Christmas 2011

Despite my lousy camera skills and a deficiency of pictures (I really did a poor job this year!), we had a lovely Christmas. The boys were excited about their gifts and about spending lots of time with family.

Phil made us breakfast on Christmas Eve, this is a running snowman for me!

Brother presents were a hit - once again Phil amazed us with his "skills" - homemade hats for the angry birds Jacob got for Ben. Jacob got new baseballs from Micah and Micah got new Yoda and Boba Fett legos from Ben. (not shown)

I didn't get many Christmas morning shots. Jacob loved his new composite bat and pitch back, Ben's favorite was an oragami book and Micah got many things to make. We've also been grooving to the new Muppets movie soundtrack all week!!

We got lots of fun Baird action, though again, not many pictures. Phil's favorite was playing for my mom to sing!

One of our fun new games: konexi...though we were never able to get all 26 letters on!!

Micah has become quite the creator these days. Displayed with Aunt Lynette, he made this Rudolph and Sleigh at Grandma's house and a new star wars ship with his wood set he got for Christmas.

I am so thankful for my family. I love spending a little extra time with them and basking in the magic of Christmas. It was so nice to go to church on Christmas morning this year. The boys were able to sing with a children's choir on one of our choir songs and I loved that. Phil and I were able to sing with the choir and those lovely songs helped remind us of the meaning of Christmas. I hope your days were merry too!

i love micah

Merry Mickey

We decided to do Disneyland for Christmas this year, and we opened it a bit early!! We had a wonderful trip this week and once again made some great memories with our traveling buddies, or in our case, princesses!

First stop: Dumbo!!

Happy they still humor me on the teacups, hey I did pay for the trip, they owe it to me!!
It's a small world, holiday style. We love it and loved the pretzels Lynette brought us. We didn't realize how hungry we were until we inhaled them in about 3 bites!! (Looks like we also went to the all-star game while we were at it!!)

Goofy kids!

The castle looked beautiful at night and we had to say hi to Walt and Mickey!

Personally, my disney wish already came true!

The new Star Tours is awesome!! One of our favorite rides!!

One of the highlights of the trip was the Phineas and Ferb holiday dance party, starring our kids!! How does Disney do that??

This says it all:

Another hightlight was going to the Animation Studio and learning how to draw Mickey. Micah was a bit frustrated, but the Artist told him to keep practicing...he spent the next hour or so drawing Mickey's and wanted to deliver one to the Mouse in person. How could I say no?

The end...(until next time!)

Grateful

I guess November came and went without word from the Stevens family! We had a nice Thanksgiving with Phil's family in Idaho. They were all there and it was fun to spend time with them. The boys LOVE going up to grandpa and grandma's house. It still seems lucky to be able to be so close.

I am grateful to be a part of the church. The organization alone is amazing. In response and concern for more high winds in our area today, our stake was organized to help those get rid of debris from our last storm. It is amazing to see the willingness to serve in our area and we're grateful to live where we do.

I'm also grateful to be given opportunities that we probably wouldn't take on our own that help us grow. A few weeks ago, we were asked to do sacrament meeting at an assisted living home in our area. We weren't really looking to forward to it and the morning to that point hadn't gone very well. Then to see our boys step up and bear their testimonies, sing and interact with those patients was so sweet and amazing to me. I was so glad we had accepted in the invitation and know that our family benefited probably more than the older people did. It was such a nice experience.

I am just feeling very blessed today and grateful for all that we have!

Halloween Fun

Our pumpkins this year were a bit orangely-challenged...but who could tell in the dark?

With our neighborhood friends (or enemies as it appears...)

And last but not least...

He's all mine ladies, all MINE!!!

Spooktacular Runners

It was time for one of our favorite Halloween traditions on Saturday: the Spooktacular 5K and Kids K in Mantua. We love it. We sleep over at grandpa and grandma's, then wake up and get ready to race. This year Jacob did the 5K with me. He did awesome and got 2nd place in his division...he also helped me secure 3rd place in mine. Poor kid, he has a competitive mom that pushed him a little bit, but I think he'll thank me one day :0)
The younger boys did a great job as well. I'm so happy to have boys that enjoy being active...and running for a trick-or-treat bag full of junk food!! My kids obviously!!

I love sharing my love of running with my boys!!

Winter's Tail

There are some perks to being married to a prosthetist. Yes, that's right pro-sthe-tist...ar-ti-fi-cial limbs (there are always quizzical looks when we explain what Phil does!) I've said before that Phil has met some wonderful people who work in his field and Kevin Carroll is one of those great guys. If you have seen the movie "Winter's Tail" you are familiar with his story. On the radio one day, Kevin heard about a dolphin that had lost his tail and had the thought that he makes limbs for people, why not animals?? So Kevin called them up and the movie tells (somewhat accurately) the rest of the story. Well, Kevin was in Salt Lake last week and Phil called him up to see if the boys might have a chance to meet him. Not only did we get to meet him, but Kevin was able to bring along one of Winter's out grown tails so the boys could take a look. Pretty exciting stuff!!
Thanks Kevin and all you wonderful pro-sthe-tists out there who go about making the world a better place!!

I love fall!!

Fall recess + cute boys = Making them hike in the beautiful sunshine and colorful mountains of Utah and making them to stop for pictures. What more can I say? (Ben's face in this picture pretty much shows how they felt about the idea!)

Ben thought this should be an advertisement for Fruity Pebbles!

Fall has always made me giddy and I'm glad it continues to do so. Just another reminder of this beautiful, amazing world created for us. Thanks for humoring me boys!