Monday, September 30, 2013

For your entertainment

Here are some videos I finally uploaded from Ribbit's tap/ballet camp this summer....she is super cute, and super uncoordinated :)...both of which she gets from her momma :)


Sunday, September 29, 2013

Sonic

It's really sad when you HAVE to take our kids to Sonic for breakfast due to the lack of food in your home. Well, that's not true. They could have eaten the raisin walnut oatmeal that Adam made for them, but even I started to gag when I looked at it. So, off to Sonic for tater tots and sprite we went. I looked like the cool mom, but really I was just stinkin desperate.

That was on Wednesday, so you probably think I went to the grocery store that night or Thursday. Nope, I waited until this morning. Its hard to go grocery shopping when you are at church until 8:30 or when you and your spouse have put in 12 to 13 hour days and you have to choose between making lunches/ actually seeing your kids or going to the grocery store. Therefore the kids lunches have consisted of pistachios, goldfish, beef jerky and pickles...I KID YOU NOT. I did cut up the pickles, I mean I did put forth a little effort towards their well rounded meals :).

Anyways, I'm really excited about some things going on right now. Adam and I are leading a bible study for non-believers on Wednesday nights. Shhhh, they don't know its a bible study. We offer a free dinner and then discuss things like " why did Jesus have to die?" , "who is jesus?", "what is sin?". We are the youngest in this group by 30 years...again not kidding. We realized this very quickly and I instantly became very insecure. However, God has really been encouraging me that I don't have to have a scholarly answer as long as its an answer from Him. As long as I can tell how He has personally worked and moved and spoken to me then I'm being obedient. One of the ladies, we will call her K, is 73 and doesn't think she needs a savior because she is a good person and honestly does not like it when someone says sin. So instead of telling her grandchildren not to lie she tells them not to tell stories....so they won't feel bad about themselves. She grew up in Korea and in California and says she was never taught about the Bible and/or God. There is also a couple who are in their 60s and began their walk with Christ last year and have great things to offer and add to our group...please pray for them...we will call them T1 and T2. Then there is P. P keeps us late every Wednesday....almost asking our permission to live her life. She has a homosexual daughter and struggles to live by the Bible's authority, but also to love her daughter. She is depressed and has been in a constant battle with her daughter's partner. I feel for her, she is sooo distraught but for some reason she can't turn it completely over to God....easier said then done right? How do we separate sin from the sinnner, or can we as humans?...anyways pray for our words, that we would be sensitive, be obedient in what we say and that we would love on our group...we are meeting with them until November.

I'm also getting to geek it up as I just became part of the Doctrine Committee at our school. At first I felt like I was not intelligent enough to be on it, especially when the head guy said "but you add so much vibrancy to the group"....vibrancy and intelligence are not at all the same. .....but now we are studying, researching, writing catechisms for our school to adopt and I am super pumped. I am also super jealous of my children's education. They are learning their faith backwards and forwards. I am also super not jealous that they will probably have to defend their faith WAY more than I ever will....this world is making it harder and harder for Christians to live by the TRUTH but I am glad that our school is preparing our students for BATTLE!!!

Catechism is basically just a method of teaching. Some, just by hearing the word, associate it with Catholicism but it does have a place in Protestant history as well. We use the form of catechism in everything....math, english, foreign language..any subject where we ask students to memorize rules and repeat them back to us. As we speak I am itching to make my spreadsheet of 36 catechisms to match up with our mission statement.....NERD HERD ...here I come!!!

Here is my favorite one so far....beautiful

Why is He called Christ, that is, Anointed?


Because He has been ordained by God the Father, and anointed with the Holy Spirit, to be our chief Prophet and Teacher, who has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption; our only High Priest, who by the one sacrifice of His body has redeemed us, and who continually intercedes for us before the Father; and our eternal King, who governs us by His Word and Spirit, and who defends and preserves us in the redemption obtained for us.



Monday, September 23, 2013

10 hours of sleep

I've basically slept about 10 hours today....thats what happens when you work 13 hour days, followed by looonnng baseball games, late church nights, painting bedrooms, partying it up with 8th graders :) and then chugging nyquil to avoid the newest school bug going around. I never ever miss church but this is the 2nd Sunday this month where my head was pounding 85% of the day and like I said I slept about 10 hours...plus sleeping about 8 hours last night.

