A special friend has returned.....

We came home tonight from Waynesville, North Carolina after a great visit with our family and found that our favorite elf, Buddy was back! Buddy came last year after Nana and Papa brought him to us and we began a new tradition! There is a book called "The Elf on the Shelf" and each family who has an elf gets to give him a special name. The elf then begins to help Santa by flying home to the North Pole each night to let him know how the Harper children are behaving! Beckett and Helen named our elf "Buddy"! He shows up after Thanksgiving and he will be with us until Santa comes on Christmas Eve! Each day when he returns to our home, he will find a different place to sit so that he can keep a good eye on us! Tonight when we returned home, he was in a basket way up on top of a bookshelf! We are excited to have him back with us for the Christmas season!

We had a great Thanksgiving celebration with both sides of our family! Here are all of the Harper cousins eating lunch on Thanksgiving day!
We played a game of pin the pilgrim hat on the turkey and Beckett was WAY off!
A picture of Beckett when he removed his blindfold and saw where the hat was! Also a picture of Lillie with her Oreo turkey that we made with the kids! The next picture is of many of the girls as they were playing. I wanted to put this one because it was the only one with Marley! She was napping most of the time that we were there, so I didn't get any other pictures of her!

We traveled to North Carolina on Thursday afternoon to be with my side of the family. Here is a picture of most everyone playing a game of Trivial Pursuit...another fun tradition!

My aunt was asked to serve on an art commission for their town and they were given the task to find someone to create a sculpture. After a LOT of work, she was excited that they finally erected the sculpture about a month ago in downtown Waynesville! We went down to see it on Friday and took a lot of pictures! It is really a great piece of artwork and we are proud of Auntie Mame for all of her hard work to make it come together for their town!

Fantasy of Trees!

On Wednesday, Beckett, Helen and I went to the Fantasy of Trees with our friend Julie! We had never been before and probably would never have gone if it hadn't been for our friend Marilyn. Her class sponsored and decorated a tree this year and I helped her decorate it last Sunday afternoon. She received several free tickets to the event and gave some to us! It was so fun and helped us get excited about the upcoming Christmas holiday! I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures with Julie, but it was fun hanging out with her all day and we are so glad that she went with us! Beckett enjoyed the "tubs of fun" ride and Helen was all about the ballerinas! They have a stage where local dance companies put on special Christmas recitals! I see a possible performer in our future! She was mesmerized by all of the dancers from the very young to the teenagers. I enjoyed watching her watch them! The first picture you see is of Beckett and Helen with the "Tea Time in Tennessee" tree that I helped Marilyn decorate. The rest are just random pictures from the afternoon!

We are blessed to be able to share this Thanksgiving holiday with all of our family today! We will go to Sean's parent's house for lunch around noon and then after a few hours there we will head to Waynesville, NC to my aunt and uncle's home where we will be with my parents and my sister as well! Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with your loved ones!

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever!

Psalm 107:1

Fast Forward 12 Years!

Last Weekend at the Harper Hullabaloo

Late last Thursday night, Granbob and Grankaki came to spend the night with us. They stayed for a little while on Friday and visited with us. Here is a picture of Grankaki and the kids. She can really multi-task! She had a game of Dinosaur Monopoly going on with Beckett as she played baby dolls with Helen!

On Friday night we went to the Kirkland's home for our Homeschool Family Connection barbecue dinner. It was a fun night and a great time to connect and get to visit with other families in our church and community who are homeschooling their children! No pictures, but we had a great time! On Saturday night, our friends the Campions came over for dinner. They lived here and were in our Growth Group until last June when they moved back to south Florida. They were in town for a few days and spent some time with us on Saturday night. It was our first time to meet baby Caitlin and it was fun to catch up with JT, Stephanie and Jeff!

The next two pictures are from Sunday night. We have nine families who come to our home on Sunday evenings for Growth Group. If all nine families are present and they bring all of their children, we would have 22 kids ranging from 12 months old to 12 years old! (and a 4 month old, too!) I don't think all of the kids have been here at once, but this past Sunday night, we had 18 here! The first picture shows several of the kids eating some snacks. Every Sunday, each family brings some food to share and we spend our first few minutes of the evening eating and fellowshipping!
This second pic shows 14 children in our bedroom. Now that it is too cold to go outside, the kids stay in our three bedrooms and play or watch a movie while the adults have our discussion time. (We follow our sermon series at church and enjoy discussing ways to apply the the truths from our pastor's sermons to our lives.) It is hard to see them all, but here are 14 of the kids (and 2 that you can't see) getting ready to watch a movie! That doesn't always last for long. Ususally the younger ones end up in Helen and Beckett's rooms playing. Amazingly, this past Sunday night went pretty smoothly!
It is a blessing to have so many families in our home each Sunday night!

