Pumpkin Patch Birthday

Is there a better place to spend your 2nd birthday than on a farm, riding a hayride and picking a pumpkin on a beautiful east TN fall day? I think not! So, after church on Sunday we took our birthday boy to the pumpkin patch! We had his birthday party on Saturday (the day before his actual birthday) and I'll post pictures of that celebration soon. But I thought I'd post the pictures of our pumpkin patch adventure first. I can't believe he is 2!

 Farmer Will at Maple Lane Farms....ready to get on the hayride.

We got to see lots of tractors....which is HUGE for our two year old! He loves them!

 Then we rode on a hayride behind one of those wonderful tractors down a path like this to the pumpkin patch.

 Saw lots of cows.....another huge hit with Will. He is all about cows!

 Enjoyed beautiful East TN scenery!

 Then we hit the ground running. Time to find the perfect pumpkin!

 Can you tell that he is running? He had a ball in the pumpkin patch! Tripping over vines and everything!

 I really LOVE this picture!

 Loaded back on the hayride for the return trip!

 Tried to get a picture of me with the kids. That doesn't happen very often and Sean isn't patient enough to keep taking pics until everyone is looking or at least has their eyes opened! Oh well!

 Small, medium and large pumpkins!

The pumpkin patch is just the best place to take pictures! I was driving them crazy asking them to pose for so many pics! Loved this one on the steps of the hayride trailer.

This year, the farm has teamed up with a local restaurant, has a corn maze, a haunted house, live music and a couple of rides for kids. As if cows, tractors and pumpkins wasn't enough, there was  a TRAIN! Another one of Will's faves!

 I imagine that Helen was asking Will if he wanted to ride.......

 And, since it was his birthday, he got to be the train engineer!

 Loved it!

After we left the pumpkin patch, we went to the park with our growth group friends from church. It was a beautiful evening and a great way for Will to finish out his birthday; playing with all of his buddies! Love these kids! What a great group!

Happy Birthday Will! We love you!

The Lord your God is with you,

He is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

He will quiet you with his love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

Playing Catch Up!

So it has officially been 2 months since I've updated this blog. I never thought that I would fall this far behind. I've got some serious catching up to do! Not only have we got 40 something days of school under our belt, but we have managed to work in a mini-vacation. I thought I would start with some pictures from our trip to Wilderness at the Smokies at the end of September. One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we can be flexible in our schedule, so we left on Wednesday after Beckett's enrichment class and spent two nights and three full days playing at this indoor water park. Even though they had closed most of their outdoor water activities, they did open the lazy river and wave pool on Friday afternoon. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed our time outside! Here is a picture of all three kiddos in the pool!

 Helen and Will enjoying the slide in the toddler pool area!

 Will loved being in the wave pool!

Beckett absolutely LOVED this place. He decided that he would live at Wilderness at the Smokies if he could. There is no telling how many times he climbed the stairs to go down the water slides! Too fun!

I was amazed at how much time Will spent just snapping the buckles on his life jacket. This truly entertained him quite a bit which was good because he had to wait around a bunch while Sean and I rode the water slides with Beckett and Helen!

This is a picture of the tubes (from outside)  that we rode inside the water park. Yes, you go around and around that big mega-phone looking thing. It was not my favorite, but I rode it a couple of times with Sean and Beckett. I found it to be quite scary!

A picture taken from a balcony looking down into the indoor water park. That is a wave pool to the right and the stairs to the big tube slides is to the left. There is another pool on the left that dumps big buckets of water and also a surfing pool where crazy people can try to body surf. We saw many people wipe out and it had to hurt! That is Helen right in the middle and Beckett up in front of her. We were the first to arrive when it opened and we closed it down at night!

We went to Gatlinburg for dinner one night and ate at Bubba Gump's! It was yummy!

Cute place!

So, that is one of the many things we have done in the last two months! I'll try to update in a few days to catch up on some other goings on at the Harper Hullabaloo!

First Week of School!

We have had a great first week of school! I'm so proud of how well Beckett, Helen and Will have "stepped up" and moved out of summer mode into school mode! Helen has been the most motivated as this is her first year! She has been excited about all of the activities we have done and she keeps asking for more work! Beckett, although he hasn't been thrilled about starting back to school, has had a good attitude and has plowed through his assignments and done well! Will has a lot to learn! I took his two best playmates away and he has struggled a bit, but I'm confident he will get there! Here is our traditional first day of school picture! Click here if you would like to see last year's first day. I couldn't believe how much Will has changed since last year! 

