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Stephanie Howell

reading, organizing, shopping, momming too close to the sun. Home is wherever the Army sends us.

Pookiness

It’s interesting experiencing Halloween time with a 2 year old.

I’ve never really noticed how many terrifying things are out this time of year.
For example, the scary masks at CVS?
The ones Mommy tried on without thinking ( i was going to send one to J in his Halloween package)
Harper won’t even go down that aisle.
She screamed so loud I’m pretty sure people thought I was kidnapping her.
Sidenote: this is the same visit to CVS 
that involved an incident with me looking for an ear thermometer and harper
loudly saying “NO MOMMY BUY FERMOMETER FOR MY BOOTY.”

 

The headless screaming bride at Michaels? 
The one that started moving when Harper walked by?
The one that has made sure we aren’t going back to Michaels anytime soon
b/c Harper now says “MEMBER LADY HOLDING HEAD??? TOO POOKY”.
Lovely.

 

Too pooky

 

So we really enjoyed spending time with Jimmy’s parents.
They couldn’t believe how much the girls had grown.
It was good to have some time to just relax and let someone else entertain them.
They were both in full show-off mode. Too cute.

 

That’s about it, but I do have a couple of sneaks of the November Studio Calico kit.
I do still have TONS more to make, but here’s something to tide you over.

 

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Well, I’m off to have a fascinating day, I’m sure.
Entertaining, cleaning, and surviving.

 

love you all!
xoxo

Staying Busy

We’ve been to the arboretum, which frankly, doesn’t even deserve that name.

There are like 5 flowers and one dead end trail.
My brother and I were dying laughing at how bad it was,
but still got some cute pictures:

 

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And today we went to the zoo, which is actually really good considering where we live!

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Yes, I know it’s kind of random that I don’t have any pictures of animals,
but I couldn’t get a decent photo to save my life.

So that’s all I’ve got. Going, going, doing, staying busy.
And it’s working for now!

Lots of love to you all!
xo

Not a Cloud in the Sky

REMINDER: winners of the baby legs drawing are below in the previous post. Please read and contact me if you won!

It’s a beautiful, beautiful day.

Cool enough this morning for long sleeves,
and about 80 degrees right now.
70 would be better, but let’s just say it’s almost the perfect day.

Emailing back and forth with J. this morning made it even better.
I sent him this picture of Sadie and he says he can’t stop looking at it:

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He says he wouldn’t know what she looked like if I didn’t keep him up to date with my photos.
How sad is that?
But it makes me grin when he talks about how beautiful she is.
Because she sure is. Those eyes…sigh!

Before ballet yesterday:
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We are in a good patch.
Content with life’s blessings, enjoying being together, and not too many tantrums.
This book really helped. It has made such a difference, I can’t recommend it enough.

I used Love and Logic as a teacher and love using it as a parent as well.
In a nutshell the tenets are:

  • Helping kids feel good about themselves.

  • The child is always left feeling he/she has some control.

  • Adults learn to discipline with equal shares of empathy and consequence.

  • The child is required to do more thinking than the adult. 

Anyway, thought it was worth sharing.

I’m just staying busy around here with the chickies…we finally painted the hallway and now I’m moving on to the countertops. We are thinking granite tile. Fascinating, I know. Hahaha!

Other than that, nothing new except for a few pages I want to share.

True love
Guesting this week for the Color Combo Challenge!:

Swing baby

You may notice a small label obsession on every single one of my layouts…
I’ve mentioned this before, but I got them from my girl Aja. Her shop is called TwoGirlzStuff at Etsy and she is fantastic!!

Well, I think I hear the girls. That means nap time is over and we are off for a backyard adventure.

Love to you all!
xo
s

Fall-ish

fall is upon us. oh, i’m sorry..it’s TX and it is not.

but i’m pretending.
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Life has been good.
Still just taking it day to day.
Soon, J will have been gone three months…
and if they change his deployment to a year,
that means we are a quarter of the way through!!
(trying to think positive here).

 

The girls are good.
Well, I just caught Harper trying to ride Sadie like a horse,
and thought that was kind of weird…but I digress.

 

I’m almost done reading Love and Logic,
and it’s really working.
Harper is doing really well,
last Friday she walked into Mother’s Day out all by herself and blew us a kiss
and today she went into ballet all by herself!!!
NO MORE BEING THE ONLY MAMA IN THE ROOM!!!
oh joy!

 

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They are starting to play more together these days,
Sadie is SLIGHTLY scared of harper. Or in awe…not sure which one.
Witness awkward baby smile below to see what I mean:
NOTE: please ignore grody industrial carpet in the play room.   (i mean, really…what was the previous owner thinking? we will be redoing these floors one day. paneling and ugly carpet…what a treasure!!).

 

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That’s all I’ve got for today, just wanted to say hey.
xo
s

 

Coming out of Hiding

To share a couple of layouts I did this week. 
Nothing special, pretty simple and sweet:

 

Vibrant

 

Grace

 

c. To tell you I’m okay.
I’m feeling better and stronger each day. I’ve been able to speak to J on the phone,
and that has helped immensely. I think I’ll be back to my “old self” soon. 

 

d.To show you the sweetest little ballerina ever.

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She is obsessed with her teacher, hence the creeping closer and closer 
bit by bit thing. She has gotten so much more graceful (see layout above).
xoxo
s

HELP: Have any of you had issues with your video freezing in you tube? Several of you are telling me you can’t see it…any advice?? It seems to show the thumbnail, but start to play and then freeze, what the heck?? maybe i can upload it straight through typepad??