School Begins and a Celebration!

It has been a busy few days at the Harper Hullabaloo! Today was the first day of our school year. I have taken a picture by the back door that leads into our "school room" on the first day for the last two years! It is amazing to see how much they have grown. I started this blog on Beckett's first day of Kindergarten! If you are interested, check here, and see how much they have grown in two years! Not to mention the cute new addition to the picture this year! :)
Helen isn't officially starting school because she is only 4 years old this year, but she will be starting a Mother's Day Out program next week on Tuesdays and Thursdays! We are all excited for her! She wanted to let everyone know that she will be doing some Pre-K activities this year while Beckett is doing his 2nd grade work, so we added a little extra to the white board! I love how Helen and Will both stuck their tongues out for this shot!

Will did not seem to get the memo that I needed a little bit of quiet, un-interupted time to work with Beckett! I am so glad that Will has bonded with me! It is VERY evident! He wasn't too keen on being left in the living room with Helen as a baby sitter for very long! He spent the majority of the day on my hip and in my lap! It was a good first day, but what should have taken about 3 hours....took about 6 hours! I hope we can get the kinks worked out and I can figure out how to manage all of this with a 9 month old baby very soon! He did enjoy crawling under Helen's desk that we brought into the living room!

Yesterday was a very special day! We participated in the Family/Child Dedication service at our church and it was such a great morning! Thanks to all of our family and friends who came to church with us to celebrate Will and what he means to our family! It was a sweet time as we prayed his life verse over him. Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing." We love this verse and believe that it speaks so well to Will and his journey thus far!

We have video from the service at church, but no pictures, so the pics begin at our house where family and friends joined us for lunch after church! Here is a family shot on the front porch. Will wore the shirt that we bought for him in Ethiopia and Beckett wore his necklace from ET while Helen wore her bracelet that we brought home for her. I "wore" Will since he is pretty much attached to my hip! :)

We had lots of yummy American food for lunch....but this was my favorite part! We had some Ethiopian food for everyone to try! No, I have not learned how to cook any Ethiopan food yet, but we were able to have Enjera, Shiro W'et, Miser W'et and Kik Aletcha compliments of Gojo Ethiopian Cafe and Restaurant in Nashville! The owner of the restaurant was so kind to help me out when I told her that I wanted everyone at our celebration lunch to get to try food from Ethiopia and she even threw in a few extras! If you are ever in Nashville, go try out their restaurant! The food was amazing! We are having leftovers tonight! Yum! Special thanks to my mom and dad (Grankaki and Granbob) for swinging by Gojo on their way from Brentwood to LC to pick up our ET fare!

I think I got pictures of Will with everyone that came yesterday, but I'm not going to post them all. We will definitely be printing those pics out to add to Will's Life Story book, but I did put a few pics from the day. Here is Will with Sean's mom and dad.....his Nana and Papa!

And here he is with my mom and dad, Grankaki and Granbob!

This is the first picture of all seven cousins together! How fun!

Will tried a tiny piece of enjera and some shiro......and he seemed to like it! We haven't found anything that he doesn't like! :)

After everyone left, we went outside and had a little photo shoot! Will was in a great mood and was just hammin' it up for the pictures! He is sitting on the quilt that my mom made for him with the colors of the Ethiopian flag.

Sweet boy!

It was a wonderful, memorable day! Thanks again to everyone who came and shared this special time with our family!