CRAZY DECEMBER

Well the holidays sure do go by super duper FAST!!! Especially when one is having fun! Thanksgiving seemed like only a few days ago and Christmas is next week.... AAAHHHH!! We have been keeping busy with our everday life routine and Christmas. We've been doing a lot of "park days" since the weather here in California is "perfect." We are having a lot of fun and are so much happier now that we get to see Ryan more. I haven't been in "camera mode" just because I haven't even remebered to have it with me at ALL times. But I will have to post pictures when I get a chance.
A little update on how everyone is doing:

Owen: He is such a little smart boy! I know as mothers we all think so, but he REALLY IS!!! He is always on the go and has so much energy to do just about anything. He loves helping us out and is always asking so many questions. He is such a "big brother" although recently he has been telling me he has a big sister. I ask him who she is and he replies, " I don't know her yet." I'm wondering if he is receiving revelation...... I know I'm not pregnant ;) He is such a funny boy, that's for sure. He still loves playing all types of sports and is always interested in fixing things right now. He is enjoying Primary even though I still think he is a baby. He just started going to his Primary class all by himself and helps this Primary presidency erase the board at the end of church.

Isabela: SHe is such a sweetheart. She really is the "girl" of the family. She has become so danty and so girly! I am not sure if that's a good thing or not. She is now completely potty trained through the night and during her naps. I am so happy, even though she sometimes has accidents. She is so sweet to everyone and she loves spenind time with mommy. She loves strolling her red teddy bear everywhere.

Jacob: He is such a little man! He has recently started to talk more and copying a lot of words lately. He reminds me of that commercial that the little boy is constantly saying, Mama, mama, mamma...." When I finally repsond to, "WHAT?!!!, " he has a smirk and mumbles. He is still a good sleeper and has recently become a daddy's little boy.

OWEN TURNS 4!!!

Happy Birthday Owen!!

Oh my goodness, my oldest baby turned four this year!! I cannot even believe it! I remember the day I was in the hospital in labor and how I thought I was going to die after pushing for a couple of hours. I remember asking the doctor to cut me open because there was no way I had the strength to push anything out of my body at that moment and somehow, he finally came out! I remember hearing just ONE cry, " WHAAAAHH!!" And that's it! He was staring at me and at the room the rest of the time. I was thinking to myself, "Is there something wrong with this baby?" But let me tell you, this boy is as active as a boy can really get. If I had to describe Owen in a few words, it would be a ball of energy!

He has such a strong, confident spirit and is not afraid to be outgoing and learn new things. This year he has mellowed out a little and has been such a great big brother to Isabela and Jacob. He even loves all of his cousins as well and is always excited to see each one of them. This was his first year in Primary and he is a Sunbeam. He has loved it up until he had to say his part in the Primary Program this past OctoberL. My poor baby was so nervous when the day came and he started to cry before going up, but somehow he pulled himself together and said his part perfectly. And to make things worse, when moving into our new ward, the Primary had not yet had the program yet, and "lucky" Owen got to stand up again in front of the congregation and say his part yet AGAIN!! He was a lot more prepared this time and enjoyed a little more the second time around.

This past year, he has grown so much as of course speaks clearly and has some of the funniest comments. Here are some things I can remember him saying this year:

"Mommy, don't hit me…… Just talk to me Mommy, just talk to me, ok?"

On another occasion, I was so frustrated with him one day and told him, "Owen, why are you being such a…… such a bad child?" And his response was, "I'm not a bad child mommy, I'm a Child of God." I tried to keep a straight face, but it made me smile just hearing him. He really is such a sweet little bot. He is willing to help me with most things and wants to be a "handy man."

Here is Owen eating ONE of his many cupcakes on his birthday. I put an apron so he wouldn't get dirty!

