A Halpin Family Christmas

So after opening gifts and playing a bit at home, we all headed to Mimi and Gongi's house for the annual Christmas morning smorgasbord breakfast. Mimi and Gongi have decorations galore. My kids were in awe of all the beautiful Christmasy things.

Noah and Oliver did such a great job of "just looking." How tempting those tiny people must be to curious little boy fingers.

Wonderful Mimi and Gongi

Owie spent quite a bit of time hanging out with this fancy dog. It performed all sorts of tricks, including telling special secrets to O.

I know the lighting is horrible, but I love this picture with everyone gathered around O and his treasured guitar.

Later, we traveled the short distance to Jeremy's parents' home for more fun and food.

Singing "Happy Birthday to Jesus." It had already been a very long day for Noah by this point, thus the mimi (paci).

Check out what Gigi and Papa gave Owen! This Big Boy can fly on his Big Wheel!

Plasma car races. Love those things! Just for the record, Clayton beat Julianne by a hair.

Things always seem better on the other side of the fence!

Burning off some sugar at the playground.

Our new Rock Band game got lots of use!

What a wonderful Christmas full of love and family!

It Is Better to Give...

So I don't know if any of you remember last year when we started the tradition of letting each Boy carefully select a gift for his brother in order to instill in the kids the blessing of giving. It was beautiful. Truly a Hallmark moment, from the gift selection to the gift exchange. This year, unfortunately, held some character building lessons for all of us.

The entire fam headed to Toys-R-Us together one afternoon in December.

Mistake #1: Way too close to nap time.

Mistake #2: I was armed with specific coupons and a gift card that expired in a few days. Way too much pressure.

Mistake #3 was not our fault: Way too crowded! We could hardly even worm our way to the shelves to view the toys!

Mistake #4: Noah was still having quite a bit of tummy trouble from antibiotics, meaning several messy diaper changes in the car during our visit. Way too much time spent elbow deep in poo.

All this bad news added up to a very stressful shopping time. Nosy was fretful and wanted DOWN the entire time. O wanted to experiment with every toy in sight, which is the least productive way to accomplish a quick shopping trip. So while attempting to enforce the wonderfulness of giving to others and thinking of what would delight the other person, we were shouting over hundreds of other store patrons, wrestling a toddler, reining in a preschooler and attempting to spend our free money on super expensive toys. What a disaster!

Whew!

Thank goodness all was forgotten by Christmas morning! O picked out a couple of great Hot Wheels cars for Nosy, which he was thrilled with, and a toy camera so he could snap pictures with O and me. No-nos gave O a darling stuffed monkey that O absolutely adores. Both kids were very grateful and the hugs that ensued were heart-melting.

In the end, I hope they are learning about the blessedness of giving. In a year or two, we will "help" the giving be a little more sacrificial, more of an out-pouring of love than just spending Mommy and Daddy's money. But for now, I pray they are each learning the lesson at their own level. And we learned quite a few things to do differently next year!

Christmas Morning Finally Dawns

Christmas morning finally arrived! Although to us sleepy parents, the night seemed far too short. As Jeremy and I spent hours the night before assembling a certain toy for the kids, we reflected on how grown up we felt. We now have kids old enough to enjoy toys that require hours of assembly. We have arrived on the parenting front.

As soon as we saw those two faces filled with anticipation all sleepiness fled immediately. The kids had no idea what was in store for them. I wish I knew how to post a video so all could witness O's precious reaction to the train table we got for him and Nosy. As he rounded the corner of his bedroom and the table came into view, he started jumping up and down and ran to check it out. "Thanks, Guys!! A train table!! It's just what I always wanted!! I love it!" Ginormous hugs all around. Thank you, Lord, for this little Boy's grateful heart. Nosy was pretty pumped himself! The track makes sounds when a train rolls over certain areas of it. Each and every time Noah heard a noise, he'd run up to me, "Mommy! Hea tane! Hea it?" And cup his ear. He was amazed!

So we played trains for quite awhile, although the living room held more surprises. It was so special to be able to enjoy each present for a bit before moving on. The kids were in no hurry.

The next big revelation was set up in the corner. Can you guess what it was?

(Curly bed head is the best!!)
That's right! We got Wii Rock Band. For the family. We can all participate. The songs are a little old for the Boys (when does the Noggin version come out?), but we have so much fun singing and drumming and guitaring as our little band of four. The Boys play the drums all day long, even when it is not plugged in.


Next, we opened the gifts that have been waiting for us under the tree. We got such thoughtful boxes from loved ones near and far. Nosy was thrilled with his "bi, bi, bi, bi book" from Lulu and Grampa B!

Cousin Libby sent a spoon race game all the way from Oregon! Don't you know, we had to take a bit to declare a spoon race champion!

More wonderful books.


Christmas morning was such a sweet, loving time spent slowly relishing each gift and showing heartfelt appreciation to each other. Even gifts as small as the new boxes of crayons for the Boys were met with squeals of glee. We didn't have many gifts, making each one all the more special and treasured.

