Being the Bowens: Another Week in the Bowen House

This past week was pretty busy. The kiddos were relatively healthy so we got to resume normal activities like Bible study and MOPS. We celebrated my mother in law's birthday (I made German chocolate cake not quite from scratch but pretty close!) and we (Blake, that is) did lots of homework. We also got to go to the eye doctor for the first time in years. I HATE going to the optometrist; the worst part is when he shoots poofs of air into my eyes. This nice man didn't shoot air, but he did drop-things which wasn't stupendous either. I always feel like I'm contradicting myself when he asks, "Which is better, number one or number two?" And so on. It seems the optometrist always peers at me skeptically and I assume I must be making mistakes and am going to screw up my prescription and won't see properly for the next two years. I'd rather go to just about any other kind of appointment than an eye one. But like I said, this optometrist was pleasant and unassuming and didn't make me feel like I was nuts. And the reward was picking out new glasses- I LOVE shopping for glasses! They're such a fun way to make a subtle but daring statement, especially since I wear contacts most of the time. I adore my new frames and it only took about ten minutes to pick them out (the advantage of a small practice with less inventory than a larger place).

We ate lots of delicious food this week, thanks to our Thai add on pack with our Bountiful Basket. One night I made green curry from scratch and we had lemon grass ice tea and Thai pineapple fried rice!

Rory constantly cracks us up with her funny jokes and declarations. She is sooo cautious but always gets ridiculously overjoyed with herself when she succeeds at something 'cary. She dislikes her food touching: "I can't eat the egg- there's toast on it!" and is scornful of snow. She wants to select her own outfits and dress herself.

Bashy is adding words to his vocabulary and we think his talking is going to take off pretty soon; he's experimenting with sounds and mimicking us much more. He is such a goof ball and is so physical: kicking and flailing when he's mad and snuggling and giving spontaneous hugs and nuzzles when he's happy, which is most of the time. He has tons of dragon teeth which he enjoys displaying with cheesy grins. He's full of wonder and curiosity and is so stinkin' cute.

Blake and I took a weekend long class to become members of the Coconino County Community Emergency Response Team (it's affiliated with the emergency management office and the county sheriff). Blake will get trained to teach the courses we took and will help out with it more. I took the class so that it's something we can do together instead of something he has to be apart from the family to participate in. It was nice to have a kiddo-break (even if it did mean sitting in a classroom) and we got to do fun things like use fire extinguishers to put out fires and participate in disaster scenarios.