Rachel's 3rd Birthday

Today is big girl's 3rd birthday and I am completely filled with emotion about it. Gratitude for how blessed I've been to be her Mama, pride for who she has become, excitement for all that lies ahead, and even a little sadness at it having gone so quickly. Even after three years, it's still so hard for me to wrap my mind and memory around how it all happened.

I looked at Rach today. I mean really looked at her. Sometimes in the rush of the day when everything's a mess and we're running late and the table still has breakfast all over it I forget to look at her and see her for who she really is. She is growing into a little lady. She is beautiful and deeply kind. She loves her home and our family and her "yitta boy" Alden more than anything. Oh how good it is to be a mother. Especially her mother.

(with most of her birthday loot, since two of the things we ordered for her got here during Joy School today)

(eating her birthday dinner, sans one hair bow--"hot dogs cooked over a fire on a stick, with root beer please"--Rachie request)

A birthday letter for my girl.

My dear Rachie Nicole,

I am so proud of you always, but want you to know it especially on your big day. Later on in your life you probably won't remember anything about your life up until this, your third year. But I will. And I hope when you read my letters to you, you can see what I see in you, even when you doubt yourself.

You are good. You are so kind. You are truly funny. You have the gift of empathy and compassion for others. In your completely genuine eyes, you see all people as simply people, no matter their faults or mistakes or differences. You are a friend to all you meet, and when you say, "It's nice to meet you!", I really think you mean it. You are honest and quick to give compliments to others. You are incredibly polite and are always saying please and thank you.

You were brought home to a little tiny garage apartment with nothing but a tupperware bin of clothes and a portable crib, and yet you filled that home with love beyond anything I ever imagined and helped me grow into myself. I've learned more, loved more, and lived more since you were born, and I'm so grateful to be your mother. You are a blessing to your Daddy, me, your "yitta boy" Alden, your grandmas and grandpas, your many aunts and uncles, your little cousin, and all your many friends.

I love you so much my girl.

Your Mama

One Last Long (And Wonderful) Vacation Part 1

Jason and I have been students for our entire 4 years of marriage. One really great thing about being a student is that you get regular, long breaks between certain semesters. At William and Mary, it gets even better since you get about three weeks off in a row at Christmastime (Jason got 4 off this time because he finished his finals early). Coming up on our last semester of school, we had one last long break before we embark on this new journey called "The Real World." We thought we'd take advantage, so we bought tickets to Arizona to visit our families in Tucson and Phoenix.

We spent the first week or so in Tucson with my parents and brothers and sister, and the next in Phoenix with Jason's mom and siblings. The whole trip was a blast and the kids did great. Due to not having hardly ANY pictures from our trip to Tucson I will have to save my family for the next post. My mom is a professional photographer (check out her website here...I created the logo and my kids are on her opening page) and takes great candid shots of my kids and the whole family, so I just let her do her thing and end up with much better pictures of all the fun when I get them from her (they're in the mail).

To record the rest of the trip, here we go.

So we left on the 17th, early in the AM. The kids were huge troopers.

No big incidents to really report, especially since the last time I took the kids on the plane I looked like I got in a food fight when I met my parents in the airport, and cried several times just simply because the babies were so bored/tired/livid with me. Keep in mind that I braved a full scale across the country trip BY MYSELF with 2 children under 3.

During this trip we did in fact see Jake Pavelka (ABC's the Bachelor, fame obsessed jerk of a star) in the Atlanta airport train car. We are certain it was him, plus he is a pilot for Southwest I think. I was kind of sad that the first "famous" (or "infamous") person I ever was to come across was him. He was a lot smaller and less good-looking than he was on TV.

Anyways, we made it to Phoenix where my parents picked us up. I'll post about our week there later.

