35 Minutes Until The New Year!!!

Instead of continuing our old tradition of staying up to watch the ball drop, we started (hopefully) a new one! This evening, we started a scrapbook of the highlights of 2007. I enjoyed it SOOOOOO much, Emma and Willa not so much. I am up later than everyone finishing a page on our many hours in the car that we've had this year. I'm a perfectionist in most things, others not so much. For example, I'm not the kind of perfectionist who's little hooks in the cup of pens all have to be facing north-west in order to be happy. I am a perfectionist in scrapbooking, however. But that doesn't slow me down. I finished about the same number of pages Daddy did this evening, and he's had decades more practice at it than me. He did two on Elsie's baptism, one on the bike parade, one on the harvest party, and wrote some words for Willa's page on when Da, Popo, Aunt Jill, Molly, and Tanner came for a months stay in January. I did two pages on our pond out front, a page on our many hours in the car, and helped Emma A LOT with her page on the tea party we had on April 20th, which still isn't done. Alright, so he did one more page but hey, I'm a perfectionist.

A Conversation

Mommy: "Seth, you need a haircut."

Seth: "No, I need chocolate."

:) We all laughed so hard we had tears in our eyes!

Tradition

In our family, it has become tradition for everyone to get new PJ's on Christmas Eve, so we look nice for all of the videos we take the next morning. (Nobody gets dressed until lunch time on Christmas :)). Above is a picture of this year's pajamas. I made Emma and Willa's.

Today's Concept...

What if you gave and infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters and paper. They would eventually compose the complete works of Shakespeare right? So what's my point? Do you know how big of a job it would be to supply an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite supply of typewriters and paper? You'd just keep passing them out and passing them out so they would never start and you would never finish.
-Dr. Bruce C. Howard

Posted by Emma

Christmas With Our Cousins

It has become tradition on my mom's side of the family to get together the weekend before Christmas at Mema and PapPap's house to have an early Christmas.

Elsie in front of all the presents.

Us cousins.
Seth had been waiting for this day a long time.

After opening presents, we hung out for a long time.

Iain played several songs for us. One of those was Silent Night.

The boys were constantly competing about who could do a really dangerous trick with ten other people in the same small living room. :)

We listened to some upbeat music which lead everybody into dancing.

We have another tradition in our family. Every year, somebody gets the "ring watch." Nobody really wants it, but tradition is tradition. Whoever receives the gift, has to wear it the whole day. Iain got it this year. I was the first of the third generation to get it, two years ago.

The Great Orange Juice And Potato Mystery: Update

This just in: The missionary who was staying with us said that there was a note when she saw them on Saturday. She said it had something to do with somebody's church and leftovers.

Come on, sleuths. Who do you think left them?

Another Funny Saying...

Emma is sitting here laughing her head off at something I wrote! :) Actually, I was writing a story and Emma was reading over my shoulder. Here's what made her laugh so hard:

“Ben!” she squeeled when she saw her brother with the look of smush in his eye as he also jubilantly bounded up the small stairs to his favorite aunt.

For some reason she thought that "the look of smush" sounded very funny. :)

TONS Of Feta Cheese

About a month ago, Mommy bought the following container of Feta Cheese to make Spanicopitas. The recipe only used a third of the package, and we have no other use for it. Since then, we have been trying very hard to use it up. I've put it on lots of things like sandwiches, bagels, and the following is a picture of it on hashbrowns. YUM!!!

As I walked out of the kitchen from taking this picture, I found this in front of me:

Poor thing! He was so tired, he fell asleep eating dinner! :)

Merry Christmas!

We've enjoyed the holiday very much. Of course the highlight of the day was opening Christmas presents early in the morning. We had a myriad of gifts and everything from an inflatable ladybug to a unicycle. Mommy got gigantic turtle slippers and Passionate Housewives. I got three gold rings and a silver "H" ring. But, the most precious gift we got that day was the gift of family.

