Blustery Day

It was the absolute windiest day I have ever experienced, but we braved the gale force gusts and met Gigi and Papa at the Easter egg hunt hosted by the Firewheel Moms Group. Despite the fact that everything not nailed down was being blown about, we had a great time!

The petting zoo was pretty crowded, but Jeremy snagged a baby chick for the boys to pet.

The only reason O braved exposure to this Easter bunny was the lure of candy. Not even Twix bars was enough incentive for Noah to pose for a picture.

A very wind-blown group.

Nosy did great in his first egg hunt of the season.

Although there were yummy smelling hot dogs to be had, our group decided to avoid the wind and enjoyed a great dinner at Brooklyn's. Many more Easter festivities ahead!

Brownie Batter

It's great when Mommy/Son baking time just happens to coincide with a low blood sugar. Nosy gets to lick the bowl!!

Easter Chicks

Thanks to a great friend, we found out that Roach Feed & Seed in Garland had received their shipment of Easter chicks and ducklings. Having never been there before, we were really excited to check it out! We headed out on our adventure right after school.

Nosy inspecting the peeping little chicks. They were so tiny, yellow and light orange, all running around their caged area. The Boys laughed and laughed at how silly they were.

I finally mustered up the courage to pick up one of the bigger chicks. The poor baby peeped and peeped and peeped, showing much distress, so much so that the store clerk headed our way and asked me to return the chick to its home. She suggested we stick to holding the tinier chicks who didn't mind being handled quite so much. Oops! I spied a tiny chick that I could get to easily and picked her up. She was much more content to be held, never making a sound.

It was not long before Owie got brave enough to try to hold her. He loved holding the fluffy chick and did a great job, until...

Yes it did. It pooped on him. GROSS! He was quite offended and would only pat the chicks after that.

This is as close as Nosy would get. He held quite a few conversations with the chicks, but he refused to touch one.

We stayed over an hour, playing with this chick and that. We had so much fun and felt so rural!

Finally, right before we headed out, Noah very timidly patted a chick on the behind as we said good-bye.

When we got home, Owen drew this picture in his nature journal to commemorate the occasion. I love that he even drew the red watering device and their feeders. He is experimenting a lot more with sounding out words on his own. (He is such a perfectionist that usually he will not write a word unless he checks with me first to ensure it is spelled right.)

I will mark this down as a new Spring tradition for the House of Halpin!

We All Scream

for free ice cream day at Ben & Jerry's. What a fun tradition!

Beautiful Babies

Mallory

Elliot

And some pretty great Big Boys for good measure!

Spring?

We welcomed Spring with seven inches of fluffy snow on the ground! Texas weather never ceases to surprise me.

Going to the Farm

Hooray for Spring Break! Fun times with great friends and no one has to miss out due to school. One day we met our besties at Owen's Farm for some springtime fun. Owen's Farm always brings back such fond memories of my childhood, as I spent many hours there with family and friends through the years, back in the good ol' days when it was free. Sadly, it is free no longer, but it's still fun!

Learning how to feed the goats.

O was so brave and did not hesitate at all!

Soon he had quite a fan club.

Nosy was more timid. He really wanted to feed this baby goat he called "Tiny," but the bigger, super aggressive goats would always push Tiny out of the way before he got even a nibble. Sweet Owie lured the big goats to the other side of the fence, allowing Noah to have some time feeding Tiny.

Funny O. He doled out one grain of food at a time so that it would last as looooong as possible. He had goat food in his cup twice as long as the rest of us!

These five are getting so big!

The hay ride was a highlight of the morning.

All too soon we had seen all there was to see at Owen's Farm. We drove just around the corner to the park I grew up playing in.

I love this picture DeAnn snapped of Grant! Check out that dimple!!

Nosy picked piles and piles of flowers for me. How loved am I!

The stick game. Not at all sure exactly what all it entailed, but it kept the Boys occupied for about an hour! Boys and their sticks...

