Awesome.

Luke gave me this little notebook on Christmas of 07...hand bound and beautiful with a picture of Jesus and the woman at the well on the front. I have used it for writing things down in it that I'm thankful for. I don't write in it everyday and in all actuality I write in it more like every few months..Its been interesting looking through over my previous entries. Some are silly like "I'm thankful for Moolattes" or that "Even though I dropped all my eggs at wal-mart today, 7 made it through the drop"...but there are some that are more serious as well. One that resonated with me today when I was rereading them all was "I'm thankful God moves with me". It was one I wrote when we were moving up here to ATL..I left all my friends and family and everything familier to a place where we knew less then a handful of people(thankful for those though!)...it almost made me cry this morning just thinking about how thankful I am that God moves with me. He isn't limited to a place or building or town....He is with me ALWAYS...no matter if I'm at Wal-mart in my hometown or in a foreign country.

Its a comforting thought, and I'm still just as thankful for that today as I was then..

Just random stuff..

I'm convinced my oldest daughter would be perfectly happy if I constantly played techno music in my house. She wants to hear people like Daft Punk, Toby Mac(the remixes not the basic songs) and Justin Timberlake remixes...while Noah on the other hand prefers Miley Cyrus/Taylor swift style music....weird. Its so funny to see them have a taste in music already..however both agree on the Veggie Tales album I play pretty frequently for them...

This weekend we were determined to have a lazy weekend..which started out great..Friday we went to a drive in movie with our friends Travis and Talitha. It would have been SOO much fun had the movie not started so late due to ya know having to wait on it being dark and all...haha..so the movie didn't start till 9:30 and between our 3 kids and their 4, it was all about just wrangling and keeping people quiet...wouldn't have been so bad if the movie could have started an hour or so earlier and not having had Kate with us. She was tired and we didn't bring her nightly bottle or blankie so she was having none of that going to bed stuff. We also saw The Karate Kid which was really good but probably not small children friendly..a little slow going for them. However Luke and I may go back sometime by ourselves. Its a nice cheaper way of seeing a movie. They let you bring in all the food and drinks you want and it was only 7 dollars per adult...hard to find these days when it comes to movies!

Saturday morning we all slept in..till 10:00, which is amazing. Then we all got our swim suits on and played outside. We filled up the little baby pool and played in that for a while then moved on to the sprinkler under the trampoline which is always my favorite. :) Played on that for a while then just put the sprinkler in the yard to water my garden and let them play in that for a while. We finally got around to eating lunch about 2:45 and we were all sunburned from all the time outside. Bad mom award moment inserted here. Poor kids...Then we just chilled the rest of the day, and watched a movie that night..everyone went to bed late but it was so much fun.

Saturday night around 2:00 Livvy got up to go to the bathroom which was unusual for her because she rarely ever gets up in the middle of the night, and I noted that it was really warm in the house but the upstairs kind of gets that way sometimes...then Olivia got up around 4:00 to go to the bathroom again..and I knew that wasn't normal...she wasn't sleeping well and neither was I...it was really muggy and ick then in our room so I asked Luke to go turn the air down(we've had it up a little higher for electric bill reasons) but when he went down to adjust it we realized it was not working...boo. This is like the 4th time its quit on us for various reasons. It wasn't anything Luke could fix in the middle of the night(though he tried)so we just went back to bed...unfortunately our ceiling fan in our room doesn't work so it was crazy hot..I ended up getting the little fan that I use on my treadmill out and using that just to have some "cool" air blowing on my arm at least...not a restful night to say the least but thankfully we were able to sleep in again.

Luke's Dad works in the AC business so someone from his company lovingly lent their time to come and see what the problem was while Mr. Dave drove up to help the guy...but they were able to figure out what happened before Mr. Dave got here. Apparently sometime on Friday evening Olivia stuck something in one of her outlets in her room(thankfully she wasn't hurt or any fires were started) but it blew one of the wires that effected the communications between the thermostat and the AC unit...so they were able to fix it pretty easily thankfully..It took all day for the house to cool off(it had gotten up to almost 90!) but I am SOO thankful to have it all fixed and feel SO amazingly blessed it was all done without money having to come out of our pocket. (I also went to a Mary Kay party with my Sista to a friend's house which was fun.)...had a nice cool salad for dinner and then watched a Poirot with Luke's daddy-o and went to bed.

