Day Trippin'

We have been so tired of all of the rain and it was going to be a beautiful day, so yesterday we took school "on the road" and made a road trip to Cleveland to meet Kathy, Ty and Marley. It was about a 45 min. drive for both of us to meet half-way and it was a beautiful day to meet at the park to let the kids play! I also had a huge delivery of hand-me-down clothes for Ty and Marley to give Kathy! We have been SO blessed with hand-me-downs for our children. Sean's sister Jill has a son (Connor) who is older than Beckett and a daughter (Lillie) who is older than Helen...so they give us their out-grown clothes and then when we are finished with them, we send them to Sean's brother Josh and his wife, Kathy for their kiddos. Kathy is now giving the boy clothes BACK to me for Will! Needless to say, after they have been worn by three boys, some of them are a tad bit worn, but we are still getting lots of use out of them! It is great! Anyway, we needed to deliver the winter installment of clothes, so we took the opportunity to visit, play and EAT! I forgot my camera so I borrowed all of these pics from Kathy! Here are all of the cousins in a huge wooden car!

Beckett was giving Ty and Helen a crazy ride on the tire swing!
I love this picture that Kathy took of the kids all in the playhouse!

Beck pushing Ty and Helen pushing Will!

We all loaded up in my van and went to Chic-fil-a where we ate lunch and played a bunch more in the play area there!

It was a great day! Beckett loved taking his school work on the road! The clip-board for his work was a BIG hit! He worked very hard and everything was finished by the end of the trip back home. He even taught Helen some basic addition! Thanks, Kathy, for bringing the kids to play with us, for the Chic-fil-a coupons and for letting me borrow these great pictures for my blog! It was a beautiful, bright sun-shining day!

Will Update!

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers yesterday for Will's procedure! He did very well! We arrived at the surgery center at 6:45 am and we were pulling out of the parking lot to go home at 9:00 am! It went so quickly! He did well with the anesthesia but coming out of it was a little difficult. He was very unhappy and confused, but once it wore off, he was right back to normal! He actually slept for 9 straight hours last night....so maybe he finally had some relief from the pain in his ears and was able to sleep better! I hope this keeps up! Just wanted to let you all know how he did! Thanks again for lifting him up!

Splish Splash!

So, I don't do this very often, although I wish I could. I love to give Will a bath in the kitchen sink! It saves water....he is better contained....and it is just too cute. HOWEVER! He has learned how to splash. And splash he does! Loves it! My kitchen was flooded after this particular bath. We had towels all over the floor and counter-tops. The window over the sink looked like a huge rainstorm had just blown through....and in some ways it had! Anyway...just some cute pics to share of his fun bath night!

Here's a big splash!

Watching to make sure Beckett and Helen saw that big splash!
Rub a dub dub...having fun in my "tub"!
And I just had to finish out the pics tonight with his wet head and big grin! You can really see his four teeth that have come in so fast! I could just eat him up!

I haven't been blogging as much lately, so I want to catch up on a few things. First, a virus hit the Harper Hullabaloo last week. Beckett was sick last Tuesday and Wednesday. Will had it on Thursday and Friday. We thought that we were virus free over the weekend and then on Monday morning, Helen woke up with a fever and was sick through Tuesday evening. I did take Beckett to the doctor last Wednesday to rule out the flu and he tested negative. Turned out to be a 48 hour deal for each of them. Glad that is over! Now on to other news......

When we arrived home from Ethiopia, Will did not seem well. I had several concerns, none of which were about his ears. We took him to the doctor the day after we got home and the doctor discovered a double ear infection. Well, three and a half months later, he STILL has an ear infection. He has been on 5 oral antibotics that didn't work and 2 weeks ago, he had to take three shots (one a day for three days in a row) of rocephin...a high-powered antibiotic. We were told that only 1% of children do NOT respond to these shots. Well, we knew Will was special, but we didn't want him to prove it to us this way! He is in that 1%! His ears are still infected. Our pediatrician confirmed that on Monday, we met with the ENT on Tuesday and he scheduled surgery for Friday to put tubes in Will's ears. Our doctor said that he will run a culture on the "stuff" in Will's ears to see what it is that has been so resistant to antibiotics.

Please pray for Will on Friday morning and for Dr. Belmont as he performs the procedure. Mommy could use a few prayers too, as I'm quite nervous about the anesthesia part. I know that the Great Physician is in control and He will provide peace, comfort, wisdom and rest for us all. Thanks for thinking of us on Friday morning!

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

Matthew 9:35

We are trusting in His power and His promises that Will's infection will clear up with these tubes and that the actual procedure will be smooth and trouble-free!

5 Months Ago....

Five months ago, on April 20th, we received a phone call that blessed our hearts in the most amazing way! The call was from Julie, our AGCI case manager, saying that she had a little guy that she wanted to talk with us about. Within a few minutes she emailed pictures to our home. Without opening them, I sent them to Sean at work and then I called him. We opened each picture, one by one at the same time so that we could see our little boy "together"! It was the most surreal and amazing day! We were so happy to finally learn about our son, to know his story and to see his face. I could have never anticipated the way my heart would immediately be drawn to this sweet child and to love him so completely..... even though I had never even held him in my arms. Less than two months after our referral day, we flew to Ethiopia to meet our new son. What a joy the last 3 and a half months at home have been! We fell in love with Will's smiling face five months ago, and we are so blessed to wake up to his smiling face every morning!

