Stevens Family

Can I just get 1 picture?!

2011-09-11T20:32:00.012-06:00

Drew's first day of school was a couple of weeks ago, but Cam's was this week-so.....technically I'm not really late in getting this post up ;)

Drew's first day of school was just one week after Eli was born...and the school he goes to decided to do their back to school night on the first day of school. I left Eli at home with TJ, while my sister and I, Cam and Drew headed off for school and back to school morning.

I only had a few seconds to snap a picture of Drew before the flag ceremony, because we were running late, of course, and this is the face I get:

Really?

After some prodding, begging, kicking, screaming and yelling ;) I finally got a picture I was happy with:

What a handsome boy!!

Here he is waiting in line with the other kids in his class. He made me stand next to him, insisted on holding my hand and that I stay with him until the very last second. When that last second came, I gave him a hug and was about to go in for a kiss and he swooped and ran. Well, now I know what to do to get him to move quickly...

Fast forward a couple of weeks, Drew's well into his school routine and Cam's ready to start his second year of pre-school! He gets to go three days a week now (yay for mom!!!!) and is SOOO excited. His first day of school, was actually an orientation. He was less than thrilled that his first day would be so short. I snapped a picture of him and Drew right before Drew took off for school.

Then I took him over for his own, first day of school photo shoot. Even though it was completely overcast outside, it was too bright for this little boy to open his eyes. I told him to close them until I counted to three then to hurry and open them, and I got quite the forced smile. However, the tight-lipped-emphasized-chumple (chin dimple) is pretty standard Cam smile these days. The smile in the photo above is as about as good as it gets ;)

I tried to get some more natural looking shots, but just got a bunch of squinchy eye shots!

The next day-his ACTUAL first day of school- I took this picture, in hopes of getting one with his eyes open, with a natural-ish looking smile. I think I got a pretty good one....don't ya think?

I did all the "right" things to get a good shot of my two school boys. I took pictures in the shade to avoid bright spots, I took pictures out in the open on an overcast day for great skintones. These pictures were going to be works of art!! At the end of the day, I got pictures that tell a story about my kids and I'll remember them for that, not for how perfect the smiles were, or how well I set up the shot. Squinchy eyes and all, I'm happy with what I got!

Not to be outdone by his two older brothers, this little guy let's me take all kinds of pictures ;) He's definitely a keeper!

Baby Eli!

2011-08-31T21:23:00.007-06:00

It's been over a year since I've updated this blog. With a new baby in our family, I figured a new post was in order ;)

Our little Eli was born on Monday, August 15th. But I have to go back some to start this story...

TJ and I wanted to expand our family, but it didn't happen quite as easily as it had with the other two. It took close to a year and finally, with some help from some medication we found out we were preggo! We were so excited! I was thrilled, especially because I was starting to doubt whether or not we'd be able to have more children.

My due date with Eli was August 17th. Out of fear of having another Drew (9 lbs!), the doctor agreed to induce me a week early- the 10th. A week before I was supposed to have Eli, the hospital where I was to deliver called to tell us that the price for delivery had quadrupled. Having no insurance, we had to know exactly all costs and the hospital changed everything! So we had to change our hospital, which in turn changed our induction date-to the 15th, just two days before my actual due date.

The night before I went into the hospital, there was a crazy thunderstorm. It definitely mirrored my feelings, I was nervous. My previous two births were not easy, they were pretty tough!

