Bowles Family

spelling

thebookofbowles — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 03:53:14 +0000

Ethan is very smart. I am so pleased that he loves learning. That being said, he drive me crazy sometimes! Right now he spells all his answers to me. Instead of a simple yes or no, he very quickly spells yes or no. It hard to describe, but he spells it so quickly that with his slight lisp it is hard to understand. He also does this little neck bob, rolls his eyes, and sticks his hand on his hips a lot of the time. The whole experience is quite rude. Anyhow, tonight he asked if he could have an A-P-P-L-E. Ellie responded, “Did you just say a nakie Ellie pee?” So funny!

no deceiving

thebookofbowles — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:40:54 +0000

I was going to name this post ‘no filter’, but I realized that the title better fit another little boy in our family who really has no filter. Evan on the other hand doesn’t try to deceive. He is just so quiet that you don’t notice the silence that tells you something is wrong. So I am either on alert all the time or not alert enough. He will be sweet for such a long time that I think, “Oh! He’s out grown being mischievous!” That is usually when I let my guard down and he strikes! Anyhow, lately he’s been on a big boy kick and being really good. Actually, ever since he got back from AZ that’s how he’s been. Everyday after he got done playing during ‘nap time’ he would clean up his room. Right before that trip, one day when I laid him down for a nap he said, “Turn the light on mom. I will get down out of my bed and play and make a mess.” That is just how he is. There is no deception in him. He is straight forward with his intentions. This morning he saw something he wanted and this was the conversation we had:

Evan: I want some of dat.

Me: No. This isn’t for you.

Evan: I will cwhy (cry) for dat.

Me: Oh! You said you want to go to bed?

Evan: No. I will whine if I *don’t* get dat.

What a funny kid!

piece of work

thebookofbowles — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 02:36:14 +0000

I am getting so freaked out that I am forgetting things that my kids say or do. I have got to be a better blogger. I want to write about my grandma dying, but I just can’t do it yet. Oh! How I miss her! Today is the 10th anniversary of 9-11 and I am emotional about that. We sang Families Can Be Together Forever in Sacrament Meeting. We sang O My Father in Relief Society. The Senior Primary came and sang We’ll Bring The World His Truth. It turns out Evelyn is one of the shortest kids. Then I had to teach on The Postmortem Spirit World. I cried at all of those! Whew.

Today my kids have been HILARIOUS and so I’ve got to write it down. After church, we took the kids by the houses that burned down this week from the Moonglow fire, here in Leander. We talked to them about not playing with matches or fire. Evan said, “I not playing with fire.” On the way home Ellie said we needed to pray for our neighbors to quit smoking since their yard was on fire a few weeks ago. As she said the prayer, she said, “Please bless the burnt houses that they will go away.” We know what she meant, but Ben and I couldn’t help snickering a little. Gotta love kids and the crazy things they say.

Ben and I were discussing how awful Emmett is in church. He has 2 more weeks before he is 18 months and then he will be in nursery. I am happy for the break, but so sad too. I don’t know if I know how to sit still for 2 hours of church. It’s been 8 years since I could do that! Anyhow, we were comparing stories of the little booger and then this happened:

Ben: I’ll tell you what, starting from October on, I’ll take care of Mett for the last two hours of church.

Maggie: Ha ha. You’re a piece of work. (Mett will be in nursery then)

Ethan: No. He’s not a piece! He’s the whole thing! (He had no clue what this meant)

Maggie: Bahahaha!

Ben: The whole thing of what?

Ethan: Dad is the whole work, not just a piece.

The next funny thing was Evan talking about ‘boo boos’ (boobs). He asked to touch Ben’s ‘boo boos’. He said, “You have big ‘boo boos’ Dad.” Ben says, “Wait! Touch my ‘boo boos’ and see if they are hard or squishy.” Ben immediately flexes his pecks and Evan touches them and says, “They squishy!”. I laughed so hard!

