All the Grandkiddos in Texas!!!
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| Ragen, Braxton, Bailey, Mckenzie, Hunter, Rilea, Dylan |
It's the MOST wonderful tiiiime of the year!
This year we had Christmas in Texas. As a huge added bonus we got to be there when my brother, Mike, blessed my newest nephew, Hunter, on Christmas Morning! How cool is that?!?!?! There are a TON of pictures on this post, just fyi... We got to McKinney Christmas Eve morning and hung out with the family and did a little last minute shopping for wrapping and grocery necessities. Then we headed to Mike's for the cowboys game!
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| Matt & B chillin... |
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Mac has been SO excited to hold baby hunter!
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THE BIG DAY!!!
This is what the kids woke up to Christmas morning! Santa spoiled the stinkers as usual... Bailey got a princess ball pit. It took her a little while to figure it out but my 2-year-old nieces LOVED it and Ragen cried when she went into Grandma's room and it was gone the day we left... Sorry Ragen : ( You will have to come to St. Louis to play with it : ) Braxton got "NERF OR NOTHIN" (as he told santa) 2 giant nerf guns! One is a pump action one that shoots 20 darts at once - UUUMAZING! McKenzie originally asked santa for a baby nursery playset (consistently for MONTHS) then when she sat on santa's lap mid-December she told him she wanted pretend kitchen stuff (a mixer, a toaster etc...) grrrrreat... thanks mac! Santa came through though!
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| For some reason just holding this weapon of mass destruction in his hot little hands creates an instant "Dont mess with me" face... He looks like a nerf mobster in his church clothes |
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| Woman, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich HAHA |
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| Dylan Doellman, aka baby D, lunk, lugnut, chunk, brickhouse etc... ALWAYS has a giant smile on his face and a grandpa smokers laugh attached : ) |
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| love love LOVE this pic of Mac & Amanda!!! |
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| My two girlies in their Christmas get-ups. I have to brag about the dresses... Carters outlet 70% off! $12 & $10 each! |
Off to church and HUNTER'S BLESSING! I really love when Christmas is on a Sunday. It makes it so much easier to focus on our Savior and the true meaning of Christmas. My parent's ward had a beautiful Christmas program filled with some of my favorite Christmas hymns. We got to hear my mom sing in their incredible choir too! (Really, the choir was VERY good!) McKenzie even went up with the
primary kids (who were all strangers to them) and "sang". This Christmas was even more special because my parent's Bishop let mike bless Hunter since we were all in town! It was a beautiful blessing and i am so grateful we got to be a part of it!
The whole clan after the blessing
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| Mike, Sarah, Ragen and Hunterman! |
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| McKenzie missed uncle Mikey so much! If he is in the same room she is usually in his arms or on his shoulders : ) |
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| Amanda, Chris, Rilea & Dylan Doellman. SUCH a cute Christmas pic! |
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| oh my HEAVENS I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!! Christmas Princess Rilea! |
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| The Stocking! |
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| That sucker literally weighs over a pound! |
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| No idea why she is pinching her neck... goofball. still cute though. She made my day when we arrived in Texas. My mom opened the door when she heard us coming and Rilea was right there jumping up and down and clapping then yelled "SHELLLLLLY!" Oh Ri - you are so good at tugging on my heart strings! |
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| After a long day of church, blessing Hunter & WAITING TO OPEN PRESENTS! (Ya thats right we didnt dive into the cornucopia till 3:00 or so...) |
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| Always posing... life is one giant fashion show... SO NOT MY KID! She refused to change out of her dress after church... "But MOOOOM ITS SO BEAUTIFUL I CANT TAKE IT OFF!" |
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| Bug's new purse! It took her FOOOR E VER to open the first few gifts but she eventually got the hang of it and then wanted to open everyone elses. |
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| Mac got a Matt Holliday World Series Champs Cards shirt and B got Lance Berkman. Pretty sure mike dramatically rolled his eyes at these presents (his poor heart is still broken at the rangers loss) Time heals all wounds they say... not so sure about this one though HA |
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| Bailey and someone else's persent |
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| She discovered the mountain of gifts (also not hers)... not good! |
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| We got Rilea & Ragen nursery sets. I hope they love em! |
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| Ragen was SO excited about her elmo slippers. She kept putting her foot in people's laps to show them off : ) |
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| And the last gift of the day was matt's awesome new guitar! He is so flippin good! Some of the most fun we had on this trip was laying around on the couches while rich and matt and mike goofed around on the guitars (and composed songs about the torture of waiting to open Christmas presents till midnight or something like that) |
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| Grandma kisses heal broken baby hearts! |
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| TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE! Hunter is so ridiculously ticklish (allthough it looks like sarah is laughing harder than he is hahaha) |
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| Ball Pit + Braxton + Hammer = PISSED OFF RILEA (apparently) |
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Look at that HAIR! It just falls that way... ohhhhh i miss my Ragen!!! It was so good getting to know her better. She is such an incredible little talker since we saw her in April. SmartiePants! She melts my heart!
