Terrific Twos!

We have now entered the terrific twos. As my friend Emily said in her recent blog it seems once you have children time flies super fast. I love this little angel, for as much as my children take after their Dad, with their dark hair and olive skin (which I truly love) this little girl is a mini me. She is blonde (for now), blue eyed, blanket carrying, highly opinionated girl. She calls her blanket (which her Grandma Babs made) dinky or deedee, I had a blanket (made by my fathers mother Grandma Holman) which I called Bobbey and also loved to pieces, literally. She wakes up carrying it, she finds it for comfort and for joy and makes sure she has it when she falls asleep. If one of her brothers or sister's is sad she will hand them her blanket as a complete gesture of charity and love. She rarely is seen with out it. She will take it in the car and when we run into a store she knows she can't take it with her so she will say bye "dinky." When she returns with complete delight she will yell "deedee!" Because she is the youngest of five she knows how to speak up for herself, and speak up she does! I love this little lady with all my heart and am so thankful she she is in our family. We recently took family pictures and Jen Howe, our family photographer, had each of us hold a letter so that the seven of us spelled FOREVER and our little Adrianna was in charge of the last letter R. She did such a great job. She held that letter like her blankets life was on the line. It is this determination that describes her. She is fun, loving, determined and beautiful we love you so very much, my little dutch girl.

My little angel girl

amongst the cousin throng

Look how excited she is!

Aj loves getting new clothes, what a girl :)

11-11-11 Eleven superficial things I love on this super day

Things that are super in my life, in no particular order

11. I love my living room rug, I stole the rug from John and Robins place and they said it was ok that we copied them, and I believe them because that's the kind of people they are (in this photo it looks like there is spots on the rug but Anna just spilt water, the rug is really forgiving)

10. Because i mentioned the rug I need to mention the tile. The reason we needed the tile was my friend Alison.The reason why Alison helped with the tile is because she had a baby. The reason the baby helped was because of the gift. The reason the gift helped was because of the onesie. The reason the onesie helped was because of the fuchsia paint. The reason the fuchsia paint helped was because of Adrianna. The reason Adrianna helped was because she splattered the paint all over the carpeted floor. Love that girl and hated the carpet, but wait this is a superficial post no family, friends or lasting things are mentioned. I love our tile.


















10. I love the window bench in my front foyer room. In the winter time it is the best place to read a book and in the summer time it is the best place to watch the lightening storms.















9.  I love the Cat picture in our bathroom, I see it and it makes me laugh (it reminds of when Parkin saw  it in a magazine and for like 10 minutes he would pick it up and laugh out loud, he loved it so much, oops there I go again)

  
8. Speaking of the bathroom I love the handmade wall art that Jen made, it instantly classes that room up. When Our renters  left our place they took our bathroom decorations that Amy gave us after she moved out, I was really sad cause I loved the wall decorations. But Jen's artwork is original so I way love it (darn it those family and friends keep sneaking in).

  
7. Our living room couches. They get washed once every tow weeks, because someone pees on them, spills milk on them, grinds crayon on them, and no I am not talking about Benjamin. Those couches can take a beating (there is a picture earlier).

 
6. My five dollar frame from the thrift store.  A large charcoal drawing of a dog was inside it, a pretty good drawing I have to say, but it is the perfect size for a family picture. If I am going to have a drawing of a dog it is going to be of the best dog ever Luke Two Howe.

















5.  I love my Holiday tree. The kids love decorating and no matter how lame the decorations are we always have our tree decorations up.

4. My never ending supply of paper.  The best YW's president, the model I use when I am serving in our churches young women's program, Meridawn gave me a truck load and I mean truck load of card stock, poster size paper and every type of paper you can imagine. She got it from a friends paper business that was going out of business and she thought of me because of my preschool business. I have so much paper I have to hide it in random locations like under Anna's crib.

3. Our massive dining room table, is large and not my favorite wood choice, but I am sanding the chairs down one by one and will repaint and recover the chairs. Benjamin did some computer work for a nice lady and she traded his work for this table. Its sturdy and big.

2.Another awesome thing for the preschool. My friend who is in the military is moving over seas again. She use to be a felt distributor and she has been hauling around a big supply of felt that she hasn't used. Shed didn't want to ship it again and she thought of me. I got it two weeks ago and  I am still going through all the lesson plan ideas.






