6 years of Mother's Day

Merry Christmas!!!

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

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!  

one of my favorite holidays!

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!

happy father's day!!!

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!

Mother's day part II

I woke up Mother's Day to the boys running in the room with a jar full of wildflowers (that their Mimi picked. ha!) for me.  We got ready and went to church.  Dathan's mom, Kathy, sister Stephani, & her two girls Kaelyn & Maddie came with us.  After church we wanted to go to lunch but not an expensive, crowded restaurant.  So, we picked Zaxby's (which is one of our family's favorite Alabama places so we were excited).  We went to leave for Zaxby's and Steph's car wouldn't start, so we had to wait around until it got fixed.  It was hot but the kids ran around & played with bubbles & had a great time.  We ate lunch then headed home for nap time.  After nap time Kathy brought out a little kiddie pool she had bought for the grandkids & hooked it up (it was VERY hot here).  The kids had a blast!

We also ate popsicles (this was after my Mother's Day mini-shoot with the boys).  The little sweetie on the right is our niece Maddie.

And then Kathy got out the slip & slide.  We set it up on the hill & then Dathan stood at the top & kind of tossed each kid down.  They loved it!  I love Kaelyn's face in this picture, she is just having the time of her life!

We stayed out playing until the sun set & mosquitoes came out.  Then we went inside for a little something to eat and all sat down to watch Despicable Me.  It was a great, fun, relaxing day!

my mother's day gift

This year we had a pretty low-key Mother's Day.  We are in Alabama and got to spend the day with Dathan's mom & his sister Stephani (who is a mom as well).  My next post I will tell more of our day, but I wanted to share my gift I received :)  I was looking everywhere for a recent, nice photo of me with both boys to post on Mother's Day and I realized... I didn't have one.  I would have one with just Sean or one with just Nolan, but not a good one of both of them with me.  So that is what I asked for... a nice picture of me & my boys :)  That, paired with the promise of a popsicle, resulted in a pretty decent mini-shoot (Dathan took the photos with my camera and did a great job).  This is my favorite & the winner of the day:

They are both wearing their PJ shirts that they wore to bed the night before... and wore under their nice shirts to church.  That's real life, folks ;)

Here are some of the other ones that are cute or funny.  I wasn't going to post a lot of these because I am really self-conscious (as most other women are) but they are too precious to leave behind.  The lighting was gorgeous and we just walked out to Dathan's parents' back pasture to take these- beautiful!

I didn't get the memo to put my hand on my hip for this one...

Nolan is serious the majority of the time.

had to take a couple to the side to get baby brother in the pic ;)

so sad :(

angry... or strong... I can't remember and they look similar! ha!

The boys gave me a beautiful card & Dathan even wrote a poem on it for me.  I know this post is long already, but I had to share the poem!

There are some mothers who come

And some mothers who go

Some mothers can cook

And others can sew

Some are very crafty

And make things with their hands

While others work in offices

In a job with high demands

There are many sorts of mommies

But you stand out from amongst them all

There should be awards for you

That we'd hang up on the wall

You're beautiful and smart

And creative to boot

And on top of all that

You're also very cute

Your children, they adore you,

And so do I as well

There's no one out there quite like you

So far as I can tell

We're very blessed to have you

And I hope you understand

That we'd be lost without you

Yes our lostness would be grand

So in conclusion of this poem

We really want to say

We really really hope that you

Have a beautiful Mother's Day!

Haha isn't that adorable?  He should sell it to a card company!

Easter catch-up: the final chapter

I am scheduling this entry to post since we will be busy traveling today!  So sometime tonight we should be in Alabama!!

Like I said in my last post, Dathan was in the Easter musical at church.  It wasn't a typical Easter musical where they relive the Lord's Supper & the crucifixion, but it was the story of Easter retold through the views of Thomas and Matthew.  Dathan played Matthew.  He did so good & I was so proud of him!

