Will's 2nd Birthday Party

Will's 2nd birthday party was Sunday. We decided to do it a few weeks early in order to make sure it didn't conflict with Baby Halpin #2's arrival and was a day especially for him. Will's been going to The Little Gym once a week since he was 6 months old, so we decided it would be a great place for him to celebrate his birthday with his friends and family. We had a great time! It is funny, we didn't really prep him for the day. I started telling him last week that he was having a party, but we just talked about it a little. I actually got worried on Saturday that maybe I should have taught him how to blow out his candles on his cake. I worried for NOTHING! He completely knew it was his special day. He was so happy, ran around like a wild man, and did a perfect job blowing out the candles. You could just tell he knew the party was his and he loved it! There is just nothing better than watching your child play, giggle, laugh, and truly enjoy what they are doing! Chris and I were so happy with his party and so happy that so many of his friends and family could be there to help celebrate! Thanks to all for a WONDERFUL 2nd Birthday celebration! We are so blessed and thankful.  And an extra shout out to Carrie for her help with the cupcakes!  I could not have done them without her master skills!  Love you sis!

The "theme" of the party was "Party Animals", so we did lots of lions and animal printed balloons, etc.  The cupcakes were also lions and the kids took home beach balls in the shape of animals and a "Party Animal Mix" cd. 

State Fair of Texas 2009

It wouldn't be fall in Texas without a trip to the State Fair of Texas! Saturday was opening day and we decided to go ahead and make the trip. Carrie was in town for the weekend and joined us. We were afraid it would be super crowded, but it really wasn't. We wanted to make the trip before the baby arrives and make sure that we all got our Fletcher's Corny Dogs for the year! Will loves his corny dog and ate almost the entire thing! He had a great time at the car show when he was "driving" the cars and a few meltdowns when it was time to let someone else look at the car. He ended up falling asleep in the stroller on the way to the car - something he hasn't done since he was in his infant seat. I think it was a successful trip and we all had fun! Oh - and yes we tried the fried butter. I know, it sounded disgusting but honestly it wasn't. Just yummy fried dough that was covered in powdered sugar and was butter in the center. I'd have it again for sure!

Getting our Corny Dogs!

I really thought Carrie should have bought these.  Love the 80's!

"Now, this is good!!!"

The Halpins in front of Big Tex

Will driving mommy around at the car show!  

Carrie feeding me fried butter!  YUM!

Will's First Football Game

Papa (my dad) and I took Will to the Lake Highland's high school football game.  It was Will's first game.  He had a lot of fun playing on the bleachers, watching the game a little, and listening to the music and watching the flags at half time.  Here are a few pictures from the night!  Thanks for a fun night, Papa!

Happy Fall Y'all!

We had lunch with friends at the Arboretum today. All the pumpkins are out, they have a maze made out of hay for the kids, and the weather was very fall like and enjoyable! Here are a few pictures.

Will and Hudson ran a little too far away and Lacy chased them down.  They held hands as they walked back towards us.  Too cute!

"Cheese!"

"Mom, I love these pumpkins!"

Posed picture

Mommy and big boy!

Big Boy Booster Seat

Will got a new big boy chair for the kitchen table! He did really well with his first dinner, ate off his plate the entire time and didn't spill anything! He also really enjoyed saying cheese with food in his mouth!

A&M vs Utah State

Chris and I joined friends for a night in College Station.  We tailgated before the game, ate way too much food, enjoyed an A&M win (even thought they continue to make us nervous until the end), and spent some time on Northgate.  Being 8 mos pregnant and being at bars in a college town is quite entertaining!  Sobriety makes it quite different, that is for sure!  Here are some pictures from the weekend.  Thanks Mom and Carrie for hanging out with Will!  He had a great time with you guys!

(There are more pictures to be added to this blog, I just have to get them from Heather's camera!  There are some good ones!)

Oh, What a Circus!

