Happy Half Birthday!

March 24th 2010 is Will's "half" birthday. If you've read our blog much, then you know that we celebrate half birthdays here at the Harper Hullabaloo! Now, when you are 1 and 1/2 you don't really "get" that it is your half birthday; but believe me, the other two really look forward to when they can say that they are (whatever age) and A HALF! So, I thought I would post a picture that I took today when we got home from BSF, so you can see how much he has grown since October 24th. You can check out his first birthday post here. And here is Will this morning.....all smiles!
We usually celebrate half birthdays with a trip to get some ice cream, but we are having company for dinner tonight and probably won't have a chance to do that. SO! I'm planning to let Will celebrate by giving him a chance to "do over" his first birthday cake experience! I'm going to give him a cupcake and see if he will dig in and get it all over himself! He did not enjoy his personal birthday cake AT ALL! I hope he will enjoy his cupcake tonight! I'll keep you posted!

We love you Will! You are a precious gift from God and we praise Him for the blessing that you are to our family!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! I hope that you have all had a great day! We have had a very busy day, but it has been lots of fun!

Our morning began with green eggs and ham for breakfast. Not to mention some green milk as well. Some were happy about it.......
Some were not so sure. Will usually LOVES eggs, but he would not touch the green ones! Fortunately, the biscuits were not green! :)
After breakfast, Will, Helen and I went to BSF and Beckett went to enrichment class. After BSF, we picked Beckett up from class a bit early and headed to church where we were having our Homeschool Family Connection St. Patrick's Day party! Here is a picture of Beckett with his buddy Matt. Check out Beckett's green shirt! It is perfect for him! He would eat pizza every day and every meal, so a pizza food pyramid would be right up his alley!
At the party, we learned all about Ireland's favorite patron saint, St. Patrick; and then we talked about many of the other symbols that are associated with St. Patrick's day. This is a picture of the kids playing a game called "Leprechaun, leprechaun where's your gold?" Helen was the leprechaun and someone was stealing her gold. She had to figure out who had taken her gold coins.
A little later, the kids sorted and graphed Lucky Charms marshmallows! A yummy math activity!

Just a couple of my cutie leprechauns!

Beckett back at the refreshment table going for seconds! Lots of green goodies and drinks to enjoy!

Here is a picture of the whole group! It was a fun afternoon!

I'm serving corned beef and cabbage for dinner. Hope it goes over better than the green eggs!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Nursemaid's Elbow.....What?

This evening we had to take a trip to the Emergency Room with Will. I was quite certain that something in his arm was broken. Sean had come home from work a little early and we were watching UT play in the SEC tournament. All three kiddos were climbing all over him and just playing around. Will rolled over Sean and onto the floor, and as he flipped, I thought I heard a pop and then Will was crying. Best we could tell, his arm had gotten pinned under him as he rolled over and something wasn't right. He was favoring his left arm and wouldn't use it to do anything. Will usually hops up from a little spill like that and goes right back to playing, so when he was crying and not wanting to play, we knew something was wrong. It happened right about the time our pediatrician's office closed, so I took him to the ER. Let me just say, I LOVE our Children's Hospital! This was the best, most efficient and quickest trip EVER! First of all....does this look like a child who is hurting????
Well, no it doesn't! That is because after a quick evaluation by the doctor, he determined that Will probably had "Nursemaids Elbow"! Ever heard of it? No? Me either! So, the doctor made two quick turns of Will's elbow and we heard a little pop sound and Will was back to new in no time. Seriously, he was using his hand and arm within one minute! That doctor is a genius I tell you! He was quite humble and said that he sees this quite often with children under five. Nursemaids Elbow is an injury to the ligament that keeps the two bones of the lower arm in place. Once they turn five, these ligaments get harder and they don't see this same type injury anymore. Will had evidently popped it out of place when he rolled over Sean and it had caused the injury and the pain.

I don't think they had finished getting us totally checked in to the ER before it was time to process us out of the ER, so Will and I had to wait in the room for a while after he was all better. So, of course, I had to take a few pics! This was clearly not the outcome that I expected! I had dressed Will in a button down shirt because I thought it was the easiest to get on him without moving his arm too much and I also thought we would be coming home with a splint of some type on his arm! We are just so thankful that his arm was not broken! Never a dull moment at the Harper Hullabaloo! :)

8 Years Ago......

On March 5th, 2002, we welcomed our 9 pound, 2 ounce baby boy into the world! It is hard to believe that 8 years have passed! Here is Beckett posing for my annual birthday picture by the flag! You can check him out here (last year), when I put his first b-day pic and his seventh b-day pic on the blog! I just love looking back at pictures like this! They just grow up so fast! Isn't he handsome??
So tonight, we had both sets of grandparents, two cousins and three buddies join us for birthday supper. Papa John's pizza, salads and brownie sundaes! My kids haven't wanted cakes for the last couple of years....so all I have to do is prepare a pan of brownies, add some vanilla ice cream and some hot chocolate sauce and they are happy! Here is a silly picture of all of the kids at supper tonight!

