Embrace the Camera

So here we are! First entry in over a year. I think the only way to maintain this blog is to keep it simple. On Thursday I am going to participate in this thing called 'Embrace the Camera'. Every Thursday I am going to be in a picture. Me. You know the one usually holding the camera. Today I wanted to stand next to my 16 yr old. My middle child. My Fedorable Josie B. And when I need her to help me you can hear me call throughout the house 'MY TALLEST!' because dagnabit my little girl went and got taller then me. Even without her fedora ;) and yes oh yes she LOVES to point it out. Daily.

Also the first set of pictures was me trying my darndest to just stand next to her without touching her cause she no likey being touched. And when I finally told her we had to just step in and put our arms around each others waist she had her fist clenched and she was stiff as a board laughing. But I eventually got the first one and I kinda dig it :D

Eat Snow!!!

I had been whining the whole time we lived in the South that I was a Northerner. I never did adapt to Southern 'winters'. But I forgot that in actuality Cameron is a Southerner. Born in Alabama mostly raised in South Carolina. So the southern 'winters' was all he has known. Now he loves to look at snow but he hates the actual coldness of it all. Oh and heaven forbid it gets windy!! But we had snow on the ground and it actually felt good outside so Hannah was on a mission to have a snowball fight with Cameron. She was quite sweet about the fact that she wanted to be a part of Cameron's first snowball fight!

To back step and give you insight into Cameron if you ASK him to do something he will always say 'No'. Even if you know it will be the best experience of his life if you give him the option he will say no and when you proceed forward he gets frustrated. Hannah is still struggling with this concept but this morning she did great and just got Cameron bundled up through all his protests because she knew once he got outside he would be fine. He was a smidge fussy outside but she just ignored him and started playing. Sure enough in a matter of 5 minutes he was fine and you will be able to tell in the upcoming pictures he was having a grand ole time!!

Poor fella's gloves are to big so he had to just pick up chucks of snow instead of molding them into snowballs.

And it was definitely much easier for him if Hannah was kind enough to stay very still and let him walk up on her. I think stealthiness will come later in life ;)

Victorious!!

Stay still Hannah!!!

Hannah tried to get him to say 'Eat snow!!' but he wouldn't do it!! Somewhere along the lines he got the idea he has a mind of his own and he is not Mommy and Hannah's puppet. Silly boy!!

Archery

For two years Josie B had her 15th Birthday planned out. She was going to go fishing and learn how to clean and cook a fish with her Uncle Jeff. Well OK then!! But of course those were the plans for South Carolina. When we moved here to DC I wasn't sure how to make it a reality. So I told her she had to think of plan B. And she came up with Archery. She wanted to spend the day learning and doing archery.

For starters I will point out that yes I am aware I have an odd little duckling for a daughter!! Fishing and Archery. To know her on a day to day basis you wouldn't think those activities were swirling around in her little noggin. Just goes to show you can never tell what your kids are thinking.

So once again I am in an area I don't know trying to find a place to let this kid do some archery for her birthday. I just had no luck finding anything near us that offered just a day pass for us to come as a family.

So Plan C!! We were going to buy her her own equipment and find an area to let her shoot away. Surprisingly enough the metro DC area isn't stocked up on huntin' supplies.

She settled for plan D which was mall, movie and Dave and Busters. Poor kid. But as a joke her Dad and I did get her the Nerf bow and arrow set and all of us regretted it for the whole week following her birthday. She wasn't stealthy about it she had no problem announcing we were about to get shot right before she did it.

And then a couple of weeks ago a Dad in the home school group announced he was trying to set up an archery class for our kiddos!! I e-mailed him immediately and said YES! sign us up.

So there we were yesterday at the army post Ft Belvoir which is only 20 miles away. Needless to say they weren't in any of the basic searches I was doing a couple of months ago. But I never would of thought to look at an army post!

I so love this picture because you know these two teenagers only hear the Charlie Brown teacher during their safety lecture!

Figuring out which bow they are most comfortable using.


Hannah chose the Legalos bow. Who needs technical terms when you're a nerd!?! ;) Both girls showing off their stellar form!!


I just had to show off the picture of Josie's release to point out those long elegant fingers of hers!!

Learning how to remove your arrows without elbowing or jabbing someone in the eye. The instructor was kind enough to relay some pretty graphic stories on how this could go wrong.

They didn't have any of these fliers to take home so I took a picture of it in case we want to just come back as a family. Oh but yes I was frusterated when I first found it because Josie B could have had the Plan B birthday she had been dreaming about for hours!!

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The class goes on til May. We come every other Monday! I promise to only bore you with the highlights ;)

a boy and his shish

Or I could of named this post 'Kara and Jason are weak parents! And when their littlest walks around the house being adorable with a flier about Beta fishes they get all gooey inside and run off to the pet store and buy him all that he needs. But later decide to justify it by saying it's an early birthday present.' But obviously that didn't fit.

But he did. He walked around with a flier he had from the pet store. For hours all we heard about was Beta 'shish'. And he is obsessed with Hannah's tank. Everyday he sits in his chair and watches them. For awhile it was just 2 in that big ole tank and he was content with just them. Hannah has added numerous more and it only makes him happier. So we knew letting him have his own little tank with his own little 'shish' wasn't going to be a waste.

Um hello? How does this face NOT deserve it's very own 'shish'!?!? We are only human people!!!!


And Cameron decided to be very very literal with naming this one. Beta. Why give yourself a headache trying to come up with a cool original name?

