Life in the H.O.V. Lane: 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009

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.

Monday, October 12, 2009

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!

Friday, September 25, 2009

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!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

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!

Monday, August 24, 2009

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...

Thursday, August 20, 2009

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?

Sunday, August 9, 2009

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.