4th Child Slacker Mom

I have done a terrible job of having Oliver's pictures taken professionally.

I guess it's the whole 4th kid thing.

Or perhaps that I take so many pictures myself that I don't feel like I'm not capturing those stages.

I'm really happy with how these pictures turned out.  I think they're wonderful.

Baylee - Age 14

Jackson - Age 5

Wyland - Age 3

Oliver - 10 months

 

My Boys



2011 Howard Family Pictures

We headed over to Wheeler Farm for our annual Howard Family pictures.  It was a little crazy in the beginning.  Jeramie was still at work in Solider Hollow, therefore I had an incomplete family.  Poor Evan was terribly ill (birthday party the night before, nuff said).  So we began with some individuals with the kids and Mike's family.  Here are just a few of my favorites, because you know there were over a hundred pictures to choose from.

Jackson was being encouraged to give a serious look, with a wink.

I quite like this family shot.

Mike and his family.

Evan, Rachel and their "kids".

I LOVE this one.  We were still waiting on Jeramie when we did this or else I would have copied!

Option #2 for our family picture.

All the grandkids.  (minus Jeramie's boys who he hardly gets to see these days)

Love seeing these two fall in love like Jackson and Owen did.

That's one fine looking family!

Lil' Howard-Kramer boys.

I think this years pictures are some of the best ones we've done.  The group ones turned out great.  The scenerey was beautiful.  The colors are good.  In my opinion Mike's family ones turned out the best.  So now I have to decide if I'm going to use one of these for our Christmas card or whether we'll wait and see the professional ones we're having done next month.  All in all it was a hectic success!!

Wheeler Farm

Last Saturday we headed over to Wheeler Farm to visit with the animals and pick out a pumpkin.  Mike and his kids also came along.  This is something I look forward to doing every year.  I swear I get some of my best pictures each year on this visit.  This year however it was still really warm.  Too warm for my liking. I had Oliver on my back and I was downright hot.  Plus a lot of the leaves it didn't seem had changed too much yet either.  But we all still had a really great time.

My cute little bones.

I swear looking at pictures of him lately is killing me.  He's looking so grown up.

Cousin Fun.

Baylee and Wyland have a pretty special relationship.

Mike and his kiddos.

While he was heavy on my back.  It was definitely convenient not to have to navigate

a stroller all through the farm.

The kids were afraid to feed the ducks through the fence.

Good 'ole Grandma had them doing it though.

Then we were off to pick our pumpkins.

They were all really small but that's okay I guess.

On the way out Grandma decided to take the scenic route.

Then Baylee followed and wished she hadn't, while Wyland thought it was great fun.

I love coming to Wheeler Farm this time of year.  While we were there it was so warm that we decided we would come back the very next day to do our annual family pictures.  Normally we're really cold while we do them, last year it was even drizzling with rain.  The family was already planning on getting together to celebrate Evan's birthday so the time was already set aside.  Pictures to come ...

Slackerville

I seriously feel like the biggest blog slacker lately.  I've been having so many computer issues it's insane.  My beloved Dell desktop has been hobbling along ever since Baylee gave it a virus a couple years ago.  It's progressively gotten worse to where now I can't even get my scanner to work with it.  Which is really bad considering I have some specific pictures I NEED to scan prior to letting people have copies of them.  I literally spent the entire night last night doing fixes, uninstalling and reinstalling both Internet Explorer and also the software for the printer/scanner.  Nothing fixed it after spending hours.  All I get is some ActiveX error, which wasn't there before and I do believe Baylee has managed to change yet another setting and therefore this stupid ActiveX blocks crap now.

Oh .. I did mention computer issues .. plural.  That would be because my trusty Sony Vaio laptop that I don't let anyone touch, yeah well last night (the same freaking night!) wanted some Java update.  I just clicked yes.  It said it encountered a problem .. and well now I can't download Google Chrome or Mozilla. Which means I have to revert back to the old version of Blogger interface.  It's all unbelievably frustrating.  I seriously hate computers. 

