Our lives here in Longview WA

Wow. It's been for ever since the last post. I guess blogging is like the diary you want the world to read. Believe it or not I'm even worse about writing a journal : /

So... Longview... what is life like in Longview..... Well, for starters, it's wet. It rains allot, but we get enough sun that  the girls and I go on frequent walks to Lake  Sakagawia. Yeah that's right, we are living on lake front property :) hahaha it's no as impressive as it sounds though. The lake is... more like a very large, long, banana shaped pond. Longview is different from Overland Park, and we miss everything OP had to offer us and most especially our friends! Longview is a lumber town and the emphasis on education is lacking a bit and you can tell ;)  For the most part people are very friendly, but occasionally I run into people (at Walmart of course) that I think should just stay home. Clearly they are too stupid to realize how stupid they are. But the same could be said of any where really.

Speaking of stupid, the roads her are S-T-U-P-I-D!!!!!! I have never been so turned around any where in my life! I've always been able to tell where my North, East, South or West was, but not here! stupid roads with your stupid drivers, and stupid stupidness. First of all, Kelso and Longview are the same town, not on paper and people around here say differently, (stupid ppl) and even though there's no separation of the two, they insist on numbering their roads differently. For example, If I'm driving on 1st street in the actual Longview boundaries and I cross into Kelso, I am no longer on 1st, but some thing stupid like 5th!!!!!! Even though I stayed on the same road. Stupid. Another thing that makes the roads so stupid around here is that they have this big round-about and all the major roads come off in spokes from it. but then more major roads will spoke off of the lake. These spokes do not coincide :( on top of said spokes, is your average plot road ways, but wait! there's more! on top of the two off kilter wagon wheels and the stupid Longview vs Kelso roads, there are 3 rivers that make things a bit more complicated, the Columbia, the Cowlitz and the Kalama river.

Stupid towns, with their stupid people and their stupid roads.

Before I go on to the possative end of it all, just one more complaint. The Paper Mill. Stupid stupid stupid. I would have never though that a mill that makes normal paper would STINK so bad! It's not all the time, mind you, but when I have that awful smell seeping through my kitchen window while I'm doing dishes, it makes me a bit more than grumpy.

The ever famous Voo-doo Doughnut in Portland

Ok, positive stuff..... our location is FANTASTIC! not just the location of our house here in Longview, but the location of Longview itself! being right along the Columbia means great beaches! I love the Columbia! Seattle is just up I-5 (not really high on my list, but cool), Portland is just an hour south, which means no tax shopping!

This is the beach in Longbeach, WA

Feeding the seals at the aquarium in Seaside, OR

 Mt St Helen's is just up the way, so great hiking! 50 minutes west of us is the ocean and did I mention something about loving the ocean?! Do you like antique shops? Astoria is THE place to go for that! Want a nice beach to play at where they let you pick up all the shells you want? Want the perfect place to take your kids for a vacation? Or maybe just a romantic get away for you and you special some one? Holy heck people, Seaside is the place for you! I LOVE SEASIDE!

Enjoying the beach at Seaside, OR

Two cool ladies

Hiking Mt St Helen;s

Tiegan walking in the sand at Willow Grove Beach along the Columbia

Feeding the ducks and geese at Lake Sakagawia

Swimming at Willow Grove

 The list of things to do around here just keeps going and going! So basically what I'm telling all of you, is that if you want a lot to do for a shorter vacation, or maybe a lot to do on an even longer vacation, come visit me!!!! I will house you, feed you (I'm a darn good cook if I do say so myself) and I will be your tour guide :)

Meet Jada's best friend Krissa

Who is Krissa? Why Krissa is Jada's imaginary friend! But I have to admit that I am very impressed at how detailed Jada had made Krissa's life. First of all I was informed just this morning that Krissa has a big brother and "sister baby and brother baby". Krissa is three and has brown hair, blue eyes and lots and lots of dresses. Krissa is very generous and is going to make a strawberry cake with cream for Jada's birthday  and is going to make chicken nuggets and fries for her lunch.