 

One of his presents this year was cars, of course! You can never go wrong with getting a boy CARS!! Even if they are 28!!!

random pics

Here are some more random pictures from Fabio and Stephanie's wedding

FAMILY WEDDING

On Saturday, November 7th, my cousin Fabio and Stephanie celebrated their marriage. We had a great time. You get food, dancing and family together, you're guaranteed a good time. Teri and her family came down for the special occasion and it's always nice to get all the cousins together as well. They had so much fun dancing and hanging out.

Here are the 3 girls: Sydney, Isabela, and Olivia holding hands, showing their dancing moves. They all loved the music and you know how little girls like to dance together!

Here is another attempt at getting a descent family picture, but failed miserably. And that's that we were all wearing Christmas colors :( We tried taking them at home before the party.... no use!

"mommy and me" picture

Sibling Love: These two are usually together. Whether it's fighting and taking toys away from each or playing together and looking after each other.

I am proud to day that these are my little babies! They are growing up so fast. I found myself shopping in the bigger boys section for Owen today :(

Overall, we had a great night. Stephanie and Fabio looked very happy and it is always nice to get together as a family.

NEVER LEAVE A 2 year old unattended!

Okay, I have always heard this statement! Well it's pretty much goes like this, " DONT LEAVE CHILDREN UNATTENDED!" And of course I get so distracted doing things around the house that I begin to think that because my kids are being quiet, they are being GOOD....... YEAH RIGHT! Why do I always fall for that trap?! I was downstairs getting ready to make dinner and Ryan comes walking in and asks, "Are the kids still sleeping?" I told him I hadn't put them down because they were being good and there wasn't really a need to. So he goes upstairs and this is what he finds:

She thinks she can put bright red lipstick on since she got to put it on for Halloween!

Beauty is PAIN

She looks a lot better NATURAL!!

Halloween 2009

Since Halloween was on a Saturday this year, the whole family went out for Halloween. Ryan didn't have to work which was really nice and the kids took a nap right before going so they were in a good mood the whole time!! We even had dinner for them and were out the door by 6:30p.m. WOW!!!!! I was pretty impressed. We first went out to the elementary school near the house which was only a few blocks away. I guess this is their 2nd year doing a little Halloween Carnival and it was great! We stopped by a few houses on our way over to the school to get some candies. When we got to the school, it was jammed packed!!! But it was so nice becuase the neighborhood had cars parked all over (trunk-or-treat) and we were able to collect candies in a matter of minutes as oppose to having to walk door to door. I know, I've gotten lazt over the years! :) Anyway, they had a little jumping maze for the kids to play in and of course Owen was eager to go in it. We met up with Dain, Nat, Sydney, and Baby Noah and they even has cotton candy, popcorn, and drinks for FREE!! We were all over that! We ended up waiting in line for all the goodies longer than "trunk or treating."
Owen dressed up as our little "scary" skeleton man. Isabela was our little tinker fairy. She has been watching Tinkerbell and loves it! Jacob is still too young to even care what he would be for Halloween so we bought him a Kung Fu Panda costume that was on clearance. He was enjoying his sucker pretty much the whole night!

Howes Babies!!!!

Kung fu Panda

Daddy and the kids

my princess fairy

Jacob with his lolipop

cousins

Isabela trying to be Noah's mommy

Here are just some ransom pictures that I have taken in the last few weeks. I subsribed to a new program called picknik.com and they have some pretty neat tools to edit your photos.

Mommy and Isabela!!!

The Howes Clan

Isabela decided to try on her boots from last year with Daddy's black socks. Owen decided to join in on the fun!!

And of course the Baby of the family...... Jacob :)

Halloween 2009

I know I've been slacking on recording all these fun things that have happened in the last few weeks. It's been crazy but I will summarize everything in a "nutshell" and try to be better at recording all these memories! Our little family has been quite busy. Ryan has found a new job in California and has been working in California for the past 3 months! And the kids and I have been living in Las Vegas all that while. We finally had the opportunity to move to California this past week and we have been living in "chaos" these last few weeks. AAAHHH!! But we are all doing well and are always chaotic anyhow. We will miss our friends and family in Las Vegas but are definitely excited to be close to family and to be back "home." Owen, Isabela , and my baby Jacob have kept me super busy and by the end of the night, I'm pretty exhausted. We are definitely not ready for Baby #4 yet, nor will we be in the near future!! As crazy as it might sound, no, we I am NOT expecting! Pretty weird, huh? Anyway we are all doing great and I am excxited to start our new advventure in California!