We spent the holiday at my grandparent's house, about a 2 and 1/2 hour drive. We had a big meal on Christmas Eve and all the leftovers plus a turkey and mashed potatoes on Christmas Day. And speaking of potatoes...

As we were pulling in the driveway, we noticed a jug of orange juice and a 10 lb. bag of potatoes sitting by our front door. There's no note anywhere as to the giver of these items. Do any of you know? We asked around, but we still have no clue. The neighbors said they've been there since Saturday. ???????? :)

For Christmas we have a tradition of getting dangerous gifts. Last year was pretty bad... this year the only really dangerous present was a real bow and arrow for Willa.

Can you guess what Elsie got for Christmas? Her two front TEETH! She's so cute.

Oh, and hopefully a few pictures will follow up this post within the next few days... there's a lot of purging to be done! :)

Sayings...

Us Howards are pretty funny. Today we got a big hoot out of the following two statements:

When we opened a package labled "Open before Christmas" and found ornaments inside, Emma remarked while trying to find a place on the tree for her snowboarding penguin, "Olivia, you put your koi in front of my baby ornament." Of course, what makes this partially funny is that koi are fish. And fish make interesting Christmas tree ornaments. We now have two.

Emma and I were sitting in our room trying to pack. We heard the toilet lid shut in the bathroom and Willa say, "That was awesome, Elsie! Wasn't it?"

November 28th Through Today (December 19)

We seemed to have gotten back just in time to be busy again. As I don't quite remember what happened from then (when we got back from Texas) until now, I think I will just highlight a few days from the calendar:

November 30th-- Gym class, Teen Speak, and Daughters of Dignity.
December 1st-- Bring home Christmas tree. We took the easy route this year and opted to just get one from Lowe's. Honestly, it took more time getting everyone in the car than it did to drive there, pick it out, buy it, and bring it home!
December 2nd-- Decorate the tree. We got some pictures of this, but none of them are very good.
December 6th-- Daddy's Birthday!
December 8th-- We celebrate Daddy's Birthday and make gingerbread houses. I think that this will be a post of it's own someday, but we'll see. :)
December 12th-- Art class at the library
December 13th-- Writing class
December 14th-- Teen Speak and cookie baking afterwards for an orphanage. Emma and Willa play with friends.
This whole week-- scrambling to get Christmas presents done and mailed.

Alright, so maybe we could be busier. It just seems like a lot, especially when we're also battling sickness and getting back into the swing of school after our Thanksgiving "outing."

Well, I have some more projects to do! Hopefully you'll get some pictures of these things in a few days... I'm not promising anything, though. :)

3 AM- 6AM Nap Anyone?

Monday night after we got home from Texas (Monday was the 26th of November), I had the privilege of having Chloe and Ruby Hopkins along with Rachel Clarke spend the night.
If you look closely, you can see that we are wearing matching PJ's.

Rachel trying on a hat of mine.

Chloe curled my hair the old-fashioned way-- using fabric strips while my hair was wet.

Oh, and this was the next night. I forgot to post this with the BUBP pictures. :)

We had a lot of fun together, didn't we, girls? Other than the normal card games played with the light on, we also had fun seeing how many teenage girls you can comfortably sleep in a twin-sized bed, "guess the product Rachel is acting out the commercial for", and whether or not what you were talking about actually occured in a dream during the 3 hours of sleep you got or whether somebody actually was reciting the Greek alphabet.

If you would like to see what we did after we woke up, here's the link.

The Rest Of Our Texas Trip

We pulled out of Galveston on Friday night and drove until about 10 the next night when we stopped at a hotel in Bristol, TN. Sunday morning we went to a lovely church in town and were invited over to the Tilton's home for lunch afterwards. We had a wonderful time and were amazed that we could feel so at home with people we had never met before! :)

We drove down our street at around 10 Sunday night and we all slept until late the next morning. We probably would have slept all day if we didn't have to unpack and get ready for my birthday party the next day! Plus we were having 3 of the 5 girls who were coming sleep over Monday night! But oh, we are much happier and funnier when we're tired! (weird, ain't it?!) I think photos from that will be my next post...

