Happy 30th Melanie

Happy 30th Birthday Aunt Mel-Mel

Here are some interesting facts from the year you were born...funny!

*Sony introduces the "Walkman", the first portable stereo!!*

*Record of the Year: "Hotel California," Eagles

*Album of the Year: Rumours, Fleetwood Mac (Warner Bros.)

*Song of the Year: "Love Theme From A Star Is Born" (Evergreen), Barbra Streisand and Paul Williams, songwriters

Super Bowl: Dallas d. Denver (27-10)

Federal spending: $458.75 billion
Federal debt: $776.6 billion

Median Household Income(current dollars): $15,064

Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.13 ($0.15 as of 5/29/78)

The price of a gallon of gas was .63 cents

A dozen eggs were .48 cents

The average price of a new house was $54,800

Gold reaches an all time high of $200.00 per ounce

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELANIE!! We hope you have a WONDERFUL birthday.

Love,

Dusty, Leia, Austin, Noah, Josiah, Alanah & Kaianah

TODAY in IDAHO

27°F
Light Snow
Feels Like 16°F

Christmas Day

Here's lots of pictures from Christmas Day.
Kaianah got her first doll and LOVES it.

She's in a box of wrapping paper trash...
Noah is working hard at opening this little present.
Dad & Alanah...she's watching how everyone else is doing it and probably taking mental notes.
Austin is explaining to Grandma Fitz how it all works.
Siah is happy...
Alanah is talking to Papa D & Nana.
Our little dog lover and purse lover is in heaven, she got both! This little dog hasn't left her side since Christmas.
Noah couldn't wait to open his new Stars Wars light saber. I don't even think he was done opening presents yet.
Oh yeah, he LOVES this one...
Siah, show us your present, say "cheese".
I've got some jail birds in my lap.

Austin, Grandma F., Kaianah, Josiah & Noah. Ready, set, OPEN!!
Great-Grandma & Great-Grandpa C. sent this shirt for Kaianah, it got a good laugh out of all of us. The shirt says "Are you sure these are MY relatives?" Grandpa Fitz helped Kaianah open this package, she's still trying to figure it all out.
The Davis kids Christmas morning.

Thank You to all the family that sent presents, it helps us sooo much!! The kids loved everything!!!!

Playin' In The Snow!!

Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve. Grandma & Grandpa Fitzpatrick are in town and we spent Christmas with them.
Grandpa Fitz took Alanah out on the quad, she's got her own basket to sit in...the two of them are pulling the other kids on the sled behind. (Or pulling Dusty on his snowboard.)



Here's Austin and Noah all ready to go.
Dusty and the kids made a snowman in the front yard.

Here's me refueling the quad and Noah moving the sled. We had a blast. Austin and I were riding together at one time and Dusty went over a huge mound of snow and just dumped us! We wiped out big time. It will be a great memory for us.

Later that night we went to the Christmas Eve church service. The snow was really falling that night, it almost felt like a blizzard. After the service we came back to our house and Grandpa & Grandma Fitz joined us for dinner, Dusty homemade Egg Nog, hot chocolate, popcorn & watching Polar Express. After the movie was over Dusty read the poem, Twas the Night Before Jesus Was Born, a poem that his cousin Courtney showed him years ago. The night was so relaxing and filled with great memories.

Eh, what's up doc?

Kaianah gets her first taste of carrots today~it's a winner.

Austin's Christmas Play

Austin was in a Christmas play with his drama class on Saturday. With all we had to do that day we completely forgot our camera...so no pictures for you, sorry. :(
Austin was the "3rd Innkeeper", and he did a wonderful job!! We were very proud of him. The whole play was done very well. We were impressed with the job all of the kids did, the music was wonderful, the props were great and the dancing was fun! Good Job Austin!!!!

Saponaceous details...

We made homemade bar soap on Sunday with friends. Now that we've been taught how to make the soap I think Dusty and I are going to try it again in a couple weeks. Our friends that taught us, make the soap together as a team, and both Dusty and I liked that idea.

We wanted to learn how to make it so we can stop buying commercial soap that is full of chemicals. The soap we made has 1 chemical verses like 15 chemicals in commercial soap. Plus like with most things we do, we like knowing where it comes from.

I replaced our laundry soap and dishwasher soap with homemade soap that I made on Monday. It's still in the testing stages but I'll let you know how we like it once we have a better idea. We've done about 5 loads of laundry with the homemade soap and like it so far. We've done one 1 load of dishes in the dishwasher and so far so good.
You really can't beat the price. The laundry soap works out to .1 cent per load and even less than that with the dishwasher soap!! A big container of laundry soap that serves 64 loads costs .64 cents. I was paying $17 for Tide and $11.99 for Kirkland brand.

The stockings were hung in the window with care...

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

Here's our stockings, hung with care but not by the wood burning stove. I know we have a big family but theirs just something about seeing all these stockings hung up that makes me laugh. Do we really have FIVE kids?? So the solid green ones are the boys and the red ones are the girls. The other two are Dusty and mine, they are the stockings from our childhoods.

