a boy after my heart!

today was such a busy day. i was pretty much was non stop doing something from 7am until just this very second, not that i'm lazy doing nothing other days.... it was just a non stop day. after i picked the kids up from school i had to run down to the mall to get the last of the "mall shopping" done. and it would just so happen on a day where i had to go hopping from store to store my kids would decide to be the most horrible little things ever. i seriously left thinking in my head "what the heck have i done to myself?" truthfully, i find myself saying that more and more times now that i have three children to deal with day in and day out. please don't get me wrong. i love them to death, and wouldn't ever change the way things have happened in my life for anything, but nowadays i am exhausted more moments then not. im sure their behavior today has something to do with the fact christmas is right around the corner and life has kinda been turned upside down because of it. but still.
right when we finally got home, and i started to give them some down time when it dawned on me that i had forgotten to pick up a book for levis gift book exchange tomorrow, so back into the car i loaded them and off to target we went. i have learned that levi sets the mood of everyone else. it always seems like if he is behaving, alivia behaves... and if they are both behaving, then dealing with anything that comes up with nataley can easily be extinguished and we can move on. thank heavens after the talk of getting no cookie at the "cookie mall" because of bad listening skills they were both on their best behavior, so i decided to go ahead and finish all the "target" shopping i had to do.
by the time we got home tonight and i fed them dinner and gave baths i was far too tired to straighten up levis room. if you know me well, you know that this rarely happens. i have a sick desiese that won't allow me to walk away with a room messy. i just still have so much to do tonight, and really didn't feel like doing it. i figured i would be able to quickly clean it up tomorrow when the kids were at school. i went over to alivias room (which never seems to get too bad, for some reason toys always end up in levis room) to quickly do prayers and tuck her in. when i walked back over to levis room there he was sitting on his floor putting all his toys away. he looked up at me and said "mommy, my floor is a mess!" he handed me one of his cars and asked me to put it in the car box, just like i always do to him every night. we quickly cleaned up the mess toghther and when i layed him down he said "ahhh, doesn't that feel better?" which too, is something i always say to him.
which really is reminder to me that yes, they do all have their own personalities....BUT we still help mold these little people into the grown ups they will one day become.