Thanksgiving with Grandma & Papa Bowman!!!

We were SO excited that Grandma & Papa got to come for Thanksgiving this year!!! Unfortunately it was not such a relaxing vacation for them. They are real troopers and HUGE helpers to come fully aware that we were in the middle of renovating and moving to our new house. We are so grateful for their help and sacrifice. They were amazing! We could not have done it without them! We still managed to squeeze in some fun, some snoozing and a lot of food. It was a fantastic week full of painting, snuggling, story reading, eating, packing, laughing, and ipad-ing. The kids were addicted to Grandma's Ipad - good thing she brought two and was very willing to share : ) Braxton's favorite part of the week was Thanksgiving dinner (he is a Bowman!). McKenzie's favorite part of the week was having Grandma come to her 1st grade class to help the teacher and meet all of her friends! Bailey's favorite part of the week was snuggling Grandma & Papa. 

The worst part of the week was saying goodbye. This part always rips my heart out! It is hard being so far away but we are grateful for the time we got to spend with them. My kids will NOT be happy that I posted these pictures. Just shows how much they love Grandma & Papa. This is how Rich and I were feeling on the inside too : (

We love you two so much. Thank you for all you do for our little family!

Happy #5 Bracky!!!

I can't believe my little boy is a big boy... Birthdays are always bitter sweet for a mom. A day to celebrate and a day to reflect on how fast five years has flown by! Braxton has been looking forward to his birthday since November 15th of LAST year! He had his day alllllll planned out. We went to his favorite donut shop, Tony's, for breakfast. We had "Old McDonalds" for lunch (of course!), went toy shopping with his birthday cash from faily and had dinner with ol' Chuck at Chuck E. Cheese. The part of the day he hadn't planned was waking up to a brand new OPTIMUS PRIME BIKE!!! He was pretty shocked! I was up most of the night painting the new house and rich was up most of the night putting together the bike hahaha. At dinner we found a game that must have known it was B's birthday... it was SPEWING out the tickets! The kids were in heaven! No dumb erasers or fake bugs for a prize this time... He got a DVD & Car Hot Wheels set off the TOP SHELF : ) It was a wonderful day all about Braxton! Thanks to everyone for spoiling him rotten! Happy Birthday sweet boy. We love you!!!

Bailey: "Appy HOWEEEEEN"

Ohhhh Halloween... SUCH a fun Holiday! Bailey was a ladybug (recycled from Kenzie's first Halloween). Perfect costume for our Bailey Bug : ) Braxton begged for MONTHS to be Jake from the disney jr. show
jake & the Neverland Pirates. Poor kid got his wish and he kind of looked like an 80's jazzercise instructor. Dont tell him I said that HAHAHA. Kenzie was "Izzie", the girl pirate from the same show. When we went to the Halloween store to buy the costumes they had a life size, motion censored zombie girl from the show walking dead. She was wearing a pink night gown with bunny slippers, she was kenzie's size and half of her face was rotted off. Her head slowly turned towards us when we walked in and the kids about POOPED themselves. I had to calm them down. Bailey was bawling and the other two were TERRIFIED. It was awful and hilarious at the same time. We went trunk or treating at church and trick or treating with our good friends, The Greenwoods, at the mall on Halloween and then trick or treated around our neighborhood as well. Lets just say the kids slept REAL good that night!

Science Center with our Buddies!

We love hanging out at the Science Center so much that we got a family membership! We took our good friends, the Russells and Bailey's BFF Aubrey. Kenzie had the day off of school so she got to play with us too! I think my favorite part of the day was introducing my kids to "Marbleworks"! My brother, Mike, and I used to play for HOURS with our marbleworks set when we were kids. Braxton was in awe! He LOVED it! Bailey just liked dumping the giant jar filled with hundreds of marbles all over the floor. Thanks kid... Pepper was hilarious because she was so excited to see EVERYTHING! Aubrey's favorite thing was the water play area... she HAD to put every single toy into the water. She didn't want to play with them, just dump them in there as fast as possible before someone stopped her... and then she was amazed when no one did stop her : ) hahaha. Here are some fun pics...

Magic House with the Greenwoods!

We have made so many wonderful friends here in STL. One of our very favorites to hang out with are the Greenwoods. Kaden is Braxton's best friend, Kylie is SO FLIPPING CUTE and Bailey just LOVES her, and baby Kenzie... I could just eat her up! They invited us to come play at the Magic House with them back in October. Of COURSE we said yes! Mckenzie was ticked that she missed out... school day. We had a complete blast and got some really cute pictures too. Thanks for an awesome day Sabrina!!! We love you guys!!!

Squeezes from Grandma, Pa Pa & Mashoo

My mom came to town to watch my niece and nephew while my sister, Amanda, had surgery. We got to drive her to Quincy from the airport. She ended up coming over her birthday so Amanda & I took her out for a delicious Italian dinner to celebrate and then we headed back to St. Louis. A week later my dad and Matt drove up to take mom back home once Amanda recovered. The kids got to give them some squeezes before they headed home. So grateful that we live so much closer to them now and we get to see them so much more often!

Flat Stanley in St. Louis!

HI! My name is Flat Stanley! Abby Springer, who lives in Mesa, Arizona, sent me to visit the Bowman Family. They live in St. Louis, Missouri. That is a 1,457 mile trip! Here is a picture of St. Louis and the Gateway Arch on the banks of the Mississippi River. You can go to the tippy top of the inside of the arch on a tram and look out little windows to see the city below! 

The first thing I did in St. Louis was go to a play-doh party at the library with my buddy, Braxton. Braxton is 4 and he loves baseball, transformers, dinosaurs and playing outside. He was so excited to take me to the play-doh party that he didn't even have time to cut me out! 

The party was so fun. Afterwards we picked out some awesome books to check out and take home. Braxton's favorite book is Bugs Galore, by Peter Stein. It is HILARIOUS! Braxton and I were cracking up!

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St. Louis is also home to the World Champion baseball team, The Cardinals! The Bowman's are BIG Cardinals fans. We went to a day game with Braxton's dad on Thursday. Baseball is so fun to watch especially when your favorite team wins, and the Cardinals did! GO CARDS!

Braxton and his sisters, McKenzie and Bailey, took me along with them to their building workshop at Lowes. They built firetrucks with wood, nails and a hammer. It was noisy but really neat! They had to follow the directions very carefully or their firetruck wouldn't work. They did pretty good! I got to hang out in Kenzie's apron pocket while she worked.

We also went to a pet store to buy crickets for Braxton's hungry Grey Tree Frog, Al. Braxton found Al in his front yard a few weeks ago. His mom and dad let him keep him as long as he promised to take good care of him. At the pet store I jumped in the cricket bin and they crawled all over me! It was creepy! Braxton's favorite animal at the pet store was the bearded dragon lizard and McKenzie's favorite was the conure parrot. 

When we got home McKenzie colored me a new outfit. It was very colorful. The kids were all playing with Al the frog after he ate his dinner. They said I could go in his cage and hold him. I was pretty nervous but Braxton told me to be brave. He felt sticky and bumpy and cold. I'm glad I was brave! It was neat holding a real live frog!

Al got me all wet and dirty so McKenzie had to color me a new outfit before it was time to go home.

I had so much fun in St. Louis with the Bowman's, but I am excited to get back home to Abby & her class! SEE YOU SOON!!!