Before and After

I've had a couple of comments asking about Beckett's hair, so I thought I'd share the before and after pictures. He REALLY wanted to grow out his hair, so we have been working on it all Fall and Winter. I've mentioned before that he has a "chia head" and his hair grows straight up in the back around his crown. Once we made it through that stage and it began to lay down, it was looking pretty nice. However, I'm just not used to Beckett with all of that hair, and Sean couldn't stand it! Sean nicknamed him "Sonic the Hedgehog" because of the way his hair looked every morning when he woke up. It stood up all over! It was definitely much more difficult to manage. Sean says that whenever you have to put gel on a boy's hair and use a hair dryer, it is too long. (No, he isn't very opinionated! Ha!) Anyway, last Thursday, I took Beckett and Helen to Target to have their 7 and 4 year old pictures made. Beckett had his picture made "with hair"! We left Target and went to straight to see Will, Beckett's new barber,and let him cut it all off. I think Beckett felt a little naked for a couple of days. He wanted to keep his toboggan on all of the time but I think he is getting used to it now. I love it! He looks like himself again! And it is SO much easier to take care of! So, enjoy the before and after shots!

WITH hair......

WITH VERY LITTLE hair......

Leprechauns and Rainbows

Last night for dinner, we had loaded baked potatoes and salad. We were reading about why potatoes were so important to Ireland and about the plant disease that attacked the Irish potato crop in 1845 that eventually led to the famine. So during dinner, our doorbell rang three times and the kids answered the door to find no one there. This has happened for the last three years on St. Patrick's Day! They found a note from their friend the leprechaun and some magic powder. They were instructed to add magic moo to the magic powder and it magically makes a green yummy treat! Here is a picture of Helen after she shook up her magic powder and magic moo and another pic of her tasting the green treat!

Yum!

I made a new St. Patrick's Day treat for dessert last night. It was a rainbow cake! This was SO fun and it turned out pretty cute! Here is a picture of the sliced cake and another couple of pics of a slice of the cake, including one with a "cloud" of Cool Whip! I thought it turned out so pretty!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We love St. Patrick's Day here at the Harper Hullabaloo! Hope you all have a happy day! Beckett and Helen are waiting for their special leprechaun friend who visits every year with a little "Magic Moo" surprise! They never see him, but he always leaves a little leprechaun magic to keep them guessing!
Beckett has been taking the Stanford Achievement Test for the last two days at our umbrella school, CAK. He finished testing this afternoon at 1:00 and we went to the park with a whole crew of our friends who had been testing also! What a beautiful day and what a great way to end two successful days of testing! :)

March Madness

I guess that this is some type of rite of passage for little boys! Beckett is SO into the NCAA basketball tournament this year! He was so excited to fill out his brackets with his dad last night! I had fun watching and listening to them make their picks. Here is a little clip of a few decisions being made! Have you filled yours out?

And our new number is..........

Are you SERIOUS? We are number 12 on the waiting list for our son? GET OUT! We got a call this evening from our case manager and she said that there has been a lot of movement on the boy list from our orphanage and we have moved from number 21 last month to number 12 this month! (It has actually been less than a month!) "A lot of movement" means that there have been many referrals of boys in the last month. I don't think that it normally moves this fast, but we are thankful that it has! We just pray that it keeps up! To think that our son is almost ready to be born, may have already been born or could possibly be there in the orphanage is amazing! I promised myself that I wouldn't get caught up in the waiting list numbers, but it is exciting! We will wait and rest in the truth that God has a plan, His plan is good and this journey will continue to unfold in His perfect timing!

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Ready for the week so we can rest!

It has been a busy weekend here at the Harper Hullabaloo! It all started on Thursday night as we celebrated Beckett's birthday. He requested chili for dinner with brownie sundaes for dessert! Here is a picture of our seven year old with his brownie "cake"!
Then on Friday after we picked up the van, we headed to the Winter Jam concert in Knoxville. This was Beckett's birthday present and he had a blast. We all had a good time! He took a friend and we also met some friends there. Here is a picture of Helen wearing her Toby Mac toboggan and acting silly before the concert. They boys were having fun giving her rabbit ears!

Will, Beckett and Tristan. They "got their dance on" when Toby rocked the house!

Beckett's friend Will spent the night and we all went to Home Depot on Saturday morning to make race tracks. Beckett had been looking forward to this since last month when they made the trinket boxes. He was really wanting to make something that was more "manly"! It was fun! After that, we went to Beckett's basketball game and then played outside all afternoon!

Beckett had his first baseball practice on Sunday after church. I loved how dirty he got, so I had to take his picture. (I put it at the top because I forgot to put it here in the correct sequence of the weekend!) He wore his new Old Navy shirt from his cousins Ty and Marley to practice. It is very cool. He is playing in the machine pitch league this year and of course, Sean will be his coach. He had fun at practice, and then came home for Growth Group! I hung out with the kiddos this week and we were all glad to be outside since the time changed and the weather has been warmer! Here are a few sweet and silly faces of some of the kids in our group!

*I'm hopeful to hear from our case manager within the next day or so to give us an update on our adoption waiting list number! I've been prowling around on the Yahoo list serve for our agency, and it looks like we might have moved down the list a few numbers. We are anxious to hear about our official number! I'll update as soon as I hear! Have a great week!

Welcome Home!

Just under two months ago, (well, 7 weeks and one day to be exact) we took our Nissan Quest to the Tennessee Collision Center to be repaired. Our rental car was a Buick Lucerne and we fondly have referred to her as "The Lucerne". (pronounced with a special accent) We were beginning to wonder if we would ever get our van back. But today was the day! The van was finally finished! I won't reveal exactly how much money it cost to have the van repaired, but let's just say that we are thankful that the man who hit us from behind had excellent insurance! We are all so glad to have our van back, but I guess we will miss "The Lucerne"! We drove her hard! :) Welcome home Quest!

Beckett really wanted to get the van back yesterday so he could sing the song from the insurance commercial with the "Mini Me" guy from the Austin Powers movie.....It's my birthday, got my car fixed!" But it was a day late!