Christmas Eve

Its 8:30.  My brother and mom are just as sugared up and excited about Santa coming as my two oldest are. Therefore they are all in the den screaming, laughing and probably about to wake up baby boy....we gave up a long time ago.

We had a gingerbread house building contest tonight...i can see that becoming a family tradition, except we might to make a rule that you can't lick your fingers every 5 seconds.

Here's some more photos from our family christmas.

Opening stockings yo. 

Proper pose :)

Why did Santa leave a snorkel kit with my stocking?

Helping Big Man open his stocking!

Dad getting some organizational things for his workbench.

Dad always shakes his presents and makes this face when it comes to opening gifts.

We are having a great time here in Alabama so far. That dang drive is always awful but at least we get a nice long trip this time. We have been to three different church services so far this trip and in each one we definitely won for Most Distracting, Loudest, Most Obnoxious, however Cutest family there :)

Our Christmas

As I already said, Santa came early this year.

Santa was also on a budget this year and so each kid got a need and a want....well, that was the plan until our Adoption Agency Christmas Party. We arrived and they pulled us to the side and handed us a GARBAGE BAG full of toys for our kids. Apparently a church came to them and asked if they could sponsor all of the foster families....even the kiddos who were already adopted. Sooooo, we put all those gifts out from Santa and they each got a need and a want from Mommy and Daddy instead :). We tried, we really did and we did talk to them a lot about being grateful and how we can bless others this year at Christmas time.
I'm so grateful for an agency who doesn't drop us after the papers are signed and who still includes us and loves on us and our kiddos!!!!

I like this picture because Goober is like " what's up with Santa leaving ashes and bootmarks all over our carpet?".

Little Man (hes graduated from Baby Boy) is loving all of his stocking stuffers. TEETHING TOYS!!!

Mom and Dad were taking pictures at the same time, thus the bright flash. Opening their stockings!!!

This is the beginning of Goober receiving clues about his Disney Cruise....he read "motion sickness" medicine and said  " i guess this is for when I get dizzy?"

It was pretty funny because after he had gathered all of his clues -Dramamine from this stocking, a Mickey Mouse Pez toy from Santa left on the cookie plate, a Donald Duck toy in the Christmas Tree and his snorkeling gear hung up on the mantle he grouped them all together and we asked " What do you think all that means?".....he thought about it and said " that I haven't been very good this year?"....HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Our Christmas Card this year ..

                                                         Merry Christmas from the Harvells!!!

DONE!!!

Well another semester done. For mom that is. Ribbit and Goober still have 2.5 days of school left and then we are off on our christmas travels.

Like I said in an earlier posts we celebrated Adam's graduation with his Masters degree this past weekend. His parents came into town for the ceremony and handed out some early Christmas presents while they were here...the ones that were too large for traveling!

Waiting on the ceremony to start...we got there early to get good/kid appropriate seats. Baby Boy was not feeling well at all and slept on momma almost the whole 2 hour ceremony. He was teething and from the way this bout of teething went he better have his dang wisdom teeth..geesh, it was rough.

Hanging out with Lolly.....she was VERY active during the whole ceremony. That's what mommies say when their kids act like little heathens during a very important event :).....active is actually being very nice about her behavior :).

Daddy shaking the President's hand. In normal Adam fashion he did a little victory move as he crossed the stage and got a laugh...thats how we Harvell's roll..nothing normal here.....NOTHING!!

Congrats Daddy!!!!

Everyone who came to watch Daddy graduate.....you can tell Baby Boy is not feeling well!!! We had to race back to our home about 30 minutes away right after this because I had to get back to work and Adam had a job interview :)...still waiting to hear back but we are praying hard.

We are so proud of our Daddy!!!

I love my husband for many reasons, but one of the most obvious is that he is a very loving, committed, involved Daddy. I got this video while I was at work today and after I showed it to 200000 people, I sat back and thought about how lucky I am to have a husband who knows I WILL WANT TO SEE these videos so he grabs the camera and captures them :).

Advent Catch Up

Couple of crazy days with family in town, graduations, sickness and getting ready for Christmas..ready for the birth of the Christ child!!!

Day 9-Moses is spoken to thru a burning bush.....leads the Israelites out of slavery and into the promised land. (we have a burning Christmas tree)

Day 10-Moses leads the children of God through the Red Sea as God parts it on both sides and they cross on DRY ground!! (Moses's staff with the water parting painted on)

Day 11-Moses receives the law...the 10 commandments on Mt. Sinai. (thus the #10)

Day 12-Moses is dead and Joshuah is our new leader. He listens to God and conquers the city of Jericho by marching around it for 7 days.

Day 13-Samuel annoints David as King. He is the smallest of Jesse's sons. (this is the smallest gingerbread man cut out we had and we put purple glitter on him for royalty :))

Day 14- Although David is small he isn't afraid to stand up to Goliath, a large scary Philistine. (David took the trophy home that day :)) (Fun Fact- Adam and I have been to the site of this battle----super duper cool!!!)

