The kids and I visited Botanical Gardens in Birmingham today. The weather was great and we enjoyed a picnic lunch and a stroll around the gardens. Here are some pics from the day.

When I started this blog, I told myself that I wasn't going to be one to not blog often. I was going to blog every other day at least. Well, that obviously hasn't happened. I would love to blog more, but either time or computer issues prevent me from doing so. For whatever reason I feel like I need to put pictures up to keep my blog interesting. Since I can't do that from my computer, I just don't blog. My goal is to overcome that and blog regardless!

So, today I don't have too much to share. Just that I think I am obsessed with vacuuming. I vacuum most every day. Sometimes 2 times a day. I know, i know. Stop the madness! Blame it on having 2 cats. Blame it on having a child with allergies/asthma. Blame it on having this fabulous vacuum (thanks to a gift from a friend and a coupon). I honestly enjoy it.

Hello, my name is Allison and i'm a vacuumaholic...

I'm sitting here this morning with a cup of coffee watching the snowflakes float to the ground. One of my favorite things about living here in Franklin is getting to see it snow more often. Rarely is it enough snow to bring things to a hault for a few days, but my favorite part is just watching it fall. It's so peaceful, so beautiful.
I don't have much to write about today. I'm just grateful that my family is well and things are back to normal. Since I don't have much to write, head over to http://www.conorbootheandgirls.blogspot.com/. Boothe is a mere acquaintance of mine here in Franklin, but I enjoy reading her blog. She lost a baby at the end of last year to trisomy 18 and often writes to share her struggles of figuring out what life looks like after such a painful loss. I love her honesty and vulnerability. She is a very talented writer. Check her out if you get a chance.

8 Days and 7 nights...
sounds like a description of some fabulous vacation getaway, doesn't it? Well, not quite. That's how long we were battling the stomach bug here at the Stephens. Mitch had it for just one day, but the kids had it for a week. Thankfully mommy was spared:) It has been quite a long week for us, but we are so grateful that it's behind us. And in light of all that sickness, the whole no sweets thing has been really easy!

I was reading a friend's blog the other day and read this quote which was very helpful for me:

Don't judge God's love by your circumstances, but judge your circumstances by God's love.

Just hours after I read that my car didn't start and, long story short, we had to pay a lot to get it fixed. I struggled all day because they money we used to pay for my car was the money we were going to use to buy our new computer at the end of the month. I was really trying to be grateful that we had the money to pay for the car, but inwardly mourning because I so wanted that new computer. Really bad. Really really bad. I had a choice here: to believe that God didn't love me enough to let me get that computer OR to beleive God loved me enough to provide money for our car without us having to go into debt to fix it. I chose to dwell on the latter perspective. To be honest here I must share that money is one of the main trust issues I have with the Lord. There's a song that opens with the line, "I have faith in the bank, and money in my heart." I wish that weren't true of me, but sometimes it is. The "faith in the bank" part is what I struggle with most. If we have enough money in savings, it'll be okay. If we have enough money for a nice down payment, then we will be able to get a pretty good house. Sometimes my mentality totally takes God out of the picture, but at the end of the day I realize how lonely that place is and I am brought to my knees asking for forgiveness and for the faith to trust in Him alone, not in a figure I read on our monthly statement. I am so grateful that this life isn't as good as it gets. So grateful. Oh, how hard (and depressing) life would be without the promise of eternity with Him. "Better is one day in his courts than a thousand elsewhere."

Welcome to the world, little girl!

My sister Jen and her husband Chris welcomed their new baby girl on Friday, Feb. 1. Anne Thomas Simon was born by c-section Friday afternoon and weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs. 9oz and she was 22" long. Anne is Jen's middle name and Thomas is my mom's maiden name. Jen was suprised by having a c-section, but the baby had turned and the doctors were unable to get her in the proper position for delivery. Both baby and mom are home now and are doing well. I will post some pictures this weekend.

No Chocolate for How Long???
I am putting this out there for all to know so I will have lots of accountability wherever I go! My sister and I did this last year and I felt great, slept great, and it was nice to get back in tune with my body and what I really needed to eat as opposed to what I wanted to eat (losing 6 lbs. was pretty nice, too!). So, I am doing it again starting tomorrow - no sweets until Easter. That's 53 days to be exact. No Hershey bars, no snagging a bite of whatever treat the kids are eating, no mocha's from Starbucks. There will be coffee, though. Yes. There will be coffee.
Anyway, Jen can't do it with me this time as she will be a bit occupied with baby #2 who will be arriving any day now. I thought I would see if there was anyone out there interested in doing this with me. What Jen and I did last year was we had a consequence for cheating - you had to pay the other $10 if you "fell off the wagon." If I cheated, she got $10 every time and vise versa. Money is always a good motivator for me, so I didn't cheat once and neither did she!

