Trinity, the Gymnast

Trinity has been taking gymnastics for the past couple of months.  Today they let the parents in to take pictures and oo-and-ah over the amazing talent these 3 and 4 year olds have.  I'm not making reservations for the Olympics just yet, but it's a great way for her to have fun and exert some of that never-ending energy.

Silly girl











Eight is Great!

That’s right, we just celebrated yet another birthday here. I really didn’t plan on having all my kids’ birthdays within 3 months, but that’s how it worked out. This round it was time to celebrate the beautiful life of Mikaela!!

I’ve always said my kids are some of the most loved kids in the world. Not only do they have family that loves them beyond belief, but they’ve also been blessed with friends across the globe who love them tremendously. I really can’t put into words how much these people mean to me. One of these people is my dear friend, Kristene. She decided that for Mikaela’s birthday, she wanted to take her on a “Girls’ Afternoon”. I knew from the start Mikaela would absolutely love this! So, the Wednesday before her birthday, Kristene surprised her by coming and taking her out. They spent the afternoon together doing what girls do…pampering!



Getting a manicure!

Ice Cream!

Hot Chocolate!



Mikaela had an absolutely amazing time!  She felt like such a big girl getting to spend the day with Miss Skalicky.  Thank you, Kristene!  We love you!!

We found out a few weeks before that the Harlem Globetrotters would be in town on Mikaela's birthday.  I mentioned it to her and from then on, it's all she could talk about.  So we got tickets and took the kids for her special day.  It was a great time!  I highly recommend it to anyone who has the chance to go.

Getting ready for the game to start

Fun times 

Even Trinity got a kick out of it!

Joining the Globetrotters in a little YMCA 

After the game, the kids were trying to figure out which tricks they would be able to try out at their basketball games the next day.  Mikaela did start shooting backwards shots before her game and was making most of them!!  No dunks yet though.  :O)

Here's a video I took during the show.  This one doesn't have any of the amazing basketball tricks they did...it was one of their many comedy acts throughout the show, a football act.  It is amazing how well they do it all backwards.  The best part of the whole video though is hearing the giggles from Mikaela and Chance in the middle part.  I absolutely LOVE that sound!

Mikaela also got to have her friend, Maylee, over to spend the night on Saturday.  Chance went and spent the night at one of his friend's house that night and it was probably a good thing.  It was a night filled with all things "girl".

First up, bracelet making. 

Silly Trinity got to join in on the action too. 

Then some pizza making.  (The one part of the night Chance would have loved.) 

Of course, you can't have a girls sleep-over without some manicures!

And to finish the night up, some "Mystery Date"!  They even got Matt to play and thought it was hilarious when he actually won!

Chance couldn't wait to give Mikaela her gift so she opened it on Friday, her actual birthday.  It was a Justin Bieber CD and, oh my, we've heard a lot of JB since then.  Bieber Fever has definitely hit the Howard home.  We held off giving Mikaela the rest of her presents until after church on Sunday.

An American Girl doll!!  Mikaela has been asking for this doll since before Christmas.  We had convinced her that there was no way she would be getting it.  I never thought I would pay that much for a doll, but Mikaela adores it and seriously has made every dime we spent on that thing worth it.

What else could there be?? 

Taylor Swift!  Whew.  Something else to listen to besides JB.  Luckily for us, she loves Taylor Swift almost as much! 

Mikaela requested a basketball cake for her birthday this year.  Easiest cake ever.  I almost felt guilty it was so easy, but she was thrilled with it. 

She blew out all eight candles in one try! 

After cake, we tried out her new Wii game, "Just Dance for Kids".  So much fun! 

Mikaela with her new doll, Melissa.  She got to name her because she's a "My American Girl Doll" that you create to look like yourself.  She decided on "Melissa" so that they would both have names that started with M.  Mikaela and Melissa...too cute!

When I look back at the past eight years, it amazes me.  I can still remember getting ready to leave the hospital with her thinking, "Are they really going to let us just leave with her?"  "Don't they know we have no idea what we are doing?"  And somehow, despite all of mine and Matt's trials and errors that she has had to go through, she has become such an amazing little girl.  She is smart.  Constantly questioning things and wondering why and how.  Sometimes it's so much that I say, "No more questions, Mikaela!"  She is so compassionate and really cares about other people.  She is very much a girlie-girl at times, but not over-the-top-drive-me-crazy.  I love the fact that she loves to dress up, paint her nails, do her hair, etc, but yet for her birthday, she wanted to go to a basketball game and have a basketball cake.  That's just Mikaela.  To me, she is the perfect balance of little girl.  She also has a spunky side of her.  ("Spunky" is my nice way of describing it.)  But how boring would it be if our little girl was all sugar and no spice, right?  It's been a wonderful eight years and I look forward with much anticipation to seeing this little girl of mine continue to grow and develop into the amazing young lady I know she will be.

Happy birthday, my dear Mikaela Lyn.  We love you with all our hearts!!

Ski Trip

When we lived in Idaho, we got really spoiled being able to ski almost every weekend during the winter.  So, needless to say, we miss those snowcapped mountains around here.  However, there are a couple of ski resorts within a few hours of us.  They aren’t up to Colorado, or even Idaho, standards, but beggars can’t be choosers.  They are perfect for the kids, and Matt and I have a blast being able to ski with them.  We try to make it out at least one time a year now.  Mikaela learned to ski when we were in Idaho and Chance learned last year here.  This winter, they were both itching as much as their Daddy to get out on the slopes!  So we loaded up our skis and took off one weekend to Massanutten Ski Resort.  We got to the resort Friday evening and decided we would take the opportunity to introduce the kids to the tubing hill.

