When I was kissing the boys before bed last night Jonathan made sure I gave his stuffed Cheetah a kiss.

The other day when Grandpa and Grandma Neyens were dropping off Jonathan's birthday gift, I talked them into playing a board game with him before they had to leave. The novelty of having Grandpa and Grandma being there playing it together got him really excited. Once when it was his time to roll he sprinted out of the room. I went looking for him and found him in the hall on his knees praying. He ran back a couple minutes later and was quite devestated when he didn't win the game. We had a talk about how sometimes prayers aren't answered the way we want them to be. I hope teaching these lessons with prayer get easier with time.

A couple of times this week he has carried Gracie into me with a big smile on her face. He says, "Here Mom, Gracie's being a handful."

Jonathan: "Hey, why does Dad get the big smoothie?"
Me: "Because he makes money for our family and he's my husband. Hopefully when you grow up and get married your wife will give you the biggest smoothie." I figure it's never too young to start encouraging our kids to marry nice people.

Mike and I have our own text lingo. My personal favorite is "nanks" for thanks since both our boys talk that way.

James often looks at Mike with puppy dog eyes and says, "what Dadee?" in really high-pitched voice because he knows it's so cute he can get away with all sorts of mischief. Not that he's really into that much mischief just funny that he's already learning how to win us over.