions that Wes & I started was keeping a journal of our anniversaries. We go back through the entire year, write the good, the bad, the heartaches, the changes, the bad decisions, the good decisions made, the goals for the next year, the new friends we've made, the vacations we've taken, a summary of the holidays, what are kids are doing and our favorite memories of the past year. (Trust me we take turns writing and it usually takes a few hours......so worth it!)

It's impossible to sum up 11 years, but I can give you a glance.

3 Kids, 17 animals (along the way -luckily we are currently at 5), 7 moves, 4 states, 5 career changes, 8 wards, 100 fights with 100 make-ups (thank goodness) too much laughter to count and so much love I can't even put into words. So to my sweet husband, you have often asked me, "Would you do it all over again?" ........... and the answer of course would be, Yes, Yes & Yes!!!!

11 Reasons why........

1. After 11 years, your still pretty hot.

2. Your worth a lot more money now. (J/K - and you drive a heck of a lot nicer car, that old car that only had 3 gears and no reverse - you've come a long way!) But seriously, I admire how successful you've become, and how your integrity guides every decision you make.

3. You seriously make me laugh everyday. Your sense on humor is totally turning out more and more like your Dads, red-neck/Wyoming kind of charm, but it still works on me.

4. Your tender towards my feelings (98% of the time) and even though I drive you crazy 2% of the time, I know you still love me.

5. You always tell people that we would get along perfectly if I would just do what you say. The reality is, you married the wrong girl for that, but you wouldn't want it any other way.

6. Your true and I love that you love the simple things of life.

7. You are a great dad, and I mean that.

8. I love that you take care of the little things for me and always help me when I ask.

9. Your willingness to serve the Lord.

10. Your compassion, tenderness, friendship and smile.

11. I love the way you look at me...Sometimes it's a look of warning (like, don't push my buttons), sometimes it's a silly look to make me laugh. But my favorite look is when you look at me and I completely know that you love me. You don't say anything at all -but its a look that I can feel. No one in the world makes me happier than you.

I love you Wes! - (PS, I told you me present was Free!!!!)