Go Team Stephens!

what you said?

2012-01-25T17:29:00.000-08:00

My boys are constantly cracking me up! If you are my FB friend you know I am always posting updates of the conversations my kids have. We had 3 funny ones today. I just need to remember them all. I keep saying I'm going to write a book :)

Me: Nolan, I'm going to take a quick shower. What do you do if someone knocks on the door?

Nolan: Open it.

Me: No! You never ever open the door without mommy or daddy. If someone knocks on the door you come tell me.

Nolan: Ok

Me: What do you do if Pax starts crying while I'm in the shower?

Nolan: Open it.

Me: Sean, what was your favorite part of the day at school today?

Sean: Finishing my name paper.

Me: What was your least favorite part of school today?

Sean: Ummm... I don't have one!

Me: Nolan, what was your favorite part of today?

Nolan: Going to Knotts Berry Farm.

Me: Oh. What was your least favorite part of the day?

Nolan: The big storm with the monster in the sky.

(we surely haven't been to Knotts since December and the sun was shining all day).

Nolan: Momma, why you said we have to take a nap?

Sean: (after a big sigh) Because that's what mommies say.

Don't steal my joy!

2012-01-17T01:19:00.000-08:00

When Pax was born, almost 4 months ago, it was such an amazingly easy transition. He was a great baby, slept all night from the beginning, and nursed like a champ. It was like Pax was always here & we always have had 3 kids, because it was so natural. I was in this euphoric state of floating on cloud 9. God's blessings were so apparent to me in my precious little family, and I was just plain joyful.

That lasted for a couple months. Then things started going downhill fast. Could be part of the reason why I haven't been able to keep up with my blog ;) You know that phrase "when it rains it pours"? Well, it's been a hurricane in the Stephens house for the last several months. It has seemed like one thing after another after another. Dathan got injured at work and was off work for 6 weeks. Workman's Comp didn't decide to pay him until the end of those 6 weeks. Pax got a cold and was only able to sleep in the swing. Which is downstairs. So I slept on the couch for weeks. Our car broke down. Like died. Bit the dust. Not sure if we can get it working again. And to make matters worse, we are still paying on it. Yep, have about 2 years left on our loan. When Dathan was finally able to go back to work, he worked for a week and then they didn't have any work for him for a couple weeks. Then Nolan got sick. Of course the one week Dathan did have work and wasn't here to help me. Then Christmas came, then I got sick. So Dathan missed another week of work to take care of me. I was sick from Dec. 26 until last weekend. I'm still not 100%. In being sick I missed out on a lot of things: New Years, several parties, seeing every college student who was home for Christmas, Girl's Night Out, play dates, etc. And had to stop nursing. I feel as if I basically missed out on almost a month of my life. And through all of this we have had ants in our house. This constant battle that we are not winning, even though we've tried practically everything to get rid of them & have had the place sprayed... 3 times. On about day 10 of being sick I had a mental breakdown. Lost it. Sobbing uncontrollably. Everything came out, all my frustrations with money issues and health issues and issues I wasn't even aware that I had ;) I. Was. So. Mad.

I was mad at God because I felt like He wasn't answering our prayers. I was mad at satan because he was being a jerk to me and our family. I was mad at myself for not getting better. I was just mad.

And then I got over it. What else do you do? I don't want to stay in a place of anger & sadness, what good does that do? I cried. I poured my heart out to God. And then with His help, I made a choice:

I will NOT let the enemy steal my joy.

It's a choice. It really is. We can choose to focus on our pain & struggles. It's so easy to do that! But when that is where our focus is, that is where our heart is. And when that is where our heart is, that is where bitterness & anger creep in. But when we look to God & all that He has done in our lives, then that is where our focus goes... and so our heart does too. Sure, many people may have less struggles than we do right now. But many people may also have more. And honestly, we all are dealing with something. Some people you can tell they are going through stuff and some you can't. I think part of it is because of where they choose to put their focus.

When I chose to see the blessings, I was overwhelmed. There were more than I thought. Really all I have to do is look at my precious family and I can see where God is at work.

"But You, O Lord, are a shield around me; You are my glory, the One who holds my head high." (Ps 3:3)

This is a verse I clung to during my frustrations. Such encouraging truth is in this! God is my shield! I may not see it, but He is protecting me. He's my glory, & He holds my head high. I don't have to hang my head in shame or sadness or anger. I also don't have to use MY strength to hold my head up. God's here to do that for me.

In knowing that I am shielded & my head is being held high, how can I not find joy? Who couldn't use more joy in their lives? And besides....

"...the joy of the Lord is my strength." (Neh. 8:10)

"And these things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." (John 15:11)

So today, I choose joy. And tomorrow I will do the same. Will you?

October catch up #1

2012-01-16T17:08:00.000-08:00

I know most of you don't care, but I'm wanting to do these catch up blogs for my own memory. My blog is like my life scrapbook, so even though this was 3 months ago I want to remember! So please bear with me as I try to juggle playing catch up AND keeping up with life now. Ha!

One of the Monday's in October Sean had no school (I think it was Columbus day?). My mom has Monday's off (and my dad is retired) so we all ventured to a local "pumpkin patch" to spend some time together. This is a cute little place, it's just not a real pumpkin patch. It's an empty lot across the street from Costco that they throw some pumpkins & haybales in, with inflatables, a couple rides, & a petting zoo. The boys really enjoyed themselves. It was HOT this day.

Nolan climbed this ladder like a boss. And I love both boy's faces while going down the slide.

Sean was not wanting to go on any rides. He would have gone on the inflatables all day. But they did ride these bathtubs. Ha!

And Nolan wanted to ride the swings. So cute! (See the main road behind him and Costco across the street? LOL)

Petting zoo time with Memaw!

Getting some pics with my sweet boys. Pax was like 2 weeks here.

My parents had just gotten new iPhones and my brother snapped this hilarious picture of them trying to figure out their phones to take a picture of me & the boys.

Stay tuned for more updates from October, November, December, and of course recent ones! Ha! You'll have to forgive me ;)

project.365.12.11

2012-01-12T14:56:00.000-08:00

Well, in being super sick I totally forgot to post my project 365 pictures from December. In fact, it's a miracle I finished the project because every picture after Christmas day was taken while I was sick, and some of the days it took everything in me to just take the picture. So here they are! I'm super proud of myself for finishing, but you knew that already ;)

10 on Tuesday!

2012-01-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

1.) I have been sick. Like, really sick. My doctor almost put me in the hospital sick. It has not been fun. Christmas day was awesome, and then the next day came and I felt like poo... and each day I started feeling worse. I usually can shake off sickness in a couple days, so when day #4 came and I was still sick I finally went to the doctor. They did a strep test which came back positive and I also had pink eye. I was given medicine that was ok to take while nursing and sent home. I took the medicine for about 5 days, and was getting worse. I could barely keep my eye open, I was miserable, kept getting a fever, and had scabs that appeared on my face. So I went back to the doctor last Tuesday (a week ago) and found out that I also had shingles & a staph infection. Fun. I had to immediately stop nursing Pax because of the medicine they had to give me. I was heartbroken. But I was told I could "pump & dump" to try to keep my milk supply in until I'm done with the medicine. The new medicine is working great, I feel a million times better and am finally not contagious. This is not exactly the way I imagined us bringing in 2012. I literally have not left the house since Christmas day except to go to the doctor's and go to my parents. We have been so blessed by my parents who have helped SO much with the boys, other friends who have watched the boys so I can rest, and amazing & thoughtful friends who have been bringing us meals for over a week now. We are so incredibly blessed.

2.) Because I am SO behind on blogging, today's pictures are from... well... um... October. And a couple from November. Sorry! Ha! Remember how I've said before that Nolan was our little artist? This is how I found him one day when he was supposedly "napping." Sneaky little guy. That's Sharpie. On the closet door & his arm. You have to make sure to check out his arm. It was hysterical, but I couldn't laugh because I had to discipline him. The joys of being a parent, right?

3.) Once upon a time my parents, younger brother, & I took the boys to a local "pumpkin patch" (an empty lot in the middle of town that they threw pumpkins in with some inflatables and rides. ha!). The boys rode this ride that looked like they were inside bathtubs. As you can see by their faces, they were thrilled ;)

4.) Pulse (the youth ministry at our church) has it's birthday party the first Sunday in October every year. Last October they turned 4. Every year the party is a theme and this year was someone famous. If you can't tell, Dathan was Ace Ventura. He was hilarious! I was me, because it was enough work to get a 10 day old baby out to youth ;) The boys wanted to wear costumes too so Nolan wore his pizza costume from Halloween 2010, and Sean was a Jedi in Star Wars pj pants. So cute!

5.) Once upon a time we also took the boys to a real pumpkin patch. And we rode the train. It was a lot of fun! My mom and younger brother came with us too!

6.) The boys are eating peanut butter and crushed up pretzels in a bowl with a spoon. Weird, weird children. Please excuse the mess :)

7.) Sean's first school picture. We bought a couple for nostalgic reasons. He looks so grown up and is so handsome here!!

8.) End of soccer season! Sean loved it. He was funny to watch play- he is a perfectionist and would get so frustrated if the other team scored. His little friend Beka played in the same league as him so they got their trophies the same day. It was the most unorganized, ridiculous ceremony but hey, that's what we do for our kids, right? They were sooooo patient waiting for their trophies.

9.) We went over to my parents house and had a pizza & game night with my younger brother Timmy and his adorable, sweet girlfriend Courtney. We all made our own personal pizzas and then we played dominoes.

10.) Speaking of games, have you ever heard of Scribblish? It is one of the most hysterical games I've ever played. It's kind of like Pictionary except you pass your sheet around. Basically you draw a saying and have to write the caption then draw the picture to go with the saying. Then you cover up the caption so you can only see the picture and mix the pages around. Then you look at the picture of the one you got & have to make up a caption to go with the picture. Then you cover up the picture so you only see the caption and pass it around again. I hope that makes sense. You do it until there are 4 pictures. Then at the end you only see the last picture and you have to guess which one was the one that you started with. You also can vote for the funniest. It is SO funny to see the transformation!! Here is one of the funniest ones we've seen. If you can't read the handwriting the captions go like this:

- I invented a time machine!

- Singing to the music as I hold my bird upside down

- My whistling killed a bird

- Why use a gun when I can sing em out of the sky?

hahahaha.... maybe it's funnier when you're the one playing? :)

family pictures!

2012-01-05T04:00:00.000-08:00

I feel as if because I am a photographer I cannot ever get my family pictures to turn out the way I want them to. I get a vision in my head of what I want and then entrust someone else to help me pull that off, and it doesn't usually work. Probably also has to do with the part of me that's a control freak. But that's another story ;)

Well this year my friend Elaine, who is also a photographer, made a trade. My family pics for her family pics. And I was SO grateful to get to do this. Elaine absolutely helped us pull off what I was dreaming for our first official family pictures as a family of five.

So we drove about 20 minutes out of town and trekked into an open field right before sunset.

We did a little loving on our Pax (and a lot of wiping up spit up! The joys of a baby, right?)

Then, to get everyone in good moods, we did a LOT of tickling...

And also some cuddling...

And we were finally ready to get some shots (Nolan is just too much in both of these pictures)

I even got a couple sweet pictures of me with my THREE boys!

And here they are- the winners! I'm so thankful to not have just one, but several good options for our family picture to put on our Christmas card & enlarge to frame in the house!

And even a great shot of Dathan & I! Ahh! It's been several years since we got a good picture of the two of us!

We had Sean sit in the grass and hold Pax VERY carefully while we took the pictures of just Dathan and I. When we finished we looked and it was just the sweetest thing to see. My 3 boys sitting so calmly together!

We, of course, had to bribe the big boys to cooperate during our session (hey- I am not above bribing my children in a situation like this!). Of course they picked McDonald's Happy Meals as their bribe. Yaaaaay (please hear my sarcasm there LOL).

Dathan and I snapped this photo of us in front of McDonald's when we got there. I have to give credit to two very talented friends of mine. Breanne is the one who cuts my hair, and last time he cut it she curled it for me. Well, everyone FREAKED out and loved the way it looked (including myself). So, she was kind enough to curl my hair for me on our picture day, because I knew I could never get it to look like the way she did it ;) THEN my friend Cheryl is a makeup artist and offered to do my makeup for me. I was thinking some blemish hiding and eye makeup doing but no- she busted out the big guns... literally! She airbrushed my face and even put fake lashes on (maybe I shouldn't be saying this so you all think I look this good all the time? haha!). It was fun to be super girly for a day :)

I'm so excited to hang these prints up on our collage wall! Now I just have to finish painting the frames....

What I learned doing my Project 365 (also known as the longest post in pictures...ever!)

2012-01-03T04:00:00.001-08:00

I canNOT believe that I made it through the year, literally taking at least 1 picture, with my "nice" camera, every day. When I took the challenge at the beginning of 2011, I didn't really know what to expect. I just knew that I wanted to take a picture every day for a year, and that I wanted to do it with my new 5D so that I could challenge myself to take better & more creative pictures. Little did I know that was just a small portion of what I took from it! Here are a few little things I learned about myself through this project:

~ I not only learned how to shoot with my camera in full manual mode sometime in June (I had been shooting AV), but I taught myself how to do it! This project helped me perfect that and realize I'm capable of figuring things out on my own. I don't know if you can see a difference in the pictures from the end of the year & the pictures from the beginning, but I can.

~ I was reminded just how really blessed my life is. I thought my life was a little boring & mundane before this- stay at home mom, helps at church & photographer. But my life is SO much more than that. The good times, the bad times, the easy times, the hard times, the happy times, the sad times... they were all documented. Each a reminder of God's goodness in my life. What a priceless gift I have been given to remember!

~ I think the biggest thing I took from this is a bit more self-confidence. I really CAN finish something. I was telling Dathan I don't know if I have ever done anything every day for a full year (besides the necessities such as breathing & eating & sleeping ;)). Not reading my Bible, not exercising, not even cleaning. But I don't have to let that define me, because I proved to myself that I can challenge myself, start the challenge, AND finish it. I feel as if I have a new excitement for 2012, knowing that I am capable of finishing something when I put my mind to it. That is priceless.

Yes, I will continue to do this project in 2012... which will be project 366! I've had to move it around a bit since being sick, but I will still do my project! And the plan is to put all these photos in a lay flat photo book so we can go through them whenever we want. Which is way cooler than a scrapbook (or at least a lot easier!)

So here is the Stephens life in 2011. A picture for every day. Consider this my annual year in review :) Enjoy.

3 months new!

2011-12-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

I have been taking Pax's monthly pictures on a big chalkboard that Dathan made me. It was supposed to get hung on the wall in our house but now we'll just have to wait until Pax's first birthday because I love the look of these & want to do it until then! ;)

So here are the 1st 3 months. I just love my little guy with the awesome hair. He is a joy!!

The big boys also like to take pictures when I get the chalkboard out. Here is one I took for Thanksgiving (when I did Pax's 2 month pics). It was a big hit in the Facebook world ;)

And the other day when I did his 3 month shot the boys wanted another picture with the chalkboard. I think this one is so fun! Look at Nolan's fat lip. Oh the life of having boys!

Stay tuned for more, coming every month (hopefully, if I can keep up with my blog LOL)

project.365.11.11

2011-12-28T02:36:00.000-08:00

So... now that December is almost over, I will update you with November in a nutshell :)

PS I cannot believe that in just a few short days I will have completed my Project 365 for 2011! It's such an incredible feeling & I have literally learned so much about myself through this. In fact, I have been mulling a blog post over in my mind about all that I've realized through this project! Stay tuned for it :)

To see the rest of the year's pics click here

Merry Christmas!!!

