Other Random Excitement

It was another busy, packed weekend for the Bowles family. I'm not sure we know how to have any other kind! It was mostly fun though. On Friday Weston didn't have school, so we met up with my cousin Carly and her cute kids for a picnic at Liberty Park. It was chilly, but the sun was out, and we had a great time visiting while the kids played. I didn't take many pictures because I was holding Talia most of the time, but Weston asked me to take this picture and told me to put it on the blog and say, "Weston found this rock with words on it at Liberty Park." He's so silly.
Later Friday afternoon Weston had karate testing. He was very excited to get a new belt. I explained that he had to focus and do his absolute best so that he would earn the next belt. There were lots of kids testing and it was interesting to watch. I thought Weston was doing well, but I didn't really know what they were looking for. At the end of testing Master Troy told me that he passed all the skills for white belt (the one he was testing out of) AND for yellow belt (the next belt up). So instead of moving him to yellow until the next test in a couple of months, he gets to skip yellow and go straight to orange. Weston overheard this and was SUPER excited! I am so proud of my little martial artist. Go Weston!

Friday night we got a pizza and watched the TCU v. BYU game at home. It was kind of a bummer. BYU didn't play great and TCU is a good team. We lost. It wasn't a very relaxing evening either because I had to put together Young Women in Excellence invitations and fold laundry before before bed.

Saturday morning we carved pumpkins and then Ian had to go to work. Lame! I hate it when he has to work on the weekends. While he was gone we ran to the store to get donuts for the ward activity, I made chili, and gathered up all the stuff I needed for the games at the ward activity. Ian got home just in time for me to pack up the car and go to the church to set up.

The chili cook off was a success. There were plenty of yummy chili's and cornbread to try. I am boring, of course, and only ate my own and one other. My chili won the award for the "fastest emptying pot." Woohoo!

Ian brought the kids in their costumes, but we didn't get any good pics because it was kind of a hectic night. I was rather stressed out about doing the games for the activity. It was supposed to be the youth in charge, but the YM presidency recently changed and so it was pretty much all me. Luckily I had several youth show up early to help me set up and we had put together some of the stuff at mutual earlier in the week. The youth were really great about running the games so all I had to do was supervise. The kids all had a great time and got lots of prizes and candy.

I had a table set up for the kids to color a paper bag for their treats. There was a pumpkin toss (bean bag toss), witch hat ring toss, and The Spooky Swamp fishing pond. There was supposed to be donuts on a string too, but it just didn't end up happening. I put the donuts out on the food table and they disappeared, so it worked out. The highlight was the face painting. We have a sister in our ward who does professional face painting. Fortunately for us she didn't have a job Saturday night so she came and volunteered at the ward party. Doesn't Weston's face look awesome?
Davin got some stripes on his face and was very happy with them. This isn't the best picture, but Davin wore the Mike Wozowski costume and our friend's daughter was Boo. They looked so cute!
Talia was dressed up too, but we didn't get a picture of her. I promise I will take some good ones of her as a pumpkin tomorrow! Needless to say we were all exhausted by the time we got home and got everyone to bed.

Today Ian and I both had to teach. Talia and Davin both had runny noses. It was a conundrum. Those of you in normal wards are probably thinking, "why didn't you just call one of your counselors to fill in for you?" There is no one to call in our ward. I'm not lying. No one. Luckily my lesson was more conducive to having both kids with me since we were watching a couple Conference talks, but it was still annoying. The stress and exhaustion of having so much responsibility on our little family was definitely felt this weekend. We certainly aren't moving just to get out of our ward, but it is undeniably a perk.

Luckily most of our Sunday afternoon was relaxing (after Ian got home from doing tithing and after I got home from my presidency meeting). We vegged and watched "Tangled" and "Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin." I was pretty proud of myself for actually cooking a decent meal and getting the house tidied up for the start of our week. Can't wait for Halloween tomorrow!

We Love Pumpkins!

