~~Our Children: The Way We Build the Nation~~

We probably won't ever see the benefits of all of the years of contributing to the social security system. We don't have a vast array of 401Ks, IRAs, and investments. By the worlds standards, we don't have much, but that's where *they* are wrong. We have 6 blessings we call children. These children are our 401ks, IRAs, and most definitely our biggest investment. :) Every year, every month, every week and everyday we pour thousands into our kids, thousands of words from scripture. We are raising our kids to honor us, as parents. We are attempting to create servants hearts, amongst our children. They all know that we are taking care of them now, and that the tables will turn when they are older. They are our retirement, times 6, and in May that will become, times 7. Seven kids to share in the joy of caring for us in our old age. Speaking of number 7, fun little picture we had taken yesterday at the bottom of this post. I wanted to share something that I read today, it's from the magazine, Above Rubies.  

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Children are wonderful.

They are beautiful.

They know how to get your attention.

We adore their chubby cheeks.

Their cute ways.

Their big innocent eyes.

Their little pitter patter of feet.

Their unending questions as they seek answers.

They are our flesh and blood.

They hold our DNA.

They are our future.

They are our heritage.

They are our true riches (money and possessions cannon compare).

They are gifted, talented, and creative.

They are tomorrow's leaders.

They are tomorrow's provision for our family and nation.

They are tomorrow's security.

They draw love and many other virtues from us.

They make us a charactered people as we build character in them.

We must take responsibility for them so they will in turn take responsibility for us.

Without children there would be no family.

No Home, Sweet Home. 

No family vacations.

No birthday parties.

No romances.

No weddings. 

No future work force.

No future soldiers to fight evil.

No future fathers and mothers to raise children.

No babies.

No families.

No nation.

It is foolish to raise cats, dogs, and goldfish to satisfy our paternal and maternal instincts.

Animals and things are no substitute for children.

By refusing children we accept the destruction of our nation.

Parenting children is NATION BUILDING.

Our western nations have become increasingly sterile, selfish, spoiled and boring.

We have sacrificed our families and nations on the altars of selfishness, careerism, and materialism.

With smaller and smaller families we have become lonely, deprived, unfulfilled and without character. 

We have little, if any family to come home to.

No laughter, no singing, no natural family to entertain us.

We have no one to care for. We have given what little we have to daycare.

No one to love.

In turn, we have no one to love us.

We have been deceived.

We have created our own holocaust.

We have destroyed ourselves through contraception, sterilization and abortion.

Pro-choice is the choice of destruction.

We are swiftly breaking the generational chain.

The dynasties are quickly ending.

Hell claps its hands.

Heaven weeps.

What have we left to live for?

By the grace of God, every Christian husband and wife should aim to build a dynasty for God.

The world, heaven, and all creation waits to see what can come out of your home.

Every home should be a little church-the father/pastor, the mother/assistant pastor, and the children the congregation.

Give your children your very best effort.

Your home is your sculpturing studio.

But, you are not sculpturing clay, stone, or paper mache. 

You are sculpturing flesh and blood.

As your children are molded in the ways of God, by the enabling of the Holy Spirit, you are sculpturing nothing less than the glorious likeness and image of God.

Could anything be greater? I think not.

The whole world is waiting. Heaven is waiting.

All creation waits for the manifestation of the "sons of God."

It is the desperate need of the nations.

What are you waiting for?

It is high time to stand up and take your place in the greatest building project of all time--THE FAMILY.

By: Colin Campbell

Here's baby number 7's first picture. :)

  

~~IDAHO CITY, ID.~~

We were invited to "rough it" for a night up the mountains. Here's some pictures.

This was the cabin. Pretty nice, huh?! Not exactly roughin' it.

 This picture was taken while on a little hike.

Noah

Miss Blue Eyes AKA Daisigrace 

 Here's Josiah and I'm really sure what he's doing.

Kaianah, Josiah, Noah & Austin along with our friend Don, he had quite a 

gathering because he brought candy along for the hike.

 A little volleyball action.