We had such a fun day... got spoiled by everyone and ate ourselves STUPID!
On to the next family adventure... Vacation natzi Shelly wanted to get up at the butt crack of dawn to go to the aquarium so we wouldnt have to wait in line outside in the cold... alarm went off 5 hours after bedtime and i immediately regretted that decision... so we slept in instead. Thank goodness it wasnt too busy when we finally got to the...
DALLAS WORLD AQUARIUM!!!
http://www.dwazoo.com/ |
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| This was Braxton's perma-grin... he was SO excited!!! DWA is such an amazing place and we hadn't been since McKenzie was a baby... |
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| B flabbergasted at all the cool animals in the "rain forest" open setting... I think they were looking down passed all the monkeys and tropical birds at a giant manatee! We later got a much closer view of the manatee... and his "business" hahaha |
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| told you... perma-grin! I love this picture and my mamma! |
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| TREE HUGGERS! They were trying to be a sloth... |
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| I love this little guy... He really does look like he is moving in slow motion. He is one of my favorite animals of the day! He isn't in a cage, just hanging out in a group of small trees in front of a little restaurant. Up close and personal on this pic - no zoom needed. |
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| Creepy orange monkey... then as I am taking the pic everyone starts yelling GET OUT OF THE WAY HE IS GOING O PEE ON YOU! Monkeys are disgusting! |
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| My sweet Ragen girl! She is too busy for loves usually so I had to steal this one! |
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| Behind this glass was some humongous fish, sea turtles and two MASSIVE MANATEES! Bailey was so fascinated she just kept "oooing and wiggling excitedly (plus she liked head butting the glass - she is weird) |
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| All the grandkids (except the baby boys) partaking in the wonder of the aquarium |
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| apparently Bailey or Rilea did something to tick Ragen off or maybe she was just screaming in excitement. It is so funny watching these goons all interact... hilarious! |
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| I love this picture!!! It makes me smile!!! Thanks mom and dad for letting us take over your home and spoiling us rotten! |
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| OK - so there was a better family pic of Mikey & Sarah & the kids but it didn't have the cool turtle or ragen's hilarious face or the pain in sarah's eyes from hunter pulling her hair and mike's ticked off look that sarah sat close enough to hunter to allow her hair to get pulled... CLASSIC! |
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| This is the coolest part of the aquarium. A giant tunnel UNDER the massive shark aquarium. This is a stock photo (thanks google) when we were there it was jam packed. We told B about the shark tunnel before we even left the house so he was driving us NUTS the entire time... "When are we going to see the SHARKS???" |
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| This picture was too perfect! I was telling them to smile then this shark came shooting out of the darkness and freaked kenzie out! Priceless! |
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| This shark is so WEIRD! No idea what kind it is - I call it a chainsaw shark! Matt & Chris & D enjoying the creepy ambiance : ) |
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| Brackys pointer finger was just a FLYING in the tunnel... DAD LOOK DAD LOOK LOOK LOOK! So many cool things flying over head! |
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One of macs favorites - the flamingos. And brackys awkward goofy im sick of pictures and i dont wanna smile smile.
