she gave me a locket

i've never had a locket and have always wanted one.  i think they're such a whimsical piece of jewelry. not flashy or expensive; just meaningful and cute and totally personal. so now, whenever i miss sienna on campus ( you know if i haven't seen her in the last 30 minutes) i can open up my necklace and see her face. it's a beautiful idea.  just wish it could somehow fit seven faces.

kool kiko


lowen came home yesterday with kiko and vincents christmas gifts!!! they were the first presents under our undecorated tree. kyrie and i couldn't wait until christmas morning...the suspense got the best of us. so we opened them round midnight after everyone went to bed. she made us these kool bracelits with burned messages on them and pretty dangly bird earrings... all handmade by my cousin: kiko takata howard.

(she's way kool)

thanks kiko and vincent!

dance magic, dance.

this daft punk video made it on pitchfork's top 50 videos of the year...i was watching bits and pieces of other favorites but this one had me the whole way through...and not so much for it's great footage (not quite sure why it got best video) but for it's hot beats. they had me moving and wishing i was there! it's long.. so just push play, turn up the volume, and do something around the house for 5 minutes.

then it reminded me of a precious commercial gap put out some years ago with juliette lewis and daft punk.

watch it. and dance around. then watch it again. and dance around some more.

my lin came for a visit.
a christmas visit.






she's back from her new home in north dakota and it's perfect timing since kyrie and i are home and christmas time is almost here. her ben will be here on sunday but for now kyrie and i get to steal her company. her cheer and her glow will complete any christmas season and i'm so glad she can be a part of mine. I love these two pictures from her wedding and wanted to share them...

put the lights on the tree

Put the lights on the tree

Put the ribbon on the wreath

Call your grandma on the phone

If she's living all alone

Tell her Jesus Christ is here

Tell her she has none to fear

If she's crying on the phone

Tell her you are coming home

La la la la la la la

(-sufjan stevens)

mom's been decorating 5 talbot for christmas time. Pax, Chali, and her actually did it a couple days before kyrie and i got home. the night we got back after our 16 hour excursion from the mountain we walked into a home that i always seem to see with news eyes each time i return. I walk in the door and breathe it all in...jember's at my heels and pax is asleep on the couch. it's a home...my home...and even though it was only two and half weeks since thanksgiving something about that time made it a couple years. the trees around are home are magical. my home is so cozy. my mother is amazing. my father, so creative...my little sister, beautiful and pax so loving. he had beaded necklaces all wrapped and waiting for kyrie and i when we walked in. there are candles in the windows, garlands strewn about, twinkle lights in every room and a combination of sujan and amy grant's christmas songs play from the living room. mom has made this place a christmas haven...she has the touch.

this morning I thought to look up this sufjan christmas song on youtube and to my delight there was actually a video and very dear one at that. click THIS to hear a refreshing christmas jingle that's been filling the howard home.

back with chali-

exams are done and after a 16 hour car ride we are finally back with the family and the sisterhood has been reunited. well almost, we're still waiting for braebrae.

this video may be a bit on the obnoxious side to a few of you but but i love it alot and laugh that real kinda laugh every time... it's three of us, authentically unaware and in our element. we were on our way home from annapolis and the sirens started and instead of just going home we decided to follow the noise and smoke. and we taped the little excursion for some reason...

"if you tuwn him tail, him wings fwap."
Pax said this when he was a little guy, when he still couldn't quite pronounce his r's and l's. We were at Mcdonalds and there was a dragon toy in the happy meal bag. I remember Aunt Pamela was there, Brae and Kyrie too. We never went to Macdonald's. Happy Meals were like Christmas Morning and the whole concept of a free toy with your meal was unbelievable. Pax dived inside the bag and his little fist emerged with this confusing looking toy that none of us could figure out how to work. We all fiddled with it until Pax, with his insanely cute voice and disposition, perked up and said "when you tuwn him tail, him wings fwap!!!" He was right. we turned the tail and those wings flapped... and all of you who didn't know Pax when he was a little guy, well, you really missed out.