(I know that cross over our bed looks a little lonely! That is an "Uppercase Living" expression gone bad! If you aren't familiar with Uppercase Living, google it! They are really neat. I bought one at a party and when I put it on my wall, it didn't apply as neatly as they said it would. I had to remove part of it and now my cross looks really lonely! I have a plan to fix it and make the wall look better, just haven't gotten around to it yet!)

Beckett and Helen have been waiting for over a week for the "Elf Yourself" website to be ready! They discovered that it was up and running so we HAD to create our elves for Christmas 2008! Enjoy!

The Harper Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Veterans Day Parade

On Tuesday, I took Beckett and Helen to the Veterans Day parade in Knoxville. We had a great time. It was a good opportunity for all of us to learn a little more about branches of the military, heroes of war, what it means to serve our country and why we do it! Check out Beckett's blog to read what he learned that day!

D A D

I know a little girl who is SO excited that she can write her daddy's name! Tonight she learned how to make an "A" and a "D"! Put those together....and she can write DAD! We even learned a "Y" so she could make "daddy"! She absolutely cannot wait for Daddy and Beckett to get home from BSF so she can show them! She keeps writing it over and over and over. In between writing it each time she jumps up and down and grins from ear to ear! It has been so precious! What a sweet memory!

Every year when the leaves begin to turn colors, I have taken pictures of the kids under some pretty trees in our neighbors backyard. So, this year I tried to be like my friend Olivia and "think outside the box" when I took the pictures! I love the pictures that she takes! They might be off center or a little crooked, but they always look so great! I'm guessing that she also has a really cool camera! Anyway, here are some pictures of my attempt to not make everything line up perfectly and be symmetrical! That is a real stretch for me! Ha! Anyway, I don't really understand the flash on my camera either, so this was the best I could do! I did have some pretty cute subjects if I do say so myself!

Autumn in East Tennessee

Last Saturday, we spent the day in the Cherokee National Forest enjoying the beauty of this Fall season! It was an absolutely gorgeous day! We drove up the Cherohala Skyway and hiked out to Huckleberry Bald. We were listening to a Chris Tomlin CD on our drive and this song was just perfect for the day. I've put it on my playlist and I want to share the lyrics with you as well! Indescribable! You are amazing God!

A couple of pictures taken from the car.

It was warm in the sun on top of Huckleberry Bald and Beckett felt the need to take his shirt off! It is a boy thing! Although, Helen wanted to as well! :)
There is a grave on top of the bald and Helen was very interested in the story of the gentleman buried there. I thought this was a sweet picture! As a side note, (and a kind of a yucky note) the man's body had been mauled by wild animals. As I read the inscription on the gravestone, I wondered if it was something that I should have shared with her, but it was already "out there"! Now that she knows what "mauled" is....it has come up in many of her stories. So, if you happen to be around Helen in the near future and she begins talking about animals eating up people's bodies, please know that we aren't some kind of canibalistic family! Just shared a little too much info with our 3 and a half year old! :) Can you imagine what is going on in that little head of hers? Oh my!Helen and her daddy walking along the trail!
This was not posed, I promise! Beckett had reached out and grabbed Helen's hand and they walked along that way for a while! Love it!

Indescribable
From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea

Creation's revealing Your majesty

From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring

Every creature unique in the song that it sings

All exclaiming: Indescribable, uncontainable,

You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.

You are amazing God

All powerful, untameable,

Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim You are amazing God

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go

Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow

Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light

Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night

None can fathom

Indescribable, uncontainable,

You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name

You are amazing God

All powerful, untameable,

Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim You are amazing God

You are amazing God

Indescribable, uncontainable,

You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.

You are amazing God

All powerful, untameable,

Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim

You are amazing God

Indescribable, uncontainable,

You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.

You are amazing God

Incomparable, unchangeable

You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same

You are amazing God You are amazing God

Fall Family Frenzy

Here is a picture of Beckett and Helen behind our trunk that we decorated for Fall Family Frenzy! I also added a picture of our church on the evening of the event! I borrowed it from my friend Olivia's blog because I thought it was such a cool perspective! We arrived to set up at 5:00 before everyone got there and then we didn't leave until after 10:00 so we never saw how packed it looked from the road! It was a fantastic "frenzy"!

This picture was taken of the front of our church from across the road. The whole front parking lot is PACKED!

We took a field trip last Thursday to Maple Lane Farm for a hayride and to pick out some pumpkins. We came home from the farm and did "pumpkin math" which included many estimating activities. It was a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed the hayride, corn maze and having a picnic on the farm! On Friday evening, we went to the Fall Family Frenzy at our church. This was the first time our church has put on this community outreach event and it was fantastic! Over 2,000 people came through the event and it was awesome! Our growth group was responsible for two games and we also decorated our trunk and handed out candy. (Thanks to Marilyn for all of our decorations!) Helen had fun riding the ponies and jumping in the inflatable jumpy things! Beckett was all about the climbing wall! He also played lots of games and came home with tons of candy! Check out The Slam for a video clip of Beckett in action! The following slideshow shows a few pictures from our pumpkin day and our Fall Frenzy event on Halloween!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook