Audrey gets blessed

Ah Halloween

Tyler wearing his Prince Zuko costume!!


a picture of the cartoon zuko

Now this is Tyler being Prince Zuko. Check out his cool Fire bending stance!! Man my kiddos rock!! So for all of you who did not know. Our family decided this year to go "Avatar" now when I say that I mean the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar... not to be confused with the blue show or the (dare I even mention it) movie avatar the last airbender (TOTAL FLOP did not do the cartoon an ounce of justice)!! I think we are cartoon purists over here!!



Hayden all dressed up as Aang during season 3 the fire nation attire





Here are his poses



Watch out because Aang is mighty powerful!! doesn't his costume rock?


Jayce and Alice (in wonderland) getting ready for trick or treating! Does he look excited to you?


Our trick or treating crew!!


All three of my cute kiddos



The sword master!!


and the mini sword master.. how do you like his fighting stance? We told him to pose and this is what he did!! Just like the older boys!!




A family of avatars!!


All dressed up!!



The GIRL in the family..check out the dress!! Katie told me that it used to be her dolls dress. Now it is mine!!










Thanks to Martha for these beautiful Audrey pics!


The Howe girls!!!


birthday boy




Tyler's birthday cake was lots easier to make than hayden's cake. I am just glad he still likes star wars. This is the actual mustafar lava world bday cake. See obi-wan has the higher ground ;)



Hayden's birthday cake!! All he said was mom I want a blockland cake. At first he told me he wanted the word blockland all in blocks but!!!! gee kiddo ask for the impossible so I asked if making his blockland guy would be ok. He said as long as it was the NASA blockland guy!! The kid is really into space right now.

Hollywood Attack

Okay so we made a trip to the Pantages theater last week. Jeff surprised me with tickets to go and see Fiddler on the Roof. We saw this play when we were dating and evaluating how much we really liked eachother :) Honestly though we saw fiddler on the roof up at Sundance at the outside theater in the summer. It was in the evening and the play was so fabulous that Jeff and I have talked about it often. So this was a really fun thing that he did to surprise me.

Jeff actually only had to work for half the day - til 3. so we thought it would be nice to go and see some of Hollywood. Crazy unknowing folk that we are. Neither of us has been to Hollywood to see it in all of its glamour... the stars, the theaters, the glitz - it is so known for... NOT AT ALL THE CASE!!! Why didn't someone warn me. We went out to eat close to our home and thought we would drive to Pantages and see all the stars on the sidewalk etc but upon arrival to the area, neither of us really wanted to get out of the car..SCAREY! and we both thought it the best idea to park right across the street from the Pantages theater no matter what the cost of parking would be - no time to be thrifty with your money when you will be walking these streets AT NIGHT.

We probably would have stayed in the car if I, being pregnant and all, didn't have to use a bathroom. We walked up and down a block or too holding hands and trying to be brave until we finally found a ..Library. I deemed this to be a safe place for a bathroom. I was wrong - that was the scariest bathroom I have ever been in, and I have never done my business so fast just to get out of a place and back to my husband who further confirmed my fears by exclaiming that his bathroom was a horror to see.

We immediately left the library and proceeded to the Pantages theater, where we stood outside of it one and half hours early and just talked. Glad to be in a line of other play people and near to the doors. Moral of the story Hollywood is not a place to sight see!!! Now I know why I have lived here for 30 years and never made the trip for the purpose of seeing anything but a play/opera within an enclosed building. :)

By the way our play was spectacular - just amazing. The guy who played Tevye, the main character, had played this role over 2500 times. He was amazing and made the play so funny! Glad we got to see the play and the pantages theater is so beautiful inside. Why does a building so beautiful inside with such great works of Art on its stage have to be in a setting so ugly and scarey?

In Fast Forward

Why is it that during the school year time sort of drags but the minute the bell rings on the last day of school and you and all your friends stream out of the school building that time starts to speed by. It seems as though Summer started yesterday and Somewhere in the middle someone has grabbed the TIVO remote and skip, skip, skip here we are: only a month left til school begins again.

Why does this happen with Summer??? It happens to be my favorite time of the year - For me and the boys it has been filled with tons of fun. It all started off with a trip to "Papa Grover's house..." and well, let's start with the trip to Wyoming...

which can best be described by....well look and see

Ahhh Wyoming

For all of you Howe-folk that have not grown up with the Summer adventures to Wyoming these pictures and this blog may give you a little insight into your partner's or friends upbringing. A little glance of what as a child he or she may have been doing for a week during an escape from school. ( Since we all had year round back then and just said "so what!" we will go where we want and when we want to!!") Thanks Mom and Dad!

I loved those summer adventures and now as a parent wish so badly to give the same things to my babies. I feel like I did a good job recreating some of our adventures during our 2 week long vacation. You tell me!!



WE got to play with the cows. If by playing you understand that we moved them from one field to another. yelled, yipped and hi-yah-ed them, fixed the fences they knocked down TWICE in knee to almost thigh deep mud - MOM you are amazing! fell into ditches trying to get them moving and corraled some injured ones for a later shot - then yes we did a lot of cow playing!!

Tyler and Hayden's favorite part was calling the cows with Papa Grover!! We walked down the road and said "Come Cows!!" loudly with vigor and walah this is what we saw. Those cows really know Dad's voice. They just came! The kids are now convinced whenever we hear the song "Rawhide" that it is Papa Grover singing to the cows. (Boy I wonder what would give them that idea)



A few days into our vacation, Jeff decided he wanted to see a little more of the town. Can't say how much that makes me laugh. Em wanted to see more of it too once on a vacation - like a little tour and I couldn't believe they didn't understand the fact that there is no "more" involved in the town. What you see as you pass through holding your eyes wide open so as not to miss a lick is ...what you get! We did however find an old bridge over the Shoshoni to investigate. Here we are in the car by an old bridge. You can see the Sugar factory from this pic and for those of you who can remember the smell..cringe for me..boy did I hate that smell.



WE did include the annual trip to Yellowstone!! we did get quite a few yellowstone trips in during our childhood. WE saw the "mud volcanos", the waterfalls, old faithful, idiots trying to get killed by Buffalo and so much more. We did stop for a family picnic by this lake where the boys and Dad skipped stones. If you click onthe picture you can see from Hayden's face some marvelous stone skipping had just occured!!



A family photo shoot near the waterfalls



Mom and Dad. I am always happy to get Dad in a picture, remember all the vacations of just us and no Dad!! The man behind the camera. Look we have a Dad!! I think this is a good picture of the both of them - DO NOT disagree with me MOM! :)



Hayden and Tyler, not to mention.. Dad must have eaten 5 or 6 popsicles a day!! They loved it. IT was hot enough to want to lick some ice all day long so who can blame them. And you remember how Grandma Howe always had popsicles for us... yeah right the real truth is that she had popsicles for DAD!!! we just helped him to eat them all!! Sticky hands mixed with heat and lots of DIRT. oh the fun.



and the Wyoming thunderstorms. hot during the day and then the rain begins and plunges to the ground. You can see the Thunderstorm coming. Here mom and the boys are counting the seconds beteween the lightning and thunder. We had to finish up some projects quickly to make it to the house before we got soaked. Although a good wyoming soaking doesn't really chill you. It is quite nice.



WE made a trip out to horseshoe bend - which surprisingly folks is Full and I mean FULL of water and GREEN grass and lots of people. I have no idea where they came from. I didn't think there were lots of people in Wyoming. It was Mustang days and they had a SPECTACULAR not kidding..AMAZING fireworks show at Good ol horseshoe bend. Here the boys are beating on JEff waiting for "dusk" to come, which in Wyoming is not until 10:30pm at night. We waited for a long time...



And we played on tractors



and more tractors. oh what fun!!



And we ran from red ants and doused ourselves in Mosquito repellant, wore cowboy hats and long sleeve shirts to work in hot weather. had pancakes and sausages and REAL hamburger!!! oh how we love the hamburger! WE set off fireworks, bottle rockets, poppers, snakes, smoke bombs, parachutes, had a whole bunch of watermelon and all in all had a lovely family vacation.



