A new family picture

The large Howard family clan (8 original children, 4 spouses, 15 grandkids) were all together in Aug. for the first time in years. We got our picture taken in Mom and Dad Howard's backyard w/ boys in blue, girls in white and bright solids. Here is our individual family pic. When I get a copy of the huge family pic, I'll post it too. It's pretty cool.

P.S. A funny note- I got dressed in the car and didn't notice that I had my shirt on backward until after the photo shoot. Oh well!

YUMMY!

Garlic Chicken Pasta with Spinach


You have to try this pasta. I got the recipe off http://www.mykitchencafe.blogspot.com/. It is so yummy, and the whole family loved it. The best thing about it is that it took me less than 30 minutes to prepare. (Plus it's prepared from ingredients that we always have--which means I didn't have to go the store.) I hope it's not against the rules to steal this pic...Here's the link to the recipe:

http://mykitchencafe.blogspot.com/2009/04/garlic-chicken-pasta-with-spinach.html

Enjoy!

The First Day of School for 5 of us!

The first day went fairly smoothly. Ike and Joe get to be in a brand new school, 4th and 6th grades. Alyssa and Lincoln get to go to preschool on the U of U campus with me. We all started at 8:35 this morning, which means Ike and Joe had to get themselves off to school. They were very responsible. They even set their own alarm and came out of their room at 7:01, completely dressed with backpacks on.

As for me-I seriously misjudged how much time it would take to get to campus during rush hour, and kind of missed my first class...Oops! My teacher only met for 10 minutes today, though, so hopefully he'll be understanding. I'm sure we'll work out the kinks in no time. :)

Time For The Toothfairy

Alyssa was delighted when she lost her first tooth a couple of weeks ago. She now speaks with an adorable little whistle...

One of My More Brilliant Ideas

(If I do say so myself :)

I'm trying a new strategy for school lunches this year. I let everyone in the family pick one thing to contribute. I divided up everything into good portions (about 1/2 cup) and threw it into a big container. In the morning, everyone can just pick out one item from the box, one piece of fruit, a sandwich, fill up their water bottles, and walla! It is done!




Because I'm a nerd, I broke down the prices. It beats buying pre-packaged chips and there's a lot more variety. I'm sure some of my couponing friends are shaking their heads. If one of them had gone to the store, I'm sure they'd have payed about 53 cents for the whole lot. But since I'm not smart like they are, here's the breakdown:

Pretzels: $1.18 ..................18 bags= $ .07 each
Chips: $2.50 ..................... 13 bags=$ .19 each
Crackers: $1.50 ............... 12 pkg.=$ .13 each
Fruit Snacks: $2.00 ........ 10 pkg.=$ .20 each
Granola Bars: $3.00 ....... 18 bars=$ .17 each
Gold Fish: $6.46 ...............29 bags=$ .22 each
Fruit Leather: $10.00 .... 48 pkg.=$ .21 each



All together: 148 items to choose from, averaging $ .17 each.

Not bad, huh?

The King of Hamburgers and His Fine Table Manners

Do you think the Queen of England would accept an invitation to dine with us?

Where Do I Begin?

I was just visiting my sister-in-law's blog, and under my name it said 2 MONTHS! Has it really been that long? I had to come check the date to confirm it. What in the world have I been doing? Apparently not blogging. I don't even know where to begin! There have been wonderful trips to Discovery Gateway, fun outings with cousins on both sides, almost daily swimming, camping, hiking, a trip to Bear Lake, plus a lot of random daily antics. We had 622 pictures just from mid-June through July. (Granted, at least 150+ of those are pictures of silly faces, lego creations, and other random shots from Ike and Joe.) I think I'll start with our camping trip because it was a TOTAL BLAST!

Swen has been working in California since June, just coming home on the weekends. Any time we've been able to spend together has been priceless. For my 30th b-day present

(yes, I'm officially over the hill!), I wanted to go camping. Swen was able to come home on Friday instead of Saturday so we could make it happen. We camped at Jordan Pines campground in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We were more than a little wary to camp anywhere other than our beloved A.F. canyon, but we're glad we took the leap! It was gorgeous!

Swen would want me to post a picture of his goatee first. It was his California experiment, and it was lovely while it lasted. He finally decided to shave it off for posterity's sake (Extended Howard Family Picture)

Joe proved that he was stronger than his mama on our hike to Donut Falls. He (hardly) complained about the residual pain for the next few days. :)

Alyssa kept striking poses and asking me to take pictures of her. She was more interested in being beautiful than in hiking at first.

Sales Pitch: The Donut Falls hike was so beautiful and family friendly. I strongly recommend it to everyone in Utah!

Cold Little Piggies

Adventures at the campsite:

Dancing on the table. There was a huge gathering of wonderfully happy Latin Americans in the campground next to us. We were able to benefit from snappy music until 11:30 pm. We were also able to enjoy it as a friendly neighborhood wake-up call, first thing in the morning.

Sleeping on the table. (Seriously, this guy could sleep anywhere!)

Joseph does not have (serious) issues, in spite of efforts to look strange in most pictures.

Okay, that's it for tonight. And since Link is here begging for me to read Winnie the Pooh to him, I'll say TTFN, Ta-Ta-For-Now!