Seven Years Have Flown By!

My baby boy turned 7 years old today! I just can't believe how quickly time flies by these days! Beckett has brought such happiness and joy to our lives and I am so blessed to be his mom. He is such a fun boy, a super son and a wonderful big brother! We love you Beckett and we look forward to all that God has planned for your life!

Here is a picture of Beckett on his first birthday!

Here is a picture this morning......his seventh birthday!
I'm always looking for a bargain! I found out that Chic-fil-A was offering free chicken biscuits this morning if you brought in a "box tops for education" box top. Well, I save those and give them to our umbrella school, CAK. But today, I took a zip-loc bag full and got us each a free biscuit to celebrate Beckett's birthday! I "donated" the rest of the box tops, and they let the next few people in line behind me get free biscuits with all of my extra box tops! They were happy! We enjoyed our biscuits and then Beckett and Helen played for a few minutes on the playground before we left!

Beckett's gift this year is to attend the Winter Jam concert tomorrow night which is featuring his favorite artist, Toby Mac! He has posted a little bit about it on his blog, The Slam and he will blog more about his birthday in the next few days!

Happy Birthday Beckett! We love you!

Road Trip!

We had an appointment in Atlanta at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office last Thursday morning to have more fingerprints taken. This was one of the final steps that we had to take for our international adoption. We decided to drive down on Wednesday night so we wouldn't have to leave early and be concerned about morning traffic in Atlanta. The kids were fired up to get to stay in a hotel! (We don't get out much! Ha! :) Anyway, we stayed at a great Courtyard Marriott and got a nice discount! (Thanks Windy!) On Thursday morning, we found the US CIS office and our appointment went smoothly. We were only 3 miles from IKEA, so I had to stop there and shop for a while! The kids requested The Varsity for lunch, so that was our next stop! We had been there about a year ago with Susi, so they were looking forward to the "naked" dogs and fries! After that, we shopped around a little more in Atlanta, then headed back up to Chattanooga where we stopped to visit and eat dinner with Josh, Kathy, Ty and Marley. We had a great visit with them and then headed back to LC around 8:00 that night! Here are a few pictures from our little vacation! This first one is of Beckett and Helen trying out the bed in the hotel room!

Pictures from IKEA! Helen loved trying out every bed! She loved this kid-sized bed with the netting all around it! Another pic that was taken in front of The Varsity after lunch!

This is a picture of the kids with their cousin, Ty. They had a great time playing outside on a warm afternoon!

The "gulls". Marley and Helen!

Today is Ash Wednesday

As I had been thinking about what to do this Lenten season to help me really focus on Christ, I didn't have to think long before I knew that I needed to "give up" diet coke. I LOVE my diet coke! I've never been a coffee drinker, but I must admit that I've become addicted to diet coke! I drink one with my breakfast, lunch and dinner. My most recent favorite way to enjoy a diet coke? A 32 ounce styrofoam cup from Weigels filled to the brim with my favorite beverage. My love for diet coke has become a problem. Not only is it not a great choice for my health, but it is a pretty rotten example for me to be setting for my kids! So, as I thought about what I could give up or "sacrifice" during Lent, I thought giving up diet coke would really be quite tough for me and that I could then use those "hard times" to reflect on Christ and his sacrifice for me.

I am so lame! I am so spoiled! I am so blessed! I take water for granted. I leave it running while I brush my teeth, I take long hot showers, I've been known to run the dishwasher when it isn't completely full and I definitely do not drink enough water.

As I spent some time on-line looking for ways for our family to worship during this season of Lent, I came across this challenge from Living Water International. I have decided to take the money that I would have spent on diet cokes for the next 6 weeks and use it to help provide clean drinking water for someone who will appreciate it. My prayer is that I will become more thankful for the seemingly small things such as clean, abundant water and that I will become more externally focused as I look for ways to honor my Heavenly Father. I was so excited to be challenged to make my giving up diet cokes not about me, but about others! Check out the challenge and see if it might be something you might like to commit to this Lenten season! I love how one of the girls in the video said, "Sacrifice a little of our abundance so that others can have life." This organization is not just providing clean water, but they are offering The Living Water that gives us all life!