Not sure I'm ready for the week to start yet again, but I'm trying to be happy and upbeat about it...thinking I'll put a movie on and fold some clothes. :)

I might gross you out...

But I just have to rave about this..when I started cloth diapering I saw this forum online that was part of diaperswappers.com and it was all about "Mama Cloth"..I remember thinking how it didn't seem to apply to a cloth diapering site so I didn't really look into for months but when I finally did I grossed myself out...these were woman using cloth PADS! I remember ranting to Luke about how gross and unsanitary it was and that these ladies must be hippies. :) The longer I cloth diapered the more I was curious about it. One day I decided to buy one just to see what all the rave was about. I have NEVER looked back since. I slowly built up a stash..right now I have 24 in varied absorbancies and styles(plus about 8 panty liners). Most are made up of bamboo velour tops or Minky(both SUPER soft) and are backed with a waterproof thin fleece so no leakies. :) 24 is enough for me to go 3-4 days without having to wash them and you probably wouldn't want to leave them beyond that anyways. I have a wet bag that is lined so no moisture gets out and all I do is slip it into the wet bag when I'm finished with it and then throw the bag and all its contents in the washing machine when I'm ready.

Most of my pads come from Homestead Emporium on Hyenacart.com-
Homestead Emporium Linky

But I also have a few from Ama'z Padz on Hyenacart.com too-
Ama'z Padz Linky

I really like both and can vouch for AMAZING customer service and quality. I have had to use a disposable product on a few occasions and once you've gone cloth its REALLY hard to go bad to papery plastic materials. I love knowing these are chemical free and work just as well..I love that I can reuse them and I never run out cause I can just wash the ones I have again.. Another bonus, I used to have REALLY really bad cramps and was usually pretty heavy, since switching to cloth I am having literally little to no cramping(more no cramping then having some) and my cycle is much much lighter. Tons of woman confirm this and its amazing.

Like I said earlier, I thought it was soo gross, but when I thought about it I was like if blood got on any other item of my clothing it would go in the washing machine, so why not pads...its no grosser and your pads get sparkly clean from a normal wash and are ready to go again...

Wet bag pic-


Shot of some of my pads..missing a few as I am currently using some..haha..-

The day to day...

God's been doing a lot of work in my heart recently..God's been really convicting me about how I live my day to day with my children. I way too easily get caught up in survival mode and just go about what needs to be done and then check out at the end of the day because I'm spent..This hasn't made for a happy mama, wife, or children. I want my children to look back on their childhood and be thankful for all the fun times and all the memories I leave with them.

This has led me to try harder. MAKE time for each of my children, CREATE fun things to do and places to go..and allow them to just be children. Its tiring for a mama to have to do this day in and day out, so I'm not saying that you have to go to the zoo everyday and then do playdough and drawing for the next 4 hours..I just mean I know that my kids deserve all the wonders of childhood while they still can. Because its "but a vapor" and I know it doesn't last long..

Pretty sure that didn't make sense or come out like I wanted it to..haha..:) but I tried..

2 weeks.

Yeah, its been 2 weeks since I last blogged. I think thats the longest I've ever gone without writing at least something! :)

Luke's Mother came into town last week and we enjoyed her company and Jenny(Luke's sister)...we always enjoy having her and we went to the zoo where we were given season passes by Susan...sooo thankful. Its nice to know we'll have something to go to all year.





This past weekend was our anniversary. We've been married 7 years now...It seems so crazy...I rememeber when we got married and some of our friends had been married for 7 years and I remember thinking how long and far off that sounded...but seriously, it feels so short. Luke and I have had ups and downs as most couples do, but we've grown so much and each year seriously gets better and better and I'm in awe at how much more I'm able to love him then I did when we first even got married. Its so much deeper now...we still have SOO much to learn about marriage and loving each other better, but I'm thankful I have him to continue these lessons with.

For our anniversary we went to White Water which is a water park up here(part of Six Flags)...Luke and I love love amusement parks and really enjoy going on the rides. I'm not a thrill seeker by any means so sometimes Luke rides stuff alone, but its still fun either way. It was a beautiful day when we went too...not too hot with just a little bit of cloud cover...only complaint was we went on a Sunday which had TONS of people and waiting in lines took up most of the time we were there versus actually getting to ride anything. Then the next night(our actual anniversary) my Dad watched the kids while we went out to dinner. Tyler and Kelly had given us a gift certificate like a long time ago to a resteraunt and we decided to use it and it was sooo good! Then we hung out for a little bit at the mall before seeing a late night showing of "The Killers"..which was super funny.


