Pictures from the Holidays!!!!

Its been a while since I last posted....sorry! I was just so busy during the holidays. Between TJ and I, we were gone every single night up until Christmas. It was kinda hard to just sit back and relax. I had all of these grand plans to drive around with Hot Chocolate and look at lights, to just sit at home and enjoy our own Christmas lights while listening to music, and much more. Drew and I were able to do some Christmas Crafts! We made a candy train with Grammy, Poppa, Dall, and Mandy; we made a gingerbread house with Eminee (Emily); and we made paper snowflakes together. We did get to go see some lights with our friends Thomas and Michelle. They are always up for a fun adventure with the kids! We went up to Willard Bay State Park and drove through a huge park filled with lights! It was truly spectacular!

Then we drove to a home in Roy with lights that were set to music. We sat outside and listened to music on their radiostation...it was sooooo cool!

Christmas eve was amazing! We had a dinner with TJ's family. It was my first time to every make an entire Holiday Spread and I really enjoyed it. Thanks to the Stevens/Stephens fam for letting me experiment! We spent the night eating, opening gifts and singing songs...TJ tried anyway (luv luv sweetie) while reading the Luke 2 account of Christ's birth. After the boys went to bed, TJ and Grandpa (a.k.a. Santa and his helper) put together the train table while Grandma Miller, Karen, Jill, Mitch and myself played a game called curses. It's kind of a hard game to explain, but it was such a blast!!
On Christmas Day, TJ and I got to wake up in our own little bed with our own little family! We actually woke up before our kids (?)! So I ran downstairs to get the first looks on camera. We thought Drew would be more stoked to see the train table...he loves it now, we were..a...I mean Santa...was looking for a little more excitement! Drew opened a present from me and Teej...a HUGE hummer! Both boys enjoyed their stockings and the other presents they received.




I opened my presents before TJ. He handed me a small rectangular gift (there was no way a Nikon d40x fit in there!), but guess what! It was one of the lenses to
a Nikon d40x...so the other box had to be the camera! It was. I just sat there and bawled. I had wanted it so bad and was led to think that I wasn't getting it! My dad, actually was able to cash in some credit card points to get it for me. I'll never be able to thank him enough...he has NO idea how much it meant to me! He is so incredible. Thanks dad, I love you! TJ got some great presents this year! He got tickets to TWO Jazz games...and lift tickets, because he has been dying to go skiing! He also got giftcards to buy/rent ski gear. The rest of Christmas day was just AMAZING! We went to my parents around 11 am on Christmas morning. We exchanged gifts there and then went to Grandma Childs. It was fun to see my two uncles and there families as well as my cute little Grandma! We came back to my parents later that afternoon and while the boys slept, we read, slept, played with the new Wii (Oh, did I mention that "Santa" brought a Wii as a family gift to my parents....) and cooked some fun finger foods for dinner. We spent the rest of the night working on a puzzle and just goofing around and enjoying each others company. We are so blessed! I just love this life and really have strong desire to accomplish and to experience as much as I possibly can!

Grandpas Birthday

I have some great pictures that we took while celebrating my father-in-laws birthday! We had a great time that night with dinner
at Pei Wei, and ice-cream back at Grandma and Grandpas house. Happy Birthday Craig!
Funny story: So, I'm oustide taking pictures of Drew in the snow yesterday and notice TJ has a wierd blue thing on his head! He actually asked me "what's wrong whit this hood?" Umm...its the little pocket thing that you zip the coat up into...lol!

Oops....

Oops....ok, hopefully I can get the link to post this time....

Elf Yourself

Hey!
I just saw this hilarious skit on my sis-in-laws blog....SO FUNNY! Enjoy!

What a busy week!!

Hello all! It has been about a week since my last entry, so I thought I'd give an update, plus I have some cool pictures. It has been a busy week here at the Stevens home. TJ ended up leaving Destination homes a week earlier than planned and so it was full speed ahead with the new business. He was gone just about every morning and night getting stuff done. He also had singing practices for a performance he had last night for our Stake Christmas party. As for me, I have had all kinds of crafty
projects building up and this was the week that I finished them...I won't bore you with all the little things that I did, but the one thing that I will tell you about is my advent calendar. I saw this idea on Ali Edwards' blog. She got the idea from Martha Stewarts kids. Anyway, it took a LOT of work, it may not look like it, but between painting 24 boxes, an uncooperative photoshop program and two kids, it took me about four days to finish this! It was worth it though. The boxes look SO cute on the wall! I love being crafty!!
Last weekend (Thanksgiving), my husbands family got together for the Holiday. Half of his siblings live out of state, so to have everybody together was awesome. We had a lot of fun eating (of course, duh, its the Stevens), playing ping-pong and living inside the Steph-coined phrase the "Stevens Family Musical." Little explanation there, my husbands family has been singing together for a long time, and so when ever they feel the urge, they will burst into song. This happens more frequently when they are all together ;). They sound good and they are all talented, so it is kinda cool to listen to. So, here are the pictures I promised: The first two are of the before and after of my advent boxes, and the rest are our Thanksgiving pictures...ENJOY!

Family!!

So here is yet another page for another challenge at the meadows. Credits: Two Sisters Design and Gina Marie Huff collab kit from Scrap Artist, Gina's Knocking on wood, and Heidi Williams/ Holt Swirling Fall Leaves, Showing Love, and Ginas Cherish Alpha.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

I made a pumpkin cheesecake about a month ago and it was such a hit that I have been asked to make 2 of them for
Thanksgiving! I am really flattered...anyway, I made a cute recipe card for the pumpkin cheesecake recipe. If you want a copy
of this recipe, just go to Racheal Ray dot com and search in the recipes section. Thanks to the Racheal Ray Magazine for
this AMAZING recipe!