Here is our sweet Kindergartener! She was so excited about all of the new charts and activites in our school room!

Beckett is in Third Grade now. He has grown so much! When I look back at the picture from the day he started KG, his head barely came up to that gold lock on the door behind him! So handsome!

No sign for Will, but he wanted a picture just like "Beh Beh" and "Ella"!

Helen working in her math book on the first day.

Our first day took a LONG time. There was so much to explain and new ways of doing things that we needed to talk about, so we didn't have snack until almost lunch time. That set our lunch back, but then I realized that lunch would run into Will's nap. So I decided to go ahead and feed him lunch by himself, but he didn't quite make it through! I was working with Helen when I realized it had gotten very quiet, so I checked on him and this is what I found!

Precious sleeping baby!

On Wednesday, Beckett had his first day of enrichment class for this year. He is in a class of 2nd-5th grade homeschool students who come together one day a week in a classroom setting for wonderful Bible, music, science, and art enrichment activities. He had a good day!

This picture makes me smile. They wanted to squeeze in together in this little desk and do their activites together. They had to be uncomfortable, but I loved that they wanted to be there working side by side with each other! :)

Some of you have asked, "What is Will going to do while you are teaching Beckett and Helen?" Well, I had tentative plans and plenty of independent activities prepared for him, but those didn't happen quite like I had planned! Hopefully he will learn....it will just take some time! Here, for instance, instead of quietly building with blocks, he decided to take out some blocks and stand in the container to get a better view of Beckett's English notebook!

Here he decided to snuggle up next to Helen while she worked and give her a little hug! So sweet! :)

This was one of the good times when he played for an extended period of time with his trains!

I thought I would end with this picture of Will copying the boy on our "Teach Me to Pray" poster. I just happened to have my camera close by when he started checking out this poster and trying to fold his hands like the boy in the picture.

So, I am wiped out after our first week of school. It has been a wonderful week. Definitely challenging~ planning and preparing to teach two kiddos, but it has been a great week and I have been blessed with several sweet reminders and confirmations about why we are homeschooling. I'm feeling very thankful this afternoon that God has led our family on this journey and that I am able to spend so much time with my children!

Last Few Weeks of Summer

Summer vacation is almost over! We are beginning school here at the Harper Hullaballoo on Monday morning! Sean painted our tiny little mud room/school room and I have been organizing and preparing for our 3rd grader and our Kindergartener! I've made the room off limits this weekend for Beckett and Helen so that some of the new decorations will be a surprise for them. Not that Beckett will care that much, but Helen is SO excited about starting school and many of the charts and posters are geared toward the activities we will be doing for Kindergarten. Anyway, stay tuned for some first day of school pics very soon! In the meantime, I need to catch up on a few activities that we have enjoyed these last couple of weeks of our summer break.

A couple of weeks ago, Beckett's friend Nathanael invited him to come to his grandparent's house to spend the day on the lake. Lucky for us, Helen, Will and I were invited to come too! Here they are on the boat getting ready to head out for some tubing time! That is Nathanael in the front with Beckett and then Wheat, River and Lake are behind them. These guys have a blast together!

After some time out on the boat, they had a blast jumping off the dock and swimming! Fun times!

There was a slide on the dock and it took Helen a long time to be ready to slide down it and land in the lake. She spent a lot of time sitting on the top of the slide, contemplating the trip down!

Fortunately, Kaelyn is SUCH a good friend and is SO patient with Helen. She held Helen's hand and jumped off the side of the dock time after time to get her "warmed up" and before long, you couldn't keep Helen off of the slide! She also got to go tubing behind the boat! Lots of firsts for Helen that day!

Will was there too! No boats or lake time for him, but he and the little guys had fun playing in the little pool and with the water hose!

When we returned from our weekend trip to Brentwood, we met up with our friends the Pridmores. Beckett and their son, Will became good friends when they lived here, but now they live in south FLA. Will's dad was on staff at our church and then left to plant a church in FLA. Beckett has missed his friend Will, so when we found out that they would be in town for a few days, we snagged Will and had him stay with us for a couple of nights! Here is a picture of Matt, Will and Beckett....the three muskateers....re-united! These guys made the most of their time together......lots of Wii time, a great afternoon on the lake, a bon-fire, smores and firecrackers. Doesn't get much better than that!

