Domesticity

Believe me, there is no other place I would rather be then being home with my kids and taking care of my family. But I do admit that I don't have a clue of what I am doing! I don't craft or scrapbook, I don't know how to decorate or even hang a picture, I don't know how to sew or knit, and the list of unknowns for me can continue on and on. When I quit work to stay at home with Juliet, I stuck to the basics, simple meals, keeping the house clean and orderly and take care of my sweet baby. I didn't really stray beyond what I knew how to do. Well, here we are 3 years later and I am finally tip toeing out into the daunting world of domesticity, as i like to call it and so far its been very rewarding. I learned how to can! Yes, I did!!! My mother dosen't even know how to do this! Yakima has a bounty to cheap and wonderful fresh fruits and veggies, sometimes even FREE! Everyone and their dog here knows how to can, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and give it a try. Here is a list of yummy things I learned how to make!

Currant Jelly! This was my first effort at canning and pretty adventurous too I have to say. One of my lovely neighbors lives on a farm and has giant currant bushes she invited me to pick for free. So we picked (well Ryan picked) and brought me home two bags full of currants. Then I looked at these bags of currants and thought, what am I going to make with all of these?? So my neighbor suggested making currant jelly! I tried some she had made last year and it was VERY yummy! So I borrowed her jucier and juiced all the berries. Then combined the juice with sugar and pectin mixture then ladled into my hot jars and processed them in my friend's canner. At first they didn't seem to be setting up, but then after a few weeks on my shelf I have yummy currant jelly! After that I was hooked and wanted to try it again!

Canned Peaches and Peach Jam! With my friend Kara and peeled and chopped up two boxes of mouthwatering delicious peaches, made a light syrup, and make 24 quarts of canned peaches and a dozen cans of peach jam. SOOOOO good! A sticky gooey mess, but amazing!

Canned Pears and Pear Jam! Ok, have you ever heard of Pear jam? I hadn't, until the sweet lady I visit teach, who gives me all my canning advice, gave me a jar of her famous pear jam and I about died and went to heaven eating my toast the next morning. I had to have some of that! So I bought me a box of yummy cheap bartlett pears and scored a bonus free box from a friend and went to work by myself canning a dozen and a half quarts of Pears and two batches of amazing pear jam! It was a LONG day in the kitchen, but amazing results!

Strawberry and Raspberry Freezer jam! We were able to pick FREE strawberries and raspberries from a couple's garden in our ward and I made yummy strawberry and raspberry jam. Berry picking is so much fun! There is also a local bluberry farm near our house that we picked at this summer and I froze two giant bags of! So we can enjoy them through the winter!

Here is a picture of some of my work!
The whole freezer is full of these!

In addition to all my canned goodies, I have been baking and cooking up the wazoo! I have always liked to cook, but lately I am discovering how much I LOVE to cook and especially BAKE! I know this could be bad for my waistline, but I just can't help myself! Here is a list of yuumy things that have been cooking in my cozy kitchen! Most of these were new receipes...

Peach and Apple Pie

Peanut Butter Banana Bread

Apple Butter (Heaven!)

Homeade Rolls

Homeade Bread

Butternut Squash Soup

Apple and Cheddar Scones

Roasted Garlic and Cauliflower Pasta

Stuffed Turkey Meatloaf

I wish I had pictures of all of these but we eat everything up to fast, I will be better about taking pics and maybe posting receipes.

Another goal that I've been slowly working on and learning more about is Food Storage. I have been slowing learning to buy more everytime I go to the store and have a pretty good stock right now, we filled a 50gal barrel full of water, and I even have been grinding my own wheat flour! These last week I worked really hard and orgainized our entire 72hour kits for the whole family and have everything ready if something were to happen. It feels good to have at least that done, but I have a long way to go and alot to learn about!

So even though I am still not crafty and I can't sew, I try to celebrate the things I am learning and just go from there! Life is good!

Growing up, a long, long run, and pony rides

Wow, the month of September just flew by! We have had some fun adventures and lots of good times.

