HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

We Pray that God will bless you and your family through every high and every low that you journey through in 2010. We are thankful for all of you and are blessed to have such amazing family and friends. We can't wait to see what God is going to do in 2010!!!

Your BOYS might need a haircut if.........

.......their sisters play Beauty Shop & they look like this!!!! LOL

After working the past few nights and sleeping during the day, my kids have come up with some fun ways to entertain themselves during the Thanksgiving break!! Creative I must say...


Yes, That's aluminum foil!!!

Surviving The Slumber Party!!!!

SO.....It's been a long time since we've had a slumber party, & I remember why we havn't had one in so long. Let's just say we had girls still awake at 5am!!!! And if you live in a 1000sq ft duplex where you can hear everything, you might wanna hold off on the slumbering!! HA! The girls had a great time as you can see in the pics below & Baylie was excited to finally have a slumber party. So although I got little sleep, it was worth it.

Happy 10th Birthday Baylie Grace!!!!

To Our Sweet Baylie Grace Harper..... 10 years ago today you came into this world speedy fast. 6:47am to be exact!! We were so excited to add little girl #3 to our growing family. Our first little blonde hair, blue eyed cutie. We were completely thrilled!!!! Without you in our family it would NOT be complete. Your an amazing young lady, a servant, a friend, a helper, a loving daughter, a Big sister& a little sister. God has truly blessed you with so many gifts. If only the rest of us could learn to be as forgiving, compassionate & caring as you are. We Love You Sooooo Much!!!! And we Thank God For You Every Day!!!!!

Happy Birthday Bay Bay!!!

We Love You!!!

Daddy, Mom, Lacey, Sydnie, Jonathan, Tate, Emmy & Kenlie

What Children Do When Parents Are'nt Watching!!

Kenlie thought this was the coolest thing. They had their little system of security checks just like when you get ready to go on a zip-line or a bungee jump. lol Who knows maybe one day we will become the traveling Harper Circus! We've got the circus part down.

Molly & Wes Tie the Knot!!!!

What a fun weekend!!! Molly & Wes are official!!!! Everything went great!!! Johnnie was discharged from the hospital Friday afternoon & walked his daughter down the isle the next evening. So sweet! God is Sooooo Good!!! Sid did an amazing job with the ceremony!! I must say trying to get 7 kids plus Mom & Dad ready was quite a task. And out of all the bazillion pictures, I didn't get one great pic of the my family. I guess I must face the reality that I will never have a perfect picture with 7 kids!! LOL I'm gonna have to learn photoshop!!

Renewed Strength.....God's Comfort

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary,and young men stumble and fall;but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:29-31

We Love You Johnnie (Pop) & We are

BELIEVING & EXPECTING a MIRACLE!!!!!

1st Day of School!!! Whoop!! Whoop!! Sniff!! Sniff!!

One more sweet little one off to Kindergarten!!! Tate...What a Big boy....He walked straight in & acted like he owned the place. (which he will in just a matter of time.)Sniff!!! Kenlie cried cause she wanted to stay with Tate. :( JoJo was off to 2nd grade with his big smile & thrilled to FINALLY be back in school (cause summer was sooo boring.) Baylie was happy to head to 4th grade & excited about getting to take Dance & Theatre at her new school. Sydnie was WAY too cool for Mom & Dad to walk her to 6th grade, but ready to meet new friends & Lacey my 1st little baby off to High School!!! Sniff!! Sniff!!! Lee Freshman will never be the same!!!!

Birthday FUN!!!

What a Great Day to Celebrate Birthdays for 3 GREAT KIDS!!!! It was great to have the family together!! Thanks to everyone for the fun gifts & for coming and joining in on all the FUN!!!!!

WE LOVE YOU!!! Jonathan, Emmy & Kenlie

Harper Family Pics...ENJOY!!!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR 1st Born SON!!!!!

Happy Birthday To YOU!!!!!

We Love You JoJo!!!