But we will continue with the rest of the trip, starting with the day after Christmas when we came up to Jason's mom's house in Gilbert. We walked in and were greeted by several of Jason's siblings and Jason's mom, and we all got to meet baby Noah for the first time. He is 5 months old and our very first nephew. The day was spent opening Christmas presents, eating a Christmas dinner, and just catching up. The rest of the week, we went on many walks to the park around the corner (it was beautiful weather the whole time--60's and 70's, breezy), watched lots of movies, played with toys, fed uncle Davy's dog Moose lots of treats (Moose is aptly named, as he is a huge great dane/german shepherd mix), played games, fed the ducks, and did puzzles. We also went to the movies and saw "The Muppets," which Rachie loved and Alden loved 1/2 of. Movies and 16 month olds aren't best friends.

(Feeding ducks at the riparian preserve)

(Almost 3!)

(With Grandma Howell, eating birthday cake)

(Skateboarding with Uncle Seth)

(Feeding baby Noah with Uncle Davy)

Over the weekend we celebrated New Years Eve by lighting sparklers and throwing poppers all over the driveway with the kids (it was just our family and Elizabeth since everyone else was off partying) and then falling asleep early. I have a habit of doing this...New Years just isn't the same when you know your kid is going to wake up ready for the day at 5 am because of the time difference. Later that week we had quite the dance off in the dark, complete with glow sticks and taped with a video camera. We split into teams of girls vs. boys, and the boys danced to "YMCA" while the girls did "Firework." It's a good thing it was all in the dark, or it would have been terribly embarrassing. The same night we celebrated Rachie's birthday (a week from that date) with a purple cake, and ate way too many hot wings after the kids went to bed. I had a blast being with all my in-law adult siblings. It's so much fun when you're all grown up and can stay up forever laughing and telling stories. I have been adopted into a truly hilarious and awesome family. I love love love being a Howell.

(Married 4 years!)

One special day was Wednesday the 28th; Jason and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. We got to have an overnight date to celebrate down in Tucson, but we still wanted to have the evening out so Elizabeth took care of the kids for us and we went off to visit the Mesa temple, where we were married. My cousin was going through the temple for the first time, so we joined in the session. It was great to see everyone and sit with my Grandma and my Aunt Pennie for a bit inside. After the temple we went to Fuddruckers. It was a fun night, and really nice to be in the place where we were sealed forever. I can't describe how happy it makes me to be sealed to my man. More info here and here on temples.

(Wedding day December 28, 2007)

Anyways, more to come on the trip with my family, but I think that catches the blog up on at least that part of the trip.

Holiday Recap

It's already been over a month since I last posted, and there are so many events to record for the month of December. I'll take it in a few posts to catch up, since I want to write it all down for the books.

First off was Thanksgiving. We have been blessed to be a part of a great group of friends here in Williamsburg. Most of us do not have family nearby, so we all kind of band together for many holidays and make them special in our own way. For the past two years we've used the church cultural hall to gather. This year we shared Thanksgiving with the Wilkersons, the Taylors, the Devereauxs, and another couple (who I can't remember their names anymore since I only met them that one day...oops). Everyone brought food and we set up tables and chairs, brought the kids' booster seats and high chairs, and afterwards the kids played with the nursery toys and the boys threw a football around while us girls talked. It was relaxing and wonderful. Afterwards we all helped clean up the food, put everything away, and vacuumed the church, and all went home to already clean houses and only a few dishes to be done. All in all, wonderful! Here are a few pictures from the event:

Rachie eating her meal

Rachel with her friends Luke (L) and Caleb (R)

Alden eating some sweet potatoes (he also really loved the turkey, surprisingly, because he comes from a family who likes ham for Thanksgiving!)

The next day we went to Mill Farm to cut down our Christmas tree. This is the third year in a row we've done this, and we've really enjoyed this tradition. The kids get to run around in the farm and pick a Christmas tree, and then we haul it home on top of our car and decorate it that night. This has been great for us the past few years since we have absolutely no storage space for a fake Christmas tree, although it is somewhat more expensive since I think we've spent about $30 every year on a tree. Some may think that silly, but this has always been pretty much the only Christmas decoration in our house. The kids love putting the ornaments on it, and I love the smell of pine and the lights at night. Next year we'll probably have a fake tree since we'll have room to store it, but we'll always look back (at least Jase and I will, since we'll remember it) on the few years we got to spend traipsing through the Christmas tree farm.

