Anna is 1 Year Old!

This past Thursday Anna turned 1 year old. My baby girl! Sigh! She has been so much fun. All of my kids are fun, but with each child it is a little different. Anna is different because she is my fourth and I am so much more relaxed with her. I have really laughed a lot more this first year! 

We had a big birthday party planned for her today! Ok, well, really it was just a great excuse to have a get together at our house. :) The typical first birthday parties I have been to in the past have usually resulted in the guest of honor either crying most of the time b/c of all the commotion or the child slept through the party. I think I might have been impressed with Anna if we had had the party today! (Matt started feeling bad last night and it only got worse this morning. So, we ended up having cupcakes with just our family. And I loved it. It was great!) But Anna surprised me! We got her cupcake ready and sang Happy Birthday...and then she promptly dug in! I couldn't believe it! My other kids either didn't like getting their hands dirty or were just so overwhelmed by this time that they wanted nothing to do with the cake...until you put it in their mouth. :) But Anna dug in, squished it all around in her hands, kept licking her hands off, and thoroughly enjoyed herself! Then off to the bath she headed. 

Hopefully Matt will start feeling better tomorrow, but if it's the same thing I had a couple of weeks ago, then it will take another couple of days of laying around the house. Pray that the kids don't get it.

Words that Rhyme

Austin is interested in words that rhyme lately. I am surprised as none of the other kids ever showed interest in that at such a young age. I think he is interested because he hears Ethan and Emma rhyming words. For example, (and picture this, he usually shouts out the words in the middle of a conversation you are having with someone else, and he won't stop until you have acknowledged him), 

"MAMA! MAMA! WHAT RHYMES WITH CAT? UMMM, SAT, AND HAT, AND MAT! THEY RHYME WITH CAT!" After he warms up with an easy one, next comes the hard one...or so I think. But for Austin? Nope, he's got it covered. 

"MAMA! MAMA! I SAY, MAMA! I AM TALKIN TO YOU! MAMA! WHAT RHYMES WITH CHRISTMAS TREE? I KNOW! MINI ME! AND I GOTTA PEE! DAT RHYMES WITH CHRISTMAS TREE!" Yup, you got it. Never would've thought of those ones. Way to go Austin! 

Musings while Stuck on the Couch

This has been an interesting week. First I had an awful sore throat and incredible achyness that kicked my butt for a couple of days. (I thought I had strep!) I'm still in the process of getting over that. Then this morning, as I was holding Anna in my left arm, I reached over to get something off of the end table with my right hand and something popped in my rib area and was so painful! I recalled what my chiropractor said about how it feels when a rib pops out of place, like an ice pick stabbing you in the side, and sure enough that is about what it felt like. I couldn't take a breath without a sharp pain stabbing my right side. Oh, it was awful! So I called Stephanie and begged to come over because well, I was having trouble breathing. And well, breathing is important. So, out go my plans to actually get out of the house and buy Christmas presents and here I sit with an ice pack on my back. So, for those of you who were going to get presents, my plan was to buy them, wrap them up nice this year and mail them. Now it looks like I will be doing what I usually do, ordering online with a "Merry Christmas" in the notes area. :) It IS easier to do that, but I wanted to do something a little more special this year. Ah well, it's not about the presents anyways, is it? It's about taking extra time to remember our Lord during this season. 

You know, I'm really enjoying Christmas this year with the kids. We already went to see a play, "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". I have to admit, I got teary during the performance, not because of the play itself, but because I was so glad to be sharing it with my kids! I didn't get to participate and enjoy the Christmas season as a kid, and I'm finding that my kids love it! And therefore I love it! They love the decorations, the lights, the Christmas songs, and of course they are looking forward to the presents. :) We watched the movie 'Elf' the other night and it was great! It was about Santa Claus (someone who I have had issues with in the past), but my kids know that he is not real and they still enjoy watching shows about him. It's just like Frosty the Snowman or even Transformers. Just one more character. I used to not want my kids to get hung up on Santa, but you know, even if they did it means no more to them than Blue from Blue's Clues. It's been a liberating Christmas season so far this year and I am thoroughly enjoying it! So long as they remember what Christmas really represents I don't mind all the extras that go along with it. And that will be my mission, to make sure I develop fun traditions around Jesus. So, if anyone has any ideas I would welcome them.

Merry Christmas!

Baby Gate is Up!