 Her favorite color is red and her favorite animals are baby goats. Krissa also has a dress up box with fairy costumes for everyone, and I do mean everyone, including Daniel :) She has a pet bunny,  a pet dog and a pet turtle! Krissa is afraid of monsters and loves her pet bunny, whose name is Bubble. And the bunny named Bubble is named Bubble because it has the amazing talent of blowing bubbles! (who knew a bunny could be so talented). 

 According to Jada, Krissa is always making a birthday cake for Jada's birthday! Krissa loves Jada and her best friend is Jaci! And that, my friends, is just what I have been told this morning!

Hahaha Let me count the way I love this kid :) (I'm referring to the 3 year old- not the goat)

Our Sad Pathetic Little Vacation

So, guess what comes after graduation.... job hunting! Of course Daniel's been submitting resume's left and right, and it's paying off! He's had several phone interviews and so far ALL of them have turned into site visits! According to one of our good friends in the business world, a site visit usually means a job offer, and so far that has been the case! Which brings me to the topic of our pathetic little vacation :)

We went as a family to Desloge MO so that Daniel could see the facilities there. Desloge is located about an hours drive south of St Louis, so about 5 hours from OP. We get ready to head out, excited because it's a job interview, and they are paying for us to go down there. So we set off and well, we knew that Jada would handle the trip just fine because she is an excellent traveler, and it turns out so is Tiegan! We get to our hotel and the girls and I hang out in the room- mostly watching Dora and feeding Tiegan, while Daniel head out to see the clinic.

The girls and I slept pretty much the whole way. I woke up around the time we were driving by the St Louis temple, and all the buildings and neighborhoods are all REALLY nice and well landscaped. So I was thinking that maybe living in MO wouldn't be so completely terrible- I was wrong! Desloge is a DUMPY little hole with a population of 5,000. I was surprised to see that everything was surprisingly brown :(  Lucky for us, our hotel was actually in Farmington, MO so it was quite a bit bigger, but honestly, still just as dumpy. So there was NOTHING for us to do while Daniel was out, but to sit and watch Dora and feed Tiegan ;) Daniel was gone for about an hour and a half and when he came back, we got ready to go to dinner with 2 of the ladies from the clinic (also paid for by them). Dinner was nice, it was at some steak house- cody, carly, carston...... some C name steak house. The ladies were nice and chatty, and the whole affair was not as awkward as it could have been :)

Jada enjoying her own queen size bed

At the steak house..... what ever it's called

Tiegan lounging on a bunch of pillows

Afterwards we drove around the town...... it was ....... ok. It had a super walmart so that's a plus, right? But that's about it. We went back to our hotel and Daniel and Jada went swimming. Tiegan was eating and napping so I stayed in the room with her. They come back wet and ready for bed, we go to sleep and get a good nights sleep, right? WRONG. Tiegan had an air bubble that just wouldn't come out, so her usual "I'm-waking-up-once-a-night" thing was actually "I'm-waking-up-3-times-tonight-and-you-have-to -entertain-me". And on top of that, Jada swallowed some pool water that made her sick so she ended up crying for a good portion of the night until she finally vomited on my shirt, her pj's and her blanket. Then she felt better but didn't want to sleep, so after reading a couple stories and watching so disney channel she went back to sleep, spread eagle on a queen size bed. I look over at Daniel on the other bed and he's doing the same thing. Since Jada was easier to move, she and I shared a bed for the remainder of those early morning hours :) But despite the un-fun night,we were blessed because while one child was awake, the other was fast asleep :)

The next morning we packed it all up (it's amazing how much crap you need for an infant) and headed home. Tiegan did really well on the way back home, until we were about 30 minutes outside of the metro area where there was a bad wreck and traffic was stopped for miles and miles while authorities tried to clean the mess up. Well the wreck was bad enough that they made every get off the high way and drive down some local side roads to go around. From what we could see, a semi hit a road workers truck.... how the semi managed to get both front tires bent underneath it like a hover craft, we're still trying to figure out. (in case any one was wondering- the semi won. we saw them towing the road worker's truck away in pieces) but it didn't look like any one was seriously injured. Despite the excitement, Tiegan was not interested at all. She was pissed that I wasn't holding her and she couldn't get it through her head that it's the law that we all wear seat belts.... Babies can be so irrational some times :) Once we got back on the high way and got back up to speed, she went right back to sleep.

