Surprise!

After picking up the kids from my Aunt Amy's house we decided that instead of doing another night in Vegas we were going to drive the rest of the way down to my parent's house in California. As soon as I explained that to Weston he started asking to go to Disneyland. Complete with "please, please, please, please." I diverted him by offering a beach outing instead. He seemed pacified. My sister, Jules, knew that we were coming, so she did her best to prep the house without letting Mom know anything was up. She did a great job because here is my mom's reaction when she answered the door to find her favorite grandsons on the doorstep.

We spent that evening visiting and playing with all of Grandma and Grandpa's fun toys. They got a train table since the last time we were there, so that was a big hit.

My parents both had to work on Friday, so we packed up the car and went down to Long Beach to pop in and visit all my grandparents on our way to the beach. First we stopped at Grandma Snowball's house. It was nice to see her and visit. The boys raided the Jelly Belly's and gummy bears, and Grandma was nice enough to loan us a couple beach towels since we had forgotten to grab some from the house.
Next we drove over to the Cal State Long Beach Institute, where Grandma Olson works. Sadly she wasn't there. Their house is only a few blocks away though so we drove over, but it was deserted. Luckily we got a chance to see them post-beach when the kids were pantless. We forgot to take a picture with them. Darn.

Finally it was beach time! We swung through In N Out and picked up lunch and then headed to Pooh's beach. A family friend (yes, her name is Pooh) lives right on the beach. I had called her in the morning and she was so sweet to let us eat at her house and use her bathroom. It was really fun to chat with her too. She has the greatest house right? (this past summer episodes of NCIS and Numbers were filmed at her place).
This was Davin's second time at the beach, but last time he was only 6 months old. He LOVED it. He wanted to chase the water the whole time. He stood on the shore throwing sand at the ocean and exclaiming at the seagulls. He particularly enjoyed destroying brother's sand castles, so Daddy made him some of his own to knock over (see video).
The weather was just gorgeous. Sunny and fairly warm for November. We eventually put on our jackets (only because of the ocean wind), but it was a far cry from the snow in Utah and we loved it. We had the beach completely to ourselves too.

Dad made the most amazing salmon for dinner when we got back. When the kids were in bed we went with my mom to Happy Feet for our 60 minute $25 massage. Ahhh Happy Feet.

Stay tuned for our fun-filled Saturday!

Vegas!

Long long ago Ian and I went to a timeshare presentation. We did not buy a timeshare, but we were rewarded for our 2 hours on a Saturday with a free trip to Las Vegas. We scheduled it in November so it could be our anniversary trip (actual anniversary is 11/22). In the end we decided to take the kids with us since it's just too hard to find someone to watch them for 3 days in the middle of the week.

My Aunt Amy generously agreed to keep the boys overnight so Ian and I could spend one of the nights we were going to be in Vegas on our own to celebrate our anniversary. Wednesday morning we got up, packed the car, and headed down the road to Vegas. Weston was excited for his sleepover with his cousins and we were excited for our night without kids. We got to Vegas in the afternoon after only 1 stop! Go us. We dropped the kids and their stuff off at the Overson's. There were no tears when we left either.

Ian and I went and checked into our hotel. Let's just say it was at the ghetto end of the strip. We stayed at the Sahara. After dropping off our stuff and changing out of my sweats we drove down to the Mirage and parked there for our evening out. We wandered the strip a little before heading over to Ceasar's Palace to eat at the Planet Hollywood restaurant. We got a gift certificate with our "trip package." The food was only ok, but hey it only cost us $10, so no harm done. After dinner we walked down the strip to the Bellagio. I love seeing what fun display they have in the lobby. This time it was the Fall one and my favorite part were the full size dripping trees. Gorgeous.
On our way out of the Bellagio we were just in time to see the dancing water show. It was kind of fun to watch it from the back.