Happy 7th Birthday

Jonathan Michael Harper aka JoJo came into this world '7' years ago with very little warning!!!! Woke Mommy up @ 3:45 in the morning with Enormous contraction, walk to bathroom water breaks, Tell Sid we gotta go NOW, Sid drives literally 100mph on I40. We make it to Baptist hospital in 15 minutes instead of 35 minutes (which is great cause I did NOT want Sid to deliver him on the interstate in the car). Arrive @ Hospital. Nice nurse lady greets me and says, "let's take you to triage & see if you are in labor." (Really????) I say, " If you take me in there you are delivering this baby." She makes a quick (& smart) decision to take me to L&D room. Family go to waiting room, remove clothes, lay on bed, Dr. runs in with NO gloves, catches baby boy, and no family get to see it. Welcome to the world little #4!!! Thank God for Little boys cause without them the hormone ratio in this family would be Out-of-control!!! Ha!

JoJo FINALLY loses his 1st Tooth!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR TWO YOUNGEST ANGELS

WE LOVE YOU

4 years ago, God gave us our 4th baby girl to grow our family to Mom & Dad plus 6!!! Emerson Kate... What a sweet little angel to make our family complete! Then to our surprise 2 years later God had a funny sense of humor. Baby #7 sent from heaven to help Mommy finish school & graduate in Nursing. Kenlie Maleigh arrived just in time to make it to graduation!!! Nothing would our family of 9 change, if we had it to do again we'd do it just the same!!! WE LOVE YOU EMMY & KENLIE!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM... Mommy, Daddy, Lacey, Sydnie, Baylie, Jonathan & Tate

Baylie - Tonsils = NO more STREP!!!

Baylie Was Such An Incredible Patient this morning!!! She even had the choice to go back to surgery & get happy gas and then have her IV put in or she could get the IV put in before she went back. She chose to have it put in before!!! She said she wanted to watch them put it in!!! Followed by telling them that she is gonna be a Doctor when she grows up. The recovery room however, was not so fun! She was crying & throwing a fit & the pain meds were not doing the trick. From the very loud mouth of a child that just had her tonsils out... "I Need Water!!!!...I Need WATER....I NEED WATER!!! & I Wanna GO Hoooome!!!...Take ME Home!!!!" On the elevator back to her room she asked "When are they gonna take them out?" She finally calmed down enough for them to return her to her room, where she got a little more Demerol, followed by Zofran for the vomiting & Benadryl for the rash of unknown origin:( What a brave little girl!!! We Love You BAYLIE:)

5 children x 5 School Uniforms per week = 25 UNIFORMS!

So Our next YARD SALE is to earn money to purchase 25 School Uniforms, New Tennis Shoes, & School supplies for the 5 kiddos that are in school. CRAZY Huh?!?!?! But Oh So Nice to not have to worry about choosing clothes everyday:) We have been collecting items since the Adoption Yard Sale(Pavel almost home!!!!), but are more than HAPPY to take any items that you may be wanting to get rid of:)

More Stuff = More $$$$

BACK TO SCHOOL

YARD SALE

Fri. July 17th & Sat. July 18th

Please contact me with any items, Big or Small, that you might have to Donate & I will make arrangments to pick them up. We are grateful for all of you & to those who helped with items for the Adoption Yard Sale. Pavel is absoulutely precious & his family is blessed to have so many people to help get him home. You can see pictures of him at bringinghomeboys.blogspot.com

Haircuts By Emmy:)

OK...For those of you that do not know. Emmy has become a hairstylist!!! Now, I would not recommend her to any of you because her skills are seriously lacking. After 4 days I have somewhat recovered from the trauma of finding my 4 year old cutting off her 2 year old sister's pony tail along with her own beautiful Butt length hair!!!!! Aaaahh!!!! Let's just say I was not a Happy Mommy. Parenting with Love & Logic went totally out the window!! Ha! Kids...Ya Gotta Love 'Em!!! So here are some pictures of their new little haircuts:)

