LOOK AT THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was going to write to you about our sermon at church yesterday. About how we started a series on the seven deadly sins. Anger was yesterday's sin. I was going to tell you about the kind of break-through I had. Let you know that I realized most of my anger is rooted in my own selfishness. If I can work through those issues, I will gain more patience and be the better mother and wife I strive to be. I had a long and winded way to inform you of all of this. But it all has changed because of Joe's post from yesterday! Yes--to the right there go to my links and go to Joe's blog and watch the video he posted "Laughter is the Best Medicine" (dated March 30th) It is amazing, wonderful, and instantly brought me to tears! What an amazing God we have, what a blessing he has sent that family! Thank you God for laughter.

(okay--here is the side note for the few of you that read this blog and don't know who Joe is, everyone else--GO AND WATCH THE VIDEO and celebrate with them! I actually don't know Joe, I have never met him, but I do know his wife Laura (link above his) Laura is my age and grew up in church with my cousins. Since I have always gone home to St. Louis for visits I have known Laura since junior high, if not before. In fact most people on my links are special people from the Mid-County Youth Group. I am blessed to know them, they have touched my life in a very special way. Anyways, Laura and Joe's son was born with many medical difficulties and has gone through an unbelievable hard time in his little life. I became addicted to reading Joe's blog and praying for little Ira as so many have. Ira has made leaps and bounds this year already and we all marvel at God's answer to prayer. I promise this family will touch your lives and your heart. Now go, watch that video and cherish the laughter! Praise God!!!)

Flooded Spring Break

Finally, it's time to cover our trip up to St. Louis. We went for Spring Break last week and even though Noah would have been freaked with the amount rain we witnessed, we still had a great time. It was a QUICK trip. All 6 of us drove up on Friday afternoon (We were blessed to have Michael get to come up even if just for the weekend!) The trip went great with the exception of a little vomiting. Kaden threw up at dinner at the BK, nice, huh? And Gabriel puked all over Grandmom's porch and entry way of the house. Whoops. So yes, we had sickness once again in Missouri. Gabriel was sick Saturday, Sunday and still puny on Monday. Bless his bones. He didn't want to lay in bed or on the couch even. Just wanted to be right smack dab in the middle of Grandmom's family room floor. See:Michael was just there for the weekend and so Mom and I took advantage of that. We went shopping on Saturday just the 2 of us and it was wonderful. I usually don't get too much one-on-one time with my Momma when I am home because of the 4 precious ones we have running around. I had a blast Mom! On Sunday we didn't go anywhere because Gabriel was sick. Various family came over on Sunday and Monday to spend time with us. Thanks everybody! Michael left on Monday night to go back to work. Poor guy, not much of a break for him!
On Tuesday my poor Momma was sick and spent half the day in bed and half on the couch. It was pouring outside once again so we Harmons stayed put. On Wednesday there was actually a break in the weather and we headed out to the mall, this was the kiddos first time out of the house since we got there on Friday! The rain kept us in. Wednesday night we met cousin Mel for dinner at our fav Red Robin (YUM!) The kids were so good, we had such a fun time out. On Thursday we just hung out at home again. Luke and I ran some errands and went to see my Granny for a while. And Friday we headed back to OK. I didn't take many pics in STL but here is Luke reading to Aunt LeeAnn and Kaden from my brothers old elementary school reader! He did such a great job (Thad--remember the story of the mouse who eats the cheese and thinks it's the moon?! That's the story he read!) And there's a photo of my sweet girl playing.The Friday trip, what an experience! It is supposed to be between a 7 and 8 hour drive from St. Louis to Oklahoma City but the kids and I made it in record time--10 hours and 10 minutes! Yep! Remember all the rain?! Well it led to flooding. I'm sure you heard about it on the news... It just so happens that the highway you take from Mom's house to the Interstate was flooded over. So I had to couple a couple miles out of the way to get on the interstate farther east. And then we waited. The intersection of these 2 roads was ridiculous. The crews were watching the waters rise hoping they wouldn't have to shut down the interstate. For those of you familiar with the area (almost everyone who reads this blog anyways) this was at I-44 and 141.