2011-12-26T02:33:00.000-08:00

Hey look at me! It's like some alien has taken over my body because I am not only blogging, but I am blogging about something that JUST happened. Technically it's about what happened yesterday, but since I haven't gone to sleep yet I feel like I'm blogging about something that happened today. I haven't blogged about going to the pumpkin patch in October... or Halloween... surely haven't blogged about Thanksgiving... or my in-laws week long visit in November. I haven't blogged about how Dathan fell at work and fractured his heel and was off work for 6 weeks or how our car has broken down and we haven't been able to drive it for over a month. Nope, the last 2.5 months of my life haven't been blogged yet, but here I am blogging about Christmas. Maybe this is a sign of good things to come??

Every Christmas eve (that we have spent with my parents) we have carried on a tradition that my parents started when I was just a little girl. My mom makes a big dinner, and the dishes of the dinner have never changed- manicotti, bread, salad, and sparkling apple cider. In fact, the only part of the meal that's changed is that my mom makes one pan of manicotti with red sauce, and another with alfredo (because she loves me & knows I don't like tomatoes). I love that the tradition hasn't changed. This year our Christmas Eve dinner was the 5 Stephens, my parents, my younger brother Timmy, and one of Dathan's best friends who is like family, Ryan (but we call him Swanny). My mom decorates her dining room table with her Christmas dishes. It's so pretty!

The past few years we have gone to look at Christmas lights after dinner. There is a street here (I'm sure every town has one) that every house on the street decorates with BEAUTIFUL lights. On Christmas Eve they line the street with luminaries and it is just gorgeous. We have always walked through to look at the lights (because people will sit in their cars and wait in line for over an hour to see them!). Well, we have 3 out of 3 kids sick with "the crud" as we call it (sniffles, sneezing, runny nose, coughing, etc) so we decided to opt out of walking in the cold.

Instead, we made a gingerbread train. It's a good thing we don't ever eat the gingerbread train because surely the thing is covered in germs, but we had a lot of fun. Nolan didn't want his picture taken so I only have one of Sean. I decorated the engine. For those wondering (because even my dad did), the SNP on it stands for Sean, Nolan, Paxton. Yep, we are so awesome that we accidentally named our kids with letters that spell out "Snap" (Sean Nolan And Paxton). haha Nolan decorated the middle car & Sean decorated the end one. We had fun!

I try to make a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake or cupcakes every year. This year I made an ice cream cake. Nothing fancy, and I have no beautiful photos of a step-by-step process of making it to share with you. But I can tell you how I made it: 1 Oreo cookie pie crust. 1 carton cookies & cream ice cream (thawed to almost melted. I actually only used about 1/2 of the carton). 1 small container Cool Whip (I only used about half of that too). Sprinkles are optional. All you do is spread the thawed ice cream into the crust, leveled on top. Then cover with Cook Whip. Then sprinkles. Place back in freezer until hard, cut & serve.

So simple.

And so versatile (you can try graham cracker crust with strawberry ice cream. Or Nilla Wafer crust with moose tracks ice cream. The possibilities are endless really!)

The boys with their traditional one gift from my parents that they get to open on Christmas Eve. Hmmm.... I wonder what that could be? ;)

What? Matching Christmas jammies? I'm so surpried! haha Just kidding, they get Christmas jammies every year and my mom loves picking out matching ones. This year was more difficult because Pax is in 0-3 month, Nolan is in a 3t, and Sean is in a 5. So they are in 3 different sections of the store (infant, toddler, and young boys). But, my mom did it & found them matching ones!

This picture cracks me up. They were SO over it. Sean is such a good sport, Nolan is a typical almost-3-year-old, and Pax was probably hungry ;)

We came home and put the boys to bed, then Dathan & I were busy bees finishing up last minute wrapping until 2:30 am. Boy do Christmas trees look beautiful at night with the lights on & presents underneath!

God has blessed us so much this year. We were going to have a very small Christmas since Dathan was off work for so long, which is totally fine & I feel a great lesson for the kids. But God & several people love us & our tree was filled to overflowing with gifts. :) It's by far not what Christmas is about but so much fun to see the kids faces light up when they see them!

Speaking of kids faces lighting up when they see the gifts, I armed myself with my camera at the bottom of the stairs so that I could capture the boys expressions when they came down in the morning. I had visions of these candid shots of excited faces. Instead I got these two: Sean posing for me (I've trained him well!) and Nolan being super grumpy. We had actually woke Nolan up, which is usually unheard of for parents to have to do with their kids on Christmas morning. What's even more unheard of is that this was about 10:15am and we had all just woken up except for Nolan. Merry Christmas to me! :)

I took one picture of each boy and then put my camera away. I wanted to be present & in the moment while we were opening gifts, and not worrying about snapping pictures, changing settings on my camera, & fighting with the boys about when to look (or not to look).

Pax's gifts are still under the tree. He wouldn't ever even know if we didn't give him a single one, but I still wanted him to have something. Pax did a lot of Bumbo sitting, then crying, then eating, then sleeping while we opened our gifts. Typical 3 month old :)

I had to take a picture of this gift because Dathan did such a great job wrapping it, I didn't want to open it! It's so pretty & fun :) What was inside was even better. I forgot to take a picture (I could later) but he painted a frame with all my favorite colors (turquoise & purple) and inside it put a poem he had written for me. He wrote the poem on beautiful paper with a calligraphy pen & everything. Yep girls, he's a keeper!

When we were done at our house we headed to my parents to open more gifts there (which I didn't take a single picture of).

Then we all (including Courtney, my brother Tim's girlfriend) headed to my grandma & grandpa's house to hang out with family and have Christmas dinner. We had a great time. There was a lot of little baby loving being done. I only got a picture of my mom (Memaw) with Pax, and me (surprise surprise!)

He is my little love!

We take a family picture every year on Christmas day. I need to find the other ones to compare. But these are SO funny. I was so busy being "in the moment" that it was like 8:00pm and we were about to leave my grandparent's and I realized we hadn't taken a family picture yet. The boys (all 3!) weren't having it at all. I am literally holding Nolan's head next to mine with my hand because he wouldn't look at the camera at all. And he never got out of his jammies today because he didn't want to. Well, because we pick & choose our battles with our kids and that was one Dathan & I didn't think was necessary to fight. Shoot... I would have stayed in my Christmas pj's all day if it would be considered socially acceptable! Ha!

So Merry (late) Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful day!

Christmas star countdown

2011-12-02T23:45:00.001-08:00

Just hopping in to share with you a fun thing our family is doing to count down to Christmas.

I know lots of people have fun advent traditions, or creative activities to do every night in December. I'm sure one day we'll work up to those things but for now we have 3 little kids & 2 busy parents so this is perfect for us! A sweet lady shared this tradition with us at our last MOPS meeting, and I was so excited to start this with our boys.

"Twinkle twinkle Christmas star
Show how many days there are
Every night as I go to bed
Take off one loop after prayers are said
When only You are left to shine
I'm so glad Jesus came to be mine!"

Sean takes off the chain on the red nights, Nolan on the green. They love it!

itty bitty eye candy

2011-11-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

randoms of pax's first few days

2011-11-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness, I totally suck at writing blog titles. Please forgive my lameness! HAHA

I also know that yesterday was Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! I hope everyone had a great day! We are enjoying time with Dathan's parents who are visiting from Alabama, but they are leaving today :( We always have fun when they come! I will catch up on my blogging someday & tell you all about it LOL

Sean seriously is the best big brother. I know I say it all the time. but seriously. God knew what He was doing when He gave us Sean first (like there are times when He doesn't? ha! Anyways...). Sean wants to hold Pax every day. He wants to talk to him & give him kisses & hold his paci in his mouth. This was the first morning we were home (well actually at my parents' house) after Pax was born. Sean sat in this chair for HOURS holding Pax. He couldn't get enough of him. The picture with Nolan makes me laugh... we had to force him up there for a picture, he wanted nothing of it!

Later that day I was holding Pax in the glider & Nolan was playing with his trains (and we all know the kid is OBSESSED with trains!). Well I'm not sure why, but all of a sudden Nolan wanted to share his choo choos with Paxton. So he did. And he was SO proud of himself!

These pictures melt my heart!

It only took 4 days of Pax being alive before Nolan wanted to hold him ;) And he basically held him just long enough for me to get a picture of him and then he was over it. And since then (in 2 months) he's probably held him 2 other times... maybe. He likes to talk to him & cuddle with him, but not hold him. That's ok :)

pax's first 2 days

2011-11-23T23:24:00.001-08:00

The first few hours of Pax's life are a blur to me. I honestly think my body was in a bit of shock because of how fast he came. I do remember waiting forever for my parents to get there with Sean & Nolan (it especially felt like forever because we were waiting to announce the name until they got there). Here's Memaw holding Pax for the first time.

Uncle Kellen, not only holding Pax for the first time, but holding a newborn for the first time. :)

Hanging out with Uncle Timmy (aka Uncle B) watching Little Einsteins on Disney. Nolan looks so serious in every picture! Ha!

What did we do before technology?? I can almost guarantee all 3 of them (Dathan, Timmy, & my dad) are posting something on FB haha

Finally in our room! We tried to get rest but instead got lots of visitors, which of course we loved! Some of the visitors included: Memaw, Papa, Uncle B, Uncle Kellen, Uncle Swanny, DJ, Mercy, Jen, Amanda, Mike, Jessie (who also came & got our keys and then went to our house & cleaned up for us so we could come home to a clean house! She's the BEST!) John, Veronica, Crystal, Kym, Duane, Heather, Lorena.... I'm sure there were more but I can't remember. And I don't have pictures of all of them, I'm more writing this for my own memory ;)

For several hours the day after Pax was born we didn't get any visitors. Dathan, Pax, & I were all able to nap, and then I took advantage of the beautiful natural light coming in the window and took some pictures (sorry, but you can't shut off a photographer's mind, even 24 hours after she's had a baby!)

And I set the camera up so Dathan could snap a couple of me & Pax. I just love these pics (and it's rare that I ever love a picture of myself... especially after having a baby! LOL)

Getting ready to leave the hospital, only about 36 hours after Pax was born. He was not happy to be unswaddled & have us change his clothes. You may recognize his special coming home onesie from this post here ;)

Ready to leave! I know I'm blurry, that's what happens when you have a fancy camera but you are the only one who knows how to use it. LOL. That's ok. Here we are about to leave the hospital! I love it that when the boys came during the sibling visiting hours they always made them name tags that said "Big Brother" on them. Too sweet!

I just cannot believe how much he has changed already!!

the big brothers meet pax

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

Ok everyone, I'm going to need you to put your imagination hats on. And then I need you to pretend with me that Pax will NOT be 2 months old tomorrow and that he is only, say, 1 week old.

You got that? Ok, now read on. Thanks.

I was so excited for Sean & Nolan to meet their new brother. It was fun to be pregnant this time because Sean was old enough to comprehend more of what was going on, and he was so excited about it. Everyone is so concerned about Nolan being the middle boy. We keep telling him he has a special job of being both a big brother & a little brother... nobody else in our family has that job ;)

The boys had stayed the night at my parents' house the night before Paxton was born. I was on the waiting list to get called in for an induction when they had an opening, so we brought them over just in case I got a call in the middle of the night (I just had a feeling that we would need them to be over there that night). Paxton came SO fast that my mom was still feeding the boys breakfast when he was born. So we had to wait a bit for them to get the boys dressed & get them to the hospital. We had kept Pax's name a secret and didn't want to share it until we told our families first, so we could not wait for everyone to get there!

It was fun to see how each boy responded (side note: all of these pictures are taken by somebody else with my camera, because I was limited to laying in the hospital bed). Sean was just enthralled. He had brought one of his little Lego toys to share with his new baby brother (you can see him giving it to Pax in the picture below). Nolan, on the other hand, was not sure of what the heck was going on (which you can also see in the picture below).

It wasn't even 5 minutes that they were there before Sean asked to hold Pax. It's still one of his favorite things to do. And it only took Nolan 3 days before he asked to hold Pax (ha!), and he has only held him 1 other time. But he tries to cuddle with him all the time while he's on the swing.

This picture cracks me up! Sean: "I'm saying cheese & smiling but I'm not taking my eyes off the tv!" Nolan: "Don't take my picture! I don't even know why the heck I'm here or what in the world is going on!"

He was this serious all day long. And wanted to sit right next to me for a long time. He needed his momma to comfort him during all this confusion ;)

We got the boys "new big brother" presents to give to them at the hospital after Pax was born. Sean loved his new Star Wars figurines & Transformer.

And nolan LOOOOOOOVED his trains. Of course. :)

My mom surprised Dathan & I with the shirts the boys wore to meet Pax in (they said "Most awesome big brother") :) Sean was also dressed in Nolan's shorts. I was trying to figure out for 5 minutes why Sean's shorts looked so weird on him. May be because they were size 24months... and he wears a 5! haha!

project.365.10.11

2011-11-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

if you want to see the rest of my year in photos, click here

baby showers

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

My son is definitely almost 2 months old and I'm just now blogging about my baby shower. Such is life ;)

Every month a group of my friends & I get together for Girl's Night Out. We meet the first Monday of the month and either go out somewhere or go to someone's house (we usually switch off each month). Whenever it's the month that someone is due with their baby, we always have a "surprise" shower for them. I say "surprise" because we never tell the momma to be but we always do it so you kind of know it's coming ;) On Labor Day was our September GNO, and my friends threw me the sweetest shower! They even invited other women from our church who I am friends with, so that really was a surprise!

And my mom was there! You're never too old to want your mom :)

The 3 preggies at the shower. Our babies are all a total of 18 days apart! Pax was born the 22nd of Sept, Eliya, Jen's daughter (in the pink) was born on Oct 10th, and Jaycee, Candice's daughter (in the black) was born on Oct 7th. Too much fun!

My sweet GNO friends who put on the shower for me. Lorena, me, Jen, Candice, Veronica, & Heather

Because it was baby season, there were several important baby showers I got to attend. One of my best friends growing up, Heather, is pregnant with her first baby (a girl... like all my other friends! ha!) Her & her husband are youth pastors in PA so we were so excited that she was able to come & visit & we could see her cute little baby belly in person.

This picture cracks me up. Kellen stopped by the shower & was making fun of all of us women who were "ooohing" and "ahhing" over the gifts. He's such a crack up!

She was blessed with SO many gifts! I'm not sure how she get them all back to PA!

Isn't she gorgeous? She is literally due ANY DAY NOW. So excited!!!

Heather & I have been friends for over 25 years. We went to 3 year old preschool together & are sitting next to each other in our class picture. We were in each other's weddings. We have shared so many important milestones in our lives together. So we were thrilled to finally be pregnant together! Her shower was actually on my due date. And the funny thing? Pax was born on Heather & Jimmy's 5 year anniversary! ;)

And another shower. For another life-long friend. Candice and I have known each other as long as we can remember. We would go to the nursery at church together (the same church we go to now... the same nursery that we now take our own kids to. So weird!). Her mom & mom-in-law threw her a beautiful shower to celebrate her sweet Jaycee.

Here's another picture that makes me laugh. Our friend Lyndsey shoved a pillow in her shirt to pretend like she was pregnant too. I actually believe there were something like 6 pregnant people at the shower. In fact, when I walked in I heard a lady say "oh my gosh I'm not drinking the water... it's contagious!"