Thursday In Texas On Thanksgiving

Boy! What a month! We've had a ton of projects, events, and laughs. But you'll see all of those in due time. Now, it's time to post about Thanksgiving before Christmas gets here.

Great Aunt Carole

Great Uncle Ray (Also known as "GUR")

Willa

We took the opportunity to get a family photo. Everybody...

And just the great grandchildren.

Thursday the 13th...

Willa seemed to have a dispute with the bunk beds or I should say the bunk beds had a dispute with her. She climbed up on my bed and somehow hurt her hand. She tried climbing up to her bed, but slipped, fell down, and hurt her ankle. When she got back up on her bed she hurt her calf or thigh (I'm not sure which). And all of this happened just before we left for IEW (our writing class). Also in the five minutes before I went up and helped her get back up after falling I said to myself three times, "I've GOT to be more careful." I really must say we are a victims of cruel furniture. (Sigh)

~This account has been written by
Emma Howard, recorder of the events of
December 13, 2007
PineGrove Cottage~

Last Night...

Last night while Sir was upstairs under the weather, and Mother was at the store, Olivia, Willa and I did the following things:

• Folded laundry and put it away
• Cleaned the kitchen
• Swept the dinning room
• Cleaned and hoovered the living room
• Cleared the stairs
• And cleaned some of the bathroom

I must say we have our fits of problems and solutions while our parents are occupied. Let's hope we don't have any more fits of problems for awhile.

Posted By Emma

Today's Quote:

Cleanfulness is next to Godfulness.

~A combination of Daddy and Emma

My Lunch

... Was really good. While everyone else had PB & J or grilled cheese, I decided to fix myself something special. It was a feta cheese, lettuce, turkey, craisin, and salt & pepper grilled sandwich on white bread. It was sooooo good! Now you're thinking me weird...

This Evening...

There hasn't been much to blog about today. So here's something I'm sure you're all dying to know, I can read a twelve chapter book in about two hours! Haven't you all been wanting to know how long it takes me to read a twelve chapter book, for, forever?
Go to your local library to find more out about colonial New York. OK, yes you've all probably figured out by now that I'm REALLY tired... So good night.

~ Emma

Firsts

Once again, tonight I only have time for a few words.

Tonight Elsia Rose Howard had two great firsts-- her first food and her first hair cut. But sadly, neither were captured in any media whatsoever. So sad. We didn't even save her hair. It's tough being fifth.

Seth decorated his first gingerbread house tonight. We got that on video and still pictures, but you'll have to wait awhile for those.

Daddy had a first too. He received an ottoman for a birthday present-- he says he's never had an ottoman before. When he first realized what it was, he said, "Great! It'll go with my Empire."

I also had a first. Today was the first day in this whole week where I sewed only one thing. That too has a picture, but you'll also have to wait for that one.

Tonight was also the first night since Miss Jen got back that she's come over for dinner. Miss Jen is the missionary who's staying in the "Howard Inn."

Sorry for all the waiting, but maybe in January there will be a flood of posts... OK, hopefully you won't have to wait THAT long for them. :)

Sewing... And Sewing... And More Sewing...

I'm sorry for the delay of the rest of our Thanksgiving pictures, and the delay in the pictures of us decorating the tree, and the delay of us getting 5 inches of snow. Oh, and the delay of the celebration of Daddy's birthday... wait. That hasn't happened yet. We decided to postpone the partying until tomorrow because of some illnesses and unpreparednesses.

What's this all got to do with the title of this post? Well, mostly the fact that I have about 30 hours of sewing to do before the 21st. Lets see... that's over two hours of sewing a day. Whew! Good thing I enjoy it!

