Fall at the Arbo

Even before the first hint of Fall is in the air, the pumpkins arrive by the truckload at the Dallas Arboretum.  After an especially stressful week, the Boys and I decided a spontaneous excursion was just what we needed.  We drove by Sonic to pick up some yummy lunch (because greasy food helps ease stress too, you know!) and headed to the Arbo to see the pumpkins.  We had so much fun strolling around!

Strong Man!  Jones tried to lift all the impossibly huge pumpkins.  Check out his great form.  Lift from the legs!

 It's the pumpkin patch, Boys!  Indulge me for just a couple of quick shots?  I know it's absolute torture.

 Pausing to catch his breath after one of our many hay bale maze races.  Mommy even won a few!

Nosy is the proud owner of Caveman, one of the joys of the Sonic kids' meal.  Nosy gave him the grand Arbo tour.  Caveman seemed to enjoy himself, although he did leave covered in hay.

Straw anyone?

If you know me, you know these are just the first of zillions of Arbo pics for the season.  We love it out there and I just can't not take pics every. single. time.  Poor kids.  I wouldn't have this problem if they weren't so darn cute!

Hideout

Tent-making in our new pad, with our very limited resources.

Sometimes I miss my stuff.  My stuff that is all in boxes piled around our house.  But actually, most of the time, we don't miss our stuff at all.  It has been fun having fewer choices and getting creative with what we do have.  The Boys have only asked for their toys once.  All they have to play with is their Legos, a few McDonald's toys we've accumulated since the move, one football and a couple of Hot Wheels.  It feels good to live much more simply.  Even though I purged big time before the move, I have big plans to get rid of even more stuff once we move again.

And I know you all (if anyone even still reads this!) are super jealous of our sweet linoleum!

Holding On

You can hold my hand forever, Little One.  I treasure these days.

"Bird"

Jones is surely a genius.  Our other babies did not utter a word until way after the age of two.  Jones already (15months) has a vocabulary that consists of "mama," "ba(ll) ba(ll) ba(ll)," "mmmmm" (for his mimi).  See?  A genius, no doubt. Today he started signing "bird" and it is so super cute!  He gets really excited when we understand what he is signing.  He can also sign milk, more, airplane (he's only done that once...but it still counts!), eat, all done.  I wish I knew more signs to teach him, but for now, it's so fun having a tiny guy that can communicate some of what is going on in his tiny genius brain.

Busy

So very, very busy.  Having fun and working hard and living life.  And although I haven't been blogging any at all, I do have hundreds of pictures that I will one day post.  One day...

For  now, a couple of pictures of just how big and handsome all my guys are.  We had a great time exploring a new park near our new (temporary) house today.

Sadly, the Smartie I was tempting him towards me with is visible in his cheek.  gasp!  Shame on Mommy for giving a baby Smarties.

(Is anyone else having trouble with picture quality on blogger?  These pics are crystal clear and beautiful in Photoshop, but appear grainy and awful when I upload them.)



Guitar Hero II

After the rather sporadic summer guitar lessons, O decided he really did love to play.  But with his teacher going back home to Russia, we weren't sure where to get O more lessons.  What an enormous blessing it was when our friend Cindy from church approached us one Sunday.  She is interested in teaching children how to play guitar, but since she had never taught before, she wanted a trial student.  The very best part?  Owen's lessons would be free of charge!!!  Sign us up!  So every Thursday, O gets a great lesson from Cindy.  He has made so much progress in just a few weeks.  He still acts as if practicing is all sorts of torture, but once he gets going, he doesn't want to stop.  I love having our house full of music!

 Cindy's sister joined Owen and Cindy for the first lesson.  She teaches guitar in Ft. Worth.

After their session was over, Cindy took us out back to show us the tiny baby bunnies they had found in their backyard.  They were so itty bitty!

 Jones loves tiny animals (he's not a fan of big ones though).  I'm just worried he's going to squeeze one to death someday.  He loooooves them with all his might!  We tried to instill the one finger rule.

Nosy, on the other hand...this was as close as he would get to the scary, scary bunny.  Silly Guy!

We are so thankful for Cindy and her time and talent!

Jonah's First Steps!

Lessons Learned Today

And I'm not talking about the kids.  I learn more from my kids each day than I think they could ever learn from me.  Take today, for example...

(The Boys wanted pictures taken of Daddy tagging them OUT! in backyard baseball.  They are such posers. :-)   )

After school was done, the house was straightened, supper was thought out and the early prep done, I had a few minutes to spare.  Aaaahhhhhh.  Down time.  I laid Jones down for a nap, set out Legos to entertain the Biggies, poured myself an extra large glass of my new fave drink (Diet DP mixed with Coke 0 in a 1:1 ratio) and headed to my room to watch the latest episode of Say Yes to the Dress.  Relaxation at its finest.  But alas, I was followed.  I was just about to tell O that Mommy needed a few minutes of "rest time," when he piped up: "Mommy, can I read to you from my Bible?"  And, shame on me, I actually hesitated.  I was so looking forward to a little peace and quiet!  In the pause, O changed his mind, "Or maybe you could read to me?  Stories about Jesus?  Maybe from Luke?"  Thankfully, that gave me time to mentally scold myself.  I was about to sacrifice precious time spent with O studying God's word together to watch a cheesy show about wedding dress selection.  What's really important, not to mention, eternal, here?  Now that's some major conviction.