So the lesson we learned from our little trip was that Daniel is going on the remainder of the site visits alone, and from now on I refuse to travel with a newborn until they are 6 months at least. It is way to stressful dealing with them in cramped spaces with limited resources to help out. Also, even though Daniel got a job offer from them, we most likely will be kindly turning them down. They weren't completely honest about the clinical environment and what work was needed to be done. And that is the story of our sad pathetic little vacation.

Tiegan's Surgery and Daniel's Graduation

So your all probably wondering "Surgery?!" Well, little miss Tiegan is a bit of a squeaky breather. Or was a squeaky breather. She had laringo  malacia, is basically an under developed larynx. So she had a quick surgery on Thursday to essentially trim some skin in her throat. (Daniel could give you a better idea of what went down- honestly all that medical jargon is over my head and I don't give a hoot) Tiegan is doing great and recovering quite well. Actually there's not real bad down turn in her behavior. She's still just a happy content baby that likes a good tight swaddle.

She was fairly happy right before the surgery, that is, until she realized I wasn't going to give her the bottle when she wanted it. But you just can't explain to a 6 week old baby that they shouldn't have food in their tummy right before/during a surgery. For some reason I wasn't able to get that through to her : / Isn't she just the cutest little baby in a hospital gown?!

So that happened Thursday and she was released from the hospital early Friday morning. And Friday evening, Daniel had a grad dinner thing. It was suppose to be this nice sit down dinner thing with awards and what not's, or so we thought. So we got our good friends to babysit both girls and we go to a ........ Bar. Needless to say I wasn't pleased. I did NOT get dressed up for one of the first dress-up-nice-to-go-out dates in I don't know how long, to go to a frickin' bar and watch other people drink. :( The whole thing was awkward and unpleasant. The ironic thing is that of the people I met, the one I had the most in common with was an RLDS mother who was older than my Mom, which is especially weird considering most of Daniel's class mates are my age. But for the most part I saw nothing but a bunch of slutty girls drinking beer and doing nothing else. Worst date night ever! I will mention that it was an awkward and disappointing night for both Daniel and I.

And Saturday Daniel graduated! Yup, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Dr Daniel Antonio Bowman DPT!!!

Our first Family Photo with Little Miss Tiegan

Jada is my favorite part of this picture :)

So Congratulations to my favorite person in the whole world! Now we can finally enter the "real" world :) What ever that means....

3 Weeks Old Already?!

Hey all! I have a quiet house at the moment so I thought I'd add a post with some pictures! But it's mostly for the pictures :) We are all doing great! My Mom and sisters left last week, it was kind of depressing to see them go, but some how I am managing. Actually Daniel has been a huge help and gave me a 5 hour nap yesterday!!! It was heavenly :) And Jada has had a few play dates that have allowed me to pull our lives back together while she is gone and Tiegan is sleeping. So my thanks to all who have been such a great help!

This picture is not Jada and Tiegan (obviously) but Jada and Holly enjoying a drive in Holly's new ride! This picture was taken either before, during, or after the Saturday morning conference session. I have no idea which, but they had lots of fun and we discovered that Jada is a horrible driver :) I guess it's better to figure that out now instead of later :)

Look at that beautiful girl! She's a great sleeper, especially during the day :) I found out that for her, all she needs is a tight bundle and something over her eyes and she's out like a light :) she isn't half as stubborn as Jada, thank goodness!

We did a photo shoot, who can resist a baby in a basket?! then add in the flower? Simply irresistible!

My beautiful girls! Jada is such an amazing big sister!

Welcome Tiegan Luisa Bowman

Hello world, I would like you to meet Tiegan Luisa Bowman! She surprised us by coming all on her own Monday morning! We were positive that she was gonna wait until I was induced, which was scheduled for March 29th. Instead, she came March 26th! 

