Baby Bowen #5

If you and I are facebook friends,

then I suppose you've heard the news.

We're expecting a tiny human.

That just happens to be a boy.

Dave and I didn't care whether we were getting a boy or a girl.

It would be a tie breaker either way.

But apparently, by the reactions I got from our other kids,

they all had a gender selected.

I broke the news to each of them separately.

Here's how it went down:

Me:  We're having a boy.

Or, the baby in Mommy's tummy is a boy.  

Or, you are getting a baby brother.

Aubrey:  (She looks at me with one lifted eyebrow) and says,

"Ummm, no.  I don't want a boy baby.  It's a girl baby."

Bradley:  "Yay!  Will he be born with a light saber?"

Jack:  With a jump and mega fist pump - "YES!  We will have a boy army!"

Brooklyn:  "Sigh.  Ok Mom, but the next baby needs to be a girl, OK?"

It seems that my girls are seriously concerned (or in denial) 

about the fact that there will be more males in this home.

And by the responses from my boys, 

it sounds like we should all be concerned.

Yay for babies!

And yay for kids who keep life interesting.

Bring on January 7th!

Teach a Boy to Fish

Every time we take a trip to Idaho,

Jack requests one thing.

To go fishing with Grandpa.

Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly see the whole picture.

What he is really saying is that he wants to sit and break rocks with Bradley

while Grandpa gets a fish on the line.

At which time he will gladly run over and reel it in.

So this time, I told my Dad that I wanted Jack to have the full  start to finish experience.

I should be honest and say that I was secretly rubbing my hands together 

and laughing a little evil laugh.

Jack was going to get much more than he bargained for.

And I liked it.

First up:

Gather the bait.

What's wrong, Jack?

Don't you like pulling nasty, slimy worms out of the ground?

Your sister doesn't seem to mind.

What is it with my girls?

I have a picture of Brooklyn around this age loving on a little worm.

Weirdos.

Next:

hold the pole for awhile, get bored of waiting, and go break rocks with Bradley.

Ahem.

Finally - the big moment!

Reel that baby in!

He was quite pleased with "his" catch.

He kept telling me how amazing it was that he caught a rainbow trout.

Because as he says it, there aren't very many rainbow trout in the world - 

only the very best fishermen can catch them.

Riiight.

Whatever the case, I would happily give 100 bucks

 to know what is going through Bradley's mind in this picture.

He looks seriously concerned.

Right about here is when I start getting a little bit excited.

On the drive back to my parents house

I started talking to Jack about how we can't just kill Heavenly Father's creations.

If we are going to kill them, then we must use them for food.

Which actually made a lot of sense to the boy.

And he was totally up for the experience.

Until he saw exactly what had to be done to prepare the fish for eating.

Would anyone like a close up?

Ahhh...priceless.

I figured that it was best that he has this experience now 

rather than making this face in front of his friends at Scout camp.

I'm really quite thoughtful like that.

He struggled a bit to finish the gutting,

but we were able to get him to cut the head off.

Wow - don't mind the cat in the background.

She was enjoying a delightful lunch of fish guts.

Yum.

We cooked the fish and served it up for the boy.

For some reason, he really wasn't too interested in eating it.

It's not like he'd been traumatized or anything...

We made him try a bite - which he of course said was gross.

But he later confided in me and said that it was actually kind of good.

Maybe we should have let a little more time pass between the gutting and the eating...

Camping Palooza

We have had a lot of fun this summer.

We've been here,

we've been there,

we've been a little bit of everywhere.

We managed to bribe a few friends into hanging out in the mountains with us.

Here are a couple of reasons not to go camping with the Bowen's.

1.  We will absolutely win any "who has the dirtiest kids" competition.

 2.  We tend to have shoe issues.  Nothing major...just forgetting them completely.

For the record - they were on his feet when we left our house, they just didn't make it past our stop at a friends house. 

Sharlene - have you seen an extra pair of shoes lying around?

3.  I will take many "just in case they get married someday" pictures of your children and mine.

Aren't they adorable?

Just this last weekend we went "camping" with several families from our ward.

I say "camping" because does it really count as camping if you have showers, flushing toilets, beds and a full functioning kitchen?

I'm not going to to lie.

I don't care if it counts or not because it was awesome!

Well, it started being awesome AFTER I barfed my guts out on the way up there.

Taco Bell + winding mountain roads = well, nevermind.  Use your imagination.

The lodge slept 32 people and we filled almost all of the beds.

Here's what you get when you ask the big girls to pose for a picture.

Ahhh...they will all be terrorizing their leaders at girls camp in a few years.  :)

And here's what you get when you ask the big boys to pose.

No love for the camera and nasty, dirty boy feet.

Thanks guys.

While we were there we took a couple of short hikes.

The first was at a place called Dome Rock.

It was a fairly simple hike the led to a large rock 

which overlooked a beautiful valley in Sequoia National Park.

This is the part where we discovered that Jack 

has a teeny weeny (ok, huge) fear of heights.

Who knew?

Maybe if you would wear real shoes rather than soccer cleats...

(I told you we have shoe issues)

The poor boy was shedding a few tears 

and had to be coaxed out for a little family picture.

He was not a happy boy.

On the way down, he was holding onto me for dear life and I quote,

"Mom, why did you take us up there?!  

You knew we could have died!

Do you promise not to take us anywhere like that ever again?!  

This is the worst day of  my life!"

Well, I am sure glad that I can provide you with lasting memories, my son.

On our way home on Saturday, we stopped and hiked the Trail of 100 Giants.

I am pretty sure we looked something like a school field trip.

17 kids in our little group.

We made sure not to go anywhere where we would surely die.

Now that we've gotten our fresh, mountain air, 

gotten dirty enough to last another year,

and eaten way too many s'mores,

I think we are ready to hunker down and start school this week.