Heading up the hill

Trinity had not one ounce of fear.  These are pictures I took our first ride down.  We had two tubes hooked together, her in one and myself in the other.  She loved it!  They are blurry but you can still see her facial expressions.

She soon decided, on her own, that she wanted to go down all by herself.  I really wasn’t sure about that, but Matt said she’d be fine.  So off she went!  And from then on, I couldn’t convince her to go with me anymore!  Her big sister, on the other hand, was not so brave.  After going down with Matt a couple times, he finally pursuaded her to try it on her own.  She was so nervous, but of course, once she did it, she loved it as well.  That silly girl is going to learn to trust us one of these days!

And while Matt and I were trying to make it so we could all go down the hill at the same time, our crazy man, Chance, was of course practically running up the hill and taking off the minute he could.  Forget waiting for the family, that boy wanted to tube!

And you can’t really see much in this video, but you can get an idea of what the hill was like.  This is Matt going down backwards with Trinity in the lane to the left of him and Mikaela next to her.

The next morning, we headed out to the ski slopes.  Trinity had been talking all week about wanting to ski, and since we already had skis and boots her size, we thought we’d let her try.  She was very excited about it right up until I put her skis on and let her slide about 6 inches.  She did not like that feeling one bit!  We didn’t want to scare her away from skiing, so we didn’t push it.  She got to spend the rest of the day hanging with Mommy while the rest went out and skied, then Daddy while I took the kids out.  The next day we put her in a childcare program at the resort, in which she had way more fun.  She ended up to be the only kid there most of the time and was treated like the princess she is by the 3 girls working there.  She didn’t even want to leave when I went to pick her up!  It was nice having that option though.  She was happy and Matt and I were both able to ski with the two older kids together.  It was a lot of fun.

Our three ski bums…before the youngest decided she wanted to be a snow angel instead.

Taking a drive

Matt and Chance

Mikaela and Candie

It was pretty warm that weekend, and as you can see, if it wasn’t for the man-made snow, there wouldn’t have been any snow on the mountains.  Thank goodness for technology!

The kids did great all weekend and even went down a couple of “blues”.  They both wanted to go to the very top of the mountain (a black), but I wouldn’t let them.  I honestly think Matt was thinking about it for awhile.  But then I made him go up there himself and ski it.  He didn’t have problems with it, but it sealed the deal that they kids would have to wait.  Maybe next year, right?

It was so nice to be able to get out of town for a few days and just have fun with the family.  With Matt in the middle of an upgrade at work, we haven’t had a lot of time to just be together.  This gave us the opportunity and, man, it was needed!  I told Matt that it amazes me how much more fun everything is now that we have kids to share these experiences with.  I have the feeling it’s just going to keep getting better!

A Monster Jammin' Birthday

On February 10, Chance had his sixth birthday and it was time to celebrate the life of this adventurous, crazy kid.  Chance is the perfect combination of boy.  He has that rough & tumble, just-wanna-get-dirty-and-stay-that-way side to him; but he also has the sweet, compassionate side.  He's quick to jump on the floor and wrestle with his dad, but also just as quick to climb up into my lap, hug me, and tell me how much he loves me.  I cannot imagine our family without this non-stop, full-of-energy little man.

We celebrated this year with a bang, or should I say "crash", by going to Monster Jam.  It was a blast!  The kids loved it, and I had just as much fun watching their faces as I did watching the Monster Trucks.

Before the show, we went to the "Pit Party" where we got to walk around and see the trucks up close and personal.  The kids also got to meet the drivers and get autographs.  We met everyone but Gravedigger's driver.  Daddy was a champ and stood in line over an hour, while we met all the other drivers, and when we were 5 people away from getting to the front of the line, they told everyone he had to go get ready for the show.  Grr.  The kids had fun meeting everyone else though and Daddy got major points from all of us.



Raminator



Getting Autographs

 





The Family Favorite:  Gravedigger!  (The paint job is a throw-back to when Gravedigger first joined Monster Jam.  That's why it's not the green/black that you normally think of when you think of Gravedigger.)

After the "Pit Party", we found our seats and got ready for the action.

The fun begins.  I love their faces in this one.

Iron Man

Gravedigger

Raminator giving the fans something to cheer for

Unfortunately, this is how he landed it.  He tried to come back later in the show, but turns out he busted an axle.  That's never good.





Trying to take a picture, but the kids wouldn't take their eyes off the arena long enough to snap it!

Iron Man vs. Gravedigger

Iron Man

What happens when you only get half your truck over the van?  Iron Man can tell you.

Gravedigger didn't disappoint all night

Finishing out his run with some pazzazz

A little too much pazzazz at one time...the crowd loved it though.

Huge Monster Jam Fans

 It's hard to believe after all that we still had more celebrating to do.  But the morning of his actual birthday, we continued the celebration.  After all, this is a very special little boy we're talking about!!

The requested birthday breakfast of biscuits and gravy

It snowed a tiny bit early that morning and Chance was thrilled.  We decided that that was God's way of telling Chance "Happy birthday!"  I knew it would be gone in a matter of hours, so we took a few minutes before school to go out and enjoy it just a bit.



Chance also had his friend, Jack, come over and spend the night with him that Friday.  This was Chance's first time to have someone over for a sleep-over and Jack's first time to go to one, so it was an exciting night!

And no birthday is complete without a cake and presents.

Mikaela reading her card that she made for him (It was filled with Monster Trucks.)  :O)

I think it's safe to say we had one very happy birthday boy.

Happy birthday, Chance Matthew!!