A Blog About Nothing... really

As I was blog stalking this morning I realized it has been two months since the latest Harden 6 Blog so I felt like a bad blogger and decided I should write something, even if it was about nothing.

I am currently 4 weeks away from my due date and according to the checker at Kroger I am big enough to be having twins or big enough to deliver any day! i know it isn't twins so maybe we will have an early January baby instead of an end of January baby. I am definitely ready to not be prego any more but must say that A LITTLE, VERY LITTLE piece of me will miss the feeling of a child moving in my tummy. That feeling is small enough though to control, NO we are not having a third child!!

Logan amazes me everyday, he has become very advanced at following verbal directions and often helps Mommy clean up his room or the living room. He is a little stubborn (I have no idea where this came from, wink, wink!) if he is playing and doesn't want to stop to change a diaper or take a bath he has a very shrill scream to let you know his feelings on the subject. Good thing his momma has 28 years of practice being stubborn, she always seems to get her way.

As I type my mom, step dad and Uncle are on their way to Houston. I am so blessed to have family coming for Christmas since I am unable to travel at this point in my pregnancy. Along with the visit of course comes the responsibility of hosting Christmas. At first I was so excited to get to carry out all the family traditions in my own home, but then I realized all the stuff that comes with it. The one part I did not expect to be an issue ended up being the hardest part... Grocery shopping! Now I am a stay at home mom and truly pride myself on getting in and out of the grocery store with a happy baby in less than an hour. I am also really good at making a well thought out organized list and never forgetting anything. Well, that was until now! I choose Kroger, because Walmart is always insane. I did well, Shopping cart with the car on front so Logan can drive, check. List in hand, check. pen to mark off as I shopped, check. And then I walked into the store. It was 8:00 am on Saturday morning and thankfully no one was there (if there had been a crowd I think I would have given up half way through). I started shopping and quickly realized that I had not taken my first draft list and made my second draft list which is always organized by sections of the store. So I had to quickly check my list in each section hoping not to miss anything. Well I made one trip through the store and missed over half of what I needed. So the trip starts again and I am on my last two items. The Turkey, I saved this for last on purpose and a small can of pumpkin for the pumpkin pie. These are two fairly simple items you would expect to be well stocked during the holidays. Yeah, that's what I thought to. I finally found a nice little stock boy and asked about the pumpkin, he didn't know so he found another stock boy who kindly said aisle 10. So I go to aisle ten, and yes there are cans of pumpkin, but only the big cans that make two pies. I don't want the big can, I only need one pie! I go back to said stock boy and ask if maybe the small cans are somewhere else. His response is, "No, we are out." Seriously it is a week before Christmas!!
So I resolve myself to going on a quick trip to Walmart for the pumpkin. Now to the turkey. I decided I wanted a 17-19 pound turkey. Perfect for the five of us to have some left overs. Apparently everyone else in Cypress wanted the same thing, and no one wanted a 14 pound or a 22 pound turkey, because after 15 minutes of searching through the turkeys I checked out of Kroger with no turkey and no pumpkin!

So, Monday I decide to brave Walmart. It was busy but not horrible. I am confident that I can get the two items I need without any trouble, yeah that is what I get for thinking! I make my way to the baking kiosk that I have bought pumpkin from all season, NO PUMPKIN, I then find the very frazzled stock boy who answers we only have big ones, they are over there (then he points)! So I call mom and ask her about the pumpkin and she assures me that Wichita Falls should have small cans of pumpkin, guess what, she had to go to two stores to get her pumpkin! I think Libby (the brand of pumpkin) decided they would provide a shortage of small pumpkin to force people to buy the big ones! Now to the turkey. Imagine for me first, where the turkeys are in the grocery store. They are generally in the big open bins in the center aisle. This makes them accessible to many people. Now imagine me, 9 months pregnant, trying to lean over these bins to move the turkeys around so I can see how big they are. I searched for 20 minutes, guess what. NO 17-19LBS TURKEYS!!! To make a long story not as long I finally found one at Kroger, because a friend had told me that they restocked.

I started this blog thinking I had nothing to say. I really didn't say much but it sure too me a long time to say it!!

