It's a

Could we be any more excited around the Hardwick house?

 

 

Yay, we're having a little boy!!!! That makes 5 and 5:) Josiah has said all along that he is having a baby brother and his name is "baby pickle" ! Cute name, huh? He is so excited and so are the rest of the crew!

Sean and Joli

Consider Your Words

Do you ever have moments when you wish you could grab your words back as soon as you say them? I had one this morning. We were out of milk, which meant no cereal, so I had to make eggs and toast. I know that sounds terrible saying that I had to make them, but this pregnancy has taken it's toll on me, as far as energy goes:( Some of the kids were arguing about silly things and about wanting cereal instead. After they were done eating, the ones who were arguing and complaining apologized to me. They asked for forgiveness and admitted that the eggs were delicious:) I wish I would have thanked them and maybe read some scripture to them about complaining but I didn't. I said, "I forgive you, BUT it sure would have been nice to have woken up to NO arguing and fighting this morning!!" As soon as I said it, I knew how selfish that sounded. What was more important than my calm morning, was their hearts!! As long as I have little children in my home, we will be dealing with these issues. I thank God for each of my children, even the ones who LOVE to whine, complain and argue. When they do these things, even early in the morning, it gives me a chance to grow and  an opportunity to teach them God's word.  I pray that next time I will not complain in my heart about having "real" kids who will do these things, even when it is not convenient for me:) I pray that next time, I will not fail in teaching them God's word and praying with them.
I wanted to take some pictures of Eden yesterday because she is growing way faster than I would like:) Farah Beth and Josiah wanted their pictures taken too:) I love these little ones!

 

~Joli~

Fun at the Park

We met friends at the park yesterday for some fun in the water! I am Loving this weather:)

Sean and I went in to check on the girls one night and this is how we found Anna Grace:) She braids her hair every night because she hates to sleep on it! She is our sleeping beauty:)
Mom and Dad are coming to stay the weekend with us! We can't wait to have some fun with them! Have a wonderful weekend.
Joli

Beach

 I love the beach! I love the sand. I love the salt water and how it makes your hair feel. I love the sun. I love the smell of the water and I even love the birds. I Love watching my kids play and enjoy the water. I love eating on the beach also:) We spent our first day out at Seabrook this afternoon and had a great time. Even Eden absolutely loved it. Everyone is down for the night, except for the older children, and it is only 8:00:) The sun will do that to you. We plan on spending a lot of time out there this summer.

 

Family Vacation

Well if you haven't thought we were crazy before now, you probably will after reading this post.  We just got back from an extended vacation that took us all across the state of North Carolina.  We left on a Friday to head to my sister Farah's house in Pinehurst where we had a blast.  Sean, Hunter, Peyton, Noah, Isaac, Eden and I got up the next morning and headed to Winston Salem to go to the book fair at the NC Home Education Conference.  Can I just say, go to a large homeschooling conference to completely confuse yourself as to what curriculum to use.  Well, confused we were and still have no clue as to what exactly to use.  You would think after homeschooling for close to 12 years we would have it figured out by now.  But that's another post.  We went to the convention and left Anna Grace, Treasure, Farah Beth and Josiah with my sister, who also had her little girl Gracelyn.  She showed me up big time by taking all of the kids to eat at the Golden Coral, strawberry picking, baked homemade muffins and played outside on the slip and slide, all by herself.  Yeh, maybe you will think SHE is the crazy one :)  I don't dare take my own kids out to a buffet without Sean being there.  Farah did find out that Josiah and Gracelyn do well acting as Bonnie and Clyde:)  Not too much that they don't get into.
We returned that night and hung out the rest of the weekend with Matt, Farah and Gracelyn and had a great time.  We love being with them and wish we lived closer, (totally our fault though and that too is another story).  We got up Monday morning and drove for 6 hours to Franklin, NC to spend the rest of our weekend in the luxurious confines of dirt and creek, tent camping!  Yes, we took 9 kids and stayed in a tent from Monday through Friday.  Now do you think we're crazy?  LOL.  We stayed at Standing Indian Campground which is in the Nantahalla National Forest at about 5300 feet elevation.  This was the best part because while everyone else in the Carolinas were baking, it was low 80's in the day and in the low 50's at night. We spent several days in the Nantahalla river letting the kids play and fish and skip rocks.  We went to several waterfalls, one that we had to hike a pretty tough half mile trail to get there.  I joked that my OB would kill me if she knew a 19 week pregnant woman were hiking up large inclines and thigh size tree roots to get to a waterfall.  Needless to say, I will not be sharing that info with her at my next appointment.  It was worth it though as the kids had a blast sliding down the waterfall into a small pool below.  The other waterfall we drove to was the Dry Falls in Highlands, NC.  This waterfall was really awesome! You could walk behind the falls and see right through the water as it headed into a small canyon.  We kept talking about the glory of God and how He spoke so much beauty into existence.  We went fishing one day at a small fishery that is like catching fish in a barrel.  We drove up and piled out to a stupefied expression on the mountain couple's faces to see 9 kids coming at them for fishing poles.  We didn't disappoint.  We pulled fish out left and right with everyone of us "catching" a fish.  Sean caught one for Farah Beth and Treasure.  I caught a fish, along with a rather large tree, which the mountain man had to rescue from my fishing pole.  One of the kids caught the foot of their dog, which the mountain man also had to rescue.  At this point, we knew it was time to take the fish and run. :)

We had a great time other than the little ones battling a cold all week.  We headed back on Friday and all of us were extremely glad to be back home.  Sean and I talked on the way home about how we don't have much more time to do things like this as a family.  Hunter will be 17 in January and we are praying about his fast approaching future.  Peyton is 13 and before we know it she will be gone as well.  We don't always cherish these times as we should but we pray that God would give us an uncommon thankfulness for the gifts that He has given to us in these children.  SOOO, pregnant or not, sick or not, we will continue to do the crazy things as a family. :0)

 Most of these pictures are really blurry. My camera has been dropped a couple of times, so I think something is definitely not working right now:( They are all we have though for memories, so we will have to enjoy them anyway:)

Joli