look before you cook.

We've been having problems with our heater. It's been working overtime and whenever it comes on, the whole entire house rattles. It feels and sounds like we're a plane taking off on a runway. 

On Friday a couple of weeks ago, I started smelling burning rubber. After a few hours, it started to get bad enough that I was getting a headache. Thinking it was from the heater, I panicked and started calling repairmen. Yes, I was totally that Friday at 4:30 pm person, sorry...

We have a connection to a great furnace guy through people in our ward. He was totally overworked, but after describing our problem, he said it sounded like an emergency and he would come by later that night (like 10 pm) to check it out.

So Steve gets home and I asked him to smell the area in the hallway and kitchen where I had smelled it the worst. I had something cooking in the crock pot and I had smelled the burning rubber around it, but whenever I got close to it, all I could smell was the tomato soup I had cooking. Steve went straight to the crock pot, lifted out the pot, and found this: 

A PLASTIC bag of RUBBER bands.

That I melted inside my crock pot for SEVEN hours.

No wonder I had a headache.  

Steve immediately bursted out laughing. For several minutes. I had no choice but to join him. I seriously have no explanation for how that bag got in there, except that we keep things like that in the drawer above the cupboard where we store the crock pot. 

Anyway, our heater guy called later at like 9:30 pm to make sure we still wanted him to come over. (Poor guy, this was right before a huge cold front swept the east coast and everyone was freaking out about it.) I made Steve answer the phone and explain the situation to him. Somehow he managed to do it without laughing. But as soon as the phone call was over, you can bet it started right up again.

I'll never live this down.

So happy fifth anniversary to us. A new crock pot. We got SIX crock pots for our wedding and somehow ended up with zero five years later. We need to start a gift registry on each anniversary for whatever replacement appliances we need :).

PS--The heater guy came back today and we have heat! No more buzzing or space heaters or games falling down from the closet shelf at 3 in the morning!! Hallelujah!

Recap of 2013

Our 2013 Highlights

Why does each year seem to fly by faster and faster? I can't keep up! For the most part, I did well on my theme and goals for the year. I could evaluate them here, but I think I'll save that for another post. Here's a (LONG) list of our favorite parts of 2013!

Birthdays

Steve: 28

Audrey: 26

Jaden: 3

Weddings/New family members 

Ally :)

Brittany :)

Felecia and Braxton :)

And a new niece coming soon to this cute couple! :)

Two visits to Utah

My must-do: boating

Steve's must-do: shooting

Hayward family minus the honeymooners and Steve who was in Tahiti

Howell family minus Emily who's serving a mission in LA

Camping in Lancaster PA

Church callings

Trek in July

Came home from Utah to a month's worth of mail and a new stake YW calling.
 LONG story, but I joked to Steve on the way out to the airport to go to Utah for a month that I'd probably get released from being Primary president because I'd be gone for so long. I specifically remember telling him that would make me sad because as hard as it was to be so busy in Primary, it would be even harder to go back to a less time-demanding calling. I told him I LOVED giving as much as we were currently giving in church service. (Steve's been scoutmaster and YM president ever since we moved into the ward and I had been Primary president for just barely a year and JUST BARELY got a full presidency and secretary called. Poor Jaden was an honorary member of ward council for the first half of 2013:)) Anyway, I hoped our church service wouldn't change. Ha! I'm sure Heavenly Father had a good laugh at that one. Turns out I DID get released while I was in Utah, but not for the reason I was thinking! But that's a story I haven't decided if I want to share in the blogging world yet. Suffice it to say, it was life changing for me and our family. 2013 has definitely been the year of the church callings. :)

My presidency who I just LOVE
 (Heather, I hope you don't mind me putting this up here :). I'd say this was a major part of our 2013, right?!  Just want to share a picture with my family of the amazing women I'm working with! :))

Steve was released as scoutmaster and YM president in November. The last big event they had was when they spent the night on the Battleship New Jersey. We were glad he made it happen before he got released

because he wanted to do that with the scouts SO badly! We have such a great group of boys and leaders in our ward.