I hope all of you have a very Merry CHRISTmas! Take the time to remember Christmas is not about finding a small can of pumpkin, but about celebrating the best gift anyone could ever receive, unconditional love and forgiveness or our sins!

Here is a picture that makes me smile, hopefully it will do the same for you!

Merry Christmas!

Poop

The last week my life has been filled with poop, truly I had not thought to blog about this until today's events (I will get there later). Generally poop is not something I would assume anyone would want to read about, but after my MOPS meeting last week, and the seven days since, I now realize that poop has become blog worthy. I will start with last Monday...

During our MOPS meeting, we had a speaker who was there to encourage moms in their daily plight to be the best they can be. During the speech she mentioned that years ago she prayed to find a way to see God in her everyday life. After much prayer and thought she realized that the Holy Spirit visited her through poop.... and she lost me! Seriously, she saw God at work in her life every time she changed a poopy diaper, apparently her four girls can't poop the way my little man can! Regardless of my feelings towards poop, I acknowledged that maybe that IS how God spoke to her, but, I would never be able to see God's presence in poop.

Last Tuesday begins and I have the pleasure of watching my friend's son, Jack, who I keep a couple days a week. The day starts out normal, 7:30 Jack arrives, I am talking to Kari, Jack's mom, and she asks, "Does Jack poop for you during the day?" I reply, "no, not usually" (I think I cursed myself). 7:45- Kari leaves, I put Jack in his crib, and he drifts to sleep. 7:50- I'm watching Fox news, hmmm, I hear Logan, weird he is already awake, only 10 minutes early, no biggie (yeah right). 7:51- I enter his room and am met with the beautiful stench (sense the sarcasm) of a poopy diaper. I think this is odd but I change the diaper and move to breakfast and the other regular parts of our morning.

After breakfast we are having our Mommy and Logan play time and again the beautiful stench meets my nose again... wow that was quick! But I think to myself, "at least his morning nap will not be disrupted by this lovely stench" I change him, we play and a little while later, he goes down for his morning nap.

This is the part of my day that I usually get to sit back and watch a cheesy teeny-bopper soap opera like Gossip Girl or 90210 (yeah, I DVR them to watch when the hubby is at work). Not today, I leave Logan's room headed for the couch and immediately I hear Jack. He is awake 30 minutes early, oh yes you guessed it! Poop! (In case you are counting we are up to three poopy diapers in two hours!)

I could continue this detailed dialogue of each beautiful stench, but we would be here all day! To make a very long and repetitive story short, over the next 48 hours, I did not change a diaper that was not full of poop. I lost count after 15 straight poopy diapers! Most of which found their way into my son's nap schedule, beautiful (again sense the sarcasm)!

This long line of poopy diapers eventually led to a very nasty case of diaper rash, which led to a visit to the pediatrician, which led to a prescription of oral Diflucan, which led to weird runny diarrhea, fun, More POOP!

This brings me to today (Tuesday) we woke up, no poop! (First time in 7 days) Ate breakfast, played, no poop!! Took nap for one hour, poop! (This was expected and at the end of his regular naptime so no biggie!) We got dressed and out the door on time to meet my dear friend Aims for lunch, no poop! We meet, we have lunch at a very kid friendly restaurant, food was great, weather was great and they had animals for the kids to visit with. Logan loved the animals and had a great time running around and looking at the horses and cows, no poop! (yes!)

Nap time is looming, time to go home! I reluctantly check the diaper before loading Logan in the car, NO Poop! I strap him in and reach for his shoes (he hates wearing shoes, just like his daddy, so the agreement is, he leaves them on while out of the car, and I promise to take them off when we are in the car.) I un-velcro, grab the first one and then the second, wait, my finger feels something squishy. Must just be some mud from the torential rains of yesterday, but how can I be sure? I instinctively take a big whiff..... "ahhh Pooop!!" Not the "beautiful stench"of my son's poop, but the disgusting gut wrenching stench of animal poop!!

I think to myself, "Man, I wish I could see God in poop!"