On Monday for Family Home Evening we painted the little pumpkins that the kids picked out at the pumpkin patch. They loved getting to go crazy and paint whatever they wanted. Weston did faces on 4 sides of his pumpkin. For treat we ate donuts off the cat. It's a tradition. And we love it. We also like making scary faces.
On Saturday morning we carved our big pumpkins. Weston really wanted to carve his own, but he wasn't super thrilled about having to scoop out the guts. He did do more scooping out than he's ever done before, but Ian ended up doing most of the cleaning and scraping for him. Davin and I did a pumpkin together and I was proud of myself for cleaning it out all by myself (Davin pulled out exactly 2 seeds). I usually need help getting all the strings out. Go me!
Our pumpkins had surprisingly few guts inside, and I think they were easier to scrape out than normal because they had been sitting outside and were a little icy inside. Anyway, once we got our pumpkins all cleaned out it was time for the fun part . . . picking a design! Davin wanted his to look like this.
Once I actually got the crayon out and started sketching on paper he settled on a "happy monster" face. I thought it turned out super cute and we were done pretty quickly.
Weston chose a design from the book that came with the carving utensils. Ian helped him get the design drawn onto his pumpkin and then it was time for him to carve. He discovered that it was hard. I was surprised at how quickly he got upset that it was hard and wanted to give up. I guess it's not necessarily a good thing for everything in life to be easy. We'll have to work on that. I ended up helping him carve most of it, but he did do a few sections on his own. Love that concentration tongue sticking out!
Once we got all the carving done we lit the candles inside and admired our handiwork. It was quite a fun morning and I think our pumpkins turned out awesome this year!
We are all set for Halloween tomorrow with our pumpkins in the windows and costumes all ready to go. The boys can't wait to go trick or treating and get lots of candy. Happy Halloween!

School Fun

This week I got to spend a little time at Weston's school. On Wednesday evening they had a school activity. First we went to his classroom for a fun little math workshop. We were the first ones there so I made sure to get a couple pictures of his space project.
There were only a couple kids at the workshop, so it was pretty relaxed and Davin got to participate too. They learned about sorting and counting. Weston's classroom has this really cool "Smart Board" that is a touch screen, so they could move the candy on the screen into the correct categories. They also each got a bag of candy to practice sorting and counting and graphing in different ways.
After the math workshop we went into the cafeteria for the PTA sponsored Halloween magic show. The kids got to dress up and the PTA sold cotton candy, popcorn, and sodas. The magic show was pretty fun. Definitely catered to the elementary set with underpants jokes and balloon animals. Talia was getting pretty tired and squirmy by the end, but she made it and we all had a fun time.
Today was the school's costume parade and Weston's class party. I took the little ones with me to watch the parade in the morning. I was very impressed that every single kid in Weston's class was dressed up. At the end of the school day I dropped Davin and Talia off at my friend's house and went in to help with Weston's class party. I was in charge of the spooky story. We read "The Little Old Woman Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything." It's a cute story and all the kids got to participate with props. I enjoyed getting to watch Weston interact with his classmates and seeing his teacher in action. She's awesome. By the time the party was over I was exhausted. I could never be a kindergarten teacher. Whew! Major props to my mother in law, who teaches kindergarten, and to my son's teacher!

UEA Weekend

Every October the Utah Educators Association holds a big conference, so every year all the students get an extra long weekend sometime in October. In the past it has always annoyed me because I never knew when it was, and inevitably I would be trying to do some fun outing with the littles and for some reason everywhere was crowded with rowdy school kids!

This year was different. I have one of those rowdy school kids. And I was excited to have him home for a few days. We had a great time. On Thursday we went to the dollar store and picked up a poster board. Weston had borrowed a book about space from his kindergarten teacher. We read it and then were planning on doing some sort of project with it. We put together a poster with information and pictures. I cannot believe this, but I didn't get a picture of it. He did a really good job with all the writing and was so gung ho about doing this project. That took most of our morning. It was a nice day home relaxing with my kiddos.

