Howard Family, Party of 5

This weekend was so busy.....it was jam packed full of birthday parties! Mallory had a party friday evening, while Arissa had drill team pratice, then arissa had a birthday party saturday at noon, while Mallory had another one at 12:30 and ANOTHER at 2pm! We didn't know how we were going to do it all, but we couldn't find a fair way to pick and choose which to attend and which not to. So we did it all! Jesse played chauffeur and drove everyone around, while I prepared the gifts and looked after Mariah...who's schedule was empty. :O( But we took advantage of the time alone to do some special stuff. Friday night I took her to build-a-bear, which gave her the thrill of her life! I made it a surprise and didn't tell her until we got there where we were going, and she flipped when she saw the store. I SO wish I had the camera with us, but Jesse had taken it to the party he took Mallory to. But we had fun nonetheless. Then Saturday she and I browsed at Barnes & Noble, and then had lunch together. It was nice and quiet and fun. And Mariah loved being the "only child". :O)

Mallory @ party # 1:
presents in hand for parties # 2 & 3:

Mariah w/ her new special bear: "Cinder Ella Howard"

Arissa, all ready for her big party....it was a 50's dress up theme. So we pulled out this OLD hallween costume of mine, Nana did some alterations, et voila:

i give up!

Next year, our family Christmas photo is just going to be a handrawn rendition of the 5 of us or something.....cause I just can't handle the stress of putting together a nice family shot!

I had put it off long enough, so yesterday we headed out to take the family christmas photo. I don't know why I thought it would be quick and easy. I know it's not the girls' fault, I know they have short attention spans, but I just wanted ONE good picture I could use, and it was nearly impossible to get them all looking in the same direction (AT THE CAMERA) and smiling. And they each have a version of a forced smile that I had to try to avoid. You know, where their face is frowning but their lips are smiling. And then inevitably, they started to annoy eachother, they had to sit next to eachother for 2 seconds too long and it erupted into near bloodshed.

I realize these pictures are still cute in their own way, but they are also very FRUSTRATING for a mama who just wants to get a nice picture where everyone looks natural and happy and christmas-y:

I don't have a Border Terrier, or any dog for that matter, but you can bet that if I did I would totally buy this:

or maybe:how cute is that! :O)

I love this one too:

halloween

These cheap little costumes I got at walmart that caused me so much guilt (over not buying or making really super NICE costumes like I should have) turned out pretty cute after all. I guess it all depends on the kids that are wearing them! :O)

The bunny:

The kitty:

The devil:

It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get all 4 of these people to look at the camera and do something close to a smile at the same time! And Nana is just as bad as the girls! I took like 6 shots and I got this one right before they all got frustrated with me and ran off:

starting our walk:

We made our rounds w/ one of the girls from Arissa's Sunday School class, so M&M stuck together as well:

The girls had a great time. We got several compliments on how polite they were, which made me happy. :O) I told them: "there's two parts to trick-or-treating....saying trick-or-treat, and then saying thank you!". They did great.

The house adjacent to ours offered a free haunted house from 7-9pm, at first all 3 girls wanted to go through, then Arissa & her friend changed their minds and I changed Mallory & Mariah's minds for them when we heard grown adults running out of it screaming. But fortunately, we could still hear all the sounds of it from our house, and Arissa & Jesse spent awhile in the backyard peering over the fence and watching our neighbors scare OTHER people to death. :O)

the pumpkins

As Jesse pointed out, you'll notice, even in these blurry below-par photos that there's still lots of insides left in them.....and my response to that is it's quite a tough job to do 4 in one night, and I'm lucky I finished them at all! :O)

Here they are:

Mallory's pumpkin, cat on the moon:

Mariah's pumpkin, star eyes and 'kissy' lips:

Arissa's pumpkin, silly face:

Family pumpkin, scared face:

And here's my pretty little "tiny tot" dancer in her brand new leotard:

And here's the recent little gal that I made (her skirt lifts up to show white little underpants) :):

School pics ~ Boo Parade ~ Pumpkin Carving

Arissa & Mariah got their school pics in yesterday:
Arissa, third grade

Mariah, kindergarten

Last weekend was Arissa's first actual parade with her drill team. It was hot as all heck, and by the end of the parade route, every girl on the team had red cheeks and could barely force a smile. :O) But they did great, it is so amazing to watch them. They're just little girls but they memorize all these complicated routines and they are super performers. Not to mention they're all super super sweet kids.