Tonight, during scriptures I got in a elbowing fight with Evelyn and couldn’t stop laughing. It’s so not like me. Ben threaten to send me to bed if I couldn’t quit disrupting. Later, after the kids were in bed we heard a thump from the direction of our bathroom. Evelyn sleeps in our bed until Ellie is asleep on school nights, so they don’t talk till nine. Lately, instead of sleeping she has been reading or cleaning. Ben told me it was my turn to check on things. I went back there and found Evelyn on the pot and I told her she better quit and go to sleep. She started crying, saying she was on her way to the bathroom when she slipped on water and hurt her toes real bad. I went to go tell Ben and for some reason started laughing so hard I was wheezing. He proceed to call me Jeremy, so I started laughing even harder. I finally made it back to Evelyn and when I saw her I couldn’t laugh anymore. She was in pain and I felt so bad for her. I called Ben to come look at her toes and he laid her on the bed while he assessed her toes. When he started to give her the ‘good news’ that nothing is broken, I was fine. As soon as he said the ‘bad news’ which was its time to sleep, I became hysterical again. I don’t know what has gotten into me. I just started laughing again and Ben said, “What’s your problem?” Before I could finish saying ‘I don’t know.’, I was laughing uncontrollably. Wow…I might have just lost it. You know how when you cry too much, everything is freakishly funny afterward? That is all I can think of as an explanation.

band-aid

thebookofbowles — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:07:15 +0000

Kids love band-aids. My kids are always sure that if I give them a band-aid it will take away all the pain. I wish that was true. Anyhow, last September I hurt myself. I can’t remember how, but Evelyn made me a band-aid out bendaroos. I thought it was pretty ingenious and sweet! It kept falling off, so she added a strap. What a sweet girl!

nakie evan

thebookofbowles — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:06:03 +0000

We were at the park last August and Evan took off all his clothes. It just hit me that this was almost a year ago. Sigh! I will catch up one day! Anyhow, I didn’t care. It was pointless to try to get him dressed. Secretly, I was laughing because only a two year old would think it’s a good idea to be naked at the park and be able to get away with it! You only get to be two once, so I think you should live it up!Look at those pink cheeks! Business as usual! That dad was giving us weird looks. At least the boy kept his diaper on. I think that deserves points!I don’t want to squash Evan’s free spirit, mostly because he makes me laugh! Love this boy!

stop wearning

thebookofbowles — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:55:35 +0000

Oh Ellie! She can be a little sassy pants sometimes, but she is adorable. She melts my heart all the time. I love her little ways of saying things. I will be so sad when she can pronounce all her words right! A little into the last school year, we were at the park and several times people mentioned not being able to understand her. Then a few times at preschool the teacher couldn’t understand her, so I got paranoid that I’m the only one who knows what she is saying and thought maybe she had a speech problem. I got her speech tested by the school district and her speech is normal. In fact, this past year it has improved a lot, much to my disappointment! Right around the time Emmett was trying to crawl, Ellie knew how much I didn’t want him to grow up. One day she said, “Mom we can’t really have a baby, because he will grow until he’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.” She’s so smart. I’m still trying to adjust to understanding that! Then she spent the morning sitting next to Emmett and pulling his legs out every time he got up on his hands and knees, saying, “Stop wearning (learning) Mett, stop wearning.” Love her! I think she missed the mark, mascara goes on the eyelashes!
Ellie looks frightened of herself! The downward arch helps her pretend she is sorry,but we all know she isn’t!

bonding

thebookofbowles — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:46:41 +0000

Here are some pictures of the two little boys bonding. This was key so that later they could become co-conspirators in mischief. They look so innocent here, but I’m here to tell you they are trouble now! Evan got Emmett’s trust early and later trained him in the way of mess making, climbing, and brute-hood! Oh how I love little boys!Evan liked to hold baby! The baby is almost the same size as him! I have a ton of pictures from this and they are all blurry, but Emmett gave Evan the smack down! Funny! I’m not sure why whenever I decide to take pictures of my kids, they always need a diaper change. Hmm…looking at hands. Love those hands! This is blurry but funny! Hmmm…I guess I’ll eat his hands instead!

emmett-4 months

thebookofbowles — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 02:38:25 +0000