Then I left on Tuesday morning to go to T'ville to pick up more breastmilk..which was crazy cause I brought all 3 kids with me and its so hard to do anything with them while traveling by myself. Drove down to Tally(kids included in this!) got what I needed and drove back and enjoyed dinner with my Mama. Wednesday morning we all went swimming at Luke's parents house and got the kids good and tired out for our drive back..thankfully it did the trick and they all slept at some point and we SOMEHOW managed to not have to stop at all on the way back.

I was supposed to have a dentist appointment yesterday morning but EARLY that morning(around 2:45) my stomach started bothering me really bad and I knew it wasn't normal stomach pain..thinking it may have been a gallbladder attack and it lasted till I went to bed last night. Hoping not to have that happen again anytime soon..it was some horrible pain! So thankful Luke was able to come home and help me after lunch with the kids...

We had such a fun weekend..

Luke didn't make it home from running work errands till later on Friday so we didn't do much outside of watch the rest of Alice In Wonderland, which I REALLY liked. I love the story, I love british accents and I love wimsy. :) Saturday we went grocery shopping. I really don't like this but it has to be done. If someone could just tell me what to make each week and make a list for me, that'd be great! We always seem to go just at or right after lunch time and we forgot to eat before going, so once we got home it was kinda too late to eat a real lunch, but not late enough for dinner..so we just snacked and let the kids nap. We also decided to let Cricket outside for the first time...she meowed at the back door for a long time then Luke put her by the bushes and she disappeared till Sunday night when she showed back up wanting food and water...

Sunday was our busy day. Luke got up with the kids and walked the neighborhood and let me sleep in a little. Sweet guy. Then we all got ready and headed over to our good friends Tyler and Kelly's house. We had a full day of fun planned..Kelly and I have been meaning to have a girl outing and the movie Babies made a good excuse. :) We went and saw that while the boys took care of the kids. Then we hung out and played Bocce ball and Yahtzee while the kids napped and decided to go to Decatur to enjoy some Mellow Mushroom pizza. Which was yummy! Then we walked all over down town. The weather was so perfect and there was a nice breeze blowing. Kelly was telling us about this place that sells frozen yogurt where you can get any and all you want flavor/topping wise and they just charge you by the oz....so we went and enjoyed that. It was super yummy and I know we'll have to go back sometime again. I got Watermelon, Strawberry and Vanilla in my cup with cherries/granola/and strawberries as my toppings. :) Then we had to stop by Wal-mart to get some stuff and Luke got us a new board game that is SUPER fun. Its called "The Last Word"..so we played that while watching the MTV Awards..which is always better recorded so we can fast forward some of the not worthy of watching parts. :)

It was a good weekend...hoping this week is just as good. Luke's mother and sister are coming up tomorrow so it will be nice to have them around, and they both are super big helps to me. Jenny entertains the kids soo well and is old enough I don't have to worry about them while they are with her, plus Susan is such a help she's always offering to do dishes and laundry and whatever else needs doing. Mother's are very good at that aren't they? My mom does the same thing...I hope neither feel as if I expect that though! :)

Some things I love..

This past month has given me many reasons to complain, but instead...I'm going to give you a list of a few things I'm thankful for and love right now.



I love this little girl. She makes getting dishes done really hard, but oh my, I CANNOT be upset when I have her sweetness around. She's so easy going and plays well with the kids. I can't complain about having such an easy 3rd child. She's walking now which is really fun and she's just now figuring out how to climb. Her favorite right now, the dishwasher as you can see, and her Daddy's guitar case.




I love that this little guy has run a fever the last 24 hours but has been still been his normal sweet self, even putting up with me waking him last night to give him more Ibeprophen. As Luke, Noah and I laid in bed together for a minute before returning him to his bed, I was overcome with a new appreciation with the preciousness that is my son. He's always telling me how much he loves me and is so tender hearted..




