what's up, y'all?

ok, here's the super brief update!

December - holidays at home, very fun! Jen got a new TV. Brody and Jen built a "shelf" for it, and as of today, no one has broken/pulled down the tv yet. see the cool red wall, nice!

January - we remodeled our kitchen/living room! we knocked out a wall, a brick fireplace, another wall, a staircase, and the worlds ugliest built in pink china cabinet (sorry to those who loved this work of art, but I'm glad to see it go). we replaced it with (in order) nothing, nothing, a support beam, a new and improved staircase (anyone recall our old one?), and nothing (but hopefully a built in bookshelf/computer desk one of these days). oh, and we removed all the plaster on the ceiling, installed all new lighting, and replaced the green lenolium. I use the term "we" loosly, because we had a variety of friends and family do all this, and we paid them. My contribution was "giving instructions" and "design". Brody did the "demo" and forked out the bill. the kids were patient to live under constuction for a week, except for the week we went every day to grandma's, the construction dust about killed Axel, he has asmatic tendencies (sp?) when he has a cold. it turned out awesome beyond our imaginations! everyone hussled because I was due very very soon, actually, we weren't done until about 5 days after my due date, but thanks to my blessing of always being late, that was 2 days early! here's some pics:

here's from the living room, you can see the new inproved stairs and lighting.

here's the kid's handprints in the wall texture, that was fun. too bad we missed Millie, but what do you do?

here's another form the kitchen to the living room. a better one of the stairs and awesome floor!

February - we had a baby (that pretty well consumed the month). Jennifer Millie Harshbarger was born on February 14th, our valentines baby. she hit my "predicted" due date right on the head (much to my dismay, and relief (think, remodel+baby)). everything went well, except that she was posterior (for those of you not familiar with this term, it means "ouch!"). she didn't turn and she took longer than I was hoping to come out, and when she did it was "ouch" but we made it. I had a midwife instead of a doctor (still went to a hospital) and for anyone wanting to have a good experience with natural childbirth, I would highly recommend using a midwife, it was awesome. She was very helpful and empathetic, she encouraged me in all the right places, and let me call the shots (something I love). I only with I had come up with this bright idea 4 babies ago, lol. Millie was fine through it all and nursed right away, and we came home 2 days later. The kids have adjusted like no big deal, which has been great. I took a while to recover, longer than other times, but by a month or so, we were feeling more or less back to normal. Millie is doing great and thriving, surviving such things as being cared for by a 4 year old, and fed by a 2 year old. Cynthia has proven very helpful with household things, and is learning to cook, and christy is a very good baby sitter. I can always depend on them. The kids are all doing great, in school and otherwise. I try to stay involved in their school, helping out in class some weeks, and attending fieldtrips. We go to the library once a week if Cynthia has been organized that week in school (she hasn't missed a week, this reward has really helped her stay focused). It's fun and rewarding, I try to only get a movie for myself, if I have a book, the results are disasterous (see above picture, notice the dishes, table and floor... oh wait, you can't see that).

April - we had a baby blessing for Millie, here she is as cute as she can be. I made the dress, one of my vavorite hobbies, sewing. It was fun and rewarding.

Erik and Jessica came up with their kids, I got them a little out of order here, oops! I have 2, then she has 2, then I have 2, then she has 2 and then I have 1, sounds like I'm next, lol!

Here's their baby, only 5 or 6 days older than Millie. (can't remember)

anyway, this wasn't brief, but... oh well, better than doing the dishes. we sure feel blessed to have our loving family and wonderful home to raise them in. Farm life is good to us! We can run and play and spread our wings out here in Squirrel, and we love it! Hope all of you are well, and we love you!