Meadows Challenge

You have all probably figured out by now that I love these digital scrapbooking challenges. This is my third one and I LOVE it!!! They push me to get pages done and to be creative. Here is my latest creation. The paper is from Gina Marie Huff's Painting a Dream, the frames are from Heidi Williams Warming the Heart, the stars and flower are from Gina Marie Huffs Super Stars kit ( I enlarged them and filled in the flower). The ribbon is from Gina's Believing in You kit, and the "dream" is from Gina's Playing With Wire word art kit. Oh, yeah, and the date stamp is from Teriann Hank's It's a Date.

The Cello

So, I have been planning on my Drew playing the cello since before he was born and like any good Suzuki mom, I have had the cello music playing since before he was one....more consistently in the last six-eight months or so. Anywho, I have been doing
this in anticipation of him starting cello lessons at age 3 or 3 1/2. That is how young a person can be to start the violin. Well, not with the cello! I have to wait until he is 5! The good news is, is that he already is on a waiting list for Brittany Gardner (she is in the picture standing next to a young girl) he will start in June of '09. That seems sooooooooooooo far away, I hope I can keep his interest alive. I kept telling him we were going to get him his own "baby violin cello." But, we can't even do anything with it. So, I have been scowering the internet and found some videos and pictures to show him.....I found a video on you tube. Also, I found a picture of a cello teacher and her students to show him just how little these cute kids are and that they CAN do it!!!

Here is my latest digital scrapbooking creation. I made it for the challenge over at the meadows. For these two pages I used papers, frames, the staples, and the little denim heart from Heidi William's Warming the Heart Kit. The wire tag is the Dream it tag from WW. The Alpha is from Gina Marie Huff's Doodling days (I darkened it). The Stiching is from Amelie Scraps Pink Paradise, the paper tears are by Traci Simms, and the font is "little trouble girl."

Here is a picture of our family that my dad took last week! He is an INCREDIBLE photographer!!!!!!

More Pages and a quick note

Before I forget, I do need to point out that the October page from an earlier post was not made by me. The credit goes to Shabby Princess. It is their October Desktop. All I did was add some pictures of my kids! There is another reason why I love digital scrapping....its EASY!! Ok, my other pages. The Twinkle Toes page is from Peppermint Creative's Twinkle Toes kit, with Traci Simms paper tears, and the Birthday Boy page is from Shabby Princess' Festival kit, the triple cardboard frame from scrapladies, and the date stamp is Teriann Hanks "Its a Date."

Digital Scrapbook

I know most of you that will be looking at this site already know that my newest obsession is of Digital Scrapbooking. I LOVE IT!!!!! It is (for me) so much faster and cost effective than paper scrapping. Rather than bore you with all of the reasons of my love for digi scrapbooking, I thought I'd just post some of my Pages. SO....here goes. These two pages were created for a challenge for the Meadows at Weeds and Wildflowers (one of my favorite scrapbooking sites). The first page is Called Tiny Toes, and I used papers and star overlay from Gina Marie Huff's Painting a Dream , the star stamp "A Little Pizzazz" by Sandy Krieger from Two Peas, the ribbon, frame and star are from Gina Marie Huff's Believing in You, the font is fontmoochers, and the alpha is from Gina Marie Huff's Doodling Days #1. The Second Page is Called Cameron and I used papers from Gina Marie Huff's Painting a Dream and Swirling Fall Leaves by Heidi Williams/Saxon Holt. The stamp frames are Naked Stamp Sheets No.2 by Meredith Fenwick, the ribbon is from ksharonkdesigns simples sets #24, the alpha is "another love affair" by retrodiva (Tracy Collins), the staples are from Brittish Designs, the Doodle by Deise Liemert, and the stars are from Heidi Williams Seeing Stars.

Pictures

Lindsay is really into digital scrap booking. She made this page.

Update From the Mother Ship

We are back in Utah. It's been a hectic couple of months. Unfortunatley our house in Vegas didn't sell so we are trying to rent it out. I like my job with Destination Homes but most of all we love being back in Utah. We've seen more rain in a month than we saw in three years in Vegas. We've renting a nice home in West Kaysville. We were going to buy a lot to build on but since our house didn't sell we are going to have to put that off for a while. Lindsay is enjoy teaching again. I tease her that she is the bread winner now since I'm not pulling in much money until I get some sales. Cameron is crawling and pulling himself up. Drew is a character and sings his songs from Grandma's music class all day.

Lap Band Before and After Pics

Moving to Utah!!!

I just interviewed for a job in Utah with Destination Homes and got the job. I'll be selling homes just like I do in Las Vegas. It's a much smaller builder which is kinda scary but ultimately our goal is to get Sundays off and luckily Destination Homes is closed on Sundays. We're very exited to move back to a cooler climate and be close to family and friends. Lindsay is going to start teaching again and is planning on auditioning for the Orchestra on Temple Square. Drew is exited to start singing with his Grandma in My Kind of Music in September. I still need to get my Utah Real Estate license which I should be able to get by the first part of August. We have listed our home here in Vegas and our crossing our fingers that it will sell quickly. We plan on moving to the Layton area and starting the new job in September.

Bearded Man

I attempted to go for the "rugged, GQ" look in Hawaii. If you look really close you might be able to see a bit of stubble.

Scuba Diving in Maui

This is a picture of me scuba diving in Maui, Hawaii last week. After being stung by a sea urchant and barfing 6 times on my first scuba adventure I settled right in and had a great time. I'm now fully scuba certified.

This is cute picture of Cameron at 5 months old