Washers & Cameras?!@?!@?!@

OK....So I still am without a camera. Uuugh!!! Shopping on ebay daily. Hoping just maybe one will pop up for Free! (Ha! We can dream can't we?). Our latest death in the family was our 14yr old WASHING MACHINE! God Bless that washer, it must have been worn out after all the years of running day in & day out. LOL Sooooo........Thank God for our Emergency Fund (Thanks Dave Ramsay). I am now the proud owner of a Maytag LARGE capacity front load washer!! WooHoo!!! Oh the things we get excited about -----washing machines, 15 passenger vans, hand-me-down clothes. Thankful for them all. Now I just pray for a camera so I can continue to document in pictures the insanity of our Amazing life:) Patience... Summer is officially in full force. I think yesterday was the first day the kids were not in the pool all day. They already look like little tan beach children with blonde highlights. (except poor Kenlie who actually received the gift of white skin that fries from me) Pics will follow soon:( Kenlie will be 2yrs old @ the end of July, and she LOVES the water. She can actually swim. It's really amazing. She is like the Energizer Bunny though. We eventually have to get her out because she is just exhausted & starts appearing as if she's drowning. HA! Tate is finally swimming like a little fish, so now we just have to get that little Emmy to give up the floaties & put that face under water; then we will have have 7 kids that can swim!!! Wahoo!!! :) Hope everyone is having an AWESOME summer!!! Be Blessed!!!!!!!!

Sunshine, swimming, salamanders, turtles, rattlesnakes, fourwheeler's & barbed wire!!!

Another amazing Memorial Day with the Family. The entire weekend was just FUN!!! So nice to just hang out and spend time together as a family. Of course with the Harper family there is ALWAYS a little drama. You know never a dull moment. Saturday the kids helped unload an entire truck of feed for the cows. Not only does it make you very itchy, but now there is feed all over my van where children decided to unload there boots & britches of cow feed. Ha! We did however find a very cool salamander in the feed. Tate said, "Eww..it feels like a wet balloon". I agreed. While torturing the salamander, I mean playing with the salamander Landri (my niece) had a close encounter with a diamondback rattlesnake!!! I of course thought she was crying wolf until I looked at her face and saw 5 more children running away from a huge pile of wood. Sid & Kenny with their manliness of course had to catch & kill the 5 foot long snake. ( you can checkout those videos on FB) I will not put them here. Then there is the sweet little turtle named Ashley, that is now lost in the backyard, but is sure to show up again soon (probably in a dogs mouth!) Sunday...we did make it to church & then Jonathan decided we were gonna play the Dr. Seuss trivia game. If you have not played that game, let me just warn you that it takes approximately 2.5 hours to play it. (and that was with me picking the easy questions) LOL Monday...we slept in late. Wahoo! I think it was 8:30. Anyway, then off to the ranch to feed the horses and cows & then to the pond to swim & ride four wheelers. Let's just say the rest of the afternoon was full of lots of fun, a snake under the table close to a 2yr old, and Sydnie & Emmy crashing into a barbed wire fence!!! Emmy survived with only a tiny scratch & Sydnie with only a dozen scratches on her arm & hand & a Tetanus shot in her arm. Good Times....Ahhh...the life of a Mom of "7".

Dance Recitals, Soccer, Gymnastics Exhibition, Texas Day, Tate's Graduation....

All I can say is Aaaaahhhh!!!! We have officially completed all of the above for this school year!! Wahoo!! Now only 2 days of Field Day, 2 days of Awards ceremonies & the GLORIOUS Last Day of School!!! Happy Dance...Happy Dance...Happy Dance... Sad really, isn't it? I think I am more excited than the kids. This will be the first summer in 3 years that I have not been in school all day & studying all night! Yes, I have to work, but I will still have time to spend with my kiddos. Can't wait...Summer Here We Come!!!!! I have officially fried myself front & back (as I do every year the first time I see the sun), but this time I had this crazy idea that 30-40 min on each side laying on a float would be ok & then I would apply sunscreen. Note to self... that does not work when you are as white as the Pillsbury dough boy & it is 106 degrees outside!!! Not the brightest thing I've ever done. lol I have recovered however & after peeling off a couple of layers, I am back to my original white self. Next time a little SPF. And as Donna Boone says, " Brown fat is better than white fat". The kids are all amazing & we are truly blessed in so many ways. Next year...Lacey goes to High School, Sydnie, Baylie, Jonathan & Tate all go to the new fine arts magnet school, and Emmy & Kenlie will be at the Midland College preschool. I can't believe we will actually have all 7 kids at only 3 schools!!!
On a sadder note...Our camera was in a small accident. Emmy's head is ok, but the camera is now deceased. Bummer... Hopefully We can save for a new one & I can post new pictures soon.

