I was able to capture a rare moment with Stephen, his new excavator, dump truck, and dump truck birthday cake yesterday. He had fun with family turning 4. As you can see, Elisabeth was trying her best to distract him from his pose, but he stayed with us just long enough to let the shutter close. Construction-themed birthday treats helped make it a special day!

It’s hard to believe that Elisabeth has been in school for a couple of months already. Here she is on her first day, flanked by her younger brother and sister. They may have been just as excited as she was on that morning.

If you look closely here, you can see that the kids are having a horseback ride on daddy. This is a routine thing we go through around here, though they are all getting heavy enough to make it almost impossible for me to give a ride for very long. I’ll probably miss it when I can’t do it any more.

The game goes like this: Daddy chips the ball to Stephen who tries to kick it back in mid-air. He is successful a good percentage of the time, but always makes a crazy face. The ball is so soft, it hardly warrants this kind of wince!

Stephen and I love to kick the ball around. If we can’t do it outside, we have a couple of balls and a goal we can kick around inside the house. He is a very enthusiastic soccer player, with pretty good skill for a three year old.

I haven’t posted a photo for months. As I was looking back at this archive, I realized how much the children have grown since we have been in Wisconsin. It’s time for me to start documenting that here again. It has been more difficult to accomplish since the move. More photos soon.

I wanted to find a creative way to document our first winter in Watertown. I think this slideshow captures most of our experiences so far. Merry Christmas from the Harpers!