Happy Birthday John!!!

I just wanted to publicly wish John a Happy 27th Birthday and share these hilarious pictures of John at work this morning. I had tipped off one of his coworkers that it was his birthday today and of course they just happened to have silly string on hand. Apparently 7 of them went in the cubicles around his and then all attacked him at once while shouting Happy Birthday.

I love you John and am so grateful to have you in my life. I hope I can make this day special for you.

Pumpkin Patch

OK, I know we went to the Pumpkin Patch for Playgroup on October 1st and it is now October 23rd and I'm just now getting these pictures up, but hey, at least it's still October.

Here is Michael and his friends from playgroup, Isaac and Alana.

Here is Vivian trying to pick up a pumpkin way too heavy for her.

Here is Michael being Mad. (You can't see his face that well from this angle but trust me, I know this face well.)

Here is Michael on top of the HUGE tire stack with Isaac in the middle of the pile and Vivan trying to decide if she wants to even try to go up. Last year they had Hay bales to climb on. I think I prefer the hay bales because I hate sand and that is what they used to hold these in place.
Vivian was facinated with the Pony's. She kept coming back here to watch them while we were waiting for the train ride. After we did a few fun things with our friends from Playgroup we all went our seperate ways and we decided to go into the petting zoo. Here is Michael feeding the goats.

Michael feeding the Pony.

Vivian just watching.

Michael feeding the three goats.

Vivian doing the sign for Kitty because she didn't know what else to call all these animals.

She didn't want to go near the big animals but she had a blast poking at the baby chics. Sometimes I wonder about her.
Then we went in the pen with the littler animals.

Here's Vivian throwing a fit because she was scared.

But she didn't seem to notice this little goat eating her hair. I had to beat him off of her curls.

Michael was so nice to the sleeping pig. It was cute.

She finally decided to pet the lamb... Or is she hitting it? We had such a fun time at the pumpkin patch this year. I've got to take John back here sometime so we can actually do the maze again. We haven't gone since we've been married.

Another week gone by...

Well another week has gone by for the Bowman's. The boys got Haircuts. The girls are sick and my house is a mess as usual. But we are surviving and the kids are as cute as ever.

Here is a picture of Micahel pre hair-cut. (don't worry that shirt is already in the garbage, I can't believe John put that on him) He put these airplanes on his hands and called them 'sharp fingernails', I think he was pretending to be a Lion. And Vivian is of course pretending to eat.

Here is a picture of Michael post hair-cut. Much better. This is also where they have been hanging out a lot lately. He calls it their house. As you can see he has his ever present superman blanket and pillow shoved back there with him and the green pillow that he is leaning on is their 'door' to close it up. They have brought all their animals in there with them too and then it becomes a cage.
Vivian also keeps growing up faster and faster. I just looked at a picture of her from January and I hardly recognized her. She was so tiny and chubby (it makes me want to have another though... sorta). She knows so many words now and has started nodding her head when we ask her questions. When I got her up from her nap today she said, "Poo poo." So I asked her if she had a poopy diaper and she nodded her head and sure enough she was right. I then asked her if she was silly and she nodded her head again and laughed. I haven't really been able to find a question to ask her that she would say no to yet but it's still really cute. The past couple nights she's told us when she was ready to go to bed through this method. "Vivian, do you want to go nigh' night?" [big nod] "Ok, lets go nigh' night. Go get your blanket." So she goes and gets her blanket and comes over to the gate for me to pick her up. She went down really easy those times. Then yesterday when we were at the park I asked her if she wanted to go home? (I was already ready anyways... so tired) but when she nodded, I was like, "Ok Michael, It's time to go, Vivian wants to go home." It's a lot easier to blame it on her, he comes more willingly too. Hope you've enjoyed the update.

Catching Up

I've been busy and in and out of town the past couple weeks so I've got a lot of blogging to catch up on. This past weekend I went to my friends wedding in Colorado and left the kids here with Grandma and Grandpa and John. Yesterday he called in sick so that he could watch them and pick me up from the airport. He got there early so he brought the kids in (for Michael to go to the bathroom) while I was still waiting for my bag. It was so fun to see them after 5 days. Vivian seems all grown up and is saying a ton of new words now and Michael was just so excited to see me he was talking a million miles per minute. I missed John and them so much but I had a fun time and you can look forward to seeing pictures when I get them up on here. Since I've been too busy to blog I have a few cute stories from last week that I wanted to put on here. They are kinda the stories where you had to be there but I want to log them on here anyways so I will try to do them justice.

The first one was last tuesday I believe when Michael sent Vivian to time out. I was in the other room so the first thing I heard was him say was, "It's not ok to hurt Michael." Then I must have tuned out because I didn't actually hear him send her to time out but the next thing I heard was, "Vivian, why are you on time out?" That is the question we always ask him when he's done with time out. Then I hear her try to answer with gibberish and then he tells her to put her nose in the corner, which is what we do if he answers the questions wrong. Obviously her gibberish wasn't good enough for him.