Friday was our big outing day. We had made plans to meet up with my friend Tara and her kids to see the witches at Gardner Village. We go together every year. Usually we go early in the month, but with our older children in school now it's harder to find a time that works for everyone. Well we were sad that we hadn't found a time to go earlier in the month because Gardner Village was a madhouse. It was packed. We had to park in the back of this field and hike to the shops (seriously I had to carry Talia's stroller part of the way). There were so many people it almost wasn't fun. We couldn't get too close to the witches, and we didn't bother trying to get into the candy shop. We did wander through and see a few of the displays and the kids had fun together, but next year I will try to plan ahead better.
The kids were kind of bummed that we didn't stay at the witches for very long, but it was long enough and Talia was getting tired. We headed home and rested up for our next Halloweeny outing. That evening we met up with Ian at the pumpkin patch. It was wonderful. The weather was perfect and we found fantastic pumpkins. Thanks for another good year Mabey's Pumpkin Patch!
We worked up an appetite picking out our pumpkins, so we ate dinner together at Kneader's after the pumpkin patch. The rest of Friday night was filled with exciting furniture buying and arranging (see previous post).

Saturday morning I took Weston to karate while Ian took Davin to the stake center for a cleaning assignment. It was a productive morning. Then we switched. Ian took Weston with him to the BYU football game while I hung out with Davin and Talia. My big boys had a blast at the game. It was absolutely perfect weather, about 70 and sunny, for a middle of the day game. Plus BYU killed Idaho State 56-3!
Davin and I ate lunch and watched the first quarter of the game at home, then we hopped in the car and went to Chuck E. Cheese to play. Davin is getting big enough to do the games by himself. He had fun and was ready to pick a prize before we even finished using our tokens, which was fine by me. Talia was a trooper and only fussed a little even though she was pretty much ignored in her stroller the whole time we were there. I took Davin to Paradise Bakery for some cookies before we went home. It was a fun Davin date.
Saturday night was the adult session of stake conference. We went with friends and went out for shakes afterwards. It was a nice evening. Sunday morning I almost panicked thinking I had overslept and missed my Monday morning swim with my friend, Lori, before I realized that it was actually Sunday. It had already been such a long weekend I thought for sure it was over. Anyway, the broadcast of stake conference was very nice. We heard wonderful talks from Sister Dalton and Elder Bednar, two of my favorite speakers.

I even remembered to take a picture of Talia in her cute church dress! I have been feeling sad that I don't take more pictures of my kids dressed up, but Sunday mornings are usually so hectic getting ready and out the door by 8:45am that I don't have time for pictures.
Needless to say we had a lovely, long UEA weekend. Thank you teachers for having a conference so I could spend more time with my family. :)

Farewell

This weekend we said goodbye to the big red couch. It was bittersweet. I LOVED my red couch. I fell in love with her just over 7 years ago when we were still newlyweds living in our teensy basement apartment. We had inherited a hide-a-bed couch from Ian's parents when we got married, but it was not exactly my style or up to my preferred comfort level, so we bought a new couch. This was our only couch for many years. We added a loveseat in the den a couple year ago, but still the big red couch was our main place to sit and relax. It was also my escape at night. I slept on the big red couch often. Almost every night for the last few weeks of my pregnancies and many other nights when Ian was snoring or I was having insomnia I could always get a few good hours of sleep on my couch.

The big red couch the day we got her (Sept. 2004)

Then something sad happened. The frame on the red couch cracked during Davin's blessing weekend. I tried to get it fixed, but the furniture company had gone out of business and the manufacturer was downsizing and wouldn't answer my repeated calls. Finally I gave up on getting it fixed and accepted that we would be replacing it. I have pretty much been looking for the last 2 years. I wandered furniture stores, looked at store ads every Sunday, but never found just what I was looking for.