We walked across the street to the Paris and put our names in at the restaurant there, Mon Ami Gabi, to get some dessert. We got to eat out on the patio across the street from the Bellagio. It was really nice and had a great view. It was a fairly warm evening, so we sat and people watched and ordered our traditional anniversary creme brulee. It was delish. They also brought out a warm French baguette with butter and this weird carrot slaw. It was pretty spicy and was apparently to cleanse the palette. We also caught two more water shows. By 9pm we were exhausted and went back to the hotel to get some sleep.
In the morning we grabbed some (free) breakfast at the diner and went to pick up the kids. They were good as gold. I am so grateful to have such sweet kids who behave well for others. :) I am also so grateful to my Aunt Amy for being so willing to watch the boys for us!

Day 2 to be continued . . .

Happy Weekend!

While baking brownies this afternoon . . . "Mom, you're really good at making treats. (pause) I like you. I also love you." --Weston

Me, happy to be out on a date with my favorite guy.

There's no denying treats are the way to our hearts. :) Last night Ian and I went out for a real date night! We tried a new (to us) restaurant downtown called Settebello. It was yum. I did prefer Ian's choice of pizza to mine, but both were good. Adjacent to the restaurant is a little gelato shop. I couldn't pass that up, so we got some after dinner. I had to try a bunch of flavors before deciding. I ended up going with Crema Baci. Next time I want the Ricotta. Mmmm . . . gelato.

After our dinner we went a few blocks south to Kilby Court to see the Headlights play again. They were fabulous, as usual. The crowd was smaller this time though, so we were front and center. They played a lot of my favorite songs too. It was good times.
Today was Fall Cleanup Day! I'm making that sound much more fun than it really is, but we have been having really beautiful, sunny weather this last week, so we figured it was a good day to clear away the mounds of leaves that have fallen. We filled up 8 giant trash bags with leaves, mulched the ones on the grass with the lawnmower, and Ian trimmed the overhanging tree branches that he could reach from the roof and blew out the gutters. Yeah, we're both pretty sore now. Massages are on the agenda for tonight.

During Davin's nap time I ran a bunch of errands with Weston. He was actually better than normal and I got grocery shopping for the week done! When we got home Davin was up, so we all headed over to the park to play. Have I mentioned we have had amazing weather this last week? Seriously 74 degrees on Thursday. Today was a little cooler, but still around 60 and sunny. Good enough for me.
I just recently started giving Davin real time-outs in the corner. He is so funny about them. Whenever he's in trouble, even if I don't say "go on time-out," he will run to the corner in the kitchen. Sometimes he cries and sometimes he totally doesn't care and laughs, but he sort of gets it and it's super cute.

Surprise Day Off

On Monday Ian's hard drive crashed on his work computer. Bummer. The good news is that his computer is still under AppleCare, so it can be replaced for free. The bad news is that they didn't have the part in stock when he took it in, so he didn't have a working computer. He didn't even have his laptop because another employee's computer is being worked on and he is using it. Instead Ian got an impromptu half day off yesterday! He had to go into the office in the morning to return the laptop that he had worked on late into the night on Monday night, but then he was home and hanging out with us.

We didn't do anything too exciting, but we took my car to the shop to get a part fixed and then took the boys to the park to play since it was such a nice day. For those of you who think Davin is never happy (based on the fact that he is rarely smiling in pictures), this is to prove you wrong. Yes, Davin is my whiny child, but when he's not whining he's so stinkin adorable. He grins and makes funny faces, roars like a dinosaur to scare me, copies his brother incessantly, and love his movies. He also loves to play outside and is definitely my adventurer baby.
Playing peek-a-boo with mommy on the playground. We kind of have the same goofy face going on. Eek.

This playground has a lot of spinning things. Weston hates them all, but Davin didn't seem to mind. I spun him pretty fast after this and he didn't fuss at all. He did fall over when he got down though. I imagine he was quite dizzy.

Needless to say I had a hard time remembering that yesterday was Tuesday and not Saturday. Luckily the part came in and Ian was able to pick up his computer last night and is back to work today. Weston is in school, Davin and I are reading books in between my typing sentences and Claire (my neighbor's daughter) is napping. I got a ton done on the house yesterday and it looks so clean with all the Halloween stuff taken down. I still need to mop the kitchen. I am just procrastinating. I hate mopping, but maybe during Davin's nap I will be able to get it done. In the meantime I will enjoy my alone time with sweet Dav.

