I need Mommy!

Last night I was getting Channing ready for bed and Matt is in charge of getting the big 4 ready. I heard a loud thud followed by crying. I knew Matt had it under control and the crying stopped. I was putting Channing in bed and Matt came in carrying Harper with an ice pack on his eye. He laid him in my bed and said he needed me. I came back in the room, hopped in bed with him, and cuddled. Then Matt told me he fell into the night stand. Matt consoled him and got him an ice pack and when he was done crying he told Matt, "I want Mommy!" Oh, yank at my heart strings! Harper is very tough and usually doesn't need me at all. He will get hurt, may come to me for a kiss, but never a true need for me. So yes, I stayed in that bed, cuddled him, kissed his eye, put a blanket on his cheek so that it wouldn't be cold from the ice pack, read him a story, and prayed for his wound. I will hold onto that memory, because it was so special to hear that he needed me and what I can give him.

Then I sit and think how bad does it have to get for us to cry out "I need my Jesus!" How many times do we fall down, brush ourselves off, and keep going - taking care of our own wounds. How many times when we are so stuffy and can't breathe, do we just run to CVS and get something to just soothe our aches and pains. I am reading an amazing book right now, Kisses From Katie, and she makes things so real. After completing high school she went to go teach Kindergarten in Uganda for a year. She documents what real pain is. She documents what true need is. She documents what true faith is. Within a year she set up a ministry (Amazima) and adopted 14 kids! Yes, she is just out of high school. I am amazed at her obedience to God. I am amazed at how we think we know what pain and heart ache is when the images of innocent children who are starving and long for love are so vivid when reading this book. My mind can't even rest. I keep finding myself trying to hide away in my bedroom to read more. I think I could continue typing for a while, but I must stop and feed my children - remember that Jesus loves you and you can always call out "I need my Jesus!" and He will be there for you!

Busy Week for my Baby

On January 5th, I sat my 9 month old on the potty for the first time. She was successful!! Here we go again! This sweet baby just grows so fast I can't keep up!

Then she was doing this for the past several weeks. And on January 6th, my 9 month old took her first step! Yes, you read that right......Channing took a step! We are in trouble. She is crazy! Carly and Chloe didn't crawl until 12 months and then walked at 14 months and then her is my sweet little baby ready at 9 months. She was ever so proud taking that first step to me. My heart can't take all this growing up. And then the next day, she crawled up 2 flights of stairs with a pencil (it wasn't sharp) but she did it with such grace (the pencil was on its way to the school room - the girls got it from church - no we don't leave pencils laying around usually). I am in serious trouble with this rascal. She gets everywhere! I couldn't believe she did that and I was telling the girls about it and they said, "Yeah, we know - we taught her to do that!" Thanks girls! Things are going to be getting really interesting around here!

Childhood Ripped Away

The dreaded event finally happened! The day I have been dreading for quite some time now. The day one of my babies lost one of their baby teeth!!!!!!!!!! It's not fair! Why do they have to grow up? At first its a tooth, then they are out spending the night at friends houses, then its a car, then college and then they are GONE!!! I can't take this!! Their innocence is ripped away from them and can't be replaced - well it will be replaced with a big old ugly chicklet sized tooth (insert picture of Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace)!! It is so sad to me to see a hole in my child's sweet little smile. I am not happy about this can you tell?! Here is the culprit:

Yup, the 4 year old looses the first tooth in this house!! January 3, 2012 - Harper Banks is down a tooth. Carly and Chloe were glad he took the first hit with loosing a tooth - they needed to see how this whole process took place before they could loose one :) The above picture is with the tooth still in tact - yes, graphic I know. It was just sitting in his mouth by the last day, so when Matt took it out, it didn't even bleed!

And here is the awful hole left in the cutest smile! I hate it!! For some reason I think this tooth got knocked by Finley's head a long time ago, so I am wondering if that is why he lost it so soon, but, I really hope this is not a trend this year!! I did check the girls' mouths and they each barely have one loose - and of course it is the opposite ones in the center, so that will be really weird if they loose opposite teeth (I am sure everyone else will be glad so they can tell them apart!) He put his tooth in his tooth box (I knew it was coming so I bought little wood boxes from Hobby Lobby that they each painted so they could set it out for the tooth fairy). He put it on his window so she could get it. He wanted me to write a note: "Dear Tooth Fairy, Can you please leave my tooth and my box. Today is Tuesday. Love, Harper"

The next morning we waited to hear him opening his box. He didn't. I finally asked him if he looked and he said the note was still on the box so he didn't think she came. I told him to look anyways (she wrote a response to him) and he found his gold dollar! He was excited. Before he went to bed, he went running out of my room, and then quickly came back and said, "Wait, how is she going to get in the house if the garage door isn't open?" I told him she was magical and would come through the window but couldn't come until he was asleep. He quickly said, "Oh, I think she is in the neighborhood!!" And he ran into bed and snuggled right in! It was a rough day - Oh wait.......Forgot to add something......When Matt pulled the tooth and Harper looked at me, yes I got teary eyed and quickly hugged my baby boy - bad idea. His proud, brave expression turned to tears too as he was sad that it upset me!! Ooopsie. I had to turn off my sadness and let him know how cool he was. We decided to snuggle and watch a little Blue's Clues together to get our minds off it. That sweet baby had his little arm around me the whole time - I know he didn't want to upset me and I guess he can still be my baby :)

