October 2015

This Fall has just flown by! We have had so much fun! I lucked out and got to go to a fantastic Idina Menzel concert with a friend. I loved it so much. I haven't been to see a live show in awhile and Idina put on a great show and sang so many of my favorites. 

That weekend we kept things low key with General Conference and a soccer game. Soccer this season was great! Weston had a bigger team, which was nice because even if we were missing a few boys there were still enough for subs. I'm the team mom again so I organized snacks. Ian was the unofficial assistant coach. He kept time for the coach and helped him figure out who had played how long and when/who to sub. It's nice that the younger kids are all big enough to mostly entertain themselves during games too. Soccer ended at the end of October and Weston scored his first goal this season! Way to go Weston!

A new pizza restaurant opened right by our house and had a grand opening with free food. It was a bit of a wait, but worth it for free pizza and drinks for dinner. Beckett at that entire giant slice and cried when I put his other "half" in a box. :)

We got to enjoy some last warm days playing in the water table. Beckett got some sea animals from the dollar store and he loved playing with his orca in the water. He asked every day for weeks to play in water! We even had Beckett's buddy Boston over to play in the water.

We all know Beckett is obsessed with elephants, but one day I came in to make his bed and when I pulled back the curtain to open the blinds I found a little elephant parade. It almost made me cry. So cute.

Talia had her first preschool field trip of the year at the pumpkin patch. It was at one that I had never been to before called Pumpkinland. We had a great time and it was really warm and sunny! Talia was one of the few kids that dressed up. I didn't want her to wear her Tinkerbell costume because I knew she was going to get dirty, so she chose to be Thor. I love that she loves her brothers' dress ups. She and Beckett ran through the corn maze then played on all the play ground fun things. We saw some petting zoo animals too.

We went to a few more BYU football games in October. We loved having season tickets this year! It was so much fun to go to games with Ian. I didn't go to all the games, but I went to four of the six home games. The other games Ian went with other friends.

Davin started karate in October! We found a place that's not too far away and allowed us to do one class a week (two is just too much for my schedule). He is doing it with his friend, Brigham, which is great for him and for me since we can carpool! Davin sure makes a cute little ninja!

We had a fantastic week long visit from Jim and Denny in October, but I'll do a separate post about all the fun things we did with them. Sneak peek...Denny and I did a lot of crafting. She helped me sew this fun Fall table runner!

Beckett also had a preschool field trip in October. Since we are doing joy school with our neighbors and we all have Thanksgiving Point passes we chose the farm for our field trip. It was perfect since the kids all love the farm! Beckett had so much fun running around with his friends. We loved having such nice weather for the field trips!

As Halloween got a little closer we went to a fun little client appreciation party thrown by our realtor. The kids got to debut their Halloween costumes. They got their faces painted, had balloon animals made, played on the playground and got to pick out their pumpkins! Of course, there was candy involved too. It was a really fun party!

I spent an evening with just the boys at the children's museum while Ian was home with a sickie Talia. She was pretty upset she got left home. :( The boys were great and the museum was empty. I loved following Beckett around and watching him get to do all of his favorite things at the museum. The vet room is probably his all time fav. Then the trains. Weston helped him do the green screen room and look like he was standing by the dinosaurs. He thought that was amazing. The look on his face was priceless.

The big boys participate in the Reflections program at school this year. Davin turned in an original composition called "Landflight." Weston made a cute stop motion video called "Hulk Dance." They both won awards! Weston earned an award of merit medal and Davin earned an award of excellence trophy and gets to have his project submitted to the district level of competition. They were both pretty excited about their awards and the goody bag. I'm proud of them both for putting their creative talents to work and turning in their projects on time. I had very little to do with it. Ian is the one who really helped them get it all together and submitted. Go team Bowles!

I was a busy girl with my Primary calling in October. We had a program at the end of the month. As I practiced the cub scout song with the boys after den meeting and helped at our big group practice I was a little nervous about how it was going to go. The actual program turned out amazing. The kids all did fantastic with the music and their parts. The spirit was so strong and the kids sat so reverently when it was time to listen to the talks. I am SO proud of them! I am also so glad that it's done.

I love watching the evolution of my tree in the Fall. It's full and green from summer then all of a sudden the leaves turn orange then red then all fall off. It's bare now, but I tried to really enjoy the pretty colors in the too short Fall season.

Random play time and snuggle time photos. So glad my kids have such sweet friends in our neighborhood to play with!

Courtesy cones at Arctic Circle after a doctor's appointment one morning

Davin outside his classroom at parent teacher conferences. Both boys are doing fantastic in school!

Checking out the fish at Cabela's with a friend one morning.

Sneaking outside for some bike riding before the winter comes!

Davin and his friend, James, built this cool zoob skeleton

Teaching joy school! Such good kids!

Snuggled up on a chilly day watching Monsters University.

My Halloween Jamberry pedicure!

Talia playing dress up as Rapunzel. The first princess dress up she actually likes.

Next up! HALLOWEEN!

