Wednesday Weigh-In

What a great Christmas gift Taryn gave her younger sister when she made her this cute green sun dress. I love to hear and see what neat things my grandchildren are being taught by their parents. Another example is Hannah learning how to make our families delicious Christmas pastries that Brady has been making and giving to best friends and neighbors for years. They made 7 of them!

Took the family (on Brooke's day off) to the beautiful new pool. Loved the hot tub!

While I was fixing lunch, Brooke, Hyun and Taryn put up my hammock so I can lay around, read, eat bon bons in these 70 degree days ahead. Yea!

Received some more sad news from Utah. Another of my wonderful missionary friends died morning after Christmas. Jerry was our office manager in LA, but he and wife Sally were so wonderful to me. He was on the kidney transplant list, but showed no physical signs prior to his peaceful death in dialysis clinic.

But, on a positive note, I burned some CD's having had good instructions and handout from computer guru Hyun.

Have taken daily 1.5 mi walks all week and weight is still 91. Nice to talk to you all this week.

Star wars pancakes

The boys got some star wars pancake molds from their cousins, I asked Brayden how he blew up his death star and he said "I used the fork! (force)"

Christmas in AZ 2011

We started the day with Stockings, right before we headed out to church. Brooke had to work untill 1pm so the kids just got stocking s and than had to wait for the return of father for presents. They were so patient!!

After church we finally snagged our yearly Christmas photo (no I haven't sent cards yet)

Then once Grandma Gloria & Dad had arrived we began the fun of unwrapping all the presents. The kids are very busy as I type using their favorite gift- XBox Kinect.

They are Fruit Ninjas!!!!

Glasses

Amongst all the other expenses durring this season - we added 1 more....

2 Howells girls had to go in for glasses.......

TAegan & TAryn sporting their new eye wear!

Hannah's New Laptop

Santa brought Lil' Hannah a shiny new laptop for school and skyping.

Merry Hats & Cats

Irish Nutcracker

Last weekend Taryn, Taegan, Ffiona & Haedyn were part of the Irish Nutcracker that I costume every year. Our school merged with theirs so they were finally able to take part in the show. Next year they want to try out for Solo roles. They all had so much fun!

Water Faries- aka Selkies - all 3 girls were Fabulous as selkies. there were 7 in all- they danced all 7 together & as pairs, except Taryn who had a long solo in the middle of the number. We were told by several people that she was by far the best number in the show.

Haedyn was a mouse-one of 3 boy mice and a subject of the mighty Mouse Queen. He did a great job scaring the soilders and loved hanging out with the boys!

Theyall spent a lot of time waiting around back stage :)

Kitty Christmas Tree

I decorated a Christmas Tree just for the kittens.  It is just a little 3 foot tree just thier size.  The garland is pom-poms dusted with cat nip.  The jingle bells and toy mice are attached with wire so they bounce a little.  Then a few feathers just for fun.  This picture was taken a couple of years ago before I re-did my kitchen.

When I get home from work, the tree is tipped over and onaments are strewn accross the floor. So I just put it back together and the fun begins again.  I have been trying to get a picture of them playing with it but they seem to like to wait until I am not around.

Mr. Howells' Website

Check out Brady's teacher site:

http://mcs.monet.k12.ca.us/schools/TeacherWebsite/7-12/Howells.B/default.aspx

Brady likes to draw on the computer like his Anime kids and here is one of his cartoons.

Revenge of Christmas Kitty 2

These little trees don't stand a chance.....

Here is Hannah wearing her Downey High School Renaissance shirt with her friend Lizzett. Renaissance is awarded to students with high academic achievement. She earned a 3.8 GPA this semester--good job Hannah!

Christmas Kitty

Mr. Muffin thinks we put the tree up for him. Here he climbed into the center and started to bat all the nice ornaments.

Puzzle-Done

Mom gave Mary a 1000 piece puzzle with lots of blue and white. I took us three weeks.

Weigh In Wednesday

Still at 189.
Have been keeping track of calorie intake and calorie burn on myfitnesspal since Thanksgiving when I got Justins invite. I like it. LOVE the barcode scanner! Makes it so easy to add food:)
Have not done any exercises for a week and a half now :( but it is still nice to see how what I eat adds up (and quickly!)
Had actually gained a pound after Thanksgiving but got rid of it again. So now I just gotta get up and get moving on a regular basis again and see if I can shed a few more.
Still want 175 by my birthday. Better get cracking!

Wednesday Weigh-In

Good Monday afternoon,



I just returned from a 1.5 mile walk on treadmill at fitness center (too cold to walk outside today) after I spent the morning washing and making "Maids of Honor". When I walked in sunny warm weather on Saturday I passed a grey haired active adult lady amid a fire truck and two police cars that had just arrived. Her darling white car was sitting a top several cacti on the rocked landscaped frontage near a huge cement entrance sign in front of Canoa Seca (development south of mine). There was a white van parked close by, but I couldn't tell what had actually happened and how she drove her car into that position. She wasn't hurt and the incident wasn't in yesterday's paper.