Thumbs up because Candice had less than a month til her due date. Thumbs down because I was 3 days past mine (and had no idea that I had 4 more days I would still have to go). LOL

It really is a joy & so much fun to have friends who are walking through life with me, in the same stages of life as me. It's even more fun to do it with friends who I have known forever. Life-long friends are such a special and rare gift, and I am blessed with several of them!

10 on tuesday- holy cow i'm far behind!

2011-11-15T02:04:00.001-08:00

I would like to just start this off by saying that my lack of blogging actually has nothing to do with having another kid.

Seriously.

Pax is such a peaceful, happy, sleepy, good baby. But more on him another post.

My computer was getting ghetto. Really ghetto. There were vertical lines all across the screen. It would take about 50 years (no, I don't exaggerate) to load or save pictures. It would also shut itself off every so often. Sometimes while I was online but every time I used Photoshop. Most. Frustrating. Thing. Ever.

But I am happy to say I have a new laptop and all is well in the world! :) I am getting caught up on my personal pictures as well as my jobs. I didn't realize I was over 2 months behind on our own family's pics. So this is a 10 on Tuesday catch up edition. All of these things are what I wanted to blog about it September but my dang computer wouldn't let me.

So let's just pretend it's September right now....

1.) The day of the first Alabama of game of the season. The boys were ready. Roll tide.

2.) Sean helped Nolan put his flip flops on one day

3.) this is really all I can show you of the nursery. It's an empty room with some furniture in it. We haven't decorated it yet because we have yet to decide on bedding we like. We have our old bedding that Sean & Nolan used, but I honestly am tired of it & it's not really my style anymore. I kind of have an idea in my head of what I want but I can't find it anywhere. So if anyone knows where to find simple, almost retro-looking bedding in grays, oranges, and/or turquoise please let me know!

4.) Making pancakes is so exciting. Especially when you are making them for dinner. We had SO much fun this night- a PJ party & breakfast for dinner. Whole wheat pancakes, turkey bacon, grapes, and some scrambled eggs (for Dathan & myself).

5.) I think I mentioned before that we started a MOPS group at our church??? I have a vague recollection of talking about that. This is a picture of our first meeting... which was on my due date! LOL Our 3rd meeting is this Thursday & it has been growing & going SO well every month. I'm excited :) Oh and we meet in the Kid's Ministry Center (where they have kid's church on Sunday mornings and Jr High service on Sunday nights) which is why there are giant apps decorating the room. Ha!

6.) The day after my due date. Taking walks and spending a lot of time outside trying to get Pax out. Didn't work.

7.) In preparation/hopes that Pax would come soon, I pre-packed all of Sean's lunches for school so that if my parents had to take him they wouldn't have to worry about it. My friend saw this picture & said I pack big lunches for Sean. I think they just look that way... a piece of fruit, a mini box of raisins, a snack sized baggie of cheese-its, fruit snacks, string cheese, a "dessert" (small brownie or cookie), and Gatorade. Is that a lot? He always eats half at school and the other half on the way home ;)

8.) Sean LOVES doing puzzles. He is so smart, and that is just the way his mind thinks. This picture made me laugh though because it was taken a few days before Pax was born, and we have pictures of Sean sitting at the table doing puzzles a couple days before Nolan was born too! And he was only 2.5 then... he's always loved puzzles! I would have pulled up the pic to compare but it's on my external hard drive and honestly I'm just too lazy to get it all hooked up & transferred right now.

9.) I don't know if any of you remember that back in February, the day before my birthday, Nolan fell at my parent's house & hit his head on the bricks of the fireplace & we had to take him to the ER to get staples (if you don't remember you can read about it here). Well... the day before Pax's birthday (although we didn't know it would be Pax's birthday) Nolan fell on the bricks at my parents AGAIN and busted open the back of his head AGAIN. We thought we'd have to make another ER trip but it was just a surface wound.

10.) A picture with Pax in it! Ha! This summer my air conditioner broke in my car. It was making me physically ill to be so pregnant in the 100+ degree heat, driving around town getting Sean & Nolan in and out of their carseats running errands. So my mom was so nice & traded cars with us so that I could use her with the working air conditioner. We weren't sure if 3 kids in 3 different kinds of car seats would fit in the back of a Honda Accord, but they do... just barely! It's a tight squeeze!!

Thanks everyone who keeps sticking with me even in my lack of blogging skills. I try to do this as a scrapbook of sorts for our family but of course your comments are always welcomed so that I can know people are here! ;)

comparing

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

sean. nolan. pax.

all about the same age.

the hair gets darker & bigger each child we have.

if our next child is another boy he may look like wolverine.

and if it's a girl she will probably be rapunzel.

just sayin

project.365.09.11

2011-10-25T00:13:00.000-07:00

Waaaaaaaaaaay overdue... and I apologize.

On top of just enjoying my family and settling in to life as a family of 5 (which I LOVE by the way!!), my computer has been acting up. Whenever I open up Photoshop it just turns off. Sometimes it lets me edit 2 pictures. Sometimes 8. Sometimes none. It's SO frustrating! I am SO behind on all my editing, and now that I am back from maternity leave I can't get behind on my jobs. So needless to say it's taking me awhile to get everything updated... which I want to do! So for today, I am sharing all of my project 365 pictures from September. Enjoy :)

And to see the rest of this year's project 365, click here

let them be little... sniff sniff

2011-10-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

This week's theme on I Heart Faces is perfect for my stage in life right now. Since it has been almost a month since my last post on here, it's safe to say life with 3 kids has taken it's effect on my blogging. But that's ok. If you looked at my pile of clean, folded laundry waiting to be put away, you would see life with 3 kids has taken it's effect on that, too. And my dishes. And my house in general. But you know what? That's ok!

I apologized to Dathan on the condition of our house. The truth is, I can't seem to put Paxton down. He's so sleepy & cuddly & I just want to hold him. All day. And so I do. When Sean was a newborn, everything was new & there was so much I had to learn. When Nolan was a newborn I felt as if I knew what I was doing, but adjusting to life with two was extremely difficult. This time has been such a peaceful transition, & I am well aware of how fast time goes by when you have a newborn (I mean I didn't even realize it had been almost a month since I blogged!). And so I hold him. And I cuddle him. And I pray over him & sing to him & kiss him on his forehead.

The laundry can wait. So can the dishes. And the toys on the floor. Because they are only this little for such a short amount of time. And when he doesn't curl up into a ball anymore and cuddle on my chest, I'm not going to care if my house was clean. I'm just going to wish I spent more time cuddling with him when he was this little. So I am.

If you want to see more "let them be little" entries, go here!

Paxton Ryder is here!!!!

2011-09-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

After being pregnant for 41 weeks, I am SO happy to say that our sweet baby boy is here!!!

Paxton Ryder Stephens

(meaning: Peaceful Warrior)

Thursday, Sept 22, 2011 @ 8:11am

9lbs 8oz 21.5in

His birth did not go anything like I had expected it to, yet was everything we knew it would be, if that makes sense.

I was on the list to get called to be induced for Weds the 21st. The way it works here is they "schedule" 4 women to get induced per day and then call them in the order they are scheduled whenever they have an available bed. I was #3 out of 4 on the list. A friend of mine waited 3 days for them to call her and even when she did go in, she ended up calling them. So, we didn't "announce" to anyone except a few close friends that we were even on that list, since we didn't know how long we would have to wait. All while praying that I would go into labor on my own (I had a really strong feeling that I would. Some people thought I was crazy or just had wishful thinking).

By Weds night they hadn't called us yet, so we took the boys over to my parents' house to spend the night, in case we got called really early to go in. We came home & Dathan went to bed & I sat up almost all night with pregnancy insomnia I'm sure (and a little bit of restlessness). Around 3:00 I was finally able to go to sleep. At about 5:00 I woke up to a contraction. Now, I had been having contractions on & off for about a month, so I didn't think anything of it. I got up, went downstairs, & walked around for a little bit. The contractions kept coming every 5-7 minutes, and were pretty intense. After an hour I finally decided to wake up Dathan.

Dathan gets up, gets ready, makes coffee, etc. We are not rushing because my water hadn't broke yet & my contractions weren't unbearable. On our way out I said "Oh, lets take one more belly shot so we can remember how big I was when I finally went into labor." Please excuse the fact that I look like a wreck, you have to remember I was going on about 2 hours of sleep, have no makeup on, and was contracting ;)

At about 6:15 or so we are driving to the hospital. It's only about 5 minutes away, but in those 5 minutes my contractions seemed to have gotten more intense. Regardless, I had Dathan park the car in the parking lot & we walked into the Women & Infants Pavilion, or WIP (as opposed to him dropping me off at the door & getting a wheelchair to wheel me in). I said "walking helps labor move along faster!" We left our bags & camera in the car saying Dathan could go get it after we got into our labor & delivery room. We get inside & there is only one lady working the registration desk (I was pre-registered) and there was a lady in front of us getting registered. We stood there waiting for what felt like forever, but Dathan said was only about 10-15 mins. By now I'm having a hard time breathing through my contractions. I even said something along the lines of "that girl getting registered looks pretty calm, can the registration lady not tell I'm in labor??!?!" HA! Finally she calls us in & gets all our paperwork, asking me questions that Dathan had to answer because I couldn't speak through the contractions. Finally she takes us into triage.

The nurse shows us our "room" and explains that they have to tend to the lady who was in front of us first, so it will be about 30 mins before a nurse will get in to see me. Remember, my water hadn't broken yet so nobody had any cause to worry. We sit in triage playing "words with friends" and talking in between my (very painful) contractions that are now coming every 2-3 minutes.

After about 30-35 minutes a nurse finally comes in with a student nurse. They get me hooked up on all the monitors & she gets ready to check me. She explains to the student nurse that because I was dilated to a 3 at my appointment on Mon, and because I was having my 3rd kid, and because I was quite uncomfortable that I was probably already dilated to a 4 or a 5. I was hoping for a 6. She checks me and gets this strange look on her face and says "you are dilated to an 8!" An 8?!?! What?!?! The first words out of my mouth are "is it too late for an epidural?!" She tells me it depends on what my dr says.

I send out a text to my mom. Then I send out a text to some friends. Then I update my FB status (yes, I am that person) with "In triage and dilated to an 8! Ready or not, here baby comes!" That was posted at 7:40am. After that point is kind of a whirlwind for me. We waited a little bit longer (I think for them to get the room ready) then they wheel me over to the labor & delivery room. I am in pretty extreme pain at this point. My Dr just happened to be doing his rounds at that time (praise God!) and he comes in all suited up. I said "it's too late for an epidural, isn't it?" He tells me yes & I try not to freak out (I'm pretty sure I asked for an epidural about 3 more times, including while I was pushing LOL). He checks me. I'm at a 9. He breaks my water. I start pushing.

Ok let me just say that after having 2 children with an epidural & having something to compare it to now, all of you women who willingly choose to not have an epidural are crazy! In the best kind of way of course :) Haha! I don't remember exactly, but it was about 4 or 5 pushes and Pax was out! I couldn't believe it. After Dathan cut the cord, he & I kind of sat there in shock as the nurses cleaned Pax up. It all happened SO fast. He was born at 8:11am. 31 minutes after I posted my FB status. How's that for a fast delivery???

Our camera (and everything else!) was still in the car, so we have no "nice" pictures from right after he was born. The picture at the top was taken with Dathan's phone.

So the pictures on my nice camera went from the one above of me still pregnant to this:

And WHAM! Mommy of 3 sons! Hard to believe! What an incredible blessing! I am so thankful for a healthy baby & a quick delivery. He kept us waiting a long time to meet him, but then once he was ready to come he didn't mess around :)

I just love our family of FIVE!

This picture kind of sums up how the boys are reacting to Pax- Sean is SO excited & into him, and Nolan just couldn't care less (we finally got him to hold Pax for the first time yesterday... it only took him 4 days to want to! ha!)

Pax was a "big" baby, but not as big as Nolan was, and he doesn't seem that big. He is so sweet and laid back, nursing great & sleeping great. I am thrilled. And so in love.

God gave us a promise when I first got pregnant that this baby would bring peace & restoration to our family & to the lives of others. About 4 years ago God gave Dathan a promise that restoration would come to him, but not in the way he had planned. That it would be long awaited for, but then would come suddenly. God also told us that Paxton would come when He told him to & not on anyone else's time frame.

I think that Pax is already fulfilling those promises from God :)

1st day of kindergarten!

2011-09-21T23:12:00.000-07:00

Well, in one hour (at midnight) it will officially be one week past my due date! Little guy sure loves his momma and where he is ;) Ha!

So in the meantime, I need to share about Sean's first day of kindergarten, which was such a bittersweet day for this momma!

I'm not sure whose idea it was to be almost 39 weeks pregnant on Sean's first day of school, but I woke up that day crying. Oh man. I wasn't sure if I'd be ok! I was thinking of the past 5 years and all the time I've spent with Sean, wondering if I made the most of it or if it was wasted. Things that I'm sure are needless worries, but I still thought about. We got up & got Sean ready for school, then of course had to head outside to take some pictures! What's a first day of school without a ton of pictures, especially when your mom is a photographer? ;) My poor children...

I'm not sure if you can tell or not, but Sean was a little excited to go to school! Ha! Dathan was able to take an early lunch break and join us as we brought Sean to school for the first time (he is in afternoon kindergarten so he goes from 10:50am-2:10pm).

I did great dropping him off at school! No tears until we turned around to leave & I saw another om crying, then they all came out. Luckily Sean didn't see, which was my goal! It's amazing to watch your children grow up & see them become who God made them to be. I am so proud of Sean & the little guy is has become. He is smart & happy & funny & loving, I couldn't have picked out a better oldest child if it was my choice!!

So far he is doing great at school, really only having a hard time because he is finishing his work too quickly then doesn't know what to do with himself. So I'm a proud momma!

due dates are not my friend

2011-09-17T01:21:00.000-07:00

Ok so lets just get one thing straight here. Due dates are not a "you will have your baby by this date or money back guarantee" deal. They are more like a suggestion. Some babies, like my first born Sean, saw his as a challenge to beat, and he did (2 weeks early). Some babies, like my second born Nolan, saw his due date as a goal to get as big as possible, and forced us to have him one week early (STILL weighing in at 10lbs). And then there are those other babies... the ones like my third born is, apparently. The babies that don't have any regard to the due date. The ones who are comfy and warm and happy inside their momma's tummy, and that's where they want to stay. The ones who think "due date shmu date, I'll come when I want to."

Yep, my due date came and went on Thursday (the 15th) and baby Stephens is still not here.

First we were saying Labor Day would have a been a fun day to have him. I mean, there's some humor there if you go into labor on Labor Day. But nope, that didn't happen (which was ok because my friends threw me a surprise baby shower). Then we were saying last Saturday would have a been a fun birthday, because it would have been 09.10.11. But nope, that didn't happen either (which that was ok as well because Sean had his first soccer game of the season that day).

So now we are just waiting. Still waiting. And on top of waiting, these last 2 weeks have been the busiest of our entire year. Sean started Kindergarten. Sean started Ranger Kids. Sean started soccer. Our high school small groups at church started back up. Our youth service started back up. We had our first MOPS meeting (which I am on the planning committee for). Sean had back to school night. One of my longest time friends Heather, who is pregnant with her first baby, is in town from PA and had a baby shower. I can keep on going. All of that happening while sitting here saying "I can't really commit to anything because I don't know when this baby is coming."