September 2015

We were still in Summer mode in September. The weather was nice and hot and all of our Fall activities hadn't quite started up. We had a really nice Labor Day. Mel and Brad went with us up American Fork Canyon. We tried to go to the reservoir but it was crazy crowded. The whole canyon was pretty crowded. We ended up finding a picnic spot along a little river and having a nice afternoon picnicking, playing in the water, throwing rocks and exploring. Wilson just wanted to swim the whole time. He's so cute. The kids all loved being outside. Poor Davin got stung by a bee right at the end. He was pretty sad about it, but the pic was for show. He was tough. Goodbye Summer!

The next day Beckett had his first day of joy school preschool. We are doing a joy school rotation with a few other families. I teach once a month and the other weeks Beckett gets to go to preschool at a friends house. He loves it and so do I!

Talia was a little miffed that she was the last one to start school, but finally it was her turn. She is going to Once Upon A Time preschool with Miss Tiff. She has lots of friends in her class and goes three days a week this year. Hooray for preschool!

The other fun thing that started in September was BYU football! We got season tickets this year with our friends, the Churches. I really like our seats in the West corner of the South end zone. It has been so fun going to the games with Ian! BYU is having a decent season too. Joy was kind enough to give me a BYU jamberry pedicure. I loved my Y jams!

Weston started a new year of soccer. His first game was on September 12th and we are already gearing up for the last game of the Fall season on Halloween. He has had a good year and even scored his first ever goal!!! I'm so proud of him for sticking with it and working hard. Talia also started dance with Miss Tanya again. Miss Tanya moved into a new house with a fabulous new studio. It's a little further away, which is a bummer, but we found ourselves a carpool buddy and Talia is enjoying classes.

I took Davin to Motherboy at the kids' school this year. It was a sports picnic. Weston didn't come with us because he was attending his first ever sleepover birthday party. :) It was fun to get some one on one with my Dav man. We ate our dinner on the grass with friends then we wandered around and did some of the activities. Davin loved the inflatable joust, but could barely hold his balance when he wasn't fighting. lol We also took a turn shooting hoops at the inflatable basketball activity. At the end Davin played with hula hoops with his buddy James while I visited with some of the other moms. It was a fun activity. Afterwards I took Dav out for frozen yogurt. He's such a cool kid and I'm so lucky to be his mom!

We made the most of the last of the summer weather by playing in the water table a few afternoons a week! We also made a quick evening visit to the farm all together. It was nice and empty and we even got to ride in the carriage instead of the big wagon. It was pretty exciting.

I took the kids to the dino museum one evening. That place is always a hit, even though they have been there a hundred times. :) The museum's pet iguana was really active and eating right in front of us. We watched it for awhile, then checked out the renovations by the T-rex exhibit. The kids were sad when they thought the baby triceratops statue was gone, but it was just relocated. Whew!

We took the whole fam to the kids' school Fall Carnival and had fun playing games and getting prizes! It's always kind of a zoo, but this year they did all the games outside, which made it not feel quite so claustrophobic. Plus we got to see lots of our friends there. I always like to support the fundraisers at the school.

A few random things...
Talia had a great Sunday a few weeks ago when she was so reverent that she got to hold Manny the manatee for awhile during sharing time. She was so pleased with herself. I had to sneak a picture.

I got my hair done. Twice. I wanted blonde in it but the first time around it didn't really show up, so I went back a week later and had my girl, Harvest, put some more highlights in. At first I was thinking it was too blonde, but I really like it now and it's faded into a nice caramel now.

Beckett had a few days in a row where all he wanted to do was play trains on the edge of the van. He would stay in the garage for hours playing.

This one was pretty adorable. One evening I came upstairs to go to bed after watching some shows with Ian. As I came up the stairs I saw that Talia's door was open a few inches, but I hadn't ever heard her come out. Then when I got to the top of the stairs I found the little sneaky mouse. She hadn't quite made it back to bed though. Ian took her back to bed and in the morning she didn't remember sleeping on the floor at all.

All of our African Dwarf frogs died a few months ago and we didn't get any more until September. We got 3 new frogs. Weston paid for one himself and took it to school. They are so cute and fun to watch in our tank!

Weston dressed up Talia and Beckett one night. They looked so funny. Beckett reminded me of Tootie from Meet Me In St. Louis.

Beckett is very scared of dogs. When we went to the park with Jules and Dean, our neighbor was there exercising his dog. Beckett was scared at first but then fascinated. He wouldn't stop watching the dog and play until they finally went home. Riveted and terrified at the same time. It was pretty funny.

My turn to teach joy school wasn't until the last week of the month. I had letter D. On Tuesday we learned about dinosaurs. We made this cute dinosaur craft, read lots of dino books, and played with all of Beckett's dinosaurs. It went pretty well. The craft was a little too hard for the 3 year olds. I had to help all of them glue it together, but they still liked doing the glue sticks and putting a face on their dino. All in all I'd say it was a successful preschool day. My second day of the week was in October, so that will be in the next post, but spoiler...it was better than the first day. :)

I mentioned in my 21 Day Fix post that I got an air popper. The kids loove it. The first time Davin watched the popcorn pop he seriously couldn't believe his eyes. Apparently my children are very sheltered. They all love to watch me pop popcorn.

We made a few trips to the library in September to pick up Battle of the Books holds for Weston. While we were there my little readers picked out their own books and read them. Beckett has found a few favorites this month at the library, including a rainbow fish opposites book and a random Christmas book that has lots of animals in it. I'm such a sucker for kids books!