Poor Adam, he worked on the remodel almost all day yesterday (while I entertained children at various vball events, parties and at Hobby Lobby :) and then he played single parent at church and home. Maybe I really am getting old and need to pick like 4 things to do during the week and weekend instead of 20.

I also triple overbooked my family for last night and had to cancel/back out of 2 things, wasting $50 bucks in the process...ah well.

I hate saying it with only 6 weeks under my belt but I MISS SUMMER.....bring on THANKSGIVING BREAK!!!

On the bright side, it finally feels like FALL..I can go outside without melting!!!...We even roasted smores last night...that may have been a little eager :)

Videos filled with cute kiddos :



Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Smart huh?

Adam and I think we are soo smart.....and then tonight happens.

We ( the two littles ) basically ran like maniacs ALL OVER the ballpark, screaming their brains out, crying over spilled milk (literally) and screaming MOMMY AND DADDY as if someone was after them. We got home after bedtime and there were still baths and homework left to do.

Hmmmmm...not so smart. From now on the littles don't go to baseball games on the weekdays....OH NO, that will NEVER happen again.

Goober is playing great, learning the game and so far his team is undefeated....at least I think so, I only saw 1/3 of the game...Adam probably saw less.

Baby Boy is GOING POTTY!!! He points to himself and says BEEP BEEP when he has to go :). Its almost too funny....when you sit him on the toilet he pushes with everything he has and normally only gets a couple drops out..but HEY, the potty is the potty and we are so looking forward to being out of diapers.

Ribbit is reminding us all of our manners....like when Mommy gets onto her while she is eating ...she will say " you can't talk when your mouth is full"...and then we I ask her a questions she will stuff her face and point her finger at me. She also tells Goober that he is "noring" her....ignoring, whenever he talks and she wants to have all the attention.

Our home remodel is going well....about 70% of the painting done....Adam is plugging away on the bathroom.....probably about 50% done.

Group shot from princess camp....where did all that personality come from?

Adam has these made for our anniversary..pretty sweet huh?
Helping mommy work on her projects..look at that belly!

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Blog Neglect

The blog has been neglected....as well as household chores :)

This past Saturday I spent all day at a tournament with my 8th grade team. After 10 games, sweat, fear, losses, wins and cheering we brought home a trophy for 2nd place....pretty awesome. Then I came home and basically blacked out until 11 the next morning.

The rest of our week was spent at baseball practices, volleyball games, school and church. The weather here is still pretty stinking hot so most outdoor things are happening at night, pushing back bed times and making for some crankiness!!!

Even though Ribbit started off the school year with a BANG...and not in a good way, she is now settling down and loving all of her teachers. She comes home singing shape songs and reciting the months of the year and talking about how Mrs. Young says we have to "act happy" and "not talk with our mouth full".

Goober is staying on top of all his school work, we rarely have low spelling test grades. He is also staying in the nurses office with wounds from his recess time.....something about jumping off rocks, racing towards bleachers and running through mud. His black school shoes are now brown, permanently. HE LOVES BASEBALL...his coach is playing him at pitcher for how and he already has a battlewound in the shape of stitches on his chin.

Little Man is doing well...testing the lady who watches him but learning all the time. He says "ocks" and "oes" every morning and can't wait to get them on. If he isn't first with them on then he bugs the snot out of us until they are on. He clings to you the minute he wakes up and rubs your back......he now has figured out who is mommy and who is daddy and calls us accordingly. He says "sorry", "love you", "thank you" and somewhat of a "yesmam" pretty regularly and with little coaxing from us.

Here are some highlights.....

This girl LOVES to dress up. Check out her new hat from cousin Emily, ballet clothes and mommy's high heel shoes....she walked around in this get up for 1/2 the day.
Out for birthday breakfast with mommy....Big Brother was at football camp.
I love this picture....we were playing in a room before her ballet princess camp and she is showing me her perfect form in the mirror. Baby brother is behind causing all kinds of havoc and loving life!
Practicing on the bar.