My poor little Emmett’s life is not properly documented. He has been such a happy, sweet, loveable baby. Looking at these pictures makes me want to go get him out of bed and squish him in a huge hug! I hate to admit it, but he’s not really a baby anymore. I saw him near the babies today at church and realized that I am in denial. Of course when I put him in a room with our big kids, he looks just like a baby to me. He is still nursing a little here and there. If he’s still nursing, he’s a baby…right? Anyhow, here is my sweet lovins at 4 and a half months, eating his toes. It feels like this was yesterday! Please excuse the excess of pictures. I just can’t see enough of him! He’s really a skinny guy but I love his little rolls on his tummy. I think at this point he had long since made it into size 3 diapers, same as Evan. He was also wearing 6-12 month clothes, starting at 3 months! Here he is at 4 and half months still doing the swim motions on his tummy. He was disappointed at the lack of movement so he got himself up on his hands and knees. This is when I started crying and saying, “Why are you doing this to me? You are supposed to stay a baby for forever!” He ignored me and responded to all the people clapping at him and got up higher. Isn’t he adorable?

I thought this picture was funny! Evelyn is wiping his slobber so I could get a slobber free picture. Her hand looks so little. She grown up so much this past year! Can you tell I’m super emotional tonight? The kids thought he was doing such a good job that they decided to see if he could sit up. I told them to stop ruining my baby, but they thought it was funny. And then I got all emotional, started crying, and told them I wasn’t joking! Ben kept encouraging them, but they did pause to ask why I care. I explained and they only kind of listened, typical!Even with me not wanting my baby to grow up, I couldn’t help smile at how proud of himself he was. He just wouldn’t slow down. Good thing he’s a momma’s boy! You would have thought these two were his parents with how proud of him they were. Here he is playing the up/down game, Once There Was a Snowman, and Sunbeam with Daddy. Ben has done this with all of the kids and they LOVE it! Evelyn is getting too heavy now, but we have some great videos of chubby cheeks jiggling all over the place.

I love the bumbo, but it did not work well for Emmett. He jumped out of it constantly.He’s totally unfazed though.

Now it’s eating…I mean reading books time.

woves

thebookofbowles — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 03:15:48 +0000

The other day, I was sad about some drama and Evan brought me a lego sword. I said thanks and asked if I could have loves. Evan said, “Fist I give you sowrd. You whittle and I big. Then I will wove you and you will wove me.” He followed this up with a lego sword fight and as he swung at my sword his broke off behind him. Legos don’t make very good swords. Evan said, “Oh! My sowrd bake! I ficks it!” Then he fixed his sword, swung carefully at my sword, broke mine and said, “I bake you sowrd. You sowrd whittle and I big. Now I give you woves.” This was the part that melted my heart. He climbed up next to me, climbed over me so he was sitting behind me, and wrapped his skinny little arms around me as well as he could. It was as if he was trying to sit me in his lap. Then he rested his head on my back for a minute and said, “You big and I whittle.” After he was done giving me loves he climbed into my lap and let me rock him and give him loves. He did his best to give me loves the way I give him loves! He is such a sweet boy…it makes me cry! We have the funniest conversations everyday…I wish I would write more of them down, but never a day goes by that that boy does not make me laugh.

P.S. We watched family videos tonight. Evan was six months old and attacking the older kids for their granola bars on Christmas morning. We were laughing in the video that he was successful and ended up with a bunch of Ellie’s granola bar, much to her frustration. Who knew that was only the beginning of him antagonizing her? Who knew he would turn out to be so resourceful ALL THE TIME? Dang! I love that boy!

balls and boobies

thebookofbowles — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 03:09:13 +0000

Boobies come up a lot in our house. It’s only natural with a nursing baby. Lately, Evan likes to talk about boobies, which he sometimes calls ‘boo boobs’. Emmett was sick for 2 weeks, which I may write about later, and wouldn’t leave my lap. Saturday, Evan brought me a blanket to put on Emmett and I. Later he brought some bean bags and balls for us to play with. He was very specific that this one ball was not for Emmett and was for me. Of course it was the ball Emmett was most interested in playing with, so I kept giving it to him. Evan kept taking in it from Emmett and saying, “Dat momma’s ball.” Finally, to get it out of Emmett’s sight, I shoved it in my cleavage. It’s the pocket I use when I don’t have a pocket. It’s very convenient. Sometimes when I get undressed at night I find things in there that I have forgotten about. One night in particular, I was getting undressed when Ben told me there was a key stuck to my skin. Sure enough, there was! Anyhow back to the original story, Evan said, “Don’t stick ball in you bewbies! You getting it wet!” HA HA! I laughed really hard at that one!