For your amusement.

My Boys

It was nap time at the Bowen house. Bradley was peacefully sleeping, Jack was playing trains, and I was doing dishes. Then, I hear Bradley start to fuss. ALREADY??? I think I will let him cry it out for a minute, maybe he will go back to sleep... (minutes pass)... Wow - it worked! Time for laundry. Wait a minute...why is Bradley's door open? I walk down the hall and hear 2 boys laughing. Ahhhh...so much for nap time - where's my camera?

These 2 adore each other!

He's tickling me...

I love these little "magical mother moments!" I just love these boys! I think I'll have 10 more :)

The Tape Ball

Any family members of mine and of course those pictured below will recognize the game to follow. Here's how it goes.
1. Get a sucker (or any other wrapped candy)
2. Wrap it over and over again with packing tape.
3. Cut the tape, then start wrapping again.
4. After many wraps, add another sucker.
5. Continue this process until you have wrapped in 25 or so suckers, have used over a full roll of tape, and have a ball the size of a football...or bigger.
6. Invite a few wild friends over.
7. Roll 2 dice, when you roll doubles or a 7 - start unwrapping as fast as you can while everyone else keeps rolling the dice.
8. Anything you unwrap is yours!!
9. Prepare for loud laughter, sore fingers, and your friend's true savage side to emerge.

Here are a few of us playing. Savage Steve has the ball (we were about half way through at this point). Most of us kept our saliva to ourselves... If you were to blow this picture up, you would see every child going to town on a Blow-Pop. This game isn't really about the excitement of the actual sucker, but the thrill of getting it out. Therefore the suckers were thrown to the side where the kids were happily scooping them up. YUM!

This is the un-wrapped ball of tape. Wow - no wonder that took me an hour to wrap up...

I believe Steve managed to claim the most suckers. He and Kevin resorted to cutting through the center with a knife at the end. Cheaters. (ok, ok, maybe I used the scissors once or twice.)

Steve's Loot

Thanks Tringali's and Ryan's for the good times.

Daddy-Daughter Date

We decided that as a fun tradition, we wanted our kids to have a occasional special night out with their dad. Brooklyn has had a few of these and LOVES it. It could be that she mostly likes that she gets to go somewhere that Jack doesn't, (which she frequently reminds him) but she does have tiem with just her and her dad. Here is a picture from their last "date." They went to a Fresno State basketball game.

GO BULLDOGS!



(Thanks to Dave's boss for the fabulous seats!)

Yard Work

OK guys, just in case that last post was more than you could handle, here's a few pictures of the kiddos while they were helping me with the below mentioned yard work.
Here's Brooklyn with the sweet leaf picker-uppers. Seriously, they are awesome.


Here's Jack...riding his bike. How did he get out of helping??

Looks like Brooklyn got in some play time too!

How cute are they? We have this random rope hanging from a tree in our backyard. Brooklyn is big enough to reach, but little shrimp-o can't. Good thing he has such a cool big sister to help him out. (Unfortunately I was just slightly too slow with the camera to catch them falling over.)

This picture is just for your enjoyment. Little Bradley-cakes was snoozing through the whole adventure in the backyard, but for the sake of equality amongst the children, and his extreme cuteness - he must be included.

WHAT IS THAT???

WARNING!!! The following story is NOT FOR THE WEAK OF STOMACH. Seriously guys, you DO NOT want to read this and you DO NOT want to know about the picture to follow. No really, YOU DON'T. But, I guess if you are going to stick around, I'll be happy to gross you out. Don't say I didn't warn you.

So, today was a nice, warm day so I thought to myself..."I have not done any yard work for at least 2 months. I bet there are lots of weeds/leaves that need to be picked up. I should be a responsible adult and get out there and do it." So, the baby was sleeping and the kids wanted to play on their scooters so I gathered up the rake and big leaf picker-uppers (those are the best - I'll post a picture later because you all want a pair) and we went out in the back yard. Well, I started with the leaves but started to get bored because it was annoying that they were all wet and stuck to the ground...yes, they were starting to decompose. I really should have picked them up back in November. Oops. Anyway, after a good 15 minutes of picking up leaves I decided to just survey the place so I could put together a really good Saturday "Honey-do" list for Dave. Well, something in the very back corner of the yard caught my eye. It was this:

Well, my first thought was that we had a serious arachnid problem and at any moment 30,000 baby spiders were going to be busting out of that thing. Not good. But upon further analysis what did I discover??? Yep, you guessed it, that's doggy doo doo sporting a fabulous coat of mold. Gross I know. I told you not to read this story. I really have no idea what possessed me to even post this as it is fairly disturbing but for whatever reason, I couldn't resist. I am so thankful that Dave has been faithful in his "pooper-scooper" duties. Otherwise I could have all these "puffs" all over my yard.

P.S. This probably wasn't my best choice of a topic after I haven't blogged for so long. I do hope I don't lose any readers...or friends over this. Oh, and I do hope you weren't about to eat. sorry.

Under Construction

This blog is currently under construction...the rest of the family will fit in the picture above...