Daddy is taller

Here are some more photos of us playing at the park. Kaden and Luke were thrilled to have Daddy there to do the monkey bars with, Mom is too short to help...surprise, surprise. You should have heard the giggles from these two!

"How 'bout again Dad?"

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"

Gabriel was content to climb all over the toddler play part. He still doesn't know what to think about the sand, he is so fun to watch.

Look at me!!!

Whatcha waiting for?? Come on through.

We are all hanging in there. Mike left again yesterday, bummer. Luke kept saying "Please Daddy, don't go away again" It was really heartbreaking for me, I can't imagine how Michael felt. When Luke was giving him his great big hug he said "You drive safe now Daddy" Funny what kids pick up on. I think Luke will do much better once school starts, he will have something else to focus on. I will be sure and give you the full report on how the first day goes. Luke and I have orientation on Wednesday morning!!! How exciting and sad for me!

Barefoot in the park

Okay, okay, not really but shoes on in the park doesn't have the same ring. We took these yesterday (Saturday) while Daddy was home. You can tell the boys had a GREAT time. It took all of 10 minutes before the boys were soaked with sweat and sand, not really a nice combination. But we did have fun. Are there places in this country where kiddos can play at the park and NOT have to have a bath right afterwards?? That would be wonderful, maybe we will move there...

Happy boys.

I LOVE Kaden-man's smile in this one...

Where do you want to go??

Good-bye goldish-locks...

Gabriel went to the barbershop today, though he is quite smiley in these pictures he was NOT at the barber. He screamed and cried and shook his head. That was loads of fun let me tell you. I am glad his haircut came out as well as it did. Bless the lady's heart, it was the same woman who gave him his first and only other haircut. She did great with him and wasn't phased at all with his cries. Sorry to put you through that buddy, but your hair was in your eyes! He looks adorable, don't ya think???

Tongues and Smiles and Spots

Gienke tongue at the computer, Kaden has mastered the mouse!!!

Here he is playing Mickey Mouse.

4 days later and 100% better!! Gabriel is doing just great. Here he and Luke are showing off those gorgeous smiles!!

How cute are my boys? Could I just start every post with that sentence? We have had a good day. I have to admit that I have been extremely grumpy this week. I am not happy that Michael is gone again and it has affected my behavior. I know I shouldn't act this way but I just can't help it, or better yet I wouldn't help it. But today things are different. I attribute the change to 2 things:
I started reading and finished today Max Lucado's "A Cure for the Common Life". What a wonderful book. It's about finding your sweet spot, where your Everyday Life, Your Strengths, and God's Grace intersect. He explains that we were all created from God even before our conception with a purpose in mind. God granted us strengths and passions. We need to discover our joys and live our life fulfilling ourselves, fulfilling our calling, and thanking God. Max urges you to go back to your childhood and recall the moments when you felt the best, whether it was fixing up a broken bike, helping your friends get over an argument, teaching your younger sibling how to read, focus on those moments when you felt happy and overjoyed with the 'work' you were doing. Then take those and realize that is how God made you. He gave you tendencies, passions different from others. Embrace your uniqueness, don't try and run from it. Do what makes you happy and your life will change. This is a very powerful book that I think everyone should read whether you love your job or not. What a wonderful way to get acquainted with the person God created you to be. ----------and He certainly didn't create me to be a mother who is upset about again having to spend time alone with her children. Instead he created a woman who adores her children and wants to relish in every moment knowing they will be too few.
And the 2nd reason I am better today---Michael will be home tonight. :) That is all that needs to be said about that. (course he will leave again on Sunday, but what a wonderful weekend we will have!!)

An explanation with Kaden's caption: For those of you who don't know--Gienke is my Mom's maiden name and they, well the male Gienkes have a habit of sticking our their tongues when concentrating! Obviously Kaden-man snagged that gene! Grandpa Gienke would be proud it passed on to yet another generation!

Grant's Farm (from June)

Red Deer from China----very cool----VERY BIG!

Luke feeding the goats, the kiddos favorite part of the day.

Gabriel really wasn't scared like he looks in the photo, he loved it, Kaden too.

Howdy folks. How's it going? I was going through my photos and decided I needed to post some pics from our trip to Grant's Farm back while we were in St. Louis. I have actually never been there before which is amazing. It was lots of fun. It Grant's Farm as in President Ulysses S. Grant. Now Anheuser-Busch owns and maintains it so there are Clydesdales there as well! (Those photos must still be on the roll in our old fashion camera! Those will come later!)

