Christmas.....

(7:00 a.m. Christmas morning right before we went to see if Santa had paid us a visit)

was very MERRY! With 5 kids it's so much fun! Expensive, but FUN! I could not sleep Christmas Eve night because I was so excited!

This little guy was so much fun too! He was much more into it than I ever imagined he would be at this age! Good times! Good memories! Sad it's over!

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas as well!

Life is cheerful!~

holiday festivities!

This time of year is go, go, go nonstop for our family! We are a fun family full of traditions and I love it! The only negative is that the holidays whiz by way too fast! I cannot believe that Christmas Eve is tomorrow! We've had an awesome week which started with church on Sunday morning! Emma was the only one who was cooperative in letting me get her photo. I didn't have time to beg the boys.....but their turn will come whether they like it or not! Sunday night we went to my aunt and uncle's house in Hooper for their traditional Bowden family Christmas dinner and games. We play the famous candy bar game that my kids LOVE and get so excited for! Monday night we went to the Energy Solutions arena for the Larry H. Miller Christmas Sing-a-long that my Grandpa Robert C. Bowden conducts! We have gone to this for years and this year was by far my favorite! Fischer took his friend Jaden and he said that he had so much fun he wants to come with us every year! After the sing-a-long we were treated to Cold Stone by my parents! It was a great night! Tomorrow we will go to my Grandma Lund's house for the most delicious Christmas Eve dinner like we do every year as well. Christmas night will be prime rib dinner at my parents house. Can't wait! Hope you all are enjoying your family traditions as well and have much to be MERRY about!

Life is merry & bright!

Notice anything different?

Miss Emma has a new style!

Last week we cut about 12 inches off for Locks of Love and then about another 2 inches to cut and style her hair! We had an icky situation last week and I have debated putting it here on my blog but I have decided I will. She came home last week with head lice. I freaked out, went to the store, treated her hair, cried, took her and got her hair chopped off, came home and treated her hair again. It was so hard for me to see her hair cut short but all is good now. We have always tried curling her hair with sponge curlers or a curling iron but it just doesn't work. I'm sure because of the length and the thickness. Ever since we got it cut she has been wanting to try it again with sponge curlers. However, she has been sick for several days and today was the first day she was going to go back to school. She was so excited to show off her haircut and so last night we spent an hour putting sponge curlers in and she ended up throwing up all night long and is devastated that she can't go to school again today! Poor girl! I feel so bad for her. She is bored out of her mind. So we took some pictures and this was the result! She said it looks like she has a wig on! LOL! Too cute! She is beautiful no matter what!

On a side note: I treated her for head lice a third time just to be safe because I am a freak! I also treated everyone else in our home, washed EVERYTHING that can possibly be washed, disinfected from top to bottom...whew! We have never had this happen to any of our kids all these years in public school! I called the school because I wanted to give them a heads up. They informed me that they no longer do head checks or send home letters with the kids to inform the parents, it is all confidential. So just be aware of this and check for head lice often in the winter.

Life is full of bugs! Yuck!

BuSY

sickness - yucky sickness!
2 birthday celebrations
a day of build-a-bear fun and lunch
basketball practices
a basketball win - great job boys!
more sickness
doctor visits
lots of medicines
family dinner @ our house - delicious prime rib!
Christmas shopping
haircuts
lots of laundry - even had to go to the laundromat
house cleaning and disinfecting

I'm exhausted! Be back soon!

Life is full of germs - be careful!

HaPPY BiRTHDAY EMMA!

My baby girl is officially SIX.

How did this happen?

She had a fabulous day!

Two words: spoiled.rotten.

We had a fun family party for her and Curtis tonight. Curtis turns bleep tomorrow which means more celebrating and of course more cake and ice cream! He would rather skip tomorrow altogether but we just love him too much to let that happen! I'm so happy to be celebrating two of my favorite people! My world is such a happy place with the two of them in it. Love them so much my heart could just burst!:)

And this my friends is what happens at the end of a fabulous day!

Life is perfect!~

TiME FoR TEA!

Emma had her Fancy Nancy Birthday Party today! She will be turning SIX on Monday, so today was the day she celebrated with her friends. We had so much FUN! Here are the invites we made and sent out:

You can click on the photo to read them more clearly!

These girls were so adorable and so well behaved! I loved every single one of them! A couple are missing from the picture. We had a tea party lunch, read Fancy Nancy books, made beaded necklaces, opened presents, ate cupcakes, and took FANCY pictures! Here is the evidence of a FANCY time:

BIRTHDAY GIRL~ FANCY EMMA!

After the party every FANCY girl got to take a tea set home and a FANCY purse with some goodies inside!

Life is FANCY!

And the baby-proofing begins....

This little guy has gone mobile! He gets into everything....and so the baby-proofing begins. He puts everything into his mouth and luckily just "stores" it there. I have been pulling random things out of his mouth non-stop over the last few weeks, mostly paper. He got into the kids' gingerbread houses the other day and had a good time sucking on the poor gingerbread man's head. Good times.

Anyways, Crew turned 8 months and I have been wanting to document about this current stage for a couple weeks but time just gets away too fast around here. I wish I had done more of this when my other kids were babies.

{Crew @ 8 months}

*got his first tooth on November 16th, second tooth on November 18th

*officially stopped nursing at 8 months

*started crawling the day after he turned 8 months
*started climbing and pulling himself up

*is going through a terrible sleeping phase
*has had two ear infections since he got tubes put in

*LOVES, loves to eat any and all baby food

*hates to get his diaper changed, it's becoming quite a challenge now that he is a lot stronger

*hates to get dressed and have anything pulled over his head

*hates to be buckled into his car seat (this is not fun even when he is in a good mood, but if you do this when he is in a bad mood, watch out!)

*loves bath time

*pulls himself up into the position that looks like he is getting ready to do a somersault and just stays there until he gets tired (picture ahead, please don't take offense!)

*loves his momma the most :)

*has become more attached to his binky

*gets so excited when we go to pick the kids up from school and they get into the car

Crew is so much fun to play with. When the kids go to school I love to just sit and play with him. He has a very serious personality compared to the rest of the kids. So when his playful side comes out, it just makes it that much more fun. We still just go crazy over this little guy! I hate being away from him for even an hour. I was gone for a very long time yesterday and last night until late and I was going crazy wondering how he was surviving without me! LOL!~ Love my baby! I just wish he would stay my baby, he is quickly approaching ONE all too soon!

Crew has a set of bath toys that I keep in the tub for him to play with but if Stockton or Emma take a bath with him he always wants whatever they are playing with. It is so funny to watch! He will scream and have a little tantrum until he gets "that" toy! If you try and sneak it away and hand him his bath toys, he gets mad. He ONLY wants the toy that isn't the same as what he usually plays with. Sometimes it is the dumbest toy too, he doesn't care. So we end up keeping a new toy in the tub for him to play with but the minute the kids bring a different toy in the tub that he hasn't seen before, then it starts all over again! It is seriously the funniest thing ever.

Don't be upset, it's a baby bum for cryin' out loud! And a cute one to boot!

Life is short!