Day 15-David is also known for writing many of the Psalms....the psalms remind us that we can pour our hearts all to God....David even talks of his sin with Bathsheeba in Psalm 51. He is big enough to take it and he will calm us.

Ill leave you with 3 cute videos Adam took of Baby Boy learning to stand on his own.

The itch....

Oh no, I watched this video today....plus, all the awful news about those sweet kiddos in Connecticut......plus, its been almost 10 months since we brought home Baby Boy....sooooo all that equals the adoption itch.

YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS STELLAR ADOPTION VIDEO

Adam graduated today......I am so stinking proud of him. I can honestly say that he worked double for his Masters than what I did for mine. Not because of the course load but because he did it all while being a wonderful daddy to 3 awesome kiddos.  I'll post pictures later.

We dedicated Baby Boy on Sunday....i'll post pictures and talk about it more later too....don't worry, Ribbit gave me plenty of material. Ribbit always knows how to tell off the preacher for not praying correctly in front of the whole congregation...its her spiritual gift :).

She also reminded me that her booty is DANGEROUS tonight.....and as she does every morning, she ran into our bathroom (not hers) to use the potty and from her throne yelled " I'MMMM ANNNNN AMERICANNNNNN". I asked her teacher if she is teaching her patriotism at school and she said " not at all".

Goober brought home a book from school and declared that a girl had bought it for him from the book fair, along with a matching bookmark. NOT OKAY. Since when do 2nd grade girls hit on my seriously cute boy? We had a nice talk about how I am his only girlfriend right now :). We wrote the little girl a thank you note but I wanted to add a P.S. that said   ---watch it sister!!!

Advent Day 5, 6, 7 and 8

The kids are really loving the Advent Tree....sometimes we have to referee fights over who gets to put up the ornament after our reading and dinner.

Day 5- Star- God made a covenant with Abraham that his children would outnumber the stars.

Day 6-Present-God gave Abraham a gift, Isaac his son. God then asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and after God sees his obedience provides another gift, a ram to take Isaac's place.

Day 7-Isaac's son, Jacob works for 7 years and is tricked into marrying Leah, then works for 7 more years to get his true love Rachel. Yes, we painted a wreath ornament to look like a wedding ring :)

Day 8- One of Jacob and Rachel's sons Joseph is favored among his 11 other brothers. His parents make him a coat of many colors to wear, which adds fuel to the brothers fury. Regardless, he shows great kindness to them later on in life and is used by God to help the whole nation of Egypt. So, we painted a gingerbread man with many colors to represent Joseph :)

Free Apples and Milk

We got free apples and milk today. There were two reasons....1)the store has just opened and the cashiers weren't really sure about some things. The other reason was that I had an 8 year old holding up every (and I do mean every) candy bar in the store, reading me the sugar content in it and then asking me to buy it. My 3 year old was punching the coin star machine and making lots of weird receipts come out and my 9 month old was beating the snot out of the shopping buggy with his remote (yes we take our own remote places since he likes to push buttons). I think I would have sat down and cried if the cashier didn't offer me free apples and milk after 10 minutes of standing at the register in chaos.

Catch up from Thanksgiving.

Playing with Lolly.

We did in fact drive all over ALABAMA!!!

She likes being the baby....so she crawled up in Baby Boy's seat and started playing with his toys :)

Lolly and Goober playing in the trees at the NEW lake house.

Playing at Nannie and Papaw's house.

Back in Texas at Pancakes with Santa....early in the morning....2nd year in a row!

Date Night

Adam and I went out for dinner tonight to celebrate his graduation!!! We hired two of my sweet students to baby sit so we also took the opportunity to finish christmas shopping!

I've decided that I hate Toys R Us as much as I hate Chuck E Cheese.....its an even hate for the two...the same hate I have against hot dogs, ketchup, armpit hair on men (not that they have it, but when they show it or when I accidentally touch Adam's), people chasing me, litter boxes and riding in a silent car...that is some STRONG HATE!!!!

Regardless, we did get almost everything we need and some birthday presents and some diapers...one stop shopping I guess.

I still have Thanksgiving pictures to load, advent pictures to catch up on but I'm tired and need to watch at least one Alias before going to bed :).

This sweet little girl loves this song and sings it about 143892 times a day. ENJOY

Advent Day 2, 3 and 4

Last night I realized two things.

1-My daughter is a flirt. We invited some salesmen into our home to demonstrate a vacuum and they were here for a good 2 hours. We let them clean everything and demonstrate every part :)..pretty good deal for us!! The kids were very comical "ohhing and ahhing" over everything those guys did. When it came time to tell them "no" we don't want your $700 vacuum they started packing up and Ribbit and I went into the kitchen to get supper started. As they walked out Ribbit ran up to them, with the cutest little grin and waved at them while saying " bye bye handsome". I didn't know what to say...do I say "ewww, no". Do I make sure they know I DIDN"T tell her to say that? I was speechless and mortified...I think it was a mutual feeling :).