Here's my happy boy, laughing at his Momma

World's Fastest Indian

For those of you who don't know--The World's Fastest Indian is movie that came out earlier this year. It is a true story based on a New Zealand man and his dreams. (The Indian is his 1920's Indian Scout motorcycle.) The story follows him as he follows his dream to break the land speed record. Anthony Hopkins plays the lead and he is UTTERLY AMAZING!!!!! Within the first 10 minutes of the movie you are so engrossed in his character that you desperately want to meet this man. You will get so caught up in his dream, your heart will race along with his! He has such a passion for his dream and his life. He is a good and decent person, nothing shady about him at all. And what I LOVED the most is how whenever he met a new person he introduced himself and shook their hand, he treated every single person as a friend. Wouldn't that be great if we could all do that?! He will stop at nothing to fulfill his dream yet he is not hardheaded or insensitive to others. Instead he tries to help everyone he can in whatever way he can. He tries to impact the lives of those he comes across in a positive way. I highly recommend this movie. It is amazing and I LOVED it so. If you do watch it, you will have to comment and let me know what you think about it, I would love to know!

Fitzs--one of you guys will have to NetFlix it and watch it with my Mom. :)

P.S.----Gienkes, it is rated PG-13 for a couple of very minor scenes.

Scar picture #2

Okay, I was talking to my Momma about Gabriel and I looked at the pics on my blog again. Well, needless-to-say the #2 picture looks a lot worse then the first. The first is what it looks like in real life, the #2 picture looks all purple-ish and kinda gross, that is just the photo, maybe the flash glare off the glue. So, again the first picture is what it looks like, it is not that nasty. Promise.

Bing, Bang, Ouch!!!!

Bless Gabriel's angel heart! We started off Daddy's trip with a bang, that is for sure. Less then 24 hours after Michael left, Gabriel and I headed off to the E.R. He fell into the fireplace and the brick won. About 11:40 this morning Gabriel fell and started screaming crying. I knew something was wrong just by his type of cry. When I picked him up there was blood everywhere (of course as head injuries bleed like crazy). We went right to the bathroom and I could tell that he needed stitches or something. Luke came in and asked what was wrong, he did not like seeing the blood on the floor and all over my shirt (white Mizzou shirt mind you!!) Luke did great, he ran and got the phone for me, then got the med kit from the van for me. My neighbor Natalie came over to watch Luke and Kaden for me. We tied some gauze around his head and I left. Took just over 30 minutes to get to the hospital. I talked with Belva and my Aunt LeeAnn and Uncle Todd as I drove there. I needed someone to keep me calm while I was driving. We got to the E.R. and waited about an hour to be taken back. By this time, Gabriel was done crying and was just talking away. The doc glued him up. The worst part for Gabriel was being held down, we had his arms in a pillowcase and then wrapped a sheet around him about 6 times. He was not happy about that! The whole process took less then 3 minutes. Now with the glue there is nothing to do but wait till it falls off itself. That is nice, no up keep or anything. I am just so sorry it happened. I talked to Michael while in the waiting room, he started class today, he was worried but did okay hearing the news. I bet he is glad he will be able to come home this weekend for sure! Of our 3 boys, Gabriel is the first with a wound like this, we oughta be thankful for that I guess.

You know it's an old AF wife joke that everything happens while the guys are away---pretty much that is true. What a day! Let's all say a prayer that this is my only adventure while Mike's away this time. I don't need life to be exciting and different, I would like things to be dull and boring!

Thank you again so much to Natalie and Cary for helping out with my kiddos. Thanks to Belva, Aunt LeeAnn, Uncle Todd, and Mom (Mike's Mom) for talking to me while I was driving and waiting for the docs. You guys were all great and exactly what I needed. I am so blessed with an amazing family. Thank you God for being with me as I drove to the hospital and providing for me as You always do. Thank you Gabriel wasn't more hurt then what he was.

Gabriel, my sweetheart, I am so sorry that you got hurt today.

Didn't I just write yesterday "never a dull moment"----I guess we proved that one again!!!

Hole-y Car!

Well Luke should be proud of himself. Gabriel loves to watch Luke play with his cars, and look how it paid off. He was so proud of himself for lining up the cars like that. Course after I took the picture he proceeded to throw them all over the dining room, but that is a different story! What a cute smile on that kid!