Christmas Eve

There is just something uniquely special about Christmas Eve: the twinkling lights, the chill in the air, the first gifts of the season, worshipping in candlelight. I almost love the Eve more than Christmas Day. This year we spent Christmas Eve with Gramps, Yaya, LouLou and Kyle. It was a night to remember!

O was over-the-top excited to finally be allowed to open a few gifts after so many days of patient waiting. At Yaya's house, we take gift opening slowly, enjoying each loved one's response and gratitude. Because the number of people is few, we can all savor the time of exchanging gifts.

Owie got so many amazing presents, but the one that stole his undying love was his brand new, big boy, real life guitar. Immediately after unwrapping it, he plunked down on the hearth and began strumming pretty tunes. This is the gift that got toted around to all other homes on Christmas Day. We've got to get the Boy some lessons!

What does it take to capture Nosy's heart? Well, it's round and bounces...and brings out the cheesy grins in abundance! He even slept with that ball Christmas Eve Night.

LouLou gets a squeeze, right before opening her most anticipated gift of the night.

LouLou and Kyle have an unconditional, enormous love for their puppy, Kirby. I made Lou a picture book with snapshots of Kirby growing through the years. She shed the appropriate tears of joy.

Yaya opened some delicious blueberry syrup, a very appropriate gift considering our "breakfast for dinner" theme.

Speaking of breakfast for dinner...

Oh did we FEAST!! We scarfed down waffles, sausage, homemade caramel rolls, scrambled eggs, homemade berry syrup, and limitless fruit. It was scrumptious! Then we were off to a candlelight service at Gramps and Yaya's church.

The service was so wonderful, especially because the Boys could remain with us and enjoy the music and message. I know we all have the true reason for the season constantly in the back of our minds, but setting aside time out of our evening to only focus on Christ and keep Him in the fore-front of our minds was invaluable. The music was beautiful, and hearing tiny O's voice raised in song, worshipping beside me moved me to tears of joy. I was a tad worried about the whole candle thing (especially after Noah slightly singed his finger on his birthday candles), but it all went off just perfectly. The kids loved helping hold the candles and the sanctuary was glorious, lit only by candlelight.

After church, we headed back to the Cody house for more food and more gifts. Those Halpin Boys: Always a helpful bunch when it comes to gift opening!

Gramps's picture book of the past few years with the Boys stole the show.

What a blessed, unforgettable night.

Mission: Impossible!

My goal?
To be caught up on blogging by Christmas.

I have failed miserably!! I will be back-blogging forever.

Oh well.

That will not stop me from thoroughly enjoying this Christmas with my family.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Celebrating Nosy: Family Style

We were so sad.

Because of all the yucky sickness in our house, we were forced to cancel Noah's Super Fabulous Two Year Old Grand Slam Baseball Birthday Bash. With the holidays so quickly upon us and a multitude of family gatherings already scheduled for the up-coming weeks, we opted not to reschedule. (Don't worry, No-nos. We'll make up for it next year!) Instead, we had many small celebrations with all the people that so love Noah. I think he may have even liked it better this way! He had so many tiny Birthday parties!

Owie guiding Nose towards his presents at Gramps and Yaya's house.

His gift opening skills were a bit rusty at this first birthday celebration.
(You may recognize the outfits. After opening presents, we headed to the Trains at Northpark.)

A birthday concert with brand new instruments. We've got rhythm, let me tell you!

On Noah's actual birthday, Gigi and Papa stopped by with something special for Nosy-Posy. He wasted no time at all breaking in his new "bi', bi', bi', bi' bue ball."

Noah got to open gifts with Clayton and Oliver over the weekend. Ally, Maddie, Mia and Will brought his gift to the cookie party. By this time, Noah was a pro at the whole gift opening business!

Thank you to everyone for helping to making Noah's birthday special, even without a party. He loved celebrating with each of you!

Annual Cousin Cookie Decorating Party

For the second year in a row, Owie, Nosy and I have hosted a Crazy Cousin Cookie Decorating Party. We bake and bake and bake until finally the much-anticipated day arrives.

This year we started off our fun by making nativity scene pictures. Got to love Oriental Trading Company!

Next, we brought out oodles of cookies, colored icing and candy decorations: M&Ms, sprinkles, mini marshmallows, Skittles, red hots.

The creative cousins got right to work!

Mia places her marshmallows just so.

Clayton and Ally look so grown up having a real conversation!

Erica and Clayton

YUMMY!

We barely had appetites after all the cookie sampling, but there was breakfast for lunch to enjoy! We feasted on pumpkin pancakes, fruit, and pigs in a blanket.

I love this tradition

Chefs' Attire

Cookie Madness!

With our Annual Cousin Cookie Decorating Party finally nearly here, the Boys and I set out to bake a zillion dozen cookies (sugar and gingerbread), enough to give eight wonderful kids an outlet for their creativity with icing.

I LOVE baking with my Boys!