We showed up at the hospital at 7 am, after calling before 6 to see if there was room for us. After signing a bunch of paper work and answering a bunch of questions, they finally started the pitocin around 8:30 am. The nurse told me that the doctor most likely would be in to break my water during his lunch break. By surprise, he showed up at 8:45, at that point I was dilated to a 3! I knew I was going to get an epidural, and at 10 am I decided I was ready. At 10:30, the epidural was in and I was able to get comfortable and get some rest-at this point I was dilated to a 4. At 11:30, TJ left to go get lunch for him and my mom. The nurse kept increasing my dose of pitocin, but my contractions were getting farther apart. Also, the baby seemed to be in a bit of distress, so she then lowered the pitocin. I figured I wasn't progressing at all because of all of this, but around 12:45, the nurse checked me again and I was almost an 8. They started bringing in all the gear to deliver a baby and the doctor showed up at about 1:20 to see how I was, and I was at a 10. I couldn't believe it happened so fast-thank GOODNESS for epidurals!! After about 10 minutes of pushing Eli was born at 1:40 pm. I was able to relax and sleep during the labor process, and because of that I was more aware of what was happening than with the other two birth experiences. When I saw him for the first time, I couldn't believe it. I was so happy and it was such an emotional moment. I was so happy to finally see and meet him. Right after he was born, they did all the standard newborn stuff. They weighed him, measured his length, etc. and then gave him to TJ. I didn't get to hold my little baby for about 20 minutes!! Whatever happened to mom first! It was worth the wait though, he was beautiful! Later that day, after his bath, they brought him back to me and his hair looked red. All day long, I couldn't stop staring at him. Drew and Cam came to visit with TJ's mom around 2:30. They loved him instantly-but couldn't understand why he didn't want to play with the toys they'd brought him. My brother and mom came up later that night to visit. I was grateful for their love and support. We are so happy to have Eli in our family, he's such a good baby. He's so sweet, he sleeps really well and is absolutely adorable!

Family Videos

2010-07-21T07:13:00.003-06:00

This recital was back in May. Sorry it took so long to share. This was Drew's first solo recital playing Andantino. His favorite part is spinning his cello during the rest.

This is a small clip of Cam's singing class recital. I love watching his facial expressions and movements.

Drew did 40 min Cello recital on June 12. He played 23 songs with an intermission. His teacher Brittany accompanied him. We are so proud of how hard he has worked. He practices every day and has come so far in just a year.

Peyton Manning Dances on SNL

2010-06-04T01:16:00.001-06:00

I first saw this show a couple of years ago, and it is one of the funniest things I've ever seen!!! You gotta watch it! Just click on the link to go to the site with the video :)

Will Forte & Peyton Manning Dancing on SNL

Start Spreadin' the News.....

2010-05-24T23:15:00.017-06:00

I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York
Last week Ivory Homes took TJ and I, along with some other folks to NEW YORK! We found out about this trip last fall, and I have been SO excited ever since. TJ and I went there for our 5th anniversary two years ago and LOVED it, so we were thrilled to be able to go again. New York is such an amazing place, the food is incredible, I love the energy, the history, the sights, the entertainment, the shopping ;) The arts there are 1st class, it's the place to be for anybody and everybody in that line of work. Last time we went TJ and I went to see the NY Philharmonic, a world class symphony. This time we decided to see some museums and more shows.

Okay, so the one bad thing about New York (for me) is getting there. I don't love to fly. I can't handle sitting in a little tube for hours with no choice of getting out, and I just don't love turbulence. I don't want my fear of flying to keep me from having some really great experiences, so I just bucked it up and faced my fears. Actually, I took some zanax and it made both flights a joy to be on. I slept for half of both of them (yay!) But I was awake long enough to read, watch friends on my ipod and take these:

After we got checked into our hotel, we rushed over to a food festival just two blocks from where we were staying. It was highly rated, and by the time we got there, we had just 45 minutes until it was over. So, we rushed around trying everything! We had gyros, sweet potato fries, funnel cakes, fried oreos, chocolate covered strawberries, ice-cream.... It was so fun, there was quite the diversity of people-but it was cool to see all of the different people. I feel like we got to see New Yorkers in their real environment.

After the food festival, we went over to times square to look around. Times square is crowded and crazy, but so cool! There is some awesome shopping, and I just love the energy! There are crazies, people trying to sell you stuff, and it's hard to get anywhere, but it's TImes Square!

After Times Square we went to a place that we found two years ago by accident. It's a rice pudding place, and it's so yummy! It's kind of like Cold Stone, there's a bunch of flavors of pudding and mix ins and toppings. TJ went there FOUR times while we were there, and has plans to open one here in Utah ;)

The next morning we got up and had breakfast at a local deli across the street from our hotel. Going to the deli's are such a great way to have an authentic New York experience! After breakfast we met up with the rest of the ivory group and went on a bike ride through central park. I didn't get that many photos, I wish I would have gotten more... but I did get this funny one of TJ trying to find a helmet that would fit ;)

I loved the design on this stone pillar.

