Preschool: 1 Year down, 1 to go!

It seems like there has been a ton to blog about this week, but now I am drawing a blank. I guess there hasn't been as much as I thought. Yesterday was Weston's official last day of school. It was just a little picnic graduation party. He painted a graduation cap that he got to wear and then his teacher gave him a certificate for completing the 2009-2010 school year. He was really excited and loved running around with his friends. Davin tagged along. It was windy so he didn't wear his hat for long.
For his teachers I made gift card holder/thank you notes then we put $10 Borders gift cards in them. I thought they turned out pretty cute. They were super easy. I just cut out 4 apple shapes using the first one as an outline for the others. I wrote on the sides then used a glue stick to glue the bottom and sides together creating a pocket for the gift card. I also added a little stem with a leaf. If you decide to make these I recommend putting the stem with a leaf on both sides so it still looks like an apple after you put the gift cards in.
In other Weston news he has been wanting his hair spiky the last little while since he got his latest hair cut. I don't like it as much, but he seems to like it. I guess we'll do it until it grows out too much for that style. I am so proud of Weston for finishing his first year of school! He loved it and seems to have learned so much. I am looking forward to teaching him how to read this summer during his school break!
This morning Davin had his appointment with the ENT. They didn't even test his hearing because he still had fluid in his right ear but no infection. Apparently this is the kind of fluid that can cause kids to not hear and delay speech. He is getting tubes next Thursday. The doctor said that the kind of fluid that is behind his right ear is usually the consistency of rubber cement when they aspirate it out during the tube surgery. Gross.

Anyway, I am excited to see how quickly his language explodes when he can hear clearly. It also makes me feel a little proud of myself because I was right to be concerned. Whew! My mother's intuition is still intact. :)

I think I may be starting on the downhill side of pregnancy nausea. I still have issues with cooking and food sounding good, but I don't feel quite as blah all day. I am super excited that my sweet cousin, Kim, is bringing me dinner tonight. No cooking! Yay!

I am also trying to get things ready for the long weekend. We are going to visit my sister. I can't wait to hang out with her and Brad! I sure hope the weather forecast is lying though. It's saying rain all weekend. Boo. I hope you all have some fun plans for the Memorial Day weekend!

A Busy Weekend

This last weekend was super busy. Productive, but exhausting. Let's start with Friday. I decided we needed an outside outing. The weather wasn't super warm, but it wasn't freezing, so we went to Wheeler Farm to check out the animals. It was packed. I have never seen it so crowded. There were several school groups there in addition to the normal mom crews. It also got really windy, so we didn't stay too long, but Davin was in heaven with all the ducks running around.
Weston's favorite was still the tractors.
My favorite was having a quick camera to take some pictures. :) We met Ian for lunch after we had visited all the animals, battled the crowded (gross) bathrooms, and stepped in lots of duck poop.

This is from Thursday night I think. Davin was my little waffle making helper. He was so excited that he got to wear the kid apron and help stir.
Friday night I went down to Provo for my long lost friend Lindsey's bridal shower. We were Spanish speaking buddies freshman year at BYU, but then lost contact for several years. We have reconnected lately on our blogs and Facebook. Anyway, it was super fun to visit with her after not seeing her for 7 or 8 years. After her shower I dropped in to visit with another college friend, Lisa. We visited until late. Then I had to drive home in a crazy storm. Strong wind, strong rain, lots of standing water. Let's just say I hydroplaned 4 or 5 times and it was scary. I didn't get home until late. Ian had started ripping out the walls in the den when I got home, but there was no way he was going to be able to finish that night, so we pretty much called it a night and got ourselves to bed.

BEFORE
Saturday was construction day! Luckily we had some friends come to help. There is no way we would have gotten as far as we did without them. Thanks Wilson's, Bayles', and Campos'! The Campos' watched the boys all morning while we were working. It was so nice not having to worry about them.

DEMOLITION
I thought the room looked tiny without walls or furniture. Doesn't make sense, but it did. After we got all the drywall and insulation down we put up heavy duty plastic sheeting along the walls we were insulating to keep the insulation clean and to help seal off the multiple cracks and little holes in the outside walls. Next we put up the insulation.

INSULATION
Finally we did drywall. By the time Ian got back from his 3rd trip to the store with the drywall it was getting late in the afternoon. The guys only had time to get a couple of sheets of drywall up.

DRYWALL
We didn't get quite as far as we were hoping, but it was a productive day and it's coming along. We are on budget so far too, so that's good! By Saturday night Ian and I were both so tired. I slept better than I have in weeks.

