House Update - AGAIN!

We as of June 1st, we have had some house updates. First of all, - THE BOYS ARE GONE!! Yippee!! No more late night stolls to tell them to be quiet, no more loud music, no more loud talking going on, and more sleep for me!!! Yay!! Their year of renting was up and they moved out so now we get to see our sweet Mrs. Cindy and Mr. Nathan back over at the house. (They aren't living there, just cleaning it up, but we love seeing them just the same). Even though the boys did get better the last few months, it is nice to see them on their merry way!! We also lowered the price of our house, and guess what?! Not even one showing!! Isn't this marvelous!! Our contingency on the one house is up next week and we just don't know what to do. With all these school, house decisions, we just our clueless on what to do, but all we know is that we are completely happy, so we really don't care!! We will see what we decide, but our listing contract is up in August and we will probably take it off the market then if it doesn't sell. Who knows!

The Triangle

Don't you love my lovely diagrams?! What in the world do they mean? Well, TJ (our Sunday School teacher) always uses this diagram as an image for us to keep in mind as a married couple. The top diagram shows how that if we are far apart from God, then us as a married couple (H-husband, w-wife) will be just as far apart. But the closer we are to God, the closer we as a married couple will be. This is such a true statement. So Matt and I try to always do something to continue cultivating our marriage. We have read several books together, but right now we are doing an online Bible study (well it is actually a series of sermons). The preacher is really good and we have enjoyed the series we are in. We are currently listening to the Peasant Princess series, which is on the book of Song of Songs. Finding ways that we can spend our evenings together in the Word is so much more rewarding than watching ANYTHING on TV!! Pastor Mark has lots of other sermon series and I think we will listen to the 1 Corinthians one next (since we will be studying it in Sunday School this summer). Check it out if you would like:

http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/sermons

Flowers

Ever since Mother's Day, Harper loves to give me flowers. Every time he sees one, he ever so cutely, smiles and brings me his prized flower. This is today's flower. My girls like to pick flowers, but they always end up putting them in a bucket or playing with them some way. But not my Harper Banks! His flowers go to his Mama. The Sunday after Mother's Day we were driving home from church and all of the sudden he gasped and shouted, "Dad! We forgot to get Mom a flower!" He could not believe that he totally forgot about picking me one, so when he got home, he immediately picked one for me. I love my sweet boy!

Pool time!

The summer pool season has begun!! We have a membership to the Monroe Aquatic Center, so that is where we will be spending the majority of our days. This year will be a juggling act to work with. Finley is still little and needs 2 naps a day (the morning can be missed, but it is easier if she is rested). So I guess I will try several techniques of organizing our mornings to make each pool trip a success!! If you know me, you know that I can not survive a voyage of any kind unless I am prepared, organized, and I have all my ducks in a row. Come on now, I have 4 kids and it is all a NECESSITY!!! Today we went to a friend's pool which is closer than the Aquatic center, so the kids had fun and it is nice for them to have friends to play with. Mauren is the girls age and Maize is Finley's age, poor Harper is out of the loop - AGAIN!! He played in the kiddie pool with Carly, Chloe, Mauren, 2 other twin girls that are 5, and another 5 yr old - and yes he was playing with Princesses! But at least he was giving them boat rides!! Finley got her first busted lip too! She was trying to scale a chair and she fell down. I was putting peanut butter on crackers for the big kids so I got up and hoisted her from under the chair. I feel kind of callused when it comes to bumps and bruises now. I have had 5 years of bang ups under my belt now, so I am able to take these with little reaction now. My friend Leigh gasped and said, "Oh there is blood!" I looked down and her mouth was bleeding pretty good. (Still with peanut butter on my fingers) I grabbed a paper towel (because the towel I had already was covered in blood from when Chloe fell in the pool and scraped her knees all up) and held it on her itty bitty lips. The bleeding didn't last long and neither did her tears. Finley is a little trooper! When we got home everyone took a spectacularly long nap - I even closed my eyes for 30 minutes! Ah, the joys of pool days and how they can simply just wear you out!!

Asleep

Last Sunday we had a busy day. We went to church all morning, came home to take naps, and Mr. Harper never fell asleep. He laid in bed wide awake. After Finley woke up from her nap, we got everyone ready to go to the pool. We spent the rest of the afternoon splashing around for the first time at the aquatic center for the year. For dinner, we went to Firehouse subs (kids eat free every Sunday). On the way home, Harper just couldn't hang. I can't believe I actually caught the entire pass out on video, but here he is zonking out for the night. Pretty cute to me to watch how kids fall asleep.

Did!

I was reading with Carly today and we were reviewing words. They have been reading a ton of new words, so I have to explain the word or give them a sentence so they know the meaning of the word. Today was a review of those words and Carly was reading them and then giving me a definition of each word. Very cute. Well, she gets to the word did. They liked when I told them, "you know, when I say - did you clean your room?" Carly says this and then she takes it one notch further. "Or you know when you see a spider" as she proceeds to smack the table and shouts "DID"!!!! Absolutely hilarious. They have not heard that from us. I never talk about killing bugs or death, so she must of heard it from someone else and she thinks they say did not dead. Gotta love living in the south!!

9 Months!

This girl is spectacular! We absolutely love our little Fifi blessing! Just look at her! Need I say more?! She is 9 months now and has definitely developed her own personality. She is so funny and loved by her siblings. She can sit, crawl (she does a full crawl and then flops to a soldier crawl when she wants to go really fast), she can pull up and stand (which was quite a surprise when she did it for the first time in her bed - needless to say, her crib got lowered pronto), she can eat cheerios and poofs, and she can do her first sign - more! She is a very happy baby and goes with the flow! Her affection towards hair has not stopped. She has to fall asleep sucking her right thumb and twirling her hair. Sometimes I feel a little bad for the girl. Being the youngest of 4 kids has its advantages and disadvantages. 1 advantage is having lots of extra hands to take care of her. One day she was in her "cage" (sectioned off area in our room that is Fifi safe) and she was crying. I told the girls to help her out. She immediately was quiet and I finished what I was doing. I went in to check on her and they said Fifi wanted to snuggle. Somehow they had hoisted the baby up into my bed and there was a twin on each side of her. Oh poor Finley!! She obviously wasn't hurt, but it was still dangerous and I can only imagine what kind of positions they had her in. That is one thing that is hard with bigger kids around - they want to hold her alot and they think she is a baby doll! She brings so much joy to all of us! We love our little Finley!
Crawling to get me!

Finley's other 2 mothers!

Here is a video of her doing more today. Carly, Chloe, and Harper love to feed her. Her favorite thing to eat are these little cheesy poof things - she inhales them!