His Ways

"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'"

Isaiah 55:8-9

I admit I am a control freak. I like to have the next 10 years of my life planned out very specifically so I know what to expect. Of course, I should have learned with the passage of time that very rarely does my life turn out the way I planned. And God has proven over and over that His ways are much better than my best-laid plans. You would think I would have learned this lesson well by now, especially as the Lord has proven Himself to be so faithful and good in my life. And yet here I am struggling with the same old thing again. As Jeremy and I pray through some decisions we are making for the future, decisions that may result in something far different and scarier to me than the plans I had in mind, may I remember these verses and the fact that God's ways are always the best ways. I can trust His heart!

Obsession

Oh the wardrobe difficulties I have been having with this Guy! The only outfits acceptable to Nosy these days are soccer clothes: a shirt with some sort of soccer ball on it and athletic shorts. When it is too cold for shorts, he wears them under his pants. And when it's pajama time, he wears soccer shorts over his pj bottoms. He is truly obsessed! In this picture, he is sporting his new favorite soccer outfit. "This is my koccer kirt and koccer korts from Carter's!" he tells everyone he meets. Love this crazy Boy! I just hope hope his fashion choices expand a bit over the next few weeks!

Soccer Game Numero Dos

...was absolutely frigid. I can barely remember the game because I was attempting to keep my blood circulating so I didn't freeze to death. Poor, poor soccer players. At least they ran around a lot to keep warm. Owie did not seem to notice how cold it was. On a super fun note: Julianne, Rob and the kids all showed up, along with Yaya and Gigi, to cheer O on. He was so excited to have a fan club!

Our superstar has the best corner kick!

Coach Jeremy and the Green Hornets discuss strategy.

Windy at the Arbo

We couldn't let our rainy day at the Arbo be our only Dallas Blooms experience! Mom and I headed back later in the week to see the sights. Little did we know that the wind was gusting at 35 chilly miles per hour! We almost blew away, but we still had so much fun!

Owie and Yaya plowed and plowed.

We brought some bread to tempt the enormous koi that live under the bridge. These crazy fish were practically jumping out of the water in their excitement to catch some bread.

While we were on the bridge, Yaya and O were discussing his Arbo map. A man from the news stopped to film a snippet of them "acting natural."

Yaya was such a good sport to race and race and race with the Boys. They made up such silly obstacle races for each other. All three left thoroughly exercised!

Yaya's lap: the perfect resting spot!

I am sure we will be back at the Arbo soon, hopefully in perfect weather!

Photo Shoot

I have plans to take pictures of a gorgeous baby girl at the Arbo next week. As always, I am nervous. My Mom and I headed down there to scope out some good spots and experiment with the lighting. As a wonderful bonus, I got some great shots of my Boys.

Fun with Oliver

These days have been far too beautiful to waste sitting inside. When Aunt Erica invited us over to ride bikes with Oliver, we jumped at the chance. The day was picture perfect, and all three little boys ran and rode and rode and ran until they were exhausted. Erica and I sat on a blanket, soaking in some rays and chit-chatting the time away.

The driveway is a fairly steep incline. The Boys invented a game of zooming down the driveway at breakneck speeds. The first few attempts scared me to death, but no injuries resulted, thank God!
O is getting so great at riding his two-wheeler!

Oliver was super hungry and needed to take a break.

Thanks, Guys, for a great day!

Spring Showers

It's finally looking a bit like Spring around here, and to us that means one of our favorite things: Dallas Blooms is back at the Arboretum. The weather report said 20% chance of a shower or two today, but we weren't going to let that stop us! The skies looked clear and the temperature was perfect.

However, as the Boys and I waited for my sweet friend Chrys and her crew to arrive, I began to hear thunder in the distance. The storm literally rolled in right before my eyes. We barely made it through the front gates before the skies opened and the rain began pouring down. We sprinted for the nearest sheltered area to wait it out.

What a beautiful storm it was! We had a perfect view over White Rock lake and the Arbo absolutely glistened in the rain. We got to witness first hand the awesome power of God in the storm.

Thankfully, it was a rather fast-moving storm system and we were soon ready to roll again.

Oh, how tempting were the huge puddles! My Boys were in jeans and tennis shoes, so I attempted to keep them dry, but it was of no use. Weren't little boys made to be puddle jumpers? Have at it, Guys!!

Baby Elliot stayed nice and cozy and as happy as he could be!

Love these four!

It is always an adventure at the Arboretum! Stay tuned. I am sure we will be back in finer weather soon!