On Saturday morning Brooke brought Hyun down to help Grandma Gloria with her "honey do" list. They really cut a swath and in no time had most of the things checked off: trimming dead grass out back, replaced toilet valve, glued and nailed wood casing around glass on front door, painted a water stain spot on ceiling, trimmed dead branches of tree, installed new light over kitchen sink, put up new rain gauge, removed overgrown cactus in earthen pot, pulled small bush out of ground, Hyun taught me how to burn a CD and watched while I did one on my own and Brooke went over steps of Comp Backup instructions. Yea!!!! Took them to nice restaurant for lunch and visit. Thank you both sooooooo much!

I was sad to learn that Rachel and Ryan (Providence housemates) had a miscarriage last week and Rebecca's dear friend Shannon also lost one several weeks ago. It's really disheartening when this happens especially since they were both so excited to be pregnant and looked forward to a darling baby in their homes.

Are you all ready for Christmas? Not too many days left for those sweet grandchildren of mine who are counting the days to go. My weight is still at 91.0 and I hope I won't blow it and gain a lot this weekend!

Wow! My fourth blog today.

Thanksgiving day

Dylan carved the turkey with Grandpa Jim.

Rowan cut the rolls with Grandma Chris.They were pull apart rolls, but he had to help like Dylan was helping. :)

Jim helped Jesse put drywall up in the shop over Thanksgiving.

Jeremy joined later to lend a hand.

Superheros! 

Stomp rocket fun.

The kids thought the further they ran, the higher the stomp rocket would go.  Silly kids.

Dylan's best friend Acacia (he has known her since they were both in their mama's bellies)

The tree

Helping daddy hang the lights.

Here's our cute little tree.  Since we are never home for cmas we always get a small tree to decorate with our ornaments. 

My little rocks stars! My kids are cute!

This is Rowan's "Star of the Week" Board.  

This is Dylan's "Kinder Frog" board.

Cheap Labor...Awesome!

I wish they would be this excited to clean their rooms

Pato Cactus Project

My new next door neighbors Jack and Jeri Kitchens from Boise, ID love my 6 grain bread. Note the ball cap he has on - it's Boise State and he's a fan, imagine that. This week Jack has become my new best friend. For the fee of continued loaves of bread he has helped me downsize and take down all the dead agave and cholla cactus out back. In the past when dad or I tried to cut this large agave in our bricked area it was impossible to get those dead branches on sides and in back. Well, Jack borrowed this incredible small elec saw and he had those taken out in no time. Dad never owned one of these and I don't think Henry did either. He also found the "home" of a pack rat and possible family but he saw only the one scurry up the brick wall. He had made himself quite a hiding place with food storage, lots of pink stuffing (for bed) and all sorts of other small items one needs in a southern home. After Jack finished I filled in his abode and entrance and now he's one of the many homeless rats out there just in time for the holidays.

Then Jack asked if I wanted him to trim up the cholla in back also and I agreed as it had many holes in some areas where birds or animals had their lunch. Before we knew what happened it was gone! And I'm delighted as it really was ugly and I had been "bitten" before with it's needles when I would attempt to trim it. Now, the trick is "how to make all this mess in my yard disappear"? Maybe I'll have to make bread for the garbage men and their truck.

I forgot to mention about when I gassed up a few days ago. Gas was 2.97, yea!!

Wednesday Weigh-In

Good afternoon,
I just returned from a wonderful long walk (albeit with warm blue coat on), but at least the temp and wind wasn't as bad as it has been the last few days. G.V. had lots of rain last weekend - my rain tube showed 2.5" and some probably had leaked out before I checked it. It just pounded on my flat roof on two separate nights.

I had a lovely day on Sun. attending church with Sunshine and kids, then home for a warm lunch and we began putting up and decorating tree. We built it up as we fluffed and Haedyn got right in and helped also. By the time Sunshine got all the lights working or put more on Brooke got home and then everyone gathered to put the treasured ornaments on the tree.

They have a nice tradition that when mom finds the First Christmas ornaments and each one of the kids hangs the ornament they tell the story about what that ornament represents. Afterwards Ffiona served everyone the marshmallow/carmel laden brownies that I had made. Also while we were waiting for dad to get home Taegan and Ffiona helped me make oven carmel popcorn for a treat. When the two pans came out of the oven we all dug right in (yea, even moi because it's too good to resist).

On Mon. I joined our group of "over 50" ladies and rode to Tucson for lunch. Usually when I join them at various restaurants here or in Tucson I take my own food, but this time Judy told me about the Chinese Buffet where they would let she and I get our items, then weigh and pay for food by the pound and eat right out of the container. She lost over 100 lbs a few years ago (stomach stapling) and so she can't eat much at once either. It was great for me and I'm still enjoying the food I couldn't eat that day.

Oh dear I've got to go, I'll have to send another post tomorrow. I weigh 90.0

Maid of Honors, and made of sugar and spice

Katelyn is carrying on the Howells tradition and learning how to make Maids of Honor with her daddy. She helped in every aspect, although at the end she was more interested in licking the contents of the cake bowl than helping daddy. :p

Must Taste Better

Gij has plenty of food in his dish. Somehow he slid the lid off the tote I keep the cat food in and ate from there. It must taste better that way.