Actually what had happened was that Daniel, Jada and I went for a walk to the park that's just around the corner and.... well.... it was ALLOT of work for me. After our Sunday stroll, I was giving Jada a bath and was going through, what I was positive, were braxton hicks. Well my "braxton hicks" lasted ALL night long and were coming 20-25 minutes apart all night long. It wasn't until 7:00 that morning that I really started to feel the pain (the kind that you actually have to make noises for, because somehow it helps) But Daniel and I just put it off and put it off, not wanting to have to go to the hospital, only to have them send us home. Finally, it's 9:00 and I am begging Daniel to take me to the hospital, but we still waited a bit. There was a point in time that I was on my bed crying while Daniel was in the shower, and Jada was pounding on the bathroom door yelling at the top of her lungs "DAD! Mom NEEDS you!!!" Then after that I was on the floor downstairs (crying again) and Jada started telling me that "we didn't have a reason to cry" lol what a punk ;) She also told us several times that she didn't want to be with me, she wanted to go to Jennae's and play with Holly.

 Long story short, we got to the hospital at 10:00 am and I was dilated to an 8, with barely enough time to get an epidural and Tiegan was born at 11:35 am! Daniel is now calling it "the express lane delivery" And as painful as the contractions were, I've already started to block them out, epidurals are marvelous that way. Once I was numb, I may be pushed for 15-20 minutes tops and there she was! 8.7 lbs. 20.5 inches and hair every bit as dark as Daniel's, with a chunky double chin to boot :) 

After every one was cleaned up, we were moved into another room, and not too long after that, Jada comes waltzing in singing “Mommy I got stickers” and “Happy Birthday Tiegan!” And then having had a good look at her new little sister, she lost interest and played with stickers instead J I guess Jennae got her some stickers because she was being good, (always better than your child being bad for others when there’s nothing you can do about it) Ps Thanks Jennae for letting me drop my kid off like that!

So here we are, ending our second day in the hospital and getting ready to be released tomorrow. I have little to no pain, and can walk around and get things done with ease. I’m already healing much faster than I did with Jada and have much more energy than I ever dreamed I could have after giving birth. Tiegan is a girl after my own heart and prefers sleep to eating, and if the nurses would let her she could easily sleep a solid 4 hours with no problems!!!!!  I have had several visitors from the fabulous ladies of the OP 1^st ward and feel very blessed by their generosity and thoughtfulness. My nurses have been great, Daniel has been the perfect husband, and Jada has been a superb helper and loving big sister! Plus Chelsea will be here in soon and things are going great! Please ignore the nasty picture of me, but it's my first picture with my girls:)

Tiegan's Baby Shower

Saturday was my baby shower for Tiegan and I have to say I am so grateful for the ladies here in Overland Park 1st Ward- so many CUTE outfits! And such good friends!

Carmen was able to be there which I am glad she was able and willing to drive  all the way there for a couple hours. And when the ladies started asking about the name we picked out, Carmen sat a little higher when I informed my good friends of OP1 that Tiegan was being named after her Abuela! It was quite cute!

My very good friend Jennae and my adorable visiting teachers Roxanne and Randii threw the party and it was super cute. Jennae, knowing my fondness of green, decided it would be a green and yellow party. Everything was very cute ;) And I never say 'nay' to green and yellow! If Tiegnan would have been a boy it would have been a straight up John Deere themed :D

It was a fun shower with lots of giggles and maybe more than a few inside jokes! Good times :)

After wards Carmen and Eric treated us to Red Robin (I thought the boys would eat while we were gone but they were nice and waited for us to get back) Jada was all sorts of excited when I walked in with all the gift bags and balloons. She is quite certain that the baby shower was not actually a baby shower, but in fact- it was Tiegan's birthday party ;)

As for other news from our end of things, Daniel is starting the last half of his LAST semester!!!! He graduates May 12th!!! Hurray! Student life does end eventually! You'd think that being married and pregnant with child number 2 would make it feel like we live in the real world, but no, we have been living an odd limbo state. But this summer starts the real Real life! We still have no idea where we're going, it all depends on where the jobs are. So even though there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel known as student life, we are still VERY much in limbo.