There were some cool musicians to listen to:

We went to Katz deli (a famous and authentic deli) for pastrami sandwiches. The food was good, the quantities were HUGE and I'm not a meat lover, so it wasn't my favorite, but it was fun try something new!

After lunch, TJ and I went on our own to go shopping. I had a list of places that I wanted to go to that I can't go to here in Utah. One of the stores we went to was in the Flatiron building:

One of the absolute highlights of the trip was going to the Yankees game. Last time we were in NY, we got tickets but the game was rained out and TJ was devastated!! This time was a completely different experience. We sat in great seats, had authentic NY baseball food...it was awesome. The game started out awesome, the first 2 innings were great...we were ahead and then the Boston Red Sox came up from behind to lead in the 8th. At the last minute, we won the game and the excitement was so invigorating! It was late and I was tired and dizzy, and we almost left because it looked like we were going to loose the game, but we won!!! I'm so glad we stayed :)

The next day the weather was awful, and thank goodness we planned to go to a couple of museums and to go to a show that night. We went to the Museum of Natural history first...and I really like seeing the dinosaur bones, but other than that I wasn't too impressed. I've been to the Natural History museum in Chicago 5 times and to the Smithonian, so I felt like I'd already seen what there was to see:

For lunch TJ and I and Jill and Kerry went to the Shake Shack in Madison Square. We'd heard about it from a few people and it was worth having to stand out in the rain underneath umbrellas while being attacked by hungry squirrels and birds for the food.
TJ and I went to the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art). We both loved it and wished we'd had more time to spend there. Here are some of the highlights for me :)

That night we went to Wicked, and LOVED it! We had made plans for an authentic italian restaurant and while we were there, we happened to look at the tickets and noticed that the show was supposed to start an hour earlier than we had planned! We rushed through dinner (it was amazing!!) and rushed to get to the show on time. Our seats were much better than last time and the music and singing was incredible! It was another one of the highlights of the trip for sure!!

On Wednesday, we got up and went to the donut plant (SOO good!!) Then we went to chinatown and to little italy. We got in some good shopping and we got some cute name paintings for the boys. I love the photo I got of the artist doing his thing :)

After China town and Little Italy, we went to Lombardi's for lunch (the FIRST pizza place in the country!!) and then to Mary Poppins. The show was pretty good, not my favorite...I loved the actor who played Mary Poppins, she was incredible!!

A funny guy we saw in union square!

For dinner we went to a place called Chocolate by the Bald Man. Another recommendation that was amazing!! The plating was gorgeous, the food was delicious, but the dessert...mmmm, the dessert was incredible!!

After dinner, TJ and I walked down 5th avenue and I got some photos of rockefeller center and St. Patricks Cathedral.

Of course, I had a to get a photo of one of my most favorite places to shop! ;)

On our last day, TJ got up early to go to the today show. It was really close to our hotel, but I didn't want to get up so early, I was really tired.

Later, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with Jill and Kerry. It was one of my favorite parts of NY last time we went and this time as well. I loved seeing the amazing skyline, the statue of liberty, the other bridges, the water, and the architecture of the bridge is incredible. I love the lines and and the brick. I'm pretty happy with the photos I got :)

After the bridge, TJ took off to go get some Rice to Riches one last time and Jill, Kerry and I headed over to the Shake Shack for a quick lunch before we had to go to the airport. SO GOOD!!!

We had SO much fun with Kerry and Jill. I'm so glad we were able to go and spend time with them. They were a blast to hang out with!!

