WOW! It's my 300th blog post!

But I actually came here today to say a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Howie! He's EIGHT!

He's so full of fun, it's incredible!

I was digging through the archives of my "journal" and found this cute Howie story, This happened when he was four.

We took the kids out to Applebees for FHE Monday night dinner - you know - we got 10 appetizers for their 1/2 price happy hour special - paid all of like 15 bucks! yah! Anyway - Howie had the trots all day - but had done an OUTSTANDING job of getting to the bathroom on time! So Ross took him there twice during our wait for the appetizers...we were eating & all sitting there nicely - when Kali told me she had to go real bad....the following is a script of what happened in the bathroom.... (two stalls in the room, one is already occupied)

Kali: Come in with me!

Me: It's too small, but I'll stand right outside here and wait for you.

{enter Howie}

Howie: I gotta go BAD, mom.

Me: Well, just wait a minute Kali's going to be done soon, right Kal?

Kali: {grunting} yah, I should be done soon.

Howie: Whose in here? {getting on all fours to peer under the other stall}

Me: No, no! Honey, that's not polite.

Howie: {impatiently yelling - while holding his cheeks together with both hands} WELL HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM ALREADY??? I GOTTA POOP BAAAAAAD!!

Unknown Lady: {inward giggle - flush - exit} There you go.

Howie: {rushing in} Thank you - (at this point he barely gets his pants down in time to fire off some partially filled blanks - two more ladies walk in - one of them is probably 18-22 and doing the pee pee dance - real mature, right?)

Me: Kali, are you almost done?

Kali: (still grunting) Almost, I just have to wiggle this one off.

Howie: Mom, I need you to come wipe my butt please.
(enter me to stall to wipe)

Howie: You're the BEST mom in the whole world - oh wait, I'm not done yet, you can go out again (more partially filled blanks shoot into the toilet)

(young woman dancing with more enthusiasm)

Me: Kali, how's it going in there?

Kali: I just keep wiping and the toilet paper is not getting clean, will you help me?

(enter, tp thankfully was clean - we flush & exit)

Howie: Mom, did you leave without wiping me?

Me: no, I'm right here, we're washing our hands now.

Howie: Don't waste your time washing them, you're just gonna get poop all over them again from me.

Me: Are you ready now then?

Howie: yep yep yep yep yep yep yep (Howie is wiped) WOW, mom, look how muddy the water is, that's COOL! (flush)

unknown lady #3 - in jest: I hope we didn't order what you guys ate.

Howie: make sure you wash my poop off your hands, mom.

Me: Okay, you wash your hands, too.

Howie: I don't need to, that's why I called you in.

exit the bathroom Howie is making a "popcorn ball that would smell so good"

nice.

So that story above is one of MANY I have in my little Howie bank of stories (Click here to read one of my favorite Howie stories)

Anyway - so 8 reasons I love Howie (keeping with tradition)
1 - Just look at that smile! It melts my heart.

2 - Right before Brynn was born we were talking about how he will be a big brother and he said it was his job to "Pre-tect her" and if he had to, he would use Dad's Japanese swords (something he's never been allowed to play with - but hey, what a good excuse to start, right?) Sometimes he gets frustrated with her, but I remind him of his promise and he immediately softens up!

3 - He's tender hearted beneath all that "cool" he told me "I will always be your baby, even though I'm a big brother"

4 - Some kids can do this and they'd be dorky, he does this - and starts a trend. Being like this takes so many different levels of confidence!

5 - He does it cause "The Chicks Dig it"

6 - Even when he's as sick as sick can be headed for the hospital - he's still being funny about "Think the nurses still remember me?" Of course they do, they look forward to your visits, dear.
7 - He's the only one of my children, when unloading the dishwasher, will organize the utensil drawer the way it's supposed to be - everyone else just tosses the utensils in there. Yes, Howie, I totally notice!
and
8 - He's kept his room clean for a whole month so he could get his semi-automatic nerf machine gun that shoots 3 rounds per second. (He hasn't opened it yet, so wait till I post the pictures!!!) He even knew that his birthday was going to be that day and since it was coming from Grandma & Grandpa Covino, that he'd get it even if his room was messy...so, lets call this one "Obedience."
So here's a picture with Howie and his look-alike Dog Tags.

