Eden began saying her prayers maybe 2 months ago or so. They were always so long and cute. She mentioned everybody in her prayers- even Bela. Recently she started praying for the food at dinnertime. She's so hungry by that point that the prayer was super short.
"Dear Heavenly Father, please bless the food, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
This was fine by us- who were also pretty ravenous by dinnertime. But it's really affected her nightime prayers. For example, for the last several nights in a row, instead of Eden saying a long thoughtful prayer (for a 2 year old) and thanking Heavenly Father for every person in the extended family and friends and neighbors- and the opportunity to ride a bus that day or whatever it was that was special to her, she has been saying this:
"Dear Heavenly Father, please bless the food. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
We let it slide a couple of nights- we were tired and it was still a prayer right?-, but tonight after she said this prayer again I tried to help her distinguish from a prayer at dinner time and a prayer at night time. I explained to her that there was no food in front of us and that this was a special time to say thank you to Heavenly Father for everyone we love and the special things about that day. So, this was Eden's revised prayer tonight.
"Dear Heavenly Father, please bless the food...uh no, there's no food. Dear Heavenly Father, please bless the food...oh there's no food, no food. Thank you for daddy and mommy and Foxy (she calls him Foxy- cute huh?) and please bless the food- oh no there's no food. Thank you for today and please bless the food- no there's no food. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

It was so cute just looking at her face the whole time because she was really concentrating hard. Andrew and I had a hard time trying to stifle our laughter. It was just so darn cute. It really was hard for her to get out of her little habit. We'll have to work on it some more, but she tried so hard tonight!