So, tomorrow is the big day. I will update you as the days pass. If I remember, the first few days were really hard and after that it was no big deal. Maybe it will be that easy this time, too!

Looking for a good read...
Mitch has been studying for his LEED Accreditation (for Green building) and will be studying a lot more in the evenings as he gets closer to the test date. I am looking for something to read while he studies - something entertaining that isn't illustrated and has more than 10 words on a page:) I was thinking about reading The Kite Runner, but wanted to see if anyone had any other suggestions to offer. I would greatly appreciate any input. Thanks!

Will I ever learn that it's not the best idea to let a 1 1/2 year old eat chili all by himself?

She's Three.

Yesterday my baby girl turned three. What joy she brings to our family with her sweet little laugh, her cute comments, and her tender heart. She is so proud to be three. I am proud, too, but it's bittersweet. I love watching her grow up, but sad that she is growing so fast. Here are some pictures of our little princess as she has grown:

Three Months:

5 Months

1 year

18 Months

Two

2 1/2

THREE!!!

LOVE.
8 years ago today you told me you loved me for the first time. I never dreamed of how much that love would grow and how wonderful it would be to love you and be loved by you. You are an incredible father, husband, and best friend. I wouldn't want to take this journey with anyone other than you. I love you, babe.

Early Birthday Celebration -

My parents came in town last weekend for and early birthday celebration for Neily who will be 3 next week. My sister is due with her 2nd child right around Neily's birthday, so we celebrated early with GiGi and Granddaddy to make sure we could get in a little party before the newest addition arrives. We went to Build-A-Bear where Neily picked out a fuzzy rabbit that she named Babbit. We came home to have some yummy cookie cake (per her request) and ate until our tummy's hurt. She felt special and is enjoying the fact that we get to have another celebration on Friday. "More cake for me!" she says. Hmmm, a girl after my own heart!

Pondering her choices with Granddaddy:

Watching Babbit get puffed up:

The yummy cookie cake, which one little brother is eager to get to:

Enjoying the Happy Birthday song:

Getting a little help with the candles:

Alas, the cake...

Things I'm looking forward to in 2008 :
(Thanks for the idea Amanda!)

Getting a new computer - As I have stated many of times, my computer is the hooptiest of the hoopty. This year will be the year of the Mac and I absolutely cannot wait! Thanks to our 2 adorable tax deductions, hopefully we will get one sooner than later.

Being Greener - We are always looking for ways to alter our lifestyle to be greener in our everyday life. We bought the mesh grocery bags and are using them for all of or grocery trips. I get lots of looks at Walmart b/c I think I'm the only one who totes in 13 bags to load my groceries in. Hopefully by the end of the 2008 what I am doing will be the norm. As a plug for these great bags (only $1/each), they are so much easier to carry than the regular plastic bags!Next we will be buying these for our produce instead of the clear baggies available in the produce section. You can wash and reuse them over and over. Did you know that it takes up to 1,000 years for plastic bags to biodegrade in a landfill? I will also start transitioning all of our cleaning/laundry supplies to environmentally safe products. I will let you know what we find that works best. Just curious, what's your family doing to go green in 2008?

The Summer Olympics - We love the Olympics around here. Probably the only thing we find worthy of our time on TV in the summertime.

Getting Better at Yoga - Mitch and I have been doing the yoga thing 3 times/week for 3 weeks now and really enjoy it. I look forward to getting better at it. I think we are finally over the laughing at each other stage and are really getting a good workout.

Becoming a Better Cook - I have always been pretty good in the baking arena, but cooking creative, healthy meals (as Mitch will attest to) is not my forte'. So, this year I am setting out to find some healthy, affordable, tasty meals that will hopefully be pleasing to the taste buds.

Happy New Year!

We were greeted with a little snow on the evening of New Year's Day. It snowed for about an hour and was enough to cover the ground. We only stayed out for a few minutes because it was so cold and windy, but were out long enough to get a few pictures.

Bathtime.