Crippled!

Okay so for those of you who have been thinking that I've been MIA.... I have been. Let me just say, it's been a crazy few weeks. I threw my back out!! I 've been crippled for the last couple of weeks and let me tell you I've been MISERABLE!! Luckily Ryan has been helping me out through out the weekends and my family has been a great help a well. So anyway, I'm pretty much stuck in California for another few days.

TIME FOR A HAIR CUT!!

Okay so this is also a late blog entry but I wanted to post it anyway. I have been feeling pretty lazy the last few weeks about cutting all my boys hair. I just hate cleaning up afterwards as if I don’t already do that with everything else at home but I just was not in the mood to be cutting hair. Well I finally got the energy to just do it and here are the results. I love “clean cut” little boys and so this will serve as a motivation to keep me on schedule with their regular haircuts.

My "little" surfer!

UTAH TRIP

I know it’s been a while since I have been able to write again! We have been so busy the last couple of weeks. We had the opportunity to go out to Utah and visit with some family and my sister Stephanie who is currently serving a mission in Temple Square. Although packing is my least favorite part of the trip, we ended up having lots and lots of fun. Besides me being stressed out 24/7 for EVERYTHING, we managed to do some fun things. I drove up with my mom and we had a total of 5 little toddlers plus the two of us in one car! Crazy right, but we got there! It took us about 7 hours and we managed to squeeze a little McDonald’s meal in too! When we got there, Feudy and Sofiya were up waiting for us. We hung out there the week and just relaxed. They have a yard the size of our house and so Owen and Isabela were in “heaven” running around. They also had a little playground where they spent most of the day at. We also got a chance to go see Stephanie at Temple Square. She looked great. She said she felt a little weird. I think it was because she was still adjusting to being back from Pennsylvania. Plus she says she’s been stuck all day in the office. So she got to take us out on a tour and have lunch with us one of the days. And one night my mom and Feudy offered to take care of the babies so we can go out on our own which you know I will always take anyone up on that offer. We ended up just going to Wal-Mart to pick up some things we needed. Anyway, we had a lot of fun being there with her and being able to see her. Here are some of the many pictures we took while we were over there.

In front of the Garden Place next to the Temple
In front of the Beehive House

Sister Clavel with "most" of her nieces and nephews

I had to post this one. I thought it was really cute:)

At the Pool

So what more do you have to do when it's hot in Vegas? Of course, we go to the pool, and I love it because the day goes by a lot quicker and all the kids LOVE the water! So I decided to take our camera to the pool to see if I could get some type of "evidence" that I do take my kids out of the house once in a while. We've actually gone to the pool quite a bit this year already and we are still only in June. Owen loves the water and is pretty water safe. He still uses his life jacket althoug he can swim without it. It just depends on his mood whether he wants to wear it or not. Isabela loves playing with all her little toys on the first step of the pool. She can play all day long as long as she is close to me. And my little Jacob is still NOT walking so of course stays near as well. He is going on 13 months and is not in any hurry to get the steppin'. As you can see from the pictures below, he loves to put things in his mouth!! He is the cutest little boy I know.

The 3 Amigos
Owen

Jacob with sunscreen in his mouth!

Isabela just floating away!

baby Noah's Blessing

This weekend were also went down for Baby Noah’s graduation who is the newest addition the Clavel grandchildren! He is such a cutie! We got a couple of cute pictures of him that I posted on here! He was born April 28th and is Nataly’s little baby boy! I also was able to get some random pictures of Owen, Isabela, and Jacob throughout the weekend because I had the camera on me 24/7!