I thought of that story when I found these prints by a philly artist on etsy.com. I sort of fell in love with them right away. I now want to go find some land, buy it and build myself a home and then go online, type in etsy.com and purchase these dear prints. And then maybe I'll them hang in my bathroom or maybe above the coat rack so people will see them when they walk in the door. maybe they'll look better on the left side of the mantle or somewhere in the kitchen. i'm not sure.

you should check out the rest of her work on ETSY though. click here.
(mrs. kate, I totally see these prints in your store...yeahyeah?)
and check out the rest of etsy while you're at it. it's a good little christmas spot.

[pray]please

one more exam left and it's my hardest one... my motivation is slipping and my desire to play and be with chalice, pax, and my parents is growing stronger by the minute. but i need to focus and dive into doctrine.

so please pray that I will.

(kyrie and i both take our last one tomorrow at 10:30)

she wins. fair and square.
for 2007 Cutest Mother Award! Ashley Wingo...aka The mother I want to be (someday)! Ashley, (just for the record) i admire who you are and the way you love your children, your family, your home. I meant for this to be a "look how cute she is" post but really it's more then that. You are quite the role model to me... thank you for showing so many people what love is. your combination of godliness, creativity, and unswerving and eager devotion to zara, jude, and joel inspire me everyday. keep sharing...you influence and motivate the lives of more people then you know. i'm only one. love,sienna

isn't she wonderful

chal & abbi, originally uploaded by wheresthegiant.

and a million other things. chalice danced in the nutcracker and i missed it! so ! upsetting

4S takes 1st place!!!

Wednesday night was Carter Christamas. 11 or 12 halls pick a theme and compleatly transform their hall... usually all the preparing starts days before. But our hall got together after dinner (2 hours before it started!) came up with a plan, divided and conquered... as best we could. The lamps kept crashing to the floor, the paper shredder overheated, the twinkle lights kept burning out, the mariah carey christmas cd wouldnt' stop skipping, the streamers wouldn't stick to the wall, our Mrs. Clause went missing, and we couldn't find a red hat for our Santa. The night was looking bleak and the hall next to us couldn't have looked better!!! it was so stressful... ! Somehow we managed to pull it together though... our theme was the North Pole and Santa's workshop.... Kyrie was a doll, I was an elf... and somehow we won 1st place (for the 2nd year in a row) and I can't believe it! (Bethany was "Homemaker Barbie" in that top picture)




Kyrie in the North Pole!






Police Barbie.

my bacon bits.

"Friends are the bacon bits

in the salad bowl of life."

becoming more aware

i'm becoming more and more aware of my inabilities. It's humbling and it's exhausting. school is difficult and the future is intimidating. right now i don't know how to write. it's rather simple but i think i've forgotten how. I've feel like I've had this mental block for the last 2 months and i'm ready to be done with it. I haven't had many opportunities to write but when I do i always wish for a more interesting topic and dissapoint myself by what i produce. i long for my hands to dance furiously on the keyboard, awakening my tired eyes and leaving the coffee beside me to grow cold. I long to be inspired and to be lost in words and ideas again. But i'm buried in classes with reading i struggle to grasp and drowning in understanding a language not my own... (i forget that school isn't all enjoyable and much of it is a fight)

this morning I started a paper about Christ' act of redemption in our lives and his constant faithfulness to someone as unfaithful and wishful as I. I wish for all sorts of things and forget the incredible reality of love i live in. This afternoon as I sit in a small cubicle in the back of the library I have been reminded by an article i've come across that even in my struggles to understand my assignments and even in my anxieties of the future, amidst my tired eyes, mental blocks, and cold coffee... i am blessed that i live in a glorious reality of an unfailing love and under the intentional and watching eye of my creator...

