African Children's Choir!

If you live in our area, please join us tomorrow night, May 1st at First Baptist Church in Lenoir City for a performance by the African Children's Choir!

 FBCLC is not our home church, but they have graciously allowed us to host three of these sweet children and their chaperone for three nights next week!

 We are looking forward to the concert and then spending time with some of the children and their leaders for a few days!

Helen is excited that we have three girls staying with us and that for once, the girls will out-number the boys in our home!

So please plan to come to FBCLC at 6:00 tomorrow evening. I know that we will all be blessed by this choir and these children!



Easter 2011

We had a wonderful Easter weekend! It all began on Thursday evening at sundown when we celebrated at our home with a Christian Seder meal. The Passover meal is known as the Seder, which means "order," because the meal and service are done in a prescribed sequence. Grankaki and Granbob wanted to teach us more about Passover which is the oldest and most important of Jewish religious festivals, commemorating God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and his creation of the Israelite people. It gave us an opportunity to celebrate the very nature of God and His gracious work in the world. Jesus adopted the Passover service as a sacramental remembrance of God’s new work of deliverance in Christ, and allows Christians to celebrate this ancient festival. All of the actions in the Seder meal have symbolic meanings. Beckett and Helen were most interested in the food and it took a while to get around to that part, but they were very patient and listened and learned well! We spent much of the day on Thursday preparing for our meal, even setting up our living room with tables low to the ground so we could recline while participating in the meal, which is how Jesus and his disciples sat during their Last Supper together. Here is a picture of the kids before as we were ready to get started. Thanks to Grankaki and Granbob for all their hard work in preparing this special night to prepare our hearts for the events of Easter weekend!

On Good Friday, we went to the Chandler's home to participate in reflective stations to again, prepare our hearts for Easter. Katie took so much thought and time preparing these stations to be kid friendly and it was a wonderful time as we moved through her home, visiting stations that allowed us to listen to songs, draw pictures, plant tender shoots, trace palm leaves, feel linen.....all things that prompted us to remember what Christ did for us. The stations were designed for the children to be self directed, but it was a sweet time for me to guide Helen through many of the stations as we visited each one together. Thanks Katie for your heart to help our children focus on the true meaning of Easter! Here is a picture of many of the kids and mommas who came to participate.

We went to an awesome Good Friday service that night at our church to see a one man performance of "The Gospel According to Peter." This very talented man portrays Simon Peter and in a little over an hour, he covered the events of Jesus' ministry on earth up through His crucifixion and resurrection. Another powerful way to prepare our hearts. Of course, we had to color Easter eggs, so here we are on Saturday evening with the annual egg-stravaganza!

Helen and Beckett as they very carefully checked their eggs. Somehow, they still managed to dye their hands, too!

 Will loved all the colors and wanted to be VERY "hands on" this year!

On Easter morning, the kids helped me make resurrection rolls. We wrapped marshmallows in our dough, then rolled them in butter and cinnamon sugar. Yummy!

We read Luke 24 verses 1-12 and then took a bite! How cool that the rolls AND THE TOMB were empty this morning! Praise the Lord!

We had a great morning at church celebrating our risen Savior! We came home and had a little photo shoot. I didn't get pics of all three kids together in their Easter finest, but managed some individual shots. Here is handsome Will.....Sunday was also his HALF birthday! Will is now 2 and 1/2 years old! He is getting SO big!

 A close up of Helen....

 Holding hands....

 Beckett came home later and I got this picture......our other handsome son!

 Then it was off to Nana and Papa's for Easter lunch and an egg hunt with cousins!. We enjoyed eating out on their screened in patio!

 Helen and Lillie

 Helen standing in the middle of Nana's beautiful irises!

 Later in the afternoon, we came home to hunt for the eggs that we had decorated!

 Will was checking out his plastic egg to see if anything was inside!

 Helen with her basket.

 Finally got a picture of all three kiddos together!

Easter 2011 was definitely a good one! Blessings to all!

Referralversary!

April 20, 2009 was a very special day here at the Harper Hullabaloo! We saw this precious face smiling at us on our computer screen for the very first time!
We were so excited to receive so many pictures of Will that day and I looked at them all so often just trying to begin to "know" him before I had the opportunity to meet him and hold him! It is amazing to look at these pictures now, because I do KNOW him and I see the huge, fun personality shining through in these pictures! I mean, check out that dimple....adorable!

What a blessing we have been given! We are so thankful that we have known our Will for two years! He brings such joy and laughter to our family and we remember our referral day with much happiness and great thankfulness to our Heavenly Father for allowing us to join Him in His amazing plan for our family! So thankful!

Museum Fun!

