This is what happens when men babysit...

As a hair stylist I have seen hundreds of hysterical Mother's with children who have decided to cut their own hair. I have also had to fix probably a hundred little heads of hair to trying to salvage what was left of a do it yourself haircut.

I remember my sisters cutting each others hair and my Mom having to fix it. The worst was my good friend Paige (don't hate me for this...) her daughter had the most gorgeous long thick hair. She cut it so short and to the scalp she looked like an albino. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, the daughter was fine, Paige was a mess!

Earlier this week my little 3 year old decided she didn't like the hair in her face and she gave herself bangs. I was furious, I gave her the "no one but me cuts your hair" talk. She has bangs now. I hate bangs...

Tonight I was teaching a coupon class and left the kids and their cousin with Paul. I got home and we put them to bed. My parents came to pick up my niece and as soon as she walked out of the room I noticed this...

Her hair had been cut! I freaked and she proudly told us how my 3 year old had cut her hair! Seriously, why my kid. I feel horrible, her Mom is out of town, I had to call and profusely apologize and beg for forgiveness! My sister handled it much better than I would have, she just told me to fix it.
So we had an impromptu haircutting party.
Then we blew it dry and made her cute!
I actually almost like it better now. She needed the ends cut anyway, right?

** Update... the baby woke up and Storie had gotten him also!!!!

Any haircutting horror stories out there?

Exterminator service?

There are videos that you take that should not be shared with other people. Especially if they are of your spouse.... and especially if it would appear to other people that you both have been drinking. 

So it might be hard to believe after viewing this little video that we weren't drinking, in fact we don't drink at all, it was just well into the early morning and we were ( I can't believe I am going to admit this....) watching reruns of The Blue Collar Comedy Tour, hence the "hold my beer and watch this."

You see, right outside our side door is a little closet where we keep our garbage cans, if the door is not shut all the way critters get in and tear the garbage half way to Dallas. So upon hearing something out in the closet we decided to go investigate. 

Also, please pay attention to the protective hand device my husband grabbed on the way out the door....

Yes, that is an oven mitt he is using, and yes, he tried to throw an opossum at me.

Happy Father's Day!

This is my Father. Isn't he handsome! Last year on Father's day my sister wrote a beautiful tribute to my Dad that can't be topped. I am going to steal some of it and post it here. I really am the luckiest girl on the planet, I have the most fabulous Dad ever!

HISTORY
My Dad grew up in Waterloo, Iowa where he was born with a beard. Growing up he tamed wild salamanders and hunted gophers. He sneezed his way through elementary school and then survived through crazy black girl razor fights in high school. His family and friends also spent a LOT of time on the Mississippi river where they water-skied and caught giant snapping turtles for lunch. Dad learned to play the trumpet and would often go to the bar on the wrong side of the railroad tracks and play jazz with all the black folk with his Levi jeans rolled up, white shirt and penny loafers. He was the original James Dean.

In college Dad was known was as "The Fish." The rest of his days at UNI are a blur, as he won't tell us about them and his best friend Dane Sommers has also been sworn to secrecy (the old "you don't tell my kids and I won't tell yours" thing). I know that he had some crazy times as one of the popular stories about "his friends" that he tells where "he wasn't there" involves a police chase and a corn field. There is also a mysterious picture of him wearing some underwear on his head. He claims he knows nothing about it.

He met and married his sweetheart at the ripe old age of 21. He finished his masters degree in geology and then started working. Interestingly enough, he wanted to be a lawyer but didn't want to spend his life in a cubicle. Little did he know that the geology department sucks you in with their cool field trips for a few years and THEN throws you in a cubicle (or in Dad's case a nice office with a view). My Mom joined the LDS church when they lived in Louisiana. It wasn't til 12 years later in Texas that Dad followed her great example. Ha-no one would believe that THE Craig Davis was getting baptized and so many people came they had to meet in the chapel.

Dad is the father of six marvelous kids (I'm his favorite) and 11 grandchildren who he loves very much.

CALLINGS, AWARDS, ETC.
Dad is quite the guy. Since he joined the church he's only ever had 3 callings. First he was in the bishopric, then he's had over a bazillion scout callings and now he's in nursery and scouts. When we first moved to Texas my Dad and a couple other guys started the largest scout troop in Houston (big deal-Houston's HUGE). They were infamous for a while in scout history. In his scouting career he's received so many awards I can hardly remember all of them. But, here are a few.

LeRoy Golson Award (very distinguished)

Scouting Family of the Year

Unit Commissioner of the Year

Scoutmaster of the Year

Silver Beaver

And so many other Pine Tree awards I can't even recall

Other Random Information
Because he was so involved with scouting, he was a favorite among all the guys we all hung out with in high school. My brother's friends knew that he was the voice of Jack In The Box. Every time he'd leave and go on another "business" trip, a new commercial would come out. They were obsessed with this for months.

He always has a handkerchief (AKA snot rag).

He doesn't drink after children.

On one of the scouting trips he took, Blake Rhalston kept taking off his smelly shoes. My dad repeatedly said not to. Blake didn't listen, and his socks ended up on the freeway. Blake is still whining about this 10 years later.

Jonathan Kay was fascinated with my dad's beard. I remember the day he witnessed something that is usually only captured on a high speed camera-my dad coming his beard. He keeps a comb in his pocket so he can straighten it out and when Jonathan saw him comb his whole face in less than a second he was impressed out of his mind and couldn't stop talking about it for months.