I was never able to share his referral pictures before we got him, and it occured to me that I never had posted any on my blog, so here is one of the pictures that we received. Will can be quite a "ham" when it comes to picture taking, so I think that whoever was taking his referral pics had quite a lot of fun because we received 30 pictures that day!! I've just chosen one to share today. He did come into Hannah's Hope mal-nourished. I remember Julie telling me to not be shocked at how small his little legs looked because his socks just swallowed up his feet....and they did!
And here he is, 5 months later! It is amazing how far he has come....literally and figuratively! He was SO well taken care of at HH in Ethiopia! He was fed well and loved well and had gained several pounds before we got him. You better believe he has been fed well and loved well since being home and he has continued to pack on the pounds! I took this picture tonight just before I got him ready for bed. You can't see all of his pretty dark curls in this picture, but you can see two of his four new teeth! They are coming in so quickly! He is changing and growing with each new day! We fell in love 5 months ago and we are just so glad that Will is home with us forever!

We love you Will Tekalgn Harper!

Smoky Mountain Birthday

We celebrated Sean's birthday on Wednesday with a trip to one of his most favorite places....The Great Smoky Mountain National Park! We are so blessed to live only 45 min. away from one of the most beatutiful places in the world (in my humble opinion!) and given Sean's love of fly-fishing, we spend quite a bit of time there! He took half a day off from work and we headed to the Cade's Cove picnic area so that he could fish and the kids could play. Not sure why Beck and Helen look so washed out in this picture....could be that my camera is finally wearing out, or could be that the operator has no idea what she is doing....especially in low-light situations. Anyhow, here is Sean with the kids right before he set out to fish!

Doing what he loves!
Like father, like son. Beckett is turning into quite a little fly-fisher himself!

Helen isn't interested at all in fishing. She just likes to play in the water and pose for pictures!

And Will liked to crawl off of the "neat sheet" to pick up handfuls of rocks and try to eat them! He keeps me on my toes!

After about an hour and a half of fishing and playing, it started to thunder. We packed up our things and began to head out, but then we decided to drive the Cade's Cove loop. We hadn't done it in a while and thought it might be fun. It was great! The weather cleared up and we were able to see quite a bit of wild-life as well as enjoy the beauty of the mountains!

We saw several deer......

and a bunch of turkeys!

OK, that sounds kind of funny, given that the pics only have one each of a deer and a turkey....but we did see lots of them. These were just my close up shots! We saw a few bears (didn't get any pics of those) and beautiful views like this! It was a wonderful evening!

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12

Week in Review!

I'll be honest. As much as I love to blog.....I'm having a very hard time finding the time to do it! Now that we have started school, our schedule is a bit more tight and I just can't work it in. I guess the bottom line is, I need my sleep! In the past, I could stay up late at night to do my blog and then read tons of other blogs....but I treasure my sleep and it has been more important to me as of late! So, in an effort to keep my faithful readers updated about the Harper Hullabaloo, here is our week in review. We will begin with yesterday. In case you hadn't heard, there is a new coach in town. Yes, Coach Kiffin has come to Tennesse and the VOLS won their season opener. There is definitely excitement in the east Tennessee air! I am a VOL fan and can even say that although I didn't graduate from there, I spent 2 quarters on campus. That was EARLY in my college career and let's just say that I wasn't ready to handle the responsibility of college life. (That is another story for another day!) I did have fun and enjoyed several football games! SO! I still cheer for the University of Tennessee Volunteers! Yesterday I had a little photo session with the kids in their orange and white. The first one is of Will. Could he be a future Volunteer? Maybe not, but he makes a pretty cute fan if I do say so myself!

Helen striking a cheerleader pose! All three of my Volunteers!
Right outside of our neighborhood is a railroad track. The trains come through quite often throughout the day and night. Yesterday after breakfast, Sean and Beckett asked me to take them down the road and drop them off at the railroad tracks. They wanted to walk home on the tracks. It was quite an adventure and Beckett came home with all kinds of treasures! I took this pic out of the window of the van as they started their trek!
On Friday, Beckett celebrated his 1/2 birthday at Sonic with an OREO blast! I can't believe my baby boy is 1/2 way to eight years old!

LAST Friday, we loaded up and headed back to B-wood for the day to pick up Beckett after his adventure to St. Louis with my mom, dad and Aunt Meg. They had been doing a LOT of driving for the previous 3 days, so we decided to go get Beck rather than have them meet us half way in Cookeville. We visited for a while and then had lunch at Swanky's....a yummy Mexican grill where my cousin Clay is the manager. After lunch, we headed back home. Here is a picture of Aunt Meg with the kiddos! She lives in south Florida and we don't see her very often, but Beckett sure enjoyed getting to know his "traveling buddy" better during their trip and Helen latched on to her immediately and had fun loving on her during lunch! It was good to see you Aunt Meg! Hope to see you again soon!

And speaking of Beckett's trip to St. Louis, he has been wanting to blog about it, so we will try to do that soon. He took two disposable cameras and I had the pics developed onto a disc so that he could put them on his blog. We will get that done this week so he can tell all about his adventures in St. Louis! It was a fun and memorable trip! Thanks Grankaki and Granbob!