Dreamseekers and Company

by atruerarity | September 19, 2010

The Latest Fun at the Davis House

Papa practicing making balloon animals for the Buddy Walk next Saturday:

Anna being silly and “loving” her all-the-animals-twisted-together balloon:

On Saturday, Anna and I went on a “Mommy and Anna Only” date. We painted our toenails, had matching ponytails, and did our makeup, including lip gloss and mascara. Then we went for ice cream, but they weren’t open at 10am so we got a pint of (pink!) raspberry and chocolate ice cream from the grocery and ate it at home.

A picture Anna took of Maggie chasing her around:

Yesterday afternoon, we went outside to lay out a new garden bed. It was raining. The drips dripped down my head and into my eyes. The ground is pretty soaked. The girls had a BLAST.

Oh yeah…..

Anna’s boots:

Sisters – partners in crime!

I realized that I still don’t have a picture of the bunk bed up. So I had Anna go take a picture of it. Here it is! Anna sleeps on the bottom, but will move to the top when she’s mastered the ladder. She plays up there sometimes now.

More of Anna’s photography. Me holding wiggly Maggie while trying to get some computer time in. Speaking of which, we ignored all the sounds of the girls for about half an hour last night… and it was a mistake. Oh, the disaster. And I had to get Anna into trouble for what she made a mess out of. And I felt guilty, because I had been ignoring her. Sheesh.

Papa:

Anna also took a picture of one of my latest projects. All this stuff used to be UNDER the counter, taking up precious canning jar space. And it was such a disaster, we had stopped playing with the craft stuff. Like, pull out something and it all comes crashing out kind of disaster. Now my counter is too full… but it is organized and accessible. Photo courtesy of Anna.

We’re considering putting a bench seat into the dining room (and getting a square table) to make a little more seating. This would be especially important if we’re able to adopt soon.
The space:

The idea:

Just being family:

This is a repeat from a video I took of Anna two and a half years ago:

Playing in the rain… and mud!

Peek a boo!

Two girls

This was fun for the kids… not quite so much fun for their mom to clean up. Sorry Vanessa!

Sleep much? I love how Maggie sleeps these days.

Playing on the playground:

Funny story. I was watching Maggie the daredevil and how she dives into challenges. I mentioned to Brian that Maggie will probably learn to pedal a bike before Anna. Anna way across the yard picking blueberries. She heard me though… because after a year and a half of resistance to pedaling a bike, she walked over, climbed on the bike without saying a word and learned to pedal that thing in less than a minute. She is now a pro!

Peek a boo!

Anna has thought little of Maggie and seemed to think of her as nice and cute and ignorable. However, since Maggie has learned to walk and is playing with toys now… well, now she is definitely worth noticing! The playing has been adorable, but the HOGGING has been extraordinary. This is a good lesson for her! Here she is on her bike. She may have only played on it a little, but this toddler at the park wanted to play with it. And the toddler chased Anna. Anna, who was hogging her bike ferociously, lest somebody else enjoy it instead of her.

Is this how you eat corn, Mom? Is it?

I love summer salads!

A giant plum:

Spitter:

Crazy sleeper:

Anna got to go on the canoe several times. She helped row too. We saw some giant bullfrogs.

Anna got very deep! She played and played and played. She walked up to her armpits in water. After awhile, she lot her footing and her life jacket wasn’t quite up to handling her weight and she got scared and swallowed some water until I walked out (waist-deep) to her and Marley jumped in the water from the dock to pull her out too. Poor Anna! She was really brave though. We hope she’ll try again! (She was too tired to try again right then)

don’t cut this guy off

I’ve been meaning to post this picture for a while. It cracked me up.

I also learned that taking pictures while driving is at least as dangerous of texting.

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Tagged as Photo blog

by atruerarity | September 3, 2010

Random Downloading of my Befuddled Brain

I’m just going to start writing. Sorry if it doesn’t flow. Or make sense.

Maggie climbed up on Anna’s bed today. She’s been able to do that for a few weeks now. She climbed up. Played. Fell off. Cried. I comforted her. Then I went and laid back down on the couch. And she did it at least three more times (falling off) before I made her come out of Anna’s room. That girls is learning all about gravity. That’s not exactly true. She’s getting real familiar with gravity; I don’t think she’s learning much.

Maggie’s top two front teeth have been clearly visible through her gums for weeks now. I will be happy when they finally cut through. When she smiles, you can see her cute two front teeth… nicely descended… but not cut through. That can’t be comfortable. Have you noticed that I’m only putting one space in between sentences? That’s something Brian taught me. I rather like it.