He's not a cowboy. In fact, he hates country music.

He shaved the beard into a goatee, and now people think he is Colonel Sanders.

He's been mistaken for Steve Martin and Richard Dreifus more than once. People are very disappointed when they see him at the airport, ask for a signature and it comes out, "Craig Davis."

He's the best husband ever. He's been shopping patiently for hours with my mom at antique stores so she can find this certain drawer for a sewing machine and I've never heard a complaint.

People fear and love him. He is intimidating... he's really smart and knows everything. He wrote the dictionary.

He can make things explode just by looking at them.

He has traveled to more countries than I am old. I think so anyway. He has spent a lot of time in Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Greece, Europe, China and like four hundred other places I can't even keep track of. He's dined with ambassadors, presidents, and all sorts of VIP peoples.

I have had numerous people at church over the years pull me aside to tell me how lucky I am to be his daughter and how much they love and respect him.

Dad has a unique cough. Whenever we go somewhere and lose site of him, we listen for his "Eh heh" cough and we can find him.

He likes to canoe, rock climb, mountain bike (face first), hike.

He can name every kind of rock. My least favorite as a kid was the "Levarite." ... Leave it right where you found it...

FAVORITE PHRASES
"YOU KIDS DON'T DO DIDDLY-SQUAT!"
"You couldn't find your butt with both hands!""You're as blind as a bat!"

I am so lucky to have a dad like my Dad and I love him so much. He's the kindest, most forgiving man on the planet. His great example of what a man should be like will be in my heart forever. I hope I can raise my kids(whenever they get here) to be like their Grandfather.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary!

Wow! We have been married a long time! I was just a baby when we married, I was 20. Crazy. 

We are entering a new kind of different stage of life and I am not sure I like it much. We are old enough now that some of our friends parents are starting to pass away, I really hate that. People that seemed liked your parents when you were at their house, you almost could have called them Mom and Dad. We are also to the point where our friends have been married long enough that some of them are getting divorced, and I hate watching that also. It's a hard time right now with the cycle of life, having to grow up. 

But wow, 13 years ago today Paul and I got married. Who ever would have guessed what was ahead for us? That is part of the fun though, isn't it? I never would have guessed 6 kids and living in Texas. 

As I laid in bed last night, listening to him breath,  I thought of two things that I loved about Paul that I thought I would share. 

1. We always laugh. Even when everything sucks we always end up laughing. We mostly laugh at the kids, not in a mean way, but yet still laugh at them! Like, "can you believe that really just happened?" We always have fun. The laughing and fun go hand in hand. Last summer we had a horrible camp site, basically we camped in a parking lot on gravel, it really sucked. But we figured if we didn't tell the kids how bad it was they would never know. So if we pretend like it is fabulous they will think it is. And we did. We had a great time, and still laugh about it. We have been vomited on and pooped on more times than I care to think about, all funny stuff. We can look back and laugh, and even did at the time, about scraping up change to buy gas in college. We also laughed while we walked Tucker as a newborn around Wal-Mart at 2am because that was the only place that he wouldn't scream, and wondered if we would ever be able to buy name brand items like, Zip Lock and Del Monte! We laugh when we buy those now because I use coupons and that really tickles us for some reason. 

2. I love Paul because he is never critical of me. He has never complained about the house being a mess. If he can't find a place on the couch to sit down, he moves the clean clothes to the other couch, or puts them away. He has never complained about a meal that I have made, or more importantly have NOT made! He has never said anything about the 5 lbs. from EACH of our children I still have to loose. He never says a word when I start a new project that he knows he will have to help finish. He has never complained when we have gone days without using our kitchen table because I have my painting or jewelry spread out all over it. I really can't think of anything that he has ever asked me to do. If I need something he always makes it happen. I really appreciate the 'freedom' that he allows me to do the things that I want to do. Last fall I wanted to take a jewelry class that I could only find offered in Austin. He made it happen, paid for it, watched the kids, helped me out the door at 5am so I made it there by 9am and took care of a still nursing baby for 15 hours while I was gone. 

It is crazy to think that someday I will have been an Ivanovsky longer than I was a Davis. I am over half way there. 

I Love you Paul! Happy Anniversary! 

What a Sweet Dad

This is one of those "I've been meaning to" blogs that I haven't blogged yet. I love family traditions and think they're important to have, and my husband started one for our family that I think it very unique (and precious). A few years ago for Valentines day we stayed home instead of going out (funny how that happens when you have six kids). So Paul got creative, gave me the night off and made a beautiful candle lit gourmet dinner for the entire family. The kids LOVED it! The next year he was planning on getting a sitter and taking me out until the kids started talking excitedly about "Are we going to do that again, Dad!?" And that's how the tradition started.
This year was beautiful, the girls (and Rush) all went to Mardi Gras in the morning while Tucker was at practice, and then we all came home for dinner (My sister and her husband opted for dinner with us-apparently waiting 3 hours for any restaurant was not going to settle with Jeff). Paul made an amazing romantic meal, with name plates, rose petals, and candles everywhere. The kids all got a giant Hershey Kiss (Storie freaked out when she figured out it was entirely chocolate) and we got them Madagascar2 to watch together as soon as dinner was done. This year all the kids each told Dad and I something they loved about us as well! And they didn't just say, "Because you gave us giant Hershey Kisses!"
So dinner was beautiful, and this is one of the favorite holidays for our kids because of how special Dad makes it! Do you have any ideas for unique family traditions?