A Special Night

Tonight was special.......We were doing our nightly advent Bible devotion. We have one a night for the month of December. Well, we were a couple nights behind from all the holiday stuff and we really love doing these Bible discussions, so I wanted to make sure we had time to have good conversations every night. We started off with a happy half birthday song to Harper! It's December 29th - he is 4 1/2!!! He was so excited - for some reason those 1/2 birthdays are pretty special for my kids. Then we dove into our discussion. These devotions have a Bible verse, discussion, and an activity every night. They go over the story of Jesus' birth and the reason why Jesus came. They are very informative and the kids have some amazing questions and you can really see their wheels turning. It's not a bunch of Bible stories, it is just one amazing story the whole month- the birth of our Savior! So tonight we were talking about there being no room for Mary and Joseph, that is why Jesus was born in a stable. We talked about how you can't have your heart closed to Jesus. If you close your self off, you won't be able to let Jesus in. Then Harper asked why he didn't have Jesus in his heart. (They have been asking questions like this all month). I told him it was a decision that you have to make if you want Jesus to come into your heart and then he said he had to say a silent prayer and quickly closed his eyes. Carly quickly followed behind in a silent prayer. When he was done, I asked him what he prayed about. He said, "Dear God, Thank you for this day and keeping us safe. Thank you for this beautiful day and have Jesus and God come into my heart. Amen." Then Carly said, "I said, Dear God, Thank you for this day and please have Jesus come into my heart." It was so sweet and innocent. There was no sinners prayer said, no talking them through this decision, they just decided that they did not want to live anymore without Jesus in their hearts. They knew that their lives need Jesus. It was so sweet. Now, I am a big skeptic about kids getting saved so little. I don't like when kids make this decision if they really don't get it and it's not really their decision. But, these 2 really felt that they needed to do this. Now, I still think they aren't fully aware of everything that this involves and here is where our hard work comes in. Matt and I now have a HUGH job on our hands. We have so much to teach them now and show them. Thank you Lord for opening their hearts, now, please be with us so that we can teach them and guide them that will glorify you. What a special night!! I had to take a picture of them all so that they would remember this special night forever. God has big plans for these little people!

Carly prayed just like this. On her Daddy's arm!

Chloe: She informed us that she wanted to go to her bed and pray. She said she was going to say a prayer in bed and let me know how it goes in the morning. So, we shall see what she says in the morning.

I love you

I always hold my hand up in the I love you sign to the kids. Harper has his own version and it is so cute! I love seeing his cute smile and then him slip up his hand like this. He is such a sweetie!

Christmas 2011

We started our Christmas festivities on the 23rd at our house. My family all came over and we had a great time being with everyone. Here is Grandpa starting off some festivities with some Christmas trivia - they all did a great job answering questions.

The loot :)

We played some games before opening presents. Reilly was one determined child to get this box open. They had to wear a hat, scarf, and oven mitts and try to open several boxes within each other. They were so funny!

Harper looked awful cute with his stuff on.

Channing's first Christmas present for 2011!

She had to taste the packaging to see if it was good quality :)

Carly, Chloe, and Kaitlyn were all excited about their horses and Jeep!

Chloe loves her horse!

Kris, Gina, Connor, and Kaitlyn all spent the night here that night and in the morning the kids loved playing with their new stuff. Harper spent the entire morning with Gina. He got out all his gifts and they just sat together investigating. He really loved spending some good quality time with her! He loves for someone to just sit with him and this was the best thing in the world - and the fact that was with his awesome Aunt Gina made it even better (and he did get to do some Legos with Uncle Kris - yup, he was on cloud 9).

We mellowed out on Christmas Eve day and that afternoon, Matt's Grandma Thomas and Charlie were able to stop by and see the kids. She was so happy to see them - she hadn't even met Channing yet so it was special. She came in and went right with Finley to check out her train and to help her fix it. She was so sweet with them :)

And here they all are with her (Carly wasn't feeling well so she hadn't gotten dressed yet).

Channing was happy it was Christmas Eve!!

Don't they all look thrilled!

Then Christmas Eve night we went to church. We had to drop Channing off at Mom's house because there was no way she would make it through a service.

Christmas morning looked like this......until 8:00! The kids woke up and really didn't come flying in, they actually didn't even realize it was Christmas morning. So once we got everyone up and ready, I told the kids that it was Jesus' birthday and there was a celebration downstairs to be had in honor of Him!!! Then it clicked what was going on and they all got down there quickly!

Finley got a "boat" - it is a plasma car and it is really fun. She gave Channing some rides to test it out!

Channing wouldn't stop eating paper so we had to put her in the saucer for her own protection :) She clapped.

Finley spent the entire morning on her boat!

And then not long after it was all over, we hear a scream from the 3rd floor and this is how Channing comes downstairs. She slipped off a shelf she was holding onto and banged her lip in 2 spots. So she had a swollen eye, fat lip, and was bleeding everywhere - nice!!! I love how the blood pooled up into a heart over her first Christmas shirt. Classy!

That evening, Matt's parents and brother came over and we had a nice Christmas dinner. The kids got a lot of musical instruments (pics of those will come later). It was an amazing Christmas and we are so very thankful for our friends and family. Happy Birthday Jesus!

A few special moments

Finley absolutely adores Channing. She constantly hugs her and talks to her. She is proud to say, "She my sister." Channing is so lucky to be loved so much by all these kids! Matt and I just beam everytime we see one of them holding her, talking to her, singing to her, playing with her, and making her laugh! She is more than loved!

We went to kiss Carly the other night and she was sound asleep with her dogs all in a row. I guess they were guarding her while she slept. Oh and little dad is on the end too - he is one of her favorites :)