Last night we went to Ian's boss, Steve's, house to watch the finale of LOST. It was fun to watch it with Steve and Erin (Steve's wife) and Zack (another co-worker). We put Davin to bed around 9:30, but just tucked Weston in on the couch with Charlotte's Web thinking that he would for sure conk out. Nope. He stayed awake the whole time until we got in the car around 11:45pm. Needless to say everyone is napping right now.

Today was Weston's end of the year class party. It was supposed to be a water party outside, but alas, we woke up to snow this morning, so they just played inside, watched a movie, and had ice cream. I think he still had fun, but I'm looking forward to the whole preschool end of year picnic on Wednesday when the weather is supposed to be a pleasant 75 degrees.

Coming Soon . . .

That's right . . . we're expecting! Baby Bowles #3 will be joining our family in early December. I am 11 weeks and I just saw our cute little peanut baby wriggling around with a strong heartbeat yesterday at my 5th doctor's appointment. Yes, 5th. We had a little scare at the beginning of this pregnancy. I was having a lot of abdominal pain, which was when I went to my doctor and found out I was pregnant. Then they were concerned that it was an ectopic pregnancy (outside the uterus). I had several ultrasounds. They found some ovarian cysts, but by the time we could actually see the embryo it was where it was supposed to be. I'm so grateful that I had a doctor who was willing to wait out what could have been a dangerous condition just in case the pregnancy turned out to be viable. Everything seems to be just fine now. The baby is growing and is measuring right on schedule.

So far I have been having some standard nausea and food aversions. The hardest part about this stage of pregnancy is that I don't ever want to cook. I plan meals, but by the time it's the day to cook them they don't sound good at all. I just want my food placed in front of me. :) I have been eating a lot of baked potatoes and cinnamon toast. No weight gain to speak of yet, but I swear I'm already getting a rounder belly. I haven't gotten out any of the maternity clothes though. I have a few things that will work for the next few weeks at least.

Weston is super excited and really wants a baby sister since he already has a brother. Davin doesn't completely get it, but points to my stomach when I ask where our baby is. And he did not want to let go of the ultrasound photo from yesterday. I think we are going to have another boy, but my mom insists it's a girl until she is proven wrong. We shall see. We won't find out the gender until the end of July.

Finally, I am seeing a different doctor. A doctor instead of a midwife. I really loved my midwife, but she retired after I had Davin. This doctor has an office about 3 minutes from my house and delivers at the closer hospital. I like him and he has lots of experience. I think the convenience is too good to pass up.

In other news, we cleared out the den last night, so all our den furniture and belongings are now crammed in the living room or have been relegated to the garage for now. Time to start demolition! I'm hopeful that we will be able to get all the insulation and drywalling done this weekend. Mudding and painting will probably have to wait, but it's not too bad. We are just going to all have to get used to living in a slightly smaller space for a few weeks.

I have a feeling that my cooking motivation is going to sink even lower during "construction." Sigh. Any quickie, easy meal suggestions?

All Kinds of Cute

I obviously talk a lot about my kids on the blog. That's because this is literally my journal. I make it into books and then I'm done! Brilliant. Also, I think the grandparents appreciate the updates and pics. This post is a random collection of recent kid cuteness.

This was from our first attempt at making fudge pops in our new popsicle molds. They were messy and didn't come out of the mold very well, but they tasted pretty good and the kids enjoyed eating them.
This is not super recent, but I was so happy with the way this picture of the boys together turned out. We took these in the same photo sitting that we did Davin's 2 year old pictures. So handsome!
The kids were randomly dancing in the living room. They are such goof balls. I can't get over what a nerd Weston is with his pants hiked up. And I think Davin is krumping.
My little hellion outlaws. I threw them in jail at Farm Country. It really didn't take much convincing. They love playing in the jail.
Another cute one from the Father's and Son's campout. Davin is distracted by the airplane flying over.
Sigh. This is what we did to our den this last weekend. We didn't strip all the wood paneling off. Yet. Just enough to get an idea of what was underneath it. We haven't decided if we are going to rip out the existing drywall or not. There is insulation behind it, but not very much, so the plan is to add to/replace the insulation, possibly replace the drywall, mud, texturize and paint the walls. I'm hoping new windows are in the near future in that room too.

The state of "under construction" gives me major anxiety, so I would like to just get started so that we can be done. It will hopefully look much better when we are done. Also, I am grateful that this is the only room we have to re-do.
Last, but not least, a video of Davin's triumphant success in removing his own socks. Ok, fine, Weston helped out a little, but he was still so proud of himself. :)

Father & Son Camp Out

Last night was our stake's Fathers & Sons camp out activity. It was held at a local park about 5 minutes away from our house. Weston was super excited about going camping. He helped Ian get all the gear out and ready on Thursday night. Then we spent a long Friday afternoon packing up and waiting for Daddy to come home. Ian took both the boys with him, so I had the evening all to myself. I went and got myself some dinner from Kneader's, brought it home, and watched a movie. At 9 I went and picked up Davin and brought him home for bed. Weston stayed and slept in the tent. They got up this morning, had breakfast, and were home by 9am. Weston had a blast. I think he will be excited to go camping again soon.