And, get this: I went to the doc on Friday for my ear--here's the quick background. When I was at the doc back in March he noticed that I had a hole in my left eardrum, he just mentioned it in passing and said nothing else. I thought that was weird, but figured if he didn't think it was a big deal then why should I? On the 4th when we were at the beach one of those huge waves smacked me right in the head and flooded my ear and OHMIGOODNESS! it hurt something terrible for about 15 minutes. It has not been the same since, doesn't hurt it just feels strange and I have lost a considerable amount of hearing. So, went to the doc and he said that indeed I have a huge hole in my eardrum and an ear infection too (duh, large holes will lead to that). So he says that I need surgery. Now doesn't that just sound like fun? I looked up eardrum surgeries online and there are 2, an okay one and a more major one. There is one done in an office with local anesthesia fixed with skin, and one done in an operating room where you are completely knocked out with fat filling the hole (goodness knows I have enough of that to go around----so at least I have that going for me!) Of course this all happens right when Michael is leaving for 5 weeks... So now I have a referral to an ENT, that will come through this week, then I have to make an appointment, who knows how long that will take! I will keep you posted. Kelly we now have that much more in common, add crazy ear problems to our list! Has anyone ever heard of something like this??? Never a dull moment around here, I tell you what!

Veggin' Out

How cute? My boys watching their TV, totally veggin out. Now for those of you wondering, I did NOT set up this picture. Kaden and I were sitting on the couch then Gabriel crawled up and sat with us. Luke sat at the opposite end and the boys joined him down there. I am happy I was fast enough to get a photo.

Today is another sad day in the Harmon household. Daddy leaves again for 5 weeks, he is going to Alabama (SOS) this time. Bummer! He promises to return on weekends to help the time pass...that will help, but we still don't want Daddy to leave again, we have had ENOUGH of that this year already!!!

Hopefully the boys will get along this well while Daddy is gone! I'll keep you posted!!

Chill Out Dude!

Gabriel is learning to take it easy. While the country is in the midst of a MAJOR and TERRIBLE heat wave, Gabriel reminds us to chill out and relax. Not sure what he was watching, but he certainly was enthralled with it.

To all of you who are suffering through this ugly heat and to my Mom who has no power and NO air conditioner because of St. Louis' nasty storm, God send some cooling winds your way!!! Take care of yourselves!

Oh, yes, I almost forgot--- here's to my angel baby Gabriel who turned 18 months yesterday. My sweet boy you are growing up way too fast. Mommy and Daddy love you so very much, you have blessed our family with your good nature and marvelous smile. God bless you angel.

Dog Pile On Daddy!!!

Last night the big boys were rough-housing. They were having so much fun. I was able to (carefully) set Gabriel down in the mix and get this too cute picture. So yes, I cheated a little for sake of a photo with all 4, but come on, can you blame me? They are so cute together!!! Thought I would share the smiles :)

Uncle Thad's Clarification

So, I just got off the phone with my brother and he had some words for me about my "Game Night" post. To set the record straight, he is NOT a sore loser, he just HATES to lose. He said there is a big difference between the two. I promised I would clarify for him. So, I sure hope this clears it up for everyone out there.

For me, it's "you say poTAYto, I say poTAHto..."

Love you Thaddeus.
:)

Thanks Jackie!

Here's my thank you to Jackie. She did my hair for Michael's graduation. Lots of people wanted me to wear my hair up for the evening (Melanie especially), but I totally had my reservations. I went to Jackie and asked for help and my hair turned out GORGEOUS!!!!! I loved it, Michael loved it, Mom loved it, we all loved it and I got lots and lots of compliments on it. So thank you Jackie for doing this for me.

These are the cute pictures my Mom took after the graduation before we headed out to the after-party.

And for those of you who haven't had the priviledge of meeting Jackie yet, you are missing out, she is truly one-of-a-kind, the life of ANY party, she's just plain awesome! Love you Jackie!

Michael's Graduation!!!

The HAPPY couple!!!

WAY TO GO Darth!!!!

Here's all the fam: Thaddeus, Jackie, Mom, me, Michael, Mom, James, and Belva.

