Talia is Two!

Two years ago at Christmastime Talia was born.  Yesterday, on 12/12/12, my baby girl turned two!  I can't believe how quickly it happened.  She is such a big girl these days.  We don't do parties for two year olds, but I'm pretty sure my birthday princess had a fun day.  She woke up to decorations, a sparkly sash, and a birthday waffle. 

 

 

 

Later while Davin was at preschool we went out to lunch at Chick Fil A with Auntie Mel.  Talia enjoyed her fries dipped in ranch and her chocolate milk.  She also loved playing in the play area!  We ran a couple errands then headed home for a nice, long birthday nap.

 

 

After her nap I painted her nails for the first time.  She thought it was so cool!  She was very proud of her pink nails and showed everyone.  It almost made me cry that my little girl is big enough to have her nails painted pink!  Wow!

That night Brad and Mel joined us for spaghetti and meatballs, presents and cupcakes.  I asked Tal last week what she wanted for her birthday dinner.  I said "What's your favorite dinner?"  Talia replied, "Ummm, tweat!"  We went with meatballs since I knew she would eat them.  She also had plenty of treats and loved her cupcake with a candle. 

For her birthday Talia got a new outfit from OshKosh, a pair of Daisy Duck pj's, a new Minnie coloring book, and a fun little doll nursery.  She loves it!  I am so relieved.  Up until now she hasn't been super into dolls, but when we brought it down and showed her how to feed her baby in the high chair and put her to sleep in the crib she got the hang of it pretty fast.  She's been carrying around her baby today too. 

Talia at two is full of personality and sass.  We love her to pieces.  She can be really sweet and loving or she can be full of attitude.  She has the most volume of any of our kids too.  Talia is talking a ton.  When she wants to.  One of her catch phrases she picked up from her brothers (and it drives me crazy when any of them say it) is "I know."  She says it almost every time I tell her to do something.  She also says "I love you" and lots of other cute phrases.  Sometimes I can't understand her but her speech gets better every day. 

Her hair is long and curly at the ends.  I love combing it out after her bath and seeing how long it is.  She also loves her clothes.  She chooses her shirt every day and I give her the matching pants.  She only wants to wear her Hello Kitty hairbow.  Talia loves to brush her teeth.  She usually ends up doing it at least 4 times a day.  She has the cutest laugh and the longest eyelashes.  She is growing up so quickly.  I never thought I would have a girl, but I am so grateful that I get to be Talia's mommy.  I hope that I can be a good example to her of how to be a strong, confident, faithful woman.  Happy Birthday Talia!

Decor & The Doctor

After all the family left I got the house back in order then Mel helped me get out the Christmas decorations!  We had fun figuring out where to put things in this new house.  I am loving all the fun Christmas decor.  On December 1st we got our Christmas tree.  It was a busy Saturday so we didn't decorate it until Sunday.  It was actually a really fabulous Sunday afternoon.  We relaxed, decorated the tree while the little ones were napping, then watched Charlie Brown Christmas and drank hot chocolate.  It was a happy day.

I also did a little Christmas crafting!  I am so not a crafter so this was big.  I even went to Hobby Lobby for the first time.  It stressed me out.  That store is so ginormous and I felt so out of my element.  I did find a super cute lamp for Talia's big girl room, but I forgot the yellow yarn I needed.  Oh well.  :) 

First I made Beckett's stocking and decorated Talia's a little bit since I didn't bother doing it the year I had her.  Then I made our family a manger.  We had one growing up and whenever we did service or helpful things for each other or for others we got to put a piece of hay in the manger.  The idea being that we were helping make a soft bed for baby Jesus.  My sister, Joy, has the original one from our childhood, so I had her send me a picture of it and I freehanded my own.  I'm pretty proud of it and it's been fun to do with the kids.  Davin isn't really motivated by it this year, but Weston is constantly telling me about nice things he did and asking if he can put hay in the manger for it.  He's such a good kid.

 

Finally, I wanted to report on Beckett's 2 month check up!  It was a little late (just last Friday).  He is getting to be such a big boy.  He is so sweet and adorable.  There were no problems.  He is a healthy, growing boy.  And he was a champ for his shots.  He screamed really high pitched for about one minute then calmed down and slept a TON for the next 24 hours.  I can't complain about that! 
Here are his 2 month stats:
weight: 10 lbs. 14 oz. (25th%ile)
height: 23.5 inches (15th%ile)
head: 25th%ile

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!