Seriously, so blessed...

I got in contact with an old friend of mine today - to catch up on some gossip & stuff...you know - the kind of friend you talk to once a year and still talk like you're best friends for hours on end?

We talked about a myriad of things, and I finally asked her if she had a blog. She then went on to say how NO WAY she doesn't have a blog, she doesn't do cutsie crafts or things with her kids, and she goes to the other blogs and gets puky reading them.

SO, I was like "Well, *I'M* not like that!!" Of course not! (Have you seen this blog?)

Back to my story....

I'm thinking to myself, I don't do anything fun with my kids...in fact, I threaten spanks almost daily - and when I'm not threatening spanking, I'm looking for reasons that they can't watch TV or play with their friends. Or give them ridiculous expectations "Yes, you can go play with Angie as soon as you write a 50 page dissertation on why it's healthy for your soul to take no for an answer."

So I came to the computer to send her an e-mail with my blog address, but first, I wanted to come to my blog to see what she was going to see - as an "outsider."

Certainly I don't brag about my children's accomplishments, or how cute they are or how they have the best haircut you'd ever see on a 9 year old - Or even all the fun places we've been. Ooops, maybe a widdo bit?

So, Tonya, if you happen to be lurking about on my blog...please know, that as perfect as I make myself and my children out to be, you should know a few things I didn't blog about this week.

Like - Howie & Kali were testing the limits of the garage door by putting a wooden oar under it, they broke the spring, and some metal ravelly thingy and the wheels to the guide or runner thingy all came out and half of the garage door fell on the car.

That's not so bad as when I was trying to fix it, I had the hammer on the top of the ladder and it got knocked off and fell off the top of the ladder to the top of Brynn's head busting it open causing blood to spew forth. I took pictures, but really, how lame is it to blog about being imperfect?

You won't find me doing that! So while you may look at my blog and see how, as a family, we played the game of TWISTER, spent wonderful amounts of time together and how envious you might be to see children smiling and getting along...

I won't show you the picture right after this one of when Howie got "Left hand green" and he flung his hand back into Kali's face, which initiated the start of one of the best WWF real life wrestling fights EVER not caught on tape.

You may see a picture of loving siblings in the bath, but won't you won't see is when I ran to get the camera, one of the siblings held the other's face under the water trying to teach her how to swim (no, I'm not going to OUT my child for trying to drown the other, you'll just have to be satisfied knowing it happened, I remain firm in keeping the who's of the event a secret.)

You may see a picture of everyone at Madagascar 2 all smiling and happy,

(There, Jolisa, I DID IT...what? like you don't keep your digital camera in your car at all times?) but you won't hear about the story in the car how Howie got his basketball and football taken away indefinitely, well, until yesterday when he decided he could be human again...

I could put more pictures in here about how great I am in the kitchen - this is the first of a step-by-step photo-journal of how to make creamed honey. Perhaps one day - if it's slow, I'll tell you how to do it, and show you ALL the pictures...

While you will never see a picture of the garage door on top of my car (words can't describe the emotions flowing through me which caused me to forget to take a picture of THAT one.) You'll see the bloody gash left as a result of my incompetence of leaving a hammer on the top of the ladder while moving it and watching it fall in slow motion on top of my little girls head as she played ring around the ladder...

never fear, I blamed that on the children as they were being spanked on the hiney with the oar that was placed under the garage door that started the whole mess!

Nor will you see a picture of the pain killer we use (also part of a photo-journal of 101 uses for Halloween candy)

Wow. That got long. Anyone still here? Bueler? Bueler? Anyone? Hello - lo - lo - lo.

Well, anyway - I'm not as perfect as I let people think I am, and so from now on, I will speak more of the errors of being a member of THIS family.

So as to make you, who are leery of blogging yourself, or wondering how perfect a family with 6 kids can be, I'll put rest to that pool of unspeakable worry, by showing you this:

Chompin at the bit

My baby is growing up too fast. She's starting to crawl. Or maybe she's just into push ups?

Then she really really wants people food. No more of this mush...but poor baby doesn't have teeth. Here, you can get an idea of how much she would love to chew on the apple. But settles for gnawing.

Look, she's starting to stand up in her bed, so we had to take the bassinet part down. It's a sad day for my growing baby - she's doing it too fast!

