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!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Diggin' Elmo

Within the last couple of weeks, Will has become interested in Elmo! He gets all excited when he sees Elmo and points and says all kinds of stuff that we can't understand! Beckett used to love Elmo as well, so we have quite a few books and Elmo stuffed animals around the house. I caught this sweet moment the other day and had to take a picture. Will loves to get a book, hand it to you and then turn around and back up into your lap so you will read it to him. He was excited to be looking at this Elmo book with his bro! (Please excuse Beckett's "holy" sleep pants!) These are his favorite soft sleep pants and he does not care one bit that the knees are totally worn out of them!

Looking at the cover!

Tickling Elmo's tummy!
Had to share this cute one too! I took this a few days ago when Will fell asleep in his high chair. Poor guy. He had not had much of a nap that day and I got a phone call that went extra long. It looks like he was going for a peach, and just gave up!

Mountain Cabin Weekend

So, this was "home" for the weekend! Rough, huh? We had a great time these last four days with Sean's side of the family in the mountains. Nana and Papa rented a cabin for their three children and their families so that we could spend some good family time together! It was a great weekend for it because we had SNOW! It was so beautiful and the kids had a great time playing together!

Here is a picture of all seven grandkids in the snow!
If we weren't outside playing in snow, we were eating or doing a lot of this.......

Or this! How fun to be in the hot tub while it was snowing!

I'm not sure this very loaded down sled went very far!

This was the view from the back porch yesterday afternoon!

Beautiful!

Oh Lord, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your possesions! Psalm 104:24

Cheap Entertainment

Just a quick post with some fun pics of Will's new favorite thing to do. We re-arranged our living room before Christmas so we could place our Christmas tree in front of the big window. Now that the tree is gone, I kind of like this space with nothing in it. So does Will! This is his new game........

1. Go hide behind the curtains.

2. Wait for someone to ask, "Where is Will?"

3. Then come bursting out from behind the curtains with squeals of delight.

4. Enjoy all of the laughter from your audience.

Repeat.

MANY times.

This can seriously go on for a LONG time and provides tons of laughter for everyone!

Will T. brings SO much joy to our family! What fun!

Helen's Big Birthday Post

So this is going to be a big post with lots of pictures, but turning 5 is a big deal, so we wanted to remember Helen's special celebrations! Her birthday was last Thursday and she was fortunate enough to have both sets of her grandparents join us that night for birthday dinner! Nana, Papa, Grankaki and Granbob all came over for pizza and brownie sundaes! Nana brought a bunch of clothes for Helen from her older cousin Lillie and she had fun trying them all on and giving us a fashion show. She spent most of the evening in Lillie's old gymnastics leotards! Here she is with her birthday gifts!

Posing in her birthday crown that she got at school that day!
Helen wanted brownie sundaes instead of a birthday cake! Here she is with the pan of brownies! (Notice the leotard change!)

We don't do big birthday parties each year, but #5 is a biggie around here, so we let the kids pick a special place to have a friend party for their fifth birthday! Helen chose The Cupcakery and it was a great party. We were able to do the party on the Monday morning after her birthday. The ONLY problem with her party was that space was limited and she could only invite 12 friends! She wanted EVERYONE to come! It was so hard for her to pick which friends to invite! She told everyone that she saw to please come to her party! :) Here is a picture of Helen with her balloons before her guests arrived! Check out all of those yummy cupcakes behind her! Oh their cupcakes are delicious!

Helen's cousin Lillie had the perfect shirt for the party!

Here is the table with all of the kiddos getting ready to decorate their aprons!

Lots of beautiful aprons were designed!

Helen getting some help putting on her apron!

After Helen opened her gifts, the ladies at the Cupcakery gave the kids some instructions about putting the icing on their cupcakes.

Helen's cousin Connor getting ready to load up his cupcake with chocolate icing!

The birthday girl with her cupcake creation!

We added five candles to Helen's cupcake and sang the happy birthday song to her!

Some of the girls were trying to sneak a peek at the lady in the kitchen who was decorating cupcakes! They were having so much fun! I don't think they realized that the window was there so that you could look in if you wanted to!

Well, Helen has sufficiently celebrated her fifth birthday! We successfully spread the celebrating out over several days and I think she fully enjoyed herself! We are so blessed by her precious life and love this little girl so much! I love being Helen's mommy!