Well, I have good reason to finally put the baby gate up at the foot of the stairs. Up until now, Anna has just lingered at the bottom of the stairs looking up. She might venture up a few steps, but that would be about it. This morning I was doing emails and such and knew she had gone over in that direction, but it was entirely too silent. Then I heard someone playing with the gate at the TOP of the stairs. Sure enough, it was my sweet pea! She had climbed up the stairs and was playing with the gate. I got there just in time too! As I was heading upstairs, she had pushed the gate so it swung back out over the stairs and she was reaching for it! She has already fallen down the entire flight of stairs once and I don't care to have it repeated. Anna also is cruising around furniture alot these days. She'll be up and running before we know it!

Thanksgiving

It has been a week since we returned from MI for Thanksgiving and only now do I have some time to sit and think and blog. :) It's been a busy week of cleaning up the van from the trip, trying to get the kids back into the swing of things with our daily schedule, putting clothes away, and putting away misc piles that have gotten out of control recently. But I am feeling like things are in better order in my house, therefore I can now think. :)

THANKSGIVING!!

It was a great week! Matt and I and the kids started the trip by driving up to stay the night with the Griffin's near Little Rock. The next morning we headed out for MI. It was a long second day of driving but the kids did really well. I'll be honest, I was ready for the worst. I was ready for irritability and fussing and motion sickness. I had toys for the kids and I had back-up toys! I had snacks and drinks (but we didn't want them to drink too much so we wouldn't have to stop alot!) But the drive went way better than I anticipated. There must have been alot of prayers out there for us. :) The kids kept themselves entertained in the morning, then they had lunch, then naps, then they played for a bit again, then dinner, then videos at nighttime, then one last potty stop and they slept the rest of the way. 

While we were up there we stayed with Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Stan. We went to Jim and Deana's place and saw their new house. It is a really cute place! We also saw Julie and Brian and the girls quite a bit since they live only 1/2 a mile down the road. And then we went to Grandma Lola and Grandpa's house one morning as well. That was all before Thanksgiving Day. On Thanksgiving Day Aunt Judy and Jim, Cyndi and Ben, and Grandma Lola and Grandpa came over for dinner. That evening all the girls headed down to aunt Judy's house in IN to search through all the ads and plot their plan of attack for shopping the next morning, Black Friday. Grandma Lola and I didn't go down for the shopping. We are not fans of all the crowds and standing in endless lines. So I helped the others find the gifts they were looking for. At one point, I'm not really sure how this topic came up, but Julie and someone else started talking about killing chickens at the farm for food. Well, at that point, this city-girl headed on out to the kitchen! But I did find some tasty Bailey's and after a few sips was able to join in on the conversation. :) The next morning everyone else headed out while Grandma and I slept in. We joined everyone for breakfast around 9ish and then headed home where my sister and her family were waiting for me! It was great to see them. They stayed the day at Deb and Stan's. We all went out on a hay ride to the pines. Everyone got out and ran around through all the trees until we were freezing. Then we headed back in to warm up and get ready for some of Grandma Lola's fabulous swiss steak for dinner. Yum! The kids had fun together and it was nice to hang out with Patti and Bill and all of Matt's family. We had more people over for dinner on Friday than on Thanksgiving! Jim and his family and Julie and her family also came over. There were a lot of kids! 

On Saturday we were ready to head home. I knew I would miss everyone, but I was tired and needed to get home and get the kids back to their routine. There are some great things about living up in MI that I think I would really enjoy if we were there. But as I prayed about it I knew that we are still supposed to be in TX for the time being. And I have to admit, I think the weather here is much better! :) So, Debbie loaded us up with fresh salsa and strawberry jam to take home. Julie got us some pure honey, peaches and applesauce. And Deana baked and frosted a ton of sugar cookies that we we have thoroughly enjoyed. And the cookies are gone. :) 

Saturday night we stayed the night at the Payne Chatelaine! Amy, I'm surprised that you didn't mention on your blog the exciting game that we played after the kids went to bed! Have any of you ever played 24? If you haven't then you MUST! Fabulous game! Fabulous! ;) Wouldn't you recommend it, Amy? (he he he). Ok, so this game must have some kind of bug in it or something. It started out good, but then there were certain parts that you had to use your remote with the tv that none of us could get past. So, of course, according to the game our missions kept failing. It was actually really funny and we all had alot of fun playing. It was really great to see the Payne's again. We have missed you all down here in TX. And we will stop and see you again next time we drive to MI. This time we will hopefully not have puke-smelling children when we first arrive. :) (Anna and Austin both got motion sick in the van and threw up about 20 min before we got to their house. I think it was the winding back roads that did it to them.)

