making memories

I find my days busy.  Getting dinner ready.  Doing laundry.  Picking up.  Getting Sean ready for school.  Getting Nolan & Paxton ready.  Taking Sean to school.  Running errands.  Picking up some more.  Meetings.  Photo shoots.  Editing pictures.  Placing orders.  More picking up.  More laundry.  Not to mention trying to have a quiet time to fill my spirit back up again, getting myself ready, and attempting to squeeze in exercise.  I get overwhelmed sometimes.  Feel like I can't do it all.  I find myself saying to my boys "in a minute" when they ask me if I will play with them.  Or saying "hold on a second" when they want to tell me something.  But, then, doesn't that defeat the purpose of me staying home with them?  Am I a stay at home mom so my house can be spotless and my husband can come home to a gourmet dinner every night?  Of course that would be nice, but that is not the reason.  The purpose to is to be here, to be IN my childrens' lives as much as I possibly can.  To play choo-choos & color.  To transform Transformers watch Sean transform Transformers & sit on the couch & cuddle with Pax.  To be an ear to listen, a heart  open to all that they have to say, and a mind that is 100% focused on them- not the house.  I want my kids to grow up and remember fun things that I did with them, the love & wisdom & Truth that I invested into their lives, not how clean my house is.  So the other day when it was pouring rain & the perfect day to get "caught up" on housework, I totally ditched that idea, grabbed some play clothes for the big boys, and had them change.  They had no idea why, until I opened the front door & showed them.  Our little patio (we live in a townhouse) floods every time it rains.  It's not level & all the water pools in one corner, up to a few inches sometimes.  I grabbed my camera, pointed to the water, & said "go! make me the biggest splashes that you can!" And they did.  They jumped & ran & splashed & played with HUGE smiles on their faces.  Their laughter filled my heart with joy & I let them play out there as long as they could stand before their little noses turned red & I was afraid they'd get sick.  They laughed about it for hours afterwards. 

So instead of getting my laundry done, in essence I actually made more for myself.  But I would do it again & again for the precious memories that we made that day.  Because in the end, that is what matters!

 

and my favorite photo of the day:

 

October catch up #1

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 ;)

happy cookies

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.

what we've been doing lately...

...a whole lot of:

jumping

splashing

doggie paddling

funny face making

breath holding

resting

powerade and pepsi breaking

and repeating

HOT day

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

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.

2011 Family Fun List

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! :)