Chris surprised me a few weeks ago with tickets to go see Britney Spears! I've mentioned several times how I wanted to see her in concert and that I should probably do it soon because who knows how much longer she will actually tour!  When he told me about the tickets and told me to find someone to go with, I immediately called Carrie to see if she would drive in from OKC to join me!  We had a BLAST!  The concert was really entertaining.  This is her "Circus" tour and it really was a circus, complete with carney's, acrobats, and all kinds of other crazy things.  And girl WORKS during her show!  Her dancers were amazing and she does a pretty good job of keeping up with them.  Most of the songs are lip sync, but I'm OK with that.  I actually think it probably makes the show better!  :)  Here are a few pictures from the night.  Thanks Chris for giving us such a great treat!  Oh...and yes I got plenty of comments and looks about being 8 mos pregnant.  There are a lot of people in this world that must not have ever seen a pregnant belly!

What a weekend! TGIM!

We had a busy, crazy, and very unpredictable weekend!  It was one of those weekends where we just couldn't win in some ways.  But I know that those happen sometimes and we did some fun things in between and we are looking forward (and hoping) for a non-eventful week!  

The Good!

• Carrie and Josh came to town for the weekend and we were able to see them Friday night and Saturday during they day
  
• We went to our neighborhood PTA kickoff party on Saturday and had some fun!  Will got a "tattoo", a giraffe balloon animal, and played with friends in the bounce house.
• We went to Will's friend, Kate's, Birthday party and he had a blast!
• The Cowboys WON!
• We went to dinner with Kristi, Chris, and Avery at Gloria's and had a great time.
• Kristi and Chris were lucky enough to see us again on Sunday and have us as overnight guests (see The Bad below for more details)!  We had a great time hanging out with them and THANK them so much for their hospitality!

The Bad

• Car died at the mall on Saturday.  There were 1,000,000 people at the mall due to the rain and it was a ZOO.  Chris and Josh were going to take Will home to nap and let Carrie and I shop more.  Well, 10 minutes into our shopping we got a call from Chris saying the car was dead.  We had to get through the mall - no small feat - and drive over to them.  Chris moved the car seat to Carrie's car (which was a daunting task in a parking garage where people were willing to kill for parking spots) so we could get Will home and then had to go back later to jump it.  Luckily it was just the battery and Chris and Josh were able to replace it on Sunday morning!
• Will hasn't had a good run with bumps and bruises lately - black eye last week, big bump on his head on Friday night, and then a leg injury in the bounce house at Kate's party.  Poor little man wanted to keep playing but got so upset when he put weight on his leg.  I am happy to report he is OK and his leg seems fine.  It took a long nap and lots of walking around holding our hands to "walk it off".  He's done this once before, I hope his knees get stronger!
• Our power went out on Sunday at 3pm and didn't come back on until today at 6am!  That is right, 15 hours!  Will was napping when it went off and we were watching football.  We decided to do some things we needed to do around the house.  Chris put together our new stroller, we cleaned out the inside of my car and put the car seat back in from the fiasco the day before, and played with the dogs some.  Around 6, when Will was awake, we decided we needed to get out!  We went over to Kristi and Chris's house.  Will and Avery played and the Poteet's were so nice to let us stay for dinner.  Once dinner was over Chris came back to the house to check on it and decided after talking to the power company (who finally started working on the outage around 8pm and at 10pm said they had determined it wasn't an above ground issue and they were going to have to "thump" the ground to figure out where the issue was, dig it up and fix) that it wasn't going to be anytime soon.  We put Will to bed in Avery's pack n play and we slept in their spare room. We all slept VERY well and we can't thank Kristi, Chris and Avery enough for having us!  Chris came home at 6am and the power came on shortly after.  He came back and picked Will and I up at 7:30am.  We now have power and except for all the unfortunate groceries I had to throw away, all is well!  What an adventure!  

The GROSS!

• I just put on shoes to go outside and throw all those groceries away I mentioned above and there was a gecko in my shoe.  Yes, it is now squashed!  YUCKKKKKK!!!!!  

I think it is time for a nap and some quiet time at home!  Here are a few pictures from the weekend!

Will after dinner on Saturday night.  I was trying to get him to show me his tattoo.

If you look under his right eye, you'll see the black eye is turning green now.  The tattoo is a baseball with flames.  He specifically asked for a baseball tattoo.

Chris with the double stroller after he put it together.  Hmmm...check out who are in the seats.  Our first two kids.  We have a similar picture of Abby in the single BOB, but you can see her better because it was orange.  You have to look very close to see her in the left seat.  You really only see her gray beard.  And Murray HATED it!  He looks so tense.