So by then I'm thinking, ok, I've got to go see if she's actually in the corner doing this whole thing or if he's just talking. So I go peek around the corner and sure enough she's there with her nose in the corner. Then he says, "Come here." So she goes over and gives him a hug, which is another thing we try to do after time out is done. (You can tell that he gets put on time out a lot when BOTH of them know the procedure that well.) I thought the funniest part was when she actually tried to answer his question.

To tell this next story I have to describe my house a little bit: When you come into the front door you walk into the living room. There is a huge front window to your right that has mini blinds on it that we try to keep up so that the kids don't ruin them but sometimes we forget to put them up. On the left is a wall that has several family pictures on it. Then strait ahead is the kitchen and to the left of the kitchen is a dinning room which we have blocked off to be my craft room. Right before the kitchen and the craft room is the hallway to get to the rest of the house but there is like this window type hole in the wall between the hallway and the craft room so the room is kinda open to the house a little.

It was during Vivian's nap and I was working on a project in the craft room and Michael was playing by himself in the living room. I heard him touch the blinds so I said, "Michael" to kind of warn him and let him know that I know what he's doing. Well he kind of freaks out and he's like, "Who's there? Where are you? Who's there?" But he stoped playing with the blinds so I didn't say anything. Well a minute later he touches them again so I say his name again. He asks the same questions in the same freaked out kind of manner so I try to tell him, "It's just me Michael, its Mommy." But he kept talking and I think he was too freaked out to hear me. Well this goes on one more time and then durring his freaked out rant he says, "Oh it's the picture talking. The pictures talking to me." I start laughing to myself because he honestly was thinking that the picture of me was yelling at him to stop touching the blinds. I figured it wouldn't be a bad thing for him to think that the pictures were watching over him so I didn't say anything else. Then it happens again and he again thinks the picture is talking to him. Thinking this was hilarious but yet really wanting him to stop touching the blinds I finally go out there and put them up. But when he saw me he kinda had this look on his face like I was a ghost. It was pretty funny.

Then today I was in the living room watching them play making sure they share and all that. Michael had taken a toy away from Vivian so I asked him to get her another one. He grabs this plastic knife that goes with their play kitchen and gives it to her. It is this same knife that he usually pretends is a sword and often puts it in his pocket. So when she gets it she tries to put it in HER pocket but she is wearing overalls so there wasn't one right at her waist so she puts it in the bib part of the overalls. Well of course it falls down her leg so she's like kicking her leg to get it out but she was having fun so she did it a few more times. We both thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

NOTE: The pictures above are of the kids wearing those sun glasses that you get from the eye doctor that roll up. I first started using these as toys when we would go visit Michael when he was in foster care. I got them out a couple weeks ago and was able to get a picture of Vivan with them on. It was pretty hard to get a picture before she took them off but I remember it being a lot harder getting a picture of Michael before he took them off (evidence being how may pictures I had in the folder). I think in this picture of Michael he was only 15 months old and Vivian was like 16 1/2 months old when these pictures were taken.

Locked

As I was running errands today I locked the kids in the car. Yeah I felt pretty silly. While I was getting them into the car I had the keys in my hand and ended up hitting a few buttons. One of them was the lock button, the next was the panic button so in my panic, I put the keys into the ignition to shut up the alarm. I finished getting the kids into their seats, shut the car and took the cart back. As I was walking back to the car I realized what I had done and then spent 10 minutes trying to talk Michael through undoing his buckle so that I could get him to unlock the door.

When that plan failed I decided to interupt Johns meeting at work because I had no back up plan. Luckily a co-worker let him borrow his car so that he could come rescue me. Once I knew help was on the way I decided to stop expecting my 3 1/2 year old to magically get out of the child restraint system and started playing Peek-a-boo with them. Michael started getting scared and was pretty mad that we weren't at the park yet but Vivian was having a grand old time blowing kisses at Mommy.

The experience reminded John and I of the day after we bought our subaru almost 2 years ago. We were at our wards Trunk-or-Treat Party and we thought we had locked Michael in the car. We were trying to get him to push all the buttons hoping he would hit the one that would unlock the doors but had no success in doing that. He was having a blast playing with the blinker and honking the horn though. Then someone walked by and asked what was shining underneath our car. It was the keys. Yeah we felt pretty silly there too.

Kangaroo Climber

Since the last 3 posts have been about Vivian I figured I needed to find something to post about Michael. Well looking at my pictures from the last month, it wasn't hard to find a theme. This kid likes to climb. His main goal has been to get as tall and as high as he can and to do what the big kids are doing. Some of these are more daring than others but still equally as creative.






Daddy had to help with this one.
Vivian wanted to join the fun too.
This is his 'Spiderman' climb.
My little boy isn't a scaredycat any more. I guess I have to watch him more closely.

