Our daughter Brooke is a little accident prone. Until recently, not a dinner went by without Brooke falling off her chair. We were used to having her fall and then seeing her jump up and say, "I'm OK!"
Today, after church we went on a walk around our neighborhood. We stopped to talk to a neighbor. While we were talking Brooke ran down the street with her friend. We didn't see it happen, but somehow Brooke's face collided with a bush.
Here you can see the result:
Fortunately, we asked another neighbor, who is a nurse, to take a look at Brooke's injury. The cut under her eye wasn't deep enough to need stitches. We cleaned out the cut and then put some antibiotic ointment on it.
She held up pretty bravely until Grandma and Grandpa Bowden came to visit. Then she locked herself in the bathroom because she was embarrassed. We were able to talk her out and by the time we took this picture she was in a good mood.
Brooke-ism:
"I didn't trip on anything, I just tripped." - Whenever she trips and falls, we usually ask her what she tripped over. Apparently this time, she just tripped!
We can't believe another year has come and gone. We didn't even have the chance to go abroad this year! Fortunately we had a few fun trips visiting family in California, New Jersey, Utah and North Carolina.
Scott is glad things are still going well with his job at Intel. When not at work, he enjoys playing with the kids and reading. This summer he spent a week with the Boy Scouts on a 50 mile hike along the McKenzie River, a few hours south of Portland.
Tiffany fills her days with laundry, carpooling, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning, not to mention taking care of our three children. She fills her evenings with book club, scrapbooking, a neighborhood friendship group and the occasional girls' night out. She enjoys teaching Tyler's Primary class at church.
Tyler (7½) is in the second grade. He loves math and is starting to get more interested in reading, especially the Magic Tree House series. After his homework is done, he has fun building things out of Legos. Fortunately, his two front teeth should be mostly in by Christmas.
Brooke (5) is enjoying her second year of preschool and is looking forward to joining Tyler at school next year. She still loves princesses and all things pink. She enjoys playing with her dolls, especially the one Tiffany had as a little girl. Brooke has had a busy year starting ballet, continuing gymnastics and playing on her first soccer team.
Caleb (18 months) has had a busy year too. He started eating real food, learned how to walk (finally at 14 months!) and started communicating with baby signs. He is all boy; he loves cars, balls and making messes. It is very cute when he folds his arms for prayer. He melts our hearts when he gives his siblings hugs when they are sad.
At this Christmastime we are especially thankful for the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for our family and friends. We wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2009!
Love,
Scott, Tiffany, Tyler, Brooke and Caleb Bowden
Here is a video of Caleb walking. He also spends some of the time "talking" to Tiffany about the helicopters he hears flying overhead. We have a helicopter training school a few miles away from us. Caleb loves pointing to helicopters in the sky.
This is a video of Caleb playing with the Velcro from the camera case. He also takes some time to wave to the helicopters.
On Wednesday, we decided to take the training wheels off of Tyler's bike. We had heard other parents tell us that it could take hours to get him riding without training wheels, so we were afraid it would take all night.
Scott gave him a push and then he just started riding. We were really surprised we didn't have to work with him at all.
Tyler free-wheeling
Here is a video of Tyler after just a few minutes of riding:
Brooke-isms:
"Mom, can I cross the street? It's blank." - We think she meant it was clear.
"These blinds are dusty. You need to undust them."
Caleb just figured out that he can slide and roll around to get to where he wants to go. Now we have to baby-proof the house. Again...
He will be crawling before we know it.
