Happy 11th Birthday Jordan!

Happy Birthday Jordan! I can't believe you are already 11! Where did the time go? Where did my tiny little baby? You had a really great year, minus the broken wrist! Although I think part of you secretly enjoyed that!

This year will bring lots of new things to you. Baseball! A summer of swimming at the pool. Going to middle school! Oh how that pains me! Really, you can stop growing right now. I won't mind.

Thank you for being a wonderful son to us and a wonderful brother to all the other kids. You are truly a blessing and I'm so lucky to be your mom!

With that said, every year the kids get to pick any place they want for dinner. Any place at all. Jordan picked McDonald's. Yeah, you can read the dissappointment in my words. *sigh* Son, please read this blog before your next birthday and pick someone better. Bugaboo Steak House, Red Lobster or at least Checkers. Jordan also got a couple of video games for his PSP. I always make the kids' whatever cake they want as well. Jordan, my smart child (I know, a minute ago, he was a dunce!), picked a chocolate cake with chocolate icing! YUMMY!

I didn't get any pictures. I've totally been slacking this year.

Happy 11th Birthday Jordan! We love you!

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Some Birthday Facts

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23 January 1997
Your date of conception was on or about 2 May 1996 which was a Thursday.

You were born on a Thursday
under the astrological sign Aquarius.
Your Life path number is 5.

Your fortune cookie reads:
A friend is a present you give yourself.

Life Path Compatibility:
You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 5 & 7.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 3 & 9.
You may or may not get along well with those with the Life Path number 8.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 6, 11 & 22.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2450471.5.
The golden number for 1997 is 3.
The epact number for 1997 is 21.
The year 1997 was not a leap year.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/19/1996 and ending 2/6/1997.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Rat.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Otter; your plant is Fern.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Parmuthy, the fourth month of the season of Poret (Emergence - Fertile soil).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 15 Shevat 5757.
Or if you were born after sundown then the date is 16 Shevat 5757.

The Mayan Calendar long count date of your birthday is 12.19.3.15.7 which is
12 baktun 19 katun 3 tun 15 uinal 7 kin

The Hijra (Islamic Calendar) date of your birth is Thursday, 14 Ramadan 1417 (1417-9-14).

The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 30 March 1997.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 27 April 1997.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 12 February 1997.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 18 May 1997.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 25 May 1997.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Thursday, 2 October 1997.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Tuesday, 22 April 1997.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 11 February 1997.

As of 4/13/2008 10:29:39 PM EDT
You are 11 years old.
You are 135 months old.
You are 586 weeks old.
You are 4,098 days old.
You are 98,374 hours old.
You are 5,902,469 minutes old.
You are 354,148,179 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:
Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (1974) Brendan Shanahan (1969) Princess Caroline of Monaco (1957)
Dr. Laura Schlessinger (1947) Rutger Hauer (1944) Chita Rivera (1933)
Jeanne Moreau (1928) Ernie Kovacs (1919) Edouard Manet (1832)
John Hancock (1737)

Top songs of 1997
Candle in the Wind 1997 by Elton John You Were Meant for Me/Foolish Games by Jewel
I'll Be Missing you by Puff Daddy/Faith Evans/112 Un-Break My Heart by Toni Braxton
Can't Nobody Hold Me Down by Puff Daddy featuring Mase I Believe I Can Fly by R. Kelly
Don't Let Go (Love) by En Vogue Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison
How Do I Live by Leann Rimes Wannabe by Spice Girls

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 1.60391389432485 years old. (You're just a pup!)

Your lucky day is Saturday.
Your lucky number is 4 & 8.
Your ruling planet(s) is Saturn & Uranus.
Your lucky dates are 1st, 10th, 19th, 28th.
Your opposition sign is Leo.
Your opposition number(s) is 1.

Today is not one of your lucky days!

There are 285 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 12 candles.

Those 12 candles produce 12 BTUs,
or 3,024 calories of heat (that's only 3.0240 food Calories!) .
You can boil 1.37 US ounces of water with that many candles.


In 1997 there were 3,880,894 births in the US.
In 1997 the US population was approximately 248,709,873 people, 70.3 persons per square mile.
In 1997 in the US there were 2,384,000 marriages (8.9%) and 1,163,000 divorces (4.3%)
In 1997 in the US there were approximately 2,148,000 deaths (8.6 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

In 1997 the population of Australia was approximately 18,609,115.
In 1997 there were approximately 251,842 births in Australia.
In 1997 in Australia there were approximately 106,735 marriages and 51,288 divorces.
In 1997 in Australia there were approximately 129,350 deaths.


