Our biker girl

Mackayla's new bike came in the mail on Monday. She got to ride around on it in the house for a couple hours then it moved permanently outside. She's still trying to get the hang of pedaling all by herself, but loves riding her bike. She also got a package from G&G Hatfield that day, so she's also wearing the stuff they sent her in this picture. :)

Mackayla LOVES being "twins" with her baby doll.

This week for school Mackayla was learning about partiotism (at a two year old level.) She added the terms: United states of America, American, and Old Glory to her vocabulary. She also learned about respecting the flag and what it means. It's nice to know a little of it sunk in. I heard her telling Bradley, with her hand over her heart, "this is how we be nice to the flag."

Now in this picture I know she's got the wrong hand over her heart, but again, she's only two.

We've been having lots of pool parties this week. Mackayla loves playing in the kiddie pool.



Bradley got to go to his first Father & Son outing. Our ward had a BBQ, and Bradley said he had a GREAT time with his Daddy.While the boys were gone to their BBQ, Mackayla and I played dress-up. Mackayla recently discovered that I have my own box of dress up clothes and loves to pick out outfits for me. This is the beautiful ensemble that she came up with last night. She, of course, just wore her cinderella dress. A family picture! Jared finally shaved his beard yesterday (I forgot how handsome he is)!! I could hardly keep my lips off of his soft, smooth face!
Mom and Bradley

Jared and Mackayla went to a few yard sales this weekend and Jared found a table saw for only $40. He was pretty excited about it. Now we just have to figure out where we're going to put his new collection of tools! :)

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After months of searching we finally found our cheap slide! We decided to try yard-saling again on Saturday morning, even though we've found nothing but junk on our last few attempts. When we pulled up to the house and saw a slide for sale we all began cheering. Mackayla was clapping and saying, "HOORAY! WE FINALLY FOUND MY SLIDE! I'M SHOUTING FOR JOY!"

In addition to the slide we also got a little tikes basketball hoop and three FULL bags of nice clothes for the kids all for a grand total of $20. It was a great day!

We didn't have the kiddie pool set up yet to slide into, but we put the slide under a sprinkler and had a glorious time.

Bradley and Mackayla enjoying a beautiful summer day.

This last week Mackayla was learning about wild animals. On the day we were going to learn about tigers I came out from putting Bradley down and told her to get ready because it was time for school. I went into my room and quickly put on my tiger costume. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this costume (I think I recall Amy wearing it while dancing on a dumpster in the middle of the night.) Anyway I wish I could have gotten a picture of her face when I came out. Her jaw dropped, she got the biggest smile on her face, and proclaimed, "IT'S MOMMY TIGER!" She of course had to try the outfit on herself later. Isn't she a cute little tiger?!

Mackayla is working on her baseball skills. She's almost ready to join the little league.

Bradley was perfectly content just trying to get the ball out of the net sock it came in.


Mackayla and I made a strawberry rhubarb pie together using the rhubarb from our yard. It was delicious.

Mackayla is still amazing us every day with the things she learns and says. She's really into making up her own words now, adding a "y" to the end of every word (kitcheny, backyardy, down stairsy etc...), and giving Bradley new nicknames. Some of the recent things she's said that made us laugh are:

Jared was outside and I told Mackayla to look out the window because Daddy was waving to her. She looked out and said, as if she were so grown up looking at a little kid, "He's just waving away out there. Look at the big ole dad, just waving away."

Jared was getting Mackayla dressed for bed and told her to put her arms up. She did that and then said, "I situated my arms." We were pretty impressed she has picked up that word and knew how to use it.

Lately when she's been waking up bright and early, she sits up in bed and yells "It's good morning time! It's time to get up everyone! It's good morning time!" We have our own little rooster.

She uses the phrase "at one point" from time to time. I'll ask her if she's hungry or something and she'll say, "well, at one point I was, but now I'm ok."

Bradley is starting to talk like crazy, too. He loves to babble and say "mama" and "dada" and throw in an occasional screech also. He's not crawling yet but manages to get around by rolling and turning. He's starting to be able to pull himself up to a standing position. This means we'll have to lower his crib mattress. That will make it a lot harder to put him in his bed when he's already asleep without waking him up. :(

He smiles ALL the time and everywhere we go he gets compliments on his adorable smile and big curls. He's got quite a head of hair for an eight month old. It's going to be so sad when we have to give him a haircut. We're holding out until his one year birthday.

He loves watching and playing with Mackayla. She calls him her best friend and loves to smother him with hugs and kisses. She can be a little overbearing at times. Mommy is always trying to protect him from her affection. We figure he'll have to get use to swarming girls due to his dashing good looks!