At the farm

The house after decorating

The next week (December 3rd) we held our 3rd annual Ugly Sweater Party (sorry, very unfortunately no pictures). The day of, our kids ended up with fevers and were feeling pretty bad, so we called our friends to let them know. We held the party since most everything was already done by the time they were sick, and most of our friends attended anyways. We had a nice time. The real fun actually began about 20 minutes after the last guest left. Jase and I were shuttling toys from the living room to the kids room to prep for bedtime when we heard very scary screaming coming from Alden in the other room. We ran in to find Alden screaming and blood coming very quickly from his right ear. Turns out Rachel put the handle of a paintbrush into Alden's ear canal. We knew it was really serious, and after some brief panicking, we all jumped in the car (me still in Jason's slippers and my ugly sweater, which really is hideous, although at the time I thought nothing of it) and raced to the ER. Alden screamed all the way and soaked through nearly two paper towels. I don't think I've been more scared as a mother. I had no idea what damage had been done, and he seemed really hurt. I was crying, Rachel was crying, Alden was screaming, and Jase was just driving, but was very very scared too. Anyways, things calmed down once we reached the ER and Alden seemed to relax a bit out of his car seat. I pretty much carried him around for two hours while we waited to be seen by a doctor. It could have been worse. He did pretty well letting me walk him around and going through every last thing in the diaper bag. When the doctor finally came, he took a look and basically confirmed that the ear drum was definitely ruptured, but he couldn't tell how bad it was due to so much debris in his ear canal (dried blood, etc.). He gave us some great pain meds for Alden, antibiotics so it wouldn't get too infected (although turns out it already was, that was the cause for the earlier fever in the day), and instructions to see an ENT as soon as possible.

Anyways, we saw the ENT (a wonderful doctor) and his regular pediatrician (whom I love) the next week and were given more antibiotics in the form of oral and ear drops (Alden now knows the words "ear drops" very well, and doesn't really like them) as well as several other medications to help calm the swelling. The ENT doctor concluded that most of his eardrum is completely gone. He couldn't tell us much more than that until the swelling goes down and the infection goes away, so we have appointments this month (January) to determine how well he hears and the next steps (possible surgery--depending on further damage we might find beyond his ear drum, or quite possibly the ear drum will just grow back given time--up to a year--on it's own). The next few weeks after the ER drama we were pretty sick with colds, sinus infections, ear infections, prep for Christmas and our trip to Arizona, and keeping Alden comfortable.

We also had our 1st Joy School Christmas party. The kids made cookies for the dessert, we had soups and salads and rolls for dinner, and then the kids put on a little Christmas program. The program consisted of songs and a little 5 minute nativity play. Some things went better than others, but I can tell you, I sure was proud of my little girl when she played her part in the play. None of the kids actually practiced verbal parts, but were supposed to act out their parts. When it came to Rachel's two moving parts, she cut in to the narrator and actually said her part, almost perfectly. She must have just heard it a few times during practice and thought she was supposed to say it. Anyways, she played the part of the angel, and what she said to Mary was, "Do not be afraid. You will have a baby boy. You will call his name Jesus." Later she said to the shepherd, "Do not be afraid. Follow the star to Bethlehem. There you will find a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." She said it all so reverently and quietly I just couldn't help but get a little choked up, partly from the shock of seeing such a little person do such a grown up thing. It sure made me proud though, and once again, I felt really really blessed to be her Mama. Many of her talents just came with her. Things like speaking in front of others and performing the way she did, I know she did not learn from me. That is all her own. So many things she does I am so often reminded are just from her very nature. The way she is so intuitively sensitive to how other people are feeling around her, the way she naturally wants to comfort and help and take care of people. She even recently told her Aunt Ondalynn on our vacation, "That's me. I just, you know, take care of people. Animals, Alden, baby Noah, my friends. I just like to take care of people." No kidding she said it just like that. I'm grateful for a girl who just naturally thinks of others. Without further ado, a few pics of my little angel...


And what would a post be without a little mischief? While packing for our Arizona trip in the bedroom, Jase and I realized things were too quiet (we thought the kids had been playing with toys in the living room). We went out to investigate and found this.


