Busy, busy, busy Bowmans

Hello all! I have a Son! Yeah for being a tiny person making factory :) Gabriel Peter Bowman was born March 6, 2014 weighing in at a whopping 8 lbs 13 oz and was 22 in long. Everything went so well with his birth that we got to go home early!!! That did NOT happen with the girls. For both of them we did an extra FIVE DAYS! So the fact that we got to go home early was a miracle :)

Gabe is such a good baby! It's weird having a baby that follows normal baby protocol. Any fussiness is typical baby needs; hungry, dirty diaper, sleepy, wants cuddle time... typical baby. Most of his angry moods are due to gas- that boy can fart and burp like a grown man.... He also get real stinky real fast. And I'm not talking diaper stink, just stinky boy stink. The girls were never this smelly. I guess I got allot to learn about boys.

You'd think that a new born would be enough of an adventure. Not for us apparently. 2 weeks after Gabe was born Daniel went snowboarding with the scouts on White Pass. They left Friday night and sometime Saturday mid afternoon I get a call from the YM presidents saying that Daniel  had gotten hurt and that he would be OK. He then told me that they think Daniel had a concussion, but he remembered me and the kids and our names, and the pass word to his phone :) (cause we all know that's what's important). 

So the story goes like this; Daniel was going down the mountain feelin' pretty fly when a tree jumped up at him. Some guy comes down the mountain and spotted Daniel sitting on the ground and noticed a bit of red in the snow. (I have no idea where the scouts were at this point....) The guy asked Daniel if he needed help and Daniel responded with something intelligent like "yeah, maybe". So Daniel got to ride the pretty red sled down to the first aid station. I don't know how long it was before the rest of his party figured out what happened, but the other leaders there were made up of a Doctor, a OT and a Dentist, so with the medical schooling between the three of them they accurately diagnosed Daniel with a concussion and a broken collar bone. And instead of helping with the first aid the scouts kept on boarding :)

Daniel came home and was pretty much a humorless lump on a log with no appetite for a week. He then went into surgery a week later and was back to his normal self, at least his appetite was back to normal :) Weird if you think about it, that he'd feel better after having a titanium plate bolted to his clavicle... He's been home and on short term disability since then and has another week left. Then he'll meet with his surgeon again to get the green light and he'll be back to work. Not that any of it has been as easy as it sounds. My one-armed husband isn't up to helping as much as he was before hand, but it's getting better. Changing diapers and picking up babies is easier with 2 working upper limbs. And I know every one of you will be soooo surprised that the insurance company has been making life difficult. Between my bills, Gabe's bills and Daniel's bills, they seem to think that we haven't been covered for the last 2 years by them. Like all of a sudden we have insurance cards that says they have to cover us.... stupid. Can I say that I think insurance companies are far more corrupt than any government?! Just barely though...

But I can't say that despite corrupt *&%$*#@ being in charge of things they shouldn't be, that it's been all bad. With Daniel being home we've been able to transition from man-on-man to zone defense rather easily. It's been nice to have Daniel supervise the girls while Gabe and I nap if needed, or to be able to leave the girls with him while Gabe and I go to appointments or grocery shopping. But I have to say that the best part of Daniel not being able to work has been our family adventures we've been able to do, that would not have been possible other wise.

The first being a week in Lincoln City, OR. My parents decided they wanted a fun adventure for spring break. So we hurried and found a beach house that would fit all of us and headed down there. But not before Chelsea, Zach and Maggie joined us! Zach came for an extended weekend and Chelsea and Maggie were able to stay for the whole time! We had so much fun playing in the sand, enjoying the hot tub, watching Grandma try her hand at glass blowing, exploring tide pools and eating all sorts of  baked goodies :)

After a long week of fun in the sand, sun and wind, we went our separate ways. It took a week of recovering and resting before we were actually functioning at our normal-ish levels. Then we celebrated Easter with just us, nothin' fancy but the girls' dresses :) It was a special day, Jada actually let me curl her hair hahaha!

A couple days after Easter we squished the whole family in the car and drove "straight on through to Sydney!" just kidding, we went to Colville :)  We were just going to spend a few days up there, then we remembered that Great-Grandma's birthday was soon, so we extended our stay to celebrate Great-Grandma's (we call her Super Grandma) 85th birthday. Cause of the extra days we got to enjoy hiking, even Gabe, playing with cousins that involved treasure hunts through the woods, "big fires" that fascinated a certain 2 year old who takes after Super Grandma and her love of fires, and of course the big birthday bash celebrating 85 years of the most incredible woman ever to walk the planet. :)

Now we're home again. It's always sad to leave family behind, but nice to get back to our own beds :) So that's us, busy, busy, busy with BBB (baby boy Bowman) and broken bones. Hope the Lord is blessing you all as much as he is blessing us!

The cousin's all love Aunt Jaci

meeting Super Grandma for the first time

Happy 85th Birthday Super Grandma!

a rousing round of kubb

Wanna know the secret to living to 85 with amazing health? follow Super Grandma's example, hard work and a big loving family

Grandpa and Tiegan showing off their mad skills

Welcome 2014, let's get this year rollin'

Wow, It's been an awful long time since I last wrote.... which if I remember correctly, is how I started my last post... oh well. Turns out I blog like I write in my journal.....not very often.

I figured I should update ya'll before too long, when FB and Blogger will be bombarded with pictures of cute soon-to-be-here Bowman!

This picture is on some hike somewhere nearby......