We went to the Central Washington State Fair and the girls had such a great time! Ryan had the day off and we were able to get discount tickets since it was the opening day! Since it was in the middle of the day on a weekday, there were mainly alot of cute old couples walking around, it was sweet. The main attraction was the barns full of animals! Jules raced from each barn so excited to all the different types of animals. And when she saw this pony ride, it was over! She had to go for a ride!

Cutie pie Claire

The produce barn was fun to look at. Huge pumpkins, zucchini's, and squash.

Juliet started her first day of Preschool! She goes twice a week at a local preschool right down the street. She absolutely loves it and I love the free time to go shopping with just one! I am so proud of her and she is growing up so fast!

I got up the courage and decided to train for a half marathon! I haven't run super long distances for like four years, so it was great for me to train again! I ran the Indian Summer Half Marathon in Tri Cities. The course ran along the columbia river and was just beautiful!

My training partner Adrienne! She was such a great motivater! She smoked me in the race, I was so proud of her!

It was a great feeling to finish and I am so glad I did it! Still not motivated to run a marathon again, but I would definetely do a half marathon again!

Beautiful Oregon

So two weeks ago we visited the beautiful coast of Oregon. Its was a special trip to me, because I grew up in Salem, OR and haven't been to Oregon or the coast since I was a young girl. I have really fond memories of my parents taking me to the coast, eating taffy and watching sunsets. (K, that sounds kinda sappy...but its true!) The main reason we went to Oregon was for Ryan to run the Hood to Coast race with his Dad and their team! The Hood to Coast is a long established team relay race that begins at Mt. Hood and ends in Seaside, OR. The runners take three legs each and run straight through the night. The Sin City Saints did an awesome job and Ryan had a blast! It was wonderful to see beautiful beaches and hang out with Ryan's parents. There are alot of pics on this posts because we saw so many things!!!

Seaside, OR
Seaside

Juliet running wild on the coast

Ryan's team coming in for the finish!

The Sin City Saints (They are all from Vegas and LDS...)

Ryan at the end! He wasn't even that tired!

On Sunday after church, we drove up north to Astoria. Astoria is is cute port town with alot of charm and.....the house where GOONIES was filmed is there! Of course we had to go visit. I myself am not a huge fan of GOONIES, but Ryan and his family practically worship it. So when his mom knew we were only 20 mins away from the Goonies house we had to go see it. But since I really didn't care for it, I didn't even take a pic of the famous house...But Astoria is a beautiful town and did not disappoint. We went down to the port where there were hundreds of loud sea lions laying around, and Juliet got a kick out of them!

Astoria has this awesome tower that you can walk up in and have amazing views from the top. Very beautiful!

This is from the top looking at the Columbia River

This is at the top looking at the Ocean

Us at the top

Always smiling for the camera!

My Babes

Cape Disappointment (thats really the name!, but it was not disappointing at all!)

Lighthouse at Cape Disappointment

Monday, at Cannon Beach. Behind us is Haystack Rock. This pic is not that great. It was really sunny!

After leaving the beaches behind, we drove into Portland and went to the Oregon Zoo! I also remember coming here when I was a kid, so I was excited to take Juliet and Claire there. They had this amazing anamatronic dinosaour exhibit that was way awesome! Juliet loved it, but Claire held on to Ryan for dear life! I wanted to watch Jurrassic Park after.

The lions, she saw real ones too! It seemed that alot of the big exciting animals were taking naps and had their backs and bums turned toward us. Oh well...

I think the best part of the day was the fun train ride we took around the zoo! We saw more on the train then we did walking around and the girls loved it of course!

After the zoo we walked through the International Rose garden which is right next to the zoo and walked through hundreds of varities of roses. Simply breathtaking!

We had a wonderful trip and I can't wait to go back. Next time I want to go the Salem and show Ryan where I grew up and went to school and visit the beaches I went to as a kid.

Summer's Over Already????

Wow! I can't believe that summer is almost over! Juliet will start preschool in two weeks! Yikes! We have had a great summer! I love living here in Washington, there are so many beautiful places to see and visit and fun things to do. We have stayed home most of the summer, but we did manage to squeeze in a trip to Las Vegas and go to Lake Mohave with Ryan's family. Here are some pics of the last few months.