Physically I have felt great this whole pregnancy. I am now getting to the point of exhaustion, soreness, & insomnia (hence the post at 1:00am). But I really can't complain. I have a feeling this little guy is using his time in my belly wisely and trying to catch up to Nolan's birth size. So although I am quite uncomfortable, waddle wherever I go, and pee all the time, I'm doing ok. I even took Nolan with me shopping at Sam's Club a couple days ago and had no problems. I am very blessed & thankful for that.

Emotionally, I am a different story. These last couple months of pregnancy have been hard on my emotions. My mental health has taken a beating, I guess you can say. The biggest thing is, I am super uuber easily irritated. Oh my poor husband. He actually isn't the one who irritates me, but he is the one who gets to hear me complain about who is irritating me and why they are annoying. I'm sure he's sick of it. My friend Erin has also been a kind listening ear, although I'm sure she's sick of it also.

You wanna know what irritates me? Because I'm sure if you have ever been pregnant (especially up to or past your due date) then I'm sure you've felt the same way. Ha!

1.) The comment: "oh, so you're still pregnant?"

Nope, I just stuck a bowling ball in my shirt because it's so much fun to have it there.

2.) The question: "So when are you gonna have that baby?"

If I knew, I would be a much more pleasant person.

3.) The question: "Are you sure you're not having twins?"

That's a 'nice' way of saying "oh my gosh you are HUGE!"

4.) The comment: "I was 2 weeks past due with my 2nd child."

Yes, that can always happen. But you do not tell a 40+ week pregnant lady that she is going to go 2 more weeks. You just don't.

5.) The comment: "Try walking/massage pressure points/have sex (etc) and the baby will come!"

Dude, I am on my 3rd baby & am now over 2 days past my due date. I KNOW & I've tried!

6.) The comment: "I cannot wait any longer to meet that baby!"

Um, the baby is not in your stomach. I promise I want to meet him more than you.

Ok I'll stop there. Don't get me wrong, I know when people ask those questions they are not meaning to be rude or mean. In fact, it is all out of love & concern for you & your baby. But when you hear it 50 times a day it just gets rough. I may or may not have skipped church last Sunday because I wanted to avoid answering those questions all morning.

So, I officially give up guessing when this baby will come. He will come when he is ready, and I am ok with that. Of course more than anything I want him to be as healthy as possible, but a very close 2nd to that is I want him to be as healthy as possible in my arms instead of my belly.

Here's to hoping that the next post from me will be introducing our new little guy to you! But if he takes much longer I'll just have to blog about everything else that has been going on ;)

project.365.08.11

2011-09-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

Well another month has gone by! See ya next year, August! August is a busy month for us, as you can see we had a LOT of fun :)

If you want to see the rest of this years pictures, click here

another ballgame

2011-08-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

We recently had a fund-raiser for Royal Family Kids Camp (to read more about it click on the RFKC tag at the end of this post) where we sold tickets to our local baseball team's game, and all proceeds went to the camp. All of our tickets were for the same section behind home plate, so it was a lot of fun to go to the game, support our camp, and be with a TON of friends & family. It was a gorgeous night & we really enjoyed ourselves.

The sunset was unreal!!!

Kellen has become a regular on my blog. In between innings they started playing the YMCA song. And nobody was dancing. So Kellen jumped up and led everyone (not just our group) in the dance. They really should consider hiring him!!

At the end of the night was a fireworks show. Since the boys haven't seen one in the last 2 years, they really don't remember what they are like. Well, Sean sat like this the whole time. And Nolan was in tears by the end of it. Oh well, maybe next year they will like fireworks ;)

I just love being able to support something we love & spend time with our family & friends at the same time. Hopefully we can continue our relationship with not only the Jethawks but other public figures to get exposure & help with fund-raising for our camp. God opens up so many amazing doors for us!!!

happy cookies

2011-08-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

The cure for a not so great day.

~~I don't ever have those days~~ I was having one of those days. The house was a mess. The boys were fighting & whining. I was hot & tired & sore. It was too hot to go anywhere and do anything, especially at 37 weeks pregnant, and I was about to go insane. I was being a grouchy mom & my kids weren't having very much fun. Frankly I felt at that moment I was really sucking at the whole mom thing. What I wanted to do was lay on the couch & turn on a movie for the boys & just take a nap. But I knew that wasn't what I should do.

Then I remembered that I had all the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch. Because 2 weeks ago I was craving them, but got as far as buying the ingredients. Ha!

So I rolled off the couch, waddled into the kitchen, and measured out all the ingredients into little bowls like they do on cooking shows. Then I invited the boys into my kitchen (it's small. The only part of our townhouse I would change. Only one person can fit comfortably in there at a time, so it's "my" kitchen).

And guess what? They were smiling!

If you are like me then I know you also looked in the background of the above picture at what my kitchen looks like. Ha! It has a whole lot of white! And dirty dishes in the sink. And a LOT of stuff on the fridge. And a sticky note of encouragement on the microwave. Just the way we like it. Ok well except maybe the "whole lot of white" part. :)

I sat the boys on the counter with the mixing bowl in between them and let them take turns pouring in the ingredients. I would use the mixer & they would cover their ears & laugh. We poured in the chocolate chips (dark chocolate of course) and then I let them each pour in a tube of mini M&M's (so they may or may not have been from Christmas... but they have been sealed in their tubes in the freezer so that still makes them good, right?) to mix in too. They were so excited to see it all come together!

Does anyone else look at cookie dough and just want to eat it? And it is quite the torture as a pregnant woman to make cookies & not eat the dough. I just keep telling myself, a couple more weeks!

They helped me use our little cookie scoop and load up the cookie sheets. Then Sean asked if we could put sprinkles on the cookies. Of course I said yes. These were "lets make a crappy day a little happier" cookies and I'm pretty sure sprinkles make everything happier!

Yes, I have to wrap my phone charger around my phone a certain way for it to charge (see background of above picture). My laptop charger has started doing the same thing. Awesome, it must be contagious! :)

This picture is funny to me because I tried to hold the camera above my head & take a picture of the boys with the cookies before I put them in the oven, but I had to try & miss getting my belly in the frame! It was so funny. And Nolan was too busy singing into his M&M tube to look up at the camera.

Over 3 dozen cookies were baked.

The boys and I were all smiles, with good attitudes & happy hearts. The happy cookies worked!

Dathan was having a frustrating day also so I suggested he come home for lunch & eat some happy cookies.

He did, and his day got better.

My younger brother had some unauthorized Ebay transactions go through his bank account, so I offered him cookies. It made him happier too.

The cookies were gone the next day, but there were a half a dozen happier people in this world, and it was so worth it!

Sometimes you just need to drop what you're doing and bake chocolate chip cookies with your kids.

mini family reunion

2011-08-26T06:37:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a couple days ago that we had a little family reunion at my grandparents' house. My cousin Steven & his son were in town (Dathan had never met him so it had been awhile since we had all seen him) so we planned a big bbq get together. Almost all of the family was there (my brother Brian, his wife Candace, & their son Canaan couldn't quite make it from England) and we had a blast.

These are the two responsible for this whole motley crew! I'm pretty sure my grandparents are the cutest. Ever. Their names are Joyce & Troy, better known as Grandma & Grandpa or even more better known as Big Hair & Pops (or No Hair). Don't worry, those are terms of endearment & they love them! ;)

Because of them, at this party there were their: 5 kids, 3 son-in-laws, 7/8 grandkids, 2/3 step-grandkids, 3/4 grandkid-in-laws, and a whole lot of great-grandkids! How fun of a legacy do they have? They have been married 57 years & are still very much in love. My grandpa has a picture in his wallet of my Grandma when they first started dating. Still. He has kept it there through all these years :)

Almost everyone spent most of the day swimming. Nolan swam for over 4 hours. Longest amount of time he has done any physical activity for, but especially swim. He would get out and eat a snack, then hop back in. Then an hour later get out & eat another snack, then hop back in. He was in heaven & cried when we said it was time to get out for dinner.

My mom is probably going to kill me for posting this picture but it's just too funny. My mom doesn't drink. But one of my cousins asked her to hold their beer bottle for them so they could jump in the pool to cool off. The sight of my mom standing there with a beer bottle in her hand was too funny not to take a picture of.

Ok I accidentally sized this picture too small, so I apologize. But I am too tired to go in & change it ;) Just some family hanging out.

There were LOTS of people in the pool. I believe we counted 18 people at one point. This picture you can see 14, and I know you aren't able to see everyone.

We did manage to get a quick 4 generation picture with Big Hair, my mom, me, & the boys. We were all tired but it's still cute :)

I am thankful to have gotten to see so many family members & spent that fun day together celebrating everyone! What a blessing family is (no matter how crazy)!

3rd time's a charm?

2011-08-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

I have been saying this whole pregnancy that I feel significantly smaller than I did with Nolan.

And it was definitely not a complaint! :)

So on Sunday (because I felt like I looked semi-cute) I finally took a "real" belly shot (with Sean I took them every 4 weeks on the dot. With Nolan I tried to take them every 4-6 weeks. This time this picture was my 1st). I always feel silly taking the pictures, but then appreciate them later.

Anyways, I didn't realize that I was not only way smaller than I was with Nolan, but I'm also way smaller than I was with Sean! Wow!

I was exactly 36 weeks in my picture w/ Sean. I was 35 weeks 5 days in my picture w/ Nolan. And I am 36 weeks 5 days in my picture with #3 (yep, I am now 37 weeks along!).

Can't wait to meet the little guy!!!

wordless wednesday

2011-08-24T06:16:00.000-07:00

10 on tuesday!

2011-08-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

1.) Dathan works SO hard for our family. He really is the hardest worker you will ever meet. This last job he has been doing has been a lot of fun for him, but hard. He is building this new patio cover on the side of the house. The thing is, the house faces west, & this is the south side of the house. If that doesn't mean anything to you let me translate: he is in the sun. All. Day. Long. Yet as exhausting as that is, he still comes home & plays with the boys, helps bathe them & change diapers, he always puts them to bed at night, and so much more. I know all he wants to do is lay down & rest, but he continues to give.

2.) I am so excited because our church is finally starting a new MOPS program! And one of the best parts is 6 of my friends, along with myself, are all starting it up together. We have had such a fun time planning it (and if you have ever been involved in a MOPS group please share any ideas you have with me!). It's amazing how God brought the group of us together & we all just kind of fell into our jobs & have worked so well with each other. The last couple of meetings we have had at my friend Veronica's house, and a couple of the high school or college girls have come to entertain our kids for us while we met. Each meeting our kids had a picnic in the backyard, it was so cute & so much fun!

3.) Apparently part of Sean's superheroes' super powers is the ability to play the keyboard....

4.) Please tell me I am not the only one whose kitchen looks like this after a weekend of baking & cooking??

Anyone?? Anyone?????

5.) I had to take a picture of this dinner, because 4 out of 4 people in my family ate it. That is a BIG deal. Well, Sean picked all the lettuce out but still, he ate what was left, and in our house that just has to work sometimes. It's just a simple "taco salad." Lettuce... ground beef (we would have usually used ground turkey but our friends gave us a bunch of beef so that's what I used)... crushed up Doritos... and ranch dressing. Simple (the way I like it)!

6.) We are still going through the last of our boxes from the garage (it's been a LONG battle). This evening when Dathan brought some boxes in for me to go through, the boys started saying it was their fortress & they were stuck inside. It was adorable.

7.) I know this is kind of hard to see, but Sean drew this picture of me. He said it was "super-mommy with a baby belly in a force field so the lightning from the bad guys can't get her." Love it!

8.) Sean climbed up here and said it was his space station. I believe he was navigating himself through outer space when I took this picture.

9.) My parents watched the boys for us one evening & Dathan & I actually got to go on a double date with our friends. This was us right before we left, can you tell we were excited?? :) If you look closely in the background you can see Nolan walking out of the front door... with Dathan's soda that he not only stole but drank the rest of! Hahahaha!

10.) Typical Stephens family. I love that Dathan & Sean's faces match, and so do mine & Nolan's.

look this way!!!

2011-08-22T05:09:00.000-07:00

Last week we had a BBQ at my grandparents house where almost all of our family was there- meaning my grandparents with their 5 kids, 3 sons in laws, 7/8 grandkids, 2/3 step-grandkids, 3/4 grandkid-in-laws, and all but 2 of their great-grandkids (My brother, his wife, & their son weren't there because they live in England! And then of course our little guy was "there" but not there yet. Ha!). Whew! There were also some significant others at the party. I think 30 something people... what a blast!

We tried to get a photo of my grandparents with all of their great-grandkids that were there. Boy was that a job! Considering there were 9 of them. And the oldest was 6. And 7 of them were boys. Not to mention my grandpa was as bad as the little ones trying to get him to look at the camera too. Sooo... even with a gazillion parents & grandparents standing behind me trying to get all the kids to look (forget smiling too- just looking was a hard enough job!) these were the best shots we got...

... And they are HYSTERICAL. Please pay close attention to the 4 boys in the front (my two plus my cousin Mandi's two, Jacob & Aaron)... we were rolling!!!!

And this one was the "winner" of the whole batch! Ha!

Gotta love it! We sure do!

happy birthday sean!

2011-08-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

I was doing SO good about blogging every day and then WHAM... I've missed a week! Whoops! That's what happens when busy life gets in the way ;)

Last Sunday we celebrated Sean's 5th birthday (as well as our 7th anniversary, but we will do something probably after the baby comes for our anniversary). I LOVE celebrating my children. Their lives are such a gift not only to Dathan & I but to everyone they meet. God has truly blessed us and the least I can do is celebrate them :)

Sean has always been our gift. He is a special treasure to us. He not only is our firstborn, but we found out we were pregnant with him on Christmas Eve, so he was our Christmas present. My very first ultrasound just happened to be scheduled on my birthday, so he was my birthday present. And then he was born on our anniversary. What a neat way for God to introduce one of our greatest gifts to us!

He is so creative and smart! He will sit and follow directions step by step for Legos or Transformers until he figures out how to do it... by himself... without any help. He is so loving & compassionate. I always tell him that God made him the oldest child because He knew that Sean would be the best at that job. He brings SO much joy to everyone he meets!

We woke him up on the morning of his birthday with some special gifts... his soccer gear! We signed him up for soccer so we got him the shin guards, cleats, & soccer ball he needed & wrapped it up for him. He was SOOO excited.

We had donuts for breakfast and then went to church. After church we came home & Sean asked for quesadillas for lunch, so that's what we had ;) Then the boys had their rest time, because at 5:00 that night we had his party! Knowing I would be very pregnant on his birthday & that it would be very hot, we made the decision months ago to do his party at his favorite pizza place (that has a whole arcade inside) and just invite a few of his friends. It was the best decision ever. Not only did we not have to worry about cleaning up before or after, the kids were entertained, and with coupons we spent LESS than we did for Nolan's "small" pizza party at my parents house!!!

The day after Sean's party last year he told me he wanted a Star Wars party for his 5th birthday. He never changed his mind, and so that is what we had!

Sean had almost all of his uncles there. His real Uncle Timmy "Uncle B" (his other real uncle lives in England). And his two pretend uncles- Kellen & Swanny. He is so spoiled & blessed with so many people in his life that love him!

Dathan & Swanny went early to decorate the tables and make the balloon light sabers. Sean asked Dathan the day before his party if he could buy the long balloons and make light sabers for everyone, so of course Dathan did ;) The kids loved them, and even doubled them as hats. Too funny!

Sean's request for his cupcakes was "chocolate with Oreos inside" so that is what I made. They were yummy so it was a good choice for him! I used this recipe for the cupcakes, and just added the cut up Oreos to it, and then used this recipe for the icing. I also bought some Star Wars rings to decorate the cupcakes with. Simple & fun.