Alden got into the baking supplies (yes he was most definitely the instigator) and I think Rachel thought, well...what an opportunity! Flour was everywhere. Although I realized how much work it would be to clean up such a mess...kids are kids. Wouldn't this be fun if you were a kid? So we took pictures and took baths and vacuumed up flour. Oh well.

And that about wraps things up for our pre-trip fun during the months of November and December. More posts to come about fun with our families.

Giving Thanks

I am grateful for....

This guy.


He's funny, happy, and downright good. He works hard for our family, and has a lot on his shoulders being a student with all the worries of providing for three others. He loves each of us, and we all know it. He loves getting our babies from their beds to play, loves giving shoulder rides, squeezes, and playing pretend. He loves slow dancing with me in the living room after the kids go to bed, reliving songs from back when we were first dating. I love that we still consider ourselves "dating," largely because of him.

He truly deeply loves taking his little girl on dates. They've been on bus rides, out for ice cream, McDonald's (per Rachie request), out for on tap root beer, and now her first time bowling. These pictures are from their last date a few weeks ago.

I am grateful for this little girl.


She brings so much spice to my life. She brings out the more fun side of me. She is also the person who made me a mother, and I will always be thankful for her because of that. What a privilege it is to raise and learn from someone with so much empathy and passion.


(Practicing cutting and gluing.)

(A new favorite activity...play dough.)

I'm grateful for this little boy.


He is my littlest sweetie, my baby. Before I had him I wondered how I could fit more room into loving another child the way I love Rachel, and it is truly a remarkable thing how it is done. It's especially easy to love someone like Alden, who gives THE best hugs in all the world. Since Alden was just a new baby I've always felt that he has something really important to do in his life. It's been a rough going babyhood for him with particularly hard challenges from near constant teething pain from cysts, ear infections, sleep problems, and just general fussiness. But when this kid is rested and healthy, I feel like I see the true him. Happy and goofy. He has helped me become a more flexible, resilient person. He has taught me to let things go and prioritize my life so I'm doing the most important things (because that's all he gave me time for!). I love him for it.


I'm grateful to be part of a supportive, wonderful extended family. My parents and in-laws, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and little nephew are all reasons to be grateful for life.

I'm grateful to be an American. Jason and I have been watching Ken Burn's WWII documentary and other WWII movies lately and I have felt an intense gratitude for those many families who gave their fathers, sons, and brothers, and those men and women who gave theirs lives in that war and many others who sacrifice so much defending our country today. I'm proud to be from a family with a heritage of military service.

I'm grateful for a home, clothes, food, roads and transportation, cameras, telephones, and so many hundreds of things that make our lives so much easier and comfortable.

And finally, I'm grateful to know their is a God. I'm grateful for the things I understand about religion, because they put all of the other things I'm grateful for into perspective. I can catch glimpses of the end from the beginning, and see the point of this thing called life. And having that perspective really does change everything.

"Fangled Eggs," Car Noises, Sleeping (ah sleeping), and Growth

So I took the kids on a little photo shoot the other day at New Quarter Park. Some of them turned out cute, but most turned out like this:

And this...
And this...
But some turned out like this:
And this...
And this...
Not exactly frame-able, but still worth the frolic through the fall air. Poor Rachel was just disappointed towards the end when she found out this was just a walking park, with no slides and no swings (the audacity!).

And for good measure, a Halloween picture to record the event. My little blue-haired babies. They are really so much like Thing 1 and Thing 2.


To start off, last post I said I'd record some things about each of the kids and what they are doing and saying lately.

Rachel is constantly making us laugh. One funny thing she says a lot is "it's/that's/you're/he's buggering me," instead of "bugging" me. She says it whenever something's annoying her, and you just can't help but smile when it comes out. Another saying of hers is, "fangled eggs." One morning Jase was making her scrambled eggs and she was sitting at the table waiting and she said to him, "Are you going to ask me, (quoting in her mock Jason voice) "You want some fangled eggs or some-ping (something)?" Jason asked her if fangled eggs meant scrambled eggs, and she said, no, those were the bad eggs. She wanted good eggs (which turned out to be scrambled eggs). Who knows. That silly girl. One funny story that happened awhile ago was when we were driving in the car and Jase stopped at a red light. Promptly from the back seat we heard a mumbled "dang it!" Both Jase and I looked at each other and I asked her where she learned to say that. She replied with the utmost honesty, "Well that's what you say at a red light!" Oops....parenting fail? I guess it could have been something worse. We still had a good laugh about it later.