Here is a picture of Helen and Lille. After supper, they went home with Nana and Papa to spend the night while the boys all stayed here for a sleepover.

And I just had to add this one because it is so sweet. Will loves to read books and he and Grankaki spent quite a bit of time with this Grover book tonight!

This last Wednesday, Will, Helen and I went to Beckett's enrichment class that he attends once a week and brought a birthday cookie for him to share with his classmates! Here they are in front of the door to his classroom.

Here is a picture of one of the cookies we took. I actually took two to feed all of the kiddos. I got it at Krogers and although Beckett said it tasted really good, I was disappointed in the design and the handwriting. I guess it is the teacher in me....but I wish they would have handed me the bag of icing. I could have done a better job than that! Beckett even noticed that it was kind of sloppy and he usually doesn't say a word about that kind of thing! After he looked at it, we were walking to the front of the store to pay for it and he told me that he thought we might ought to talk with a manager about it! Ha!

Here he is with his classmates. This is a group of 2nd-5th graders and Beckett has really enjoyed his time in this class this year. He has made many friends and had some wonderful lessons in Science, History and Art Appreciation!

And last, but not least, here was the life of the party. Mr. Will had himself quite a large time in the classroom. He enjoyed roaming around and greeting all the kids. He also enjoyed pretending to type on the keyboard at one of the computers! He just looks too big! He will be turning 8 before I know it! Yikes!

Boy Time

We have been quite busy these last two weeks, but I really haven't taken many pictures. I just take a few here and there. So when I downloaded these last pictures, I realized that the majority of them were of Beckett and Will doing boy stuff! This first picture is of Beckett playing Outdoor Adventure on the Wii and Will just loves to sit on the mat while Beckett plays. Too cute!
Beckett LOVED Elmo when he was little. Helen never cared a thing about Elmo, Sesame Street or really anything on TV. Now Will is really enjoying Elmo these days. He gets so excited if he sees a picture of Elmo and he will sit and watch Sesame Street as long as Elmo is on the screen. If Elmo goes away, Will loses interest quickly!

Another thing that Beckett and Will have in common is trains! It has been a while since we have had the Brio trains out, but Beckett started building train tracks for Will and they both are loving it. Of course, part of what Will enjoys is tearing up the tracks so that is why Beckett is holding him in this picture. The engine runs on a little AAA battery and they enjoy watching the train go around the track!

Just a few pictures from this morning. Yes, it is March 2nd and it has been snowing all morning. It is a thick, wet snow. We bundled up and went out for a bit to enjoy what will hopefully be the last snow of this winter! We are ready for warm weather!

Will wasn't too sure about being in this big box and getting ready to slide down the hill. Yes, that box says baseball. We picked up all of Coach Harper's equipment at Dick's Sporting Goods last Saturday and the Marlins (Beckett's team this year) had their first practice last Sunday afternoon when the temperature was 40 degrees! Crazy!

Our little snow ewok. Will is wearing a little snow suit that my aunt gave him for Christmas and we think he looks like an ewok from Star Wars! So sweet!

Welcome Home Anna

Last Friday, we had the opportunity to go back to the airport and welcome home a new baby girl from Ethiopia! We haven't been back to the airport since we came home with Will last June and it brought back many happy memories of our welcome home celebration! There have been at least four families that I know of that have brought home their children from Ethiopia since we have been home with Will, but this is the first airport celebration that we have been able to attend! It was so much fun! Our friend, Julie, who we go to church with, flew in last Friday afternoon with her baby Anna! I think I counted 13 Ethiopian/American cuties there with their families to meet Anna. Julie also had many friends from her small group at church and a lot of the ladies that she works with who all came out to welcome them home!

Here is a picture of the crowd of friends and family waiting to welcome them home! Of course, Beckett and Helen ended up being front and center in the picture and the flash seemed to have hi-lighted them, but look past them at the wonderful crowd that was there!

I loved this sign that someone had made. It was the first picture I had seen of Julie and Anna together! She had sent it to some of her family and friends from the day that she met Anna and they had made the cutest poster with the picture! I was so excited to see that picture!
The arrival! They were welcomed like rock stars to cheers from the crowd! So fun!

Julie looked beautiful after the long trip home from Ethiopia! Motherhood looks good on this gal! She was so sweet to visit with everyone and let us all get our first looks at precious baby Anna!

This is the best close-up that I have of Anna.

To check in on Miss Anna and her sweet mommy Julie, go visit her blog! And check out this link with a great video from their welcome home celebration! You can see many of the sweet Ethiopian/American cuties from our area in this beautiful video that was created by one of our local mommas who has a little boy from Ethiopia! You might also see a few Harpers! :)

More. Please. Thank-You!

Just a quick video to show Will's signing skills! OK, so maybe they aren't perfect, but it's fun to try! I did this video at breakfast this morning. First he shows the sign for more. Then he asks please, and finally he says thank you! He is a little confused with the sign for thank you. He starts on the side of his head instead of his mouth, but we are getting there! Enjoy!

Check out Beckett's blog, "The Slam"! I finally got around to letting him post an update this morning! It's been a while!