spiritual milestone tonight.

Wow, Shawn and I witnessed a major spiritual milestone in Reilly this evening. She had a great day today (behavior wise!) and we had just gotten back from a short trip to the pool as a family. We were heading up for quick showers so we could eat oatmeal cookies and watch a little Panther football before bed and Reilly chose to argue and whine and complain about needing to take a shower. Since this is something we work on HOURLY in this household, I immediately told her she would not be having an oatmeal cookie due to the arguing and complaining. She then got super upset and carried on for the next 15 minutes. Finally she came to me and said, "Mommy, why is God not helping me have a good night? I prayed this morning before 8:00 (when she is allowed to come out of her room)and asked Him to help me have a good day today, but why is He not helping me have a good night?" She was so sincerely remorseful and was very upset that she had prayed for something but all the sudden it wasn't working anymore. My first reaction was awe. Did she really just say that? Did she really just ask that? Is she really understanding that God does help us if we ask Him to? She brings up such a good point, one that I too have quite often! I rattled off some answer that I'm sure wasn't nearly as profound as it should have been and tried to get her to calm down so I could go feed Layton. I took her and Braxton downstairs to start watching the game while I went to feed Layton and Shawn finished up in the shower. While Shawn was getting dressed in the bedroom he overheard Reilly downstairs, still very upset, saying to herself, "I just need to go to my room and pray. I just need to go pray." and then she ran upstairs and pushed her door to close, but it remained a few inches open. Just enough so that when Shawn walked over to see what she was still upset about, he could see her laying face down on the floor, praying: "God, please help me have a good day AND a good night EVERY night!" Wow. I'm so proud of her and I'm so amazed that a 4year old mind and heart is already able to have a glimpse of the Love that her Heavenly Father has for her....so much so that she WANTS to talk to Him and ask Him to help her make good choices!!

Dress up! ....oh wait.....

So, this morning we had a playdate. The little girl next door who is only 2 months older than Braxton came over to play for a couple hours. The kids LOVE to play with Marlee and they all did really well together! We had just a little incident though. The girls, Reilly and Marlee, wanted to play dress up....like ALL girls do. So Marlee immediately grabbed a princess dress and threw it on. Well, this made Braxton feel left out, so he quickly ran to the dress up box, pulled out the prettiest, purple princess dress, and brought it to me to help him put on. I went along with his request, because, afterall, he just wanted to play with his friend! And besides, he's only 2...it's not like he's going to fall in love with wearing dresses all the sudden! Of course I had to capture this on camera....Braxton and Marlee, playing dress up together:



Well, after I called Shawn to share to "funny" story with him, he very adamantly asked me to get out the Police Office outfit that I recently bought at a consignment sale to give Braxton for Christmas to add to the "dress up box" for him to wear. I really wanted to keep it for Christmas present, but I guess now was an appropriate time :) Yes honey, I'll let him be something more "manly" for pretend play now.

I started AND completed a project!!

I have officially been sucked into a new web-community thingy! Pinterest
is a fabulous way people can post ideas for anything from favorite recipes, home organization ideas, Do-It-Yourself projects, decorating ideas and so much more. I found this awesome growth chart idea that I just love! I have had a tiny measuring tape hanging inside the pantry door for the past 2 years that I have used to mark the kids growth on because I never wanted to mark it on a doorframe (as we did when I was a kid) since we wouldn't be able to take that with us if we ever moved from this house. So, we made a trip to the Home Depot, bought a few supplies, and off I went! I'm so excited about this!

and growing and growing and.....

Well, I packed up the newborn onsies today. Layton is officially into the 0-3 months clothes. He's getting bigger and rounder every day! I think he is maintaining his status of being my biggest baby so far! He's almost 12 pounds already! HOLY COW! He's starting to coo and make super sweet baby sounds during his wake time and I swear he intentionally smiles at me almost daily! So stinkin cute. He's doing great with nighttime sleep....goes from 8p-8a only waking to eat once (after I feed him while he's asleep at 11p before I go to bed), BUT, the daytime naps aren't too great. Some naps are perfect and he sleeps for the full 2 hours, others are not perfect and he fusses for the entire nap. I'm hopeful that this will get better!

6 weeks old now!

Reilly is So great with her baby brother. She does so well playing/talking with him. It's so cute to hear her talk to him like I do! And she LOVES holding him, kissing him, and hugging him :)

yes, this is one of his smiles! so cute!

look at those cheeks!!

Happy birthday to ME!

I celebrated my 31st (????!!!!!) birthday on August 12th. How did that happen? How did I get to be over 30 years old?! What???!! Anyway, Shawn surprised me by coming home from work early and sending me out for a super fabulous sweedish massage at the Spa down the road! It was fantastic :) And when I returned, the house was spotless and things were prepared for us to have a yummy dinner with the Dreschers! Streamers were hanging from the ceiling and the Happy Birthday banner was out! Shawn grilled some salmon and steaks and Karin brought some awesome salads. It was a great dinner and a fun way to celebrate my big day. Thanks babe!

of course I got to wear our fancy birthday hat....

look how many KIDS we have! and 2 of them aren't even in this picture! good grief! :)

one. month. old

Reilly picked out the boys' clothes.....they both had on navy blue shirts with a small pocket. so cute.

big brother and the obsession

It has been so fun watching Braxton in his new role as "big brother". He frequently looks at Layton and says, "Hi! I big bru-er!" He LOVES it when he thinks Layton is looking at him and he will say, "mommy! Lay-un oo-ing at me!" He loves holding him, though it's normally for no more than 15 seconds and he is so great about giving gentle kisses (this took some training!). Braxton also gets very concerned when he hears Layton crying and tells me, "I check on him!" In the car yesterday, Braxton asked for "Toby Mac" songs and as soon as the first one came on, he looked at Layton in his car seat and said, "Dance Lay-un, Dance!" So cute.

(take note of the green/white ball beside Braxton....it will make more sense when you read below!)

(apparently this is Braxton's new smile) :)

"the obsession".....
It started several months ago. I don't really know when. But the reality is this....Braxton is addicted, I mean obsessed, with balls!! Any kind, all sizes. Baseballs, Footballs, Soccer Balls, Basketballs, Golf Balls. He identifies them with accuracy. He notices them in logos, drawings, pictures, billboards, signs, commercials. He calls out when Daddy is watching SportsCenter which ball he sees. And the obsession itself isn't all...it goes so far that he evens carries a ball around 95% of the time as if it's his security blanket. Seriously. At any given moment, there is at least 3 balls in every room of our house. He constantly has a ball that he is toting around and continually refers to it as "my ball". It goes from room to room with him. It goes in the car with him. It goes to the bathroom with him. It even sits next to him while he watches a show. It could be a different ball from day to day, but the bottom line is, he always has a ball. He will even jump down off the couch while intently watching a show, just to find "my ball" and come back to watching. Reilly has her babies, Braxton has his ball.

this is seriously how he sits...one hand on the ball at all times.