Of course what is a party without presents? The lighting was awful in the pizza place so I didn't get very many good pictures, but here are some of his fun gifts. Our gift to him wasn't pictured, but we got him a comic book Bible, which he loves & asks to read every night.

Sean & some of his buddies. These pictures crack me up because they are eating the chocolate cupcakes & it looks like they are missing teeth! Ha! Like I said the lighting was bad, so I didn't get every kid that was there (what's funny is all the pictures of the girls turned out blurry) but here are some:

Sean, Nolan, & Ethan

Seth, Teagan, Nathan, & Noah

We had such a good time!

And the day after his birthday this year... well, he asked for a Transformers party for his 6th birthday. Check back next year to see if the little planner changes his mind ;)

happy annibirthary- part 1

2011-08-13T05:55:00.000-07:00

Our actual anniversary (7 years!!!) is tomorrow, but as most of you know it is our Annibirthary (Sean was born on our 2nd anniversary) so I want to do a post today for marriage & a post tomorrow for Sean :)

I do not consider myself to be an expert on marriage by any means. But unfortunately in these days being married 7 years is a large feat, and I am proud. It has not always been easy. We have gone through some REALLY hard times. We have had to work hard to get to where we are, and are still working to get better. It's not always a walk in the park, but it's worth it.

I'm posting a couple engagement photos. With my super long hippie hair. And a couple wedding photos. But I thought it would be fun to share 7 things I've learned in 7 years of marriage! :)

1.) Love is a choice. You will not always feel those butterflies. You will not always like each other. That is normal and part of life. But it is your choice to love your spouse every day or not. I choose, no matter how (pregnant & hormonal) I am, to love Dathan. He is my gift, and I choose to treasure him.

(see, I told you... looooooong hair)

2.) It is vital to learn what love language your partner speaks. And if it is a language that does not come naturally to you, then learn to speak it. Making sure the other sees & appreciates your efforts to show them love is key to keeping your marriage strong. If you do not know what those are, you can read about them here. My top two are gifts & words of affirmation. Dathan's top two are physical touch & quality time. We do not speak the same language naturally, but we have learned how to speak it to each other.

3.) Take time out for each other. Especially after kids join your family. Make efforts to keep the romance & love alive. Go on dates, even if it's just grocery shopping without the kids. Stay up late & watch a movie together. Write encouraging notes & hide them places. Flirt with each other. Praise each other in front of others.

4.) No matter how upset you are with your spouse, never ever bad mouth them to your family, friends, or in other public places (like Facebook). Nothing boils my blood more than reading a post from someone who is venting their anger out on FB for all to see about their husband or wife. Not only does that show a high level of disrespect, but it also gives all who hear or read it a reason to disrespect them too. We are here to build each other up, not tear each other down, even in the middle of frustration or fights.

5.) Someone posted this on FB the other day, and I have to borrow it. It's not my own thoughts, but it's true & so powerful:

"You cannot fall out of love with your wife/husband without falling out of love with Jesus first."
Jesus first. Spouse second. Kids third. Everything else after.

6.) Surround yourself with people who are in the same place in life as you. Now I'm not saying it's not ok to be friends with single people (one of my best friends is a beautiful single woman!) but I am saying that it's important to have a support group of people who know exactly how you feel. We are blessed with an amazing marriage matters class at church where we get to learn ways to build our relationship on a weekly basis all while hanging out with a dozen other young couples who want to strengthen their relationships too!

7.) Pray. Lots. Pray for each other. Pray for your marriage. Pray for your hearts to be open & never calloused. Pray for God to show you how to change. Pray for humility. Do not be afraid to ask for help if prayer doesn't fix things immediately. Counseling is not only for those who are about to be divorced or already divorced... it also can help you never get to that point.

I have so much more I can share but these were the first things I thought of. I'm sure a lot of you have some wise marriage advice as well and I would LOVE to hear it!

I want to end this post with a song. Some people are not fans of Christian music, but sometimes there is so much power in words to a song that you can't help but be touched by it. The first time Dathan & I heard this song we knew it was a song that defines our relationship. Please listen & read the words & allow the truth to sink in!
"And if we try to leave may God send angels to guard the door... for love is not a fight, but it's something worth fighting for!"

Dathan, I love you more than you know. And our love is such a beautiful, special gift. I will always fight for you and for our love. Happy anniversary!

maternity leave

2011-08-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

Technically I went on maternity leave on August 1st. It's a technicality because I have done 2 photo shoots since then and have one more on Monday. When I planned my maternity leave it was months ago and I was expecting to be massively swollen like I was with Sean & Nolan. Since I'm not, I have made a couple exceptions. But I'm not doing anymore after Monday. It's hot, and I am getting tired ;) Here are the last sessions I did:

Bethany: Class of 2012 (one of my Senior Reps)

Sweet family

This family won my last FB contest. They submitted a picture of Adam & Savanna together while she was still pregnant, and he was leaving to be deployed to Iraq. He is now home safe & sound and we were able to capture their sweet family together as a family of 3!

These girls' daddy just got stationed in Japan, and they (along with mommy of course) are waiting for all the details to fall into place before they join him. We did a fun girl's shoot and I just LOVE this picture!

Such a fun, loving, beautiful family! 4 generations are captured here!

One of my most favorite pictures :)

My shoot on Monday is of my other Senior Rep. I am excited, we have some fun things planned!

Our Annibirthary weekend is getting started off tonight and will be going full force until Monday! We are going to a baseball game in a few minutes and all the proceeds go to the camp that we worked at for abused kids. Tomorrow we are having a big family "reunion" at my grandparents house. I get to see a cousin I haven't seen since before Dathan & I got married (so Dathan has never met him) and I get to meet my other cousin's new baby. Yay! Sunday is our actual Annibirthary and we have church and then Sean's Star Wars party! Yay!!!

what we've been doing lately...

2011-08-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

...a whole lot of:

jumping

splashing

doggie paddling

funny face making

breath holding

resting

powerade and pepsi breaking

and repeating

phone pics!

2011-08-10T16:00:00.000-07:00

My phone doesn't take that great of pictures. They're pretty bad. But I rely on my phone to capture moments that I can't always capture on my nice camera (I don't carry it around everywhere with me. Just practically everywhere. Ha!) Here are a few of those moments:

I always feel safe because I am protected by a couple of super heroes!!!

Nolan actually wore a hat this day. He never wears hats. But for some reason he likes this Dodgers one, and it's the only one he wears. We were at Sam's Club and they were so cute sitting in the cart together. When I make my trips to Sam's Club we usually plan it around lunch time. I get hot dogs & a pretzel & an Icee for the boys (feeding all 3 of us for under $5 is convenient but not healthy! ha!) and then they eat while I shop. It usually works ;)

I was having a REALLY bad day. One of those days where I wanted to quit my job as a stay at home mom. The boys were fighting & crying & whining & super needy ALL day. I had errands to run & there was NO way I was going to try to go in public with them, plus the AC in my car is broken so it's not like it would be refreshing to drive anywhere since we all are sweaty by the time we get there. And it was wearing this tired, pregnant momma down. So Dathan came home from work early (self-employment PLUS!) and said "you leave. for as long as you need. I'll take it from here." :) He had also gone and borrowed my mom's car so when I did leave I could be in a car that had a working AC. So I went to my favorite cafe and ordered my favorite salad off their menu (chicken caesar... but with ranch since I can't have caesar while pregnant), a pepsi with the good crushed "Sonic" ice, and their amazing toast. Then I sat... by myself... and worked on pictures. It was amazing!!!!

This picture was taken at 11:00am. He was STILL asleep from going to bed the night before!

I sat and colored with the boys. They said I did it wrong because giraffes are not those colors ;)

I was about to shower & had asked Sean to bring my makeup bag in for me and leave it on the counter for when I got out. When I was done & opened the shower curtain, this is what I found. Plus side... I didn't have to dig through the bag to find what I needed!

On Satuday we got up early and went to a bunch of yard sales, looking for bookshelves. We didn't find any, but did find some great classic children's books for the boys (ironic, right?). After being out for hours we had a nice lunch at our favorite diner. This is what a typical trip out to eat looks like for our family...

Hopefully tomorrow we'll be back to my nicer pictures, but these were just too fun not to share ;)

Dathan has been working at a family friend's house building a new patio cover for them. He is in the direct sunlight all day, and doing physical labor, so it has been hot. Our friends have a pool and are so great because they let us swim whenever we want. So we go at least 2 times a week and bring Dathan lunch, all eat with him, and then take a quick swim in the pool before Dathan has to get back to work. That is what we did today and it was SO much fun. I love that all 4 of us love to swim, and swimming is such a great relief to being in your 3rd trimester in the summer!

HOT day

2011-08-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

Another thing we marked off of our family fun list was going to Apollo Park. We picked pretty much one of the hottest days of the year to go, but we still had a good time. Apollo park is really big, with a walking trail, man-made lake, bridges, and several playgrounds. It's a fun change of scenery from the desert we live in (although you can still see the desert when you look outside the park. ha!)

When you go over the bridge & look into the water you could see hundreds of little fish. The boys thought that was pretty cool, of course!

Because it was so hot that day (and you are not allowed, nor would you want to, swim in the lake), we let the boys run & splash in puddles to their hearts' content. It reminded me a lot of when we went here last fall (which I guess I didn't blog about, but it was unseasonably warm & we ended up letting the boys splash in puddles then too!).

We played on the playground for a little bit, but there was NO shade and it was over 100 degrees. This little contraption was hilarious. It would spin around, so Dathan thought he'd try his hand at walking on it... which resulted in him falling off every time.

After playing on the play ground we helped the boys cool off a little...... (if you look in the background you can see what I meant about still seeing the desert when you look out of the park)

There are LOTS of ducks and LOTS of geese at this park. We forgot to bring bread but this really sweet young couple (with a baby) came up to us & said they had extra bread & asked if we wanted any. So nice! The boys were thrilled to feed the birds. Nolan loved feeding them, but he loved chasing them more...

Although we had the best time, we (honestly) probably won't go back until this fall after the baby is born. It was just too hot, and there's not a lot of shade or places to cool off. So for our future park days, we'll stick to smaller ones in town that have shade. Ha!

take me out to the ballgame

2011-08-08T06:28:00.000-07:00

Like I mentioned a couple days ago, we were able to go to a Jethawks baseball game with tickets that were given to us. We had such a good time! The boys did pretty good, considering they were bored somewhere around inning 6. Which, for their first baseball game, isn't too bad!

Some of our friends we went to the game with. Actually, this was almost the whole group except for my friend Monique & I (go figure the moms didn't get in a picture). The guy in the glasses is Ryan aka Swanny, but my kids call him Uncle Swanny (Nolan says "Uncle Fanny" haha). Next to Swanny is David (Monique's husband) & his two kids Noah (who Swanny is holding) and Danica. Then of course my guys :) I love that the guys are holding the kids!

I made one picture that night

I kept trying to get pictures of the boys, and they made me laugh so hard. Sean did NOT want his picture taken, and he was getting so irritated with me. Which, being the meanie that I am, made me giggle and try to take more. Ha!

Nolan, on the other hand, wanted me to take his picture (for once!) and then immediately would say "I wanna see!" He is so funny.

We'll be going to another Jethawks game on the 12th of this month. They are doing a fundraiser for Royal Family Kids Camp and all proceeds from ticket sales will go to our camp. So awesome! We get to have an info booth & other fundraisers go on at the same time too. Exciting! If you are local and want to go, let me know & I can let you know how to get tickets.

mulligans

2011-08-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

We have a fun local mini-golf place called Mulligans. Well, when I was growing up it was called Funland but somewhere along the way they changed the name (I think I like Mulligans better!). The last time we were there Sean was about 3 or 4 weeks old, so it's been awhile! Ha! Our friends were giving their daughter a birthday party there so we got to join in on the fun. It was a beautiful night with fun friends & happy kids!

Here they are getting ready to play! The pretty girl with long hair next to Sean is Alyssa, the birthday girl.

It was nearly impossible trying to get a picture of all the kids together. Sean & Alyssa had fun in front of the camera though ;)

Sean LOVED playing.

So did Nolan, but he found an easier way to get the ball in the hole- just put it there! Ha!

This picture cracks me up!

He is such a good sport, he poses for me in all the fun places I find. He may make silly faces 98% of the time, but at least he lets me take his picture!

Some of the pretty girls we played golf with- Alyssa, Alexis, & Presley.

This is my favorite picture of the night. All the kids were too short to ride the go karts by themselves, and only Sean & Malachi were tall enough to ride with an adult. But they all wanted to and would just watch through the fence. It was adorable!

Presley, Nolan, Lexi, Sean, Seth, & Malachi

Presley & Malachi are the children of our friends who just recently lost their 4 day old son. If you think of them, please still keep them in your prayers. The healing process is a hard one, but they are blessed with a hope that comes from the Lord, a strong family, wonderful friends, and an amazing church to help them along the way. You can actually read more about their journey here: John's blog and Bre's blog. If you do not get inspired by them (and cry reading them!) I would be surprised!!

putting color on the walls

2011-08-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

Since we are renting, we have decided for the time being to leave all the walls in our house the ivory color they are all painted. Boring, but we don't want to put a lot of time/money into it if we decided after baby #3 comes that we need more room when our 1 year lease is up. So I have been working on ways to put color on our walls & back into our lives (the carpet is brown btw so it's a lot of blah to look at).

Lets be honest... artwork can get expensive. And unless you LOVE the picture or painting you see, it's really impersonal. Since we all have a love for art projects, I decided to buy a couple of canvases and some paint that matches the boys bedding and let them make their own art for their room.

They chose the little spot of sun in our garage to sit and paint their hearts out. It was such a blast! I was so proud of Sean, if you look carefully you can see the Incredible Hulk he painted on his canvas. Look how happy they both are!

Unfortunately, when they were finished and we left them there to dry, Nolan saw Sean's and apparently thought it needed more color... so he started to paint on it. Sean starts crying so Nolan starts crying and our fun day was turning downhill really quickly. I remembered that I had a blank canvas in a box so I dug it out and gave it to Sean to paint another. So of course Nolan wanted to paint again, and I found a scrap piece of wood for Nolan to paint (he didn't care). Quick resolution to the problem!

After they dried & we sprayed them with a gloss Dathan and I hung them up in the boys room (well, not the piece of wood). I LOVE how it looks and the color that it adds to that part of their room!

And the boys are So proud when they look at their art hanging on the wall. Nothing beats that!

Someday I may finish decorating their room, and if I do I will definitely share it with you! Just wait til you see our collage wall I've been working on for the living room.... ;)

2011 Family Fun List

2011-08-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago we had the idea to make a list of fun things we could do as a family.

We have realized that a lot of our family time wasn't filled with a lot of quality, and we want to fix that!

We want to be intentional with our time together, making memories & building strong bonds together. Not just for the summer, but year round.

I wanted to share our list with everyone. I have it typed up & printed out, with boxes next to each one to put a sticker for every time we do that activity. Some of these we have already done this year, but we won't count it if it was before the list was made. A lot of these activities can be done more than once, and some will probably only happen once. But regardless, we are trying to make sure to do them all!

Within two weeks of making this list, we had done 4 things on it! Some of the stories of how they happened are really cool...

Like going to a Jethawks game, for instance. The Jethawks are our local minor league baseball team. Sean went to a game with Dathan & my dad when he was 10 months old. Nolan has never been to a game, and we have never gone as a family. So this was something we thought would be fun to do. Just a couple days after making our list (we hadn't shared it with anyone yet) our friends at church came up to us and said they were given 7 tickets to the Jethawks game that weekend & couldn't go, so they wanted to know if we wanted the tickets. Sure! So... we were able to mark something off our list, for free, & invite a couple other friends to join us. What a blessing! Here are the boys with the mascot, KaBoom! They weren't too sure of him...

