Easter

Ok, I know this was like 2 and a half months ago, but you have to give me a little slack because we moved the day before so I kinda forgot about them.

Here is Michael and Daddy on Sunday morning. (We love holiday's when he doesn't have early meetings on sunday morning.)

This is the best picture I got of Vivian that morning, she wasn't cooperating witht he camera.
Here is my attempt at capturing some sybling love sorry it wasn't a very good one.

Here is Vivian running away... again.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house after nap time and Michael was facsinated with the colored eggs.

Grandma helped supervise this activity.

Vivian just wanted to feed her baby.

Here are all the different colors we used. We didn't try anything fancy though... maybe next year.

Now it's time for the Easter egg hunt in the back yard.

They both found quite a bit, but Vivian was a little slower than Michael. She wanted to open them and Michael just wanted to find as many as he could.

This is her attempt at getting more lemonade.

We had a lot of fun at Grandma and Grandpas house and it was nice to get out of the mess we left at our new house. So to keep the Spirit of Easter alive in June: Remember The Savior and what he did for us. He suffered for all our sins and every day I am grateful that I have the opportunity to repent for my MANY shortcomings and mistakes. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to repent each week as I partake of the sacrament and start the week with a clean slate. I hope all of you remember Our wonderful big brother and what he did for us.

Happy Easter (in June).

Growing

This word has been coming up a lot lately. The kids are growing so big and so smart everyday. I can't believe the sentences that are coming out of Vivian's mouth. And the smart questions that Michael has been asking lately. I can't just shove them off anymore, he really wants answers and most of them (when I take the time to answer them) he understands quite well.

Also I've been thinking a lot about growing myself. I've been more interested in reading things or talking to people that have more wisdom then me and just trying to grow my mind and testimony. But I've also begun to grow something else inside of me. Something we've been trying to start for 6 months and now we can officially and proudly say that I am now pregnant for the second time with our third child. I am looking forward to this next chapter of our family.

We told Michael that the baby has to grow inside my belly until it gets too big and then it will come out and we will have another kid in our family. It will start out as a little baby and then it will grow big and strong like Vivian and Michael are growing big and strong. He asks me everyday if the baby is big enough yet. Hopefully he won't be the one to make the pregnancy go by slower. So far though it seems to be a much better pregnancy than the last one. By this time when I was pregnant with Vivian, I was so sick and didn't want food near me for 16 hours every day. But so far I haven't gotten sick and I am LOVING food.

We are all very excited for our family to grow in late November or early December. I'll keep everyone posted on any new developments. I hope everyone is doing well and I would love to hear how you and your family are doing.

Camping

We decided to give Michael and Vivian a little taste of camping. It was kind of a rushed trip and only for one night but it was fun. We just drove down to Caswell in Ripon. It's $20 to camp for the night so not bad. But it gave us an idea of how to be more prepared for a real camping trip.

Sunday Paper

This is what our family does with the sunday paper.
This video is hilarious. It is so true to everyones character. Especially Vivian, always cuddling, never really in the action but at the same time she gets those random urges to be a pest and get in the way, however this family just works around her.

Celebration Dinner at Denny's

So the day after we found out the Bank accepted our offer we went to Denny's to Celebrate. Malacai's Mom and Sister came with us. It was pretty fun accept for the first part. Kids are always impatient waiting for their food. So I pulled some peanut butter chocolate chips out of the diaper bag.

Vivian is usually really slow at eating things (just like her mom) but when it comes to chocolate chips she inhales them (just like her dad). I guess she stuck one to many in her mouth and started choking on them. She ended up throwing up all the yummy chips as well as most of her lunch. Which included some pretty large pieces of pickle that she didn't chew very well (just like her dad) Ok, sorry if all that was TMI.

So I didn't come fully prepared (Even though I had a feeling earlier that I needed to grab some extra clothes for them.) All we had was the clothes from Malacai's diaper bag. So we brought a cute little girlie girl into the resteraunt, and brought this out of it.

She still looks adorable though.
And to hold the pants up, John decided to be resouceful and use his tie.
I love the huge bow on her bottom. I've made sure to keep an extra outfit in the diaper bag from now on.

Tree

Before we move out of this house I thought I would share the interesting tree that is in the back yard. In the fall it was covered in bright firey orange and neon pink leaves and then in the winter when it was bear it's branches would turn red. I noticed it got redder the worse the weather. I took these on an overcast day to demonstrate the beaty of this red tree. Right now in the spring it's leaves are bright yellow. It is still just a baby, but I bet it will be even more gorgeous as it grows.