I love my sweet Livvy girl. She teaches me so much everyday. I can't imagine her not being in my life. I miss the days that I had the time and availability to just soak her in. Her personality is so fun and contagious and she'll make you laugh at her silly antics. She's smart too, sometimes too smart for her own good. She's also getting to be such a big help to me. Especially with Kate...I'm starting to see a maternal side coming out.
(Unfortunately dumb Blogger won't let me upload her pic. Lame..) But you get the idea. :)

I love this guy. He works HARD for us. No more desk work for this fellow. He's out in the trenches day after day sweating, driving a nasty car, and doing whatever is asked of him and I never hear him complain. He treats me far better then I deserve and helps point me toward God when I forget myself. He indulges me and yet isn't afraid to put his foot down. I need that sometimes....:)



I love new growth. I'm really loving this gardening bit...and I wish I had more room to do more with. I love having tons of fresh herbs to add to my cooking, and produce that taste better then anything you'll find in a store. I love that my kids are familiar with what's mint and what's rosemary. Next year I have asked for several blueberry bushes..:) This is my cilantro just starting out. Will be transplanted when its ready..




I love 1% milk. I love eating late night bowls of cereal and that the best part is the milk at the bottom of the bowl when I'm finished.




I love that I offically went and was fitted for a bra(and bought 2!). haha..Sorry for any male readers, but you just don't know what its like till you have a proper fitting one. I've either been pregnant or nursing for the past 4-5 years...it was time. I can now retire the nursing tanks I've been wearing for the past year. Literally.

I used to be..

Sooo out going, Like couldn't go a day without needing to see someone or go somewhere. I have felt that the older I've gotten the less I'm like that. Now don't get me wrong, I really enjoy seeing and hanging out with people, and I even really enjoy going places..however I reach a point and then its suddenly all too much. Its like I lose a sort of centering when I'm going and doing all the time. Like this past week was crazy busy for us and the past two days I have literally wanted to do NOTHING. Outside of taking care of the basics like feeding myself and my children and entertaining them, I really haven't done anything. Its almost a depressing feeling, where my emotions seem to be frayed, though I'm not sure why. It only takes a day or two usually and I'm back to "normal" me again...Sometimes the process of balancing life is so delicate that I know its only in Him that I'm able to handle and deal with every aspect of it.

Home church meeting tonight. Thankful for all God is doing even when we cannot see. I'm not cooking tonight! 'Cause well I don't feel like it. :) Pizza it is......

Our weekend..

Kate's birthday went well..We spent Friday not really doing much as Luke worked some, then we went grocery shopping...and gave her her gift. She was really excited about it till we turned it on and then she started screaming! Apparently the noise was a bit much for poor Kate...she's gotten used to it some now so she doesn't cry or scream, but she hasn't willingly played with it yet. haha..



Saturday we just bummed around, except for mowing the lawn..which really needed it. You know its bad when people start leaving business cards on your mailbox offering lawn services..:) Managed to finish before the rain came later that day. We also watched "Leap Year" and I thought it was cute..

Sunday we cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned some more. We were having a little party for Kate and our house seems to only get cleaned thoroughly when people are coming over, so it takes us a little bit of time.. Got the house decorated and set up for her party and cooked dinner. Then everyone showed up and we started partying. :) I'm really not a huge birthday party person for my kids except their first birthday....I love doing it up big even if they won't remember it. Sadly not a lot of people were able to come, but we had enough to make it feel like it was more then a family dinner. Kate really enjoyed digging into her cake and opening her gifts...and Joel and Carol stayed late and we enjoyed lots of good conversation..







Then yesterday we again were bums most of the day. Luke didn't have to do any work yesterday(people who are self employed don't get holiday's really. They work when they have it and don't when they don't) so we just hung around...played some Super Mario and cleaned the house a little. Then we decided to see if our friends wanted to come for dinner and play a game. They were troopers since they had been driving all day due to being out of town, so we were thankful for their time and hanging with us. Thanks for making our night more fun Hardee family. :)

Luke's back to working today and I'm back to real life. Started my running up again last week. I'm getting where I actually like it, despite the fact that I tend to get queasy(sp?) when I run...must be all the bouncing. ;) However, I'm glad to be back in the swing of working out. Been adding in lots of upper body too. Hoping with all the new muscles I'm working on I can slim up a little more this summer. I'd love to feel more comfortable in my bathingsuit this year.