Christmas 2007

We were in Birmingham for the Holiday and visited with both sides of the family. It was a fun, yet tiring visit. The kids enjoyed Christmas morning, although Neily declared after opening 2 presents that she didn't want to open anymore. The rest of her gifts travelled back with us to Nashville where she finally opened them. Who would have thought??! It was a great year for us to evaluate our traditions and think about what we would like to do different next year. The kids were still a bit clueless this year, so we feel like we still have somewhat of a clean slate to work with. I would love to hear any of your favorite traditions you have started with your family.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas!

The tricycle was a big hit!

Me and my little guy on Christmas Eve

Here is a pic of the kids with granddaddy. Not a good moment. I love the look on my dad's face...

Leaving out milk and cookies for Santa...

Celebrating the birth of baby Jesus with some yummy cupcakes

Playing with Daddy and my new basketball goal

A good time was had by all...

Change.

I will admit that I am one who does not enjoy change. Even good change can be difficult for me. I realized after responding to a friend about our current address that we have lived in a different house/apartment every year since the Christmas of 2002. 6 years, 6 different dwellings. For someone who doesn't like change, that sure is a lot! Hmmm...I wonder where we will be next Christmas??

Feliz Nabiblah...

That's how Neily sings it. Isn't it funny what kids come up with? Actually, not just kids...After M and I married we were singing some Christmas songs and he busted out with, "and pretend that he is possum brown." Possum Brown? Are you kidding me? I laughed so hard at him I almost wet my pants! Anyway, we are really enjoying this Christmas season. Here are some picture from the last week.

One of the MANY attempts to get a cute Christmas card photo...

Decorating the tree with bubble wrap

Hanging out in Downtown Franklin where they had "Dickens Village" last weekend. There were people dreesed up like the Dickens characters, horse and buggy rides, and some tasty treats. It was a fun was to enjoy the holiday season.

On Friday we had a visit from Uncle Chris, Aunt Jen, and Elizabeth. We only saw them for a few hours, but we had a lot of fun.

Who can resist a little girl in her daddy's hat?

For someone who used to make a career out of working out, I have managed to not step foot in a gym in almost 2 years! Who would have thought??...

It basically came down to choosing between spending time with my husband at night or going to the gym. I of course chose the first option and that has been so much better for my soul than buff biceps. I have done what I can with the kids like running with the double stroller or doing lunges and push-ups while we play in the yard. Not going to the gym has turned out to be a really good thing because I have figured out how to incorporate exercise here and there throughout the day and I don't feel so obligated to "work out". Mitch and I have just started doing a workout video together a few times a week and that has been the best of both worlds...time with my hubby and exercise. This brings me to the point of this entry: our workout video. We have started doing yoga and we found this great video with 3 different workouts at 3 different levels. We are on level one and probably will there for a while. If you can get past the instructor's hair and jean shorts, it's really a great workout. So, if you are looking for something challenging to do in the comfort of you own home (maybe you can even get your hubby to join you!), try this workout by Bryan Kest.

HO HO HO..or maybe I should say HA HA HA!

This weekend was going to be the magical weekend that we went and picked out the tree, baked and decorated some yummy shortbread cookies, and decorated the tree. I foolishly idealized the weekend, but I was quickly reminded that with 2 kids under 3 your expectations have to be low.
It started Friday night when we went to pick out the tree. The plan was to eat dinner, run by walmart, go to Lowe's to pick out the tree and be home sometime around 7pm. Well, things took a bit longer than expected and so by the time we got to Lowe's for the tree it was already 7:45. Jake had wet through his diaper and it was 1/2 hour past his typical bedtime. As I said in an earlier post, we planned on Neily picking out the tree. Basically we walked on the lot and went to the $19.99 section, Neily pointed at the first tree she saw and said, "oooh mommy, look at that tree!" That is the one we got. We were in and out in a matter of minutes. Thankfully the tree we got looks pretty good considering we didn't even check it out while on the lot. We finally made it home around 8:30 and got the kids to bed.

Saturday was the day for cookie baking and tree decorating. The fun started with the cookie baking and I somehow managed to drop all of the cookies back into the oven when I was pulling them out. We salvaged most of them, although some were marked with black charred lines. In the decorating process Neily managed to get chocolate all over her new Christmas pj's (so much for the cute pictures I was planning on taking!). When we finally got to the decorating of the tree, the kids were mainly interested in figuring out how to hang bubble wrap from the tree. At least they were participating in trying to hang something!

At the end of the evening we turned all of the lights off in the house and sat on the sofa in front of the tree listening to Christmas music. All was well. We laughed about the day and enjoyed the few moments (and I mean FEW) we had as a family snuggling together enjoying our tree. Not quite the day I had expected, but we still made some fun memories.