One thing Dathan was very excited about was getting to grow his beard out for the musical.  The day that Miss Carolyn (Pastor's wife) asked him to play a role he told me he couldn't shave.  This was a few months ago.  He grows a beard so easily, so it was huge & bushy by the play.  Perfect for his role, not for his wife (who isn't a fan of facial hair LOL).

The pictures below are the soloists as well as Miss Carolyn who directed the play (top left photo).  The cute girl singing in the top right photo is my best friend Lyndsey, and I was so proud of her!  She did an amazing job!  Oh and to top that off she got engaged the weekend before this :) :) :)

The cast at the end...

And the best part of the play ending on Easter:

Easter catch-up: part 2

Easter Sunday was a little different this year than our "usual" Easters.  Dathan was in the Easter musical at the church at they had 2 performances that morning, so he had to be at the church super early.  It was just me & the boys when they got their Easter baskets... we still had fun :)

We didn't really do the Easter bunny.  Not because we are against anything like that, but just because neither Sean nor Nolan asked or said anything about the Easter bunny, so we didn't either! Ha!  I guess our own little don't ask don't tell policy?  Oh, and because the boys were with me when I bought the DVDs for their baskets ;)

We went simple with the baskets this year.  I did not want to spend money on something they wouldn't use, and I didn't want any candy because I knew they would get plenty from my parents as well as all the egg hunts they did at church & school.  And how about the adorable robot baskets from Target for $2 a piece?!  That's what I'm talking about (said like Gru from Despicable Me).  So they each got a DVD- Megamind & Tangled (yes, I bought my boys Tangled... they like it!).  They were told the movies are everyone's, not just whose basket they were in.  Oh, and I got the DVDs for super cheap at Target!  Then they each got new crayons, Sean got a super hero coloring book, and Nolan got a drawing pad (Nolan is so funny- he doesn't like to color, he wants to draw... so he turns coloring pages over to the back where it's blank & colors that).  That was it!  And they were thrilled!

Nolan was more excited about the sign than his basket... too sweet!

Then I got the boys dressed for church.  This is the Stephens family version of Easter Sunday dress clothes- the boys wear button-down tops with their jeans & flip flops ;)  I love the middle picture of Nolan looking up at Sean... hard to believe there will be a THIRD boy in the mix next Easter!

Absolute fave. Framing ASAP. Love.

We went to the 2nd service to see the Easter musical again (we saw it on Friday too).  Than after service Dathan & I had to clean (we clean a few rooms at the church on Sundays in exchange for Sean's tuition to school- it's a really sweet deal ;))  We just let the boys play out in the playground while we cleaned, then when we were done (it only takes us about 40 mins) the 4 of us headed to get a bite to eat and then home for the boys nap time.  After nap time we headed to my parents house for an egg hunt and Easter dinner.  It was really windy but the boys still wanted to do a hunt outside, so we did.  I think we hid too many eggs because they were both totally over it before they found them all.  Whoops!

Our dinner was SO yummy- tri-tip on the rotisserie, deviled eggs (of course!), steamed green beans, and broiled potatoes.  My dad was ready with his plate of food....

Sean wanted to take some pictures with me.  He is all about making funny faces all the time, so that is what we did!  I love these :)

We always take a family picture every year on Easter.  You can see our picture from 2009 here and 2010 here (I wasn't blogging before then).  This year, we have many to choose from!  Stemming from Sean's obsession with making funny faces and adding the difficulty of getting the boys to smile at the same time, we now do different types of faces for every picture and then throw in a "HAPPY FACE!" picture every few times.  You can see here we did cheesy, sleepy, sad, angry, happy, & scared. Fun!

And my favorite of the day- Surprised faces!  I think this deserves a frame, too ;)

Oh, and please say a little prayer for us Tuesday as we fly for the first time with all 4 of us (I haven't flown since I was pregnant with Nolan!).  We are heading to Alabama for a MONTH!  Oh, and if you are in Alabama & want to get your pictures done while we are there, please email me at ericastephensphoto @ yahoo . com (remove spaces)