Apollo park is a really fun park just outside of town. There's a big man made lake (that you can fish in), a huge walking trail, and several different playgrounds. We took a Sunday off of church and just spent it as a family. It was so wonderful. We slept in, then spent several hours at Apollo Park. It was HOT. But we had a blast, and got to check off another fun outing from our list.

Later that same evening, after naps, we went to our friends to go swimming. Nolan wore a Puddle Jumper for the first time and LOVED it. He is fearless in the water and this allowed me to be relieved of a little stress while swimming with him. He did so good and was so brave- he even jumped off the diving board! He did so well I got on Amazon the next day and ordered him one! Sean, of course, stuck to the shallow end but even he was getting brave & jumping in from the side.

And the last thing we have checked off our list (for now) is getting Fro-Yo (frozen yogurt) on the Blvd. This picture isn't of us actually eating the yogurt (oops... I guess we'll have to go back! ha!) but it's from the evening that we did eat it. The Blvd has been having a farmer's market every Thursday, and we decided to stop by. We hadn't eaten dinner & the boys kept asking to eat ice cream. I said we aren't going to buy dinner AND ice cream. Then I realized it was summer & you only live once, so lets have ice cream FOR dinner. Problem solved! So we went and got our fro-yo with the toppings we wanted and we were four happy Stephens! :)

Can't wait to share all the fun memories we make, inspired by our list! :)

pregnancy update!!

2011-08-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

I realized (thanks to your help, Nancy!) that I have hardly said anything about how this pregnancy is going! So, I suppose 34 weeks along is as good of time as any to update you ;)

I have felt GREAT this pregnancy. I mean, really great! Besides the random hormonal swings (read: I get irritated easily sometimes) and heartburn (nothing a Tums can't fix) this pregnancy has been smooth sailing. I didn't even start wearing maternity pants until I was about 18 weeks along (I was 10 weeks with Nolan when I had to bust them out!). So far I have only gained 16lbs (the least amount I have ever gained at this point in pregnancy) and am trying really hard to not go too far up from here. I am measuring right on schedule, and my dr. has been monitoring me to make sure that we won't have another Nolan sized newborn (Nolan was 10lbs & 23in).

With both Sean & Nolan I was VERY swollen. At about 20 weeks my ankles & feet swelled up and they literally did not go back down until a couple weeks after the boys were born. I am not exaggerating. This time, the only time my feet have swollen was when I was working at RFKC and running around all day. What a difference! I didn't think my other pregnancies were bad, but this one definitely feels better now that I know there is a difference!

I have been having a lot of Braxton Hicks, and they have been painful. I do seem more sore this time around, but I'm sure a lot of it has to do with this being my 3rd pregnancy :)

I have been REALLY bad about taking belly pictures of myself. This is the most recent one, and it was about a month ago. I honestly don't think I have gotten much bigger since then.

Also, about a month ago we were given a 4D ultrasound of our little guy! Look how cute he is! I cannot wait to see him & hold him & kiss him. We were shocked at how much he looks like Nolan in this picture!

We had a name picked out, but decided to keep it a secret. It's a good thing, because we have been second guessing it. Ha! So, my brother has named the baby Professor X & my small group girls call him Mystery. I keep joking that we will be those parents at the hospital still trying to figure out a name for their kid. I hope not, that's one thing I don't want to stress about!

wordless wednesday

2011-08-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

10 on tuesday!

2011-08-02T06:16:00.000-07:00

Happy 10 on Tuesday!

1.) Our friends live in the same townhouse complex as us, and we love it! It's a play dates & swim dates & can I please borrow your hand mixer & a cup of sugar type of friendship. So thankful for them!

2.) Sean wanted to wear his pj's under his clothes for the day. And then when I asked to take a picture Nolan wanted to be in it and wanted to do the same exact pose as Sean.

3.) I keep forgetting to post this, but I bought it off a sweet lady on Etsy and I LOOOOOOVE it. She even personalized it for me and got it in the color I wanted, in such a reasonable amount of time. Our family rules. One of my favorite wall hangings in our home!

4.) He fell asleep like this.

5.) One of my favorite things to do is hang out with the intern girls & leaders from our youth group at church. A lot of times I will put the boys to bed & meet up with them at around 9:00pm and hang out for a few hours. DJ is so much fun! And she was such a trooper because we were sitting in Denny's and it was 11:50pm and I realized I hadn't taken my picture of the day yet so she let me take one of her :)

6.) Trying to get a belly shot with the bathroom door open at my parents and this is what happens...

7.) The first Monday of every month we have Girl's Night Out with lots of us friends from church. We have a blast! One month we'll go out somewhere and the next we'll have it at someone's house. We all enjoy a night of hanging out with no kids & no husbands. And outdoor seating on a beautiful summer night? Perfection!

8.) I heart summer fruit. We go through it like nobody's business. But if I don't cut the tops off the strawberries & put them in a bowl or pull all the grapes off & put them in a bowl too, we won't eat them. We are an "open the fridge and grab a handful of fruit" kind of family (the boys do it too!).

9.) Dathan is pretty much the coolest daddy ever. This is one of the many reasons I believe God keeps giving us boys. I mean seriously... whose husband goes down the stairs on a crib mattress with their kids??

10..) Sean is my little helper. Nolan was trying to help pick up (his new obsession... I'm not complaining!) and threw the clothes I had picked out for the boys for the day in the washing machine. Well, he attempted to throw them in the washing machine but it was closed, so they flew behind the washing machine. I couldn't reach them so Sean climbed up and I handed him a broom and he maneuvered the shirts & shorts out for me. He's awesome.

project 365 07.11

2011-08-01T02:56:00.000-07:00

Well... here we are in August already! Can you believe it? August is party month for the Stephens because the 14th is our Annibirthary (our anniversary & Sean's birthday). Woohoo! We have SO much planned for August already & then to add being 34+ weeks pregnant makes it even better (or hotter? ha!). I'm due Sept 12th or 13th-ish but we keep joking that we wouldn't be surprised if little man came 2 weeks early just so he could have a birthday in August as well ;)

Anyways, back to the point of the post- Here's every day in the month of July for us! What a fun month we have had! I just love summer, don't you?? Enjoy! :)

To see the rest of the year, click here

pool party!

2011-07-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

I love summer because it is full of parties with friends and lots of good food! We had a pool party at one of our pastor's house for our marriage matters class, and I made this hit to serve for dessert: banana pudding. You can click here for my recipe (and some pretty bad pics LOL). I don't like bananas so I actually don't eat it, but it seems to be a winner with everyone else!

We drove out to our friends house and jumped in their pool. It was HOT (I think 105) so the pool felt great. Dathan & I LOVE to swim & the boys do too, which is wonderful for all of us!

In fact, Nolan is our fearless child. He always asks to be thrown higher. Or go under. Again daddy again!

Sean is more cautious in the pool. He also always wears his goggles and "snoogle" (snorkel).

We stopped swimming long enough to eat a potluck dinner with carne asada as the main course... yummy! Then some of the kids played a mini game of baseball. We were impressed with how good Sean did!

We went back in the pool for awhile. Dathan & Nolan came up with this fun game where Dathan would toss Nolan in the air, jump off the rocks, catch Nolan, and land in the water. It gave everyone a heart attack but they both loved it & I knew that Dathan would catch him so I wasn't worried ;)

Then later in the evening we ate dessert. Nolan loved the banana pudding. And then he started crawling around and being silly in the grass, and before he realized it the dog ate the rest of his dessert. So funny!

Our family could swim every day if we had the time! We LOVE LOVE LOVE it! And then when it's with friends it's even better!

messes mean you're having fun!

2011-07-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

We LOVE doing art projects in our family. I am so thankful that both boys have acquired Dathan & my love for being creative. On one of our art project days we ended up doing it at my parents house (not sure why). Sean was painting a couple frames for his preschool teachers as a thank you gift. He was concentrating so hard on his work.

Nolan, seeing that Sean was painting, wanted an art project too. I didn't have anything for him to paint, so I quickly looked around outside and found a broken brick lying around. Perfect, Nolan was a happy boy!

I've been trying really hard to teach the boys to use a different sponge or brush for every color, or at least clean it out so we don't mix all the colors together. Well... as you can see, one of my boys has a harder time with that rule...

He also has a harder time staying clean...

Sean is actually a pretty clean kid!

But they can make a mess together, and that's ok with me

Because to me, messes mean you've been having fun ;)

welcome back 10 on tuesday!

2011-07-26T06:36:00.000-07:00

1.) We got a fun package in the mail from some friends of ours in Illinois, full of Batman gear for the boys! It was such a fun surprise! Sean LOVED the mask and wore it for several days straight. One day we met "Uncle Kellen" at Olive Garden for lunch & Sean insisted on wearing the mask (and the cape he already owned) to lunch (and Dathan insisted on photobombing the picture. ha!)

2.) We love taking evening walks as a family around our townhouse complex. The boys love it too and ask for it, which is great. Sean loves to ride his bike & Nolan gets pushed in his car.

3.) The youth group had two missions teams this summer- one went to Atlanta and one went to Vegas. They had been having car washes to raise money and we would come by to support them when we could. And this day we put our boys to work... except we didn't tell them to do anything, they just picked up the sponges and started working!

4.) One morning when I went on a walk with the boys the sprinklers turned on. So I, of course, let them run in them!

5.) I took this picture and Dathan said "no wonder there are feet marks on the wall!" Hahaha

6.) Our youth have a program during the summer called MIT (ministers in training) which is basically a summer internship for high school students. I think it's awesome that so many teens willingly give up 4 days a week during their summer to get up early, pray, and study the Bible & different ministries. Dathan and I were asked to come speak to the MIT students about being a man of God/woman of God. They separated the guys & girls and we had an hour & 45 minutes to speak. I LOVED every minute of it. These are the amazing young ladies I spoke to!

7.) Summer haircut time for Nolan (Sean like his long hair so he didn't get a summer haircut. Ha!)

8.) Sean graduated from the preschool Wednesday night program at church. Next year he gets to move up to an all boys class, and he is SO excited! We are proud of him for earning every badge this year in his class!

9.) I am so thankful that Dathan has a job with some freedom in it, that we can go visit him or he could even take the boys to come "help" him. I love that this is normal for Sean & Nolan.

10.) I don't know if I have ever introduced you to some other members of our family. I know I have talked about Uncle Kellen (first picture in this post), who probably over 10 years ago just started calling my parents mom & dad, and has transitioned into a member of the family. Well, my friend Lisa has also wanted to be a part of our family, so this year at camp my dad officially invited her to be in the family too. So funny! We are just missing my brother Brian, his wife Candace, and of course all the kids in this pic, but Royal Family Kids camp is definitely a family affair!

party cabin!!!

2011-07-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

Being on the core staff for Royal Family Kids camp is so much fun! I started out at camp as a teen helper, then was a counselor, then a helper (when I was pregnant with Sean & when Sean was less than a year old & I'd have to go home to be with him every night) and now this was my first year on core staff. I love it! I love meeting every week and planning camp, helping raise the funds, getting staff, etc. My friends Amanda & Regina, along with myself are... well... the youngest members of core staff. So we have fun and get teased a lot about being so young. The 3 of us roomed together at camp along with our other (young) friend Lisa who is the camp therapist (we are so proud of our college graduate friend!). So... we called ourselves the party cabin. This was our door (yes baby boy Stephens even had his own name paper):

We tried to have fun all week with everyone, cheering and encouraging people to have fun. So all day Thursday we were thinking of something funny we could do to the other core staff members that night. Just a fun, harmless prank, of course. So we took out everyone's name labels for their doors & colored them, then wrote "you've been partied" and switched them around to the wrong rooms. See... that's harmless right? And then we took some streamers and put a big X in front of everyone's doors. That's harmless too... but it was fun!

When we went to bed we locked our door, because we knew someone would get us back... and lets be honest, we would have been disappointed if they didn't! When we woke up in the morning & opened our door, this is what we found:

Hahahaha so funny! The paper on the chairs says "You've been old folked" HAHAHA we were laughing so hard!

Here is the party cabin. I think it is SO neat to be able to do ministry with your friends, and serve God together doing something you all have a heart for.

Lisa, me, Regina, & Amanda

Oh on Friday at camp everyone (adults & kids) get autograph shirts to sign, and we decided to pick ours up early and decorate them ;)

Our party cabin won't look the same next year because Amanda is moving to Kansas in a couple weeks! Boo! We will miss her!

Royal Family Kids camp- Friday

2011-07-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

Friday is a rough day... nobody is ready to say goodbye. It's amazing how much these children grow on your heart & how you don't want to let them go. We try to keep it lighthearted and fun so that the mood doesn't get depressing. We graduate all the 11 year old campers (we had 25 graduates this year!) and then have our final chapel and dance practice.

This year we had some AMAZING guests- our local chapter of BACA: bikers against child abuse. Oh it was SO awesome!!! The kids brought their helmets that they got at the party and wore them when they went on rides around the camp (of course slowly & safely!) with the bikers. They loved it! And this pregnant momma got to have her first ride on a motorcycle as well! It was a blast. After the rides we had lunch, and then BACA escorted our buses down the mountain and back to church. I ran off ahead of them to try & get some pictures, it was SO neat to watch!

We get to the church where the kids put on a show for all their foster parents of all the dances they learned during the week, and then we show a slideshow. The kids go through out-processing and then we say our goodbyes and they are gone. Just like that, it is SO fast. But we are not done when the kids leave. We split up into debriefing groups of about 6 or so workers. We go through a confidential time of sharing our favorite & least favorite times of the week, what we would change, what we learned, etc. It's so helpful & healthy to talk about all that we experienced. After our groups are over we have a big welcome home dinner where our families meet up with us, and then after dinner we can finally go home!

It was SO good to see the boys after 6 days of not seeing them... the longest we had ever been away from them! I fell asleep at like 9:00 that night and slept til 11:00 the next morning, so apparently I was tired! Ha!!

Royal Family Kids camp- Thursday

2011-07-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

Wow I got way behind on the camp updates. Not that anyone has been reading them, but I think this is important to have on file ;)

So Thursday has to be one of the funnest days of camp! We do a theme day every year, and this year it was on Thursday & the theme was Hawaiian luau! It was so fun to see everyone dress up & all the decorations. We had a special group come from our area- Hawaiian praise dancers! It was SO neat! These ladies were beautiful and held the kids attention the whole time. We loved having them come!

Thursday is an awesome day as well because it is.... EVERYONE'S BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!!

Every Royal family Kids camp does it, because when the camp was first founded they realized that the majority of these children in the foster system have never had a birthday party. So we fix that at camp and give them all one there!

I love how we do ours. During activity time we have some ladies from local salons come & donate their time to give the girls princess hairstyles & do their nails. The girls LOVE it. Then we have dinner & a special birthday chapel service, then head back to the dining hall for the party. Because it was luau themed that is how we decorated for the party... too cute!

Look at all those presents! We get the most amazing gifts donated... I believe in these bags were Disney dvd's... and their very own mp3 players loaded with songs we sing at camp and worship songs for kids!!

But the biggest surprise for the kids were their brand new Razor scooters & helmets! Seriously, how awesome are these gifts? And how cute are my parents riding them in to show the kids (we didn't actually give them the scooters til we got to the church on Friday).

