Christmas 2011 at the Harper's

Here are highlights from Christmas Eve and Christmas day!

We had our annual Christmas Eve program along with our very own Mary and Joseph.

Baby Seth starred in his first role as Baby Jesus. (We did have an unhappy angel/shepherd.)

Sunday because of church, we opened family presents after dinner around 4:30! Everyone had fun posing!

Ryan was also wearing new clothes in this picture.

Sveta loved her new table runner that Tracy made her.

Ethan loves to build with Legos. I think he got four different sets.

Sydney loves princesses and was excited to get these games.

Haily could not wait to open up more presents at Grandma's.

Sveta got excited about having a wireless router for their house!

I just love this picture of Ethan holding Seth. Little Seth pretty much slept through his first Christmas and visit to Grandma's house.

Sveta's Borscht

Sveta came over and made Borscht for us today. It is a lot of work. I grew some beets for her but they are small so we also found some finally to buy (the big ones).

The cook was reluctant to have her picture taken in the kitchen!

You have to cook meat, dice up potatoes and then shred cabbage, beets, carrots and onions.

Then you cook it with some special spice in a big pot.

Finally after a lot of tender loving care from our cook, it's ready!

It was great! Eric and the kids came over for dinner also and the children even ate some of it.

Greenhouse Broccoli and Cauliflower

I went out to harvest some of our broccoli and cauliflower from the greenhouse yesterday. These were grown in our 4" tubes hydroponically! Not bad for a harvest on December 12th!

I think I've now learned how to grow great broccoli and cauliflower. Look at the size of that one head of broccoli.

We have a bit more and the broccoli will make side shoots but I've started seeds for a spring repeat! After cutting our lettuce three times, I'm restarting our hydroponic lettuce tubs as well.

Ryan and Svetlana's wedding pictures!

Sveta has not wanted me to post any wedding pictures but I can't wait any more so figured I would at least put a few on my blog.

The wedding was just wonderful and we had a beautiful glowing bride!

Ryan and Sveta got married on 11-11-11 at the Columbia temple. The weather was great and the fall colors were pretty much at their peak.

It was great to have all of the boys and their family here and Richard and LaDonna! At times we had 25 in the home for meals but it all went pretty smoothly and like Caprise said the only meltdown's were the two year olds a couple of times!

I love this picture in the trees!

Sveta bent down and with her puffy dress she looks like she's sitting on a clowd!

Fun and Yum!!!!

We had our second annual chocolate dipping class Saturday at Susan Brown's.

What fun everyone had creating some wonderful Christmas chocolates!

We did peanut butter cups as well as fudge dipped in chocolate (is that enough chocolate for you?)!


Just look at all of that chocolate!

Between the stirring of chocolate with our fingers, the visiting and chatting was wonderful.

We did try to help clean up and it wasn't too bad after licking the bowls!

Seth Michael Harper

Our new little Seth Michael Harper was born November 30, 2011 at 6:10 pm to Eric and Tracy Harper. He is a welcome addition to the family.

This is Sveta's first chance to every hold a baby! (I think she liked it.)

He was a little more than three weeks early but weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and is 19 inches long.

One time when I had our boys at home, a young neighbor gal asked me how it was possible to have enough love for four (at the time) boys! I was amazed. Seth is #10 for grandchildren and there is an abundance of love for all of them!

His older brother and two little sisters are so excited to welcome him into the family. Sydney asked Eric if he knew who they were and then proceeded to say, "Seth, I'm your big sister Sydney!"

Sveta's first visit to the temple

I have been absent blogging lately because of the wedding and Sveta doesn't want me to share pictures yet until she has them fixed but I can share her first visit to the temple to get her endowments!

It was a beautiful day to be at the temple with family and friends.

The Oscarson's who were missionaries in Volgagrade and Olga, her friend from there came for the wedding. It was wonderful having them there.

The trees were just beautiful.

We are also blessed to have LaDonna and Richard come. All in all, the week went great and everyone pitched in.

Growing lettuce

One of the things we love growing in our greenhouse is lettuce. It's wonderful to go and cut a head or some leaves and then come in and fix a salad.

We have some soft heads like butter crunch and Simpson and then some lettuce mixes.

We grow them in an easy hydroponic way by putting water and organic liquid fertilizer in a plastic containers that fit under the bed. We added some aeration that you get for aquariums (but you can use a whisk by hand).

You plant some seeds in some small cups that have holes in the bottom. Then you cut holes in some Styrofoam and put the cups in the holes. The roots grow out the bottom.

A short trip to North Carolina

Sveta went with me to get some apples up in North Carolina. We stopped at the welcome center for her to see some things inside and she feel in love with the burning bush! She needed a close up!

After getting the apples, we stopped at another farm where they made some cute animals.

Here are the horses. She also loved the huge pumpkins. She's excited to learn about Halloween and we got a small pumpkin to carve a jack-o-lantern.

September catch up!

I have been going to blog several times this month but it's been a hectic month and "stuff" got in the way so I'm playing catch up.

Our "princess Haily" turned 4 on September 14. They have a wonderful Grandma Fuller who makes various princess play dresses for them to use. This one is a little big but Grandma Fuller can make it right. How can I compete with princess dresses! I am giving Sydney piano lessons.

It doesn't matter what size box we happen to get in the mail, big boy, our cat has to use it as a nap.

Once the heat let up some, we've had a final push from the garden with some extra produce. Our peppers have outdone themselves and I have made the most delicious pepper relish.

I have been planting various types of baby greens in the greenhouse and picked this yesterday! It made the best salad!

That catches me up for the highlights!

Let the sun shine! We are solar!!!

We are hooked up and are now solar! They got everything tested and hooked up on Saturday. It didn't take any time at all for the batteries to be charged and going. Even today (Monday) with rain, it is still charging. We are still testing capabilities but during the day, except for the air conditioning, we are running solar!

Now we have to start the process to be hooked into Duke Energy and let them pay us for unused power!

Budding artists!

Sydney and Haily love art. (They did not get that gene from me!) I found some water colors and one fun thing they love to do at Grandmas is get paper and go out on the front porch to paint beautiful pictures! They get some on the porch but I don't care, the rain washes it off and they love it!