Alright, it's about time I covered the most special event of June: Michael's Weapon School Graduation. It was wonderful! Thank you to the family that came to celebrate with us. The evening started out with a pre-party with Michael's classmates and their families. There, each class member presented someone in their family with a bottle of champagne. Michael gave his to me and thanked me for taking care of our boys while he was gone, especially during their sickness. It was a great moment for me to say the least! :) After that we headed into the graduation ballroom for yet another pre-party, this time with everyone, hundreds of us. When the graduation started, we had a speaker, a video (made me cry, of course), and a wonderful dinner. We all celebrated Michael and his accomplishment. I cannot tell you how very proud of him I am, how proud we all are. Michael was literally the first one to cross the stage and receive his certificate. What a proud moment that was.

After the festivities closed, we headed upstairs to change and then headed to Margaritaville as most graduates did, to celebrate some more. It was a wonderful night, a much deserved happy ending to those LONG 6 months!

So congratulations again to you Michael. You are amazing! I love you more then you could ever know!

Game Night!

A couple of nights ago, we had our first ever Harmon Game Night. It was so much fun. We played Disney CandyLand. The boys did great! Kaden loved it because it was all about colors. He had the best time. Luke loved taking cards from the deck. And thankfully neither of them are competitive enough to realize the other one is winning! And lets all pray they take after their Mother, not their Father or either of their Uncles (for that matter) when it comes to playing games. No offense to you guys, but...I speak the truth, you 3 are pretty terrible losers, let's hope you grow out of it :) The first game the boys played each other and Kaden won. The second game we all 4 played (Gabriel watched) and Michael cheated to win, and no, I am not kidding. Pathetic. How do you cheat at CandyLand you ask? You look at the cards left and "subtly" put the best one for you on the top. Anyways, game night was a success and I hope to make this a tradition. And just maybe all the Harmon males will learn to be good sports!

Note the Gienke tongue!!

Luke's turn to move.

Sing Us a Song, Kaden Piano Man

Sing us a song tonight....

Here's a happy Kaden-man playing with his new keyboard! He LOVES it. We have 2 reasons to sing here! 1-- cause Kaden loves the piano and 2, the actual reason for the piano in the first place---Kaden is potty trained! Yeah! It took all of one time of him actually pottying on the toilet and NO problems since! I started Monday morning and I sat him on the potty every 20 minutes for 5 hours and nothing. After naptime, same situation. Then Monday at 7PM he actually did it!!! Has had no accidents or anything since. So all you doubters out there that believed I would never get it done can stop worrying now. We are good to go. (and we did go today, made 5 stops and he was dry!) Cheers to my Piano Man, way to go KADEN!!!!

Our Vacation, Part 3

Hello again. Figured I would finish up the trip for you. We left Thad's apartment the morning of Sun, June 18th. We headed to the Grand Canyon! Very exciting. I was there in the mid-80's and Michael had only seen it from the air. It was quite impressive to say the lease! We had such a good time, we were only there for a couple of hours, but it was amazing. The views are utterly unbelievable to me!!! These pictures kind of speak for themselves!!!

That night we headed to Williams, AZ for a night in a bed and breakfast, The Red Garter Inn. It is a saloon/bordello from the 1890's. It is an historic building now. We heard some interesting stories there from the now owner. It was all pretty interesting.

June 19th--our 7th wedding anniversary! Congrats to us. We left the bed and breakfast and spent a glorious 13 1/2 hours in the car on our way to Oklahoma City. It was a long drive that was made longer because of all the insane road construction, ugh. But we figured to push it to OKC and stay with family then stop at a hotel. So thanks to Kelly for letting us crash the night at your apartment. It was so wonderful to see you, it had been too long! (over 2 1/2 years too long!!!)

We got to St. Louis and back to our kiddos on June 20th. They were all more then excited to see their Daddy. Luke just hugged and hugged him, Kaden burst out into tears, he was just completely overwhelmed at having his Daddy there, it took him a few minutes of holding onto me before he could go over to Michael. Then he was all laughs, and hugs, and kisses. The baby (I need to stop calling him that, he's almost a year and a half old!), Gabriel went right to Michael as if no time had passed! It was a marvelous reunion and boy were we glad to be back with our precious children.

Thank you to Grandmom, Great Granny, Aunt Debbie, Aunt LeeAnn, Samantha, Peter, Ben, and Jack for helping to watch and entertain our kiddos so that Michael and I could enjoy our vacation and celebrate being together again. We appreciate more then you will ever know!

Our Vacation, Part 2

Alrighty, so the fun continues...we left San Diego Wild Animal Park to head up to my brother's apartment in Sherman Oaks (LA). Can I just say that LA traffic is absolutely unbelievable and I do not know how my brother, Mr. Impatience, survives there! We got there safely and chilled for the night.