Friday Fun

Ian sent me this video to watch the other day and I was just cracking up. I do love my Sienna, but I had no idea I was so cool. ;)

On a more serious note, my friend, Alexis posted THIS on her blog the other day. I thought it was very humbling and thought provoking. We really are so very blessed. It's important to remember that, express our gratitude to our Heavenly Father, and then be sure to serve and share with others.

Happy Weekend!

Rawwr

Weston loves this sweater because he thinks it makes him look like a tiger. He fittingly calls it his tiger sweater. Tonight Ian is working late at a video shoot, so I took the kids to Chick-Fil-A for dinner. On Wednesday nights kids eat free and they usually have a craft or something for the kids to do. Tonight they had a lady doing face painting! Weston was so super excited to get his face painted like a tiger. He waited patiently in line for about 5 minutes then came back to me and was a little disappointed. He told me it was a dollar to get your face painted. Unfortunately I didn't even have a dollar. I gave him the 75 cents I had in my wallet and told him to ask the lady if she would do it for him for that. Turns out he had just seen the tip jar and assumed it cost money. When he came back with his face painted he told me that it was free for 4 year olds.
He spent the rest of the evening running around the play place pretending to be Sher Khan from Jungle Book. The kids got balloons on the way out too. Best dinner out ever. In their opinion anyway. :)
Davin has been a sickie with a cough and cold. He is starting to get a better though. Less coughing anyway. Today he took a 3 1/2 hour nap! That is unheard of for him. Weston used to pull 3 1/2 hour naps out of his hat all the time, but this is definitely rare for Dav. I think it was a good thing that he got that much rest. I didn't mind it either.

This weekend is the Father and Son camp-out. I think Davin will have to sit this year out, but by next year he will for sure be invited. Weston is really excited about his first ever camping experience. I know, I know. We are horrible parents for not taking him camping in the last 4 years. In our defense we totally had plans to go, were packed and everything, when Davin came down with a fever and cold the night before.

Anyway, this weekend is also stake conference (yeah I know, horrible planning on the part of the stake), so we will be busy busy starting with the stake temple session tomorrow night (if I can find a sitter). Our ward choir is providing the music in the general session, so I hope that goes well. I have my concerns. Send good high note thoughts my way Sunday morning.

Fancy Schmancy

Well my super weekend definitely lived up to it's hype. We had such a great time seeing Iron Man 2 at midnight on Thursday night. It was so fun to spend the whole evening together. I picked up the kids from the Miller's house on Friday morning and they were exhausted. Apparently the sleepover wore them out. It was all I could do to keep them awake until we got home. Needless to say we spent Friday afternoon napping and lounging.

That night we went to a friend's graduation party. He just finished his master's degree. Congrats Justin! It was a luau since Justin is Samoan. My friend Tara made all the food and it was amazing. I was very impressed. It was at a park and the kids had a blast running laps all over the place. They also had a cotton candy machine! Davin was in heaven. Weston just kept saying he wanted the pink kind (theirs was blue) and wouldn't eat his. Weirdo.

Saturday morning Weston went to the primary activity. He loves feeling grown up and going to activities without a parent. :) He made me a Mother's Day gift, but when I went to pick him up he was playing duck duck goose and eating cookies, so I think he had a good time.

Saturday night was Ian and my big date. Before we got ready I got to open some of my Mother's Day presents. The boys had picked out 3 new pairs of earrings for me. The did a great job too. I love them all! We got all dressed up (me in a new dress and new earrings) and went to dinner at Red Lobster because I wanted shrimp. I hadn't been there in years. It was yummy. We had to speed a bit to make it downtown in time for the symphony, but we got to our seats just in time. The symphony was just wonderful! The music was so fun and different. The 2 hour concert just flew by. I had never been to Abravanel Hall before either, so it was fun to attend an event there. Here we are in front of the awesome glass sculpture in the lobby during intermission. Ian seemed to enjoy his first symphony concert too. We will have to go again one of these days.
That was kind of the kick off to my Mother's Day. Sunday I got to sleep in. Weston came and woke me up a little after 8 to tell me that breakfast was almost ready. Ian made french toast and sausage. It was delish. There was a fresh cut tulip on the table and I got the You Are Special plate. :) After breakfast I got to open my other presents. Weston made me adorable I Love You Mom presents at school. They were the best. Ian got me Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's. I sure love Audrey Hepburn.

