The award goes to...

We the management of howes-house.co.uk hereby announce that the award for the first non-Norwegian to post a comment on this site goes to Mr Sam Donoghue of Basildon, Essex, UK. Well done Sam!

Come on the Brits. Let's be 'avin you (as our favourite chef once said).

These Norwegians can be like crazy people when it comes to posting comments on blog sites. Some have been known to write up to 250 per hour, pausing only to inhale breath and blink from time to time, their intelligence networks simultaneously monitoring billions of blog sites for new posts upon which they can swoop like vultures with their commenting fingers.

Having said all that, Norway - we love you, because no one can fail to feel good about all those comments that say "hey, Howeses, some people really do care about your news."

PS - the aforementioned Sam Donoghue is currently walking from London to Lands End to raise money for the charity he works for. If you'd like to sponsor him, I can pass on your info!

Happy family

Here's one for the album. Very arty!

PEACEFUL

We can report that all is peaceful today in the house (sounds a bit like a 'Big Brother' show!) - the little fella slept much better and so did mum & dad. Eden is out for a walk with Mormor, Mattias is sleeping so we're watching the cricket!

Some great new pics coming your way soon.

Mattias!

The Howes family are very happy to announce the safe arrival of Mattias John, born at 00.10 on Wednesday 20th July.
He weighs 9lb 3oz (4.18kg) is 57cm long and is a fine looking fellow!

Pictures to follow very soon. Thanks for all your prayers. God is good!

Tomorrow, we love you...

Hey, big news from the Howes house is that Silje was at the hospital this morning and they are taking her in 8am tomorrow to be induced. They would have had us back this afternoon if they weren't full in the labour ward. It's happening...!

Silje's blood pressure was up just a little bit, so they wanted to get things moving rather than wait, but would have been happy to let it go naturally if we'd preferred that.

It's great timing for us to go in tomorrow though. Mormor (Silje's mum) arrives today, and we need to keep up the family tradition of a meal at TGI's the night before having a baby!

Watch this space, we'll keep you posted.

I'll leave you with a picture of the mum-to-be and her special helper...

Nicholas "tentative" Howes

This is what they are calling me these days.

"Can we meet Wednesday, Nick?"
"Maybe."

"Are you about Saturday?"
"Maybe."

It is so funny being in a time when everything is tentative and no arrangement is concrete. I have had a few things this week that I would normally prioritise that took place out of Coventry, but with baby due any time, I've not gone to. Then there are all the local happenings that I'm saying "might be there, might not!". I like to be fairly committed, reliable and decisive so this is strange waiting time.

I am so excited about our baby finally arriving though. Having had Eden now for a year and a half, looking back it's been such fun to get to know her, see her personality develop and watch as she moves rapidly through so many stages of development. To start that again at the same stage, only with a totally different person who will have his/her own personality, smile, way of laughing etc.

Well, as soon as we have any new pics, I'll put some up here, meanwhile, keep praying for that healthy, swift and less painful birth.

(and if you know my sister, Moira, pray for her too cos she's in the middle of being induced with her 3rd child...so far its been 2 1/2 days with nothing happening!)

10th been and gone

Just for all of you who thought that Nick must know everything... He didn't know the time of this baby's arrival. I've still got a huge tummy!!! Thought you all deserved to know that, and that if God doesn't decide otherwise we have to realize our defeat in the race with Nick's sister. She was due the week after me but the doctors has decided to get her baby out -she's beeing induced on Wednesday this week. All the best for the safe arrival of our third nephew or first niece!

Let me end this with some wisdom from a great writer Gordon Fee (and I do recommend for everyone to read his book -How to read the Bible Book by Book)

Christlike living affects relationships of ALL kinds

Love to you all in the heat -still the Patient wife.

Look what I can do...

Just thought it would interest you all to know that I am getting a little bit more learned in the skills that most of our readers appreciate the most about howes-house.co.uk -the pictures!!! Well at least I've had a session with my husband and now he's left me to work this out on my own... so bear with me it might work and it might not. Took this picture of my beautiful daughter today, and I think it speaks for it self.



Hehe..I think I did it!!! How proud am I of my self!?! The whole getting the picture centered and those fine touches, lets not think about that, but just enjoy the progress so fare.

Let me take the time to Thank all my friends here in Coventry (and Liz from Leicester) for a great baby shower yesterday... For all you Norwegians that do not know what that is; adopt that cause it is well fun! Basically I just got a lot of pressies -babygrows, vests, blankets, lots of babywipes, nappies, breatspads, babybath... all the things you need when your having a baby... plus some special treats for mummy as well (chocolates). They put on a Norwegian spread for us (Leah being a specialist made a great job at it... bread, ham, cheese and so on)

The girls had brought babyphotos of themselves which hung up around the room and all of us had to go around guessing who was who... very hard! They all had to cut a piece of string to the size they thought my tummy was -I can't believe how BIG almost all of them thought I was!!! Except for three of them who didn't do bad at all.

We tasted babyfood and had to guess ingredients... which I did very well at indeed!!! Winner at that game.... And then the funniest, but most disgusting one was four nappies with melted chocholate in them (very poo look alike)... we had to smell and taste to guess wich type of chocholate it was! Hehehe... That's a babyshower... appart from the lack of someone telling a scary, off-putting birth story which normally is one of the ingredients!

Me and my pressies on display... I'm just showing off now really!!!

Well enough said from me... don't want to spoil you with too much in one go.

The Patient Wife...

Thought it was about time that you got to hear from the wife herself. And I feel slightly embarrased by the fact that our page hasn't been updated since my husbands true self in traffic was so clearly reavealed to you all. Enough said about that.

Just thought I would tell you that I'm doing well though I really feel ready for this next Howes baby to pop out now. We are all ready for the new addition especially NIck who's got his money on the 10th which is only 6 days away!!! Eden herself is playing caring mother for her dollies and me -serving me pretend tea whilst I have to put my legs on the little yellow plastic chair of hers. She is absolutely the most gorgeous girl -and I'm not a bias mother!

The most frequent question asked is if I am bigger, carrying the baby different and so on, and for all of you wondering -I have no idea....cannot remember, so all of you wanting to guess whether it's a boy or a girl you have to do that without any clues!!!

PLAYTIME calling, my little princess needs me... she wants to make toast with her little toaster.

With lots of love to you all from Silje.