Carving Pumpkins

Carving pumpkins is always an adventure. It takes a lot of time to carve 5 pumpkins. But it's always worth it after when the kids get so excited as we light up the pumpkins for the first time.

Cornbelly's

On Kyli's actual birthday we decided to go to Cornbelly's as a family. We had so much fun. It's just so nice to have us all together and be able to spend time like that as a family.

Kyli is 12!!!

I cannot believe that our little Kyli is 12. I went home to meet Kalun's family for the first time the day she came home from the hospital. She is so cute and we are sooooo soooo soooo grateful to have her be a part of our family again. We decided that this birthday needed to be a big one. It started the Saturday before her b-day. We had a party with her friends. We had planned on going to Cornbelly's, however it decided to rain and hail. So as the girls were arriving we were desperately trying to come up with a plan B. Luckily we hurried and booked a party at classic skating in Sandy. It ended up being so much fun, I'm glad it was raining and Cornbelly's didn't work out.

We ended up booking the Karoake room which was a huge hit. It was fun to watch them get up and sing. My favorite though was Haylie. She loved the stage. All the kids went to play laser tag and I stayed in the room with Haylie. She just repeatedly kept singing the happy birthday song to Kyli except that Kyli wasn't in the room. It was so adorable. Tate and Haylie love Kyli so much. It's adorable to see how much especially Haylie has grown to love Kyli, because she didn't really know her.

Then on Sunday we had a special birthday dinner at Grandma's. Then Mondeay (her actual birthday) we got up early and made her favorite breakfast, took treats to her class, and went to dinner, and then went to Cornbelly's.

It's a................

For those of you who didn't know, I am pregnant. For all of you dying to know....we decided not to find out what we are having. I am due March 9th. The kids are all getting really excited. Kyli and Haylie both want it to be a girl and Tate wants it to be a boy. I guess we'll see next March.

Brother and Sister

Tate and Haylie have been so cute lately. They have gotten to be really good buddies. Haylie always looks for Tate as soon as she gets up. Lately there are a lot of times I'll walk in a room and just find them cuddling and talking or watching TV together. I think it is adorable. I hope they will always stay good friends who watch out for each other.

Update/Fall Break/Bear Lake

So, I know I haven't posted for a while. I like posting pictures however unfortunately Kalun accidently broke our camera. So, needless to say for my birthday I just got a new camera. This year was the big 3-0! I was not very excited about this milestone. Kalun gave me a girls weekend the week before my birthday which was fun. I went to Park City for the night with some friends. It was fun. 4 of the 5 of us were pregnant though and all in the early stages so there was a lot of nausea and tiredness. However there were 3 of us that managed to stay up until 3 am. We then spent the next day shopping. It was nice to get away. That next night Kalun's step sister Kelly and 2 of her kids came to our house. This is the first time I've ever met her (Kalun and I have known each other over 12 years). She lives in Georgia and was out here, it was a lot of fun. Her son, which I guess is technically our nephew, is just a couple years younger than us and her daughter is 21 and about to get married. It has been fun getting to know them. The next weekend was my birthday and fall break. We ended up going to a cabin up at Bear Lake with our good friends the Cluffs. It was a very laid back weekend, it was nice to just lounge around and relax.
The kids had a lot of fun playing the wii and playing rock band, watching movies, and playing for hours in the hot tub turned swimming pool. We had a great view. The cabin was on the hillside overlooking the lake.


They have a little girl who is 3 months younger than Haylie named Peyton. They also have a little boy 3 months younger than Tate. Laura and I often find that we dress our kids in the same clothes. They also look a lot alike. Haylie and Peyton have the same swimsuit and looked so cute in the hot tub together.
Tate and Logan insisted on sleeping by each other. They each had their own sleeping bag and insisted on sleeping on the top bunk together. The top bunk was a twin size when the bottom bunk was a full or queen. We tried really hard to try to convince them to sleep on the bottom bunk where there was more room but of course the bottom isn't as cool as the top. Tate is a psycho sleeper, he is everywhere and he usually lays horizontally instead of vertically. We went up to check on them and of course Tate was hogging the whole bed and laying on Logan. Logan I guess didn't care because they both slept all night and never got out of bed.

Tate's First Day of Pre-school

Tate was SOOO excited to start school. He's been asking everyday since Kyli started if it was his turn to go to school. He usually is kind of shy in settings like that and doesn't like to be left so I was a little nervous he'd freak out once I dropped him off and tried to leave. However, that was not at all the case. He practically ran into the classroom sat down and got busy and would barely even give me a good bye. He loved it! When I woke up the next day he was already eating breakfast and had his backpack next to him. He got all excited when he saw me and said mom you need to hurry and get ready so I can get to school. It was so cute, but then it was so sad to tell him he only has school twice a week so he didn't have school again until the next day. Haylie on the other hand has been traumatized by the fact that she doesn't get to go to school like Tate and Kyli. That morning of Tate's first day she was so excited, she picked out her favorite shirt, got her backpack (which she stuffed full of toys), and asked for her new shoes like Tate. When I dropped Tate off, she was not happy to have to come home with me. So, I took her and we went and got suckers (one of her favorites) and spent some quality time together. However, the next time Tate had school she once again got all ready and packed her little backpack. Poor girl, it's apparently rough having to hang out with just me.