We left early Sunday morning for TX. On the way we got a call from the Griffins who were also driving home from KY. As it turned out we were both about the same distance away from their house. So, we decided to crash at their place for dinner and to let the kids run around and get their jammies on before we finished our journey. After getting stuck in some traffic, we arrived at their place first and ordered the pizza. It was a really nice break in the trip. On the one hand, it made the trip longer, but it was worth it. We arrived home about 1am or so. 

All in all the trip went really well. We had a good drive there and back. And we all had a good time with friends and family.

I will post pictures on my picasa site.

Update

It has been quite awhile since I've blogged. Seems there aren't enough hours in the day. We were doing quite well over here....until early this morning. Ethan came into our room complaining of his stomach hurting. He crawled into bed with me and sure enough it was really hurting him. After awhile he threw up and is now in a much better mood. I am thinking this is just the residual of strep throat that he is still getting over. Of which he is still taking antibiotics for. I don't really know. I have not had coffee yet this morning and have been up since about 3am (first with Anna, I let her cry it out last night. It is time to stop nursing her at night. It was time to do that awhile ago but I never quite got around to it). We will see how the day progresses. I suppose we will put all activities on hold yet again for a day or two. And these were the busy days coming up! Today the kids have gymnastics and tomorrow they have The Cube, our co-op where I teach two classes. I'm not sure what to do about that. I missed last week because of Ethan's strep throat. I guess we will just see how the day goes and then decide.

I did finally post a bunch of pictures on my Picasa site. http://picasaweb.google.com/lesliehargus I tried to post them on the blog but it was such a pain so I just decided to keep them at Picasa. Much easier to do. I need easy and I need fast! The kids and the house keep my busy! You know, I had to laugh yesterday when on three separate occasions people asked me, "Are all these kids yours?" With a look of surprise and amazement in their voices. :) ha ha ha! Sometimes I am surprised I have this many! They keep me busy. But overall things are getting easier. Austin is pretty well potty trained. Yay! That makes life much easier.

Ok, side note, as I am typing this Austin burped (he is sitting at the table eating) and said, "Mama I sick. There's too much Frosted Wheats in my mouth, that's why." The logic of a 3 year old. He is my funny boy.

So Austin is pretty well potty trained, as long as I remind him to go. And Anna is on a good nap schedule which makes it easier for me to do schoolwork with the kids. She's also eating more solids which is a nice break for me. :) And as I get more sleep the better I feel and the better I am able to deal with all that comes my way during the day.

Ethan and Emma are doing really well with school this year. Emma has whizzed through her handwriting book and is writing out her bible verses from Sparks now as her handwriting assignment. She's also doing quite well with Math. I am amazed at how much she already knows just from listening to what I have been doing with Ethan. And Em is also doing great at reading. We are halfway through her reading book. When we finish the book she should be reading at a second grade level. When I finished that book with Ethan last year his reading skills took off. I can't wait to see that happen with Emma. Right now she is still hesitant and not quite confident in her skills. It won't take long and she'll be getting out her own library books to read!

Ethan's attention span is much better this year. I can see improvement in every area. It's very exciting to see! He catches on to math easy. He figured out subtraction before we got to it in his book. He didn't know that that is what he was doing tho. His handwriting is also sooo much better! I didn't expect such a huge improvement in that area yet. I had heard that for boys it takes until second grade for handwriting to improve. I don't push it, but we do a little each day. I think that works well for him since he still doesn't like it.

Princess Anna is growing like a weed. She is funny. A serious little thing like her oldest brother. She's quite fond of her daddy these days. She reaches for him as soon as he gets home from work. He is "Happy Fun Dad" after all. That's his job. :) Anna likes to make new noises with her mouth, she likes to dance (she's a headbanger), and she is learning how to wave bye bye. Her biggest achievement is that she is standing up on her own for a few seconds at a time....until she starts to dance. :) She took two steps towards me while holding on to only one of my hands yesterday. She is well on her way to causing all sorts of trouble!

And Matt is enjoying his new job as well. He is finally getting his weekends off. He actually got to work on our bathroom shower last weekend! and I bought some paint for Emma and Anna's room. Not sure when I'll get around to painting tho....

Sick

Well, today Ethan is sick and we are going to head to the dr to get his very swollen throat checked out. I am really hoping none of the other kids get what he has. He also threw up last night and this morning. Off I go to take him to the dr.....better get a bucket to take in the van....:(

Back from the dr with a pitiful child and prescription in hand. He has strep and is having trouble keeping much of anything down. Poor kid. Pray for him. Pray for all of us, that it won't spread.