 The friends that invited us have two kids, this is Eliana, she a 

couple months older than Daisigrace.

Daddy & Baby

We had a very nice time, we all enjoyed ourselves. The drive was beautiful, the cabin was wonderful and the company was great and we all fit! :)

NEED YOU NOW by Plumb

It's a beautiful song and one that reminds me of all the times I've cried out to the Lord to help me through something in my life and the fact that He is always with me, that I'm never going through anything alone. Thought it was worthy of sharing. :) Click on the "Watch on YouTube"

Really? Another baby? Why? Are you crazy?

Lots of changes going on around here, the most recent being a pregnancy announcement, we are expecting our 7th baby! I know that this raises lots of questions, mostly to our families, so I'm going to try to answer some of them, with the help of a book that changed our lives, A Full Quiver by Rick & Jan Hess.

1. Why aren't we using birth control to limit the number of children we are having? 

Well to answer that question, I will say this, we've given this area over to the Lord. He is in charge of how many kids we will have. The bible uses many references to the fact that the Lord open and closes the womb. It's not chance, it's not a certain time of the month, it's the Lord. If He didn't want us to have a baby then He wouldn't give us one. 

     2. How can you afford all those children?

We know that if the Lord chooses us to have more children, that He will also provide for them. This is also an area of our life that keeps us relying on Him. 
The question might be, Do we really believe that WE provide for our children? We cannot in our own strength even provide for our own needs today. No father is the sole provider for his family, without God. "Give us this day our daily bread." Matt. 6:11

      3. Aren't we suppose to use common sense in this area of living?

To be blunt, what is meant here by "common sense" is worldly reasoning, blind to faith and wisdom. Coming in out of the rain is one thing. Denying God's control in an area that He has the complete right, ability and desire to oversee is quite another.  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." Prov. 3:5-6

We'll continue to answer more questions in the next few months. We just thought this might help some of you that think we've completely lost our minds. :)

With Love,
~The Davis'

~~More Visitors!!~~YEAH

My sister in law and niece, came over from Hawaii last month. This was the first time we got to meet sweet little Taylor Grace DeVito. One of the things we did while they were here, was The Zoo.

 Here's Taylor, this was a serious moment. 

I'm not sure she wanted to be in the stroller. 

 Grandma, Taylor and part of Alanah's head, checkin' out the turtles. 

 Kaianah

 Taylor and Kaianah.

 Austin

 Noah

 My sister in law, Lindsey and Taylor

 Kaianah, Noah and Alanah

 Kiddos in a bird's nest.

 Kiddos in a hut.

 Alanah really wanted a picture of the zebra. 

I just fell in love with Taylor, I reallllly wished they lived closer or at least in a place that wasn't only accessible by plane or boat. Really enjoyed having them here.

Skate Day!

Another homeschooling year begins at Davis University. We've been homeschooling for 7 years now, wow! I'm not sure where the time has gone, really. It's weird to be teaching Kindergarten and High School.
The kids have been working hard and earning money for some extra outings, one of them being
Homeschool Skate Day. (Thank you to Grandma & Grandpa for supplying all those extra jobs and paying good money for them.)

 The Davis boys have gone skating, but the girls haven't. 

Today was Alanah's first day on skates. A sweet friend of ours took these pictures for us. Austin is the tall one closest to us and he's holding Alanah's hand. 

 Here she is being saved by the sweet teenage boys. 

Almost a wipe out! 

Austin and Sam were so sweet to take her around and around and around. :)

~VISITORS~

The Potter Family came to visit us and Melanie took lots of great photos. Here's some of her work. :)

 Crossing the bridge at sunset.

 Dusty, Joe and Daisigrace.

 Kaianah is walking Ally, which is The Potter's dog.

 Slip n' slide

 Noah is rock climbing.

 Alanah at the top of the rock climbing wall.

 Daisigrace and I are supervising the slip n' slide. :)

 Oh.Ya.

All visitors MUST try Dutch Brothers Coffee.

 Trent Potter

Extreme Sports. :)

Noah on the slip n' slide.