And here is my little ballerina. Helen began ballet lessons last Monday and she loved it! She wore her leotard all day and didn't think that 3:45 would EVER get here. We had a little photo session before she went to class. I've got LOTS to learn about ballet! I am quite certain that Helen will keep me informed! I mean, she is seriously INTO this! :) So happy for her!

I found this book a couple of weeks ago for $3 and I picked it up for her. I read it to her not long before we left for class and in the back of the book there was a little pocket with a ballet slipper charm bracelet. It is so cheap and will probably turn brown if it doesn't break first, but you would have thought I gave her a million dollars. She was thrilled with her gift and we have read the book over and over. Sometimes it's just the little things......

So those are just a few pictures from our last couple of weeks. We went to the dollar movie and did a few other fun "last week of summer vacation" activities this past week. It has been a fun summer! Beckett isn't quite ready for it to end because he knows that the mornings of lying around and getting to watch too much "Phineas and Ferb" are OVER! Yay for schedules! Helen is excited to be starting Kindergarten and I'm looking forward  to teaching her to read! I've got some fun activities planned for Will, as well. It's going to be a fun school year!

Weekend in Brentwood

We headed to Brentwood this past weekend for the annual AGCI picnic. All God's Children International (AGCI) is our adoption agency and we LOVE them! Two summers ago when we were in the "gathering info" stages of adoption, we attended a picnic that they hosted here in Knoxville, and it pretty much "sealed the deal" that we would use this agency to help us bring our baby home from Ethiopia! One of the great benefits of this year's picnic being in Brentwood was that we didn't have to get a hotel because it is my hometown and Granbob and Grankaki still live there!! Free lodging and good grandparent time! These first pictures are of Grankaki and Helen not long after we arrived as they were working in the quilting room. Helen wanted to sew a quilt, so she and Grankaki got to work!

They had to find just the right fabric....and Grankaki has PLENTY!

Later on Friday afternoon, Sean, Will and I went to Murfreesboro to a cook-out hosted by the Luchts while B and H went to a movie with GK and GB! Troy and Amber traveled with us to pick up our boys in ET and we feel blessed to have shared this experience with them. Troy was very active on AGCI's yahoo list serve during the time that we were on the wait list and he has done such a great job connecting and meeting so many of those families. He and Amber invited many of the AGCI families who were coming in town for the Saturday picnic to their home on Friday night. It was great to meet many of the families who I had only known through their blogs and their comments on the list serve! Here is a picture of Troy, Amber and Silas! We are praying for their family as they have just been placed on the wait list for a second time to bring home their little girl from Ethiopia! Silas is going to be a great big brother!

This was our attempt at a picture of all of our Ethiopian cuties but it just wasn't happening! It was so fun to see so many little boys and girls who were so very close in age. Most of the little ones were anywhere from 19 months to two years old. There were some older boys and girls there too! Many of these kiddos were at HH at the same time! I just loved seeing them all together and meeting their moms and dads!

Silas and Will. You've got to take a picture fast with Will because he is always on the move!

So, Sean and I went to college in Murfreesboro, and we were amazed at how much the town has grown since we were there. (Even though it has been a LONG time since we were in college!) We were surprised and delighted to see Toot's "South" as we got closer to Troy and Amber's house. Let's just say that we spent a fair amount of time at Toot's when we were in college! After we left the cook-out, we decided to drop in this new location and check it out!

It is all about the fried dill pickles at Toot's! We have ordered them in many different restaurants over the years, but we have never found any as good as Toot's! They were as good as we remembered!!

On Saturday, we headed out to the AGCI picnic. Even though the heat was miserable, it was fun visiting with so many families who have the common bond of adoption! Here is a picture of all of the families that were present! The Harpers are smack dab in the middle!

This is the picture of all the kiddos. Many of the little ones were not happy for mommas to leave them, but I tried. Beckett sure had his hands full with Will!

This is a picture of our travel buddies....Kristi and Lucy Lane and Amber and Silas. So good to see them again! I was hoping a few other families from our travel group could have made it, but they had a long way to travel to get to TN and just couldn't make it this year!

We decided to go out for Ethiopian food on Saturday evening. It was delicious and was a wonderful way to finish off our weekend of Ethiopia memories! Loved my Ayib Begomen appetizer and Shiro W'et with injera! Yummy!

Our family has been blessed in so many ways by adoption; the lessons that God has taught us, the son that God gave us and the people who we have met on this journey! It was a great weekend of celebration!