Last day of 2011

Well folks its here! The last day of 2011! I must say this year went by WAY to fast for me. But I am excited for 2012:) My new years resolution? I will write exactly what happens each and every day in a diary so that next new years I can go back and see what happened every day of 2012! I can't wait to get started!! Here are the top 6 highlights of my year-
1.Going to CA with my grandparents (I will never forget the memories we made "we love you Sam!" lol:)
2. Going to Florida! It was the most amazing trip ever!!! I hope we will get to go back soon!
3. Getting some new babysitting jobs!
4. GETTING MY BRACES OFF!!!!!!
5.  Turning 15!! (one of my favorite numbers btw!)
6. and of course GETTING A NEW BABY BROTHER!! Baby James:) <3<3<3<3
Have a great new years eve!
~Lena

5th day of Christmas

Happy 5th day of Christmas!
  "On the Fifth day of Christams my true love gave to me-
                     FFFIIIVVEE GOLDEN RINGS! (du-dump-da-dum),
                                             4 calling birds,
                                             3 french hens,
                                             2 turtle doves,
                                And a partrage in a pear tree!!!"
Hope your day went well! Mind did! slept in late, lounged around, talked to a dear friend, cleaned up my *future* room, babysat for a wonderful family with adorable kids, came home, and watched a movie (while eating ice cream of course!). Have a great night!
~Lena
P.s what are you doing for new years?

3rd day of Christmas

*ehem* so I have not yet gotten a strait answer as to what day of Christmas it is (although thank you to all who commented:) so i have decided to go with what my family is celebrating which means today is the 3rd day of Christmas!!!!
    "On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me; 3 french hens
                                       2 turtle doves
                             And a partridge in a pear tree!!!"
 So there you go folks! Happy/Merry 3rd day of Christmas!!!
~Lena
P.S oh so i forgot to tell you we are doing something for the each of the days of Christmas! like the 1st day we had pears, the 2nd day we had doves (the chocolates not the birds!), and today we had chicken for lunch (imported DIrectly from France!......well not really:)

2nd or 3rd day of christmas???

ahhh so you may recall my last post of "the second day of Christmas"? Well I am quite confused as to what day of Christmas it is! I THOUGHT that Christmas DAY would be the fist day of Christmas but apparently some people (including our family) celebrate the fist day of Christmas the day AFTER Christmas day....? SO if any of you could enlighten me on the subject I would be eternally grateful! But if all I have done is confuse you the stick to whatever you were doing and happy (or is it merry??) whateverdayofchrismasyouthinkitis!! Good day!
 ~Lena

2nd day of Christmas

        On the 2nd day of Christmas my true love gave to me; 2 turtle doves.
                                                  and
                                  A partridge in a pear tree!!!!!!

Happy 2nd day of Christmas!!!! Hope you Christmas was as Amazing as mine was!! Spot a turtle dove today and give yourself a cookie:)
~Lena
P.s Does anyone actually Know what a turtle dove looks like???

Merry Christmas Eve!

Well no time to post! SOO many things going on this weekend!!! (ok well just 2 but still!) Tonight we are going to our annual Christmas eve party at my Great Grampas and it is going to be AMAZING as usual! ahhh I just love our family gatherings! And then on CHRISTMAS we are going to my Aunt and Uncles for the day!!! YEY! This will also be AMAZING!!! So you see how busy I am going to be!??!! Oh and we (meaning my parents and sibs) are not opening presents until the Epiphany (you know "The 12th day of Christmas" when the Wise men came to baby Jesus?) So yeah...... Well I gotta fly time is of the essence right now:) You all have a very lovely Christmas if I don't post before then. Smile and be happy:) (as if its hard to do that on Christmas Eve/day!!!)
~Lena<3

An early christmas

 Well, we went to our lake house this weekend to celebrate an early Christmas with my mom's side of the family and had a blast! Jake took us up Friday while mom, dad, and baby James (of course) went to a Christmas party. On our way up we promptly got lost (yeah going to the same lake house we've been going to our whole lives! but hey, it was dark) its a long story but we had a perfectly good reason to get lost. Anyway, here we are playing a new game Gramma got (yes we did finally get there).