So the very end of July (about a month ago) we weaned Maggie down to one feeding a night. It took about a week and it wasn’t 100% successful, but most nights I only fed her once. This was incredible. I had been nursing her every 2-3 hours at night for 10 months. That is too long to not get a good night’s rest. So with a little good sleep under my belt, I decided I ought to torture myself some more (in hope of a greater good?) and decided to wean her from her last night feeding. The girl is almost a year old; I think she can handle not eating at night now! Anyway, we are near the end of the first week and Brian and I are both quite exhausted, but I think it’s working. She slept from 10:30 to 6:30 last night without waking up. I hope my own body learns to sleep without waking up soon. I ended up on the couch around 3-something. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I made peanut butter fudge for myself to help me feel better. It’s not helping with the tiredness, but it is highly effective on my mood.

We went to family camp (ie. church camp with my old church which has successfully become more like family than “church”) last week. It was GOOD. My camera got left there and I’m waiting to collect it from my mom, but pictures will come. We had some good quality time with people we care about and who care about us (that feels good!). We had some good conversations with people we respect and who are full of God’s wisdom (well, we did disagree some so I guess it wasn’t all God’s wisdom). We benefited from other people loving on our children (thank you Mom and Dad especially!!!!) and had some good time with one another. We went out in canoes, laughed at the older children’s play, laughed at the little children’s play (we called them dust angels, I think), ate a ridiculous amount of good food (really, truly, ate a RIDICULOUS amount), laughed til we cried at the Clang Show, and caught a bat (catch and release of bat inside). We slept in cabins, had a heater, had a kitchen… life was good.

I am tired.

I am really excited about researching adoption ministries at churches. Brian and I are hoping to begin breathing some life into an orphan ministry in our church body here. We are also on the move with our own adoption. We took a big step back on adoption about a month ago. It was a good and challenging time of finding unity in our marriage, searching for truth and holding fast to faith and love. We are getting more familiar with the special needs we’re considering (through phone calls with adoptive families, through visiting with local resources and their families, through reading). We are feeling our confidence grown in regards to the path we are pursuing. We rely on God and His will though, and we have not found a written instruction manual, so our journey to adoption is likely to be “organic” with many branchings and spurts of growth and occasional pruning. We hope to be done with research and move to committing to a child in about one more month. (Right around Maggie’s birthday)

Yaaaaaaaawn

Thanks gang!

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Tagged as Adoption, family

by atruerarity | August 17, 2010

Maggie – 10 months – Walking!

Anna got three shots and she didn’t cry one tear! She was amazing. We talked about shots for a few days prior, so she was really prepared, but I am still really impressed with how brave she was! She loved the pretty bandaids and cried quite a lot when I finally took them off days later:

I wanted a picture of Maggie standing up… here I am trying to fend her off with my feet. It didn’t work.

Anna and Maggie playing together has been pretty adorable. I have loved watching Anna get interested in Maggie as Maggie gets more and more mobile and interactive. Here they are playing piano together:

The girls and I went on a quick trip to Bend to see family! It was wonderful! The drive there and back was pretty grueling, but the girls did amazing. I’m so glad we got to go!

I LOVE this picture of Maggie wearing the little head cover of Great Grandma Joan’s. So many of us wore this little white piece of fabric as children and it just makes this picture more adorable to me!

One of the cool things we did while we were there was visit the Petersen Rock Garden. The place is in a bit of disrepair from decades of not enough care, but it is still an incredible place. We went with Great Grandma Joan, Kevin, Lydia and Olivia. Fun!

The bridge is just their size!

Walking through some overgrown brush:

I don’t have any pictures of them with the peacocks or horse, but those were definitely high points for Anna (if scary).

Here they are on a different bridge. This place truly is incredible.

Kevin taking pictures of a castle:

Later (the next day? My memory is foggy.) we went to a fountain with Tim and Lydia and Olivia! Fun! Anna had a blast and was shrieking and running and got thoroughly wet and excited.

Maggie went and played in the water some too! Mostly she sat up with us and played with Olivia (who is very into babies these days). She was pretty adorable out there. Here she has a death grip on my legs. 🙂

After the fountain, we drove to see Grammy (who we had driven over with and who was at a work conference). We had dinner with her at a restaurant (Anna loves that!) and then took a walk to see the beautiful Deschutes.

Oh, this girl just gets me with her cuteness!

Anna being super-girl at Grammy’s hotel room:

Back home again, Brian got a shot of me ASLEEP instead of folding laundry:

Anna had joined me:

Meanwhile, see what the little one is up to. Yes, we took a picture instead of snatching her up. And she got down all by herself. We can’t keep up with this one!

And I just want to say that our fence is amazing and beautiful. My dad and brother-in-law have formed a business called Light Construction, LLC and other than getting a logo onto their truck and things like that, they are ready for business. They are skilled and have experience in a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide range of work. I think they said they could/would do anything except build a house from the ground up. Get these men employed and give them a call! 503-957-3224