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.

Happy Holidays!

We are feeling quite festive here at the Stephens' house today. A little decorating, a little christmas music in the background, maybe even a little baking. So, I thought that I would change the mood of the blog to a more festive one. Because of my antique computer I can only do so much, but the color change at least shows my Christmas spirit.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the day with Mitch's family and I was quite thrilled to be succesful at making the dressing this year. Thanks to Lauren for passing on the recipe a few years ago.

I will post pictures again soon as we will be heading out to get the good ole tree in a few days. We are giving Neily the honor of picking it out this year, so it ought to be interesting. Seasons Greetings!!

BAD HAIR DAY

In my efforts to save a buck, I took the kids to Great Clips to get their hair cut. In hindsight, that wasn't the best decision considering they are having pictures taken next week. But like I said, when their regular "salon" went up in prices, a $9 cut at Great Clips seemed like a no-brainer. Typically they get their hair cut one at a time, but 2 stylists were available so they both got their haircut at the same time. I went back and forth to each of their chairs making sure that the kids were okay and keeping them entertained. I obviously spent too much time at Neily's chair because when I returned to check on Jake, I found him half bald with his bangs cut at the hairline. I couldn't help but laugh because he looked just like Howdy Doody (or Pee Wee Herman...you be the judge.) Here is a picture of Jake's lovely locks just days ago:

And this is Jake today...

I've tried my best to comb some hair forward to get some hair on his forehead. Thankfully it will all grow back! Regardless, he's still a cutie in my book.

A FIRST

Today was a first for Neily. She saw a rainbow. It's so fun to watch as your children experience and enjoy the beauty of nature. This picture doesn't show her face, but she is wearing a huge smile.

Catching Up -

It seems like a month since my last post. After the drama with Neily, i think I was pretty worn out! We have since enjoyed a fun night of trick-or-treating and a wonderful trip to Asheville. Thanks to all of you who gave us tips on where to eat. Early Girl Eatery was our favorite. We were happy to see the kids again after being away from them for 5 days. After we all got back home, we celebrated Daddy's birthday by baking him a cake. Below are some pics of the past few weeks.

This year the kids were pumpkins. Neily wore this outfit last year and rediscovered it when we moved in July. She was excited to wear it again (and i was thrilled to not have to buy a new one!)

Every time we went up to a house Neily would say, "We don't have to go in, do we Mommy?" and Jake would inevitably walk in the door whenever the neighbors answered. He didn't care too much for the candy, he just wanted to go inside the houses.

And here are the kids enjoying their first taste of Peeps which, in my opinion, are the worst tasting candy ever. After Halloween night, the kids never once asked for their candy. Daddy was pretty excited to have it all to himself!



Lastly, here are some pics of Neily and I making Daddy a cake and Jake enjoying tasting the batter. The last picture I took a couple of hours ago. The kids were having a blast wearing Daddy's toboggans.