1.Hot water. I have always loved hot water. After tens months on "the land" with out running water let a lone hot water, there is not a time when I take a shower especially in the fall and winter that I don't flash back to taking a tent shower under the stars, I am still shuddering....

Life is good.

This is what happens every time we play "Real in Rio" from the motion picture Rio.

She has the moves like Jagger.

My moment in the sun

This year for the ward chilli cook off I decided I would bring chilli and cornbread instead of corbread and a dessert. I actaully thought about what would make good chillii and went to the store and bought the ingredients. The fact that I thought ahead and went to the stroe instead of just making due with what I had was quite the effort. I decided that the key to good chilli was sausege and velvetta cheese, those two would make a beautiful combination.  They had three tables set up "hot", "medium" and "mild" I turned to Benjamin and asked where I should put it, with a laugh he tells me mild. Unfortuently we got there just before it started and the mild table had the most entries, my pot was at very end. It was a great turnout with a lot of people and the best table decorations I have ever seen at the annual cook off.

There were were 5 categories:
Best mild chilli
Best medium chilli
Best hot chilli
Most unique chilli
Overall favorite

When they announced that my chilli won for  fan favorite I was so shocked and embarrisingingly excited. I shot out of my chair like a girl at a family reunion and danced my way to the announcer. I then asked for the mic to give a speech, yes thats what I said, I asked to make a speech....As soon as I did this I realized this wasnt a family reunion and what was I thinking. I then just said "I win." Yeah a real graceful winner. I would never catergorize myself as a good cook so this was so exciting, what added to my victory was that I didnt vote for myself neither did half my children. A true victory. peolpe afterward kept asking me which pot was mine so they could get a taste,  I had to suppress a laugh, like chilli  that good would have any left, hah. It was licked clean.

The next day I woke up to find the kids watching cartoons. I told them I had the most fantastic dream that I had won the ward chilli cook off , then I said oh wait, that was reality!! They asked how long I would keep talking about this and all I could say was, quite some time.

Sadly this gave me such a smile for like a week, what a happy diversion. One sweet boy from church came up to me with a pipe cleaner ring he had made me for winning the chilli cook off, how sweet is that! He must have known how excited I was by my dance  :)

40 Years of Wedded Bliss

For my parents 40th wedding anniversary we had them over for dinner, we celebrated their years together with a "home made game" called Nanpaperdy, based off the Jeopardy game (my sister in law Melissa did this for her birthday once and it was so much fun).

Each of their four kids made a category with questions and answers.

Hillary did "Take me to Ajo" a category about family vacations.

John did "Lemon-aid" a category about family cars

Lindsey did "mi casa es su casa" a category about family houses we lived in.

Lesley, I did "creature Feature" family pets.

We also had a potpourri category with random questions.

We had a ton of fun watching my parents battle it out for the best memory. It was close but mom pulled it out (in large part because dad missed the double jeopardy question, it was hard! They had to tell us the license plate number of a car they had over 10 years ago!How John remembered this is beyond me). Bella announced the winners and she said it best, "Papa did great and Nana did better."

Benjamin made little cake toppers for their lemon anniversary cake too funny.

We love you Mom and Dad, your example of love, forgiveness and especially laughter are all things we admire and look up to.

First Day

School has been underway a couple of weeks now and between piano lessons, swim team and pickups I am in the car for way too long. Glad school is here and grateful preschool has started, I like routine it helps me from becoming lazy. Parkin (4) and in his last year of preschool sniff sniff. Holman (6)is in 1st grade in a class with 10 boys and 19 girls, almost 2 to one people. Olivia(8) is in 3rd grade and is a great big sis to Holman. Bella (10) is in 5th grade and at middle school, yikes. It feels like fall is just around the corner, can't wait for football season.... just kidding.

Adrianna at nursery

Adrianna has turned the coveted age in the LDS church, she is 18 months. This means Benjamin and I can go to class without having to entertain her in hushed voices. Unfortunately she has been less than thrilled to be going to nursery. This picture was taken closer to 20 months. The girls and I occasionally watch a show called called toddlers and tiaras, it is a train wreck show, that makes you feel like you are doing a good job at being a parent because these moms can be a bit wack-a-do. Anyway we having taken to putting hot rollers in AJ's hair and she loves it, its really funny. So this is her all dolled up.

