Arbo Guests

Dallas Blooms is even more beautiful than I ever remember. The flowers are absolutely breath-taking, so we have been inviting as many people as we can to enjoy it with us. The weather has been a bit tricky, but we have made it out there a few times. This particular day, we invited Gigi and a few of her dear friends to spend the day with us. In spite of the gale-force winds, we had a fabulous time touring the Arboretum.

Dale and O loved on this goat. In typical Noah fashion, he observed from a distance.

Nosy is going through an anti-photo stage, much to my chagrin.

Jeremy's Dream Come True

It has been a life-long dream of Jeremy's to win Yard of the Month. Since neither one of us has any talent in the gardening department, nor do we invest much time in our landscaping, the dream seemed unattainable. One year, we even hired a grass and weed company to come give our sad lawn monthly treatments, hoping maybe our super green grass would catch the eye of the HOA. But no. Jeremy stopped the lawn treatments and let his dream die.

And then...the first day of March, I noticed something strange in our yard. A sign in the grass. What could it be? The boys and I ran outside to get a look, and I almost fell over from laughing so hard. The boys were ecstatic, jumping all around. We had been awarded Yard of the Month! I called Jeremy at work with the astounding news. He thought I was playing a trick on him until I texted him a picture with the evidence. We, the Halpins, Yard of the Month?! Amazing.

Why so amazing? Let me describe our yard to you on March the 1st. Jeremy, O and Nosy had spent the Saturday before pulling weeds, but the grass was as brown and dead as could be. There were no flowers blooming, the hedges had not been trimmed and the mulch was just the remnant left from last year. Our yard was going for the minimalist look. It looked awful! Definitely not Yard of the Month material! How ironic that we won the prize when we weren't working for it in the least!

After winning, Jeremy was inspired to work outside a bit more! (Maybe that was the ulterior motive of the HOA?) We acquired some new gerbera daisies, fresh mulch and great looking hedges. Thanks for all the hard work, Jeremy! Now we can rock that Yard of the Month sign!

(Sorry for the super squinty smiles. The poor guys were staring into the sun.)

Biggie

Medium-y

Tiny

9 Months: Delightful!

I can not get enough of you, Jonah Cody. I delight in you all day long. You are the most wonderful, amazing, good, precious tiny Guy. You are a pure joy!

18 pounds, 3 ounces (15%)

29 1/4 inches (75%)

You finally decided you like food, Jones! Yay! Your faves are the veggies, but you'll eat anything. I've started sneaking you some table food. You gobble it right up! You even eat the nasty Stage 3 foods with little chunks of who-knows-what mixed into the puree. You give me a confused look during the first few bites, but you keep opening your little mouth for more.

Your very favorite plaything just happens to be attached to you: your toes! (I confess: I am a fan of your tiny toes too. They get a whole lot of kisses!)

Whether you are on your back, giving your toes a nibble or sitting bent in half to get a closer look at those fascinating appendages, your toes are always entertaining. You even chat with them from time to time.

One of my favorite things about you, Jones, is your belly laugh. It is the best sound ever! You laugh easily and often. You have such a light, happy spirit. You toss back that blond baby head of yours and chuckle, eyes sparkling. Your brothers dance around and perform funny tricks just to earn a giggle out of you. A person cannot stay down or crabby with you around!

You are by far the most social of our three boys. At the store or the park, you grin and wave at everyone that passes by. "Ha, ha!" you shout, saying hi to anyone who will listen. And who could resist such a Cutie Pie? When people stop to chat with you, you reward them with drooly smiles and jibber-jabber.

Your communication skills are great! You sign for milk and say "ha" (hi) and "Dada." At 9 months, this is really impressive for our kids that are mostly silent until age 2. You are working on signing please, thank you and all done, but we have a way to go on these.

Another special thing about you Jones:

You adore your Daddy! While the other boys were pretty much mama's boys at your age, you can not get enough of your Dad. When he gets home from work, you smile bigger than ever and wriggle, squiggle with happiness until he picks you up. He can rock you to sleep even when I can't. Daddy loves to play with you and spend time with you.

You need a lot less sleep than either O or Noah, who still took three two hour naps a day at your age and slept about 11 hours at night. You take 2 good naps and sleep about ten hours at night. I am ashamed to say that until just before you turned 9 months old, I was still nursing you at least once in the night. (Awful, I know. But it was so much easier just to take the 10 minutes to feed you rather than let you cry and cry. Plus, I was up with Noah anyway and I treasured that alone, quiet time with just you.) We declared a "Cry It Out Weekend," because finally enough was enough. You must have heard us discussing our plans because the very first night we were going to let you cry, you slept like a rock! And again the next night, and the next. We have had no issues since! You sleep great. Smart Baby!