Serious grub

Nate and Kaianah

 Josiah

U

 Us and Daisigrace

Having WAY to much fun.

Nate & Joe

We were so glad they came out and visited us and got to meet Daisigrace. We made some great memories.

~SUMMER SHOES~

A sweet friend made these flip flops for Daisigrace. They are the cutest shoes, ever. :)

Daisigrace is checkin' out the new shoes. 

She's not use to wearing anything on her feet. 

What are these things on my feet? -Daisigrace

 Seriously, adorable!

Edible tootsies. 

~DAVIS BABY No. 6~ THE BIRTH STORY

Yes, I'm finally ready to talk about the birth of our 6th child. So, here's the story.

She was 2 weeks and 2 days late. It was a Sunday, April 1st. The family was getting ready for church, I was having contractions, like I had been having on and off throughout the week. I decided to stay home while Dusty took the kids and headed out for church. Contractions stopped all together by noon. At about 1:30pm my mom gives me a call and we decide to head out for Bed, Bath and Beyond and then onto a late lunch. My mom dropped me off at home at about 4:00pm. I sat on the couch for a bit, Dusty and I got caught up on the day, nothing big, we had tea and just chilled out together. During that time I had 3 contractions that I would consider *hard* contractions. We started timing them, since the midwife told us to call when contractions were about 5-7 minutes apart. We got nothing consistent, we got 15 minutes apart, 8 minutes apart, 10 minutes, nothing regular during those 3 contractions.
I got up to go pee. Can I say pee on my blog? Sure. Okay, so I peed and just as I was getting up I heard a loud POP sound. I sat back down, because, well that was weird. Sure enough it was my water breaking. I yelled for Dusty to come in because it was brown and I didn't know what that meant. I turned out to be meconium, which means that the baby is late and had it's first bowel movement in the womb. (Wow, breaking all the blogging rules here, first pee and now bowel movements, okay, moving right along.)

From the point when my water broke the contractions started at 1 minute apart. Yes, 1 minute apart. If you were paying attention earlier you would have notice that the midwife told us to call her when the contractions were 5-7 minutes apart and now here we are, 1 minute apart. Let me just say that we live 35 minutes from the delivery place.
Okay, now we are in a dead run, (stopping every 1 minute for a long contraction, lots of screaming etc. ) to get in the car and head up to The Baby Place, which is where we are suppose to deliver. We are flying low to get there, I'm screaming my head off, in the "little car" which is about 10 inches from Dusty's ear.

We are about 10 minutes away when I yell to Dusty "I think I'm crowning!!". He looks at me with a petrified look on his face and says "DON'T PUSH!!!" and then he says "I'm going to call the midwife again." He calls the midwife but can't heard a single word she is say, because, yet again, I'm screaming my head off 10 inches from his ear. He says to her, "I can't hear you, but be in the parking lot and ready, we'll be there in about 10 minutes." Little does he know she is trying to tell him that she doesn't think we'll make it, and that she would meet him along side the road to assist in a car birth!
We keep driving, we safely flew through a red light or two and arrived at The Baby Place. The midwives are in the parking lot and they just start taking my clothes off. (Yes, this is roadside that my clothes are being taken off.)
Dusty says, "Can we just try to get her into the building". One of the midwives places a birthing stool just inside the back door and that is the location where we welcomed Daisigrace Emma Davis into the world, 4 minutes after arriving at The Baby Place. She was 7.9 lbs (our biggest baby yet) and 19 inches long. She was born 40 minutes from the first contraction. Our "home birth in someone else's home" went very well. Daisigrace needed a little oxygen after her birth because of the meconium she had ingested.
She was born at 6:04 pm and we were home and in our own beds by 10:40pm and that included a run through Carl's Jr. on the way home for the dinner we never had. Where were all the other kids? Oh, they were next door at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandma was suppose to be at the birth but she missed it because it was so fast. She and Grandpa were at church and during that 1 hour the baby was born.
Our April Fool's baby was finally here!!