Winnie, Suck...

This weekend our kids have been quite the sleepers. On weekends we let the kids watch Mickey Mouse Club House (their favorite!), but they have missed it both mornings. We don't really love the next show so we found "The Wonder Pets" which they have apparently seen before. All day long Port has been going through the house singing "Winnie, SUCK, and Ming Ming too..." I just can't stop laughing everytime he says it. Most of the time we don't really correct the things the kids say (milk=mops, rootbeer=flootbeer, etc) but this one has felt a little more appropriate to correct:-) All night Brian has been making Port practice saying TUCK, but every now and then we will still hear a SUCK!

Back to School Night with JuJu & Grandad

Grandad and JuJu called last week and asked if the kids could come spend the evening with their cousins to celebrate school starting. They had pizza, explored the river until they found poison ivy, rode bikes, and then watched a movie in the front yard. Thanks for creating such great memories for the kids!

Our new school...

Truman opened their new school behind our house last week. We have heard about the traffic, but fortunately haven't gotten caught in the middle of it until Friday. We are so excited for this fun school. This was our car about 1/2 a block from our street and we sat here for about 10 minutes! We will remember the times to come and go for now on:-)

Mommy's Breakfast

Friday morning we had some leftover cupcakes from the shower, so I decided that I should show my kids my kind of breakfast! Haynes absolutely LOVED it! Port was not quite sure about cupcakes for breakfast, in fact he said absolutely not!?! Ella was too much of a sleepyhead so she missed out on cupcakes, we know that she would have LOVED it.

Celebrating Jamie & Nate...the girls!

We threw a twin girl baby shower for Jamie last week. It is so much fun celebrating these sweet girls that we have been praying for over the last few years. God is so good! We are excited to see the way the Lord demonstrates His peace and joy through their lives. We can't wait to meet these girls in the next few months!

The Grigor's are having a...

The Grigor's threw a party to announce the gender of Baby Grigor. Everyone was suppose to come dressed in blue or pink to guess what the answer was...we kinda forgot that part of the party:-) This is the only picture I managed to take but they served Shirley Temples to celebrate their new baby GIRL! We are so excited to meet her this January! Love you guys!

Haynes 1st Day of School!

Daddy and Haynes

Haynes was so excited to start his big morning with pancakes and bacon...his favorite! It was pretty rainy that morning so Haynes was SO excited to wear his rain gear. I was feeling pretty confident that he was going to get out of the car without a fight until we pulled into the Gingerbread drive-thru. We have been working on a secret hand shake we do before he gets out of the car and we also packed his bb in his backpack incase he needs it. He crawled into my arms and didn't want to get out until Teacher Pam said, "Beau is waiting for you inside!" Haynes jumped out of the car without a second thought!

Port's first day!

Daddy and Port

Brothers

Port's first day of Gingerbread was on Monday morning. Daddy made waffles and Port could hardly contain his excitement! My other little ones were sleepyheads, so we just got a picture of the boys before school. We got to have a little prayer time over Port that morning with Brian, Haynes, Whitney and me. We felt like the Lord spoke that he was going to bring joy to his class this year. When I picked him up from class Teacher Lisa came out to tell me that Port was such joy to have in class, that he listens so well and obeys the first time. I didn't really tear up when I dropped him off, but when she told me that tears just streamed:-) Port's response was...."Are you crying mommy!?" Yes Port...God is so good to show us that He has great plans for you this year!

*Dax and Port love their class so much that they want to stay for lunch everyday! We've denied their requests but love that they are LOVING school so much!

Hartsock Family Crest

I must start this post with a disclaimer that I COMPLETELY stole this idea from my sweet friend Emily. She is an absolutely amazing mom of soon to be 5 kidos! Her kids are a little older than ours so we made some adjustments, but plan to walk her "Family Weekend at Home" in the future!

Brian and I spent some time asking the Lord what He wanted to press on our family for this year. We felt like He was talking to us about: Being Faithful in the Little Things, Joy, Grateful Hearts, and Friendship.

We made t-shirts for the boys to wear on their first day of school. They were pretty pumped about our fun projects too! Thanks for the fun ideas Em!

Washing the golf cart

Brian had a guys weekend to celebrate Bryan Deluca's upcoming wedding. I decided to take the kids to my parents to swim and watch a movie. Champ needed his golf cart washed and we had 3 excited helpers!

Our NEW roomie!

We are so excited to welcome sweet Whitney into our house! She will be living with us for the next 6 months before she heads back to South Africa to do an internship with All Nations for 1 year. I'm not sure who was most excited about her arrival:-) She generously brought gifts for all of us from South Africa. We love doing life with Whitney for so many reasons...she's AMAZING! We moved our guest room upstairs so that Whitney could have a little more privacy (not sharing a bathroom with the boys).

Snakes tricks...

Anyone that knows my husband knows that he HATES snakes! Lately we have found a few plastic snakes around our house...a small red one (that resembles the ones we actually find) and a large green one (that Brian bought for the boys because it grows?!?) Haynes came in the other morning with the little one asking if it was real:-) He decided (completely on his own) that he was going to go put it in our shower to scare Brian. I thought it was pretty funny, but didn't give it another thought.