This Guy hates kisses.  Noah wipes off every kiss he gets, and he gets a ton of them.  He is just so incredibly kissable!  We were wrestling on our bed today, and part of wrestling with Mommy is getting lots of kisses.  He was squealing and protesting every kiss.  "Mommy, STOP!!  No. More. Kisses!"  So then I asked him, "If I can't kiss you, Nosy, how do I show you how much I love you?"  He shrugged his little shoulders and said, "Just play with me, Mommy," with a huge grin.  Wow, did that hit home!  I spend 24/7 with the Boys, but mostly we are learning, cooking, reading, cleaning, shopping together. I have to remind myself to stop doing what I feel needs to be done and just play with them. Play whatever they want to play for however long they want to play it.  Before I know it, they won't want to play with Mommy anymore.  Slow down, let the house/dinner/errands wait and PLAY with my kids.

Lessons (hopefully) learned.

Let the School Year Begin!

It is with much excitement and a tad bit of nervousness that we enter the 2011-2012 school year.

This year, Owen is in 2nd grade and Noah is starting Kindergarten.  Such BIG boys!

It will be great to be teaching both boys together.  I am just a little nervous about the work load plus entertaining a very fast crawler.

Crazy boys!

A fun, new way to practice handwriting: flour on a cookie sheet.  The Boys loved it and the mess was minimal.  They could erase and start over as many times as they wanted.

 

O's learning cursive this year.  We are up for the challenge!

 

How can you tell if we've had a great day?  The messier the table, the better the day!  We had a terrific kick-off to the school year! 

Coming Right Along

Check the little guy out!!  Jonesy discovered a new trick today!  He has come a LONG way in just two months (14 months old now), considering at 12 months he had only pulled up once.  Now look at him go!  He is a dynamo and will be running circles around me before I know it. :-)

 

Why I Don't Have Time to Blog Anymore

This guy keeps me on my toes!!

Cleaning Out

With high hopes of moving soon, I have been attempting to clean out my "junk drawers" one by one.  That task, however, is made a lot tougher (albeit a lot more fun!) by this little guy who tends to perch inside the drawer. 

Take note:

A picture of my world famous candy drawer!

It really does exist, and we have daily appointments to keep.

And yes, those are scissors in Tiny's hand.  We live on the wild side around here.

Guitar Hero

Owie is musically inclined.  Jeremy and I are at a loss.  We are tone deaf, completely.  LouLou gifted O with this pint-sized guitar a couple of years ago. I have tried to teach him a few things by watching you tube videos, and Uncle Joel has demonstrated a few chords that O plays over and over again.  Owen composes little songs and sings his heart out.  It is dear.  And greatly entertaining.  And loud.  Yaya has generously provided O with a series of real life guitar lessons this summer.  We'll see how it goes.  If he loves it, I can definitely see us continuing with further instruction.  I see church praise bands in our future.  And campfire songs.  And swooning girls.  And concert tours.  He is my guitar hero.

The Bubble Lady

We have never attended one of the free Saturday fun days at the library before.  But then, I heard about The Bubble Lady (must be said with awe and adoration).  She was world-renowned and supposedly unbelievable.  Amazing.  Unprecedented.  She was a must-see.  So I stood in line when the library opened, along with about a hundred other devoted moms, and snagged tickets for our fam. 

Can you tell by looking at Jeremy's face that she was mediocre at best?  At it was durned uncomfortable smooshed together on the floor in the overly warm conference room. 

But the Boys thought it was cool.  And it did start Jeremy's wheels turning about what kind of so-so act he might be able to take on the road for a bunch of money.  Hula-hooping?  Juggling?  Hop-scotching?  Don't quit your day job, Buddy!

Plethora of Baseball Pics

Little boy baseball.  It doesn't get much more all-American than that!  Here are my favorite pics from the season.

The team, minus a few that were out of town.  It was so much fun for Jeremy to coach with his brother and good friend, Josh.

Ryder

Pre-game pep talk

Cousin Oliver

O got to home plate first, so this poor guy was o-u-t!

A little down time between batters

O's first run and the HUGE grin that followed.  He has the best smile!

High fives for Noah after his first run.  He acts so nonchalant when he scores, but inside he is jumping for joy.

Coach pitch.  Poor Jeremy was under so much pressure pitching to all his kids this year.  How awful he felt when one would strike out.  He did a great job!

Waiting to advance bases.  Little boy in a huge batting helmet!

The Halpin crew

All In

Scored again!

Kaden

Best Buds

Some advice from Coach Joel

Another run from O for the Little Sox

Waiting to run

Now that is some intense concentration!

What a great season we had!  The boys learned so much and loved having some of their best friends on the team.  See ya' again next summer, Little Sox!