Bowers Blog: 2016

Dec 17, 2016

Santa Claus is coming to town!

The Christmas season is in full swing in the Bowers household. We have already made some precious memories so far this month. From getting our decorations up to Nutcracker performances, to Christmas pageants, it has been a wonderful holiday season. Now, school is out and we have some folks that are anxiously awaiting Santa's arrival. Hopefully, he will bring good loot this year?! The pictures are in no particular order...again:(

Santa came to our neighborhood for a visit. They weren't so sure about him at first.

They all got their requests in. Hopefully, Santa can deliver.

Ellie has gotten really tall all of a sudden, I'm not thinking she will max out at 5'2" like her pediatrician predicted at her 2 y.o. visit in Birmingham.

Kissing on baby brother

They all got to ride the train. This was the best picture I could get.

This was the day after Thanksgiving. We went to Hambrick's Tree Farm and picked this beauty out.

Ellie and Freddie were pooped after decorating all day

This was our house decorations prior to Worth adding music to the get up.

It hasn't been too cold here. Worth and I had been dying to get a fire going with all the Christmas lights, etc. We had an opportunity one night when the temps dropped into the low 60s.

Ellie was a toy doll in the Nutcracker this year.

Some of the other toy dolls and Emma photo bombing. This is one of my favorite costumes in the Nutcracker performance. The all really looked like dolls.

Mack cheesing

I don't do selfies, but couldn't find anyone over 8 to take our picture backstage.

Ellie and her friend Taylor passed their time backstage reading books.

Cast 1 toy dolls of the 2016 Nutcracker. I was backstage with them one night and realized why God didn't make me a 2nd grade teacher. In all honesty, they were all pretty good, with only a couple of exceptions. Those exceptions, however, made me have to use my mean mommy voice. I don't ever pull that voice out to other peoples' kids, so you know it had to be bad.

They all pulled it together onstage though, They may be wild, but they were all awesome performers.

Flowers E.W. bought Ellie the ballerina

We had an incident with Mack touching Red, our elf.

Ellie's Christmas list this year. Mind you, when she sat on Santa's lap this morning, she had all new ideas of what she wanted.

There were several church choir performances. The 2nd-5th graders did great. I was busy wrestling Mack in the pew at this particular concert because the nursery was not provided. I quickly snapped this as I held/sweated/sat on Mack. Ellie just happened to glance in our direction. And yes, Worth was on call.

Mack was a twinkle star in his preschool Christmas pageant.

He actually stood and sang just like he was supposed to.

Sitting patiently on stage

It amazed us how much Mack looked like Ellie with the halo holding his hair out of the way.

His cute class of 2-3 year olds.

Hard to get a good group shot of these movers and shakers

Seeing Santa!

Emma in her children's choir performance. She decided to fall on her scooter and bust her lip, nose, and both knees prior to this concert. I had no idea she was going to be placed front and center. I'm just glad no one called defacs on me.

Ellie was way up in the choir loft, but they did an astounding job! Definitely puts you in a Christmas spirit to hear children singing those wonderful hymns.

Another shot of the twinkle stars

"Twinkle, Twinkle, Christmas Star!"

Nov 25, 2016

Fall 2016

I win worst blog poster ever. I am so swamped with life right now, this blog is just taking a back burner. I have a few, ok, ALOT of pictures documenting our fall this year. We've been so busy and had so much fun. These pictures posted completely out of order. Actually, they are in no particular order at all, despite my efforts to import them in order. So, just read the captions to follow!

I let the kids decorate the dining room for Thanksgiving with their own creations. The room was covered with art work and thankful posters. I have to point out the 2 posterson the bottom left. The girls had to make these at church and present them in front of the church service the other night. They are what they are most thankful for. Ellie was "animals" and Emma's poster says, "God, Bed, Jesus"

The table was ready. Worth was on call this year, so I invited my parents and my brother and sister in law down to eat so I wouldn't be by myself. It was not a fancy dinner, but I do love pulling out the fine china, crystal stemware and sterling silver for a meal. I only use it all about once a year. I wish I used it more, because it is all too beautiful to sit on a shelf!

the 3 amigos before our Thanksgiving meal

It's hard to swallow how big she is getting

Mack doing his favorite thing, riding one of our toys. He prefers his tractor, but the Frozen jeep was in the back yard and closest to him.

