Memorial Weekend

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial weekend. It was nice to have a three day weekend at home with the family... and it was relaxing for the most part! Unfortunately Jaden and Brandon both came down with colds last week. Brandon's didn't seem to be too bad, but Jaden had it absolutely awful for a few days. It's crazy though... when I have a cold, I usually want the world to leave me alone so that I can do nothing but sleep for three days straight. Even though we could tell Jaden felt awful, he was still full of energy and life! He wanted to be outside all weekend and was constantly asking to go swimming. And even though Brandon hasn't felt well, he still is full of smiles --they just melt my heart! Even though we didn't do anything too exciting over the mini vacation, we did get a lot done around the house. And Cody got our yard landscaped even more! Yay! The backyard is almost completely done -- next step will be to work on the front yard. He also made a little fire pit over the weekend.

A couple of weeks ago, I started asking Jaden every night before bed who he wanted to pray for that night. Most nights it's the same list of people with variations every once in a while. It's usually Coco (Tim and Deanne's dog), Papa's, Nana's, Dada, (sometimes Mommy and Baby), --- and the last few nights he's asked me to pray for the "quack quacks" (we have ducks that swim in the creek behind our house -- and he loves them!). However, many of you know the story of little Ben Ricketts that sadly passed away last week. Leading up to this, I had explained on several occassions that there was a little Ben who had an ouchy and that we needed to pray for God to heal his ouchy. Well that story has stuck in little Jaden's head, because he still asks me to pray for Ben's ouchy every night. In fact, that's always the first person he asks me to pray for. I've explained to him that God did answer our prayers, and that Ben is feeling all better now - and that he is happy and playing with God in Heaven. But Jaden has not forgotten about little Ben :)

We have a busy week this week - my aunt Sally comes to visit from Florida. She hasn't seen Jaden since last summer and has not met Brandon at all yet. Brandon gets baptized this Sunday -- so excited! And we are having the family over to our hosue afterwards. I leave you now with just some of the pictures we had taken of Brandon over the weekend -- he is going to be three months old tomorrow! So hard to believe. Cody is constantly saying, "we could not ask for an easier baby." And it's so true -- for now anyways! He is so content, a huge cuddler and gives the best little smiles. To see him become more aware of the people around him is so fun. He's really recognizing Mommy, Daddy and Jaden's faces now -- and when one of us walks away from him, he is following us around the room to see where we're going. We just love him to pieces and feel very blessed that not only did God gift us with wonderful and healthy Jaden -- but that he did it again with little Brandon!