I spent the rest of the morning snuggled up on the couch in a blanket reading until it was time to shower and get ready for choir and church. I played the piano for the primary while they sang, which was ok except that I didn't get to see Weston singing. Ian was on the stand too, so he didn't see either. Sad. I'm betting he was cute though.

For dinner we had chicken Parmesan and Caesar salad. I didn't have to do the dishes. Or help the kids brush teeth. Or changed poopy diapers. It was a lovely Mother's Day thanks to my boys (especially Ian!). I am bummed that I forgot to take a picture with my kiddos yesterday, but here's one that Weston took of Dav and me a little while ago.
Today I am putting the house back together after a crazy weekend and doing lots of laundry. I took Davin to the doctor this morning because he was coughing a lot all weekend. He now has an albuterol inhaler, some Singulair, and an appointment in a couple weeks with the ENT. Hopefully we will figure out what's going on with his ears/hearing/speech. Well, I'm off to fold laundry and think fondly about how much I enjoyed this last weekend.

Reading Fool

This week I have been a reading fool. It's been a little hard actually because when I get absorbed in a book I don't do anything else and I get a little grumpy because I should be doing other things. Oh well. I still love escaping into a good book.

This week I read The Penderwicks on Gardam Street and I'm about halfway through The Goose Girl (for the 3rd or 4th time). I just bought both of these books at Borders last weekend, so I had to read them. I also just picked up The Host from the library. I have already read it, but it was awhile ago, so I wanted to give it another read. I don't know if I'm weird like that or not. Do you re-read books you like over and over?

Anyway, I also felt like I spent this whole week just waiting for this weekend. I sure hope it lives up to it's hype. :) Tonight the kids are going to have a sleepover with the Miller boys so that Ian and I can go to the midnight showing of Ironman 2 with a big group from Ian's work. I'm excited to have the evening to ourselves. And Weston is super excited to be having a sleepover.

Friday night we are going to our friend, Justin's graduation party at a park, so that should be fun. Saturday morning Weston has a Primary activity. Later that night Ian and I are going on another date! We are going to dinner and to the Utah Symphony. I haven't been to the symphony in years and Ian has never been. I scored us 2 tickets for $20 through Groupon. It was my first purchase through them and it was really quite simple and I liked that they had a live stream of questions with Utah Symphony employees to answer them right there on the webpage while I was trying to decide whether or not to purchase these or not.

Sunday is Mother's Day so it's bound to be a good day. :) Weston is giving his second Primary talk that day and singing with the Primary for the first time in Sacrament meeting. It's going to be a big weekend. I will try to remember to take lots of pictures!

I hope everyone has a lovely Mother's Day weekend!

Educational Viewing

This weekend Ian and I finally finished watching Dances With Wolves. I had never seen it. I enjoyed it. Interesting story and beautiful images. It was a little slow though and kinda predictable since I have seen Avatar.

We are also watching the series America The Story of Us on the history channel. The second segment was on last night, but it's on really late, so we will have to watch it another day. I think it's fascinating. I love learning more about our country's history.

I also won another blog giveaway this morning! Hooray! I have been following Blog Giveaways for a couple months now and I have won 2 tee shirts, a handmade soap, chocolate banana slugs, handmade shamrock earrings, a Scholastic DVD of animated stories called Giggle Giggle Quack, a $25 gift card to ecostoreusa.com, and most recently a Kodak Sports Camera! I enjoy looking at all the different blogs that I enter giveaways on too. Feel free to join in the fun and win some free stuff!

Today after Weston gets home from preschool we are going to plant his little sunflower plant out in the backyard. He brought it home a few days ago, but it has been raining every day since then, so today is the first day of sun. He is so excited about it.

Last week on Friday we went to Petsmart to look at the animals and came home with a .10 goldfish. Weston decided to name him Bruce. By Friday night I thought he was a goner. He was kind of laying on the bottom of the fish bowl and twitching, but he survived the weekend and seems to be ok. I had put the bowl on a lower surface so that Davin could see the fish too, but this morning I caught him up to his elbows in the fish bowl, so he lost his viewing privilege and Bruce has been moved to higher ground.

Can you even believe that it is going to be Mother's Day this Sunday?!? It totally crept up on me. Luckily I have everyone taken care of and will be making a trip to the post office tomorrow. I sure hope my boys have a good Mother's Day planned for me!

Life seems to just be plugging along. I am excited for our upcoming weekend of fun that will include a midnight showing of Iron Man 2, a friend's graduation party, a Primary activity, a date to the Utah Symphony, and, of course, Mother's Day! In the meantime I will get this house clean, do the laundry, and keep everyone fed. :)