Update

I have realized that there are a few things I haven't really informed many people about. I've been posting pictures of the kids but I haven't really been talking about whats going on with the Bowmans as of late. So I thought I would update everyone through my blog.

First I thought I would start off with John's new calling. On December 6th we were asked to meet with the Stake President during Sunday School. The last time this happened, John became Elders Quorum President. But this time it was a little bit different. So the following week, my parents and Johns parents met up after church to witness John ordained as a High Priest (by my father) and set apart as the 2nd Counselor of the Bishopric.

WOW! I'm still getting used to it 4 months later. I think I've got the hang of keeping the kids content during sacrament meeting though. At first I tried snacks but then I discovered the wonderful invention of Silly Putty. Michael never gets tired of it. It's good for church, doctors offices and anywhere else that I need to keep him quiet and fairly still. And most of John's meetings are on Sunday before and after church so he is able to borrow Kenney's car that day so that I can bring the kids and then leave right afterwards for nap time. He misses sleeping in on Sunday mornings but at least he's not gone multiple nights each week. He does try to attend mutual on Tuesday nights though so that he can connect with the youth.

John finally had to say good-bye to being Gospel Doctrine teacher 4 weeks ago but hopes to get that calling again someday. I'm still enjoying being the secretary for Relief Society. Michael enjoys going to Primary and is loving his new substitute teacher (we'll see if he stays). Vivian has finally gotten used to nursery with out Michael and sometimes heads down the hallway by herself after sacrament meeting. (This scared us after stake conference where we searched for 10 minutes for our little girl. Luckily the Stake RS President knew who she belonged to when she found her outside heading for the parking lot.)

The other new and exciting thing that is happening for our family is we are in the process of buying a house. It is just a starter home for us but it has taken me quite awhile to warm up to this whole idea which is probably why I haven't talked much about it yet. We got a killer deal though ($118,000) and our mortgage will be $300 less than what we are currently paying in rent. We hope to use this money to get out of debt quickly.

The house is in a fairly new development in South Stockton. The house was built in 2005 and is 1814 square feet. The lot is .23 acres which is fabulous. Here is a birds eye view of our property.

We are currently in escrow and hope to close before the end of the month. It will be ready to move in as soon as we get the keys which is quite a rarity for the houses that are on the market right now in Stockton. Most of them have been striped of all appliances and some even have missing hardware (door knobs, ceiling fans, light fixtures, piping, cupboards, microwave, dishwasher, oven, air conditioners, etc). Luckily all we will need to get is a fridge since we already have a washer/dryer. (If you know anyone with an extra fridge, let us know)

Even though it has taken me awhile to get used to this whole thing (it's happened so fast) I am excited to own my own house and to be able to set things up how I want them. We are most excited about our back yard. There is so much potential but we will have to save up for awhile before we do anything major. As soon as we get the keys I'm sure I'll post some more pictures of the house but I wanted to let everyone know that we will be moving sometime in the next 1.5-3 weeks. Also I wanted to remind everyone about my secondary blog where I post my more serious thoughts and my projects. Check it out: http://lorinasbitsofknowledge.blogspot.com/ I hope all of you are doing well and enjoying the journey of life.

David Stewart's Wedding

One of John's good friends from Manteca finally got hitched a few weeks ago. The funny thing is he's been telling us for years that his wedding date was going to be 2-14-09. I assume he chose that date because it was when Valentines Day fell on a Saturday. Well the begining of last year he moved to Alameda and met Ellie in the Singles Ward there. They started dating in the summer and the rest is history.

David wanted us to bring the kids because he wanted them in the pictures. Michael was really mad and confused that he couldn't go into the Temple. He still remembers going last March (exactly a year ago today) to get sealed to us. He kept talking about the blocks that they built a really tall tower with. It was pretty cold outside while we were taking pictures so you'll see how we tried to handle that one. Sorry that it is a really long slide show, but the kids were just super cute I couldn't cut any out. Hope you enjoy.

Dress Up

After Christmas I put together a small box of Dress Up type items and for some reason this was the first time I had gotten it out for the kids to play with. They had so much fun and were totally cute. I definitely need to get more stuff for this box.

Let me know if you have any ideas as to the kind of stuff I can add. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.