I'm SO grateful that we were able to go on this trip! I love New York, I love the diversity, the crazies, the subway-I love that we could go anywhere, and FAST! I loved the architecture, the beauty and history in central park. I loved the energy, the fact that the city was still busy at midnight! I loved going to the deli every morning for breakfast, I loved all the amazing food and that we tried new things instead of going to some lame chain places. I loved the shows, the baseball game, walking around until my feet hurt SOOO bad, but still doing more so I didn't have any regrets. I loved the shopping and totally unique places. I miss it already and hope I can go to New York again soon! Thanks to Ivory for this AMAZING trip :)

I'm selling my D90 Camera and 18-200 lense

2010-04-29T12:51:00.004-06:00

**Camera and Lense Sold!!!***
Hey all, I'm selling my Nikon D90 Camera and 18-200 lense. I'm asking $1499, and would like to sell them together. I you only want one or the other, then they will be $849 for the camera and $699 for the lense. Included are 4 SD cards (one 8 GB and three 2 GB), USB cable, instruction manual, UV and polarizing filters for the lense, the battery and charger, a camera bag, and original packaging. If you are interested, just leave me a comment with your email and I'll get in touch with you. thanks!!!

**
Hey all, I'm selling my Nikon D90 Camera and 18-200 lense. I'm asking $1499, and would like to sell them together. I you only want one or the other, then they will be $849 for the camera and $699 for the lense. Included are 4 SD cards (one 8 GB and three 2 GB), USB cable, instruction manual, UV and polarizing filters for the lense, the battery and charger, a camera bag, and original packaging. If you are interested, just leave me a comment with your email and I'll get in touch with you. thanks!!!

Don't give up

2010-04-27T14:49:00.004-06:00

So, today I had an opportunity to go listen to, as well as perform, for some other violin teachers in my area. We all have a few things in common, first, we're all violinists, we all teach and we all have or currently are taking lessons from my amazing mom. My first teacher (Jeanne Grover) performed, as well as a few other seasoned teachers. I have so much respect for these ladies. We all did something very difficult, and this is playing in front of our peers. I really realized how much I look up to and respect these other teachers. I also realized, that in the 7 years since I graduated from College, I've really missed practicing my violin. Recently, I've started playing with the New American Philharmonic. It's been a lot of fun playing in a symphony again. I have a goal to play something at every student recital so that I can keep up this talent I have. Since I've become a mom, I've not had the time to spend 2-3 + hours practicing, so I have tried to teach myself other skills and hobbies. After doing this, I realize that the thing I've spent the most time on, I've almost abandoned. I always want to keep learning new things, but also don't want to forget the things that I hold most dear. Now I teach violin (well, I've been doing it for about 9 years now) and I love it. It's amazing to see my students practice and grow and learn, and to see the confidence they gain by learning a new skill. My glory days are over, HAHAHA!, I had my time in college, but now is my time to share what I've learned with my students and my own children. Drew has been taking cello lessons for about a year now, and I can't tell you how many times I've been overcome with emotion while practicing with him. I love music, and I feel so blessed to be able to share that with him. And Cam starts violin lessons in the fall (THAT should be interesting!!). I'm so excited for it! Now I'm rambling, sorry!! I am just so happy to do what I do and to have recently rediscovered my love for this instrument. :)

I'm not a stink, I'm a CAM!!!

2010-04-17T00:14:00.003-06:00

Do you ever call your kids a stinker, a rascal, a pain in the butt, a cute little boy, a sweetie pie, or a momma's boy? Well, I use those and many other names for Cam, and EVERY time, I get the same response: I'm not a (insert other name here), I'm a CAM!!

Sometimes, he'll laugh about it and and we'll joke around...

But most of the time it makes him so mad. The other day, Drew told me that he was a male. Then he told Cam that he was a male too, and this statement just about pushed him over the edge. "I'M NOT A MALE, I'M A CAM!!!!!!