Cute little Baby Noah!

Baby Noah

Owen and Tia Chana

Nataly and Baby Noah

Jay's Graduation

Well this event was a big deal for the Clavel Family!! Well at least it is for my mom! This is the last of the 6 kids that she had that graduated from High School. Good bye Ayala High School!! There have been so many good memories there and bad ones too!:) But I think all in all, we love Ayala High School and there will be really no reason to go there anymore. Josh graduated in Ontario in the Citizens Bank Arena. I guess that is the first year they have had it there because they are building a nice track and field at the high school where the last few graduations have been. We got reserved seating so we got to see Josh close up so that was fun. He was one of the first to graduate and the ceremony actually didn’t last too long which was good considering there were 7 grandchildren ages 3 and under!! That is just crazy, but they all did pretty well. We had lots of fun and were able to go out to celebrate with Josh afterwards for a bit before he headed back to school for GRAD NITE!!! We went to Carino’s and met up with one of Josh’s good friend’s family, Gab! We had lots of fun there, and the boys were able to go see the Lakers game at the bar. We celebrated Ryan’s 28th birthday with a free dessert on the “house.” We love you Ry!!

Most of the babies that were there supporting Josh! ( The new generation)

Doesn't he look so handsome?

the whole gang

The boys

Nataly and my little baby Jacob!

RYAN TURNS 28!!!

Happy birthday to my “hottie” husband… Ryan!! He turned 28 this year which seems scary because it’s he’s not in his early twenties or not even in his mid 20’s, but he doesn’t seem to mind much at all. He still looks the same as he did in high school. He is such a great person, father and most of all the best husband I could have ever asked for. He is so considerate, although while I was pregnant ( which is most of the time we have been married) I didn’t think so. He is loving and always concerned for the kids and well, yes, especially me…. I love it, seriously. He is so inspiring and such a positive influence in my life. He loves horsing around with the kids and is so good with them. I love him so much and I know Owen, Isabela and Jacob do too!! Happy Birthday daddy!

Ryan's birthday happened to fall the same day as Josh's graduation :( I know it's sad because those of you who know Ryan know that he is a BIG birthday boy and loves to celebrate his birthday! So because the graduation was kind of in the middle of the day, it didn't give us much room too plan anything in the morning or afterwards, so we ended up spending it with my side of the family. So it was a birthday/ graduation party at Carino's. Sorry Ryan, maybe next year we can make up for it!

Jacob eye balling dessert after the server set it down for Ryan.

Daily Routine

Okay, well for those that think these pictures are gross, le t me remind you that I am using this blog as a sort of journal for my children when they get older. I am willing to post anything and everything, even if it embarrasses them later on in life. I have to keep track of the funny things that happen daily in our home, and hopefully one day they will laugh at all the silly things they did. For those of you who know our little "clan" there are 5 of us; three of which I still have to wipe butts for… sometimes. We are slowly progressing. Owen has been going to the bathroom on his own since he was 2 ½ years old, but refuses to go #2. He is seriously traumatized, and will get constipated, and finally I will give in and put one of Isabela's diapers on so he can go. Anyway the last few weeks somehow, Ryan has been able to help him go and so now it's a big deal when he goes. Isabela is still in the process of getting potty trained. There are good days and bad days. But she definitely does not have a problem going #2. And so Owen is always asking her how she does it and if she can help him. They are hilarious together. She'll make a face like she is pushing and he'll try copying her, and of course he wants me in there helping too. So that means Jacob also has to get all up in the mix. So there are four of us in the bathroom while Owen is trying to go…. Let me tell you chaos. Jacob is trying to touch the water and Isablea is dancing or doing her own thing in front of the mirror while Owen is doing his business. And that is our daily trip to the bathroom.

This is Owen concentrating on his business!!!
BEFORE: Jacob trying to see what is going on!

AFTER: Nevermind, I didn't want to see that... scary!