November Excitement

November brought us lots of family and friends, fun events, and lots of pictures.  We started the week off with my mom coming!  It's always a party when Mom is here.  Mel spent a lot of her free time here during that week too.  We shopped and got ready for Thanksgiving.  We also got to meet up with Eli and Emilee and their girls for a trip to the dinosaur museum and some cousin time. 

 

 

 

 On Wednesday morning Mom and I brined the turkey.  This was all my mom's brilliant idea.  She even made a special trip to Salt Lake to buy the brining bag and spices at Williams-Sonoma.  Wednesday also brought us the Bowles' family!  Jim, Denny, Aly, and Ella arrived that evening.  We visited for a little while that night before we all headed to bed. 

Thanksgiving Day was a busy day of cooking and cleaning.  Ian took the big kids to swim at the hotel with his parents while my mom and I worked in the kitchen.  I actually wasn't feeling very well and ended up being much less help than I had planned.  My dad was driving that day and arrived around lunch time.  I was so grateful to have my family there to help out and be my kitchen crew!  We ended up eating right on time and it was all delicious.  Our sprawling cornucopia centerpiece turned out wonderful too.  It was so pretty!

 

 

 On Friday we went to the dino museum once again with some of the Bowles' friends who were in town.  It was fun to catch up with the Jacobson's!  That night we had a family dinner and birthday celebration for Denny, Noelle, and Talia.  Talia was so excited to open presents and got some fun things, including TWO Minnie Mouse plushes from my parents.  One is a backpack and she loves it.  She also was very into her cupcake with a candle. 

Saturday morning we went and took family pictures with the Bowles side at Thanksgiving Point.  We were all together, which doesn't happen too often.  The pics only turned out ok, which was disappointing because we had to buy a photographer's pass and we just don't get pics all that often.  Sigh.  It's hard when you have 4 kids under age three.

After pictures everyone went to see Wreck It Ralph while I went shopping and out to lunch with my mom and dad.  It was nice to spend some one on one time with them.  We also baked cinnamon rolls for Sunday brunch.  Saturday night we ate leftover Thanksgiving dinner.  It was delish!  I was bummed I had missed out on eating it Thanksgiving Day, but it tasted fantastic as leftovers.  :)  I spent that evening cleaning things up to get ready for Beckett's blessing.

Sunday morning we blessed Beckett Lawrence in our ward.  Ian gave Beckett a really beautiful blessing.  I cried, of course.  We had lots of family and friends there and we were so grateful to be surrounded by people we love.  After the blessing we came back to our house for a yummy brunch of souffle, muffins, cinnamon rolls, fruit and juice.  It was nice to visit with everyone and enjoy relaxing.  We didn't really take any pictures except the group picture.  Oops.  The Bowles' had to leave after the brunch to catch their flight back to Oregon.  We are so glad they were able to come and spend the holiday and the blessing with us! 

 

 

 That evening it was just my parents and Brad and Mel.  We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner again, sang our Olson Christmas repertoire and watched White Christmas.  I was so glad we got to enjoy some Christmas traditions together to kick off the season!  My parents got up early Monday morning to start the drive home.  I spent Monday recovering, cleaning and doing laundry.  It was a whirlwind of people and events, but I am so thankful that we could make it happen.  It was a wonderful week!

On My Mind

Well, I have officially hit my free storage limit for photos on Blogger (actually they are stored on Picasa, but whatever) which means that I can't blog with pictures at the moment.  It's quite unfortunately timing.  My awesome computer nerd hubby is working on a free solution, so have no fear.  There will be pictures of the kids again soon!

In the meantime it really has been forever since I have blogged and so much has happened in the last 3 weeks.  We had lots of family in town, hosted Thanksgiving, blessed Beckett, decorated for Christmas, and are whittling down our advent calendars.  There will be posts about all of that in the next couple of weeks, but for now I wanted to just write a bit.  A lot of times my blog is just an account of what we are doing, which is great!  But this is also the only place that I "journal" so I think it's important to sometimes just write out the things I have been thinking about.

I missed the boat on the whole say-something-you're-grateful-for-every-day-in-November thing, but I really did spend time reflecting on my blessings last month and feeling some extra gratitude.  I especially have been feeling so grateful to my Heavenly Father for his loving guidance in my life.  I am slowly learning to really trust in Him and His timing.  I know that we are where we are supposed to be right now.  Selling our house and finding this new place was definitely a blessing.  I love living here.  I love our home.  I love our neighborhood.  I love our ward.  I love the new opportunities that living here has presented to us.  On the flip side I am also so very grateful for the years we spent in Kearns.  I don't doubt that was where we were supposed to be at that time either.

I am, of course, grateful for my family.  I have a sweet, thoughtful, hardworking, loving husband.  He is so good to me.  He is a great dad too.  We have awesome kids.  Four of them.  We are so blessed to be their parents.  I am grateful that our circumstances allow me to stay at home with my kids.  Sometimes it's hard, but there's nothing else I'd rather be doing. 

