celebration!!

I present to you the recipient of the 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. PeaceBuilder Award:

Mariah Grace Howard!



She had no idea she was the winner, and she was so proud. She is the epitome of a peacemaker too....that award was meant for her! She cares so much about other people's feelings. She makes a point of being friends with everyone, especially those that don't have as many friends as her.



They did a little song and dance before the awards:



Last year's winner was Arissa......so if I can get Mallory to be a little more "peaceful" by next school year, maybe it can become a tradition. :O)

And then here's where we spent Sunday:

The Girl Scout Cookie Kickoff! It was held at the zoo, so after the rally we wandered around and checked out the sights. Although we have zoo passes, we hadn't been there in a long time so everything seemed new. The first thing we did was the Sky Ride....which amused the girls and TERRIFIED me. I was really honestly scared for my life....it wasn't much fun for me at all. But I made it across, only to find out the quickest walking route back across the zoo was closed for construction...so we had to take the sky ride BACK. 2nd time wasn't so bad, but I still wouldn't say it was exactly "fun".

And this was my favorite animal that we saw....he yawned a big old yawn which I was able to capture:

Then it was time for a nap....for all 5 of us!

The cookie sale officially begins January 31st! Can't wait!

Jesse & I took the day off Friday, to follow these sweet girls around: the drill team had their annual "school tour" where they perform in assemblies at all the local elementary schools to try and "recruit". It was fast paced but lots of fun. The audiences at each school were very impressed!

I don't know why, but I can't wait till Valentine's Day! I guess because it's one step closer to Spring being here, which I also can't wait for. Everytime I go into JoAnn's or Michael's, I come out with a new Valentine's or Spring decoration for the house. But I haven't put them all up yet, because Jesse thought it was weird to be decorated for Valentine's Day in mid-january:

Valentine's Card supplies...prepped and ready to go!

One of my cute Spring-things:


A project I've been working on.....WAY in advance, since these won't be displayed till March/April!:

And, finally, things makin' me happy right now:

this cross-stitch that my mom made a LONG long time ago when I was at least in 3rd grade, maybe younger. I have it hanging above my door:

My new Spring-collection Yankee Candle shipment arrived! I got several candles and this reed-diffuser, "Sweet Pea Garden". I love it!

And that's it for now! No work tomorrow, I have a dr. appt because I think I'm coming down w/ strep throat again. :O( We'll probably find some small way to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day as a family. Then next friday the girls' school is having a MLK assembly, at which one of my sweet girls is going to be awarded the MLK "Peace Builders" award! It's a secret though, so I can't say who. :O)

Burnin' trees & makin' hats!

Friday night we went over to our neighbor's to watch them burn their Christmas trees. It was fun....and scary to see how fast they go up in flames. The Wares:

David, Jesse, Gary:

And look what I made!

It took me just about 2-3 weeks, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. But it was still quite a task because there were like 5 colors involved, and you have to carry them through the whole time. So of course at several points I had a twisted mess that I had to stop and fix. But this is my first experience doing an actual color pattern while knitting...in the past I've just changed color (i.e. for stripes and such). I was so happy to finish it, and to discover that I hadn't made a total mess of it and wasted all my time (like I've been known to do).

The inside (see how each color is "carried" along the whole way?):

The pattern:

Et voici!:

Crime-fighting is now a Howard FAMILY activity!

Happy New Year!


What better way to kick off 2009 than with back-to-back interaction w/ the police! :O)



New Years Eve we went out to dinner with friends (20 OF THEM, i didn't even know I had that many!), then to a friend's house for games & drinks. By 11pm, my face hurt from laughing so much and we wanted to beat all the drunks home so we left. Before I could find the freeway entrance (we were in Santee), I got pulled over. I hadn't even had any drinks except w/ dinner but still I was all scared. But the officer was very nice and explained that I had just been speeding. So just a little paperwork and we would be on our way....but, did I have my:


driver's license?


no.


registration?


no.


proof of insurance?


no.


So of course as she's in the patrol car running all my info and trying to confirm who I am, I'm sitting there cursing myself for being so stupid and not having all my docs. Everything is current and up to date, luckily, but I just didn't have any of the proof. And funny enough, my license expired on my bday and one of the investigators here at work brought it to my attention, and I left early from work the day before Christmas Eve to sit in DMV for an hour and renew it...otherwise I would have had even bigger problems New Years Eve!