Halloween Weekend '09

We had such a fun Halloween weekend! It started off with our ward Halloween party/trunk or treat. I was in charge of the games and so it was a little stressful, but still fun. I also made chili for the chili cook-off dinner. It was yum even though it didn't win. I think that the party was a success and I hope that my ward decides we should do it again next year.
***Little background info, in the past, the ward activities committee has planned a chili cook-off dinner in October, but put the YM/YW in charge of the trunk or treat as a separate activity. This year the activities committee had the chili cook-off scheduled for the 30th of October with no plans to make it a Halloween party. My YW President convinced them to combine it, so the youth still did the games part of it.

Weston loved all the games and trunk or treating, but his favorite was just running laps around the cultural hall with Davin while everyone ate (I fed my kids before the party since there's no way they would eat chili). Here we are before the party. I dressed up as a Cheetah, sort of. Davin was a puppy and Weston was Mike Wozowski.
Saturday morning we went down to the dinosaur museum. They were having a special activity called "Pirates, Pixies, and Pan." I didn't have the kids put on their costumes, but we brought our pirate gear. It was really very cute. First the kids got their faces painted. Weston was perfect and loved his pumpkin.
Davin was not happy about getting his face painted. This is the only picture of the mostly complete skull and crossbones before he smeared it and ran away.
Next up was some archery. They had a big picture of a bear for the kids to shoot at, but our wandering Davin tried to be the target a couple times. Oops.
After shooting the bow and arrows the kids made Indian headbands. Davin decided he liked wearing that better than his pirate hat.
Finally we went for a tour of the pirate ship. The captain was pretty good. He never broke character and used lots of bucaneer-y words that Weston didn't understand. It was kind of a long tour that mostly included standing around, so by the end the kids were bored, but I still thought it was a great activity, especially since it was free with our Thanksgiving Point membership. Love that pass!
After all the pirate fun we did a quick wander through the museum before heading home for lunch and naps. Amazingly enough both boys took great naps! Finally, after a Halloween picnic dinner of mummy dogs we got the kids in their costumes and headed out for some trick or treating! Weston was so excited. Davin had no idea, but was a happy camper and lasted for about an hour. He didn't want to be left out so he knocked on the doors and then had a hard time backing up so the people could open up and give him some candy. Amazingly the weather was very nice considering we had snow earlier in the week, so I didn't have to stuff coats on underneath the boys' costumes. :)
When it started getting dark Davin and I went home to relax and give out candy while Ian and Weston kept going. We didn't get as many trick or treaters as I though we would, but we almost got rid of all our giveaway candy. I was surprised though at how much candy we ended up with between the 2 kids! I consider it a successful Halloween.

Sunday morning was kind of a bummer. Daylight Savings time is great in the Fall . . . if you don't have kids. Mine didn't get the memo that they could sleep in an extra hour, so they were up at 6:45. Oh well. The problem is that today they were up even earlier than that. What the?!? Hopefully they will settle into the new schedule soon. We had a busy Sunday. They reorganized the bishopric in our ward and Ian has a new calling. He is the 1st counselor in the bishopric. Pretty crazy.

So after the block he got ordained as a high priest and then set apart for his new calling. We are excited about the call. It will be good for our family. I'm sure I will have my moments of being annoyed that I don't have my husband to help me out with the kids during Sacrament meeting, but overall I know that it is a blessing.

I think life will be a little different from here on out. I'm sure I will be released from Young Women's pretty quickly, which will be bittersweet, but necessary. Today's the day to take down Halloween and put up Thanksgiving because it's November folks! Wow. This year is flying on by and I am loving this Fall holiday season!

Are You Ready?

Chili+Cupcakes+Costumes+Games+Candy=Halloween Fun!

Yummy Chili
(I put together this recipe after looking through about 50 chili recipes on allrecipes.com, so I think it's fairly original)

1 lb. ground beef
1 can kidney beans drained
1 can chili beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 small can tomato sauce
1/2 onion chopped
2 t. minced garlic
3 T. chili powder
1 t. salt
pepper to taste
2 t. cumin
1 t. oregano
1 c. water

Brown the meat in the pot. Drain if needed. Add the chopped onions. Sautee for a couple minutes. Add beans, tomatoes, water and spices. Let simmer for as long as you have before you need to serve. The longer the better. Serves 12. Also freezes well.