The party is so much fun! The kids get cake, ice cream, & soda (the rest of the week we limit their sugar intake). Then the night always ends with a dance party! Please remember the identities of these children have to be protected, which is why there are some faces that are blurred out.

Oh what a fun day! The kids are so hyper & go to bed later but they usually sleep great! It's nice to have something so fun to do before Friday, because it is always hard to say goodbye...

i heart faces- props

2011-07-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since my last I Heart Faces entry, but I'm back this week. I love when I see the challenge for the week & a picture immediately pops in my mind. This is such a sweet, special picture. What better props than ones that are sentimental... real life. I was thrilled with how this photo turned out!

Please head over to I Heart Faces to see more beautiful entries!

Royal Family Kids camp- Wednesday

2011-07-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

Thank you for your prayers for our friends during this difficult time. Yesterday was sweet baby Jackson's funeral, which was definitely the saddest thing I've ever been to. But the service was beautiful and the pastor did such an amazing job. One major thing that stuck with me that he said was: sometimes we just have to look at God and say "I don't understand... but I trust You anyway."

The Wednesday morning special activity was a dog agility show. The kids seem to really love it, even though it's HOT outside. And this year at camp there were these awful biting flies... I have never seen anything like it! These flies would BITE you and it HURT. One bit me through my jeans. It was nuts.

After the dog show we headed up to the dining hall for lunch. We are so blessed to have our camp at this beautiful facility. And an extra bonus is that the food is actually fairly decent there, as opposed to many other camps I've been to ;)

After lunch & 30/30 time is the outdoor activity time. The kids love it. There's a bounce house, inflatable water slide, kites, baseball, bubbles, hula hoops... the works!

We had the most amazing group of teens at camp this year. They were so hard working & loving towards the kids, so willing to help in whatever area we needed them to, and just all around good teens. I was SO proud of them. Here they are helping fold up the bounce house after activity time. I'm not sure what exactly happened but I snapped this right after a couple girls fell over & everyone was laughing.

During pool time (which is always separated guys & girls) it has become a tradition that every year my dad (the one in the middle) does a belly flop for the boys. This year a couple other men on staff (Devin on the left is the Dean of Men & Vince on the right is one of the grandpas) joined my dad for the fun. It was awesome!

We have SO much fun!!! The rest of the day was pretty normal. A lot of cabins went on hikes after chapel that evening because the weather was beautiful and there was some extra time. It always feels like we've been at camp a couple of weeks already by the time Wednesday comes, but then by Thursday we are like "where did the week go?" Ha!!

Royal Family Kids camp- Tuesday

2011-07-15T00:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesdays at camp are a pretty "normal" day, if there is such a thing. The kids get up, go to exercise time, and then breakfast. After breakfast we have morning chapel. For I don't know how many years the amazing, anointed, and talented Susie Starr comes up as our speaker. She is seriously the best... entertaining for the kids AND adults as well as bringing the Word and Truth to them!

Some of the staff joining in dance time... I guess my dad is "overseeing" over on the right there? haha

Also during morning chapel we have the teenagers do a drama. The drama is a 5-part story where the kids get a piece of it every day in the week and then it concludes on Friday. It's usually very entertaining :) Back in the day when I was a teen I was part of the drama team for camp. Ahhh... the memories!

After chapel the kids did the treasure hunts that Dathan & I mapped out for them on Sunday. Mon-Thurs are the same from this point on until dinner: lunch. Then 30/30 time (which is a mandated rest time by law). After 30/30 time they do free play activities outside (bounce house, inflatable huge water slide, kites, baseball, hula hoops, etc). Then snack. Then they split up by boys and girls and one group goes to the pool while the other goes to activity time (woodworking, crafts, dress up- for girls usually, archery, etc), and then they switch. Back to the rooms to change & clean up and then dinner. After dinner we head back up to evening chapel.

After chapel on Tuesday is a fun time- it's movie night! Most kids even wore their jammies to chapel. We head down to the "old" chapel (smaller & more rustic then where we have our chapel services) for popcorn and Veggie Tales. Everyone seemed to enjoy it :)

One of the cabins had these fun glasses. Too cute!

After movie night they go back to their rooms and go to bed :)

During the basic day I would run around as a photographer taking pictures, as well as assisting in wherever I was needed. I love interacting with the kids and having fun with them!

an overjoyed yet broken heart

2011-07-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

07.11.11 will be a day that I will always remember.

Things happen that we just don't understand.

God's timing is often confusing, and we probably won't know why on this side of Heaven.

On 07.11.11 my brother and his wife welcomed their first child into the world.

Canaan Scott. Beautiful. Healthy. Strong.

I stole this picture off my brother's FB page.

I haven't gotten to meet Canaan in person, because he lives in England where my brother is stationed.

I am SO excited that Brian & Candace get to be parents. I am SO excited to have my first nephew. I am SO excited that my maiden name is finally being passed down to another generation ;) I canNOT wait to meet him someday. My heart is overjoyed.

On 07.11.11 some friends of ours had to make a decision that no parent should ever have to make.

Bre was 39 weeks pregnant, and so far her pregnancy had been textbook. Besides sweltering in the heat (like the rest of us summer pregos!) she was doing great & looking forward to meeting her baby boy.

On 07.07.11 she woke up with severe cramping & went into the hospital. They realized then that baby Jackson had a very low heart rate, and took Bre straight in to an emergency c-section.

When Jackson was born, there was no heartbeat. After 10 minutes he was finally revived, and rushed to the NICU. From there they sent him by helicopter to UCLA medical center so he could get the best treatment around.

Although his heart was functioning, his brain was not. 10 (+?) minutes without oxygen can have it's effects. They placed him on an experimental brain cooling treatment and we all just waited and prayed.

It's amazing the support John & Bre had during this time, and how many prayers were offered up on their behalf. I would just look on their FB pages and cry seeing all the posts of love & concern.

And although Jackson was so strong & such a fighter, his little body just couldn't handle it & his organs were beginning to shut down. In the early hours of 07.11.11 Jackson left this earth to be held in the arms of Jesus.

It's not fair. We don't understand. It's scary & heartbreaking & angering & sickening.

I'm not good with grief. I have be blessed in my life to not have too many people I know pass away, and those who have (that I was close to) were older & sickly & lived their life.

But to walk through a pregnancy with a friend. To dream about our new babies growing up playing together. To think about a 4 day old's life being cut short, it's been hard for me to handle.

I'm sure my pregnancy hormones are playing a part too, but maybe not.

And then to think about the joy of Canaan entering the world just hours after the heartbreak of Jackson leaving it is tough.

So I cry. And I talk with friends. And we cry together. And I talk to Dathan. And I talk to God. And cry some more. And write a blog post that probably doesn't make sense. And talk to God more. And pray for my baby.

And I look at pictures of Canaan & smile. And I can't wait to hold him & kiss his little cheeks. And I can't wait to hug my brother & his wife and tell them congrats. And I get excited about my boys now having a boy cousin!

At the same time, my heart is overjoyed and broken.

Please keep John & Bre in your prayers during this time as they are planning a funeral for a baby that just days ago they were preparing their home for. And pray for Jackson's big brother Malachi (3) & big sister Presley (1), but especially Malachi who is old enough to understand. They are believers and are feeling such a peace right now, but the pain is still real & strong & present.

Royal Family Kids camp- Monday

2011-07-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

Monday is a VERY exciting day in camp- the kids come!!! Our mornings start out early with breakfast and final preparations. The majority of the core staff (plain blue shirts) went down to the church on the registration team, and my mom & I stayed back to hold down the fort ;)

After breakfast we had 4 different groups in what we call the "circle of prayer." Each group prays over specific important areas of camp, claiming that ground as holy & committing it to the Lord. So we prayed over the dining hall...

All of the cabins...

The chapel...

And the pool, activity, and dress up centers.

Soon after prayer the trailer gets there and starts dividing the kids luggage up by what cabins they belong in. It's go-time at this point. The counselors rush to get the stuff to their rooms before the kids get here (usually the buses are about 15 minutes behind the luggage).

Then... it's time. One of my favorite times of the week. Gets me teary-eyed every year I have gone (did I mention that this year was my 10th camp?? I started young! ha!). We make signs with the kids' names on them to hold, and the group of volunteers erupt in cheering & excitement as the buses pull up & the kids get out of them. This is the moment we all wait for... the reason why we are there- THE KIDS! The kids have to try to find their name (which is being held by their counselor) so they know where to go :)

This is actually the last picture I have from Monday! Because we were RUNNING after the kids got there. As the photographers we get each cabin to come out and take a picture of the camper by themselves, then the camper with their counselor, then the camper with the associate staff (teen) in their room. Then we have lunch. Then they go back to their rooms for a little bit before outdoor water play, pool time, and activity center (wood working, crafts, painting, dress-up, etc). As the photographers we try to take a picture of each child in each specific activity we do during the day. And we try to get the majority of them taken Monday so we have a lot of time to divide them into their different photo albums. After all the afternoon activity time is over the kids go back to their rooms to clean up for dinner, go to dinner, and then chapel. After chapel they have a snack with the "grandmas & grandpas" of camp before they go to their cabins to get ready for bed & lights out. It's a whirlwind of a day, but worth every ounce of energy you give!

Stay tuned for Tuesday... ;)

Royal Family Kids Camp- Sunday

2011-07-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to give a run-down of the camp we worked at, so that I can give out more information of all that we do. It really is a wonderful ministry! Royal Family Kids is a program that ministers to abused & neglected children. They do summer camps and then mentoring programs. You can find them all over the country (click here to see if there's one close to you). Our church offers both the camp and the club (mentoring program). There is nothing quite like giving a week of your lives to make sure that children with horrible pasts have the best week of their young lives!

We always leave for camp on a Sunday. This year that Sunday just happened to be Father's Day (and my dad's birthday!). We started off the day with donuts with the boys before church. We went to the church for our commissioning service (where the whole church prayed over all the volunteers) then came home to finish packing, show the sitter all the fun details of keeping the boys overnight, and say bye to our kiddos.

While the rest of the staff met at the church, Dathan and I had to head straight up to camp. We had a job of mapping out a treasure hunt for each cabin to go on. Every cabin had it's own directions, and there were 13 cabins so we had a lot of work to do! We finished just about the time everyone else showed up to camp. The counselors all go straight to their cabins to start decorating. Every year there is a different theme, and they decorate their rooms to go along with the theme. It's so much fun! It's also a time to bond with the other counselors in your room.

I am not a counselor because I am on the planning committee for camp, as well as the fact that I am pregnant. While the counselors were getting their rooms together we were busy setting up our different jobs, running around to make sure everyone had what they needed, etc. We break for dinner and then head up to chapel for our annual staff picture.

Ok how amazing is it that we had 98 volunteers!!??!?!?! 98! Almost 100 people gave up a week of their lives to give to these kids from our area. And what a fun group of volunteers we had ;)

(Those of us in the plain blue polo shirts are the core staff who plan camp. And the camp speaker. My parents are in the front & almost center- they are the directors of the camp! Did I mention that?)

After pictures we have a special service with just the workers. Before we started service though we had something special to do. This year was very significant for Lancaster's Royal Family Kids camp... it was our 20th camp! How exciting is that?? There are 6 people who have gone to camp EVERY YEAR since it began, and we honored them. What a neat legacy to carry!

Then we had a time of worship, prayer, and a short sermon. It's so nice to sit & just soak in the presence of God before a very very busy week!

After chapel everyone went back to their cabins to finish setting up and try to get to bed at a decent time. Monday morning is an early rise to make the last minute preparations and then the kids come!

Every day is SO busy that I will try to do a separate post for each one. There are many different rules that we have to follow for this camp because of the nature of it (children being wards of the state). All the staff actually goes through about 12 hours of training that is mandated by law before we can even go to camp... whether it's your first year or 20th you have to go to the training! Nobody is allowed to take photos of the children except for the photographers (that was one of my jobs). And the photographers have specific rules (only ONE child's face can be in the photo, unless they have a biological sibling there). Those pictures we take are printed off and put into specific albums for every child. For a lot of these kids, these albums will be their only pictures of their childhood they own. So the pictures I do have that I am sharing with you are "safe" pictures... you either can't see kids in them, can see the backs of their heads, or if their face has sneaked its way in then I blurred it out. Just in case you were wondering :)

one of my favorite holidays!

2011-07-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

I LOVE the 4th of July. Always have. It's such a fun holiday where you spend time with family & friends and celebrate a wonderful gift we have been given- freedom in America!

I made a patriotic dessert for one of the parties we went to. I really just kinda made it up as I went, but it turned out yummy and looked cute so I guess that's all that matters ;) I had made a Funfetti cake (that was a special patriotic one so it had red & blue candies in it) and then broke it up into little pieces. I put a layer of the cake, then a layer of cool whip, then a layer of strawberries & blueberries, then repeated until the trifle dish was full. SO easy!

We drove to a nearby town, Acton, to go to the annual parade & epic water fight. We went to it last year (and Dathan & I went to it the year I was pregnant with Sean). It starts early in the morning (we left our house at 7:00!) because the roads get closed for the parade. So our friends have a big breakfast brunch before the parade starts. While the food was getting finished up my brother Timmy (aka "Uncle B") played with Nolan outside. The lighting is pretty that early in the morning ;)

Sean had a better idea of what to do!

Our annual family picture on the 4th

Then more bubbles while everyone ate.

Our friend's backyard backs up to the road that the parade is on. This parade has turned into a big water war between the people on the floats and the people watching the parade. I'm pretty sure our group has the most fun AND the most ammunition out of anyone else who watches the parade ;) It's hard to get good shots of all the action because I would get soaked anytime I got close. As long as my camera didn't get wet, I didn't mind, because it was HOT!

Yep. That was Dathan right in the middle of all the action :)

After the parade we headed to a town about an hour & a half away to my best friend Erin's parents' house. Her dad's birthday is on the 4th so they always have a big "rib fest & pool party." We were having SO much fun swimming (ALL DAY LONG) that this is pretty much the only photo I got of the party (not nearly as many as I took last year). This is Sean and Bailey (Erin's brother's daughter... they just love each other & have so much fun when they are together) resting after swimming all day. We have so many pictures of them cuddled on this chair watching tv.

I already can't wait until next year! And we will have another Stephens in the mix... hooray!

our preschool grad!

2011-07-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe Sean has graduated from Preschool! We were so proud of him! He worked so hard and learned so much during the year. It's amazing to see how much he's grown that it almost scares me to send him to Kindergarten in September. Ha! I said that I feel like a "real" grown-up now that I am going to have a kid in "real" school.

Sean's Preschool grad was so cute & fun. They all came into the sanctuary dancing to "I Like to Move It." Sean was rocking out, it was hilarious!

Then they all led us in the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as the Pledge to the Christian flag. Growing up in church programs and also teaching Kindergarten for a year at a Christian school, I knew the pledge to the Christian flag. Dathan, however, did not. It was so funny! He was trying to make up his own words...

Then they sang LOTS and LOTS of fun songs for us. Sean knew all the words and hand motions, and had such a good time. You gotta love kids singing on stage!

When they were calling the kids names for the graduation part, Sean kept leaning forward and waving at us. See him in the front? He's so cute!

Calling his name & accepting his diploma. Yay!

While they were recognizing one of Sean's teachers because she is retiring after this year (so sad that Nolan won't have her) Nolan decided he wanted to be on stage. Such a silly kid.

They showed a video at the end with interviews with the kids. Here is when Sean was talking about how he loves to play with his friends at school.

Miss Amy & Miss Robin- Sean's fabulous teachers!