Here are some pictures of my completed summer projects. Before you think I went all crafty and learned how to sew, let me assure you I did not. I just learned how to use Sew Bond and spray paint!!!

Here is the play room before....we want it to be an extra Guest Area for long term guest so we got this day bed, put air conditioning in that room and decided we needed curtains for privacy.
I wanted to make Roman Shades for this room so I looked up a tutorial for how to make them out of blinds, using hot glue, fabric, sew bond and some time. Each set took me about 30 minutes total so for 4 windows I spent 2 hours and about $50 bucks...NOT TOO BAD!!

Here they are completely down...I went with vertical stripes with polka dots on them ..to keep with the playroom vibe and because the fabric is double sided it looks great from the backyard too! We put down the soft floor and hung some pictures in that corner as well....the other side of the playroom looks like a WORKING PLAY AREA :)

and 1/2 way up.

I also tackled the back yard furniture that we got for $75 bucks off craiglist. There was nothing wrong with it except it wasn't my style....before
and with a little bit of outdoor fabric, sew bond, hot blue and spray paint...a new set for about $50 bucks!!
I went with black fabric with multi colored large paisleys on it to cover most spills. I cut the old cushions and just kept the thick bottoms. I wrapped them in the outdoor fabric...like you would a christmas present , with overlap at the bottom. That way when the fabric is old or gets torn I can rip it off and re-wrap it.



Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Gotcha Anniversary

This week has been pretty fun....lots of changes to the Harvell home. Goob's room is almost completely painted....lacking some tough to reach areas. Baby Boy's room is fully cut in and is just waiting for mommy to roll on the gray and paint choo choo trains and Ribbit's fully remodeled bathroom is coming together.....Good thing we have Labor Day off!!!

We also start baseball and football this week, with mom already having 2 volleyball games a week and both mom and dad committed to a 11 week intense Alpha course at our church as table leaders....so the house is filthy and laundry is piled in a basket waiting to be folded.....ah well.

Saturday was our anniversary of our court date to finalize Goober and Ribbit's adoption. We celebrated with some time at Jumpstreet and a pizza lunch. Ribbit is finally starting to understand the word adopt....a little.....she giggles when we tell her that she didn't come out of mommy's belly. She also tells her stuffed animals that she would love to "dopt" them.

These anniversaries, although they are a very happy celebration for us are still very emotional and reminders to us that God's plan A for Goober and Ribbits life didn't work out. As usual, we spend a lot of time talking about their birthmom with Goober on these dates and every year he asks more questions and needs more explanations. This year he laid in his hammock (bottom bunk) while I painted his room and asked me all kinds of things like " will my birthmom go to heaven?, will my grandma go to heaven?, will my birthmom buy a home before I turn 18?, will I ever see my cousins again?". We basically talked about how his birthmom could go to heaven.....she did bad things but I do bad things too...salvation is not based on good or bad things we do but on our relationship with Christ and trust that he is the one true way to Heaven, to accept salvation. He said that his birthmom never went to church so we also talked about how church attendance, though extremely important in a christian's life, also doesn't save anyone and that his birthmom and grandma might just have mansions in heaven. He then said " well when I get to heaven I am going to make sure that my mansion is right between hers and yours mom" :)...pretty awesome thought for my little man. 

I also do a lot of thinking about being a mom on those days. I am always amazed that God allowed me to have these 3 stinkin cute faces call me mommy....I wonder who would be they calling mommy if we hadn't said yes to adoption. I also wonder how any mommy could give up on their kiddos, what kind of life would you have to be in to want to just call it quits? Certainly not a life I have ever been subjected to....but one that my little Goober probably remembers. Its such a picture of redemption though to know that Goober who has been told he wasn't wanted, has been forced to hug cousins and grandmas and mom's bye and load up in a car and was driven to my home and told "heres your new family" all at the age of 6.....but to now see this little boy who after I bought him all of his baseball equipment yesterday pulled money out of his wallet and said " here mom, sorry all of my stuff was expensive, thanks for buying it" and this same little boy takes money to church every Sunday without being asked so he can give some to God, and this same little boy gave away all his brand new art supplies to orphans in Haiti, and this same little boy prays for people and situations during our family prayers without being reminded. God has big plans for my little man.