On our drive home, Jeff, always the adventurist wanted to stop and see everything. This is in the canyon outside of Thermopolis, where Dad got pulled over once for alerting a police officer that he had his brights on!! WE wanted to check out the waterfalls, the dam, the old train tunnel and all the bird nests inside. Basically we explored for a bit..



well they explored and I watched from afar. You can see the dam and the waterfall in the background. If only you could see all the birds in the sky above my head that their exploring scared out. Just glad I didn't get pooped on.



We also got out on top of Sweet Water Canyon. I have to remember that things that I have seen a billion..well it feels like a billion times, Jeff hasn't really seen before. It is beautiful to see things through his eyes as a first time observer.



All in all I think we did it all, the long drive with kids "in the back" - the popsicles, the rootbeer or pop of some kind. the leaving at obscenely early hours to drive for a long time, the heat, the mosquitos, cows, dirt, red ants, fireworks, parades - Wish the 4-wheelers were working or I would have included that, the visit to Aunt Grace's house, left out a billings trip because ...I didn't want to get back in the car for a long time after the trip up. Yellowstone and a few other additives that the Montgomery part of this family added into the mix. We had a wonderful time - Thanks MOM And DAD!!

I don't have time to edit this post - I am just amazed I actually got to blog at all. Don't judge on spelling and grammer.

Transition

So it has been a while and frankly it is because I haven't been able to figure out how to transition from the last blog into this next one. But the other day I realized that this would not really be news to anyone who reads this anyway.

SO here it goes... I am not pregnant anymore, I miscarried. And it sucked! and I cried and I had a very bad month and a half trying to sort out everything in my head. Still today I have moments where I loathe pregnant women and all their ridiculous complaining but I am getting better. I have been released back into public, deemed as no risk to others. (Can't say I completely agree with that because people are ridiculously stupid sometimes. ) Wouldn't it be fun just to pop them upside the head and say "Get a clue!" I know you all agree with me. IT would be soooo satisfying to do it.

Anyway I think of that because lately it seems like I keep running into or talking with the biggest idiots. People who like to ask when I am having more children, or who complain about their pregnancy to me (Come on now you know you are proud of me for not popping that person in the head) Dad always says "USE YOUR HEAD" and I think I just want to say that to everyone.

Anyway IT was my birthday on Sat and Jeff took me to see Taken. REAL intense, on the edge of your seat, movie. Lots of killing - I think Dad would love it!

I have a squirmy hungry child on my lap and I think I had better address his issues.

ODE/OWED TO MARTHA

So As you all should know by now I am pregnant. And to answer some funny questions about being pregnant like, "how pregnant are you?" I would like to say I am 100% pregnant. I mean either you are or you aren't there is no half way mark with pregnancy. With that said, I would like to say I think I am feeling 100% pregnant as well. With Tyler and Hayden I had what I thought was a hard first trimester, dry heaving, feeling the nausea etc that come with welcoming a parasite into your body.

With this little bugger I have been wiped out, knocked over, hit hard - whatever you would like to say. I have no doubt that I feel 100% pregnant. SO in my complete misery of nausea and vomiting and trying to separate myself from the porcelain bowl I had become all too familiar with I called for back-up in the form of a sister. I called Martha after I had been unable to eat for 3 days, after I felt like I had no more energy left and was going to melt into the blankets of my bed and stay there for good. I called her when Jeff could no longer stay home and take care of me. I did not know how I was going to take care of 2 kids and feel 100% pregnant.

So I called her full of tears, "please come take care of me?" desperate for hope that somehow I could feel a little less puny. She said "Yes!" and there was hope! She came as fast as she could, she made me food, she cleaned my house, she took away many nasty little odors that had crept up in my house during my inability to function. She picked Hayden up from school, went grocery shopping for me, put gas in my car, did my laundry - and I started to feel better. And I needed her less but loved her so much more. I am just so thankful for her because she was there when I couldn't do a thing. I have never felt so horrible and now I am a little better, a little more alive and I feel like it is all OWED to MArtha. I can't thank you enough - you saved my life!