It's October!

The Bowerman's are finally well! It has been a long 6 weeks with all 3 of my kids having the swine flu. Joshua got pneumonia and the girls both got sinus infections following the flu. And on top of all this, I got the swine flu myself , then pneumonia. Crazy stuff. We have never been this sick - ever. At least Rodney has found a way to stay pretty healthy throughout all of this. Hope he doesn't get it next week. Oink Oink!

Staying in is not something I enjoy doing every day of the week. So as soon as my breathing was back to normal from the pneumonia, we headed to St.Florian where we get our pumpkins. Joshua and Marah both picked out a small one to paint (Macy too) and we picked out a big one to carve. The rain made everything a little messy, but we still had a good time picking out our pumpkins.

For a little Halloween preview this year, we will be having a fireman and 2 white kitty cats!

War Eagle!

My 3 Auburn Tigers

Marah and Caley

Camden and Joshua

Busby Tigers

Marah, Macy and Caley

This is our nine! The 9 kids that is on the Morrow side of the family. We are still waiting for the twins to come along on the Bowerman side (because whenever Ryan & Kellie decide it is time, they WILL have 2 at one time - Kellie's mom is a twin and her dad is a twin). So any time Kellie!

On the Morrow side, to say we love some Auburn football, may be an understatement. My dad was an Auburn grad so we grew up going to ballgames and walking to Toomer's Corner for lemonade. So now to carry on the tradition, Brooke, Ben and I all graduated from Auburn and all had 3 kids. All Auburn kids, except for Noah who has been saying he likes Alabama these days. I think he is being brainwashed by another family member - hint hint. Look at him in the 1st picture. Of course, they all don't look very excited. Trying to get 9 kids to smile or even look at the same time is crazy.

We love getting together on Saturdays to sport our Auburn wear. The kids were able to hold their hands up for "touchdown Auburn" before they were 1. We have been blessed over the years with some great Auburn memories.

WAR EAGLE - HEY!

Year of 2006 - Macy now wears Marah's little cheerleading dress.

Getting into it!

Marah's 1st Day of Pre-School

Let me just say, this little girl was more than ready to start school. She stayed at home with me last year when Macy was born. So she missed out on school. She could not wait for her first day this year. She picked out her clothes and folded everything nice and neat at the end of her bed for morning. She woke right up, put her clothes on and packed her own lunch box. She was READY to go!

The night before we put rollers in her hair. She has been begging for some for awhile now, so I thought I would give them a try. Marah has a thick head of hair and we have been trying to grow it out, so that requires even more maintenance. This hair is a mess after a good night's sleep on it. We have tried every trick in the book for trying to keep it as untangled as possible by morning, but we have lots of trouble!

I'm not quite sure if she is a high maintenance kind of girl, because she can get down and dirty with the best of them. She loves sports and loves playing with her brother and her boy cousins (Carter is her "bud"). I like the half and half thing. She is 50/50 now. She loves dressing up and doing the princess thing as well. We will see in years to come I suppose. I am kind of "go basketball player", but she may be "cheerleader!" Whichever she chooses will be great with me:) I guess - JK!

Mommy will miss her little helper at home, but I know she is probably helping her teacher as much as she can.

She loves her new backpack!

First Day of Kindergarten 2009

My precious little man! He was more excited about his new tennis shoes than anything. He popped right out of bed this morning and got ready all by himself.

This is his second first day of Kindergarten, so this time is a little more real for me. Rodney and I chose to send him on last year with the intentions to send him twice. He has an August 20 birthday, so he turned 5 a few weeks after he started last year. He was definitely ready to go last year and we played it by ear. We knew it would be a hard decision in the end and let me just say, I feel like it has been one of the hardest decisions so far. With only harder ones to come in the future, making decisions that will affect your child's future can make you shed lots of tears and lose lots of sleep. We talked to so many people about what they did with their child and how they felt about it. Ultimately it came down to us and only us. After lots of prayer, our decision was based more on the distant future and not the near future. Rodney wishes he would have been held back when he was younger. Many people have said with boys, sometimes they need an extra year for maturity.

Joshua had a great year in Kindergarten last year. He had a super teacher and learned so much. His teacher thought we should send him on to First grade and some others as well. But we chose to let him go again. We weighed all the positives and negatives to both. Repeating Kindergarten would give him an advantage and more confidence. We talked to him many times about staying in Kindergarten again and he seemed to be okay with it. So here we are, the first day of school and I am so scared. Did we make the right decision? Are some of the kids in his class going to say ugly things? Well, all I can do is pray for him. He will be okay. He will make lots of new friends and he still has some really good friends from last year!

And on top of everything, I know he will have a wonderful school year because he has a wonderful teacher!

Mrs. Greenhaw was kind enough to send these next 3 pictures during his first day!

Orange Beach 2009

Joshua, Marah and Macy in Orange Beach!

More pictures to come, until then visit Brooke's website at lifewithaponytail.blogspot.com for some amazing shots of the kids in action.

Love this one

This one could not have been any better. Let me just say that I am dying inside for a SLR camera! It will probably be a long while since we just had a new air unit put in for $5500. Oh well, till that time comes I will continue to use an old digital camera with a 3 second delay following the snap until the flash. Macy timed this one perfect. She was holding the sweet little smile for the 3 seconds for the camera to catch it. Love it!

10 months old

My baby girl is 10 months old...and this is our last one. Rodney will not let me have another one. We did agree on 3 to begin with, but after this little one was born, I knew we needed a 4th little Bowerman. But we both came to a final agreement in November when the decision was made permanent (poor Rodney)!

Macy and Marah are 3 and a half years apart. We did want them closer, but the Lord thought differently. We had 2 miscarriages over that period of time and then this little girl was born. Great timing I would have to say. The Lord knew what He was doing. Joshua and Marah have been wonderful with helping and taking care of her. They are great at being big brother and big sister. We are so blessed. I could say it over and over a thousand times a day and it still wouldn't touch how blessed I feel. God is good!

My little munchkin is at a very fun age right now. She is a human vacuum cleaner picking up every little speck or crumb on the floor and putting it straight into her mouth. She crawls very well and will stand up as long as she is holding onto something. She loves the water. She has no choice. We swim so much with the other kids that she has to love it. She screams when we get her out of the bathtub. Joshua calls her "Mace" or "Mace-ums"! The child will eat ANYTHING! We still haven't found a food she doesn't like. She loves to be in motion and constantly moving. She loves to bounce and swing. She loves Baby Neptune. She will no longer wear a bow, she takes it out immediately and it goes into her mouth. She is NOT a good sleeper! Payback from having two that sleep wonderfully! She loves "if you're happy and you know it" and "how much is that doggy in the window" ! She loves puzzle pieces and books. She loves kisses and waving bye bye! She calls her pacifier her "pa pa"! She has 3 almost 4 teeth. She loves to make noises with her mouth. And so many other things!

In the beginning...

And now! She likes to stick her tongue out too!

Love this one! Aunt Brookie took it!