This is what we were sitting in:

Pretty creative picture I think, through the rear view mirror...cool. This is why it took so long:

Note the MODOT truck in front of me driving more sandbags out there to 'save' the interstate. This is what my backseat looked like:

THANK GOODNESS for the DVD player!!! This is how long it took:

Actually the end was the worst part and so it ended up being 10.5 miles in 1:44 minutes! Yep. That was awesome! This, however, is NOT so awesome. This was the problem. This is coming up on the 141 intersection:

These pics are right west of there. The water is almost to the to top of the doors on one side of the road and on the other you can BARELY see the top of the street signs!And these poor horses. I hope this place ended up coming through all of this flooding okay!

As 'not-fun' as it was sitting in the van for that long I couldn't help but think look what all these people were having to deal with so what's a couple of hours in my car?! Please send a prayer up for those that were affected by the flooding.

My first ever

On Saturday night I attended my first ever Air Force Dining Out. This is a black-tie dinner, very formal and very exciting for this stay-at-home-Mom that switches between workout pants and jeans! We had a great time. It was fun to get all dressed up and spend an adult evening out, plus I got to eat prime rib and that is always a good thing for me! Thanks to our sweet sitter who fed and stayed with our kiddos so we could enjoy this night! And here's the happy couple:This is my best friend here, Michelle, I don't think you have seen her on the blog though you have heard about her and have seen her 2 boys many a time. Girls lookin' good:The dinner was over at a little after 9 and we didn't want to go home, not with sitters planning to stay late, so Mike, Jonathan, Michelle, and I headed over to a Starbucks so they could enjoy their nasty-nasty coffee and I could have some hot chocolate. We of course got some sideways looks and I told Michelle the people were thinking "I didn't know 30-year-olds went to prom..." We had such fun just sitting there talking and laughing. What a great night. It was a long time coming for me and worth the wait!

Easter Dress!!

Alrighty--the waiting is over. It's this Harmons households' first Easter dress! My Mom and I went shopping in St. Louis and Grandmom bought Josie an adorable dress. Of course it has purple on it :) Josie looked just beautiful! Don't you agree?Grandmom bought the heart shoes too, surprise, surprise! I couldn't get a pic of a great big Josie-smile but I am going to use this dress at her one-year old pictures so maybe we'll get a good one then.
We spent Easter afternoon and evening over at our best friend's house and here are the boys during there outdoor egg hunt, they were crazy excited!
Remember that great big Josie-smile I referred to above? Well, here it is. We found the hat going through our 12 month hand-me-down clothes. Even Michael couldn't stop saying how adorable Josie looked in this!Oh my sweet baby girl, what would Momma do without you?!

Happy Hoppy Easter!

Happy Easter! What a celebration! Jesus is ALIVE! We had a wonderful holiday! We went to church in the morning then over to a friends house for lunch, which turned into staying for dinner and then staying until after bedtime! What a joyous time.

I know that I have TONS to catch up on so I am going to start with Easter and then work backwards until I get back up to the present. At least that is the current plan. We will see how that goes...

Saturday afternoon, the eye-dyeing fun:

Easter morning! After a quick bath, it was time to search for the baskets hidden by that sneaky Easter Bunny. The boys were thrilled with their candy and presents!

Josie loved her present too, the Easter Bunny didn't leave her any candy in her basket...what a smart rabbit, he knew that Josie's Mommy would eat her candy and that wouldn't work so well with Mommy's diet. Good move Bunny-man. :)

Josie Claire was the first to find an egg in the egg hunt, it was sitting in her highchair! The boys RAN to find all the eggs. What's with kids and egg hunts?! Too fun!

And here is one more picture of Josie, just because she is gorgeous! Wait till you see her in her Easter dress--those photos are coming next!

Luke's first and last game (AND seconds)

When we got up Saturday morning it was mad rush trying to get all the different uniforms, coats, and undershirts to take with us for our day o'sports. We first headed over to church for Luke's last basketball game! He had such a great time. He loved playing basketball. His coach told me that if Luke stays with it he will be a great player, she said he had improved so much over the season and he is just naturally talented. That was kinda nice to hear, I have to admit :) Luke is a very coachable boy, he listens and does what is asked of him. It's awesome! At halftime we left basketball and headed over to t-ball. First and foremost--Luke's a TIGER! That is obviously SO much easier to cheer for then the Yanks like Kaden-man! (Yeah, I know, not really black and gold Tigers but Tigers just the same!) Luke had a great first game. He sat the first 2 innings and cheered on his team even though he was freezing to death! Then he finished with 2 hits while playing centerfield, check out this technique:His batting helmet was much too big and that is why he is holding it, but notice he is watching his 3rd base coach for signs. This kid just 'gets' sports, it's very exciting to watch him!