On to Alden...my favorite thing he does lately is give you this little squeeze. He goes to hug you and because his hands and arms don't make it all the way around you, he squeezes with his fingers. It is the cutest thing. He also shrugs his shoulders if you ask him to (he knows we think this so cute), and he swings his arms when he walks as if he's really got somewhere to go. He makes dinosaur noises (growling) on command, and makes car noises when he plays with his hot wheels. He knows so many words now! He can understand much more than these, but he consistently says car (his favorite thing), mama, dada, ada (Rachel, he also has a name sign for her), bath, duck, milk, shoes, dance, Jesus, water, all done, more, help me (the sign, mostly), and cracker. I think there are probably more, but I don't remember them all at the moment.

Alden's finally sleeping!!! I can't even believe it myself, but this boy has to go to bed early in order to sleep in until 6 (yes that is the absolute latest I can push my children). He goes down at 6:30 and wakes up at 6 (Rachel goes down at 7:30). It is a huge pain sometimes to make sure he gets down that early, but apparently he needs that much sleep because he does it without complaint. Before we switched him so early he was going to sleep between 7-8 and waking up around 4 (ouch). Not only that, but he was always so tired. I couldn't get him to take two naps anymore (he'd just scream through one of them), and so we switched him to one mid-day two hour nap plus the 6:30 bed time and within about a day it solved all of his sleep problems. The child doesn't scream all the time anymore!!! Oh happiness. I am a believer that a lot of my children's behavioral problems (at least crankiness related things) can be solved by taking a look at one thing: are they getting enough, consistent, quality sleep? I had no idea coming into motherhood how important sleep was, but wow. It's the truest thing I've learned lately.

As for Jase and I, we still do what we've done for awhile--school, home, work. It's really not a bad life. We're waiting on a few job prospects and preparing to apply to others. We still remain hopeful. Jason had an epiphany of sorts just before his last job interview. Previous to this, we've been working and praying constantly to have Heavenly Father help us find a job. Numerations to this also included helping us know where to apply, and after each job interview we've basically been asking to please just let us have the job. Jason's thought process that day was this: that all along we've basically just been asking God to change our circumstances, without really asking for help to change ourselves-to help us to have more patience through this time, to become more qualified, to be more in tune with the Spirit so we might know where and how to apply. That day he asked God to help him do better in the interview than he normally would of his own accord--and he believes he had help that day. From this we've learned that there are things we can control--our faith, our prayers, our own efforts, and there are things we can't--the economy, other people's decisions about jobs, etc.

I suppose the point of life isn't to ask God to change all of our circumstances, but rather to make us equal to them. If those with health problems or money problems or any other type of problem just asked for it to be removed, where would be the challenge? The growth?

Elder Hales in LDS General Conference talked a bit about this. In an answer to my thoughts above, he said, "Why such terrible tribulation? To what end? For what purpose? As we ask these questions, we realize that the purpose of our life on earth is the grow, develop, and be strengthened through our own experiences. How do we do this? ...we wait upon the Lord. Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His son." There was so much wonderful guidance found in this talk (find it here), and I read it just when I needed it.

A Snapshot

So to start the posting, I thought I'd record just a bit of what our lives all look like right now...I suppose to provide a starting place for future blogs.

Jason is a 3rd year law student. He has done a remarkable job juggling all the stresses of law school. He came out with a great resume and great grades. In an economy such as this, our main stress as of late is finding that right job for us. We've got a few options we are hoping and praying for right now. We know that it will all turn out in the end, and that even 10 years from now we'll look back at this time and wonder to ourselves why we worried so much. In the moment, with two babies to take care of and debt to deal with, it's still a little disconcerting. But we are confident that we'll be taken care of as long as we keep doing all we can do.