Brian got home from work and walks through our bathroom. He immediately comments on the snake in the shower, like he was looking for it! Later that night we are getting ready for bed and I hear the loudest commotion coming from our bedroom. When I look around the door Brian is holding the large green plastic snake that apparently the boys slipped under the covers when I was making the bed! I had ABSOLUTELY no clue, but couldn't stop laughing at their creativity and Brian's response (Brian was not amused)!!!

As of now ALL snakes have been disposed of and we now check our bed before jumping in! Great trick Port!

(I wonder where he gets his practical joke side from)

Welcome Week at Gingerbread

I took Port to check out his Scottie class at Gingerbread. It's really just a day for the kids to check out their room, meet their teachers, and then drop off supplies. Angie and I ended up staying for over 2 hours because the boys just didn't want to leave...I guess that's a pretty great sign of you kids loving their school!

Haynes was NOT excited about going to check out his class. In fact when we walked in the door he informed his teachers, "I'm not here to stay." But then we spotted our buddy Beau and all was good. We ended up staying about 2 hours as well! Haynes class is going to be like a party, I think we know 90% of the kids. We can't wait for next week!

What a Week!?!

This week has been full of adventures with my kids...I think we are ready for school:-)

1. The picture above is of the bean bag chair that the boys ripped open. They came and showed me by standing in the living room, counting to 3, and then throwing THOUSANDS of little bean bag balls ALL over my living room! This took a few days to completely clean up!

2. Ella has a new love for coffee! She is so smart she searches the coffee for my ground coffee and dumps it on her head...twice so far! Check her head you might still find some grounds:-)

3. Port came running in to tell me that Hartley was eating Haynes pee. I came around the corner in our utility room to find Haynes had peed on the floor to see if Hartley would drink it...she did!!!

4. Ella loves babies! She decided to powder her baby at Lolli's today, along with the entire upstairs hallway. I'll have to add a picture to do this story justice!

Playdate with Beau

We got to watch Beau the other morning and I'm not sure which of my kids was the most excited! I think he was pretty pumped as well, seeing that when I opened the door he RAN past me and said, "Let's sword fight!"

I also I came outside to see the boys introducing Beau to our neighbor Paser over the fence. I think this also might have been the spot they realized they were safe from Ella:-) Thanks Beau for such a fun morning!

Night with Daddy

Port got this fun spaceship for his birthday from his best buddy Dax. We finally found the perfect night for the kids to enjoy it. They all loved trying to get the space ship into the trampoline!

I got to go to Kappa Skit night last week with some friends and Brian watched the kids. Right before I left I took this picture of my amazing family. Brian really has a gift at making anything fun with our kiddos. They were laughing so hard on the trampoline with the water, I hated to miss out! We had a great time watching some fun rush skits. Port kept asking me when I was leaving to go to that house I used to live in:-)

Special Date

Port got to have a special night with Grandad and JuJu kinda last minute last week. My kids LOVE their grandparents and really would like to spend the night with each of them every night of the week. We let Port spend the night by himself, so I decided to take these two on a special breakfast date the next morning before we went to get Port. Love special time with my little ones!

Ella

Our sweet little girl is growing up so quickly! Here are some of her favorite quotes lately...

"You hurt me..." She says this all the time, even if she isn't hurt. I got her out of her bed the other morning and she looked at me and said "You hurt me" with a goofy smile:-)

"I try..." When we go to the pool we rarely leave without eating popsicles. Ella has learned to eat hers really quickly and then say "I try?!?" as she takes yours!

"Frog Poop...Frog Poop...Frog Poop" The other night she just started dancing around the living room for about 2-3 minutes saying "Frog poop...Frog poop...Frog poop"

"Baby?!?" Ella for some reason thinks that girls boobies are babies. She has walked up to countless friends and strangers, grabbed their chest, and then said, "Baby?!?" Oh my...

"I toot" Unfortunately she has probably learned this from her brothers....She got out of the car tonight, looked at Brian and said "I toot!" and just started laughing...

MaRbLeS

We have been trying a new thing around here. Instead of sticker charts and other things like that (I can't seem to keep up with those) we have marble jars. We have been talking about how we want to live a life that reflects Jesus. Jesus saw people's needs and met them...if they were hungry he fed them, sick he healed them, etc. We want to be a family that sees a need and meets it (in all forms!). We have been talking about seeing needs around the house and meeting them gets you marbels. So feeding the dog, picking up toys, making your bed, etc are all forms of seeing needs and meeting them. When your jar is full you get to pick a special date, treat with Mom and Dad!

So far the kids have absolutely LOVE it! I am learning that if I only hand out 2 marbles at a time then their jar will never be filled....The boys also decided that daddy might need a jar after picking up his shoes a few different times:-)

Other highlights from the trip!

We stopped by Crewcuts to get some dry clothes for the boys before we headed to a movie. My kids love to read, so they didn't mind waiting on me for a few minutes.

