A Break from the Cold

Last weekend was an absolutely beautiful weekend and we filled it with plenty of activities! We drove to Birmingham Saturday to watch Caleb play baseball...our first game to see him play in college! He is playing for Motlow State.

Caleb got to pitch the last couple innings and the first game and did a good job! Seth was a proud brother!

We couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous winter day to be outside enjoying some baseball!

The next day, we headed to Nashville to see Shrek: The Musical. Seth and I saw this one while we were in New York a couple years ago. So we new that his family would love it. We took everyone except for Candra and Caleb, who were away at college...and Myles and Eli. We had a great time! The play was wonderful! Here are a few pictures that I was able to sneakily take during the play. :)

Life in the City

This week, I learned something about Huntsville. Even though we live inside the city limits, it's really still so much more "country" than most "cities" in the rest of the country. I was off work Monday for the MLK holiday. I had a few errands to run, so after lunch I headed out to my car. As I walked around the back of the car, I noticed a creature was sitting in our yard. I did a double take and realized that it was a raccoon! I snapped this picture with my phone thinking that it would run off any minute. (Sorry, it's a tad blurry!)

But as I stood there watching it, it NEVER moved and then I realized something was wrong. It was just sitting there shaking/convulsing. It was WEIRD. At one point it actually stood up, froze and just fell over like a fainting goat! Like I said, weird. I got in the car and called Seth to tell him that we either had a dying or pregnant raccoon in the yard. I had intended to just leave it there, assuming it would leave eventually. But then a neighbor caught me. It was an older couple from down the street. "Hey...umm, don't you think you should call the police or something? What if it has rabbis?!" So, I said okay...I could call animal control and see if they could do something.

Well, Huntsville Animal Control is closed on MLK Day, in case you were wondering. So, I called the police department...not 911 mind you...just the general number. I didn't want to seem totally crazy! :) The lady said they would send a police officer over to check out the "situation." So, I stood (at a safe distance) keeping my eyes on the raccoon as I waited on the officer. A couple minutes later he arrived...I could tell he was sooo excited to be responding to a raccoon scare. I apologized for the disturbance and explained my concerned neighbors (I had talked to three or four more by now). He just chuckled and called in back up. :) Seth suggested that I ask the officer to (illegally) hand over his gun, let me shoot the thing, and we could call it a day! Which I might have done if I had known how long it would take animal control to arrive. But eventually they did...they wrangled the now perturbed raccoon and saved the day!

Ahh, life in the city...always full of excitement!

Don't you just LOVE snow days?! Sunday night at about 9pm it started snowing at our house. Monday morning we woke up to about 7" of snow!!! We proclaimed it an official Snow Day and stayed home from work. :) As soon as we got done eating breakfast, Seth was ready to go outside and play. It has been such a LONG time since I made a snow angel! It was so much fun, until I realized that my jacket wasn't pulled down all the way and I had gotten snow all down my pants. Brrr!!!

We wanted to take a few pictures of the house before we started messing all the pretty snow up. My sweet husband wouldn't dare throw a snowball at me while I am holding a camera....would he??? ..... YES!! He most definitely would!!

We got a couple good pictures of us in front of the house before he threw me down and pounded me with snow!

He thought he was sooo funny! :)

We attempted to make a little snow fort for our snowball fight.

Seth lost. :) I have no idea how he got all this snow on himself!! I didn't have that many snowballs!

Now on to the snowman making! GO Vols!!


The next day the roads were still pretty bad, so we stayed home again and attempted a second snowman....

We would have measured him to see exactly how tall he was, but as soon as we took a couple pictures....


The wind caught him. :(

Nevertheless, we had two wonderfully fun snow days full of playing and being lazy!!

Happy Birthday!!

Today is Stacy's birthday!! Happy birthday to her! Here is a picture of the cake that Seth volunteered me to make. I thought it turned out pretty good...except for the fact that I ran out of writing room. :( It's supposed to say "varmint" ... I have yet to master the art of writing with icing. Oh well!

A White-ish Christmas in Tennessee!

Yes, just white-ish. While we weren't lucky enough to get inches upon inches of snow (like Huntsville!), we did get to watch it snow for a couple days. It didn't stick to the ground much, but it was pretty to watch!

We had a wonderful Christmas, yet again! We are extremely blessed! We made the traditional trek to Christmas with my family, then with my mom's family, then with my dad's family. Here are some pictures of the holiday extraganza!!

My silly dad with his Toy Story Pez dispensers...we found the WHOLE collection randomly at the Dollar Tree!!

I was also very proud of this gift that Seth found for Adam...a Vols shirt that was also a bass fishing shirt. How Perfect for Adam!!

This would have been a really cute picture if Dad hadn't had those HUGE gloves on! Haha!

Luke was the center of attention this year with the Christmas Eve bunch! Can you spot him in the midst of the presents?!

My granddad got this rolling bucket thing as a gift...Luke had a great time being pushed around in it by Seth!

This may be my favorite picture from Christmas. Too sweet! :)

My grandmother opening her gifts Christmas morning

The rest of our crew opening gifts

Me and the goofy husband...don't you love how he "dressed up!"

The infamous envelopes from Grandmother...the contents of mine disappeared into Seth's pocket before I could open it!

Waiting for Christmas Dinner

All of the grandkids (minus Ashley) with Grandmother. Poor Ashley had just gotten off the night shift at the hospital, so she was asleep during all the family photos.

We still had a couple inches of snow when we got back to Huntsville. So, we were able to make a "snowboy."

We hope that you and your families had just as wonderful a Christmas as we did!!!

Christmas Time is Here!!

The Christmas festivities have already begun for us this year! Seth and I exchanged our gifts Friday...then we did Christmas with his family Saturday. Such a good weekend! :) Here are a few pictures from the Bowen Family Christmas.

Eli was more than ready for us to open presents!

HE only sat still holding his present...waiting patiently...for a few minutes. Then he was up running through the house: "C'mon e'rebody!!"

Myles was also ready to get in on the action!

Silly boys :)

Christmas also brings family picture time. It is rather difficult to get good pictures with the crew! I think we did manage to get a couple though!

And, yes...Mama J did get us all matching shirts to wear for the occasion! :)

Bargaining for Presents

As usual, November brought no shaving to the man in my house. I do have to admit...I don't mind Seth's beard at all...at least until it gets totally scraggly looking. And I usually don't bug him about shaving it until it gets to that point. Well, this year I didn't have to bug him at all...his mom took care of the beard for me! We were sitting at their house on Dec. 1st and she said: you know guys, it's not November anymore! The little mischievous wheels in Seth's head starting turning automatically. His response: Okay, I will shave it...IF you give me an early Christmas present. Janet jumped up out of her seat and went digging through her Christmas presents...Deal! :) She pulled out a He-Man cartoon dvd...Seth's favorite cartoon growing up. So...we went home so he could shave...

Little did I know that the wheels in his head were still turning...."Mom didn't say how much I had to shave." Ugh. Therfore....this resulted...

Yes...the dreaded mustache. So, he starts bargaining with me....I'll shave the rest of it if you give me an early present. Clever boy. So, I go digging in my box of presents. Of course, there's no way I'm giving him anything tooo good! So, I pulled out one of his stocking stuffers...and a deal is a deal!!

Away went the mustache!! I love my handsome, clean-shaved man!!