Pavel Update.....

For those of you that have followed the journey of the Spencer family adoption. Here's their most recent update. They travel to see there son in 10 DAYS!!!! We are soooo excited for them. Their court date is May 19th! Please continue to lift their family up in prayer. They will be gone for 3 wks! Pray for their 3 girls & those caring for them while they are gone, safe travel, no complications with the court process, and Amy's pregnancy nausea (which is better, but still there). I can't imagine what they must be feeling & little Pavel does'nt even realize what an amazing Mommy & Daddy are coming to get him!

We LOVE You Pavel!!!

The Adoption Fundraiser Yard Sale was a SUCCESS!! We give all the glory to God & thank Him for every person that donated, helped, baked, prayed and made this fundraiser Awesome!! We raised $1686.70 to help towards the costs of The Spencer Family's Adoption & we are so excited. We know every little bit helps & we are thankful that we were able to contribute to getting Pavel home to his Mommy, Daddy & Sisters. We can't wait to see him here with this sweet family. Pavel's little life will be forever changed!!! We love you Jake, Amy, Ashley, Emily, Abby, Pavel, and Baby.
****Enjoy the slide-show of our weekend!****

Fundraiser Yard Sale Weekend... Wahoo!!

OK...The Adoption Fundraiser Yard Sale is coming up this Weekend!!! God has been soooo good, and so many people have been so giving and donated so many items. Now we just pray for beautiful weather and for God to bring just the right people to purchase every item and take it home with them even if just to help sweet Pavel. We have actually had to stop accepting Large items because of lack of time & room. How AWESOME is that!! We are believing that God is gonna bless the day & allow us to Help the Spencer family Bring Pavel Home!!! We Love YOU Pavel!! Check later for the Post Yard Sale Update.

Parade Of Parks 2009...

So because sometimes it seems like we don't slow down enough to treat our kids to a nice afternoon to the park as a family we started "The Parade of Parks" Big fun for these kids!! We spent an entire Saturday traveling from city park to city park. Hopping out at each playgound with a set time to play & then back in to travel to the next fun spot!! We had a great time. 7 playgrounds, the duck pond to feed the ducks a bunch of stale bread, McDonald's playground & chix nuggets (which they rarely get), and MARC park which is there favorite! What an exciting day!! Filthy, sweaty & pooped!!! Poor Kenlie didn't quite understand the whole leaving & going to another playground, so as we departed from each park we all got to enjoy her having a melt down! lol Other than a little too much sun on our little redhead, it was an event we plan to continue. Next Time sunscreen!?!?!

Mission Trip News..

Our long weekend Mission Trip to Galveston, Tx was Amazing. We worked our little bootys off & enjoyed every minute of it! We did everything from pulling up trees, cleaning out flowerbeds, & moving belongings into storage to laying insulation & putting up ceiling tiles at the church. It was a blessing to us to be able to help even in just a small way. We were amazed at how much the poeple of Galveston still are in such need. After 6 months I think a lot of people have moved on & just do not realize how long a road the community still has ahead of them. Please pray for the families of Seaside Baptist Church and the entire community. Pray that God will provide ALL their needs and then some. Pray for the Easter Sunrise service on the beach, that the weather and the attendance will be just as God sees fit. And especially pray for the pastor and his family that they will soon be back in there own home & making a fresh start! We thank God for allowing us the opportunity, and we thank all of those that helped out with our children while we were gone (Johnnie,, Molly, Nicole & Alicia) We are thankful for all of you!!!