The next morning bright and early we headed for Disneyland, it took us about 1 hour and 20 minutes to go less then 40 miles! Crazy traffic I tell you! We spent the day at Magic Kingdom and got to ride everything, even though every major attraction was shut down for one reason or another. We had a blast! I love being there. That night we ate at the Rainforest Cafe before heading to our hotel. (we got a hotel so we wouldn't have to make the drive to and from Thad's both days!)

On the teacups, by myself but oh so fun :)

Here's the man, well the mouse anyways

On Friday (June 16th) we went to California Adventure, you know the other side of Disneyland. Had a blast there too. I love the roller coaster there, very fun! We didn't wait longer then 10 minutes for any of the rides! That is nuts, I guess everyone was hanging over at Disneyland.

I may look scared, but my hands are up!!!

Tower of Terror, so much fun!!!!

Darth with a Lego Darth, that store was awesome!

We drove back to Thad's on Friday afternoon---it took us 3 hours and 10 minutes to go 37 miles!!!! Yep, not joking, that was REALLY terrible!!! But we made it back and went to Thad and Jackie's favorite little Italian place for dinner, quite yummy!

On Saturday we spent the day with my brother's friends, we watched the USA/Italy World Cup game, that was fun. But Saturday night was the best! Jackie, Thad's wonderful, beautiful girlfriend had planned a huge surprise party for my brother's 30th birthday! We were at Red Rocks bar on Sunset! He was genuinely surprised and there was about 50 people there to celebrate my wonderful brother! We had a blast. Thank you Jackie for throwing the party when Mike and I could attend, and Happy 30th again Thaddeus!

We left LA on Sunday morning---and oh yes, there's more to our trip. I will certainly be back :)

Our Vacation, Part 1

Hello all! Just wanted to fill you in on the vacation Michael and I took after his graduation. (I still need to post the graduation, don't I---I'll get there, I promise!) So we left Vegas on the 11th of June heading for San Diego. We stayed there for 3 days and had an amazing time.

The first day we went to SeaWorld--thank you Anheuser-Busch for the free tickets! We had a blast. We had Breakfast with Shamu, sat around his pool with a buffet, very nice. Orcas are HUGE!!!!! We saw all the shows and stayed from open to close. The manatees were my favorite. Michael liked the sharks, of course...

This was our view for breakfast.

Awesome dolphin show.

Yeah, I took this picture, about scared me to death!

The next day it was the San Diego Zoo. WOW, that place is pretty amazing. We walked around for most of the morning and then rode the double decker bus in the early afternoon. It was not an easy walk by any means, it seemed all uphill to me. My favorite part was definately seeing the Panda Bears. They are so cool, so beautiful. I am not sure what Michael liked the most, though we did go and see the snakes twice!!!! (yuck)

Momma Panda hanging out.

Could Koalas be any cuter??

After the Zoo we went downtown to the Gaslamp District, it's full of shops and restaurants. We had amazing mexican food, then Ghirardelli's for dessert (yummy). We went to the movies and saw "The Break Up".

Our last day there we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. That was so much fun as well. We walked all around that place, it is a mixture between a zoo and large open areas. They have lots of animals. We were so close to the lions, it was AWESOME! They are such huge cats! I am so glad that we got to go and visit San Diego, I had never been and it had been years and years since Michael was there.

Nothing between us but the glass, how cool is that?

"Africa" at the park, quite an amazing view, huh?

We left the park and headed up to Thad and Jackie's in LA. Hollywood here we come! I will finish another day, more fun pictures to come!

Happy Birthday America!!!

Happy Birthday America! Happy 4th of July! We had such a wonderful day! We started out with a BBQ for lunch. Then after naptime we headed off to the beach! We were so blessed with a beautiful day. It was a little windy and that cooled it off for us! Also, it gave us GREAT waves, we got knocked around pretty good. It was so much fun.

Luke stayed in the water almost the whole time. He LOVED those waves, they would knock him over and he would get up giggling! Kaden would run toward the water when it was down and then let the waves chase him back up the beach. He is so funny to watch. Gabriel had a good time in the water, but really loved crawling around the sand.

We were there for just under 6 hours and the kids were all but perfect! All 5 of them, yep, cousins were still with us. It was a blast to watch them play together. Right now they are 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1! Pretty cool, huh?

God bless America and our troops! Always remember how blessed we are to live in this country!