 Hosted family and friends in the Howell family hotel

Grandma Hayward came in March and November

Grandpa Howell came on different weeks in both March and November 

Grandma Howell came in April and November

Forrest, Amy and Olivia came for the 4th of July

Russ and Michaela came for 4th of July weekend

Garrett and Jess came for Labor Day and Thanksgiving

Granddad Hayward came in September and November

Stan, Julie and Spence came for Thanksgiving

House projects

Backsplash with help from the Hoffmans

Headboard for guest room bed with help from Stan

Holidays

Valentine's Day

Easter

Halloween

Our first time hosting Thanksgiving!

Christmas
This was as close as he would get to Santa, but at least there weren't any tears!

Jaden's adventures and discoveries

Riding the train in Strausburg, PA

Becoming obsessed with all things trains

Hogle Zoo

Water safety classes

First ferris wheel ride
Fourth of July

Fall festival

National Aquarium in Baltimore for Jaden's birthday experience

 Accomplishments

Audrey learned how to make natural yeast bread

Steve ran his first half marathon and earned his huge 55 inch TV :)

We made our yearly goal of attending the temple quarterly
(even got in a few extra sessions and weddings out in Utah)

Wanted to do nothing but sleep for date night and found a place socially acceptable :)
We made it to the beach together three times this year.

And HUGE accomplishment...we saw SNOW!
One time in the entire year, so you know, it was big.

Hats off to 2013! You're one for the record books :) Thanks for being so good to us. We can't wait to see what we can cram in to 2014!

a very merry howell christmas

Christmas Eve

We were so blessed and had the *easiest* and best Christmas Eve dinner ever. Steve got a free honey baked ham from someone at work. Oh my. Our whole meal took 15 minutes to prepare. It was delicious and amazing.

After dinner we had a family devotional with our Nativity magnets and the Christmas Train story by President Monson. Holy moly was that book a winner this year with Jaden. That boy loves all things trains.

We visited Mike and Connie for a few minutes and Connie sent us home with some carrots for Santa's reindeer. We left them outside on the porch and then came inside to leave Santa some cookies and milk.

Ugh, blurry!

Right after Jaden went to bed, we thought we heard Santa's jingle bells outside Jaden's window ;). Then we skyped with the Howells for their family devotional. Before we went to bed (like a couple of hours later) I checked on Jaden because he had the worst cough. Poor boy was awake and not feeling well, but he told me he had heard Santa's jingle bells! We decided to both hurry and go to bed so he could come! 

Later, this is what we saw that Santa had left. 

This is the third time we've had to wake up our child on Christmas morning! (He's had four Christmases because he was one day old on his first one :)). Maybe I'm just the kid at heart in this family, because I laid in bed awake for a half hour and finally made everyone get up at 7:30. But before we made it into the tree, we had to make sure the reindeer got their carrots...

and Santa got his milk and cookies! Jaden was a little bummed but a little excited that Santa left half a cookie, because that meant he could eat it before breakfast!

Stockings were first! Lightning McQueen bubble bath!

Finding all the presents with the name Jaden on them!

Jaden asked Santa for ONE thing for Christmas--a "James the red train." You know, Thomas' friend. It was hidden clear under the tree, but Santa delivered! And oh man, that train received some serious love.

Can I just say, this Christmas was SO fun with a three year old!

 And after Jaden opened all his presents, we realized Santa hadn't forgotten Mom and Dad.

This boy has stayed in so many hotel rooms, he thinks he needs one of those cool curved shower curtain rods. I don't know why I'm such a stinker, but I've never given in. Lucky for Steve, Santa is nicer than me :).

 The rest of the day was low key. We invited our friend Jamie over for brunch because her family was out of town and she had to work later that day. Then we were invited to a prime rib dinner at our friends Tom and Kim Hoffman's home. We made it back in time to skype my family while they opened their presents. 

It was a very merry Christmas indeed.

We are so blessed to have such amazing family and friends and most importantly, our Savior Jesus Christ.