Joe, Mary Clair, and Annalise:)



AWWW! Isn't that just adorable?!?! Big cuzin Jakey with Al and Emily:)




What a good Papa huh?
Well, unfortunately my computer is being mean and won't let me upload more than like 4 photos at a time..? But I will try to get some more up soon! I got so many cute ones!! I will be VERY busy this week so don't expect a lot of posts:(
 BAL! (Blog About it Later!)
 ~Lena ((hugs to everyone!))



shopping (continued)

ahhh so yesterday mom, James, and I went Christmas shopping in St. Louis! It was sooo exhausting, but fun! And we found some great gifts! So we left the house at 8 yesterday morning (which means i got up at 6!) and then mom and James went to a funeral while I had a class on the computer. After that we went out to eat at Duffy's, which was sooo YUMMY!! And then (drum roll please).........WE WENT SHOPPING!!!!!!!! We shopped approximately 8 hours, and didn't get home till 1 this morning!!! But it was an AWESOME experience and I'm glad i went!!! Wish i could show some pics but i was so busy shopping i didn't have time to take any:( sorry.
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 On a different note we are going to our lake house this weekend to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family! It is going to be awesome fun but i won't be able to post until Monday probably but I promise I will take pics and post some:) Have a great weekend everyone!
 ~Lena
p.s. yeah in case you were wondering those are my feet:)

Christmas shopping!!!

We are in St. Louis getting ready to go Christmas shopping!!!! YEY!!! Sorry about the short post:) I'll post pics later!
~Lena

Happy Sunday:)

Hey folks, just stoppin in to say happy sunday:) I tried out a new cookie recipe today and it was DELISH!! Also been working on Christmas prodjects all day! We are getting ready to have company for dinner and yes this picture has absolutly nothing to do with this post. Have a nice day!
             ~Lena

Christmas is comming!!!

Well folks it that time of year again!!! One of my FAVS too!!! Full of family, cookies, caroling, hot cocoa, Sleding!!!,gift exchanges (cant wait for the dice game!!!), yummy food, and of course we cant forget about the TRUE meaning of Christmas...Jesus!!!!
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One of my favorite things to do is put up the decorations!!! Mom doesn't like to put up the tree until its closer to Christmas but last night we decided to go all out and put up tons of lights outside!!! Ok so maybe we didn't put up a TON of lights, considering we didn't put up ANY last year, this was a big deal!!! Dad was out of town on a business trip and was getting home that night so we decided to surprise him:) and Jake when all out! Of course then we heard that his flight was delayed and he wouldn't be home until like 2:00am. It does look awesome and the pics don't do it justice. If you want to see it in its full splendor, well then i guess you will just have to come over then now won't ya? :) Have a great Christmas!!!

This one is soooo cool! Isn't it?

Sooo what do you think?
 ~Lena

Just another School day in the Howdy House

ahhh yes sooo a couple weeks ago at the dinner table we decide we needed something exciting to do in school the next day. So we decied to all draw a name of a nother kid in our family (not telling anyone else who we got) and then the next day we had to DRESS like that person for the whole day! well this is how it turned out:

Katie was Jake and wore his coat that mom HATES, her cowboy boots and his spirs!

Madeleine was Joe and wore his leather jaket he is obsessed about!

hahaha Jake was Madeleine wearing NOTHING that matched (notice the plaid,camo,and stripes!)

Joe was me......yeah i am ALWAYS cold (hence the blanket) and i always have to blow my nose:)

Ehem, i am somewhat embarrised to post this picture of me but i got Annalise and well she Always want to wear really fancy dresses,always has her shoes on the wrong feet, and loves suckers....

AL got Katie.....but she didn't want to get her clothes on so thats why she was crying.

So Yep thats just another day in the howdy house:) Have a great day!
             ~Lena

Thanksgiving!

Well we had thanksgiving again this year and it was a success! Dad and I made all the food except the stuff that our guests brought (which Btw was AMAZING!)! We were full to bursting with food by the end of the day! We are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends, food to eat, clothes to wear, a house to live in, as well as many other things to numerous to count! I hope you all's thanksgiving was a wonderful as ours was and in dads words "the only thing I hate about thanksgiving is that it has to end." :) Here are some pics to share with you guys.
~Lena<3 ((hugs))
p.s. i would have loaded more pics up but my computer is taking forever so i'll just do these. Sorry:(

update...

Ahh ok so a quick update on what has been happening lately;
I got my braces off!!!!!!!
I turned 15!!!!
I got my drivers permit!!!!!
I got an AWESOME new camera!!!!
I've been oggleing over baby James<3
I've been trying to get caught up in school:(
I got to spend the night at a great friends house:)
and
I got to go to a Latin Mass (very interesting!)

Well that is pretty much all the interesting stuff....sorry for dissapearing:) I'll try to post some long needed picturs later......