What a difference 6 months makes

Here is a quick list of some things that the older kids can now do that they definitely couldn't do 6 months ago..

• Buckle themselves in their carseats (I no longer have to climb into the back of the van to buckle them in. Glorious.)
• Play by themselves at church for hours (The 1 and 2 year old rooms are magical once they are no longer in there on Sundays. We discovered this during GO Conference week while I was doing work at the church. I seriously couldn't believe how well they played and pretended together, virtually unattended.)
• Tell me when they are sick (They both have self diagnosed themselves with ear infections. Micah saying that he couldn't eat dinner because his ear hurt too badly, and Mackenna telling us she couldn't hear. This allowed us to get treatment before they woke screaming in the middle of the night. This is wonderful blissfulness! - who would have thought that I would be using blissful and ear infection in the same sentence)
• Mostly take care of themselves in the bathroom (Maybe this is why my bathroom smells worse than ever!)
• Dress themselves - picking out clothes and putting them on, taking off their dirty clothes and putting them in the hamper (I'm learning to relax and only say 'no' to outfits when I really have to. This is a work in progress for me.)
• Count backwards from ten (with some help - sometimes their play cell phones will provide all the visual help they need, sometimes they want me to hold up my fingers and help them with some of the higher numbers)
• Sort rhyming word picture cards (with me reading the words)
• Kind of write their names (Micah got the good end of the stick here. Mackenna is really good at M, A, E, N - C and K are hard for her.)
• Do 24 piece puzzles - the kind in the box (They have their own ways of doing puzzles. Micah likes to obey 'my rules' and start with the edges and corners. Mackenna is really good at looking at the whole picture and just kind of knowing what pieces would make the picture come together. She is quiet and steady, slow at first, but sometimes getting done before him.)
• Lace beads on a string (Maybe they could do this before, but they seem to like it now.)
• Complete patterns, kind of
• Put away their toys, knowing exactly which bin each toy goes in (I think Micah actually enjoys cleaning up!)
• Ride their trikes
• Pump on the swings, kind of (Mackenna is better at this.)
• "Feed" their babies their "milk." (Yes, both of them do this sometimes, but Mackenna is the better mommy in this department. She also told him the other day that he didn't have the milk his baby needed. He disagreed.)

And a few things that they still do, that still melt my heart..

• Micah asks me to snuggle with him at naptime on a frequent basis
• They still snuggle with me in the morning in bed
• And Mackenna frequently tells me that I'm the best mama ever
• They play and pretend together like no one's business.

We're not even going to start thinking about all the ways that Jocelyn isn't different today than she was 6 months ago....That is for tomorrow.