This last week I saw this cute gray set on sale at Smith's Marketplace. Weird to buy furniture from a grocery store, but whatever. I took the kids to check it out. I sat on it and I knew. This was the one. The color was right, the design was right, the price was definitely right. I texted Ian this picture and told him he had to come see it.
That night after we went to the temple Ian and I went back and looked at it again. We sat on it and chatted about where we would put the pieces (we've never had an actual furniture set before). It was fun. Last night Ian and our friend, Kerry, went and purchased the set and brought it home. It took 2 trips in the van, but by 11pm we had new furniture! Our big red couch went to a good new home. I am very happy with the new set (and it ended up being an even better deal than I thought with some last minute coupons!). I think we will take the chair to Ian's work until we move to our next home and have a place for it. In the meantime we are all enjoying hanging out on our new furniture!
Before:
After:

So the next time you come to visit us you will have a nice, comfy place to sit. Welcome to the big gray couch era. :)

Exploring

I'm a few days late, but Talia turned 10 months last week! She is getting so big and cuter than ever. She is still not crawling, but she manages to get around by scootching on her bum. Davin is learning the fine art of protecting his toys or moving to higher ground. Talia is such a great eater! She is by far the least picky child we've had so far. She also sleeps wonderfully (almost all of the time). She has three teeth. I think there is a fourth coming in on top too. Talia babbles constantly and likes to "sing" with me. I'm impressed with her pitch matching skills. :)
Our fun thing this weekend was that Ian and I got our new iphones! This is my first smartphone and it was a few months overdue. I was scraping by with Ian's old old Sony Ericsson since mine died a couple weeks ago. I love my new phone! It's so much fun and so convenient to have music, directions, people, games, and info right at my fingertips. I am very impressed with Siri so far too. She is quite good at understanding what I ask and doing it. So obedient. I like that.

Our phones came on Friday, so we spent the evening setting them up and playing on them. I'm always up for a game of Words With Friends, so look me up! We also took the kids to the park to enjoy the fantastic weather.
Saturday morning I had my MRI at the University of Utah hospital. I was a little nervous, but it went fine. I had an MRI on my knee back in high school, so I remembered the big machine and the loud noises it makes. Apparently it's a little different when you get your brain scanned though. I had to wear a hospital gown with weird hospital issue pants and a robe. The MRI machine was in this crazy airlocked room. Seriously the door was huge and rimmed with green lights and made a big whooshing sound when it opened. It was intense.

I got all situated on the table with my head in the headrest and then the nurse says she's going to start an IV. What?!? I didn't know this was part of the deal! I do not like needles, especially IV's, so I panicked a little. I asked why and she explained that halfway through the MRI they tested for changes. I have to admit this nurse was the best at putting an IV in that I've ever had, so that was good. She gave me headphones with classical music playing and then put this plastic cage like thing over my face. In the first few minutes I thought I was going to throw up and I was pretty anxious, but once I willed myself to relax I was fine and it was over in about half an hour. My hands went to sleep and I was pretty dizzy when I tried to stand up, but it really wasn't too horrible. And now it's over and my doctor just emailed me this morning to tell me that the results were all normal. Hooray!

Saturday afternoon Ian took Davin with him on a walk to do some Friends of Scouting fundraising. They saw this cool butterfly on their walk!
We spent the rest of the day watching the BYU v. Oregon State game on TV. Ian's parents were there sitting in the midst of the Oregon crowd, but we didn't see them. The game was a fun one to watch and BYU won! Go Cougars! For some reason Davin insisted on cheering for the Beavers. Weston even helped him make a "B" for Beavers sign. He was sad at the end when his team lost. It was pretty hilarious. He was walking around all Charlie Brown style hanging his head. Silly boy.
After the game we went outside to BBQ some burgers and zucchini. We ate outside for the last time this year. It was really nice out and we all enjoyed hanging out in the backyard and playing some ladderball after dinner.

Sunday afternoon found me in a grumpy mood. Not entirely sure what my problem was. We decided to go for a drive up the canyon and see the Fall leaves. It was a good idea. We went up to Snowbird and did the Barrier Free trail up to a lookout point. It was really fun to be outside in the crisp air and see the amazing Fall colors. The boys loved it too. We saw a squirrel and a fuzzy caterpillar and got caught in some leaf rain. I love hanging out with my little family.
Last night I noticed Davin's eye was all red and swollen. It didn't look any better this morning, so I took him to the doctor and confirmed he has pink eye. Blah. We already started his eye drops, so hopefully no one else will catch it. In the meantime we are taking it easy and doing laundry and watching Toy Story. Also it is sunny. I like it when it's sunny. The end.