Gonna say Yeah yeah yeah Yes, to Va Va Va VBS!

We really do love VBS...its done so well by our church and the kids love the theme every year. We also get another great CD full of VBS songs that last us a whole year---songs are even better when you know all the movements to them!!
This year, Goober is a youth and is helping in Kinder-3rd grade crafts and LOVES IT.
Ribbit is on her own in 1st grade-I normally direct her grade.
Me and Little Man are in pre-school (our last year) and I am working in preschool crafts....which is on the other end of the spectrum from high school art. I think I tell myself to dumb it down about every 5 minutes. So far I have been sneezed (like wet and stringy) on, tooted on and burped on.....I can totally take that from my own kids but other kids make me gag.

We have been swimming a ton too..the kids really love water guns, swimming laps and finding rings. We met our sweet friend Olyve and her mom Veronica again Monday and the kids swam in the rain about 75% of the time and could have cared less. Little Man thought it was hysterical to shoot me with his water gun, i agreed until I was completely dry and took a direct shot to the face!

Goober has been finding out that getting older has it perks as he has gone to late night pizza parties at our neighbors home, played pick up basketball at school with friends, been allowed to ride his bike up the school for football and basketball practice and allowed to make some decisions on how to spend his money lately. So far, so good.

All of the kids have hit big reading minute goals at the library. They got their first set of prizes today which encouraged them to read even more. Goober has 1500, Ribbit has 1000 and Little Man has 500! I plan on checking out some audio books for our big road trip to make sure they stay engaged in their reading goals!

In our morning bible reading we have been able to have lots of "Fun" (very sarcastic font needed) conversations about circumcision, why Abram slept with Hagar and why women normally don't have babies at 90 years old. Goober doens't make too much eye contact with me during those conversations. I always love that we end with singing and dancing to our favorite songs. The kids take turns picking and I am always surprised at their choices and what they remember from church worship or from the car radio.

Adam is almost done with the master closet remodel. Remember, he took out 1/3 of the playroom to make our walk in master. After Ribbit, Little Man and I painted it he added flooring, shelving, drawers, a hamper area, an ironing area and can lights. The last thing is the trim and door!

Two neat things-1) I SWEAR I SAW PRESIDENT BUSH AT THE GYM THIS MORNING! He gave me the presidential nod and wave and I was dumbstruck, like couldn't close my mouth. No one believes me but he does live in the DFW area!!!!

2-Ever since seeing the movie, War Room, I have longede for a place where I could wage war myself and pray daily. I have 3 other girlfriends who hold me accountable to praying, reading the bible, some form of worship and exercising daily. We ask each other daily and I LOVE that they don't make excuses to get it done. Sometimes we finish all of it at 9 at night but its a part of grounding ourselves in Christ. A lot of times that exercise time is a prayer run around our church and school as we take turns praying out loud-my favorite runs by far!! Anyways, I FOUND A PERFECT PRAYER SPOT.   .......THE SAUNA. Seriously, I normally go in there for anywhere from 10-20 minutes after working out and NO one talks to each other in there. Its awkward to talk to people in swim suits, shorts, speedos who are dripping sweat and/or listening to their own headphones. Therefore its silent and I can honestly close my eyes and zone out to pray. It has been wonderful!!!!!! Find a prayer room!

Check out the moves of the cute little girl in the green swim suit and pigtails. This was the end of the year splash party at church and some of the kids wanted to play soccer at the sport court.....this is a huge deal coming from the girl who used to get Cougar Alerts at PE for saying "I dont' run" to her PE teacher daily. She has really developed a love for soccer!

I took this without anyone knowing. I was baking breakfast for the next day and then cleaned up the kitchen and for a solid 25 minutes there was complete silence as they all 3 read...without being told to!!

This picture makes me happy. My sweet friend Carrie, (on the left) moved 1 hour away right as summer started. I ran the Disney Marathon with her and am signed up to do the Fairy Tale weekend with her and Tammy(also pictured) at Disney in Feb. Anyways, we hadn't run together in 2 weeks so the 3 of us met 1/2 way to get in 5 miles on Sunday morning. 

I always know that Ribbit is done when she asks for my phone to take a picture!

The first day of VBS...I don't mind that he is stuck to me....won't last too long!

We took this to send to Daddy...with the VBS sign in the background! See those storm clouds rolling in?

Those clouds didn't stop us from swimming though...this is Olyve and her mom Veronica...don't Ribbit and Olyve look like sisters? They love each other and Ribbit has developed a love for chicken salad sandwiches after always having a bite of Olyves!!!

The last days of nothingness

We are really good at summer...maybe too good at it. We stay up a little later, the kiddos and their daddy are great at sleeping in :), and we enjoy wearing ourselves out every day!

Our favorite outings have been with friends at the pool-racing to find the rings that momma throws in for them...and they love it when I shout Warm or Cold depending on how close they are. They love to race down the slides and then of course they love flipping and hand stands.

We have also loved going to the park right after breakfast, before its unbearably hot and playing Ninja Warrior. I make up an obstacle course through the park equipment and time them. Goobers of course is much harder-they love cheering each other on and trying to beat each other and their own times. Of course we have to start getting creative as others show up and we have to make sure we aren't knocking them down. My favorite memories of Ninja Warrior so far have been
Goober-falling and getting two bloody knees as he ran across a balance beam-did he care?Nope, said "i am ok" and kept racing so that it didn't mess with his time.
Little Man-sprinting to tag my hand and in the process losing his shorts---he loves to wear his bubba's shorts as he outgrows them but they are still a bit big ;).
Ribbit- OH MY WORD I DIED LAUGHING DURING BOTH OF THESE. If you know my Ribbit you know that she can find a needle in a haystack, no exaggeration! She constantly collects little pieces of treasure (aka CRAP)everywhere we go. Well in the middle of her turn at the obstacle course she dropped from the monkey bars, sat down in the mulch, dug for a moment and excitedly held up a piece of some game.....we reminded her she was being timed and she said "oh yeah" and stuck the treasure in her pocket. Another obstacle was counting the "red pavers" and telling me the correct #. She stopped at #25 and looked at me and said " I actually think we should call these "pink pavers, they aren't really red". Geeesh.