Your birthstone is Garnet

The Mystical properties of Garnet

Garnet is used as a power stone
Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Emerald, Rose Quartz

Your birth tree is

Elm Tree, the noble-mindedness
Pleasant shape, tasteful clothes, modest demands, tends not forgive mistakes, cheerful, likes to lead but not to obey, honest and faithful partner, tends to a know-all-attitude and making decisions for others, noble-minded, generous, good sense of humour, practical.



There are 256 days till Christmas 2008!
There are 269 days till Orthodox Christmas!

The moon's phase on the day you were
born was full.

Landon's Quilt

A wonderful family friend, actually my mom's Goddaughter, and her hubby are due March 2nd! We are so excited for Jason and Crystal! They found out what the baby is (thankfully! It sure makes gift making so much easier!!).

Being a boy, they are doing a sports themed room. This is the first thing I made for Baby Landon. The front side is sports themed quarter flats and with fleece. The backside is alpine fleece and totally soft! I still have a few more goodies to make him.

Christmas 2007

This year, Jordan was at his dad's Christmas morning and James at his mom's. We let Jasmine, Jacob and Jenna open their stockings and a few gifts. They really did a great job of waiting until their brothers were here. I don't know how; I wouldn't have been able to as a kid!

The presents after Santa came



Jordan ~ I only got two pictures of him. He showed up with Oma and Opa and then everything went nuts and we didn't get as many pictures. Jordan is also trying to grow his hair out right now.



James ~ Contrary to what the first picture looks like, he was very excited about his PSP.



Jasmine



Jacob




Jenna



Chad opening his gift from Uncle Jamie. Jamie has been talking about this since we found out Becky was pregnant. Boy or girl, this kid was getting a Gator!



The kids *BIG* gift from Santa



Finally, Opa opening his gift from us. BB King tickets!!!

A Blanket for Jazzi's Teacher

Jasmine wanted to make a special gift for her teacher. She came up with the idea of doing a blanket. After emailing her teacher's husband, who just happens to be a teacher at the school as well, we found out what colors to work with. Jasmine picked out the fabrics and sewed the smaller squares together. After that, I did the rest. It was just too big for Jasmine to handle yet and her machine couldn't handle the thicker fabrics.



Embroidered with their name ~ The Howingtons



The back embroidered with a special message

Alexandra's Blanket

I just simply love this quilt kit at JoAnn's. The colors are just beautiful and it makes for a great quilt for any little girl. My wonderful neighbors, Justin and Nicki, have a sweet little girl, Alexandra. I whipped this one up for her.

Hope's Lovey

With my awesome machine, I'm able to do embroidery. I whipped this up in a few minutes just so I could test out the embroidery part of my machine. Joanna said Hope loves it. Yeah!

Curtains for the Boys' Room

I finally did the curtains for the boys' room. Only took me an hour so I don't know why I didn't get them done sooner.

Our First Snow

Well we finally got a few inches. Jacob and Jenna were itching to get out there and play so I let them go out on the deck. I sure do love that deck!

Bear totally loved it! Just loved it!



Cleaning off the table



Mommy's Pretty Snow Bunny



Jacob could not figure out how to get the snow off of his gloves



And I just have to share this picture of Jenna on her laptop.



Isn't that how all the kids use it?

Rest in Peace Sean Taylor!

Article on Washington Redskins site

Showing off our attempts at a nice Christmas picture together...

Do you even know how hard it is to get a nice picture of five children together? You tell the older ones to just keep looking at the camera and smiling. Then you tell the younger ones to look at you. Then the older ones look at them to see what they are doing. Then you remind them to keep looking at you and smiling. Then you try to get the younger ones to stop picking their nose, start smiling and to look at you. Then the older ones aren't smiling. When told to smile, they complain that their face hurts. I think next year they will take individual shots and I will come up with some other creative idea for our card!

Here are a bunch of our attempts...

Oh yeah. Jenna insisted on wearing gloves and her Dora beach hat. I have bigger fish to fry than worrying about that! And yes, the first one is great after everything I took. I should have got out while the getting was good!



So after that, I told them to go nuts!



And it's not a true photo shoot moment if Jasmine doesn't pose for us!





And our finished Christmas card which turned out to be a tribute to Papa and Granny.



Finally, our picture with Santa. Jenna wouldn't go near him, even if Jordan was holding her. I wasn't going to force her so this will just be *The Year Jenna Didn't Want to See Santa*.