Father's Day

We had a fun time celebrating "Daddy's special day." Mackayla and I had made him this fancy hat. He looked stunning in it. My ideal plan was to let Jared sleep in today, but being the wonderful father that he is he got up with Mackayla at 5:45am since I had a very rough night with a sleepless Bradley and only had a couple hours of sleep myself. We made him breakfast, though, and gave him a few presents.

There is so much I could say about what a great father Jared is and how much he does for us, but I think I'll just say that he makes my life as a mother absolutely wonderful! I could never have dreamed of a better partner to walk side by side with as we raise our family. We love you Jared!

Here are some pictures of Daddy and son from yesterday.

(I'm addicted to taking pictures of my family and am constantly taking what I think are the world's cutest pictures!)

We bought our tickets this week to visit the family in Washington this summer and Mackayla is so excited to go. The poor girl though has no concept of time and is already packing her bags. She's always asking if we can leave yet. Daddy had the idea to help her make a paper chain to count down the days until we leave, so that's what we did for her school the next day. She loves her paper chain but unfortunatly is against the idea of tearing any of them off.

Bradley loves the basketball! We put it in front of him and he couldn't stop smiling as he played with it. I couldn't pick just one picture so they're all here.

Practicing his tough-guy game face.

Tonight we were hanging out downstairs and we came up with the idea to build a little slide. We used our satin sheets as the sliding surface because, as you know if you've slept in them, its impossible to keep your pillow in the bed because its so slippery. Mackayla had a fabulous time!
( I don't know why this video is showing up sideways. I'm working on that right now. Sorry)

Thatching

Thatching the yard!

So...curiosity killed the cat. Our neighbor began working on his lawn last Monday night with a contraption that I had not seen before. I went over and found out he was using a "power rake" or "thatcher" to pull the dead grass up out of the yard. He then volunteered it for me to use after he was done. Knowing the need for such a contraption on our lawn, I accepted; not realizing that it would consume the next 2 nights and leave me exhausted.

I had no idea that I would fill the yard waste can to capacity, as well as put a heaping pile of dead grass in the back of my truck. I was blown away by how much there was. It's safe to assume that no one had thatched this lawn for 10 years or more (that's what I felt like at least).

Luckily, I had a wonderful helper who had her own little rake. She was busy either raking the grass out of the piles I made, or playing in the piles like they were leaves. Moral of the story is don't go ask your neighbor about some new contraption he is using on his yard.

One more little picture...

Our friends - Blayne, Rachel, and Darek - were passing through town and stopped to visit for a litte while. It was fun to see them again.

A year of blogging

I have been blogging now for one entire year! This is the first time I've gone two whole weeks without a new post though... oops. This has been such a great way to keep in touch with family and keep our family history.

We had a fun Memorial Weekend. Both of the children had a lot of sleep issues over the weekend so we had some LONG nights. We took turns though on Saturday and Monday sleeping in unil 8:30 which was very nice. It was the latest either of us can remember sleeping since Mackayla was born. Our big project over the weekend was painting the hall bathroom. We took the wild wallpaper down a while ago and finally got around to painting it a light sage green. The room looks so much calmer now! We just have to find some decor for the walls now.

Mackayla LOVED helping us paint. She actually got to paint on the walls!

I think when most two years old ask their dad if they can help while he is painting a ceiling they would be sent off. Mackayla is a very lucky girl and her wonderful Daddy let her help him.


Here's the new paint job

Grandma Hatfield's birthday was on the 28th and Mackayla of course needed to make her a cake. We called her that night on the webcam and sang to her before eating the cake. Grandma is even wearing the necklace Mackayla made and sent her for her birthday.

Last week for school Mackayla learned about trains and cars and such. One day Daddy got to teach her school. He showed her the different parts of the car, including the parts in the engine.

We were invited to Doug and Carrie Tree's place on Saturday for a birthday party for Carrie. That night we went to a BBQ with some of Jared's friends from school. It was a busy/fun day!

Mackayla thought it was very funny that Doug let her push his face into his cheese cake!

I got some new shoes the other day (for only $5) and Mackayla couldn't wait to get home and try them on.

Just a picture of our little Bradley

It was so cute tonight, we were all eating dinner and Bradley began to fuss. He had this blue bowl that he had been playing with during dinner, and Jared decided to put it on his head like a hat. He loved it, quit fussing, and continued to eat until the bowl fell off and the fussing would start right back up again until the hat made it back onto his head. What a silly boy! We sure love him.