2-My son's spelling grades are my fault. By that I mean everytime he misses one or two points for an extra vowel or not knowing that there is a well and whale is my fault. As I was pronouncing his words he got so frustrated at me for saying well "whale". He reminded me that I had tripped him up on the words "fire", "crown vs crayon" and "nation" before. I guess this momma does tend to have an accent :)

Day 2 of Advent-we read the story of the Fall. Our ornament was a tree leaf with red fruit on it. I forgot to take a picture of it though. When we were reviewing with Ribbit today about this ornament she said " God said NO they were not listening and they had to go away"...someone was listening!

Day 3 of Advent-we read the Story of Noah and the Ark. Our ornament was an Angel holding a Rainbow banner.We bought the angel and painted on the rainbow.

Day 4 of Advent-we read the story of the Tower of Babel. Our ornament was a question mark ( to show confusion of languages) that we made out of salt dough this weekend! One of my favorite parts out of today's story is this " You see God knew, however high they reached, however hard they tried, people could never get back to heaven by themselves. People didn't need a staircase; they needed a Rescuer. Because the way back to heaven wasn't a staircase; it was a Person. People could never reach up to Heaven, so Heaven would have to come down to them. And, one day, it would!"

Speaking of handmade ornaments here are two more from last year that i LOVE...we made one for everyone in our family. Our sweet friends Doug and Sarah helped us make them and the cotton is from Doug's farm!

Here's Adams!

 And Ribbit's. Check out the long blonde curly hair :)

Here are two more pictures from the Pow Wow that I found on my camera. Both older kids got to pick out a ride to do. Goober didn't want to do anything so he got a nicer souvenir. But Ribbit knew she wanted to ride the ponies the minute she saw them. As she was going around she would scream out facts to us like " they are eating grass!", "they are pooping" and my favorite " mommy this one is vanilla :)". Of course she also made sure that even though Mommy was waving wildly at her and calling out "hey big girl" that she responded with " HEY PAPAPAPAAAAAAA". I guess I know where I stand :)

Beating on Baby Boy's drum during the Opening Ceremony!

Advent Day 1

We started Advent last year with our kids using the Jesus Storybook Bible. We got a reading list for the 24 days leading up to Christmas from a friend and decided that this year we would add ornaments to go with every day of reading. The point is that the kids are anxious for Jesus's birth and can see how the whole Bible points to HIM!!

Our Advent Tree or Jesse Tree
Isaiah 11:1 Then a shoot will spring up from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit

Day 1-The story of Creation....represented by a birdhouse for all the birds God made :)

Other Christmas decorations!  Kiddos tree!!

Our nativity set from Jerusalem!

Our fancy tree...filled with the kiddos homemade ornaments!

The fireplace...complete with a new stocking for Baby Boy!

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells

Goober was just a humming tonight while he was helping me finish up our advent ornaments. When I asked him what he was humming he said " jingle bells, batman smells, robin laid an egg"..oh no, he's definitely a boy...changing up every tune to include something about smelling...great!!!

We finished up our advent ornaments today..both of the older kids painted some of them while mom painted the more detailed ones. We also took a long afternoon stroll since it was 80 degrees...really?, come on Jack Frost!!!

Here are some more pictures from Thanksgiving.

We used to always go to the Pow wow when I was younger for Thanksgiving. There is a lot of Indian in my family and several of our cousins and aunts dance and are very involved in the Porch Creek tribe. 

Here we are waiting for the Pow Wow to begin....I would like to point out that my dad has a bad neck, broke it as a kid. However, whenever Ribbit asks for Papa to hold her he grabs her, lifts her up and pops a pain pill :)

 I was trying to catch Baby Boy's reaction to all the hoop-la...he didn't move the whole time during the opening ceremony.

 Crawling all over Uncle Chris after Thanksgiving dinner.

 Uncle Chris taking care of Baby Boy. He is getting some good training to be a daddy...in like 20 years...when he gets a girl :). However sometimes I wonder that my kids are actually pulling for the opposite side and securing Uncle Chris's decision to never have kids :)...that way they can have him all to themselves:)

 Baby Boy and his Great Grandma. When we adopted Ribbit and Goober her first words were "yay, someone in the family finally looks like me :)".

 I'm guessing she didn't want mommy to take up any of her Uncle Chris time....or maybe because I reminded her that we were leaving Alabama in a couple days.

 Doing what they do best. We only suffered one severe injury this time...2 big ole knots on Goober's head.

 Chelsea loves loves loves Baby Boy...she always runs to claim him and will hold him until we leave :). We love you Chelsea!!

 I love this part. There is almost always a fire at our get togethers lately. Its fun to sit around and catch up. What you don't see is the other side where Goober and the younger male cousins are chasing each other with sticks, throwing anything they can find into the fire, scaring each other, tricking Goober into doing funny things and creating sea saws and fake seats :)....we laughed sooo hard!!!