The Belly

Royal Wash Day

There's something magical about a princess's laundry hanging to dry. It kind of makes me wish I was still young enough to wear a sparkly tutu.

Snippits

I suppose after 4 months, an update is in order. Here are some random facts:


ABOUT PREGNANCY: I am now 7 months along. This pic was taken 1 month ago, and I'm thinking I've definitely doubled in size the last month. However, I don't have a more recent pic of the belly, so this will have to do. I promised that I would share the gender of the baby as soon as we found out. Now that 3 months have passed since then, I guess I'll keep my promise. IT'S A BOY! That's all we need around here, right--another boy? We're excited. When Alyssa first heard, it was like a death scene right out of a low-budget drama film. She threw back her head and howled: "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" I started giggling so hard the technician's instrument was bouncing all around on my belly. Swen picked her up and comforted her, and I reminded her that she wouldn't have to share her princess toys. Now she's good with another boy.

I was planning on taking 2 classes this semester, but the stress got more and more intense as the semester approached. I dropped my classes 2 days before school started, and I'm so relieved. I've already gone into labor and the Dr. recommended that I strive for "as close to bedrest as I can manage." My idea of bedrest is probably nothing close to what she had in mind, but I haven't had any more close calls, thank goodness. In spite of feeling way older than I really am, and knowing I need to give up any ideas of having glamorous legs in the future (vericose veins-BOO :( ), I feel fine. We are gearing up for little Maxwell David's arrival.


ABOUT ISAAC: I think he may be tapering off in his teasing. I'm not totally positive this is true, but it seems like it could be. Isaac won 2nd place in his school science fair last week, and is preparing for the district fair in a few weeks. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to go find my camera and upload a pic of his project, but it was pretty cool. (And I'm VERY glad we're done because it was a PAIN IN THE YOU KNOW WHAT....)


ABOUT JOE: Joe is silly. Oh wait--I guess that's not an update. He's always been silly. When I was looking for a pic of him to post, this is the most normal one I could find. There were about 50 pics of him (that he took himself) pulling the strangest faces you've ever seen. He definitely keeps us laughing.

LINCOLN: He's been talking about his 3rd birthday for months, and it finally came in January. We couldn't find our camera on his b-day, so the pics are on Swen's phone. I'm too lazy to upload those, too. So I'm sorry, but you'll have to suffer the disappointment of not seeing the sweet orange froggy cake we made for the occasion.

More exciting than the b-day is the change it wrought upon him. Now that he's a really big boy, he's decided it's okay to be done with diapers. After a month-long potty training struggle (with a whole lot of poopy underwear--and that's super fun to handle with the ultra powerful pregnancy senses, let me tell ya!), we are finally accident-free, folks. Oh, Happy Day.


ALYSSA: She has finally mostly decided that wearing hoods does not convince everyone that she has long and luscious hair. Sometimes we still have to remind her, but she mostly just relapses when she plays with her cousin whom she idolizes, and who happens to have the epitome of long and luscious hair. Alyssa just turned 5, and the age change has also wrought a great change upon her. She is now no longer afraid of public toilet flushing sounds, and she is big enough to be a peace maker when she remembers.


ABOUT CHRISTMAS: We had a great day. Lincoln got legos,

Lissy got jewelry,


and the boys got a Wii. Um, they were just a little excited about that.


CARS: We are trying to become a 1 car family, but it's harder than we thought. Will someone please buy our Camry? Come on. Please, please, please? We're selling it for 3,000 less than it's NADA price. What is the problem? I keep reposting and reposting on KSL. GRRRRRRRRR. We'll be very glad when it's all over. We'll be sad to say goodbye to our lovely car, but Swen uses a company car when he travels, and he only works 4 blocks from home. So it's time to part ways.

I have no idea why this is suddenly underlining. I can't figure out how to get it to stop. Oh well. Anyway, it's time to go to scouts, so I must move on. So, until I overcome my laziness and post again, thanks for reading, and ta-ta.

Goals

I've had a break from school this week and it's going by WAY TOO FAST! I had a long list of goals I wanted to accomplish, and I've barely chipped the surface. I wanted to:


-Read , the sequal to . (CHECK). This particular goal was a breeze to accomplish. I came home from school on Friday, cleaned the house, and started reading. In spite of only sleeping from 3:45-6:15 the night before, the book filled me with energy! It was so heavenly to be able to read a book I chose myself! I finished it the next day.