Swim Champs

This swim season was awesome. Our kids had both sets of cousins on their team, Benjamin's sister Melissa and my brother John. The kids loved knowing that despite having to wake up early on their summer vacation they at least knew they would be spending it with their cousins. We also had good friends of ours from the ward the Mendell family on the team, who were our adopted cousins. Their daughter Lyndsey and Holman plan on getting married, they talk often of their future and how they will name one of their children chocolate chip, true story. The two of them are too fun.

Holman did great. This was his first official swim team season. He managed to swim backstroke individually and for the medley relay. He also cut his breathing down to only 5 breaths in a 25 meter race. Great job H-Man!

Olivia did awesome perfecting her butterfly stroke. Her underwater stream line is picture perfect. She rocked the finals winning herself the County Champ in her age division. She loved being on a relay with her cousins Madison, Bridgett and Kate.

Bella was awarded the coaches award for her "outstanding attitude and work ethic." The coaches said she was relentless in trying to perfect her individual medley race. She walked away with a 3rd place medal in the IM, a 3rd place medal in the medley relay, and missed 1st place in her favorite stoke the backstroke by .03 seconds. It was a photo finish. She did great

Swim team really helped to get the kids out of bed and do at least one thing productive a day. I will miss that for the reaming weeks of summer. I will also miss meeting, Robin, Melissa and Kim at the park as we entertain our kids who are too young to participate.

Oh I almost forgot at the championship meet there was a parents relay. I had so much fun racing, mostly because it was so dang hot and any excuse to get in the pool! Next year Benjamin wants a parents competition to see who "qualifies" for the race, hey man I am up for that!

The last of the land

For something that has consumed my family for several years (which has felt like a decade), I must record how we were able to sell the land and the incredible timing of it. Benjamin and I have been working so hard on eliminating our massive amount of debt, none of which is credit card debt, it has felt very consuming, pinching pennies with our number one goal of paying off the land. We had set a very aggressive plan of paying off the land. I was at peace with knowing that there was nothing more we could do, I had "run " the numbers so many times I had it memorized. With this new acceptance I had decided I would make a chain representing each payment to Flagstar until we had the debt paid in full. My sister in law Sarah had reminded me of how I made a chain for Benjamin's last semester in college. I made a link for every day until he graduated. Bella was 3 at the time so when he would come home from school he would lift her up and she would snip a link. I made our "freedom from Flagstar Bank" chain last month.

I talked to my other sister-in-law Robin, who is a Realtor, about the trends in the market and when she thought it would bounce back, like others in her field she said, vacant land is just not selling right now, but usually spring and summer is when most buyers are out looking.

I talked with Benjamin after looking things over and even with our aggressive payment schedule, How long would it take for it to sell? How long (if ever) would we come out even? If we sold it at a loss now it would save us interest even if we could sell it later down the road, hoping to get out from under. The difference was a whopping 6 months of "hoping for a bird in the bush." We decide that taking the smaller bird in the hand would be the wisest course of action. And because we had been paying so aggressively this last year it was going to be a lesser blow.

I told Benjamin of my new plan and asked him what he thought. He said it made sense and that we should pray about it. The following Sunday was a fast Sunday. Which for our church means we skip two meals (typically breakfast and lunch), donate the money we would have used for food to the poor and needy and offer our will to Heavenly Father. It is a time of prayer and meditation. We were, in particular, praying for guidance on what to do with our property. That night Benjamin said he thought we should go ahead and list the land at a loss. He thought we should call our old neighbors who wanted to buy our property for that price years earlier (years earlier wouldn't have worked because we owed too much).

The next day was Monday, I was leaving for Girls Camp, a camp that our church puts on for 12-18 year old girls. Throughout the day I was really feeling the urgency to put a sign on the property. I had called my friend Amber who lives out there to tell her about the new reduced price and how I wanted to get a sign out there. She suggested we should because there was a home that was getting foreclosed on and so there was a lot of traffic of people checking to see the area.