Boo boo

Yesterday I had another 'horrible mother moment' at the park. Vivian started crying out of no where and I said what I normally do, "Your OK." Another mom that was there told me that she had gotten her finger stuck in the toy. So I was like, "Oh, your OK" again because she had already stopped crying, so it couldn't have been that bad, right?

So then later when I was putting her in the car I saw this huge scab on her thumb with tons of dirt in it. I figured I would be nice and wait till we got home before I attacked her. So after lunch I gave her a bath and poured hydrogen peroxide on it to clean it out. After that she got her very first band aid. (I know that's pretty amazing that it didn't happen sooner having Michael for a brother.)

She was fascinated with it the whole time I was feeding her and even after I put her in her crib. (I wonder how long she played with it before falling asleep?) When I went to go get her up she showed it to me first thing. We talked about it for awhile and it wasn't long before she was saying, "ban-da." She finally was able to get it off while I was cooking dinner.

She is such a sweet girl and so smart. It amazes me how she learns new things every day. And I'm so grateful that her daddy and her brother are turning her into a tough girl, because I am often annoyed at how much of a sissy I am.

"Ee-i-ee-i-o"

[Must be sung to the tune of Old McDonanald]

Lorina Bowman has a daughter,
who is learning to talk.
She says, "Mommy" here
and says, "Daddy" there.
Here a "ball," there a "doll"
everywhere a "dog, dog"
Vivian is learning to sing,
"Ee-i-ee-i-o"

Vivian has been singing, "Ee-i-ee-i-o" for the past couple days now and so I decided I would take after my mom and create a little rhyme about it. These are some of the words shes been saying a lot lately so I hope you've enjoyed my cheesy song.

Oops!

I guess this is what I get for getting distracted before I put her down for her nap.

Michael's Girlfriend

Well I'd like everyone to meet Michael's new Girlfriend. Michael thinks of nothing else. He talks of nothing else. He plays nothing else. She comes over every morning about 8 and I usually try to kick her out by 10 or 10:30 because all Michael does when she is here is this...

Meet Dora the Explorer, the love of Michael's 3 year old life. Should I be concerned?

Attack of the Flies!

So last week we mysteriously had a few hundred flies in our house. We looked everywhere trying to see where they hatched from but we couldn't find anything. Luckily they were pretty stupid so they were pretty easy to kill with the fly swatter. Michael loved helping me kill the flies and there are still a few flying around our house. But after hundreds of flies, I don't mind a few. So I'm back to telling Michael to, "Leave them alone, they're not going to hurt you." SO yesterday we were eating oranges and a fly was playing with Michael. His commentary was as follows, "He's saying hi. He's on my hand. The fly is on my forehead. Is he cleaning my ears?" It was so funny to watch him sit so still while he let the fly go all over him. I went to go get the camera to try and get a picture. It took awhile for the fly to come back but you can sorta see it right below Michael's hairline. Then later we were playing in the living room and I see Vivian in the middle of the floor (with that big old grin on her face) kind of dancing with a fly. She thought it was the greatest thing ever.

"Nigh Nigh!"

Vivian has been pretending to go night night a lot. She will lay down somewhere and say, "Nigh, nigh!" or she will lay down a doll or something with a blanket and pat it and say, "Nigh, nigh." But last week they were helping me clean up the toys and I got this bin out to put the bigger stuffed animals in it and this little pillow ended up in there first, so she immediately went and got her blanket and started laying down in it. She thought she was so cute.
Then Michael had to have his turn but Vivian was quite mad about it. Here she is trying to get him out of her 'bed.'
Then on Sunday, Michael and I were playing catch with his pillow and he started laying down waiting for me to throw it to him and so Vivian grabbed her blanket and laid down with him on the floor and actually started pretending to snore. It was hilarious. She is growing up way too fast.

My little Pixies

A couple weeks ago we went with my friend Kellie and her daughter Chloe to Pixie Woods. It is a huge playground right here in Stockton (that wasn't too expensive) for the kids to play in.

Here are my two little Pixies riding on the boat all decked out with Life Jackets to keep them safe.
Michael even got to drive the boal since we were the only ones on it. (And it was the guys first day, I hope he doesn't get fired for that.)
I think he must have seen another kid climb up there because I don't know how he did it. I nearly had a heart attack when I looked over and saw him up there. But he's a smart boy and was able to climb up and down safely.
I don't think she's too sure about this whole sitting on a duck thing.
Michael loved climbing onto the horse though.
And here's Chloe having a blast on this horse.
Of course she had to stop and play in the sand. I was pretty grossed out when she started sucking her thumb after that.
Chloe is having fun jumping on the lily pad and showing her mom what she can do.
Michael and Chloe sharing a lily pad.
Vivian wanting off the lily pad.
I love how her face is helping her to climb up the stairs like a big girl.
I think he was asking him what he was reading.Before we left we got to ride the Carousel. You can't see Vivian in this pic but I think it was her first ride. Thanks Kellie and Chloe for letting us go to Pixie Woods with you! We were there over 2 hours but only saw a third of the park. We'll have to go explore the rest real soon.