Fishing

 A couple weeks ago we got to go to our Uncle's farm and go fishing! Something we haven't done in forever! We had a lot of fun and the girls caught lots of fish (even more than the boys:P)

James, the little fisherman.

Annalise's first fish, she was pretty much disgusted.

He blended right in with the grass:D

Well that's the pictures I have for now:) Have a great week!
~Lena

Madeleine funnies

Madeleine- "where is my pocket knife?"
Me-"Why do you need it?"
Madeleine-" I need to skin a stick." (whittle)

AL and James

I thought I would treat you all to a picture or two of my cute little sibs (well two of them anyway:) James has thinned out just a bit but BOY does he look *ehem* chubby in that picture?! I do adore his "thunder thighs" as we call them:) Like brother like sister eh? And Annalise? well.....She is up to mischief that's for sure! A couple weeks ago she decided to be the barber and gave a nice trim (or should i say gash?) to her bangs. Thankfully that's all she got done before we found her! She also has been changing her clothes 5 times a day (much to me, her laundress's, annoyance)! Poor baby James is sick right now with a nasty little cough, the doctor said it was nothing serious but please pray it passes soon:) Well I MUST get outside and enjoy this BEAUTIFUL weather while it lasts. Bye ya'll!

~Lena

Update

Me and my 16 year old friend!!!

Sorry for the weeks of non-posting! I have been super busy with school, babysitting, and friends! So because I don't have a lot of time to do this post (im terrible i know) I will just list some of the awesome and not-so-awesome stuff that has happened to me lately.
Awesome-
-Going skating last last week
-Meeting dad at the airport after skating
-Having the security lady tell us we couldn't pick dad up at the "drop off point" and so having to circle around -and when we saw dad made him practically jump in the car so she wouldn't see us (pretty funny).
-Celebrating my best friends 16th Bday!!! AAAHHHH!!!
-Seeing "The Lorax" a MUST SEE!
-My best friend getting her license!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!
-Lots of babysitting
-Seeing our good friends yesterday and meeting their future son-in-law:)
-Watching James be as ADORABLE as ever! (ok this will probably be on everyone of these i post:)
- Getting a cell phone!!! Yey!

Not-so-awesome
-Only getting to spend one short day with my friend for her bday
-missing my other friend by about 5 minutes (miss you Lizzy)
-finding out that i have 14 weeks of school left and only 12 weeks till the WIZ! uh-oh

   So yep that pretty much is everything exciting that has happened to me in the past two weeks. More awesome than no-so-awesome:) But then God always does that doesn't He?  Have a great week!
~Lena

You know "Tangled" is a good movie when your country brothers go around whistling "And at last I see the light" :)
~Lena

Pictures of baby James:)

I Just love him to death!!!!!! Look at that face!!! xoxoxoxoxo
 ~Lena

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:)

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!))



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!!!!
                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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

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:(

World Series

We aren't a sports crazy family but we do get excited about the big stuff like the world series and the super bowl! We all watched the World series and were rooting hard for the Cardinals! We were so happy when they won too!! (25 cent slushies! Oh YEAH!) Here are some pics i got........

Me and Baby James<3

She makes me laugh so hard!

Like our hats? ^

I did manage to get at least ONE good family photo!
Well there you have it folks! The 2011 world series at the Howdy's! Hope your days going great!
Lena:)
P.s Is anyone going trick-or-treating this year? (leave a comment please!) I am going to be a ---- well you'll just have to find out won't you?! I'll try and get a few pics on here.... we'll see.....

IT'S A BOY!!!!

Ok,ok! I'm very sorry this post is soooo overdue!!!! (no pun intended!) I am just behind on everything! So to get down to business, James Lawrence Gene Howdeshell was born on October 19th (congrats to those who guessed it would be a boy!) at 11:04 am. He weighed 8 pounds 15 oz! and was 14 in. around the head and chest! I got to be their for the birth too! (yes the entire thing:) Mom, Dad, and I drove up to St.Louis at about 1:40 AM!!! And she was in labor until 11:04! Trust me i am not complaining about lack of sleep!!! He is a beautiful little miracle and he is SO mellow! Lets hope he stays that way! haha!

Mommy at the Hospital with baby James!

Aren't his little hands adorable?!!?

AL loves him!

Haha! Some dear friends of ours got him this hat and booties! Aren't they sooo cute?!?!? I just love them! Thanks Melbys!!! ((hugs))

Jake is so proud of his li'll brother:)

Well, that's all for now I'll get more pics up soon.
p.s. I was *SUPPOSED* to get my braces off the day James was born but obviously i didn't! One of the nurses said "Man, your little brother is already trying to ruin your life! Haha!

Lena<3
P.s. Leave a comment and remind me how beautiful handsome he is:) lol!

sickness and such...

sooo.. yeah We've been sick. Last week everyone EXCEPT Joe and Katie got sick:(
Madeleine and AL got sick first then me and mom then jake then dad. It was pretty bad so thats why i havn't been posting. I got behinde in school so i have trying to catch up with that too. And on top of all that MOM IS DUE TO HAVE HER BABY TODAY!!! Well that doesn't mean she WILL have it today but any day now..... so here is our schule for this week;
Moday- Catching up on school
Tuesday-Voluntiring at the food pantry and Mass
Wednesday-I GET MY BRACES OFF AND I GET TO SEE THE HAMACHERS!!!!!!
Thursday- ummmm well nothing but i think thats when mom will have the baby.
Friday- Nothing
Saturday-MABEY the ball.... MABEY St.Louis... MABEY nowhere.... It all depends when the baby comes....
Sunday- Not sure, thats too far into the future for me!

So all of this can change depending on when the baby comes but when i have time i will post the picturs from when we went to the art musium in St. Louis..... Sorry this is such a boring post but i have to get back to school! Ya'll have a great day!
           Len@

Part 2 of Jessica's Baptism

So after Jessica's baptism party dad took us to Ted Drews!!!!! Now if you havn't been to Ted Drews before and you live in a million mile radious then you are just plain CRAZY! It is THE BEST ice cream you'll every have. They are famous for their concreats, they're so thick you can turn them upside down and the ice cream will stay in the cup! So we hadn't been there this summer which is almost like a sin in our family so of course we had to go:) here are some pics I too while there:


Gramma go to come with us which was real treat:)



We all had a really good time and we LoVEd the Ice cream! Oh, and if your wondering why there isn't a pic of Jake, he didn't get to go because he went with our Uncle on a short trip. Have a great day, week, month, year, the rest of your life....ect.
~lena