Here's a pic of poor Kaden-man trying to eat his snack after his game was over. It wasn't too long after this photo that I loaded up Kaden, Gabriel, and Josie and took them to the car to wait for Luke's game to finish. Bless his bones, he was SO cold!We came home from the games, thawed out a bit and then welcomed Daddy home! The boys got some presents from him (Josie was sleeping at this point). They were thrilled with them, Disney doesn't ever disappoint in this house!

Michael was pretty wiped out but we were SO happy to have him home. Kaden and Luke had games Saturday afternoon at the same time again. I took them and left Daddy with the 2 little ones. Here they are:

Luke's number 26 by-the-way, he chose it because it's his Momma's favorite number! Isn't that sweet?! :) There will be many more t-ball pics to come, the season runs to July. Go Harmon boys!

Kaden's Yankee Debut

Alright, alright, so I haven't posted in a few days, I'm sorry!! We have been CRAZY busy. I'll quickly fill you in. Michael was supposed to be home on Friday night but his plane was canceled due to terrible weather in Memphis! Bummer! He would be home Saturday afternoon. Too little, too late for us (no offense honey). Our Saturday was jam packed. Luke had his last Upward Basketball game at 10AM and then both boys had a t-ball game at 11, remember they are on different teams this year. So I decided to let Luke play half his b-ball game, we changed him into his other uniform in the girls' bathroom at the church and then headed to the baseball park. It was 30 degrees outside and windy OF COURSE! It was freezing out there, the only plus was that there was sunshine! I took WAY too many pictures of them playing ball, I about lost my fingers to frost bite but it was well worth it. Fortunately the boys' outfields back up to each other so I stood right there at the fence line and was able to watch both games at the same time! That was kinda handy...so I guess there was another plus. Seeing that I have so many fun photos I decided to split them up. Up first is Kaden-man and his Yankee debut. He is SO fun to watch. Kaden certainly does LOVE t-ball. He has showed quite the improvement from last year but still likes to play in the dirt and run around in circles in the field---awesome! He's gets so much joy out of everything! Kaden started out as the pitcher:
After his first hit:
Celebrating a game well played! Kaden is in the navy jacket there on the left of all the kiddos:
Here's poor Josie and Gabriel in the COLD waiting for the games to be over. My angel fell asleep and I had here completely covered in the stroller!

When Kaden finished I took the 3 of them to the van with me and had the coach bring Luke when his game was over--it was TOO cold to let my baby sit out there any longer then she had too. We waited for Luke for almost 20 minutes! I will blog about Luke's joyous t-ball start next time!

Oh yeah....

Whoops, I forgot to tell you about Josie's doc appointment yesterday. She was a whopping 16 pounds naked! Very exciting. The doctor was actually beaming, he was so excited. Josie is still below the lines on the height and weight charts but is tracking her own line which is a great thing. We are going to start giving her whole milk to see how she tolerates it. All happy news to report. Keep on growing my angel girl!

Waiting

The boys did not have their games last night. It was canceled due to the cold weather--go figure, early March in OK is too cold for baseball! It was just 30 degrees last night, I am SO glad they canceled, no new date set yet. The boys were highly disappointed but I promised them many games to come. Here they are at breakfast with their team hats on. Luke is a Moore Tiger and Kaden is a Moore Yankee (at least it's not the cubs, right?!) Actually Mike and my biggest fear was that our kid would end up on a 'sooner' team and then what in the world would we do? Gross--thank goodness that didn't happen! :)

Today I bought Josie some shorts at Target, ohmigoodness, they were TOO adorable. I only saw them in the toddler sizes and was going to buy them anyways, but then there was a 12m pair. After changing her diaper after nap time, I put her in the new shorts. They are even cuter in person AND they were clearance, only $2 something a pair. I bought another kind too :) I love having a baby girl! Oh how I wish it were spring/summer and we could wear shorts, I'm tired of the cold and wind!!!!

The weathermen here were freaking out about the 4-8 inches of snow our area would get. It was supposed to start snowing between 7 and 8am today. It is now 6:15pm and there has been not a flake of snow. Maybe it's saving itself for my fam there in STL!!! Hang in there guys!

Waiting for Daddy to come home, waiting for t-ball, and waiting for spring...