Nosy's John Hancock

Noah has been learning to write his name in school this week. He's doing great!

The "I Can't Believe My Baby Is FIVE" Post

Owie? Five?! I can't believe it. And yet as I spend each day with you, having little boy conversations and playing little boy games, I can see how grown up you have become. You are smart and witty and bright and challenging. You are big and wonderful.

At your five year check-up you were 36 pounds (50%) and 41.5 inches (80%). You are tall and skinny and do not seem like you would be in the 50th percentile for weight. Your ribs and hips protrude and you have very defined six pack abs. You are just too busy too be bothered to eat much. You are all lean muscle.

You love to learn, but you do not enjoy school that much. I have found that if we are studying a topic (the Olympics, Asia, coins, etc.), you will write about it, read about it, do math problems about it endlessly. It is the organized school worksheets that bore you. So we muddle through the worksheets the best we can until we get to your favorite part of school, topic study, and that is when you light up and become so enthusiastic. You are reading well and experimenting with double digit addition. It is one of my greatest joys in life to watch you learn and apply knowledge. You are one smart kiddo and keep me on my toes! I feel so privileged to be able to learn alongside you and try every day to soak in this time with you and not take one minute of it for granted.


You love all sports, especially football and soccer. You are really getting into Legos and follow the direction booklet with precision. You love to draw and color and be read too. You are quite the young musician. You love to drum and sing and play on your piano keyboard. You fill our house with happy songs! It is always fun to play pretend, and you and Nosy dream up some very involved games.


Speaking of Nosy...what a great big brother you are! You are so encouraging to him and cheer him on when he learns new things. What joy it brings me to hear you exclaim, "Great job, Nosy! You did it!" He basks in your praise. You play so great together...most of the time. It is more and more often that your nice games come to blows or friendly wrestling becomes a little more violent. I guess it is all part of having boys in the house. But you are quick to apologize and always feel remorseful when you hurt little brother.

You are so excited about the new baby too, and ask about him often. You tell me all the things you can't wait to do with him and show him.

I could not ask for a better biggest brother for our family. You are loving and caring and compassionate and think about others. You are such a great example for the smaller guys!

You are sensitive and shy and so much like me. I can see how much you want to be a part of the group, but it is a struggle for you. You are growing up in that area too though, as you make friends on your soccer team and practice talking to adults while looking in their eyes. It does not come easily to you, but I am so proud of you for working on it!

Your love for the Lord convicts me. So often when we are facing a problem in our day, your first reaction is to pray about it. You go to Him first if we are lost or need wisdom about something. What an example you set for me, O. God is always at the forefront of your mind, and talk of Him is natural for you. You soak up the Bible stories we read you and can't wait to answer the questions we ask at the end of the story. You love to sing God's praises and your very favorite song is "Amazing Grace."

I will say that the last few months have been our most challenging mother-son months yet. You are growing up, and blind obedience does not come as easily to you as it used to. You question me and talk back and try your own way...and often suffer some consequences for doing so. I am so excited to watch you growing bigger and developing a mind of your own, but I still expect you to obey. I know that you are just testing the limits, but sometimes you wear this Mommy out!

Owen, you are my treasure and such a joy. Even when we struggle, I love being around you. You make me so proud, just by being who you are. I love you, Owie.

The Designated Day of O

Owen's much-anticipated birthday, truly a holiday (no work! no school!) in our house, had finally arrived. Here's how we celebrated.

We started off with a trip to the donut store, where O ever-so-tediously selected the exactly most perfect donuts for his eating pleasure. He picked out a chocolate glazed with line sprinkles and a chocolate glazed with dot sprinkles. If only you could have witnessed the agony of narrowing the choice down to only two donuts.

He was very satisfied with his choices!

Can you guess where we headed later?

WHOO-HOO! Bowling was Owie's choice for O Day entertainment.

Owen has a never-seen-before over-handed bowling technique. The lane would shake with the thudding ball every time it landed. A few times I was afraid the ball would crack, he threw it with such enthusiasm!

Victory pose

This little stinker racked up two strikes! He was quite proud!

And look! I was there too! Bowling the lowest score of all, but so enjoying all my Guys.