That night at 7:30 pm we drove out to Mescal, put up a sign and hoped for the best. I went to girls camp the next day and I got a call three days later from Benjamin saying that the neighbor wanted to buy the property. I can't help thinking that since the sign was up he knew this price wasn't just for him, and it lit a fire of urgency for him too. In fact I got a phone call from another person interested in the land, all without an internet listing.

The week that we closed, that foreclosed home sold as well, it went for the same price as our land with one less acre and a home on it!

Not the ideal ending, but it rarely is. Our unofficial girls camp motto was " Life is all about how you handle plan B." That could be our motto over this experience too.

Dear Flagstar

Dear Flagstar,

We were able to sell our land today, at a loss . We took out a personal loan to cover the balance that we owed Flagstar. We did this for two reasons:

1) We wanted to fulfill our commitment to our obligations. We told you that we would never default on our loan, that we would not walk away, even though Flagstar walked away from us. We fulfilled our obligation.

2) Flagstar required a loan modification of a Balloon Loan. We didn't have a 30 year or 15 year loan, it was due in a year. Every year we had to do a modification of this loan, every year we had to be reminded of our failed construction loan. We couldn't wait to end this yearly reminder.

I was sad (though not surprised) to see at our closing a fee of $196.65 for "Overdrawn Unapplied Funds." What kind of fee is that? We have always been current with our loan. I called to speak to a Flagstar loan specialist to ask about this fee, even the specialist couldn't articulate why we had been charged this fee. He was baffled. I wasn't. This fee surmised my entire dealings with this company.

The irony of this charge was that we were credited back prepaid interest of $198.34, but then charged for being overdrawn...

This whole experience with working with Flagstar has taught me; that when the economy tumbles and push goes to shove, the Howe family will respond with honor.

Loan Number:

Lesley Howe

VP of my family

who strives to be

Honest Obedient Willing and Excellent

Parky Shark

Our little Parky turned four in May. He is a fantastic boy with so much love to give. He smiles at everything and just plain enjoys life. He will grab my face and cuddle into me and say "Mom your my best friend." Truth is he tells everyone in the family that they are his best friend. He considers this the highest compliment, and we all love hearing it.

When we were living on the land Parkin would wake up in the middle of the night and need to be comforted to go back to sleep, since we were in the small trailer we were always worried that the older kids would wake up, so Parkin often cuddled with us in our bed. We attribute these early experiences to why he still crawls into to bed with us on occasion. But both Benjamin and I love cuddling with him that we find ourselves strangely ok with our night time cuddle.

For Parkin's birthday I made chocolate cupcakes for preschool and my usual crown and we sang to him at recess, luckily this hit the spot and he was completely satisfied with his "birthday party."

Parkin, I love you so very much. Your little face makes me smile. You calm me when I am getting tense or worked up, just with a hug , and "mom you need to be nice." He is the kids best attorney always their advocate. Parkin you are so very "special to me." Love you son ! xxx000

Makeover

So I was so siked to post my makover pictures, then I realized I am old. I know people who are older than me will say, stop it Lesley. But I can't help that I am 33 and feel like I should look like I am 22. What i am trying to say is, I feel better inside than I look, does that make sense? I will try on and outfit and think, oh I love this, then I will see a picture of myself later and say, wow you didn't look as good as you felt. I wish it was the other way around, i think I look bad then I see a picture and say wow girl you look better than you think! I know I am not a super model (obviously) it just funny how age just creeps up on you, unless you are a meth user.

My good girlfriend Emily has a sister named Brooke, who was was graduating from an internship at Gadabout, a prestigious salon and spa. Brooke needed a model to do a color and cut, a big change. I was in, I had been wanting a change. Brooke did a fantastic job, giving me what I wanted, a natural-looking red tone to my hair. I also didn't want a butch cut, something shorter and sleeker, I think she caught my vision just perfectly.























I think it is funny that Parkin posed with me on my before photos without a shirt and when I came back several hours later, he still didn't have a shirt.




















It was a lot of fun, Brooke was easy to talk to. Parkin for the last three days has thanked heavenly Father for Moms new hair, gotta love the vote of confidence :)

In the name of KKP

I have to say that I just love teaching preschool, I really do. I love the kids. This age is so fun and the things they say are unpredicatable. I love the curriculum. I love teaching basic concepts with songs, dance, stories, plays, and educational toys, it is right up my alley for fun. I love using positive comments to motivate educational growth. I love seeing them learn.It is the perfect part-time job for me, I love doing it. It involves my children and it is conviently located at my house (sometimes not so convenient keeping it clean , but teaching preschool in my home has really helped motivate the family to keep all public rooms clean).