In the last three weeks we have visited two different museums. The first museum was the American Museum of Energy and Science. I had never been to this museum and it is an excellent resource in our area! I was motivated to go because it was free on this particular day, and we were able to check it out and decide if it was a place that we would return to! The answer is yes, we will return, but it will probably be a trip that Sean and Beckett will make together as it was a little too in depth for Helen and especially Will. The museum has a whole section about the area where Sean works and it is an great way for him to explain what he does. I tried to explain everything to the kids, but it is way over my head! Atoms and neutrons and protons.....it all starts to run together and I really don't get it! My brain just doesn't think that way! We did however, have fun with the Van de Graff Generator program and watching their hair stand up. Well, Beckett doesn't have much hair to raise, but Helen's sure did! Beckett liked feeling the shocks of the generator too. And if you want to understand the science behind why their hair stands up when they touch this with the positive and negative electron charges, etc., well, you'll just have to ask Sean! I'm so glad that he will be able to help the kids when they take chemistry and physics!

Here is Helen's hair while she was touching the generator!

This section of the museum had all kinds of models of different weapons, protective clothing and tools along with video and hands-on activities demonstrating processes, safety features and careers where Sean works. Beckett was very interested in all of this and I know that he and Sean will enjoy visiting this area when they return. Will just liked climbing on the bombs!

 Will loves cows, so this cow face cut out in the little kid's section was too cute for him!

A week or so later, we went to Brentwood for a day and night to visit Grankaki and Granbob. We got to stop in Lebanon at the chocolate store and redeem the points that they had earned on the Book Adventure web site on candy bars! I have been using this web site since Beckett was in Kindergarten for the kids to take reading comprehension tests. Helen has just started reading well since January and she had earned enough points for a candy bar of her own. You might remember this post from a few years ago when Beckett was in Kindergarten and we stopped here to redeem his points for a candy bar. My how time flies!

We got to Grankaki and Granbob's house and had lunch, then went downtown to the Frist Museum where the kids got to enjoy the ArtQuest area. There were about 30 hands on stations where kids can create prints and collages, paint and sketch, or learn about photography, architecture and the essentials of art including depth, color, light and perspective. They had so much fun that they didn't know they were learning too! Here is a picture of Beckett as he worked on a self portrait.

 Helen painting a picture! Totally in her creative element!

 Will enjoyed being an architect at the block table!

Beckett had fun creating these little movie clips. His videos always involved dinosaurs and people getting thrown around. We got to witness his creative "humor" emerging in his movies!

 Helen rolling paint on her styrofoam carving to make a print!

Helen would have stayed in this ArtQuest area all day if we had the time. She was totally in her element! Love this picture of she and Grankaki as she drew a picture.

 Another architectural masterpiece by Will!

After we walked through the current exhibits at the Frist, we headed downtown for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I hadn't been there since high school and it was a good place for dinner with the kids! Lots of yummy pasta! Just to show what kind of hams my kiddos can be, here are pictures of them "posing" on one of the red seats in the waiting area. Not sure why Beckett and Helen thought they had to have such serious looking facial expressions, but Will was rocking the smile!

It was a short, but fun trip to visit Grankaki and Granbob! Enjoyed our time with them and the fun at the Frist! Looking forward to a summer trip to the Adventure Science Center in Nashville next time we visit!

Day Without Shoes/TOMS Walk

We didn't think we would get to participate in our local TOMS one mile barefoot walk, but Beckett's game was canceled due to the fields being too wet, so we got to walk! It was a beautiful, but cool evening, and we went to the sponsoring store about an hour before the walk and enjoyed several activities.

They had a christan turntablist at the event. Have you ever heard of that? He was a disc jockey named "DJ Cookie" and the kids loved him. They danced and had a good time. I couldn't get them to hold still long enough to get a picture.....this is the best I could get!

We walked all over the shopping area around the sponsor store. It was just a mile long, but we walked in front of all of the stores and then looped back beside the busy road in this retail area. Believe it or not, "sweet foot Sean" rubbed a blister on his foot in just one mile!

At the end of the walk, everyone went under the tunnel and then helped form the tunnel for the other walkers to go under. Will LOVED this part!

Inside "Altar'd State" (the sponsor store) they had this little display with the different types of surfaces that people have to walk on without shoes. Not sure if it was meant for people to play in, but lots of kids were enjoying it, including my three! They even got to pose for the event photographer who took a picture of their tootsies in the sand.

 Will really enjoyed this "play" area and didn't want to leave.

 Just a fun self-portrait of Helen and me with our TOMS tatoos!

It was a fun event and a great opportunity to talk with our kids about what we can do to meet needs of people throughout the world who do not have shoes to wear. This is a hard concept for our kiddos to grasp, as they have been blessed with multiple pairs of shoes to wear. Thankful for the TOMS company for bringing this need to light and making such a difference with their buy one/give one program!

One Day Without Shoes

We are without shoes here at the Harper Hullabaloo today! We can't participate in our local TOMS walk this evening because Beckett has his first baseball game at the same time as our walk, but we hope to have the chance to tell some others why we are barefoot today!

Did you know that with every pair of TOMS shoes you purchase, a pair of shoes will go to a child in need? How cool is that? Millions of children grow up without shoes and at risk of serious infection and disease. Love what TOMS is doing with their One for One program! Will you join us today and take off your shoes to help raise awareness about this problem?