Prayers and Parks

Tate has his "prayer" memorized. It goes just like this, "Dear Heavenly Father thank you for the food thank you for blessings and health in the name of Jesus Christ Amen, AMEN." This may look like it is missing punctuation, but so is his prayer. He always gets the emphatic second amen right to have the last word. It takes him all of about 8.7 seconds and if your arms aren't folded when he begins, you may just miss the whole thing. It's not to big of a deal though because it is easily repeated again when everyone is ready. Ian has even started folding his arms; well it's more the Elder grab the wrist thing. I don't know if it's because his belly is so big or if he's just that cool. Anyway, this same prayer is used for meals and family prayers; it's multipurpose. He has perfected the speed and annunciation of this oration over the last couple weeks. Today I started helping him "prep" for his prayers by brainstorming what we are thankful for and good things that have happened in our day. Over breakfast he added two items to his prayer, one he was thankful to laugh with Ian, and two he was thankful his light turned green. He and Ian started sharing a room last week and Tate plays peekaboo with Ian in the morning and is rewarded with giggles that are contagious. I have never been so happy to wake up to my children's shenanigans. Tate also has a night light that glows yellow all night and turns green when he is allowed to leave his room in the morning. I was stunned and awed by the thought he had put into his prayer. It was a rewarding mommy moment. Again at FHE tonight we prepped for the prayer and he was thankful for all of his friends and named them one by one. He was even thankful for a little boy that he has never met that we were supposed to watch while daddy went home teaching who didn't end up coming. All night long he kept asking to call this boy's mommy because Tate was sure he was so sad he didn't get to come.
Here are some photos from our beautiful day. 

 Tate and Emily. When he says her name I can't help but smile. He adores her! They made sand cakes for their wedding for over a half hour together. I am definitely not opposed to this someday.

 Emily loved helping Ian walk. She did a good job too. Just the right pace for his little legs. He can take up to 8 steps on his own but to often he looks like he's been drinking something and loses his balance. I am enjoying the time it takes him to figure it out. Tate just took of running so the change of pace is refreshing. Another Ian blessing.

 We love our friends! So many fun adventures.

 This is how we role. We even ran on part of our walk and whipped out the backwards walk so kiddos could face each other. It was fun. Life is so much better when we get out in the sunshine and mommy gets her exercise!