This little boy, Vegas and skinny jeans

2010-04-04T22:44:00.002-06:00

So, I'm writing today about a little boy who, albeit seriously ADORABLE, is a ginormous pain in the butt; and a fun trip I took and some cute skinny jeans. First, I'm going to tell you all about my awesome trip to Vegas with my bestie Deb. Deb and I planned to go to Vegas before Christmas. We wanted to do a girls trip and Vegas sounded like fun. We went the first weekend in February, and we stayed at the Luxor hotel. My girl Deb is a wiz at finding deals, bargains and the like. I repel them. She was able to get us a great deal on our room. The first day we got there late in the afternoon-we got settled into our room and then we headed to a nearby mall to get dinner, do some shopping and then go see a movie. We saw When In Rome, which was really cute-mostly because Josh Duhamel was really, really cute ;) The next morning we slept in (yay!!) then we headed down the strip to find some more shopping and to find a show to see that night. We found a half-price ticket place and we got reservations to a really great restaurant in the Venetian, then went to the Blue Man Group. It was SOO funny, my mouth hurt and was crying because I was laughing so hard. It was so random, crazy and just hilarious! The next day, we went down to Prim for....wait for it,......more shopping. After that I showed Deb some things about Vegas that I loved. After that we went back to our hotel, we got some pizza, ice-cream and rented a movie. The next day we drove home. It was such an awesome weekend. We found out just how much we had in common, laughed a lot and just really deepened our friendship. My favorite part of the trip though, was the drive there and back. The conversation was great, we listened to music and laughed there too.

The day after I got home, I gave the kids the presents I got them (minus the m&m stuff I bought them at the m&m store...I lost that!!!)- two t-shirts. Cam's was a cute rocket ship t-shirt, shown in the next two photos:

He looks so sweet and happy in his new shirt, right? Well, it lasted for half the day before he colored all over it with a dry-erase marker. Ugh. I was SOO mad. I JUST got him this shirt!! I know my kid is more important than a shirt, blah, blah, blah.....but SERIOUSLY!!! The kid has made some kind of drawing/painting/sketch in just about every room. So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that his next piece of art would be on his clothes. I just wish he would've waited a week, or maybe a month. No really, a couple of months has passed now and it's not really a big deal, and we've been able to remove most of the art work from throughout the walls of our house. And now, he's moved on to other things that drive me crazy and so the cycle continues.

SOOO, the last part of this lengthy blog is that while down in Vegas I got the boys some cute jeans at H&M. They looked adorable on the hanger, and I got them home...aaaaaand, they're skinny jeans!! The funny part, is that they really look cute on them!

Sweet cheeks and buck teeth

2010-03-28T18:56:00.005-06:00

So, I have really neglected my blog lately...my holidays were not all that great and my new year was worse (I got pretty sick on a vacation :( ), and all in all 2010 has NOT been that great, I tried to start project 365 again, but I got way too busy and sick (the flu 3 times in 3 months thanks to an awful medication I was on). To be honest, I just felt defeated and depressed, I had all of these goals in mind, and didn't even really start them because of my health, so I just kind of had a bad attitude a gave up on some of my "extra" things, i.e. photography, blogging, scrapbooking, for a while. So, now I'm back. I realized they were too important to me to give up for too long. I'll try to do some updates and post some cute photos as I go, but for now I'll start with this:

I took some photos of the boys this week to give as gifts to TJ's grandmother and uncle. I didn't have any recent photos of the two of them, so I quickly took them outside onto the porch. I had NO time, it was the day of the party and Drew had to be at school within 25 minutes. I only took 60 photos, because the boys just couldn't hold still!! Thank goodness for a fast shutter speed! At first glance, I only found 1 that I really liked and then, after going through them to delete the ones I didn't like, I found three more. I thought I'd share because they crack me up,

The first one made me realize just how much they look alike. Especially when they both give me they're cheezzzy smiles. Both of they're eyes turn into half moons and they're cheek bones become very prominent. They get that from their daddy!

These next two photos are so adorable. I LOVE them, but (you can't tell unless you click on them to enlarge them) Cam is perfectly in focus and Drew is out of focus, just enough to bug me. I KNEW I should have closed down my aperture a few more stops! The face Cam is pulling in the first one is his classic picture face these days...

Again, I LOVE this, but Drew is just out of focus. I won't blow it up, but it will definitely get printed for a place in my house.

This last one was the one I gave away as a gift. I really love it. I wish Cam's smile was a little more genuine, but I love how close and cute they look. In the last three photos, Drew pretty much looks the same...but Cam's facial expression changes in each one.