Another major perk for teaching preschool is the need to stock the house properly. I "needed" a drinking fountain, so my husband installed one. I "needed" a laminator so we got one. I "needed" a new printer so we bought one. I "needed" cute holiday decorations, because the kids notice things like that (and they really do). I "needed" a picnic table so my husband made one. I am so blessed to have a husband who is talented and who is so supportive of the school. He made that picnic table in a weekend. The kids love to have snack time outside. It is also great when we have a particular messy craft, like exploding volcanoes. He even got the wood for free.

I keep trying to convince Benjamin that I need a green lawn for the "kids." If we could workout a way to get a sprinkler system in the front yard it would be golden


* also in the name of preschool: I use to be so frustrated when I would ask my kids to clean a particular room and they would do a not so thorough job. I printed out a step by step direction sheet on how to clean a particular room. My living room directions say: 1) remove toys and other objects from the couches and put those things away. 2) If there are things on the carpet put them away. 3) Look under the couches if there is trash throw it away, put all other objects away. 4) Put the pillows on the couch. 5) Vacuum the rug and the carpet. I lamanated :) the directions . The kids are in charge of the room for a week, then they rotate every Monday night. I always have the kitchen and Parkin always has the foyer room. We work on our rooms after dinner. This has helped my sanity so much, even Bella commented on how much she likes the new cleaning method. The kids now know my expectations so they are not frustrated when I tell them it is not finished, they read the sheet and follow it. Now that we have been doing it for a while everyone is quick. Funny how they think the hardest room is the one they have.

Civility

Benjamin and I went out to dinner a couple of weeks ago with his siblings and parents. Benjamin and I arrived first at the restaurant, since we threw this party together last minute, we had a long wait out side the restaurant. Twice I was approached by people who needed money, not Benjamin or anyone else around us, just me. Did I have a hallo glow about me or was I the homeliest one in the bunch(that is probably more likely)? Luckily I had several one dollar bills and was able to share. Last week I was at Home Depot buying a large living room rug, I managed to load that giant sucker on a cart and was making my way out the store, when I was approached by another person needing money. He said he was a contractor out of work and was wanting some money for gas, he said he was willing to do odd jobs around the house. I told him I didn't have any money and wished him well. He said thank you and offered to load my carpet out of good will. It was very kind of him because it was large and heavy. Later when I watched him go back to his car where his wife was sitting I looked in my purse where I was surprised to find a rather large bill. I sighed. Said a prayer asking Heavenly father if he wanted the man to have the money, sadly I was probably hoping he would say keep it. Funny thing, I think I have said that same prayer many times when people have asked me for money and Heavenly Father has never said to keep it. I got in my car circled the parking lot where I found him approaching another person, he was busy so I gave the money to his wife.

In the Book of Mormon in the book of Mosiah it says:
22And if ye ^ajudge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your ^bcondemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life ^cbelongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

I saw this great short video called civility, where it talks about not judging others, what a remarkable eloquent man, I was surprised.

http://lds.org/pages/the-civility-experiment?lang=eng

I think civility is a dying art in America. It is easy not to be civil to people especially if we don't see them face to face. Several years ago Benjamin and I bought a very expensive AC unit from Sears for our house (at least it was expensive to us) and it kept having problems. I had had it. I called up Sears and really gave it to the person on the other end of the phone, it was ugly. I couldn't get it out of my head how bad I was to this person. So the next day I called to apologize. Sears is a huge company, I had to speak to like five different people to finally be connected to the person I had blown up at. When I finally got her on the phone I was emotional with my apology. She didn't know what to say. She said no one had ever called her back after loosing it. Civility is treating people the same way as if you were standing face to face in your living room.

I like the videos where they show people changing for the better it gives me hope.

Double Digits

I can't believe I have a daughter who is now in double did-gets. Bella turned ten in March. I only have her for 8 more years before she is 18. She is a fantastic daughter so kind, likeable, inclusive and smart. I love that she is at an age where she can observe things about life and add her humor about what she sees. I couldn't ask for a better oldest. She is thoughtful and protective. She is just below my chin, which is the same distance that is between Benjamin and I.