I stay at home with the babies. Keeping up with them and the house keeps me extremely busy. Other than the home and motherly duties (most of my news will be their news), I teach a class on Sundays to the Young Women (16-17 year old girls) and help out with Tuesday night youth group activities.

The best word to describe Rachel...passionate. That girl is truly passionate about being happy when she's happy, and passionately angry when she's angry. She's two (almost three), so this is I'm sure how many two year old's can be, but she's always added a little spice to our lives. She is so so so smart. She's always telling us funny things. Right now she loves watching movies, dancing, and going to Joy school. She and I get to do Joy school this year, where I teach 2 days per month. It's kind of a co-op preschool where 4 moms rotate weeks. We only do it two days per week, for just 2 1/2 hours per day, but it has been a good experience so far. Rachel really loves going and she's made some new friends. She's learning all about different types of "Joy," i.e. the joy of the body, the joy of the earth, the joy of being honest, etc. It gives me a great mindset and framework to talk about lots of different things in life with her. If nothing else, I think it's helped me be a more proactive mother in teaching her about the world.

Alden is my little sweetie. He is incredibly tender and his smile really can just melt your soul. I could gush over him all day. He has had a hard time teething (for what feels like his whole life), and already had to get two hematoma cysts in his gums lanced so the teeth could come in. But aside from those bumps in the road, he sleeps well at night (finally...this was a long time coming) and is healthy. I just stopped nursing him a few days ago (this has been wearing on me for a long time and I've wanted to stop but didn't know how-with Rachel it wasn't really a choice when to stop). It has been a little emotional for him, but I'm feeling great about it. He's eating a little better than before (getting this kid to eat is somewhat difficult).

Anyways, that's kind of an update of what we're like right now. I need to post more later about all the funny things Rachel says now and the words Alden knows.

Another thought on my mind today, it really is incredible how fragile life is. Our friends lost their little baby girl yesterday morning at just 11 days old. She was born with a heart problem. I've been thinking today about how I felt about my babies when they were 11 days old, and while I can't actually know how our friends must feel, I just hurt for them. It's times like these, when really sad, unexplainable things happen to good people, that I'm grateful I know about this. Knowing God's plan has helped me wrap my head around tough things. And while it doesn't make bad things good, it does bring peace, even through hard times.

A Fresh Start

As many of you know, I previously ran a blog a few years ago, mostly about Rachel. About the time I started getting sick during my pregnancy with Alden things just petered out and I never felt like I could get back into it. I've been wanting to blog again, but it just feels like so long since I've posted. I don't want to feel the need to catch up, because I definitely never could. So I decided to just start fresh.

I titled the blog "Not One Empty Chair" because that's how I feel about my children and my family. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believe that our time here in this life, while vitally important, is not the end of existence. I believe that we'll exist as a family with generations before and after. I want to sit down at our family table after this life, and I want all of my children there with me. I don't want any empty chairs because I didn't teach them to choose the right. I also believe that if my children and family members want to be there, they will be. We all have that choice.

So welcome to our new blog. I'm now sleeping regularly, so I feel a lot more energized and have as of late been feeling a real need to write things about the children down. If there is one thing I've learned about motherhood, it's that in the moment I think that I'll remember things forever...and then just a short while later I don't. No matter how hard I try, I can't replay that moment in my mind again. Some of that is probably attributable to constant sleep deprivation for 3 or so years, but I think I could remember more if I wrote things down immediately. And it's not too late. My babies are young...Miss Rach is only 2, and Alden boy is barely 1. As guilty as I feel for not recording every funny thing they've said or every tender moment, it's not all lost to me. I've still got time to record them! So that's why I'm starting over, and starting now.

I'm stealing this from my cousin's blog, but I think it's exactly the reason I want to record all of these memories:

"What could you do better for your children and your children’s children than to record the story of your life, your triumphs over adversity, your recovery after a fall, your progress when all seemed black, your rejoicing when you had finally achieved? Begin today and write your deepest thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies and the angels may quote from it for eternity."
Spencer W. Kimball