I really wish you guys could see our Hannah with him. She includes him with everything that has to do with this tank adventure she is on. Everything! He follows her around like a shadow and she loves it. Their relationship this past 6 months has been amazing and years from now when she is gone on to her own life I really hope he has the ability to remember it.

Another early present ;) Target had Legos on clearance!!! And since he was right there in the back of the cart it was next to impossible to hide them. I want to point out two things in this next picture. One: Legos are so much more fun when you play with them in your roos. I assume this is the theory because that seems to be the way Cameron prefers it. Two: look at the top of his head!! Bugger got ahold of a pair of scissors!!!

He does need a trim soon. His hair is way to long and that makes it hard for his flippy dippy do to do what it's supposed to, flip and dip.


Spellcheck by the way is none to happy with my determination to keep typing 'shish' but that is how Cameron says fish and we here in the Davis house find it to cute.

Fishies and Birdies

For Christmas the girls wanted fishes and birds. Hannah has been obsessed with fish lately and wanted to move up from a bowl to a 20 gallon tank. I have honestly been impressed for the past couple of months. She bought books and magazines to read up on it. She goes to websites to chat with other people who own tanks. She constantly goes to the pet stores and will talk and talk with the people that work there. So OK I couldn't argue with her getting a tank. Cause to be honest I was afraid it was going to be a 20 gallon algae producer. She only has 3 guppies right now. Which she named Fishstick, Captain Barbosa and Will Turner :D

And now on to Josie B's fine feathered friends. Whom by the way I wanted to name Meat Loaf and Pork Chop. I tell you what when kids get older and start having their own opinions they are no where near as much fun ;)

Here up front we have Asa. Which is Japanese for morning.

And in the back we have Mayonaka. Which is Japanese for midnight. I actually did get to help a bit in naming them. Josie wanted to name them Morning and Midnight and knowing her love of Manga I mentioned seeing what the Japanese words were. She loved it and there ya go I still get to help :D

So Cameron likes the birds. They are OK. But he LOVES Hannah's aquarium. So much so he will sit there forever and just watch those 3 little guppies swim back and forth. Who needs popcorn and a movie when you can have popcorn and an aquarium!?! And when we can't find him we go straight to Hannah's room and find him in his green chair looking at 'shish' :D

Of course we move in 6 months and I imagine moving with all these new animals is going to be a piece of cake!

2011 Word and Resolutions

New Years on the Potomac. It was just us cold and with sparklers but I loved it. I know the kids did too. We get to say we rang in 2011 on the banks of the Potomac looking over at DC. Kind of find that super cool :D

Can you see Josie's face in this? A natural sweet smile! Only because she didn't know she was in the shot ;)
If you look you can see Washington Monument to the left and the State Capitol about the middle.

Reagan Airport. I love this shot.

I am about to babble so I thought I would reel you in with more photos. Suckas!! ;)

One of my favorite bloggers that I have been following for YEARS is Ali Edwards. Adore her. Own all her books. Plan on being her for Halloween ;) Each year she does a One Little Word project.

http://aliedwards.com/2010/12/one-little-word-2011.html

I always come up with a word but forget it by the end of the week. Kind of like resolutions ;) But this year I am determined. Just a slight word that I will try and live by. She said her word chose her and I waited patiently for my magical word to choose me. I had moments of excitement when I thought I had found my sweet little word but the more I would think about it the more I realized the words didn't practically fit into my life. And right now I kind of need to be practical. So I went in pursuit of my word:

Organize (frick it's in my blog title for corn sake!)

to sexy huh? I need to organize our house we are moving in 6 mo. for the 3 rd time in a little over a year. Organize our photos. 17 yrs worth of photos are a hot mess right now and I find that unacceptable. I need to organize and then in 6 months organize again Cameron's therapies and therapists. I am still in a constant struggle to organize my brain for this homeschooling adventure.

But that is the boring part of that word. I want to organize my time better for friends and for me time. It keeps me sane. I want to organize our finances better so we can take cool family adventures in this unbelievably cool area we live in. I want to organize my craft supplies to use what I have and create things that always lift my spirits. I want to reorganize my budget to take workshops as opposed to constantly buying supplies that do eventually collect dust in my house ;) I want to reorganize a grocery list that has been stuck with the same meals over and over and try new foods :D After saying all of this it makes my word 'organize' a bit more exciting for me!! So in a way it is my word to live 2011 by and my Resolution. To live a more organized life!

So bring it on 2011 Kara Davis is about to organize the heck out of you!!!

Twenty Eleven

I have known for awhile that I was going to make my return to blogging on January 1st. I liked the thought of starting off on a new chapter in life. What I didn't expect was our PC crashing and having no access to our pictures. I had intentions of doing a recap of the year 2010. Cause what a year it was. Full of allot of disappointment. Some unimaginable heartbreak. And of course beautiful moments with family and friends. I have no clue when Jas can get our PC up and going so who knows you all may get the 2010 recap in Feb. Better late then never!!

The most obvious thing that I keep thinking about this first day of 2011 is on Jan. 1st 2010 we thought we were moving to England. Here on Jan. 1st 2011 we live in Washington DC. Never saw that coming!! But I still see it as an adventure!! How could it not be? We live in the nation's capitol!!! Who'da thunk this MidWestern girl from little ole Danville Illinois could see the Washington monument when she walks out her front door!?!

My intentions are to be better at taking you guys on my adventures. Being the normal day to day life adventures that are just as important as the ones that have us out and about here in DC!!

Happy 2011! See you all SOON!