Bella had an Asian party, we made invitations that had a pair of chopsticks and a fortune cookie inviting them to an "Asian dinner." I made homemade egg rolls for 12 girls (that was a lot of frying). We lowered our tables to get that authentic fee, each girl went home with a fan, some actually made it home without breaking it :)



Bella prefers brownies so I marbled it with caramel. This is a picture of Bella posing with one of her best friends Emerald. Bella's cousin Morgan even let her borrow her Asian Halloween costume, which Bella was excited about.

It was a great night, and when China takes over our country in 2015 our family will be ready to embrace the culture.

I love you Bella! You are a delight, I love the young woman that you are becoming. I consider myself extremely lucky to have you as a daughter. I love traveling this journey with you.

Blah Blah Blog

I can't believe I haven't posted since January. I have had some posts floating around in my head but haven't had the gumption to get to it. With laundry, cooking, doing the dishes, laundry, dishes, preschool and my calling at church, I just haven't gotten around to it. Plus I don't have a lot of friends and relatives who blog regularly, I think if I did I would be more likely to spin stuff out. In an effort to weed out unproductive things in my life I no longer belong to facebook, not that I spent a whole lot of time on the thing, the bad just outweighed the good to me. So I have kind of dropped off from the computer. A great invention and horrible one all at once. For preschool it is fantastic, for wasting time its bad.

My last post about Anna came right before she got her molars, she is back to her wonderful self. My little blondie, her vocab has increased with; doggy, dog, puppy, Wilbur and Luke. She is a gem. It is great how much she talks despite all her ear infections (we are treating one right now).

Benefits of a blog is the ability to go back and remember things.

I was in the drive though window at the bank and the woman teller sent back with my receipt lolly pops for the kids. Holman said, " Dogs are mans best friend and kids are women's best friend." I thought that was great. Love all the women who show my children their mother hearts.

Parkin was yelling for me to "come wipe my bum Mom." Which doesn't annoy me at least he enjoys good hygiene (which I cant say for all of my children). I arrive to help him and he says, "your such a nice lady. " I tell Parkin that he has special powers. He can always brighten the day and defuse a heated situation with his comments and his sweet smile he often tells me, "mom you are my best friend." Love that boy.

Olivia and Bella may not be twins but they sure are close. I am glad I have those two. I know if I were their age i would have wanted to be friends with them (and cheat off their papers) joking, sorta :)

First words

Our little Adrianna is very independent. When the kids try to pick her up she will squeal if she thinks it is a bad idea. Her first words have been "don't", "no"and "stop." She has managed Ma and Da and I think Luke. Truth be told she has been extra cranky lately. She has had three ear infections and the doctor said if she gets another one he will put tubes in. I took her to see the pediatrician and I said she either has an ear infection or a personality disorder. No ear infection. Her squealing/ screaming got so bad that Olivia has taken to praying that "we all will love her like we should." Bella was saying that she was at the bottom of her list because of all the whining, Holman responded that Adrianna was the only person on his list. That girl has a huge fan-advocate and she doesn't even know it :)

1/1/11

What a great baptism date! Olivia was so excited to get baptized. She was baptised in a dress that Barbara made over 30 years ago, Olivia thought that was awesome. Benjamin and I talked to Olivia about how everyone can know for themselves if the church is true, how our Heavenly Father wants us to come to him with questions and concerns in life and how he will answer every prayer. She said I already know that I want to be baptised, I feel good about it. Olivia is always one of the first to suggest prayer when something is lost or needed, she provides our family with a lot of faith, laughter and vocabulary. We had so much fun shopping for her after baptism dress.That girl knows how to shop and is amusing during the process.

We had family and friends come to our house after the baptism for meatball subs and waffle bowl ice cream, good times. Thanks to all family and friends who made the event (the Smiths drove down from Bountiful, what a drive! Amy from Minnesota was there, dotcha know. Sarah from Virginia and Aaron and Jen's family from AJ, its in Arizona but its still a drive). Olivia I love you so very much and feel extremely blessed to be your mother. You are so kind, forgiving and helpful and so much dang fun! You are beautiful inside and out! Thank you for being an excellent daughter!