Family Pictures

Well the ones our friend took last fall turned out so good we decided to try our luck again. We went back to the same place (ampitheatre across from the Timpanogas Temple). We took like 60 of them and we still couldn't get one of all of us smiling with our eyes open, oh well what do you do. But I think they still turned our pretty good considering we don't even have a high quality camera.

Kyli's First Day of 6th Grade

It has been a long summer of trying to get Kyli enrolled in school. I have basically been stalking the school district, and they have been less than helpful. It all comes down to a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo of course. Kalun and I think it's funny that it was easier to get Kyli from Cali to Utah than it has been to get her into our public education system. As of Monday we didn't think she was going to be able to start Thursday with everyone else, but thankfully our lawyer yelled at the school district and got everything worked out (which he should have done awhile ago for what we have been paying him). Then I went to the new school right by our house and finished working it all out. Thank goodness for the two amazing receptionists there. They were amazing to help me get Kyli into a great teacher after they heard some of her story. Then the teacher came and talked to me and once he heard a little about her said he wanted to come by and meet her. So he drove over to our house later that day just so Kyli could feel more comfortable with him. It was amazing, he definitely went above and beyond. The night before she got really nervous so Kalun gave her a blessing. The morning of school she woke up really excited. She seemed to have a good day and has been meeting some new friends. Hopefully we got her off to a good start and the year will go well for her. I really can't believe she is this old. I remember meeting her the day she came home from the hospital and that seems like it just happened, yet here we are 11 years later. Now I can't wait for Tate's Preschool to start in two more weeks!

Street Party

We hosted a street party at our house the other day. It was so much fun and we had a huge turnout. We asked the fire station if they could send a fire truck. It was so cute. They showed up with a fire truck and ambulance and let the kids all look at them and showed them all the compartments and all their special tools. Tate and all the little boys that age were all engrossed. We also put a projector movie in the garage for all the kids. It as a lot of fun. However, next year I think it is someone else's turn to host!

New addition to our Family

We finally did it, we broke down and got a dog. We've debated on getting another one since Kano died 4 years ago, but just never have. Well, Kyli has always had a pet and has been begging us all summer to get one. We've kind of been looking off and on for a year. I just happened to get on KSL last Saturday and saw the cutest puppy, well that was it, a couple hours later we had a new puppy. He is a beautiful German Shephard. We named him Bowser.

Family Vacation at Flaming Gorge

The annual Harper Family vacation has come and gone. We went to Flaming Gorge as usual. I LOVE that place! We pretty much spent all day every day on the lake. I got in some great waterskiing, Kalun became a wakeboarding nut, Kyli loves tubing and couldn't get enough, and Tate and Haylie just had fun riding in the boat, sleeping in a trailer, and playing with all the cousins. We had a really good time and were sad to come home.

Life has been busy....

This summer is just flying by! I guess most of you know by now but for those who don't Kyli is officially back in Utah living with us. Kalun and I drove to California and picked her up on June 25th. We got into town the 24th and drove straight to the beach.


We picked Kyli up the next morning. We drove to Vegas where Kyli spent the night at her dad's then we got up and drove home!!!

Reunion
That same weekend we had a big reunion. We got to zipline which was a lot of fun.

4th of July
We did our fireworks on the 3rd which was fun because on the 4th Kyli and I and Kalun's sister and her daughter, and our other niece all went to the stadium of fire for girls night to see the Jonas Brothers. It was a lot of fun, I've never been to the stadium of fire. It's been so amazing having Kyli back home we are not taking one moment for granted. However, there is still a lot of legal junk to get worked out so I spend a lot of my spare time working on that.

The rest of July
Kalun's mom's husbands grandkids are in town for three weeks and are close to Kyli's age so they've been spending alot of time at our house. We made homemade cookies the other night which they thought was amazing because they've never made them from scratch. Haylie takes after me a little too much sometimes, she loves the cookie dough. We also had another family reunion and repainted and moved the rooms around in the basement to get Kyli settled.

Then this week Kalun took a day off for some family time and we went to Liberty Land. We had a lot of fun.




Then thursday we took Haylie up to Primary Children's to see a cardiologist about her murmur. After a chest x-ray and an EKG they determined she had a Stills murmur which is completely innocent and she will just grow out of it, so that was a relief to hear. Now we are on a search for a new car. We sold our Rodeo today. We feel bad Kyli is squished between 2 carseats and decided it's time to upgrade to a larger vehicle. So now the rush is on to find a new vehicle before our upcoming vacation.