"Keep Your Eye on the Ball"

This week l learned a valuable lesson and in the process of learning that valuable lesson I laughed probably harder than I have ever laughed before. I know when you get done reading this you will probably think to yourselves "what an awkward sense of humor she has" but it is okay, I know you will not find it nearly as funny as I did, number one because you were not here to see it or hear it and number two it was not your child who did it...but I digress. The valuable lesson I learned was that children, no matter what you say, take EVERYTHING literally! Let me explain. My wonderful mother came over to our house on Thursday to help bake and decorate Christmas cookies. After we got done Hayden was so excited to finally be able to play with his "GaGa" (that is his nickname for Grammie) since he was having to play with Daddy all day while GaGa helped Mommy with the cookies. My mom and Hayden were in the computer/toy room playing and I was at the computer desk just watching and listening to the two of them. Well, Hayden was carrying around a little trophy looking Lego toy that he got as a gift and on top of it he was balancing a bouncy ball. He was walking around the room trying really hard not to let the ball fall off of the trophy toy. My mom, being the wonderful encourager and helper that she is thought it would be wise to use the old saying "Keep your eye on the ball" so that Hayden would have better luck keeping the ball on the trophy. So, she leans over to Hayden and looks at him and says, "Hayden, keep your eye on the ball!" Hayden then proceeds to keep walking forward with the ball on top of the trophy but at the same time he pulls the ball toward his face and places the ball right on the pupil of eye and continues walking. My mom and I both fell to the floor in laughter and had tears almost running down our faces. It was the funniest, most precious thing I have ever seen. Hayden did EXACTLY what my mom said, he kept his eye on the ball. Wow, children are truly amazing and I look forward to the many lessons Hayden is going to continue to teach me throughout the years.
I hope this story brought you little laughter, and if not that, maybe at least a little smile! Have a blessed day! :)

Christmas Portraits

We took Hayden to Portrait Innovations on Thursday and had some Christmas Portraits done. Chris and I always fear going to get pictures done because Hayden is not the most cooperative picture taking child. He usually just looks at the people like they are crazy and goes about his business. Much to our surprise Hayden did GREAT! He smiled more than we have EVER seen him smile (when getting his picture taken) and he seemed to love every minute of the portrait session. Needless to say that did not make picking a picture very easy for Chris and I. We usually struggle to find one picture where Hayden looks somewhat happy to be alive. This time there were way too many pictures to choose from and we were quite perplexed as to which one to choose. We finally decided on two that we liked best and I posted them below. Chris and I still can't believe how much he has grown and continues to grow. We looked at his picture from this time last year and were shocked and a little saddened by how quickly he has grown up. We are cherishing every moment of his life and thanking God for what a blessing he is to us! :)