I am making this for our ward's chili cookoff/Halloween party. I am also doing the cakewalk and helping my kids play all the games and trunk or treat at the end. I sure hope it is a fun time. I'm looking forward to it. I'll post pictures of all our Halloween weekend antics later. Hope you all have a fun, safe weekend!

Party On!

Well life is a big party at the Bowles home! This past weekend we celebrated some birthdays and kicked off the Halloween festivities. Saturday morning was our little friend, Jarom's 2nd birthday party. It was a yummy dutch oven brunch. The kids ran around in Spiderman masks and played outside (since it was a relatively nice day). Weston loved the Spiderman theme. After the party we crashed Tara and Justin's ward Halloween party. We came late, but were still in time to play some of the games and do the trunk or treat. Weston loved wearing his costume. This morning he told me that when he wore his costume "everyone else wanted it because it was so cool."

Here are mine and Tara's kids at the Halloween party. Aren't the Woody and Jessie costumes great?!? I think this was the only 60 seconds that Davin actually wore the hood of his puppy costume.
I thought the kids would for sure come home and crash and we would have a nice, quiet afternoon. Well, no one else thought that was a good idea. Davin napped for about 45 minutes and Weston not at all. Bummer. They did watch a movie though, so that gave me a little down time. Later in the afternoon we headed over to the Herrin's house to watch the BYU v. TCU game and celebrate Kyle's 2nd birthday! Weston and Claire love to play together and they did great the whole time. They are also dorks (in Claire's defense, Weston totally started this face)
We got Kyle a fun car that you shake up and then it goes. I think it was a hit. The big kids really wanted to "help" Kyle with the present opening.
I had a nice time hanging out with Jackie, but the menfolk were pretty bummed out about the beating BYU took during the game.

Sunday was a nice day. It felt good to actually all go to church together without having to run home to a sickie kid. That evening I had my solo callback. I didn't do as well as I did in my first audition. I messed up the words (of all things!). That was frustrating because I had practiced it a hundred times and knew the words. I didn't end up getting a solo. I'm a little disappointed because how cool would it be to sing a solo in the Tabernacle?!? But on the other hand it does make the concert a lot more low stress and fun. I am still excited for the opportunity to sing with this group in the Tabernacle. We have some really beautiful pieces. If you would like to attend, then hop over to www.lds.org/events immediately. Tickets were just made available this morning, but they will definitely be gone by tonight.

Last night we kicked off our Halloween fun with the 3rd Annual Bowles/Severinson Pumpkin Carving Party! Weston was really excited about our pumpkin, but he still wasn't really interested in actually scooping out the gook or carving much. He did help carve the nose of our pumpkin. This was Davin's first experience helping with the pumpkin. He did not like the goop, of course, and ended up getting down and playing for the rest of the time. He did, however, enjoy his donut from the cat.

Davin's first pumpkin carving experience! Note the cat in the background. I forgot to take a picture of it. Oops.
The big, burly men scraping out the pumpkins.
The boys and I with our scary face pumpkin. I actually was really happy with the way it turned out.
This is Ian's finished product. 10 points if you know what it is!
Weston thought the pumpkins looked really cool all lit up and was sad when we had to blow them out. Here he is with his scary pumpkin.
This morning we woke up to a layer of fresh snow over everything. Snow! Sigh. Here we go. Winter is officially upon us and won't relinquish it's hold for about 6 months. It makes me kind of sad. I am more than happy to have snow in December. Not so much a fan in October. I'm sure it will melt, but it will stay cold and I will have to pack away my flip flops (that I was wearing yesterday) for the season.

Weston was thrilled to see snow outside and immediately asked if he could go play in it. By the time he had eaten breakfast and gotten dressed it was 9am. I knew he wouldn't stop bugging me about it, so I threw on my boots and jacket and got Davin semi-bundled up and we all went out in the snow. Weston lasted about 7 minutes before saying he was cold and wanted to go inside. Davin wouldn't take a step from where I set him down on the grass, but he seemed to think the snow was cool. Enjoy our snow day videos!