Halpin Falls Water Park

To commemorate the beginning of summer, we dug out our tiny baby pool and hose and re-created Halpin Falls from last year. The kids were so excited! I just love it that with minimal set-up time and energy and no money at all, we can have an absolute blast in our own backyard. Kids are great that way!

Curious Jones crawled right over to see what all the gleeful shrieks were about.

He really enjoyed watching, for awhile...

...until he got a face-full of water. Poor Tiny Jones. If you can enlarge this photo, you will see one very distressed little boy. He steered clear of the pool after that!

We all had so much fun! We splashed and played and ran and laughed until our teeth were chattering and little eyes could barely stay open. What a great kick-off to our summer!

Lego Mania

The Biggies at our house have a new obsession. While they have always enjoyed playing with their Legos, they have taken it to a whole new level in the past few weeks. We have Lego games, Lego competitions, Lego sleeping companions, Lego talk and plans all day long. Sadly, Tiny and Legos do not mix well. Noah especially is so concerned for Jonah's well-being when the Legos are out. "He might suck on one and swallow it by accident!" I am thankful for the doors on our playroom so O and Nosy can play without worrying about Jones ingesting a Lego. Jones, on the other hand, is not so thankful for the doors. He is totally aware that he is being excluded from something wonderful.

Where are those Boys???

Found them!

Can I come in? Please??

Lego genius Numero Uno

His trusty sidekick

I think Daddy has just as much fun as the Boys!

Today's creativity line-up

Memorial Day

To celebrate Memorial Day, we had a barbeque and swim party at Gigi and Papa's house. The water was way too frigid for any of the adults to even attempt to swim, but the kids didn't mind a bit!

Little Sox Together Again

Coach Jeremy is at it again!  With both Boys begging to play baseball again this year, how could he say no?  We bumped the kids up to coach pitch, a league technically for 7-8 year olds.  No matter that our team members are mostly 6, with a 4 year old and a 5 year old for good measure.  We'll see how this goes!  So far, the practices have been super fun!  Especially since Cousin Oliver and bestie Grant joined our team.  It has been really fun for Jeremy too, co-coaching with so many of his great friends. 

 My three before the first game

Dedicated spectators

 Ready to play!

The season is off to a great start!



Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuull Up

Jonah.

Amazing, wonderful, joyful Jonah.

Jonah that is so laid back and content that he is developmentally lagging behind just a bit.

I am not at all worried. His muscle tone is great. He is fine neurologically. But the Boy is not motivated to advance to the next stage. He just started crawling at nearly 11 months. Maybe part of that is my fault. I do love to tote that darling baby around on my hip all day long. And maybe part of it is the Biggies fault. They dote on Jonah so much and bring him anything his heart desires. We are probably all to blame. Anyway, we have been working on pulling up lately. Owen, Noah and I will put tempting items in the middle of the table, trying to entice tiny Jones to go after them. The problem is, tiny Jones doesn't care. He'd rather play with a crumb on the floor or my shoe than work to reach the tempting toy.

But one glorious morning, Nosy put his Good Lizard and Owen's Orange Frog (we are all about creative pet names around here!) up on the coffee table. Jonah's interest was piqued. He had not been allowed near Good Lizard or Orange Frog for fear of drooling on them. He crawled right over to check it out.

Stretch, Jones!

Glory be! He pulled himself up!

He received abundant praise from two very proud big brothers and one happy Mama. However, I guess that incident was both the debut and the finale of this stunt. He has yet to perform the trick again. I know it will come all in good time. Honestly, I'd rather him take his time so I can baby him just a tiny bit longer.

Busted!

Basking in the Bluebonnets

"Everyone give me your best fake smile on 'three'!"

Aaawww. That's better, Guys!

Jones was a happy camper plopped amidst the bluebonnets.

Guac

Tonight, I accidentally fed my baby guacamole, very garlic-y guacamole. I guess that's what I get for keeping the left-over guac on the same shelf in the fridge as my lovely avocado-banana puree. Poor Jonesy! The sweet baby just made an awful face and opened his tiny mouth for more. A true Texan!

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.