Thank Heaven for a Mission

Last night I got to talk to the Young Women in my ward about my mission to Italy. It was so much fun and it was amazing how many memories came flooding back... from crazy French men and stalkers, to miraculous tumor shrinking blessings. My life would not be the same without my mission. I had this on my mind today and I realized that I have also been blessed in not so obvious ways from my mission.

Example: Jay has been a little attention hungry lately. He will not let me put him down! Not only does this make it impossible to accomplish anything during the day but my arms are killing me! Well for my birthday Joey got me a carrier for Jay but he doesn't always like it. "Necessity is the mother of invention"-- right? I pulled out my missionary backpack, put it on backwards and in Jay went! I have never seen a more content baby! (Realize that these pictures were a little hard to take by myself!) I'm glad that my children are already benefiting from my missionary service.

Teeter Totter

I've been trying to work on Jay's neck strength by giving him more tummy time. He doesn't usually enjoy it! But the other night he was being super cute on his boppy pillow so I thought I'd share: He kept sliding down though!
I was manning the camera (obviously) so I asked Joe to scoot him up on the pillow. I guess he didn't realize that baby's heads weigh quite a bit more than their feet! I'm becoming more and more grateful for the years that Jay won't remember.

"Family Photos"

DISCLAIMER: I NEVER INTENDED TO POST THE FOLLOWING PICTURES! REALLY... NEVER! SO THIS IS AN APOLOGY TO ANYONE WHOSE PICTURE I AM ABOUT TO POST ON THE INTERNET FOR ALL TO SEE WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION. I AM TRULY SORRY!

Okay back to the post...

"Family Photos"

Joe hates my computer. He can't stand it. We are just like the commercials: I am a Mac and he's a PC. We might even have to go to counseling over this one day because we both feel so strongly about the issue. There is, however, one exception to this blind hatred and blatant refusal to be open minded no matter how obvious it is that Macs are better.... Joe fell in love with a feature called "Photo Booth" on my computer. It is a program that you can take pictures of yourself through the web cam and distort your face to look really weird. I would come home sometimes to find Joe taking dozens of pictures of himself and laughing hysterically! Sometimes, if I was in a bad mood, he would force me to sit down with him in front of the computer and make ourselves look like blow fish or rabid monkeys. So it shouldn't have been a surprise to me that when I kept complaining about the need to take a family picture this is what I ended up with:

We even got baby Jay involved.

Here's some classic Joey pictures:

I am one lucky lady!

Joey was not the only Brady to enjoy this experience though.
(Now here's where the disclaimer comes in.... REMEMBER: I am truly sorry.)
Rick thought it was pretty cool too.

But I have to say that my two all time favorite photo booth moments were when Joe's mom and my mom tried it out.

No matter how many times I see these, I laugh everytime.

Daddy's Turn

I've decided that I should let Joey take care of Jay more often. I came to this conclusion at church today when I asked Joey to feed Jay a bottle and I look over and see this: He fed himself almost the entire bottle without Joe's help! I couldn't believe it. I felt kind of bad taking a picture at church but I just had to have proof. You know I have heard of child prodigies in piano or voice but Jay is a prodigy of eating!

Oh and while I was downloading that picture from my phone I found this one...

Isn't he just soooo cute?

Funny Developments

Jay now sucks his thumb.... ALL THE TIME. It's honestly the cutest thing ever but I just know that I'm going to be horrible at making him stop and he'll suck his thumb until he's thirty! It's so funny because he hasn't learned to make his hand into a fist while he does it so he ends up covering his whole face with his hand. It's a wonder he can even breathe!It does help him fall asleep at night, though, which is something to be grateful for. I just hope he is really falling asleep and not just passing out from lack of oxygen.

Another new thing is that Jay finally takes a pacifier. Hooray for being able to sit through Sunday School! We've been trying to get him to take one for a while now but it wasn't until I tried letting him suck on a Red Cross Pacifier Thermometer that he finally stuck to it. He loves it and refuses to suck on any other pacifiers. I guess I can check his temperature whenever I want!

And the last quirky thing that my child likes, I discovered last week. You know when there are a thousand things to do around the house but your child is demanding to be entertained? Well, some moms resort to a bouncer.... some resort to a carseat on top of the washer or dryer. But what if both fail?... I say you can't have too much of a good thing:

He especially likes the spin cycle!