The aquarium ROCKED!!!
Now some random pics... |
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| Kenzie loved holding the baby boys! |
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| I just thought this was too funny... Rilea was full and bored. Solution? Chicken nugget ketchup finger paint masterpieces! |
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| Man she is CUTE! |
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| Before we headed home the kids had to do their traditional rides with pa pa! This was bailey's first ride! To say she enjoyed it would be a HUGE understatement. I could hear her squealing with delight and excitement OVER the rev of the engine on the back side of the house. THANKS PA PA!!! |
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Love this pic! Love you dad!
After our rides we loaded up the bus and headed home : ( The kids were less sad than usual leaving because they knew they had yet another Christmas present opening shindig to attend... We saved some gifts for when we got home and we opened the Bowman's gifts too! |
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| Grandma Smith gave Rilea this barbie head for Christmas in Texas and mac was SOOOO sad that she didn't get one... little did she know she had one waiting under the tree for her : ) She has played with her every day since... |
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| So McKenzie has gotten into these Squinkees.. they are little rubbery characters you can stick on the end of a pencil and collect. They are really cute (and pointless). Bracky likes them but they are "for girls". he about flipped his lid when he opened cars 2 squinkees which he didnt even know existed!!! |
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| Bow-headed Fish-Face |
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| I wish you could HEAR this picture. She was SCREAMING trying to pull her new cinderella baby out of the package. I thought she was going to bust a blood vessel! She looooves her new baby from grandma & papa Bowman! |
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| Yaaaa.... Christmas outfit pictures? EPIC FAIL! This is the best one i got out of 2 different sunday attempts and over a dozen shots... bailey was NOT cooperating... |
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| JENNI JAAAAAAMMIES!!! (ok they are from Andy too but Jenni started the jammies for Christmas tradition a few years ago so andy i am afraid they will always be jenni jams... sorry hahaha. ) |
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| Mac learned how to make snow flakes on Special Agent Oso (a disney kids show) and every day after Thanksgiving she came home from school BEGGING to make more snowflakes... I had fun making some with her too... What you DONT see in this picture is the rest of the snowflake wall or the giant window covered in them or the huge stack of completed flakes ready for a home somewhere else or the flakes she made for gifts for other people... yaaaa she likes making snowflakes... |
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| This month bailey has actually started liking braxton! Don't get me wrong, she "likes" all of us but at a distance, except for mom. All of a sudden she has started following Bracky around and giving him random hugs! She likes to grab onto the back of his shirt and walk behind him. It melts my heart, and Braxton's too! (He is wearing Rich's cowboys santa hat) She has also REALLY started being a daddy's girl too. When Rich gets home from work she squeals with delight and dives into his arms... at bedtime she gets her jammies on and runs (sort of) to rich because she knows she is safer form bedtime in his grasp. i say Bailey do you want to go night night? and she scrambles to the other side of rich away from me and snuggles into his arms while violently shaking her head NO at me. TURKEY BUTT IS ALREADY PLAYING DADDY LIKE A FIDDLE! |
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| WHAT is with that crazy SMILE B? McKenzie's kindergarten class had a fun winter party and they let the younger siblings be a part of the party too. They built some very "creative" gingerbread houses. Diabetic NIGHTMARE more like it! It is still so weird seeing my baby girl in her "natural environment" at school. She is a little social butterfly and is always way more concerned about everyone around her than herself. She loves school and was SO ready to go back after the "long" winter break. The day school got out she came home very sad and mopey... "I'm not going to get to see my teachers or friends for a long time" : ( So sorry sweetheart, you have to spend time with us instead. |
Well that pretty much wraps up the longest blog post in my extensive blogging history hahaha. I hope everyone's Merry Christmas was as Merry as ours! Love to everyone! Now on to a new Bowman year filled with many more posts!!!