But the nice officer just told me to gather my docs and put them in my car, and be careful. No ticket. Hallelujah.



Then last night, after dropping the girls off at Nana's for a New Year's slumber party, Jesse and I noticed a car swerving, determined they were more than likely drunk, and called 911. Jesse was relaying the plate # and activity to the dispatcher, as the driver hit a street sign and ran over the median onto the wrong side of the road into on-coming traffic. She carefully backed up and continued like nothing had happened. Another car stopped and picked up the street sign, then went on their way, but us? We were on the chase!


The dispatcher told us we didn't need to follow the car, for our own safety, but I saw that the driver was a middle-aged woman and I didn't feel threatened, and the girls weren't in my car so what the heck. Either go home and watch Larry King, or persue justice......we chose the latter!

So we followed the car, as we stayed on the phone w/ 911.....at one point a police car passed us in the other direction and didn't see the lights I flashed or hear the horn I honked to signal him. Eventually, we ended up in the Food 4 less parking lot, the lady drove around so her car was facing us and Jesse tells the 911 operator "Oh my gosh, she's gonna RAM us!!!". :O) But she didn't, she just pulled up along my passanger side and rolled her window down. I asked if she was OK, and she said with a slur that she was fine, hadn't even been drinking, just accidentally hit that sign. and please don't call the police, don't ruin her 2009, etc etc. I was trying to appease her so she wouldn't take off again, while Jesse got angry and started yelling at her/arguing with her. We watched her drive off but she parked in the lot, and then suddenly 5 patrol cars sped up, we pointed out her car, they surrounded her and brought her out and handcuffed her. Then we gave our statements to the police and went home.

So exciting! See, I told you...it's just a matter of time until Jesse ends up on COPS. And I was laughing so hard, I told him thank goodness that lady didn't hit someone or do something major where our 911 call would have gotten played to a jury or in the media....cause Jesse, sweet as he is, was rambling and nearly incoherent when he reported it. :O)

dinner:

Mallory w/ friend Alex:

Mariah & buddy Chris watching tv as Alex jumps on them:

These are close to what the washcloth easter bunnies looked like that my mom used to make that I mentioned in my last post (in case anyone was having problems coming up w/ a visual):



and here's where the plastic easter egg filled w/ candy would go:

December!

Haven't posted in awhile, half of a month to be exact I think. Here's what's happened since:

This sweet girl was awarded Student of the Month....AGAIN. That's right, she was also the first in her class to receive it (as was Mariah) back in September. And already her teacher felt she deserved it again. So proud!

That same day (night actually) was her Drill Team christmas party. It was really really fun....you could NOT find a group of cuter, sweeter girls than this...seriously:

Church Christmas dinner:

Previously unrealized reason #165 why having 3 kids is way harder than 1:

I had to make SIXTY of these things! I wanted to make something for the girls' classmates, and I didn't want it to be candy. So I ordered some trinkets from Oriental Trading, used my Sizzix Bigshot to create a bag topper, and voila. It was a nice idea but when I was 40 into it I thought maybe I'm going to have to give up and just hand out candybars next year. It was a lot of work! But I remember, from my own childhood, every Easter my mom would make these cute little Easter Bunnies out of regular washclothes, with a spot in the middle for a plastic easter egg. And I would hand them out to my class every year and the kids (and parents) loved them and I felt special for giving them. So I wanted to do something similar for the girls, but one classroom x 3 ends up being a whole heck of a lot of gift baggies!

Christmas Eve @ Nana's:

Cousins (the Kamenski & Howard girls):

Notice Mallory is the only one running around in this pic, and that's because both Mariah & Arissa had some sort of stomach flu and were throwing up the whole day and during the party:

Here's a poor quality picture of the "big" presents I was so proud of wrapping. Each year we make the basically the same thing for Nana, Grandma, my Dad, and Jesse's Grandma. This year it was a framed collage picture of the girls. I found this pretty foil wrapping paper, and in each of the bows I put a little something shiny, and a bell so that the package jingled:

Some of my crocheted little guys that we gave away for Christmas:

To Frances Warren:

For Gary's niece Janae (sp?):
Christmas morning:

And now, it's my pleasure to present to you......

The brave girl w/ one less tooth!!!

Well actually the replacement tooth is already in so I guess that leaves her even! :O) She was so brave, she asked Jesse to try and "work" on her tooth, and he wiggled and pulled, and she just stood there like a little trooper. No tears, no shouts, just "come on daddy, get it out!".

