Self Portrait

We sometimes play a game of clues. We take turns describing items around the house, zoo animals, people we know to see if the other can guess what we are describing. Owen provided these clues the other day:

"My hair is blond.

I have a road named Holford.

I live in a sweet house.
(So happy he feels our house is "sweet"!)

I like ketchup!
I like to hug."

The answer?

OWEN!

Even More Boys!

Saturday night, The University of Texas played its opening game of the season. We invited a gang of alumni friends and their families over to catch the game. Sadly, all of the moms were unavoidably detained, but we had plenty of men (big and small) to go around.

While the big men soaked in some football, the little men hung out with me.

First, we decorated car sugar cookies with icing and gummy candies. Nothing like a sugar rush to start the evening off right!

Get those creative juices flowing

Clayton is so proud of his creation

Owie ate his up in record time!

Nosy did a whole lot more eating than decorating, I'm afraid!

To burn off some of that high, once it cooled off a bit, we headed outside for O's first experience with water balloons. It took me 20 minutes to painstakingly fill each of these beauties. The entire batch was smashed into smithereens in only 2 minutes!

Hayden has quite an arm on him!

It didn't take Owen long to decide he loves water balloons!

Clayton took the very last balloon home to keep for tomorrow.

Noah quickly caught on to the game!

Oliver loved this blue balloon and carried it around the whole night...until it finally met an unfortunate demise.

I love O's face in this picture (even though it is pitifully blurry). He was having a blast with his friends!

Four sweaty, tired out, funny Guys.

What a great night we had!

Bring on the Boys!

Wow, were we super excited at The House of Halpin! Oliver and Truett were coming over to play with us for the entire morning! Owie could hardly sleep the night before due to all the anticipation. I was pretty excited myself, a whole morning with a house full of happy, wonderful Boys to play with and love on. Here is how we entertained ourselves:

Noah's job was to ensure that Truett felt all of our love continuously. He did a very thorough job, hugging and hugging and hugging patient Truey.

After we played a bit, we all sat down in the kitchen for our lesson. We studied Genesis 1:1-5 about how God created light and separated it from the darkness, making day and night. The big Boys water colored, dark colors on one half of the page for night; brighter colors on the other half for daylight. Then we sprinkled our masterpieces with table salt, giving them a bit of texture. The Boys did so well, paying great attention and sharing paints and water cups willingly. It was such a sweet scene: kid's praise music from our CD player floating in from the next room, tiny Boys chit-chatting while little hands kept busy.

Baby T finger painted for the first time and made a wonderful picture all by himself!

Next, we headed to the playroom where all four Boys played tangrams. Together. Sharing and distributing them evenly. Without bickering or squabbling at all. I could hardly believe it! What wonderful playmates!

After awhile, Oliver skated on to other things.

And Truett conquered the honeybee.

Soon I suggested another organized activity: sunglasses decorating! Oliver wasn't sure if he wanted to participate. Listen in on the conversation:
Me: "Do you Boys want to do another craft?"
Owen: "YES!!"
Oliver: "No."
Owen: "If Oliver says a different word (meaning "no"), I will change my heart to a different word too, like Oliver."

Funny Boys. Oliver came around and was soon knee-deep in sunglasses decorating.

I didn't get any pictures of the actual decorating (I was way too busy peeling the paper backing off the foamies to shoot photos!), but the end results were super cute! What great Buddies!

Do you see what I see?

I learned a couple of things from our morning together.
Number one:
Chrys, you are doing a remarkable job raising two cooperative, polite, respectful boys. They were delightful! We are so blessed to call you friends. Thank you for entrusting your treasures to us!

Number two:
I think I was meant to have at least a dozen boys. I could not have enjoyed myself more! I am convinced it is my calling to raise babies, lots of babies, all gathered around my kitchen table.

