Cheaper by the Coach

This memorable quote from one of my kids favorite movies "Cheaper by the Dozen" is what I am living right now......

Hank: It's gettin' so as I can hardly go out in public any more. I mean, really, between the autograph hounds and the paparazzi...
Kate: Autographs and everything? I mean, just the one commercial, and you have paparazzi?
Hank: Yeah. I've never actually seen them, but, you know, they hide in the bush and... they get their shot.

Click the link and you will understand!

Howe works to create Benson swim team

Kit Kat Wins Sorta

Today we had our sonogram appointment. I asked the girls what their favorite candy bar was and they came to a consensus that kit Kat was their favorite. I asked the boys (well just Holman) what candy bar he liked the best it was a pretty big toss up between M&M and Reese's, finally he went with M&M. Which ever sex the baby was the winning team got to distribute the winning candy bar. Our little baby is a shy one, back towards my tummy and legs crossed. So the doctor only gave us an 80% likelihood of the baby being a girl. I thought about eating one stick of each of the kids candy but that would symbolize 75% not 80%. My sister Lindsey said with a percentage as unsure as that she doesn't feel we should share, well we did and have. Next month the doctor will do another sonogram and hopefully she will cooperator better. Our baby guru ( Penny Hardt) has predicted all four of our kids correctly and she said girl, so girl it probably is. 20 more weeks till the end of this race and we shall know for sure.

Cowboy Up!

A Benson phrase that we have picked up that we love is Cowboy Up. When there is a job to be done that nobody wants to do its "Cowboy Up." It's similar to one of my favorite phrases "Bear Down" and not as crass as "Suck it up."

When I asked the kids to collect the eggs there was a lot of shifting responsibility. Quietly Holman got up went to his room and "got suited up" for his rodeo. He Cowboyed Up, put on his armor and walked out to the pen. He doesn't like his feet getting pecked at so he made sure to put on his sisters heels. We love our warrior!




Parkin is looking on very impressed with his big brother. Man those chicks look afraid.....

New York and DC with my fabulous sisters

The lady herself.












Central Park with two cute tourists :)














We always take pictures of our feet.....why?











Arlington was awesome specially on Sunday, there is a special feeling there.


















Who is that other girl in the photo, she is taking away from my moment with Honest Abe!
















I love my sisters! We had such a great time, up till 2:00 am every night, we were all exhausted but didn't want to waste a moment. Next time maybe Oprah or Finland :)

Puppy Parkin

I love this boy, he brings me so much joy. He truly is a puppy, who doesn't love a puppy?!

Living on the upside of down

The downside is that my 2 year old is not potty trained. I had begun the process about a week and half before we moved to our new place, that way all the accidents could occur at the land/trailer. He was doing pretty well until the Father Son camp out. I do not blame Benjamin for wanting to put him in diapers for the camp out, but you can't go back and truth be told he was doing ok, not great. Back to diapers, sigh. But the upside is my darling daughters have taken to changing his diapers, in fact I think they enjoy the challenge. Bella always says, "Man I should be on Dirty Jobs for this." Whatever gets her through.

My second thing to note this week is about frugality. Wanting to keep some of the skills I have learned on our extended "camp out" I decided that I didn't need a dryer. Our friends gave us their old washing machine, and our old set is back at our rental, so all we were missing was the drying machine. I thought hey I don't need a dryer, I don't need to waste the money, when I have a perfectly good hot sun that zaps moisture in seconds. So alas I went without, I purchased a drying rack for outside. There are two reasons why people back in the day did not use drying machines: 1) they were not invented 2) they only had one day outfit and one Sunday best. Maybe I should just pare down the amount of clothes we have to two outfits a piece, then I think I could handle the line drying, but we don't. The kids need to change five times a day and dirty each piece of clothing, right? Maybe if it were just Benjamin and I, I could handle it. But distractions happen and rather than chucking the wet clothes immediately in the dryer I think oh shoot I have to hang each piece and oh wait Parkin has the jam and is spreading it on the floor. I get to distracted by my lack of desire to hang the clothes and trying to make sure the house doesn't get burned down. Bottom line I am in the market for a nice used drying machine, bless this modern world.


This picture is shows an easy load just towels!

Benson Barracuda's

Suzie and I had been driving our kids into Tucson every day for swim team. It is a long drive for a sport, but this is southern Arizona in summertime, if your kids aren't swimming what else are they doing for exercise? You can't very well send them out to play a game of soccer when the heat is in the 90's (ahh Benson is at least 5 -7 degrees cooler than Tucson, let me tell you it does make a difference!). We had hopes of starting a swim team in Benson next season when we could learn more about the surrounding communities swim team league. I had made a serendipitous call to the Cove in Sierra Vista to find out who they competed against, I was shocked when they listed Benson as one of the swim teams. I then called up the city of Benson to find out about this team that never was listed or advertised. The lady in charge said they were trying to start up a team but nobody had done a swim team before and weren't sure how to start. I asked her what she needed , a coach, and swimmers. Done. Between Scott and Suzie's 5 swimmers and our 2 we had seven willing kids to start the Benson team. Suzie's and my goal was to have a least one other kid who was not a Howe on the team. We accomplished it, there are about 13 kids on the team and we are hoping our numbers will grow when word gets out. The city of Benson's pool is 25 yards so smaller than competition sized pools (25 meters), but there are plenty of private leagues in Tucson that use that size pool. Unfortunatly the pool doesn't have lane lines or hooks in the pool to string lane lines, but after brainstorming with my Father and sister Hillary we came up with a plan. We got pier blocks, rope and fun noodles strung them together and voila, lane lines. It's been a lot of fun starting the program, the kids love that their Mom is the coach, and it is great that we have Scott and Suzie's teenagers to help out (and score points) for our little team. The meet was awesome we had several top places. The first video is of Bella doing her thing in backstroke, she got first place, not that it maters ;) The second video is of Olivia, Sydney and Bella swimming free style. Bella and Sydney continue to touch the wall simultaneously as 1st and 2nd. Olivia is in the far lane plugging along like a champ, we are so proud of her, bless her for being born in a swimming family. She will learn to love it, yes she will :)