I am grateful for freedom.  I love living in America.  There is no other place in the world like it and I am blessed to live here.  I get to make my own choices about almost everything.  Including how I worship God.  I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Heavenly Father's plan of happiness brings me so much peace.  I know that I am blessed to have a knowledge of my Savior, of my divine worth and identity, and of how I can return to live with my Heavenly Father again someday with my family. 

I am thankful for a million little things too.  Including, but by no means limited to, chocolate, the smell of rain, group text conversations, snuggling, baby smiles, indoor plumbing, being able to park in the garage, iphones, a basement where I can send the kids to play as loudly as they want, contact lenses, dishwashers, washer/dryers, Cafe Rio, good movies, good music, my piano, air conditioning, date nights, cute boots, etc. etc. etc.

Well this is getting a little lengthy, but suffice it to say I have a LOT to be grateful for.  I always appreciate the time set aside at Thanksgiving to think about all the good things in my life.  It's nice to get them all written out like that too.  Remind me to read this post the next time I start whining about something ok?  :)

Clean and Refreshed

Saturday morning we took the entire family to Smith's to do some shopping.  We were a circus!  I was pushing a car cart with Talia driving the little car and Beckett in the basket, the boys each had a mini cart, and Ian had a regular cart.  We helped the kids load up on canned and boxed foods to donate to Ian's work's food drive.

While we were both there we went and checked out the entertainment centers.  We ended up buying a new TV stand!  It's really nice and I love having something with closed storage that the baby won't be able to get into when he starts crawling.  I kind of miss having space for toys, but we did relocate a few to the storage ottoman, so Talia's not completely bored while she follows me around the kitchen.

We also picked up some storage things to do some organizing.  We finally got the main front closet organized/cleaned out so we can hang coats in it and still access the stuff we wanted to keep in there.  We also de-cluttered the house to get ready for all of our company this week.  

This weekend I got to have a girls' night (actually afternoon) with my friend Tara.  We went to lunch and saw the new Twilight movie with NO kids!  It was so super fun.  We had a blast chatting and eating, and the movie was actually pretty decent.  A good ending to the series.  I really enjoyed it.  We both needed the break.  It was so refreshing.

Today I am cleaning like crazy.  We are having all of our family here for Thanksgiving and Beckett's baby blessing this week.  I'm excited.  My mom gets here today!  Can't wait!  I'll leave you today with this cute little video of the kiddos playing at the little playground by our house.

Happiness

We had the first big snowstorm of the winter last week.  This actually did not make me terribly happy, but it's inevitable and it was very pretty when the sun came out the next day.  I, of course, had to drive to Sandy with three kids in tow for my six week post-partum check up the day it was snowing like crazy.  The appointment went fine and we drove safely enough.  It was just a pain. 

Ian had to work last Saturday so I was home with the kids.  The neighbor boys came over and they played in the basement, then bundled up and played out in the snow for almost an hour.  When they came in we had candy cane hot chocolate and they all colored around the new dining room table.  It was pretty idyllic actually.

 

The snow has been slowly melting all week.  There is still some on the ground, but the days have been pretty nice as far as November weather goes.  I'm hopeful that I just might survive this winter with three little ones at home most of the time. 

Mel came over on Tuesday and we had a blast running errands and playing with the kids.  We watched Penelope in the afternoon.  That movie always makes me happy.  After dinner Mel and I went shopping at Smiths for a few things, including our Thanksgiving turkey.  We were silly and it was fun.  Sisters definitely make me happy.

Talia really wanted to be Thor

You know what makes me happiest of all?  These smiles. (And Weston's, but he was already at school when Beckett woke up)

 

 

My kids drive me nuts sometimes.  And sometimes there is a lot of noise and chaos in my house, but sometimes they all get along.  And sometimes they are all happy at the same time.  And sometimes they are all asleep at the same time.  And sometimes they give me big hugs.  And it all brings me so much happiness.

November? How?

Things are just chugging along here at the Bowles house.  I don't have anything all that exciting to blog about, but I don't want to go too long between posts or my family will miss seeing updated pics of Beckett!  He loves going on walks in our unseasonably warm November weather, which has now turned cold and snowy.  We got 4 inches of snow yesterday!  He doesn't so much love tummy time, but he tolerates it for a few minutes at a time. 

 

 

Last weekend was so nice!  We were just home and we got stuff done but didn't have a ton we HAD to do.  I went and got my hair cut in the morning.  I'm still kind of growing it out, but it badly needed a trim.  It feels so much better and looks about the same.  I ran a few other errands while I was out without kiddos.  My morning alone was made possible by the fact that Beckett is the best baby ever and takes a bottle without a fuss.  Seriously love that little guy! (I love my cute Dav man too)

Saturday night Ian and I went on an impromptu shopping date.  It was super fun.  We took Beckett along.  We grabbed some dinner at Corner Bakery then did some clothes shopping for the kids at Carters.  It was really fun to have Ian help me pick outfits for Beck.  He was an extra good sport because our next stop was the Apple store where Ian bought an AppleTV for us to stream Netflix and Hulu since our current setup was not doing a great job with that.  We finished up with a quick stop at Sam's Club to pick up a Blu-ray player then dessert at Applebee's.  It was a super fun night and Beckett slept the whole time.  I think we might be ready to leave him home next time.