After the graduation they had a huge BBQ and water party out in the park for the whole school. The boys had so much fun!

Before we left we gave Sean his graduation gift. I had to document his face while he was getting it because it was something he has been wanting for awhile. So thankful to have gotten these expressions of him... and he loved his "Light Saver."

Showing Nolan how to use it in the back of Daddy's truck (don't you love Dathan's bumper sticker? Ha! It's SO true!)

And here is Sean on the first day of Preschool & the last day of Preschool. So much growing in 9 months!

happy unbirthday to you!

2011-07-05T06:14:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a fun 4th of July weekend! 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays and we had the best weekend! On Saturday we went to a pool party for our Marriage Matters class at church, Sunday we went to the Homeland patriotic musical at our church, and yesterday we went back to the fun parade we went to last year, then headed to my best friend Erin's parent's house (like last year) for their annual party. Once I get all of my pictures uploaded I will share with you all the details, but until then...

I will share about Sean's un-birthday party. Since his birthday is in August, he got to have a pretend birthday party in his class the last week of school. He told me he wanted Star Wars cupcakes and when asked what kind of cake and frosting he wanted, he answered chocolate to both (just like his daddy). I have been making cupcakes from scratch recently but I just didn't have the energy/desire to make these from scratch so boxed it was! I did throw in a little extra, and used Pioneer Woman's tactic of throwing Hershey's kisses in the middle of each cupcake.

I couldn't find Star Wars cupcake toppers anywhere, so I improvised. I found these stickers and cut out each one (so that I didn't pull the sticker off the back). Then I put a little dab of school glue on the back and stuck a toothpick in it. When they dried I stuck them in the middle of the decorated cupcakes. Go me! Simple & inexpensive ;) The best part was, the kids were so excited that their cake toppers were stickers and immediately peeled them off & wore them. That's much better than just tossing it in the trash ;)

On the day of the party I took Nolan and headed to Sean's class, and my parents met us there. When we got there, they were doing story & song time on the floor and Sean had Nolan come sit with him. He immediately put his arm around him and sat like this the whole time. It was the sweetest.

Sean got to pick 5 friends to sit at his table (because he will be 5 on his birthday) and the first "friend" he picked was Nolan. Ummm... way to melt a mommy's heart buddy! He was so excited to blow out his candle!

And Nolan just couldn't wait to dig into the cupcake (or more so, the icing!)

As we were leaving after the party I noticed a picture on the wall that Sean drew, with a narration written by his teacher. Oh my goodness it had to be one of the best drawings I have ever seen in my life ;) We took it home & I want to frame it to hang in their room!

Now Sean can't wait for his "real birthday" because he didn't get any presents at his un-birthday party! Haha!

what i've been up to...

2011-07-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

...these last few months.

You know, since my photo blog is still down (I bought a custom domain name and somehow in getting it transferred over I messed it up and haven't been able to fix it yet. Ugh.)

Morgan. Class of 2011.

The birth of Joel.

Joel Scott. 12 days old.

Nicole + Kyle. Palm Springs, Ca

Laelle + Alex. Riverside, Ca

Gracie Mae turns 1! My one photo shoot in Alabama :)

Jonathan. 4 days old.

Abbie Joy. Class of 2011.

Love being busy! I have a couple shoots this week too, so I am excited! This is my last month of shoots and then I'm taking August & September off for maternity leave :)

project 365 06.11

2011-07-01T01:13:00.000-07:00

Ok so.... um... one question- WHERE did June go? I mean seriously, I blinked & it was gone. We were SO busy this month and it just flew by! I am really behind on blogging about all we did and I will catch up for all 2 of you who read my blog still ;) But for today, I will show you snapshots of the month. We are half-way done with 2011 already, can you believe it? And I have captured every day so far- what a feat! Enjoy our blur of a month... and happy July!

To see the rest of my project 365 for 2011, click here :)

photography- before & after!

2011-06-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to write a post like this for awhile now, and I finally got around to doing it :) I wanted to write it on my photo blog but I'm trying to keep that just for showing finished shoots... so here it is!

I just wanted to let everyone see a little bit of what goes into editing pictures. Every photographer that I know does a little bit of adjusting to even the most beautiful picture before showcasing their finished product. This is part of the reason why professional photographers are going to be a little more expensive (or sometimes a LOT more expensive) than your average photo studio or beginner lifestyle photographer. Now remember, this is only part of what you pay for when you hire a professional photographer. There are many other things that you have to take into consideration (experience, equipment, etc) but I won't go into that today. And please remember I am not claiming to have a great knowledge in these areas, I have SO much to learn, but I just want share a little something with you.

What a difference some editing makes. This photo is SOOC shot in RAW format on my Canon 5D Mark II with my 50mm f/1.4 lens. A beautiful picture of a beautiful girl, but a little dark & a little gray.

In Adobe Bridge I first adjust the white balance to take out the dull, gray coloring. I then bump up the brightness level until it is at a point that I am happy with. I also added some contrast to give it more dimension. Not a ton of changes, but enough to make a difference.

Then I open the photo in Photoshop CS4. There really isn't a lot that needs to be done. If you look at her cheeks I took out the small amount of shine. I also added just the slightest amount of sharpening to make her gorgeous blue eyes sparkle. Lastly I added a little bit of an overall boost to make everything pop. I love extremely bright, colorful pictures. That is my preference, and yours may be different. That's ok! That's why there are so many different photographers with so many different styles- you can always find someone does what you like!
And there you have it!

Before & After

And that is a little bit of the process I go through in editing pictures. Some need more help than this, some less, but it is definitely an important process in getting the desired outcome that we all know & love in photos!

happy father's day!!!

2011-06-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

My dad is so awesome that today is his birthday AND father's day! He has always worked so hard to provide for our family & is a wonderful Papa to my boys!

My husband is so awesome because he has given me 2 (almost 3) beautiful boys and is the best daddy I know. I could not have picked out a better daddy for my children or husband for me! He plays with them, has fun with them, leads by example, and shows them how to love God & become men of God.

My dad AND Dathan are both awesome, because they are giving up their Father's Day to serve. We leave today to go to Royal Family Kids camp, a camp for abused & neglected children in our area. My mom and dad are the directors, I am on staff (photographer & in charge of the teen helpers), and Dathan will be working as a counselor. Please keep us all in your prayers this week as we give to these kids who often don't receive a lot of love! And pray for me and Dathan as this is the longest we have ever left the boys!

Happy Father's Day!

sometimes it's just too beautiful to stay inside

2011-06-17T07:53:00.000-07:00

especially when you have friends to join you!

wordless wednesday

2011-06-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

12 on Tuesday!

2011-06-14T06:13:00.000-07:00

Yes I had to do a spin on my normal "10 on Tuesday" because I had more things to share this time :) They are all super random, but that's just how I do things sometimes! These are older, but I had written this post and then kept pushing it back because we were in Alabama and I had too much Alabama fun to share, so I'm finally getting to post it ;) That's why... ahem... #10 is from like 2 months ago! hahaha

1.) Godiva chocolate brownie from the Cheesecake Factory. So yummy it was ridiculous.

2.) Nolan was writing with chalk and wrote a capital N. I thought it was an accident but then he did it again! It still may have been an accident but I was impressed regardless :)

3.) Sean & his superhero madness... love it!

4.) Ok this was too sweet to not take a picture of. Dathan has this frame w/ 2 pictures of me from when we were engaged by his side of the bed. Sean was taking a nap in our bed & I went to check on him and found he had moved the frame to the other side of the bed, turned it to be facing him, and fell asleep facing the frame. Not gonna lie, made my heart melt a little.

5.) Nolan always has to do "homework" when Sean does :)

6.) Sometimes Sean gets tired of me taking his picture. Ha!

7.) Daddy let the boys play in the mud one sunny day....

8.) I shot a wedding a couple weeks ago of a beautiful young lady who I have known since she was a little girl. At the wedding were so many young girls who were "my" girls back in the day, almost like little sisters to me. So fun to see them grown up & beautiful & having fun! Ok, I'm only like 3 years older than them but when you're in high school that's kind of a big deal ;)

9.) My BFF Lyndsey just recently got engaged & I couldn't be more happy for her! This guy is all she deserves & more :) I took her out for an engagement celebration where we had the ultimate girl night- shopping at the mall & dinner at a really yummy dinner at a cafe. It was wonderful!

10.) Do you ever have those days where you feel like all your kids do is cry & whine & fight & whine & cry? And that all you do is yell at them & get frustrated with them? I don't either, but if I did, this is what I would do to remedy the problem: lay down blankets & pillows on the floor, pop popcorn, & turn on a movie. Then have a sleepover on the floor :)

11.) I shot another wedding in Palm Springs, and Dathan came as my assistant/2nd shooter. We had a blast together & he really was a great 2nd shooter! We may do this more often!

12.) And because I just realized I never posted the ultrasound picture of our newest little guy, here he is! This was like a month ago, but still......

reunited & it feels so good...

2011-06-13T06:59:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember in this post when I talked about our friends who were the youth pastors and due to budget cuts they had to be let go. They were given an amazing ministry opportunity that they took in Oklahoma City and moved out there in March. Well Sarah's sister was getting married here in southern California, so just recently they took a trip out here for the wedding. They were only going to be here a few days & I knew their schedules would be jam packed full (not to mention they were staying about an hour & a half away) so I wasn't going to try to get together with them. But then Sarah invited myself, Veronica & her kids, and Candice & her kids out to the grandparents' house to swim one of the days, so of course we jumped at the chance (canceling all other plans we had that day of course)!

The boys & I rode down with Veronica & her 3 kids. We did not tell them where we were going, just that it was a special surprise. When we got there, we let Sean & Ethan knock on the door, and Sarah had Hunter & Caden inside waiting to open the door. It was so much fun to let them see their friends again!

When we got there, Ethan asked the boys where their trampoline was. He thought we drove to Oklahoma, it was so cute! They swam for a little bit then came inside for a picnic lunch in the living room. Hunter & Caden's grandparents were so much fun & so chill & didn't even mind that the kids were making a wreck out of their downstairs area ;)

The kids swam ALL DAY. No naps, hardly any breaks, just a whole lot of swimming. It was a blast!

Look at all these kids between 4 moms! Sarah & Veronica each have 3, and Candice & I are both pregnant with our 3rd... so in about 6 more months there will be 2 more kids in this mix! Hunter & Caden's grandpa is the sweet man sitting in the spa with all those crazy kids :)

We forgot to take a picture until after we were swimming, but this will do :) This is Monique (a sweet college girl who came along for the day), Sarah, Candice, Me, & Veronica. That is Isabella knocked out on the couch behind us. Ha!

Attempting to get a picture of all the kids together. We had them sit there since Isabella was asleep on the couch, and she slept through the entire process of all of us taking pictures! She was tired! And Hunter is holding Grace's picture because she was already in bed ;) If you read my Easter post then you read about our new method of taking pictures where we have everyone make all sorts of silly faces. Well, it worked like a charm with these hilarious kids!

After a long, fun, full day we all left. When we got in the car Sean said "Are we driving back to California now?" Bless his heart, he thought we drove to Oklahoma too. Makes sense, all they knew was that Hunter & Caden moved to Oklahoma and it was far away. A couple hour drive IS far away to a 4 year old, and Hunter & Caden were at this strange new house so it had to have been Oklahoma ;) We knew the kids wouldn't last very long in the car, and we were right. Here are all 5 kids knocked out!

I really do have such a blessed life, with so many wonderful friends! And I'm so thankful that I get to raise my kids with the same friends & roots that I was raised with!

body art & big blue eyes

2011-06-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

Nolan is our artistic child. He will sit for a half an hour at a time and draw on a piece of paper, in his own little world, singing to himself. And he wants to draw, he doesn't want to color. If you give him a page to color he will turn it over & draw on the blank side. Now, there are pros & cons to this. The pros being obvious- he is creative & artistic, can entertain himself, has something he loves to do, etc. The cons... well... he is so artistic he likes to draw on everything. Everything. Sean never cared for coloring so we didn't worry about him coloring on walls or furniture or floors because he didn't want to color anyways. Nolan, on the other hand, sees the world as his blank canvas, and if we are not careful (and he isn't using Color Wonder markers) then something will be colored on that shouldn't be.

His new favorite? His body. I don't know if it's because it has been warm, so he's ran around without a shirt on more often than usual, but he wants to take the lid off the marker & draw all over himself. For the most part we don't mind. It washes right off in the shower, so that's not a problem. He's not ruining furniture or flooring, so that is awesome as well. And we may or may not help him by drawing on him too! ;) Ha!

We have learned a few things in our body art adventures.

1.) If you let your child touch it while you are drawing it, it will smear everywhere.

2.) A baby wipe will take it right off.

3.) If you ask your kid to "praise the Lord" it helps them not touch it while it's drying.

and 4.) If you spray hair spray on the body art, it not only makes it smear-proof & last longer, but it makes the colors brighter too ;)

Sean likes to draw on himself too, but not as much as Nolan. Sean has too much to do to stay on one activity for too long ;) He would rather be running around outside. One day he was playing in the water & came up to me and his eyes were just a vibrant blue. I wanted to get a picture of his eyes, but every time he smiles he adorably scrunches up his whole face & his eyes get really small. So I was trying to get him to smile without squinting. I didn't technically get a smile, but these faces he made for me are priceless!

I love these boys! They bring SO much joy to my life. I love that they are so different, and it's so fun to try to imagine what this 3rd little guy will be like!

memorial day weekend {might be the last alabama post!}

2011-06-09T06:01:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day weekend was our last little leg of our trip to Alabama. The Saturday of that weekend was spent with Erin when she came to visit (last post). On Sunday we slept in & then some of Dathan's family came over & we grilled out. It was HOT outside.

These two sweet girls are Dathan's cousin's daughters, Chelsea & Haley

We had homemade ice cream & fixed a little "ice cream bar" with all sorts of mix-ins & toppings to put onto the ice cream. The kids loved it. Well wait, who am I kidding? I loved it too!

We spent some time outside. Nolan LOVES to swing & only wanted me to push him (he is going through a major Momma phase). I lasted about 10 minutes but when you are sweating in the shade & getting eaten alive by bugs you can only handle so much of the beautiful outdoors... right?

Dathan's dad bought a new ride on mower that morning and of course Dathan had fun test-driving it with the kids ;)

On Sunday evening we went over to our friends Jamie & Heather's house. They are the family that we used to go on our beach trips with every summer. We had dinner, watched the kids color with chalk, & stayed up late playing gin & talking. It was a blast!

We actually had a sleepover at their house, and hung out for a little bit in the morning before we headed back to Dathan's parents' house. I had to get a picture of Sean & Elana together because they have spent the last 3 Memorial Days together. Jamie & Heather have had a fun bbq the last two years but weren't able to this year, and then we realized the kids were still together so we had to get a shot! Here they are the last 3 Memorial Days.

When we got home we met up with Dathan's family (only after both boys had screaming melt-downs in the car & I almost lost my mind and we all 3 went straight to bed when we first got to the house... Dathan was working) and snapped some pictures of all the kids together. These 6 kids are all the great-grandkids on Dathan's dad's side of the family, so this picture is very special!

Then everyone left and the boys spent the rest of the afternoon splashing in the pool and pretending to be "Mer-Men." It may or may not have had something to do with their female cousin's obsession with The Little Mermaid. ;) They were driving the "Mer-Boat" and sleeping on the "Mer-Bed." It was adorable.

They also tried the see-saw, but it didn't work too well. Nolan only liked the middle seat, which really only is best with one ;)

We had a fun weekend!