Wish List

In case anyone else is working on getting their Christmas shopping done early and wants to get a gift for Mackayla, she has a very percise wish list already. She wants:

~A pink pogo stick

~A princess piano

~A pink hurdle

Does anyone know where you can buy a hurdle?

This last Monday for FHE we had a family Olympics. The crawling race was a favorite.

Mackayla was so proud to have won the "golden medal." Bradley is getting pretty fast and earned the silver. Jared hadn't done near as much practicing as his competitors, but still took home the bronze.

It started raining today, and I found Jared and Mackayla running around the backyard in their underwear, terrified that the hurricane was coming.

I quickly explained to them that the hurricane wouldn't make it this far inland and that this was just a small storm. Everyone calmed down after that.

Ordinary life

After a fun couple of weeks of vacationing we are back into our regular routine. Its wonderful to see family and always so sad to leave but it's good for the kids to be home. We've got Bradley sleeping through the nights again (almost) and have stabalized Mackayla's moods a little more. She has a rough time with any kind of change. She really wants to go back to Grandpa's and Grandma'a house though and keeps asking when Christmas time will come so we can go down to Arizona.

April and her family were in Utah for some Holt family festivities and, in between their family events, were able to come visit us and spend one night at our house. Mackayla was excited to "have a little cousin fun." This is her and Jaden doing playdough together.

Last night after Bradley was asleep, I realized I had forgotten to give him his iron supplement again. I was frustrated with myself and told Jared that I was just going to have to make a big note to remind myself to give it to him in the morning. As I was writing the note, Mackayla grabbed a piece of paper and pen and began "writing" also. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "I"m making a big note to remind me to play in the morning!" I just thought that was a cute little story to share. She taped her note up right under mine.
I don't have many pictures from this last week but I thought I'd throw in this cute picture of Bradley washing his hands.

It seems like Mackayla is far too often testing our patience and pushing our nerves to the limits. Last week at church, she threw a fit saying that she was "too tired" for anything. Well, during the last hour we had had enough, and brought her home to "snooze" (Mackayla's version of a nap). After arriving at home and reminding her she was going to "snooze", she looked at us and very adamantly declared, "I definitely do not have time to snooze!" It's frustrating, yet entertaining, to have a child use such grown-up language to express her feelings. However, more often than not she is making us laugh, amazing us with her intelligence, and filling our lives with joy.

Bradley, being very mobile now, is becoming a lot more work but he is developing the most wonderful little personality. He's learning how to be funny and loves to make us laugh. He just added the word "ball" to his vocabulary this week also. Much to my delight he still loves to cuddle! Having two little kids to care for can be exhausting at times, and there are days when I feel like I'm just in survival mode. At the end of any single day, though, I can tell you that having a family is the most wonderful blessing! Nothing could be more rewarding. We really cherish all the time we have to spend together. So although it sounds very cheesy I should really refer to it as our "extraoridary life" rather than our "ordinary life."

Family Pictures

The Hatfield Family

All The Grandkids

One of our children had no desire to get a picture taken. It was a rough day for her.

trip to washington

We had a wonderful trip to Yakima to see my family. We all flew up there on Wednesday the 6th and spent the rest of the week having fun with all my family together. Jared flew home early Monday morning to make it back to work. The kids and I stayed until Saturday the 16th to spend a little more time visiting. Mackayla had a hard time without her Daddy around. Grandpa, Grandma and Heather were a great help, but I was exhausted by the time I flew home with the kids. I'm really glad we were able to stay longer though and let the kids spend more time at G&G's house. I took a lot of pictures of the fun times we had, so here's a little photo album of the trip.

The Tree's are always so nice to let us come and swim at their house. We spent one evening there.

Mackayla got to play a little tennis with her cousins, Jackson and Jaden

Bradley loved playing in the rocks

Bradley taking a nap with his Daddy. Bradley woke up, looked around, crawled over, and fell right back to sleep on Jared's stomach. It was pretty cute!

Heather, being the wonderful aunt that she is, loves filling up water balloons for the kids to throw. She had filled up many buckets of balloons. I guess she had done an even bigger batch before we had arrived. She's amazing!

Jared had a fun time throwing the water balloons with the kids also.

This is just a picture of the kids hanging out in Grandma's living room. Grandma and Grandpa were amazingly calm and patient as things were a little chaotic in their home for a week.

Meagan and Mackayla playing the piano

We spent Saturday at Vantage, a part of the Columbia River. We had a picnic and took turns going out on Grandpa's boat.

They had this three person tube that we were able to give the kids an easy ride on when they were in the middle. I'm still not sure if Mackayla liked it or not. She showed some mixed emotions. I wish I had a video to show everyone the wild ride I was taken on in which I was wildly thrown out into the raging wild waters. It was wild!

Mackayla on the boat

Bradley fell asleep while on the boat ride

Jared and the kids hanging out between turns on the boat

Mackayla, Spencer, Jaden, and Jared playing crochet

It was a perfect day in the shade.
Mackayla and cousin Mitchell

Bradley and Mitchell had matching pajamas so I had to get a picture.

Mackayla, Jaden, and Meagan playing dress up. (Jaden was the king)


Wearing the Bell dress - such a pretty girl!

Driving around in the backyard
We tried to get a picture of us with Grandma Davenport. We were so glad we got to see her this last week!

The kids loved feeding the ducks at Randal Park

Thanks for letting us come Mom and Dad!!!!

His last good year

Jared turned 29 this week. He had to work on his birthday from 6am til 6pm. He was able to meet us for lunch though. We went to one of his favorite places, Goodwood BBQ. When he got home from work we had a quick dinner and party before the kids went to bed.

Jared and kids at lunch. It was delicious!


We were successful in our first attempt to grow onions. They didn't get as big as we would have liked they are still very flavorful. Now we have to figure out what to do with all of them. We cut up some and put them in the freezer, Mackayla ate a couple of whole ones, and we still have a TON left.


On Saturday we had a suprise visit from Jared's Grandpa and Grandma Richins. They were only able to stay about 20 mins but it was great to see them!

Grocery shopping has been very nice lately now that Bradley has been joining Mackayla in the car part of the cart. They both love driving around as I get the shopping done.

This is how Bradley is spending all his spare time these days. He pulls himself up on EVERYTHING and is loving the freedom of exploration he has now.

I was getting dinner ready the other night and realized the block of cheese I had set on the counter was missing. I looked behind me on the kitchen floor to find Mackayla chomping away on it like it was an apple. She had eaten a lot of cheese already!

I have yet to figure out why blogger won't let me turn these videos around so you'll have to turn your head again. This is Mackayla trying out the hula hoop game on our new wii fit. She was so excited to try all the games. Unfortunatly her wii fit age was 32. She's going to try to get into better shape.