We had our next door neighbors over for dinner on Sunday and it was a blast!  They are so cool.  They brought over muffins with custard that you spoon over the whole thing (James is British and it's a delicious British thing) and our boys put on puppet shows for us after dinner.  We are lucky to have such great neighbors.  Their boys are downstairs watching Tron with my boys as I type this.  I can't put into words how grateful I am that things worked out with selling our house and we were able to move to this neighborhood.  It's exactly what we wanted.

In other news we got a new-to-us dining set this morning!  We just didn't fit at our cute little table anymore.  We were using a folding chair at dinner to accommodate us all and there was zero room for food on the table.  It was time.  We bought the set off KSL, of course.  I found a brand new set online that I loved, but we decided with four little kids and all of the coloring and play doughing and sticky fingers we were better off saving our money and buying used.  I'm excited to eat our first dinner as a family there tomorrow night (Ian is working today/tonight).

I am enjoying these last couple of weeks before the holiday craziness begins.  The Fall is flying by so fast!  I am usually done Christmas shopping by now, but this year I'm not even close.  And oddly enough I don't really want to go do it.  It feels more like a chore than ever before.  Maybe once I'm past Thanksgiving I'll be more excited about it.  In the meantime I am going to relax and let myself be filled with gratitude for all the blessings we enjoy, especially my great kids and hardworking husband.  Happy November!

Happy Halloween!

For Family Home Evening last week we carved our pumpkins.  The boys both did great with scooping out pumpkin guts!  They finally thought the grossness was cool!  Weston did almost his entire pumpkin all by himself.  He scooped it out as much as he could, drew the face on and carved all of the face except part of the mouth himself.  I thought he did a great job for his first time. 

 

 

Davin and I collaborated on his pumpkin.  He told me what kind of face he wanted, including modeling the eyebrows.  :)  Those were all his idea.  I did the carving.  Ian carved Talia's little pumpkin and she LOVED it.  She was so excited when he handed it to her.  Obviously Ian carved his own Avengers pumpkin since it was one of his favorite movies this year.  We also ate our donuts off the cat for our treat.  Talia is a fan of the powdered donuts.

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween morning started bright and early since Weston wanted to eat breakfast before he got in his costume for school.  He sure makes a cute and realistic Harry Potter!  He had a costume parade in the morning and then a little party in the afternoon. 

Later that morning Davin got all ready for his preschool party.  Talia didn't want to be left out so she put on her Minnie costume.  Of course Beckett wore his little monster outfit all day.  After I dropped Davin off at school I figured I'd better take Talia to do something fun as long as she was all dressed up.  We ended up at the dinosaur museum.  She loved it and it was almost completely empty.  After the museum we went to lunch at McDonald's and she played for a bit.  We ended our outing by picking up our jack o lantern pizzas from Papa Murphy's and picking up Davin from preschool.  Everyone had a fun day.

 

 

I couldn't get Talia to settle down for a nap.  I figured it was going to be a very long evening, but she was pretty good and happy.  The kids were super excited for trick or treating.  We had pizza and fruit for dinner then got all dressed up again.  Brad and Mel came over and the menfolk took the little ones trick or treating while Mel and I handed out candy and snuggled Beckett. 

 

 Talia only went to about ten houses before Ian brought her back, but she seemed to have fun and was super cute when she said "tweat!" at the houses.  She was content to relax on the couch eating her candy and watching Elmo for the rest of the night.  Davin came home about 20 minutes after Talia and said his feet were tired.  I had told him before he went that he could trick or treat for as long as he wanted to and to come home when he was done.  Weston stayed out the longest, but still was home a little after 7pm.  It is kind of nice not having quite as much candy around. 

I thought for sure we would have SO many trick or treaters, but we only had about 100.  I only gave out half of my candy.  Sigh.  Anyway, we got the kids calmed down and to bed at 8 o'clock and then us adults hung out and watched some Anjelah Johnson comedy before Brad and Mel had to leave.  It was definitely a happy Halloween.

UNRELATED:
-Weston made this awesome Red Ribbon Week poster that got hung up at school during Red Ribbon Week.  It was all his idea and doing.  He also got to have lunch with the principal earlier this week for showing respect and exemplifying service.  So proud of my good kid!

-I finally got to go visit my good friend Tara and meet her newest baby who was born just a week after Beckett.  Little Micah is such a cutie and looks so much more Samoan than any of her other kids.  It was nice to talk to her about life with four kids and not feel so alone in the craziness of my life.  I'm so grateful to have such a good friend!