Our Burning Desire...It's Hot!!!!!

Here it is...let me explain. We have central heating in our house AND we have a wood burning stove. This year we are on a roll, we haven't turned on our central heating ALL SEASON!! The wood burning stove is cozy, reliable, and sustainable not to mention the mesmerizing soft glow and crackling sounds.
This might not be the greener choice, lots of people have different opinions on that one but it is the more sustainable choice. We aren't relying on Idaho Power to keep us warm this winter.

Let me explain some more. The little tea kettle on top of the stove is an old one from our cooking stove, and we finally came up with a way to use it instead of adding it to the land fill. By keeping that kettle on top of the wood burning stove, full of water, it adds moisture to our air. The air tends to be dry in our part Idaho and even more dry with the wood burning stove running all day. So that kettle really helps.

Do you see the little black unit to the right? That's an Eco Fan Airplus. The eco fan runs solely off of the heat from the wood burning stove. No batteries, no electricity. We were looking for a way to push some of the heat towards our boys bedrooms. It's also a good indicator as to when the stove needs more wood. When the fan blades start to slow down that means the fire is cooler, and could use some more wood.

Hoping for a White Christmas but will settle for a Green one...

We got a live, living, potted Christmas tree this year. I feel the need to say live, living and potted all together because when I was calling around to different stores asking if they had living Christmas trees, they would say "yes, they are fresh cut!"

People, people, people living and fresh cut is like an oxymoron, if it's cut it's not living, it's on the road to death. Anyway, now that we have that all clarified, phew. Our plans are to plant the tree sometime next year.

The tree is about 1/2 the size of a cut tree you would normally find in a Christmas tree lot, so it's on a table in our living room to give it some height. The added bonus to the tree on the table idea is that Kaianah can't be tempted to pull on the tree, ornaments or colorful lights!! Mom's get to keep her sanity this Christmas, yeah!!! We are off to a good start here...

Every year we put up all of the special ornaments, then the ones the kids have made over the years, then we fill in the rest of the tree with plain ole ball ornaments. This year we only have 2 ball ornaments since the tree is so much smaller. Eventually I'll be able to get rid of those ball ornaments once and for all! :)

Dusty will never allow us to get an artificial tree, it's was pretty much in our wedding vows. We vowed to love, honor, cherish and never get a fake Christmas tree. I'm totally kidding, but he does take his tree very seriously.

The tightwad inside me wants to get a fake tree so we can stop throwing away our money on a fresh cut Christmas tree every year, so this idea to plant one I absolute love. It's a win, win. Dusty gets his tree and I have something to show for the money, besides ashes in the burn pile!!

Kaianah's Organic Rush

Over the holiday I prepared Kaianah's first gourmet baby food. She indulged in organic green beans...and LOVED it. I used my Champion Juicer to prepare her baby food, all of the food is pureed totally raw, thus preserving all the enzymes and nutrients. After the food is prepared it is stored in a glass container in the frig and I try to use it all up within 2-3 days.

The only amount of cooking that her baby food gets is the 30 seconds or so in the microwave right before I serve it to her...I love that I'm not steaming the heck out of the food, then storing it and then reheating. I truly love that I don't need to worry about a Gerber Baby food recall or wonder how the Big Baby Industry prepared my babies food or what other ingredients weren't listed on the back of the plastic baby food container.

A Night of Trouble

Gran's last night visiting landed her in trouble. A game of Trouble that is...here's some pictures of the boys playing Trouble with Gran.

Austin is planning his strategy...

Newest Addition for The Davis'

Here's the newest addition to the pantry of the Davis household

Here's the reason why...

She turned on the light, shut the door, sat down and started her way through everyone's Halloween candy. I knew it was to quiet...

Caught red handed. The lock was installed the next day...

Turkey Butchery

Sorry for the blogging break, with the holidays and some family staying with us we haven't had the time. This is what you've missed...

By now you know we are a little different then most of the world, so this shouldn't be a big shocker...we had an alternative turkey option this year. :) By the title, you know where I'm going with this...
Instead of the traditional heading to the store to buy a frozen turkey this year we had the option to slaughter our own turkey. Some friends had been raising turkeys, free range, of course, and we hosted a "slaughtering party" at our house and got to keep 2 of the turkeys for Thanksgiving.

So, we joined together with friends and some family to slaughter 15 turkeys! Here's some pictures. (Just in case you were wondering, the turkeys were delicious!!)
Here's Dusty cutting the head off one of the turkeys...

My mom and Kathy

Tara, Kevin & Tyler are at the "defeathering station"

Here's Tara at the scalding stage

Here's Dusty with a wild one...Grandpa is holding the door

Killed, scalded & defeathered...Jon, Kevin & Dusty

Dusty's mom AKA Gran was visiting and recovering from surgery...she made it out to see what was going on with all this turkey business.

The slaughtering cone. (Kevin, Jon & Dusty)

It's a family affair with a camp fire

Here's some of the crew minus a few