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." John 7:38

The Countdown Begins!

We got a call yesterday afternoon that we were not expecting to receive so soon! Our case manager from AGCI called to say that our dossier paperwork was perfect and that we have been placed on the waiting list for our baby boy! We are #21! She said to expect anywhere from 4 to 6 months for our referral and then after that, another 3 to 5 months to finish up the adoption. This means that once we have accepted the referral of our son, we will have to wait for more paperwork and court dates, etc. before we can travel to Ethiopia to bring him home! We are a little overwhelmed! We are humbled that God has led us on this journey! We are overjoyed to think that we get to add another child to our family! We are also full of many other emotions that we haven't really identified yet! But we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are blessed!

We will update our waiting list numbers whenever we are notified. She said to expect a call next month with any progress down the list! Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!

Finally Blogging about Baby Harper!

When we mailed our Christmas cards this year, I was excited to include a letter letting many of our friends and family know about our good news! In case you read our blog and you haven't heard the latest from the Harpers.....here it is! We are adding to our family through an international adoption! We are adopting a son from Ethiopia! I have not blogged about the process until now because there really hasn't been a lot to tell. I could have bored you with the ins and outs of paper-chasing: homestudy interviews, doctor visits, adoption education courses, fingerprints, criminal background checks, notarizing documents, state-certifying documents and so on, but that isn't very exciting. HOWEVER...I am so happy to let you all know that our homestudy has FINALLY been approved (after 3 weeks of "issues" with our case manager) and our dossier (international paperwork) has finally been mailed to our adoption agency in Oregon! If all goes well, we will be on the official "waiting list" for our son within the next 5 to 7 days! Here is a picture of the dossier paperwork that has taken us 3 months to compile!

This is a picture of the check-list for all of the documents and one file folder full of the original documents as well as two more file folders with copies of everything! I went over that checklist SO MANY times! I'm just praying that it has all been done correctly and that there will be no mistakes!
On Thursday afternoon, Beckett, Helen and I went to UPS to mail those three file folders to AGCI (All God's Children International) which is our adoption agency in Oregon! I'm tracking the package and expect it to arrive in Oregon on Monday morning! We have been talking to Beckett and Helen about all of this from the beginning and when I gave them the package of paperwork to pose for a picture, Helen said, "We are holding our baby brother!" And in a way, she is right! That package of paperwork represents a lot of work that was necessary for us to begin this journey to bring him home to his forever family!
We are so glad to have this part of the process behind us! I'm excited to begin to share with you all how God has been moving in our lives and in our hearts about adoption and His love for orphans! I won't make this a mega-post, but I did want to go ahead and share this huge step in our journey! I'll share more soon! Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Valentine Party!

We had our Homeschool Family Connection Valentine party today and I think that everyone had a great time! We had a wonderful turn out for this new group that we just started this past September! We meet once a month as parents to talk about specific homeschool topics and to support one another. We are trying to plan more opportunities for our children to get together, so this month we planned a Valentine party! We started at 11:30 with pizza! Yum!

Then each child decorated a bag. They all brought valentines to give to their friends, so after the bags were decorated, they delivered their valentines! They love to see what their friends gave them! So sweet!

Each child got a box of conversation hearts and they sorted and graphed their hearts! Here is Helen lining up her hearts!

Then we headed to the kitchen to decorate heart shaped sugar cookies! Lots of icing and sprinkles!
More cookie decorating and a "cake walk" game where each child won a pink rice crispie treat!

Beckett with Lake and Wheat!

Home Depot!

We took the kids to the Home Depot workshop last Saturday! for a few more pictures, check out Beckett's blog, "The Slam"!