You are nowhere near crawling. You scoot on occasion, completely unintentionally. You are really too laid back to care about going anywhere, and Mommy loves to tote you around. Plus, Owen and Nosy bring you toys to your heart's content. You never get frustrated when things are out of reach. You just turn your attention to something else. One of these days, you'll discover there is a whole wide world beyond the edge of your baby blanket, but until then, I am happy to have you stay where I put you. :-)

Jonah, you are amazing. I could seriously stare at you, rock you, play with you all day long, just delighting in who God created you to be: the little guy with the bubbly, sparkly personality. You are so affectionate (your favorite way to be held is with your cheek smooshed onto mine while your baby hand strokes my hair) and content. You are an easy baby, a joy to be around. How richly blessed we all are to know you and love you and be entrusted with you for a little while. You are a gift from the Lord. I praise Him because of you. I love you, Jonesy.

Pop Quiz

What's even better than sea salt caramel gelato in the middle of the afternoon?

Spending all day giggling with these three.

He Meets Me Where I Am

Last week, when Mom gave me this little devotional that has so touched her life, I had no idea how much it would minister to me. It seems that every single day, the words are written straight to me. They might as well say, "Dear Rachel," at the beginning.

Everyone knows how much I have been struggling against diabetes lately. And recently a great deal of fear has been added to the mix of frustration and lack of control and worry. What a mess! I am struggling to trust my sovereign LORD.

When I opened up to today's devotional page in Jesus Calling, I did not expect to feel so loved by God. Here is what Sarah Young wrote (read it as if God is talking):
"Let me help you through this day. The challenges you face are far too great for you to handle alone. You are keenly aware of your helplessness in the scheme of events you face. This awareness opens up a choice: to doggedly go it alone or to walk with Me in humble steps of dependence. Actually, this choice is continually before you, but difficulties highlight the decision-making process. So, consider it all joy whenever you are enveloped in various trials. These are gifts from Me, reminding you to rely on Me alone."

Wow. Words to cling to throughout my day. Thank You, Lord.

Mental Health Day

The stress level around here has been sky high for weeks! So I declared a Mental Health Day from school, and we played and played all day long. We had so much fun enjoying the pretty day and each other's company. I just soaked in my kids and tried not to think about diabetes or pods or blood sugars one bit.

We introduced Yaya to Grimaldi's, a favorite restaurant in West Village. They give the kids lumps of pizza dough to play with while we wait for our food. And they have the best meatball pizza ever!

The next stop on our adventure was Paciugo. Due to my complete lack of the sense of direction, we wandered around West Village for quite awhile before we stumbled upon it. Oh well. It was a gorgeous day and the Biggies let me take a few cute pics. Love those goofy Boys!

Gelato at last! Check out Jones. Can you tell he's a third baby? Not only does he already recognize something cold and yummy in our cups...

We can't help but indulge him just a little. He flaps his arms and grunts and moans until we put the tiniest of tastes in his mouth. Oh, the delight on that child's face...until he swallows and begs for more!

Off to ride the trolley, all the way from one end of the line to the other, just because. It was greatness, the breeze blowing in our faces, people watching, and bouncing up and down with excited little boys.

Photo courtesy of Owen

This Mental Health Day was just what we all needed to, well, restore our mental health. :-) It was totally worth playing catch up in school the next day!

Breakfast

We have another fan of pumpkin pancakes at our house!

Sorry for the over-abundance of photos, but isn't he the cutest little guy you've ever seen?

Delish!

The Boy and the pancakes.

Lovers of Sticks

The weather is just starting to warm up, which means lots of fun park adventures for us Halpins. And where there are parks, there seems to be an abundance of fabulous sticks to be discovered. Trust me. We find them all. All types, sizes, shapes. And they all just *have* to come home with us. To live in our backyard. Forever. We can not leave even one beloved stick behind. The most enormous sticks can't squeeze into our car, thankfully, so we find them a happy home at the park. But the rest? The rest now live in our wagon out back, waiting to be brandished in a brotherly dual or floated down a stream or used as a dirt digger. I love having boys!

The next stick lover.
Poor baby got his very first sunburn on this walk. I didn't even think to put sunscreen on his fair baby skin. I learned my lesson for next time!