What was NOT sweet, however, was the fact that our camera broke JUST as Arissa's group rounded the corner into view. So I have no actual shots of the team. Seriously, it worked seconds before they marched up, and it worked after. Go figure.

But here's what I did capture:

How to keep 2 little tinies busy while you wait 2 hours for the parade to start:

take 'em to Burger King and give 'em an ipod:

The girls waiting for sister to march....with Aunt Nancy and Cousin Marcy visiting from Utah:

And the pumpkin carving! I so wanted to get those new pumpkins I had seen at JoAnn's....they're plastic but they're meant to be carved----so there's no mess and you can reuse them. But then I figured, we already have a fake Christmastreee, we can't have fake everything or why even celebrate! So we got a big pumpkin and the girls helped clear out the insides. Arissa REALLY wanted to do some cutting, and we let her do a little but then I couldn't take it anymore...I was scared she'd slice off a finger.

don't you love how Mallory is blurry in this photo? It's just like real life...she's always a blur of movement!

Then last night Jesse bought FOUR MORE pumpkins...because the girls all fought over what we would carve on the first one. So I printed out several tempaltes and let them each choose, then I spent last night carving them all. Our porch looks quite Halloween-y, I love it. I have to upload those pictures, so pumpkin pictures will post tomorrow!

the best book....

...EVER:

Seriously, this is the very best book I've ever read. It's about a brain scientist who had a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain, and lost all use of that side for awhile. So she had no language skills, linear thinking, reasoning, etc. But her right side was fully functioning, and she eventaully recovered completely. Since I picked it up, I've not been able to stop thinking about it...even though I've been done for several days now. Jesse can attest to my obsession with it....because I keep coming to him with random facts about the human brain that I either learned in the book or discovered through research online. It is just a really really great book, and it's impossible to read it and not think differently afterward about SO many things.

Disney....Injury....School Pics

Last week I got an email from my friend saying she had won tickets to DISNEY ON ICE and would I like to bring the girls and go with her...my answer: ARE YOU KIDDING???? We are ALL about Disney On Ice....but now that are girls are of the ticket-requiring age, we don't go to those kind of shows often if at all because it's like $100 for the 5 of us to go. So I was giddy with excitment and managed to not even tell the girls about it until the very day of the show. Needless to say, THEY LOVED IT:

Our group (minus me)...thank you CULA for inviting us!!!!:

Through the eyes of a child:

The one photo of the actual show that didn't come out horribly blurry:

A few weeks ago I got to work and saw an email from Mallory's preschool, reminding parents about picture day...which was that very day. I, being at work and a long trolley ride away from home couldn't do anything about it, so I called Jesse frantically and tried to instruct him over the phone on what to dress Mallory in and what to do with her hair. These are her proofs:

And this is my latest adventure.....I fell in our yard in the dark, hyperextended (I don't know if that's the right word but that's the one I like to use cause it sure feels like what happened to me!) my right arm so badly I couldn't move it, scratched and bruised my leg in 3 places, and impaled my hand with the fence which I tried to grab onto. It was bad. I screamed....of course, and Jesse thought it was my usual "hee hee, I'm being silly" scream, when actually it was a "help me I think my arm is being ripped off and I'm going to die" scream. I just laid on the grass and cried! I really thought my arm muscle must have been ripped to shreds and I'd forever be in a sling. I went to the dr and got some RX meds, and today my hand looks much better and I have more use of my arm, although I still can't lift it. Such drama!