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."