I know that we need a new one.  My heart desperately wants a Mac.  But well we need to save our pennies for one of those because they're so darn expensive.  So then I think, okay well my poor Dell is on borrowed time and since I don't back anything up (MUSIC .. PHOTOS) .. it's a matter of time before I'm really screwed.  So then I think maybe we need an in-between computer.  Something really affordable to hold us over until we can save up for a Mac.  This in-between computer would then be migrated to the kids computer.  So it's not a total waste of money or anything.  Ugh.  So I think there's a good chance we'll be coming home with a new computer tomorrow.  Then the thought of actually having to go through and make sure all my pictures are all on the external hard drive and then also making sure that all my music is consolidated into one place.  Seriously I don't have time for all this!  But I really know that I want to start fresh with a new computer.  Meaning things are saved in whatever "default" folder the program thought would be good.  Boo.

It's got to happen eventually though.  So that explains my disappearance from blogosphere.  I do actually have a couple events to post pictures on.  So I need to snap out of it soon!

What's new chickaboo?

I feel like I haven't posted in forever.  We've just been trucking along.  Last weekend I had some professional pictures taken of the kids and cannot wait to get them back maybe this weekend.  Jackson and Wyland are settling in to their new school schedules.  While I do not love Jackson's teacher at all, he seems to be okay with her so we'll see how things go.  Wyland absolutely loves going to preschool.  I am however loving Baylee's teacher this year, whom she should also have next year.  Oliver is crawling all over and "cruising" across furniture.  Sure wish that guy would slow down a little.

Anyway, here's just a few randoms from the past couple of weeks.

We've been doing a lot of homework since Jackson started Kindergarten.

It's a time sucker for sure.  I find it interesting that Baylee has basically NEVER had homework.

Other than reading of course for her entire time in school. Like what these kids don't need homework?

To which this week she ASKED her teacher for homework.  So she was given some.

Great .. more homework.

The day before we went to Lake Powell in August I had an oil change done at Jiffy Lube.

If you recall on my way home from Lake Powell my car overheated.  Apparently they didn't screw down some cap all the way and we burned all the water and coolant out.  This last Sunday Jeramie took it back to Jiffy Lube so they could do the free radiator flush they promised after the Lake Powell debacle.

Monday night (the very next day) I blew a radiator hose!  That cannot be a coincidence.

I'm so lucky that Jeramie's Uncle and Dad are both mechanics.  His Uncle fixed me right up and off I went back to Jiffy Lube where Jeramie's dad was waiting to take care of us.  I hate car issues!

I've been running a LOT!  I registered for my first Half Marathon on Dec. 4th in Vegas.

I'll be going with my friend Rebecca.  We're gonna tear it up.

It's the Las Vegas Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon.

It's a night run out and back on the strip.  It's gonna be EPIC.

So yes .. I'm officially training.  Which means running 4 days a week and cross training 2 days.

It's intense.  This week I ran 4 miles at lunch on Tuesday, 2 miles Wednesday, another 4 tomorrow and then 6 on Sunday.  That's a total of 16 miles for the week.  And I'm only on week 5.  Pretty cool I dare say.

We've been watching a lot of college football at our house.

Mainly the Utes of course, but my boys don't have Ute's jerseys.

I need to do something about that.

I've started running on my lunch breaks at work and I'm LOVING IT.

A guy I work with showed me how to get to the Jordan River Parkway that runs behind our building.

And since then I've been running solo 3 days per week.  It's so much better getting my run in at lunch time, outside than trying to squeeze it in when I get home from work on the treadmill.  I'm hoping to keep it up through the Winter, hopefully they clear this trail well enough.  Anyone happen to know?

Oh .. and I took a cake decorating class.  Jeramie showed my cupcakes to his mom and she didn't believe him when he told her I decorated them.  It was fun.  I'd like to do the cake making class but it's pricey.

So that's the short of it.

The mundane stuff we've been keeping busy with.

Does it make us weird that both Jeramie and I are excited for the new Twilight movie next month?

I wanna buy tickets for that Saturday night.  Anyone want to come with us?