A Little on the Trashy Side

I know it should bring a blush to my cheeks to admit this little known fact, but I am not above retrieving someone's trash and proudly dubbing it treasure. Not to say that I dig through strangers' trash, but if something intriguing is set out by the curb, it does pique my interest. Somewhat to Jeremy's embarrassment, I have done this on several occasions, but today I did it on behalf of my children.

My Dad and I frequently walk through a ridiculously well-to-do neighborhood about a mile from my house on our exercise circuit. Today, trash day around these parts, a brightly colored object caught my eye. Upon closer inspection and trash pile rearrangement, we uncovered a table-top Foosball table. What a find! It was practically brand new and just begging to be a part of The House of Halpin. Owie could hardly contain his excitement as Dad and I discussed the pros and cons of lugging it home. The pros (mainly being the smiles on my Boys' expectant faces) won out, so we rigged up the stroller to help us haul it home. It did not become embarrassing until the owner of the house, home from a very early morning outing, passed us in their car as we rounded the cul-de-sac, their trash obviously protruding from our stroller. Oh well...

Once we got our treasure safely in the house, the Boys and I gave it a thorough scrubbing and got down to the business of playing Foosball! And even though he may hesitate admitting it, Jeremy is a fan of the table too.

We Heart Tangrams

We use them for so many different things. This week: sorting by shape and color.

You've Never Seen a Swifter Swiffer

Cleaning Day at The House of Halpin

Teamwork at its best!

Puppeteer

Yaya gave Owie a bag of fun for his Happy Half Birthday: the makings of a set of felt animal puppets. We had so much fun assembling the first two together!

The first step was to stitch the two main body pieces of felt together with a large plastic needle. I was amazed that O seemed to know just what to do and at the extreme patience he exhibited as he wound the yarn in and out, in and out.

Arranging the body parts before we glued them on.

What's this? Oh, the trunk!

It goes right here!

Trumpeting elephant noise
(not sure how one would type out that sound phonetically!)

O used all his strength to help the glue to stick really well.

Unfortunately, all Owie's strength was not quite enough to hold that elephant together. We pulled the hot glue gun out the next day to finish the job. I know what you're thinking: A three year old and a hot glue gun...not a good combo. But O was so excited to try it, and he is a pretty responsible, level-headed kid, and I wasn't going to leave his side. He felt so grown up and proud as he placed drops of hot glue just right.

Having a chat with his newly made friend.

Now that we kind of knew what we were doing, we jumped in to make the zebra. We started with all that stitching again.

This puppet was even more fun, seeing as how we got to get out the gloppy white paint!

Owen is so proud of his craftsmanship!

Two new friends!

The puppets are turning out so cute that I am planning on displaying them in a shadow box in O's room when he is done socializing with them.

Nosy Gets Crafty

Noah has recently shown an interest in the wonderful world above the level of the kitchen table. Previously, when Owie and I would craft away, he would be content-ish to run around the living room chasing a ball or mowing the carpet. Lately though, he wants to participate more in what we are doing. So exciting! My Baby is growing up!

So I strapped the baby seat to the kitchen table and now Nosy joins right in with us on our crafting endeavors. Or at least he makes a really good attempt!

I just love having two of my very favorite people gathered around our kitchen table while we all learn new things together. It is exactly how I always dreamed it would be...

Paging Dr. Myle

I came out of the shower (seems to be O's most creative juices flow while I'm showering and Nosy naps), to find this nice little line-up. I asked Owie what game he was playing.

"My name is Dr. Myle!" as if that explained it all.

And so I sat down to watch a bit.

This is what I saw:

A lot of very vigorous stuffed animal teeth cleaning. No wonder most of them have their mouths sewn shut, if this is how they are treated! But I still wasn't completely following. "Dr. Myle? Who is Dr. Myle?"

"Like Kyle, Mommy! I am a dentist like Kyle!" OH!! That makes perfect sense! My brother-in-law, Kyle, is our wonderful family dentist, and O was pretending to be his counterpart, the very thorough dentist to all things stuffed, Dr. Myle.

My funny, imaginative Boy.