Daniel's brother James recently popped the question and his lovely lady said Yes! So on June 30th in the Rexburg Temple James will marry Jessica Rich (who Jada fondly calls Jessa)! We are very excited  for the 2 of them and we really REALLY like Jess! We had the privilege to hang out with the 2 of them while she was in Topeka visiting. She and James are super cute together ;) I'm sure Daniel and I had that awkward "we're getting married" phase, but I don't remember it and it's fun to see some one else live through it.

I am officially full term now. It's since I had Jada. 38 weeks was considered full term when Jada was born, but now it's 37 weeks. Another thing they've changed is they won't induce you unless there is a medical emergency before 39 weeks and we induced Jada at 38 weeks. So Unless Tiegan decides to come on her own before then (which I pray for constantly) I still have at the least 2 more weeks. Not a lot, but it sure feels like it. This week we are doing another sonogram. The Dr is..... surprised at how much wiggle room Tiegan has in there. So we are double checking the sizing. everything on the out side is measuring right. That might have been a good time to let the Dr know that when my last Dr broke my water- he jumped back and yelled "WHOA" Tiegan's wiggle room might just be due to excess water.....

Any way, I guess that's it for now, hope every one is as excited for Spring as we are!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

In all honesty this video makes me sick. Should one single American child some how find themselves in Kony's clutches, this whole country would be up in arms and the world would see and feel our wrath. The countless children who are children by age only, have been suffering for far too long. Even if Kony is stopped immediately, the effects of his outrageous crimes will have a lasting effect on those children till the day they die. It is one thing to witness the horror of seeing a family member killed, it is an entirely different matter to be forced to kill that family member yourself. Then, these same children are forced to do the same thing to other children and put them through the same hell.

Please, educate yourself. Family should be the one thing children can rely on, but that can't happen for the children in Kony's path, until he is stopped. I realize that most of you who read this blog are mothers, can you even imagine what it would be like for your children to fear sleeping at home, or even coming home? It makes me sick to thing of Jada being traded as a sex slave, or forced to use a gun for a man whose only goal is to maintain power. I'm not asking you guys to donate, or to protest or what ever, all I'm asking is that you watch the video, think about it and let others know whats been going on for the past 26 years. Regardless of political views, this is worth seeing.

Introducing Tiegan Luisa Bowman!

Since it's Valentine's day, I guess I should share a little of the love that's filling our lives right now.

I hear there are friends out there that didn't know we are preggo, so here's another announcement- We're pregnant with number 2! We are having girl whom we are naming Tiegan Luisa Bowman. We decided that we are going to name our children after a grandparent, to carry on a family name and so that they can have someone to look to as an example in their lives as they grow up. Since Jada was named after my Mom (Lynn is my Mom's middle name and Luisa is Carmen's middle name) This one is being named after her Abuela! At first we were going with Tiegan Carmin, but it felt wrong since it's not exactly Carmen's name (one of her aunts goes by Carmin) so Tiegan Luisa it is. Actually Carmen pointed out that she was named after her Father, so in reality Tiegan will be named after her Abuela and her Bis Abuelo. The name Tiegan wasn't even on the radar, but I decided to check out one of the websites that gives names, meanings and origins and I found out that Tiegan is Aztec and means little princess in a big valley! How could I resist that?! Way too cute! http://www.momswhothink.com/baby-girl-names/baby-girl-names-a-to-z-listing.html 

 I am currently at 33 weeks and I am tired of the hippo-like....ness :) Jada is kind enough to remind me on a daily basis how big I am. Little Sweet Heart.  She is finally getting to the point that she knows she is going to be a big sister. It started when I ran out of things to put Jada's out grown clothes into so we pulled out the baby clothes. And Jada became so excited that  she and her baby sister both have stripped dresses and and flower dresses and polk-a-dot dresses etc. So She is now very excited to have baby Tiegan join us! She likes to tell me that I have a baby in my big tummy and she has a baby in her little tummy.  Of course she is kind enough to emphasize the 'big' part :) she's so honest.