And out it came. And then the toothfairy paid a visit last night, and left a lovely dollar bill in it's place. And tonight we're having popcorn in little paper "bowls" that I made out of cardstock in the shape of teeth. :O)

my next knitting project?

How cute is this!?
It's a wee knitted Barack Obama, if you couldn't tell.




It reminds me of the Sesame Street puppet characters, á la Bert & Ernie. :O)

christmas came early

This is what our house looks like from the front (plus we've added one of those lit-up reindeer that moves its head from side to side):

Jesse did it all himself. I LOVE it, I honestly wish we could keep up at least some of the lights all year long. One year we did do that, but we got made fun of (mostly by our neighbors!) :O).

Mallory had a Christmas recital at preschool. Was I able to capture a single non-blurry shot? of course not. But at least I don't have to blur out the other kids faces....my lovely camera did that for me:

She sang "Mary did you know?". It was very cute. At different points in the song, she seemed to not be concerned with 'performing', and was just lost in the song, singing and swaying and just feelin' it in general! I don't know if the teacher instructed her to keep her hands folded like that, but that's how she was most of the time. :O)

Jesse brought the girls to his work for a Christmas party:

(Mallory doesn't like Santa! Thus, no picture of her.)

Arissa had 2 back-to-back performances Sunday. A parade (for which the team won FIRST PLACE!!!), and a show at Viejas. It was freezing cold, but the girls did great. Arissa was second place in the drill down, she always makes me so proud!!!

Jesse & Mallory watching the performance:


Me & Mallory:

(no picutres of the actual performance because once you've seen one picture of Arissa performing, you've seen them all....they all look the same in photos. But if you'd been there in person, you would have been very impressed, I'm sure!)

And here's how Christmas came early at our house:

His name is Jackson Russo Howard, and he's about 6 weeks old. We bought him from some people in front of the grocery store. We set up an area in the bathroom for him, with some food and water and stuff, and he ate a wee bit. But Sunday night he was especially whiny and yippy....and just plain obnoxious. I researched on the internet Monday, and found lots of information but one site summed it up best with "Only an idiot would buy a puppy under 8 weeks old!". Apparently they're not supposed to be seperated from their mom until at least 8 weeks old. And also apparently if they are seperated from mom, they have to be BOTTLE FED. So he was being a stinker because he was starving....he hadn't eaten more than a bite since Saturday. So last night Jesse got some puppy milk formula, we put it in a baby bottle, and I sat for an hour and fed the sweet little guy. It was so satisfying to see him go from a squirmy, starving, crazy dog....to a sweet little angel fast asleep in my arms.

And lastly, yesterday was my birthday. Saturday night my dad took me to The Brigantine, where I had THE MOST DELICIOUS clam chowder & ceasar salad that I've ever had. He said the sky was the limit, I could order as much as I wanted, including wine or such, but I was quite happy w/ my Dr. Pepper. :o) I felt like such a little kid at this nice, fancy restaurant, $25 a plate, wine reccomendations with every dish on the menu, and when the waitress asks me what I'd like, I go "what kind of soft drinks do you have?". Anyway, we had a really nice time.

Sunday night Jesse gave me his gift:

the DVD of Mariah Carey's last tour, which attended when she came here to San Diego! Love it!! Except I realized I can't really watch it when the girls are around, because Mariah Carey performs like half of the concert in a certain "costume" that, to 3 sweet little girls, looks like she's basically just singing her underwear. :o) Jesse, on the other hand, has no problem with it. Go figure.

The girls each drew me a sweet little picture, and sang to me, and got me a cheesecake which we ate for dessert.

My Nana gave me a card & some money to buy clothes, and she also made us Chicken Noodle Soup so that I didn't have to cook dinner. It was hot and ready to go as soon as I picked up the girls. That's service!

My mother-in-law stopped by and brought me a cute handmade card and the most beautiful Christmas Cactus....it's so christmas-y.....the blooms are white, the plant itself is green of course, and the pot is red. It's really gorgeous.

And a couple of my friends from my old office sent me cards, which I thought was sweet of them to even remember. Especially around this time of year, there's so much going on, half the time I don't really remember my birthday until it creeps up on me!

And lastly, it rained and was cloudy ALL day, which I consider my birthday gift from Heavenly Father. :o) And I did thank him very much for it, cause it made for a really perfect day (especially since I got to stay indoors most the day and I didn't have to drive around in it!).