After bowling O had the choice of where to eat lunch. Thankfully for this starving bunch, the deliberation did not take as long as it did at the donut store. Pasados for Mexican food it was. Over Owie's bowl of tortilla soup, he kept exclaiming, "This is the most best birthday ever!" To top the meal off he received his free soft serve ice cream cone, chocolate of course, for this Boy. It took the child over half an hour of relishing every lick to down the entire cone. (What an exercise in patience that was for Mommy and Daddy!)

After nap, we iced the triple chocolate cake we had baked earlier with, what else, chocolate fudge icing. It was almost chocolate over-load! O was thrilled.

Later in the evening, we watched a movie with dinner and enjoyed cake and gifts. I think it was O's best birthday ever. This was the first year he really anticipated his special day and planned out what he wanted to do to celebrate. And the day seemed to meet all his lofty expectations.

We love you, Owie, and celebrating YOU is extra special!

FIVE

Today Owen turns five. FIVE?! And I become the mother of a five-year-old. We both sound old!

O's super tough guy football face.

Sweet Owie

Happy Birthday, Big Boy! I pray it is the happiest of days spent celebrating the wonderfulness of YOU!

Backblogged Out the Wazoo

I am so far behind on my blog that I may never catch up. Seriously, I probably have material for 50 posts just waiting to be worked on. Since I have zero motivation to blog about things that happened a month ago, I have decided to concentrate of the present and slowly up-date the past. So if you ever read my blog and care about out-dated posts, scroll down form time to time. Hopefully you will find something new!

Invasion

We were on our way into Target when the Boys spied treasure in the parking lot. Money! A dime and a penny. Oh boy! I told them that if they pooled their money they could buy something fun from the $1 aisle in Target. They were so excited!

It was interesting to me to listen to them discuss just what to buy. One toy they would have to share? A page of stickers they could divide? A coloring poster only one could color? A bag of cookies they could split? Decisions, decisions. One thing after another was inspected and eventually put back on the shelf.

Finally (so much for a quick trip through Target!) they settled on the perfect purchase: 20 army guys, 10 khaki and 10 green. They could each have an army of 10 and play together or apart. Ingenious!

I am a little surprised the boys knew what to do with army guys. Little did I know how quickly our home would be transformed into a battle field!

Best Buddies

Scuffle

Boys will be boys. They wrestle...often. But too often it eventually turns ugly. Check out N's expression. He's got a plan in mind!

Here, Noah took O down, hard.

Time out for Nosy. Whoever said boys can't turn on the drama has never met my Nosy!

And then, just like that, all's well again. They are off to happily scuffle again!

Celebrating Dad

My Dad turned 60 this year! What a milestone! To celebrate, the fam headed out to the quite delicious Cheesecake Factory to celebrate...and gain a few pounds.

The craziest gift? My sister presented Dad with two tickets to either sky dive, go on a hot air balloon ride or tour the city in a helicopter. I can't wait to see which one Dad chooses!

My beautiful Mom and Sister

Owie lost no time digging in to the whip cream atop his cheesecake! YUM!

Sweet birthday hugs.

Nosy ordered ice cream for dessert. Remember the days when drinking melted ice cream from the bottom of your bowl was darling instead of rude? He loved every drop!

Happy, happy Birthday Dad! Having you in our day-to-day lives is one of my greatest blessings! I love you!

Strange Bedfellows

Noah has to have things just right to drift off to dreamland. He is quite specific. And the number of possessions he requires keeps growing exponentially until I am afraid he will be squeezed out of the bed himself! Right now he demands three board books, two of which must be propped open to the pages with pictures of balls on them, one football tee, the blue ring from ring toss, O's new Nerf football, the "hard" football, our book about "Hook 'Em (the UT mascot), a soft baseball, one red plastic helicopter (the one with one propeller broken off), two beanie baby bears and Jeremy's UT fleece blanket. He is very adamant about the positioning of his beloved toys and the blanket must be "'pread out" completely so that virtually no sheet is left showing at all. We start gathering bed-time belongings early around here so the arranging can be done by story time. Crazy Boy! I couldn't love him more!

Practicing Patience

Meet Pete

This guy is our new humidifier, dubbed Pete the Penguin by the two little Boys who love him best.

Little did I know when purchasing Pete to help re-humidify our house a bit after the heater ran constantly for days on end that he would provide hours of endless fun. The Boys are intrigued by him and the mysterious foggy smoke he blows.

Thanks for providing the entertainment around the House of Halpin, Pete!