Next goal: Clear out the weeds from the backyard (again). (CHECK).

We accomplished this one last Saturday. In the process I came to a very important conclusion: We really need to get some grass back there. I am sick and tired of all of these weeds!





Next Goal: Finish my stinkin applesauce. (1/2 CHECKED).

I swore yesterday that I will never can applesauce again. Joseph so kindly reminded me that I've made the same pledge every year. He's right, of course. Making the pledge somehow helps to ease the pain, I think.

1st, we picked the apples. I was still optimistic at this point:



Then yesterday, I cleaned the apples, quartered the apples, cooked the apples, ran the apples through the strainer, poured an incredibly tiny amount of applesauce into a surprisingly few amount of jars, processed the applesauce... and tried really hard to hold back the tears when I saw that 3 1/2 hours of hard work had only yeilded 11 jars. Boo-hoo, waaaah. I should add that I did all of this with WAY too many helping hands, 4 to be exact. They belong to a 2 year old and a 4 year old who kept pouring pitchers full of water down the cabinets and onto the floor, climbing all over the sticky counter, and taste-testing the applesauce with their fingers. RAAAR! After a while, I invited them to watch a movie and breathed a sigh of relief.










At this very moment 2 more boxes are awaiting me on my counter. That is precisely why I am blogging right now--to escape. But I know I can't avoid the task forever. Maybe I could give the apples away or something. Any takers?

Next Goal: Paint my stinkin' chairs. (HAVEN'T TOUCHED).

This is a really long and painful story. So, a year and a half ago, we invited my stylin' friend and her family over for dinner. (Krista, remember when you came over way back when?) Times like this help you to realize how junky the furniture truly looks. Two days before they came, I decided that I would refinish our table and chairs to improve our look. I spent hours and hours stripping them. And then I had had enough of the project. I realized it wasn't really my thing. We ate on a card table and folding chairs instead. Every 6-8 months since then, I've put in a token effort of 2-3 hours. They are still taking up 1/2 of the garage, which means Swen has to park his car on the driveway. LAME! I know. They are now stripped, sanded, taped off, and primed. All I have to do is paint them; but I just can't seem to get myself motivated. Maybe in another 6 months I'll tackle it. :)

Next Goal: Get a head start on upcoming reading assignments and papers. (HAVEN'T CRACKED A BOOK THE WHOLE WEEK-BESIDES THE FUN STUFF, OF COURSE).

Next Goal: Organize my office cupboard. (Totally avoided).

Paper flow is my worst household duty. What do I do with endless insurance information, school projects, coupons, mail? It's not a strength. A few weeks ago, I gathered all of the random papers from around the house, and packed them neatly (or not so neatly) in a box. Out of sight, out of mind. I know I need to eventually go through it all, but later is always better. :)

So, that about wraps it up. 50% goal accomplishment rate. That earns me an F. It's okay, though; I had such a great week spending relaxed time with my family. I actually even got to watch a movie or two with Swen! It was heavenly. Back to the grindstone on Monday, though. I think I'm sufficiently rested and ready to tackle another 2 months of school.

Five

I had really good intentions of staying up on my blog while going to school, but I've failed miserably! This semester I'm on campus every day so I'm extra busy. I try to be available for my kids when they're awake, which means my nights are taken up by homework. It hasn't helped that Swen has been working out of state, so I've pretty much been a single mom. Life is sweet, though...there are so many things to be joyful about: Swen is back in Utah for a while, the kids are healthy (mostly :), fall is beautiful... I could go on an on,

BUT, I want to make an important announcement instead!

Our family will have a cute little addition (#5!) in April! Since I'm 1/3 of the way through my pregnancy, I thought it was about time to come out with the news!

The boys are hoping for a boy, Alyssa is hoping for a girl. I feel like it's a boy, but my body is acting like it's a girl. We'll find out next month and pass on the good news!

I have been feeling great and have felt the Lord's strengthening power which has enabled me to be able to fulfill my many responsibilities.

I hope all of you--my good friends who read this blog--are having a wonderful Autumn!

Hopefully more updates will follow soon!

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!