Apparently I take too many pictures of Coby and not enough of the other girls, so they needed to get in on some action.

And finally, Kiersten was nominated as Student of the month - each teacher picks a student from their grade and then the music/art teachers pick a student from the school...Kiersten was the school pick from the music teacher! She got lunch from Peter Piper Pizza, with dessert from Claim Jumper, and free lunch coupons for Red Robin and Mimi's Cafe. Way to go Kiersten!

Shortly after

I got Kiersten and lived with my in-laws for two months before we moved to Arizona...knowing that my mother-in-law deep fries everything, including carrot sticks, I indulged a little bit and packed it on.

Crysty (who was taking a lot of hormone treatments for IVF) and I were sitting at Ross' 2nd birthday party inside Chuck E. Cheese sucking down pizza before anyone else could eat it all, we looked at our freshly weight-lost sister-in-law and said, "I'd rather eat pizza than look like that" (yah, it made us feel better about inhaling pizza).

And I recently read a friend's blog about addiction, I had a day-dream moment. Why can't I be addicted to eating good and running instead of chocolate and running? And then it occurred to me. Chocolate is good. I am eating good...and running to support my habit.

Finally some Halloween pictures...

This year, Rossi wanted to be a skeleton again (just refer to pictures from Halloween the last two years). I was out of white face paint. So he went as a pain in the neck instead. (refer to any picture I have of him, taken as a pain right in the neck!)
Kiersten wanted to play a vampire and it wasn't until I did up her makeup, hair & eyelashes, she named her vampire "Rosalie" (hotlink is to a picture, Rosalie is the blonde on the right) She made fangs, but you know, beautiful vampires don't have fangs...it's a myth - or so I read once somewhere.

So Howie, as you saw a few posts below, dressed up as a ninja, since they can't wear masks to the Halloween party, he took his mask off, armed himself with a sword, (we mustn't forget the killer skull cape his grandma Covino made for him last year), and decided he'd take the Karate Kid Ninja approach.

Brynn, well, you already knew she was Tinkerbell, but she's such a lady in this picture, eating her sucker, sitting side-saddle on her airplane with her legs crossed like a lady should be.

Kali, well, this one was my favorite one. Last year (I completely forgot about it until I pulled out the Halloween box on Halloween) I bought this clearance white dress - and it fit her fabulously. She decided to be the White Witch from Narnia. She played the part to the "T" and everyone she came in contact with, she threatened to freeze into a statue. But instead of being the white witch, she called herself the Ice Princess. Either way - probably the scariest Halloween costume out there!

And the most adorable pumpkin - this costume has gone through all of my children. I should just find pictures of each of them in it - but that would require some SERIOUS digging. Maybe when they're all grown and out of the house and I'm lonely and have nothing to do, I'll put it on my list of things for which to look.

Quick clarification. (after typing this, I would say, it's not so quick)

It was brought to my attention tonight that my friend, Bedie's name looks (to those who don't know her) like it should be a Utah spelling of the name Betty. Her name is actually pronounced BEAD-EE so as to rhyme with meaty, which, it should also be known that she is not meaty (nor does she look pregnant, not even a few months, not even in her clown outfit). She's just the right size with overflowing personality. She was named after her grandmother, and I LOVE the name, and I wanted to name Coby that, but Ross thought it wasn't really a name...until he got to know her, and he, too, loves the name. I think the super-fantastic bubbly personality, coupled with the fact that she's got a never-ending supply of great hair, and a pile of beautiful children, talent oozing from every pour, and a husband who is a general conference celebrity (yah, not kidding there, kewl, I know) just makes the name that much gooder. She's got such a great personality AND the ability to bite her tongue - unlike ME. So people actually LIKE her, too.

Anyway - I also have another friend - LARRI - who is a female - you can kind of tell from the spelling of her name - no self-respecing man would end his name in an "i" (my apologies, Rossi, but you'll always be my little boy) - so I told them about this absolutely hysterical you tube video - that was posted on my other friend, Denise's, blog that had me absolutely in stitches, mainly because my girls are in syncro. Denise is also an absolutely hysterical friend of mine. So thanks, dearie, for finding this...You crack me up in 8 different ways!