 The first picture is the profile pic. During the sonogram she was quite excited to show us her fingers. The first one has her fingers at her ear and on top of her head. The second one of her feet she's grabbing her toes, still showing off those little fingers :) We might have a hand model in the family- although I have no idea where she'll get the hands for it :)

 Jada was a spoiled 3 year old this year and received $10 for Christmas from her Great Grandpa, plus another $20 from him for her birthday. And with the gift from Grandma McCombs she got a $5 gift card to Target. So on top of the ponies she was able to get she also got to buy herself some slippers.

There was a Saturday that Daniel and I were SOOO sick and Jada was amazing and completely fended for herself all day. Well, on Sunday she needed attention and was sticking her ice cold feet on my back, so I told her to either put socks on or slippers. She perked right up and said "Mom, I don't have any slippers! We need to go to the store right NOW!" I had to explain that we don't go shopping on Sunday's because it's Heavenly Father's day.

So on Monday, Jada I went to Walmart- no slippers, then Target- no slippers. Jada was NOT about to leave Target without slippers, so in order to save myself I told her we could go look at the princess store (the Disney store). And there we found them, purple Rapunzel slippers. Jada was so happy with her purchase! So in this picture she is showing off her slippers. I wish I could get the video to work because before this picture was taken she was dancing around making sure that her slippers were the center of attention :) I'll have to see if Daniel can help me get it to work later because watching Jada dance is one of the best things about being a mom :) lol please ignore the toilet paper in the background ;)

One of the things I don't have any pictures of is how good Daniel is to me. Last night he was reading some books to Jada and I just fell asleep. It was around 8:00 which is WAY early for me and the next thing I know He is putting her to bed and it's close to 10:00. It wasn't my intention to fall asleep but it's great having a husband who is more than willing to take care of our daughter because I fell asleep. Not to mention that dinner was cleaned up when I came down stairs this morning :) I couldn't ask for a better hubby!

Jada's 3rd Birthday

So our little Jada- Beta turned 3! She has bee excited for her birthday since her Grandpa McCombs had his birthday in July :) and since my birthday in November it has only gotten worse. She has taken up the habit of looking at Pinterest with me and picking out what kind of cakes and/or cupcakes she was going to have for her birthday. http://www.madeinmelskitchen.com/2009/09/kit-kat-cake/ That's the cake she was positive she was going to have. We did a downed played version of her "M&M Cake" She was just as happy with it because she still got her giant bag of M&M's :)

Her Grandpa and Abuela Bowman came to OP on Saturday and she got spoiled rotten by them (no surprise) and she got another Barbie (that makes 4 now), Barbie clothes, and Candyland! She already is pretty darn good at playing, but she cheats like you wouldn't believe :) She only plays on the purple squares or the pink squares with the little symbols on them!

Because I'm too stupid to figure out the dumb picture thing.... the next picture down is Jada blowing out her candles one a cupcake she decorated herself with M&M's (I put the candles on though) The ponies on either side of the cupcake she bought with some money that her Great-Grandpa Lanier gave her for her birthday! She felt SOOO special being able to buy that herself! She was dancing through the whole store when I told her she could take the ponies home with her.

For as excited as she was for her birthday party, it was kind of a flop :/ We were never able to get a hold of one of the kids, and 1 didn't show up at all, 2 of them showed up when the party was "ending" (according to the invitations) and only one showed up at the time he was supposed to. So instead of having 6 kids do the activities it was only 2 of them. In the picture with the tiny frogs they were melting balls of ice to get the frog in the middle. Turns out that the two of them had allot of fun doing that. Obviously it would have allot more fun to do that activity outside, but it was barely pushing 40 degrees :( But this is where I got the ice idea (we'll be doing it again when the weather warms up) http://alittlelearningfortwo.blogspot.com/2011/09/ice-eggs.html Jada had a blast though. It took her 2 days to recover :)

And last but not least, There is a picture of Jada feeling BEAUTIFUL on her birthday! She loves the outfit that her Aunt Jaci picked out for her (a Christmas present) and always feel like a princess in it because of the silky part :) All-in-all Jada had a wonderful birthday and is sure that it will continue to be her birthday for a while yet :)