Daniel is enjoying work (for the most part, there always those days and those people...) I understand that his ability to graze ALL DAY LONG is a source of bafflement and enjoyment to his co-workers :) One of the ladies keeps telling him that one day it will all catch up to him. I doubt it ever will. Daniel still has the energy of a Labrador puppy.... it's a blessing, and a curse. Daniel is now using some of that energy to teach the teachers corom, and be the scout something or other leader. I will do my best not to rant about how much I HATE the scouting program..... it's taking a bit of restraint...

Daniel is a huge help when it comes to dealing with the girls. I have had to learn that his ways of 'dealing' with them is different than how I deal with them. For example, I think bed time is quiet time. no yelling and playing and annoying noises as we get ready for bed. Daniel, on the other hand, sees no problem with pulling out what ever obnoxious noise making instruments suits his fancy and serenading the girls to bed..... I have to shut my self in my room at these times and 'find my happy place' :) But I can't complain too much since Daniel is the one doing the dishes and the laundry and scrubbing the tub right now. And he kindly ignores those days when I just can't bring myself to do anything, including making dinner. In conclusion, Daniel may be a noise making hyper-active puppy, but I still got myself one of the better guys walking around in this world :) xoxoxox

Tiegan was NOT enjoying the family walk to the park. She eventually fell asleep like that :)

Tiegan is well into the terrible-twos. She is a cuddly snuggle bug and more than happy to be Jada's shadow. However there are times where I wish I could put her in a box and ship to my Mom. Jada's birthday was one of those days. She has gotten into a routine of taking one or two bites of what ever food is put in front of her and then destroying it by any means possible. So for Jada's Birthday breakfast, as per request, we had pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries. I thought that Tiegan would eat that and then some- I was wrong. She took a single bite and then proceeded to make her pancakes, whipped cream, strawberries, and juice into an unappetizing soup.... after finger painting for a few seconds, she dumped it on the floor.....

I wish that was the end of her shenanigans that day...... When I was trying to get the cupcakes all made, Tiegan found some food coloring.... Honestly I don't know where she found it because I had not gotten to that stage in the cupcake process yet. Anyway, Jada comes running into the kitchen telling me that Tiegan was coloring on the ottoman - again. (the first time that day was with chalk and cleaned right off). so I run in there and she is squeezing the blue food coloring out in decorative little designs all over my brown ottoman. Of course she got in trouble and I put her to bed immediately, then came back to her destructive art. However, food coloring stains are one I had yet to tackle, I had no idea what to do. So I cried. And cried some more, then I called my Mom, still crying a little, asking her if she knew what to do. She did. My clever Mom googled it :) hahah then she talked me through, step by step to get that horrific stain out. It worked thank goodness..... Tiegan was pretty good after that until Jada started opening up presents and well.... she managed to break/pull apart/ ruin 4 of the gifts that I had made for Jada......

Jada with her favorite person in the world, Aunt Jaci. We were waiting at the finish of one of Daniel's races, this one was the Sandblaster- a 5k obstacle course.

Jada is doing quite well. She did preschool for a month or so in the fall and LOVED IT! They were small short classes and she thrived in that environment. We have yet to sign her up again, but we're thinking maybe dance, cause she found out that some other girls her age are in dance classes. That'll have to wait till after the baby though. She is now in CTR4 at church and after a rough first Sunday of the year, she loves going. She was a little upset that day that she wasn't going with her old teacher, and in typical Jada fashion refused to go into the classroom. Bless her teachers' hearts cause they moved out into the hallway with her and gave the lesson there :) In Jada's book, being 5 means being a big girl with all the big girls privileges, but none of the responsibilities. Her reasoning skills are uncanny, but unfortunately for her my name is Mom. There is allot of arguing between the two of us about cleaning up after herself or getting dressed for the day. Jada is still as picky about food as ever, but she now eats scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes (not together of course- gross) these two things alone are incredible improvements! Admittedly, her diet is as much centered on fruit, yogurt and bread as it ever was. That girl goes through 4-6 bunches of bananas, 3 loaves of bread and I'm-too-lazy-to-measure-how-much yogurt a week! I guess there are worse things for a 5 year old to live off of....

Jada is, despite our bickering's, my best helper. How ever she is sassy enough to remind me several times a day, as she's picking things off the floor for me, that I am too fat to pick up these things right now. She also gets a sick pleasure of reminding me how slow I am, and has compared me to a mamma whale on more than one occasion. I can't actually argue any of these points and find myself agreeing with her or simply telling her shut up (using as kind of terms as I can of course :)

Daniel never actually gets nap time, cause when he stops, it just gives the girls time to catch up :)

I am keeping busy by waddling around, attempting to keep up with the perpetual mess. I also keep busy with my calling a Primary President... No one's asked for me to be released yet (including myself) so I must be doing alright. That or no one else wants to take my place :) I have to say though, I thought that the kids would be the ones to complicate this calling. That's not the case- it's the adults. And in most cases (not all) it's adults that have little to nothing to do with primary! What's up with that?

I am getting close to the end of this pregnancy, 4 more appointments! hurrah! I have been blessed yet again with an easy pregnancy, no sickness, no bed rest, just getting bigger and bigger :) We're excited to have a boy, and have decided that his name will be Gabriel Peter Bowman. Of course we'll call him Gabe :) Daniel's already nick-named him gabby-gummy-Gabe-the babe :) hahaha! A few night back, I was sleeping surprisingly soundly. Daniel on the other hand was continuously disturbed by some shaking of the bed. I guess he got up, thinking it was me. Turns out it wasn't. Baby was moving so much that it was shaking the bed! hahaha Daniel went and slept on the guest bed :) I had no idea any of this was happening and slept right through it all :)

All in all, we have started this year running. Hopefully we can keep up this pace for the remainder of the year, cause it looks to be busy, busy, busy!