Stephanie Howell

have a beautiful, blessed weekend!

xo

s

Good stuff, keep the entries coming in, you have until Friday!

It’s grey and gloomy here, I’ve got the blahs/drearies a bit.

I’m sure it will be better soon, we are getting little stir crazy around here.

The girls are getting over being sick, and I’m wondering if Miss S is still feeling bad,

she is so very clingy and she’s crying lots.

Bless her little heart.

Speaking of Miss S, check out this hair:

and that pug nose. heee! i had the same nose when I was a baby.

she’s into animal sounds right now, she walks around saying RUFF RUFF, hisssss, and ooh ooh ahh ahh. she’s a funny one.

and she’s still needling harper every chance she gets. 

H and I had a fairy tea party the other night. 

She’s gotten super picky at meal time (this is the child that usually devours EVERYTHING), so the tea party is a fun way to get her to eat.

I was looking through photos from J’s leave and found this one:

Technically it’s not a great photo,

but it makes me happy nevertheless. Look at the two of them!

Have a beautiful day!

xo

i heard a little voice from the back seat say

“mama? is daddy still in ahhgannisann being bwave?”

i answered yes and that little voice sighed, waited a beat or two, and said

“i just miss him so much sometimes.”.

and i said, “i know baby, i do too”.

there were more injuries this week,

one of his men was shot and had brain surgery yesterday.

i’m thinking about his sweet wife and how scared she must be, 

how powerless she must feel while he is far away and recovering,

and how she knew this was a possibility when she sent him away.

it something that might happen to any of us at any time.

but he makes it worth it.

i can’t imagine not living this life, but sometimes it baffles me.

that i go through daily life smiling, but in the back of my head i’m always thinking about it.

what harper said put it perfectly. out of the mouths of babes, right?

random thoughts on a lazy sunday.

harper came down with a 103 fever last night out of NOWHERE. 

she’s better today, but we are taking it easy. we are all still in our pajamas 

and we will watch movies for most of the day.

well, h and i will watch movies while sadie walks around and throws things and makes grumpy noises at us for being so boring.

i hope you are all happy and healthy.

be back soon!

xo

2. Thinking about my “Spring Break ’09” road trip we took yesterday with my dear friend Sarah . Our running joke was remembering our spring breaks in college. WHOOOHHOOOOO! SPRING BREAK 1999 BABY!!! (which for me, i think was south padre island).

Well, this year, SPRING BREAK ’09 BAAAABY! WHOOO HOOO!!!!, we packed all of our kiddos (five total) into Sarah’s minivan, and took a road trip to Austin to find the bluebonnets. I was joking that I might chug some juice boxes on the way and we should shoe polish the windows SPRING BREAK ’09!!!!

oh, how times change. so, it seems. we very well may have been out of our minds for attempting this. i’m pretty sure we’ve both gone crazy in the past 8 months (her husband, nick, is deployed w/ j.). it was umm.. quite the adventure. but so much fun. so so so much more fun than sitting around my house going nuts.

funny story…we never quite found those bluebonnets. it was a total wild goose chase. i won’t get into it, but it involves a highway being completely shut down and these things being randomly yelled from the back seat.

AAARRRRRGHHHHHHH (poor 5 year old cole, being sandwiched between two 3 year old girls).

I NEED TO POOP! (repeatedly, and that would be from my child.)

WAHAHHAHWAHWAHWAH (two exhausted one year olds, out of their minds from fatigue)

um, mommy? are we almost to the flowers? where are the flowers? (harper).

it was quite the trip, but i love sarah and we always have so much fun with them. 

i also learned that my daughter is way too spazzy (like mama like daughter) to get those darling running up the steps photos:

i also learned that sadie wasn’t really “into the whole road trip thing”.

3. This conversation with Harper yesterday. I was taking a bath with Sadie, Harper walked in and said:

“oh mama, your boobies look nice! they are beautiful!!”

HAAAAAAAAAAAA. Okay. I’m pretty sure that’s the ONLY time I’ll hear that in my life. Love it. And yes, Lisa Dickinson, this one is just for you. 

4. This series of photos. I actually laugh really loud every time I look at them, and I’ve looked at them a LOT.

oh 

my

gosh.

HEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHE i’m totally laughing again.

In case you are wondering what in the world this is all about, this is sneaky, devious, Sadie pulling her sister’s hair.

And for those of you that might think it’s mean for me to photograph this,

it literally happened in a span of a few seconds.

I don’t know if I think Harper’s faces are funnier, 

or Sadie’s “Wha? i’m not doing anything??” faces.

Whoa, that was a long one.

Hope you are all having a beautiful Wednesday!!

xo

When I ask for help you give me help, and opinions (some of them blunt), and i LOVE that. 

So here’s what I have decided. I ordered this one:

Which was overwhelmingly your favorite. 

So i knew i HAD to order this one.

What else I will get is to be decided. I’m making a day trip to Austin at the end of March, and I will be hitting up Anthropologie and other assorted stores. Thanks for the tip on White House/Black Market, KP. Forgot about that one.

I’ll get whatever else I need at that point…I think I need to be trying on things before I order them.

BIG NEWS:

looks like the dc trip is for sure at this point! j has gotten the go ahead from his commander. he thinks he will come here for a few days before the  trip (all of his uniforms,etc. are here) and then we will fly to DC together. he will go back to afghan. from there.

i never expected this extra time together in a million years, and i’m so thrilled.

For those of you that asked about the leaks..

this was us all last week:

How gross is that? Plus the water was super stinky and just disgusting overall.

Now on top of everything else, we have to have our carpet cleaned. Vom.

But it’s sunny and happy this week,

and the leaks have been fixed (i pray). 

Many of you were concerned about me finding the source of the leak, damage caused etc….our playroom/scraproom is actually a porch that was enclosed at some point. so it’s a flat roof, no insulation, etc. it’s built well, but it’s not like a leak in the house, through the attic. And luckily my dad and brother are in the house business, so i knew just who to call.

Sunshine is so good for the soul. Last week was HARD.

It was Harper’s spring break, so no school, ballet, etc.

PLUS jimmy left

PLUS the leaks

PLUS it rained all week with no sunshine.

But the good news about bad weeks is that the following week is bound to be good. And this one is beautiful.

I hope you all are having a beautiful Monday, as well.

And thank you all again for your opinions and thoughts…I appreciate each and one of you so very much!

I’m going to leave you with a layout from the latest Simple Scrapbooks special issue. Look at my little rock star!!

xo

s