Daddy's First Triathlon

The last year has been full of first time experiences for Logan, but today was all about Daddy and his first Triathlon. Eric has been training for a long time to complete this race and I must say I have never been prouder of my husband (okay maybe on the day he became a daddy)! The morning was COLD! Which in Houston is actually a welcome change, but not when you have to swim in open water. The water temp was a chilly 72 degrees, but Daddy jumped right in and swam the 300m in just over 6 minutes. Here he is coming out of the water and running to the transition area.
After running barefoot up a hill and through a parking lot he had to get his shirt, socks, shoes, and helmet on so he could take off on the ten mile bike ride. Eric is in the picture below a little left of center in the gray shirt. This picture also shows how many bikes were still there when Eric made it through the swim. Over 800 people participated in the race.


Logan was Daddy's number one fan! He sat in his stroller and yelled for "dada"often
Daddy made it back from the 10 mile bike ride in 33 minutes and then took off on the 3 mile run!

We made Daddy a sign to hold up at the finish line, Logan really liked to play peekaboo with the sign

25 minutes after Eric started the run and 1 hour and 7 minutes after the start of the triathlon, he passed the finish line! Yea Daddy!!!



All first time triathletes got a metal for finishing, Logan liked wearing the metal more than Daddy!
Daddy worked really hard and posted a great time! We don't know exactly what "place" he earned but the stats should be released very soon. It doesn't really matter though, he is number one to our family! Way to go Daddy!

One year.. Wow how time flies!

The past year has been an amazing time of growth and changes to the Harden Family and Logan has been the major factor in each of those changes. I can honsestly say I was created to do the job I am doing. I loved teaching but being a full time mom is the most rewarding thing I could ever think of doing.
For Logan's "real" birthday or the actual day (October 1st) was celebrated pretty simply with family. Of course he had to have a cake on to smash, I was certain that my little man would be right in the middle of that cake and have it from head to toe. I was wrong!!! He didn't want anything to do with it and when he did finally get some he took two bites and decided he didn't like the icing all over his hands.

Daddy had to convince him he could eat it.

Notice the cake is now smashed, not by Logan but by daddy helping Logan figure out the concept of a smash cake.

October 3rd we had his birthday party and by then he had the whole "smash" cake thing figured out.

This was Logan's cake before (He got the duck and everyone else got to eat the rest) Mommy and Mrs. Julia made the cake.

He knew exactly what to do this time!

He even ate the beak!

Family pictures

Logan is almost one and I decided we needed to take some family pictures before Baby Harden #2 made their arrival. The pictures turned out great! Here are some of the highlights:

This is one of my favorites, the look on his face is so much like his daddy!

This rocking horse belonged to Logan's Cousin Gill when he was a baby, he is now 18!

Love those blue eyes! Thanks Daddy and Grandma!

The Harden Family

Such a big boy, I can't believe he is one!

This is not all of the pictures but these are my favorites.

Back to School Blues

Most hear the words back to school blues and think, that people would have the "blues" because they had to be in schoolor in my case be teaching school. Every year for the past six years I have felt a small twinge of those back to school blues. I have woke up at five thirty and longinly wished for the sleepy days of summer, but not this year. I am actually feeling the back to school blues, becuase everyone else is back and I am not.

Now, don't misunderstand, I am actively participating in the job of my dreams... mommyhood. But at least once a day I glance at the clock and think, if I were in school I would be doing (fill in the blank). I think, or I guess, I know I miss the people that I worked with more than the job itself, which can be easily remedied with a happy hour or a lunch time visit to the school, but I still miss the professional aspect of those relationships.

I have found one perfect cure for the back to school blues:

Yeah I am exactly where I want to be!

This Thing Called Life

Now that I have had a chance to get use to being a stay at home mommy I have realized there are many times throughout my day that I just sit back and laugh. This thing called life really is humorous and when you add a very active 10 month old to the mix, things just get funnier and funnier. (or maybe laughing is just my way of staying sane)

This is the reason I have started this blog, I want to share the moments that make me laugh. I will still continue, at least once a month updates to Logan's website, but sometimes I would like to share more than just simple updates. Most people who read this will get my humor and if you don't please realize that most of what I say is said with smile or at the very least a sly grin.
Since becoming a mom I have realized that some of the things that I use to value, mean so little now. I use to take myself very seriously and now I have realized that sometimes you've just got to laugh. Sometimes at others, but most of all you have to laugh at yourself and this crazy thing we call life.