I took the boys to the bathroom and then into the movie and left Brian in the concession line with Ella (who has not had a nap all day). I quickly realized what I had done and came out of the theater to find Brian like this:-) Don't worry Ella was slowly trailing behind him!

Ella like her mommy LOVES popcorn too! She didn't last the whole movie, but she lasted about half way. She did decide that she didn't really like us wearing the 3D goggles, she wanted all of them:-) She's been wearing them all week long!

We ended our night at FireSide Pies. We sat outside so we didn't have to wait too long, but it was worth the heat and the tired kids! We had a great night and everyone slept great!

We stayed at the Embassy Suites so after a yummy breakfast we headed to the indoor pool. The kids loved getting some swim time with their daddy!

Oh Haynes...

So here's how the rest of our day went...After swimming we headed to take baths before heading home. Haynes got in the bath and decided to shave his face with Brian's razor! I don't think I've ever seen that much blood, every towel we had was soaked in blood. We finally got his lip to stop bleeding and realized that it wasn't bad enough to head to the ER. He had a good slice and a piece cut out of his lip, but it stopped bleeding by the time we headed home.

You might think our adventure would end there, but it doesn't!

Brian announced our new Training School that will start in September at Celebration! After the service we were waiting around talking to people and Haynes fell while chasing a balloon. I heard him hit and knew it wasn't a good thing. When I picked him up I realized that his front tooth had been pushed back quite a bit. (I also learned that my weakness is teeth...and immediatly yelled for Brian!) After a quick call to Dr. Blum, he gave Brian a few instructions....After making sure his bite was okay, Brian had to pull the tooth back into place!!! Haynes has been pretty soar and really swollen, but praise Jesus we didn't lose a tooth!

What a day!

Dallas Zoo

We gave Port the map and told him that he was our leader. He took his job VERY seriously!

Brian got a wagon so no one wanted to ride with me.

It didn't last too long, thanks to the heat:-)

The first animals we saw were penguins. Port said, "Oh I wish Sutton were here! He LOVES penguins!" We decided we would take a picture for him.

The Dallas Zoo had an incredible Africa section. They had a part where you could feed the giraffe, the kids LOVED it!

We stopped to cool off and grab some lunch. When we walked in we realized that the indoor of the restaurant was a window into the lion cage! The lions ate watermelon while we had lunch!

The kids decided we needed some watermelon just like the lions!

We ended up at the Children's Zoo. Brian said, "we knew that it was just a matter of time..." I look over to find Haynes laying face down in the water! We were so hot it was a perfect way to cool off:-)

We convinced the kids to get out of the water with some icy's. They had the strongest red food coloring I've ever seen!! We were dyed red for the rest of the day!

Port found this rainbow on the ground. He yelled, "Look Mom! I'm standing on God's promise!" I love it!

Brian promised the kids a ride on the carosel as we left. Ella rode a horse (she loves horses), Port rode a lion, and Haynes grabbed this tiger. Haynes was hilarious because he sprinted to the tiger and managed to get on all by himself! I was super impressed!

We can't wait to go back to the zoo when it's a little cooler to see the rest:-)

Family Vacation

After a lot of planning and unplanning we finally headed out for our 2nd annual family vacation. We didn't have much time, so we headed to Dallas for a short weekend. We decided that it doesn't really matter where you go, it's just the time we spend together:-) Our trip was one for the memory book...everything didn't go as you would plan! We headed to Dallas around 4:00pm on Friday and didn't get to Six Flags until about 8:00pm!!

When we got to Six Flags a storm was going through Arlington, so they closed all the rides! We had already bought tickets online, so we decided to make the best of it! Thankfully our kids didn't have a clue and there were about 3 rides open for the boys to do.

Daddy rode with the boys, while Ella and I watched.

Six Flags has tons of Batman/Superman...the boys LOVED it!

Well...when we ran out of rides and still had 1.5 hours until the parade we found carnival games! We won balls, stuffed animals, capes, more than you EVER could need! Haynes was super proud of his basketball. I think this might have been the game that Brian had to argue to get our prize:-)

I don't know if I've ever really seen anyone win this one. All the boys tried, but we were most impressed by how close Brian got to the top!!!

Both the boys tried this one. First they tried on their own and then with a little help so they could win their cool Super Hero Capes!

Everyone got to play this one! I love this picture!

We grabbed some Dip & Dots (I told the boys Aunt Marci used to love Dip & Dots) for a treat. Port wasn't sure about those, but the other two had no complaints! I think Ella only got a quarter of it in her mouth, check out the ground!

Brian has been told quite a few times lately that people think he is the oldest of the three brothers. We walked by this guy and he said he would guess your age...so Brian couldn't resist! The guy guessed that he was 33!!!

(Remember I was guessed to be 12 or 15 earlier this summer!)

We told the kids we would stay for the parade, but we didn't know that it wouldn't start until 10:15! Everyone got a rock sucker and enjoyed the light parade until about 11! We had a great night! Thanks to the rain, the weather was cool and there weren't any crowds....we'll take that favor!