We went to REI yesterday and basically bought the whole store as we countdown towards our 15 day expedition around the Southwest....the clues are all done, reservations are all made, t-shirts are 99% done and now I am waiting back from 2 places I contacted for some special details for Goober's birthday. Everyone I have told asks if they can buy this trip from me.....hmm, 60 clues over 15 days, 6 different kinds of lodging, all kinds of puzzles, clues and challenges that make the kids learn as they have fun and making countless reservations....I MEAN its priceless right :). However, spreadsheets are my happy place so honestly I think this would be the best job ever! Plus its really tailored to my family......in 1 way its tailored towards the ages of my kiddos and their interests....2-its also tailored to challenge us...even me, I do not like horseback riding (after being thrown off by a bucking horse as a kid) and I am severely claustrophobic....yet I booked 1.5 hours of horseback riding through Monument Valley and a 2 hour guided hike through Lower Antelope Canyon in which you descend 5 flights of ladders and walk through a deep crevice while the sunlight peeks through holes....UGH. BUT, I will not miss out on life due to my fears...I want to get over them and show my kids that most of our fears are mental and that we can absolutely face them and conquer them. We can trust God in every situation and we can push our self!!!!

VBS starts next week and the week after that is ART CAMP...the kids are stoked..I am getting there :), I really like this whole free to do whatever thing we got going ;). Days of nothingness are quite nice.

A birthday party for a friend..meant swimming in the rain and eating ice cream cones in the pool!

Sweet first grade friends. 

All the girls on the float!

I have some of the best, cutest, lovely friends! That Ribbit's first grade teacher beside me, yes, she is famous around this house!

More hairstyles!

Memorial Day with our grilled Johnsonville sausage and a beautiful sunny day!

I sent this to all my girlfriends and asked them which one they would choose....they all said D...I was A all the way!!!!!!

Tuesday Tangents

We have had SOO many fun days!!

This weekend we had birthday parties where we swam in the rain-that was a lot of fun watching little girls swim, get poured on and eat ice cream cones in the pool...hehe. The moms were totally on high alert and surrounded the pool at all times!

We had some of our favorite friends over for dinner and Mr. Dan showed the kiddos how to make parachutes and how to cheat at Uno. Mrs. Janet made a great cake, loved holding and learning about the chickens and oohheed and ahhheed over the kiddos room decor (mostly Ribbit's).

We dyed the kids hair...yup, I got major cool points for that one. Goober wanted blonde tips on his flat top and the other two wanted blue. It was blue for all of 2 days, until we swam and then the pool turned their back to light blonde too. All 3 kiddos actually look GREAT, like they have sun kissed highlights!

We grilled out for Memorial Day and had a great time eating outside and reading the bible. Adam got a lot done on the master closet and designed the playroom build ins. We also met up with Olyve and her mom Veronica who we befriended on a camping trip in Glen Rose over Spring Break. Olyve and Ribbit look like twins and ADORE each other. We swam with them for 2.5 hours yesterday and enjoyed catching back up and setting up more play dates for this summer!

I'm still working on this big road trip...I have "Amazing Race-Team Harvell" shirts being made and I am slowly putting all the clues into yellow envelopes. I also went back and read through our American Heritage Girls book to make sure Ribbit is earning badges as she goes.

Something neat to think about from our recent bible reading:
Genesis 7
¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. ¹² And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
¹³ On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. ¹⁴ They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. ¹⁵ Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. ¹⁶ The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.

The Lord shut them in. Even in the midst of the Lord destroying his creation and being grieved at the choices his people were making he still protected and sheltered and provided for Noah and his family. They faithfully served God and so he SHUT THEM IN...to protect them against his wrath. Sometimes we see things in life as God punishing us or keeping us from enjoying life...when in fact he is SHUTTING US IN to protect us from things we should not experience....things that we think sound easy or fun but are actually life threatening. 

We have really been enjoying reading through Genesis as we prepare for the Grand Canyon-I can't wait to see the kids faces and guide them to think about how God created everything, how we can see the history of Genesis played out through the Grand Canyon's layers. (Watch "Is Genesis History?" if you can...Adam has purchased it for us and even though it sounded boring in the first 5 minutes I kinda liked it :)). I can't wait to show the kids how artistic and creative the Lord is and how he made this earth very beautiful for us to enjoy. He could have made it any other way and yet its beautiful and majestic and all for us!

End of the year AHG party! The face painter was awesome!

Kisses for Baby Levi...we so enjoyed keeping him!

My sweet little Tenderheart got 9 badges this year!

Trail Life went to Laser Tag for their year end party!

Little Man had a fun play date with Nate!

The only thing she wanted to do was feed Baby Levi!

Entertaining him with magnets!

We were outside most of the day-Levi loves it and my kiddos had fun showing him all of our chickens, bike tricks and bugs-Goober was at basketball practice!

Getting some walking practice with Uncle Adam

Peek A Boo was a big hit!

THAT SMILE!!! Ribbit loved taking his picture!

I took him on a walk and he got a good 5 minute nap while I got lots of snuggling!

Her favorite way to read at the library!

Check out the cool man's new hair do.

Blueish tips...really hard to see on jet black hair :)

Her tips turned out more purple but she loved them none the same.

My hair do? Looks like a rats nest to me ..hehe.