This was at Snoqulamie Falls, right outside of Seattle, we stopped there on our way back from the airport. These falls were amazing, so breathtaking!
Lake Mohave was a blast! Its become a Davis family tradition to spend a weekend down in Laughlin, stay at the infamous Aquarius hotel eat the seafood buffet till were sick and just enjoy some fun in the sun. It felt so good to be in really hot weather, Washington does not get hot and I kind of miss the desert heat. So it was nice to soak up the heat, I will try to remember it when its freezing cold and snowing in a few months. While in Vegas we saw some members from the wonderful Buffalo ward, it was great to see old friends, man I miss that ward!

We flew home on a Monday and spent the rest of the day in Seattle. We walked down by the Puget sound, it was a gorgeous day, so bright and sunny, blue skies! Ate at one of our favorite restuaratns, Bucca di Beppo, so yummy! They have this killer apple gorgonzola salad and fabulous pizza.

Claire loved playing on the plontoon boat

Mimi, Juliet and Ryan

On a random Saturday in July, we had nothing to do, so we decided to hop in the car and drive to Leavenworth, Wa. (About 1 1/2 hrs from our house). We had heard alot about this quaint German village and wanted to check it out. What a fun place! So many fun shops and great places to eat. We ate fresh taffy, german sausages with sauerkrat, ice cream cones, listened to german folk music, it was awesome! The girls really like it!

I loved their authentic german outfits!

I couldn't stop thinking about my brother the whole time we were there, since he is serving his mission in Germany right now. He would have loved it.

On another weekend, Ryan found a good asian market in the tri-cities, so we stocked up on some Korean stables and Ryan made me a fabulous dinner. It only took him 4 hours to make!!!!! I LOVE Korean food, and am so thankful my husband loves to cook and share with me the Korean culture.

Juliet took and passed her first swimming lessons! Her teacher's name was Ariel, so that helped alot to get her comfortable. Who wouldn't want to swim with Ariel? She loves the water and can now hold her breath under water and swim a little on her own without anyone holding her, I am so proud of her!

Claire Bears!!! My baby, is not such a baby anymore! She is now walking and running everywhere and is into everything!!! I weaned her off the bottle and pacifier at 13months! Very proud of myself! She is already trying to talk and her personality is just bursting out. She is very affectionate, but is also very sassy when she wants to be, and loves to smile and laugh. She is always giving me goofy grins and laughs. She is such a joy!

Other happenings this summer...I am training for a half marathon with a good friend in the end of September, so hopefully we will be ready in time! It helps to have a goal though and someone to run with, it feels good to run long distances again.

Ryan is training for the Hood to Coast relay race for next weekend! So we are driving down to Portland and then Seaside to watch him run and finish. I am excited to go to Oregon!

Juliet starts preschool in two weeks, I am so excited for her! Its only for fours hrs a week, but I know she will love it! She is still doing really great with her potty training, she even stays dry all night and rarely has accidents! She is talking more and more everyday, and loves to sing and dance. She loves watching musicals and learning all the songs. Her favorites right now are Aladdin and Mary Poppins.

I have been getting really involved with a youth strings class in my community that my friend is the director off. Its a free class, for anyone in the community who wants to learn a string instrument. We have about 35 kids and a few adults in the class right now. So I volunteer with that for a few hours each week, its awesome to see the kids learn and see what they can accomplish. I have even taken on a few students of my own, I have 6 students right now and so far its going really good. I love that I can use my talent to help others, its great to be playing again so much!

Well, thats all for now! Enjoy the last few weeks of warmth!

Potty Training Success!!!!!