Sew far this week, I've made a skirt, another (more complicated) skirt, two pair of bloomers, and a really very puffy petticoat that makes me about 5 feet around on the bottom. I also took apart a skirt and re-did it, taking some of the fabric from the sides and gathering it at the bottom, and adding a stripe.

I had a marvelous time at Jo-Ann's this evening buying a ton of fabric, seam binding, and lace. I'll try to post some pictures of my sewing projects soon... how soon only time can tell.

The No Good Horrible Very Bad Day

Today is Daddy's birthday. He and Mommy went out for dinner and to the toy store. They left me in charge at home. They've been gone less than an hour and the following things have happened:
The pizza turned out soggy.
I had to stop in the middle of a sewing project and it's still all over the living room floor.
Emma's sick.
The pizza made Willa sick.
I wanna be sick.
Willa got Elsie stuck behind the couch.
Willa broke a glass Pyrex dish in the dishwasher, therefore making us evacuate from the kitchen because I am NOT a good glass cleaner-upper.
Emma broke a sparkley green glass ornament up in our room, and doesn't feel well enough to clean it up.
Seth is sick and cranky.
(NOTE: The above list is not in chronological order.)

What fun! It's just very funny that everything we try to do, ends in disaster, although I'm not sure what Willa was trying to accomplish by getting Elsie stuck behind the couch. :)

The ending to this story (so far) is that Emma's in bed reading, Seth and Willa are watching a movie, Elsie is asleep, and I'm about to go finish my sewing project so I can get it off the living room floor (I'll post about that later).

I'll let you know if anything else goes wrong. :)

LATER

The only thing I have to add to this post is that I managed to make pizza (spilling the sauce all over the counter) and do the first 4 steps in making hot cocoa (the ones where the cocoa is really concentrated) on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box, wearing all white, and not get a single thing on me. Then I eat a solitary segment of a canned mandarin orange and I drop it on my shirt, making a bright orange spot on the front. Nice.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Click above to see small version. Or, for the full hysterical effect click below to see full version or download (right click and select "Save Target As..." then save to your desktop, or click "Open"):

http://deliberatehomeschooler.com/elves2.avi

Tuesday At The Beach

Alright, back to our Thanksgiving Texas trip. Tuesday we had a wonderful time at the beach, as you can see below:
Elsie, not wanting to get back in the car... none of us did. :)

Grand Dude and Grand Jean

Look carefully at this picture...

Tall man!

Uncle Scott, Daddy's big brother.

The Sphinx we made.

We had a TON of fun!

The Big Ugly Beauty Pageant!!!

LIVE! From Big Ugly, West Virginia, it's the Big Ugly Beauty Pageant, with your host--- Ivan Gotbigknees!
For my 14th birthday, we celebrated with a Big Ugly Beauty Pageant that was just between residents of Big Ugly, WV, although none of the actresses actually came from Big Ugly Creek. Tuesday, for my 15th (even though it was back in October) we celebrated with the a Miss America pageant, hosted in Big Ugly Creek, West Virginia. :) Confusing, I know, but bare with me, you'll get you're mind back with some good laughter.
Olivia Tohavealot (Hollywood, California) and SHOREona (Virginia Beach, Virginia)

Daisy Benya (Big Ugly, West Virginia)

Yourawhinner (A judge)

Lots of make-upping occurred.

Hannah Banana (Montana)

Our panel of judges.

We had a "bring your favorite food and let the judges taste it" segment. Here they are tasting macaroni and cheese.

BEall Bamma (Alabama)

Orpah Whaley (a judge)

For ONE segment I dressed up slightly pretty. Here's a rear view of my hair that Allison (Daisy) curled.

"Why'd you have to wake me up from my beauty sleep?"

The shirt that inspired it all.

We had real talent for our talent segment, everything from mimeing and jumping jacks to pointe and tap dancing.

:)