"Why am I so blessed? I am blessed, because in the most painful moment in human history, Jesus willingly subjected himself to the rejection of his father....In this unthinkable moment of substitution, the Trinity was torn apart as the Father turned away from the Son. Now, here's what you and I have to understand; Jesus was willing to suffer the horrible rejection of his Father so that you and I would never, ever have to experience it ourselves." -Paul Tripp

postbysienna.

my time in Atlanta

pictures now, words later.

these are from the Missions Conference i went to in Atlanta GA two weeks ago, by the way.

off to lunch!!

car time means photo time

thought i'd give you guys a glimpse of the back row of the van we rode home and back to school in. The ride home was 13 hours because of countless jams we got it. I didn't mind. That just means 13 hours i wasn't at covenant. We lost our minds, returned to sanity and then lost them again. I think the last two hours i laughed nonstop at nothing imparticular and had a pounding headache. Eric was suffering from a bad stomach ache in silence and sienna was curled up in a tight ball by the window, trying to escape from it all by talking to Liz Anne. oh the joys of car time!

returning hasn't been as horribly bad as i thought it would be. I've seen the smiling, fresh faces of my friends and already revised a paper, researched for another paper and written two paragraphs on my funeral for ceramics class. I'm making progress and i feel motivated. that is a huge blessing!!

thank you family for such a comfortable time at home. reassuring to know i've got such a sturdy, quirky and loving home base.

home for thanksgiving.

leaving again in four hours.

gingkos gone.

the wind blew strong last night and left the little gingko in our front yard without its leaves. they were so bright and yellow yesterday, attached beautifully to each baby branch of our three year seedling. it was sad when i looked outside this morning to it's naked branches but a pretty yellow circle of leaves decorated the floor below. papa wanted us to collect the good leaves and bring them in... who knows, maybe one will go inside some christmas cards this year and maybe your family will get lucky. maybe.


postbysienna.

Merry Christmas!
Kyrie and I got our pictures taken a couple weeks ago for our church's directory and they sent us all the proofs online. man! they crack me up everytime... they just sent us this christmas email encouraging us to order one for the family christmas card...
they've totally airbrushed them. funny funny.
get a laugh.
we did!











so corney! it's great...

we're going home tomorrow!
and our smiles are this big!
i just finished my last paper and kyrie's almost done her last mug...

happy thanksgiving everyone.
love, sienna & kyrie

a warm night

when tobi visited last weekend we all went out to this restaurant on Saturday night. the girls hadn't heard of it... we wanted sushi but the boys couldn't' afford it so we let them make the decision. scott came up with "Piece of Pizza" or whatever it's called. None of us had heard of it. THe boys were warmly acquainted though. we put up a little fight to the idea of pizza but gave in after serious hunger began setting in. We pulled into this place and the boys got out and started walking in and the girls just sat in the car for awhile thinking of other places we could go... it was so sketch looking! so not homey looking...so not cute looking. It looked loud and smoky and noisy kids ran around everywhere... we reluctantly went in after a little persuasion and all this to say our boys know how to pick a good restaurant. The pizza was SO wonderful... feta cheese and artichoke, thin crust with sun dried tomatoes! and the pictures make it look even more warm and wonderful then it actually was! i love pictures. enjoy.
























i think this last ones really funny!!.. we weren't really this miserable. think we both had a headache or something and kyrie wouldnt' put down the camera.

hi. welcome to room 405.
(aka: sienna's space).

Kyrie posted her room a couple days ago and I finally got around to taking some shots of mine...two doors down. I never say this but it's a mess! a big messymess! like record big. like mounds of clothes under, over, and on my bed, and spilling onto my desk big. like nasty spoons and used coffee filters littering the place big. like trash overflowing in the bathroom and dirty towels all over the place big. my poor room has been a bit neglected this semester but the twinkle lights and the coffee maker are still visible and that's enough for me...

kyrie made this(!)

(thankyou papa! :)