Sooo, potty training to me was this huge unknown territory that I was frankly very scared to enter, which is probably why Juliet wasn't potty trained sooner, but we all come to our breaking point and I was just plain tired of changing 2 kids in diapers, so I vowed that I would give it a try. Our first round was right after her 3rd birthday in April. I introduced the panties and gave it a try, but didn't have a real plan, yeah....it didn't catch on too great. After many accidents, I decided we would wait a few more weeks after we traveled and moved in our new home. So a week after being in our new home, I was more prepared. I read up on strategies, counseled with seasonend mothers on their experiences and I finally felt ready. There was no turning back, this was it, I was not going back to diapers!! I lined the family room and hallway to the bathroom with plastic and towels and spent three whole days in the house (including my birthday!) till she finally got it. I couldn't be prouder of her. After three days she was pretty much potty trained, #1 and #2. She even stays dry all night and has only had a few accidents this last month of being trained! I am thrilled!! I can't believe she caught on so fast and she is doing so well at night! Whew! What a relief! I can check that off my list now! Seriously, motherhood is alot of unknowns and half the time I don't know if I am doing it right or doing it well enough, but when your child learns something completely new, I feel so proud! Yeah Juliet!!!!

Our first Home!!

Yep, we did it!! We purchased our first home and absoloutely love it! We contemplated buying the rental home we were in, but looked around and fell in love with this brand new home not far from where we were and we just had to go for it! We are still in the same ward and moving was a little easier, we took lots of small loads and one big load of all our funiture. We were lucky to be able to get out of our lease on our rental and a new LDS family is moving in next week! We feel so blessed to have this home, I still can't believe its ours! Its in a great family friendly neighborhood, we are in a cul-de-sac at the end of a small private drive. So, its great for the the girls and I think they will have alot of fun living here. There are several LDS families from our ward who live in this neighborhood, our very next door neighbors are even in our ward, so its awesome! I feel like I live in Utah sometimes, because there are so many LDS families that live in this area. Its awesome! We are very happy and feel so blessed to have this opportunity to live here and have a home of our own. Now its on to the endless lists of projects and things we want to buy to make the home cute! We at least need to get some blinds for the windows!
This is the back of the house, we have a HUGE yard, eventually we will get it fenced.

This is our bonus/office room

Juliet's room, my mother in law refinished the cute lighting fixture and princess mirror, its an adorable room, fit for a princess!

This is our breakfast nook, there so many windows in the house, it is so light and cheery! I love it!

This is my kitchen...I love it, I especially love the window over the sink, I can see when Ryan gets home.

This is the main family room, a little sparse right now, but eventually it will get fixed up...

Well, thats the tour, come and visit now!

Family Time

So, after we got back from our trip to SD (see earlier post), we had four days to get ready before flying down to Vegas to see Ryan's little sister Bryn come home from her mission! Can you guess from this picture where she served?.......It was so great to see her and the entire Davis family, it was so fun to be all together, since that happens less and less now that we are spread out more. Bryn is doing great, she looks great and we are so happy and proud of her!!! Ryan flew home Sunday after her homecoming talk, but I stayed with the girls for a few more days and hung out, Juliet loved going swimming in Mimi's new pool, even though the water was cold. I was able to hang out with a few of my old friends and Juliet's long time play buddies, she was so excited to see Aria and Jackson. And of course playing with her cousins. We took the cousins to the Children's Discovery musuem one day, the kids had a blast! I had never been there before, but will definetely go back when we are in town. On Wednesday we loaded up a trailer with misc. funiture and items for our new home and drove up to Utah and meet my parents where I stayed for the rest of the week.

The Davis Family (man were getting big!)

Our cute family, I love matching clothes for the girls!

The Discovery museum. Juliet and her cousin Cru playing in the grocery store exhibit, sooooo stinkin cute!

Claire had fun at the museum too!

They had a hurricane tunnel, that blows wind at high speeds, Juliet loved it!!

Utah was a blast, it was so fun to hang with my family especially my brother Matt who is leaving in a week for his mission. We were able to hang out together, go the temple just the two of us and have some good talks. I will miss him sooooo much, but he will do awesome in Germany!
Ryan drove down after work on Friday and we all drove back together on Monday...fun, fun. Remind me: No more traveling for awhile!!

My family, Sam the dog even jumped in for the picture

My Mom and the girls

My handsome brother Matt! Miss you already!

When we got home it was moving time! I will do another post of our new home, which I am totally in love with!