Bowers Blog: October, November, and Nutcracker 2021

I tried to make an October post and the one afternoon I had a couple of hours to work on it, either my computer or Blogger were being VERY slow downloading the pictures for me to post. I tried again in November, and the same thing happened when I added pictures. Here I am at the beginning of December and I'm trying again. It will be a picture overload for sure. We've celebrated Halloween, been to UGA games, gone to golf tournaments, had a big family Thanksgiving, had the Nutcracker ballet performance and so much more! These are are some pictures of our last 2+ months. The remainder of December pictures I will attempt to post after Christmas.

I didn't get a ton of great pictures of Mack playing football. He did great playing defense this year and even made an interception! His team won out again this year and I think they are definitely ready to play in pads next year.

Mack's wild and crazy football team

We got to go to a UGA game with the Berrymans and as always, it was wild and fun.

These cousins love cheering on the Dawgs together.

The 2 big boys

Emma played in a VCC golf league this fall and she had so much fun and did great even if some of the tournaments (like this one) she was the only girl playing.

When I take the girls to get their haircuts, their sweet hairstylist always asks if they want her to fix their hair pretty. Emma always says yes, and it looks so good!

Emma loved this and at one point recently I offered to try it on her and she refused. She had no confidence in me recreating this masterpiece.

Leonard now spends a little time outside in the mornings. One morning, I came back from dropping everyone off at school and he was standing at the door soaking wet. Poor thing had somehow fallen in the pool. Thank goodness he was able to get himself out! He came running in and would not let me dry him off. He went straight to Ellie's room and hid/slept under her bed for the rest of the afternoon.

End of the season football party was a hit!

Mack and ANOTHER trophy for a winning football team. We will see how basketball goes this year.

We love "booing" our neighbors. Unfortunately, this year no one booed us. The kids were kind of bummed about that, but we didn't let it stop us from dropping prizes off at other peoples houses though!

The pumpkin patch is a very different experience with older kids in so many ways. However, the pictures and fighting during pictures will never change.

These 3 are ALOT taller than our first visit to our church's pumpkin patch.

My sweet 5th grade Sunday school class was decked out and ready for morning trick or treating!

We always almost miss carving a pumpkin because the fall ends up being so busy. Last year, I waited a little too late and there were NO pumpkins anywhere. The girls got outside just before Halloween and got ours carved though. Mack wouldn't help, the inside of the pumpkin freaked him out.

I thought this picture was so funny of Mack and our 2 neighbors playing football in the front yard.

Halloween was a blast this year. The Bowers were all characters from Harry Potter since that is the newest obsession for all 3 Bowers kids.

Even Worth and I dressed up. Worth was Voldemort and I was Professor McGonagal.

Best family picture for the year.

Even though they are getting older, they still love the trick or treating tradition in our neighborhood and I love taking pictures of them frantically running to and from houses.

We got to go to another very cold UGA game.

I ended up getting to hang out with some college friends and their kids. It was so much fun!

Mack had about a week of deciding he was going into the newspaper business. This was his first publication with our family updates.

Because we are apparently now (for the time being) a golf family, we went to a golf tournament at St. Simons Island. The RSM Classic was cold and windy but a great tournament to watch, especially for the kids. We decided to make plans to try to go every year.

You could really get pretty close to the golfers at this tournament.

"Ms. Alanna," the kids' old babysitter that went off and left us for PT school, was home for Thanksgiving break and asked if she could help me with the kids. They were so excited for her to come. Mack got up super early the first morning of the break and I found him watching for her at the front door. I'll never find another sitter as awesome as Alanna.

We usually don't start decorating for Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but this year we had to at least go get the tree the day before Thanksgiving due to ours and Worth's crazy schedules. (Side note: we JUST got the outdoor decorations put up. It's December 12th!! Worth wouldn't do the light show, so the kids and I just put some blow ups and light up reindeer out there.)

When the Christmas Tree farm here closed, we found a fun lot that sells trees and the kids love posing with their props.

Finally got the tree up 1 day before Thanksgiving, but we had to wait on decorating it.

The Thanksgiving table was set and ready for us, Grandma, Papa, Mia, and E.W., Amos and Anna

These 3 were ready for turkey in their Thanksgiving best.

Worth fried the turkey this year and it was so good!

We have laughed so hard at this picture. It was such a good picture, but The way Mack stood in front of Ellie's hair he looks like Cindy Lou Who.

I thought this was such a good picture of Mia and Dubs.

The kids HAD to get a picture that included Leonard even though Leonard was not too thrilled to do it.

Amos and Anna made it and Ellie and Emma went straight for Ford.

Ellie and Ford

Hardy needed a little warm up time with mom before he would talk to us.

Grandma and Papa also arrived and we got a group picture. Mack had already changed out of his good clothes which had only lasted about 30 minutes.

Another good looking family in our crew!

After dinner, Ellie got more snuggle time with Ford.

After everyone left Thanksgiving day night, we got some lights and a few ornaments up on the tree. It took us another week to finish all the inside decorations.

Nutcracker was up next! Ellie had 2 roles again this year: Clara's friend and Chinese. Ellie did such a good job skipping down the aisle 90 mph to shake this gift in time with the music.

They all looked beautiful in the party scene on stage.

We had 9 nights at Mathis Auditorium practicing and preparing. At the dress rehearsals, I realized that my girls had taken over doing their own makeup and had to snap a quick picture. (The hair still has to be done by me. It's usually complicated.)

Emma was a beautiful pollichenelle(sp?) this year. This may be her last year of Nutcracker as she has hinted that she may just take jazz in the 6th grade. I had to take as many pictures as I could.