Another toy he loves to ride. This is EVERY afternoon.

He always looks like he's on a mission as soon as he gets on his tractor.

Worth and I actually got to go to a UGA game BY OURSELVES this year. My parents were so awesome to keep the kids so that we could have adult time at a football game in Athens. It was UGA vs. TENN and the game results weren't in our favor, but we had a great time tailgating with one of our Birmingham buddies, Hughes (who is a bid Tenessee fan) . He was there with his oldest daughter, Lily, who is Ellie's age. It was so fun seeing them, and if I had to guess, I think Lily probably REALLY enjoyed her first UT game.

We finished up our weekend with a flat tire that was so bad (I hit a curb and busted it at my brother's house) we had to get a new tire in Athens before we left Sunday. It did however give me time to get in snuggles with my new nephew, Grey Berryman while Worth took our car to get the new tire. I let you imagine how happy Worth was with me:)

Mack's sweet little class headed to the pumpkin patch at our church one morning for us to get pictures. They are so dang cute! Getting them to pose was obviously a challenge.

One weekend, Kate came into town, and the rest of the family got to meet the newest family member, baby Grey. Emma is in love.

All the Bowers cousins together

Ellie wouldn't put Grey down.

Mid October was a field trip with Emma's class to Raisin Cane Farms here in Valdosta.

Emma and her buddies waiting on the hayride.

In one of the educational stops on the farm tour, they had a play vet's office set up. Emma was all about taking care of the animals.

I took this at our church's trunk or treat. The kids had just gotten on their costumes and were headed to eat dinner before the trick or treating began

This was the first year I didn't have a princess. They all wanted to be super heroes.

There were some really cute ideas for trunk decorating. I could have taken pictures of all of them, and they would have been pinned 1000 times!

This was the selfie booth trunk.

Pumpkin picture trunk

My cousin Matthew, his wife Jesica, and their two boys, Will and Walker visited my parents in Tifton the weekend of GA/FLA. We headed up that Saturday to watch the game with this crew at my parent's house. Will and Mack are 6 weeks apart to the day.

We were impressed with Will's knowledge of UGA players. He knew most all of the players' names by looking at their number. His favorite, Soni Michele of course!

They had plenty of running around time in the yard.

And, a wrestling pile up

Baby Walker was the sweetest, smiliest baby I have ever seen. I didn't get a good picture of his smile, and I'm not sure why considering he smiled the ENTIRE time!

To continue with Halloween festivities, our neighborhood also had a trunk or treat at our neighborhood playground that included costume competitions, bounce houses, and a tumbling bus. Emma and Mack thoroughly enjoyed the tumbling bus, but Ellie was too old to go inside.

Instead of a Halloween party, Mack's preschool class had a color party. They all had to dress up as their favorite color. Mack picked black as you can see. They sang songs,

prayed,

and ate a big colorful snack.

Me and my boy.

I only snapped a couple of pictures from actual Halloween night. I was busy shuffling them back and forth to front doors. As always, our neighborhood didn't disappoint. People go all out for Halloween here and I love it. I got some good decoration pictures to up my game for next year.

I also had some parent observation nights to attend at dance. Emma's was one week, and Ellie's was the following week. Thank goodness, since they take dance at the same time!

This is Emma tapping across the floor. She was so good and so focused.

During Elle's jazz class, Mack looked and me and said, "Mommy, I can shake my booty too!" So, I took his picture.

Ellie's leap. She's got some height, but we've seriously got to work on those hamstrings:) Jazz is her favorite dance class, and I love that she loves it so much. She has enthusiasm for most things, but it is amped up in jazz for sure.

Ellie will be a toy doll in the Nutcracker this year. This is her and her best friend, Abby getting to try the doll costumes on for the first time.

I posted this on instagram, because I couldn't believe it happened. All 3 children decided they wanted to work on homemade placemats and name cards for thanksgiving. They worked like this so peacefully for almost an hour. Not. one. argument. Maybe we should group craft more often?

Ellie had a K-Kids performance this month as well. She sang at church one Sunday with her age group. They did such a great job, despite how serious they all look in this picture.