I love these boys so much. They test my patience by the minute, HA!! I remember when I was 18 and new to Relief Society and hearing a young mom bearing her testimony, and in it she said, "Motherhood is the hardest thing I've ever done yet it's the most satisfying thing I've ever done." I looked around the room to see if anyone else was as confused as I was...and thought to myself, that does not sound appealing, who would want to do something so hard?? This mom thing probably isn't for me. But here I have two amazing little boys who present me with the most challenges I've ever faced, but yet, (just like the new mom in Relief Society) I wouldn't change anything about them or my life right now. I love being a mom, I love being a mom to my two boys.

p.s. Happy Anniversary to my sweet hubby! Today is our 7 year anniversary-we're celebrating it on Wednesday by going to dinner and Michael Buble-I'm VERY excited!!! I'm so grateful for the guy I'm married too, he teaches me so much and is a great dad and a great husband. I love you Teej :)

I'm Back....and Pretty Please Vote :)

2010-03-21T18:36:00.002-06:00

Hey guys, if there is anybody who still happens to check and see if this blog is updated, I'll be shocked! :) I'll post more soon, but for now, I just want to ask you all to vote for one of my very best friends to go to New York!!! If any of you know her, she gets extra points when people put this on their Facebook or their blog. She's such an amazing girl, I'd love to see her get this opportunity. It just takes 5 seconds, seriously!!

Pretty Powerful

Sponsored by Bobbi Brown

The Gospel according to Drew

2009-12-16T14:30:00.001-07:00

"Mommy, how did Jesus make the earth?"

"I don't know buddy, maybe that's something you can ask Him one day..."

"Oh, well I think He used Legos."

Cam's Hat

2009-11-13T22:36:00.002-07:00

I just had to post this photo of Cam....

I ordered this hat for Drew and Cam's been wearing around the house all day long. He looked so cute, so of course I had to get some pictures of him. I just love how his eyes are so penetrating. It was the last picture by the way. I got some other cute ones...but this one was the best. It's just shows that being patient is an important part of photography ;)

Guns, swords and weapons galore....

2009-11-11T23:53:00.003-07:00

What is it about boys that they feel the need to shoot stuff, slice and dice, and generally cause mass destruction? My mom gave me the Toys R' Us big toy magazine a couple of days ago and I told Drew we could go through it and he could circle what he would like for Christmas. Well, he wants a gun, a sword, a Ultimate Fighting set with fighting figurines. To name a few... So, me being the mom wondering why boys are like this asked Drew, "bud, what is it that you like about guns and swords?" He said, "Because swords make blood come out and guns blow stuff up." Ok, maybe I'm just being too dramatic but WWHAAATTTT?!??!!!!!!!!!!!! We don't watch violent stuff at our house. They watch disney movies, Thomas the Train and Bob the builder and Living Scriptures. Where did I go wrong? So, I told Drew that I don't know if it's a good idea to have guns and swords in the house if that's what he likes about them. I told him even pretending to hurt or kill somebody is not a good idea. I know he's only 5, and he's a boy. I certainly don't want him playing with barbies or dolls or something, but COME ON! Should I get him the gun, figuring that it's just going to happen someday anyway? Or should I find alternate ways for him to have fun. I'm for plan "B" but was hoping any other ideas that find their way into my comments either help me cement my decision or just tell me to calm down and stop being so dramatic...Mom's of boys.... HELP!!!!!

Arrr!! And....To Infinity and Beyond!!!

2009-11-02T21:27:00.011-07:00

Halloween this year was great. We made pumpkins a few days before-I wish we would have been more on the ball with that one. We watched the NBC Monsters and Aliens Halloween special, the boys watched about 5 times.

I Drew a face on Cam's pumpkin and then gave him some markers and told him to have at it. He had a great time coloring his own pumpkins. The only downside was his self-appointed ownership of ALL the pumpkins. At least 5 times a day I would find him outside rearranging the pumpkins to how he thought they should be.

The pumpkins we made:

I actually took this one for an assignment for a photography group that I'm a part of. The assignment was fear. I made this photo by zooming my lense in and out during a long exposure-1.5 seconds I think. Kinda cool huh.

This year, we decided to pass out candy. The first time in our entire marriage. In the past we've gone to both of our family's houses and neighborhoods. We really wanted to stay home and enjoy this neighborhood type of holiday. We're glad we did, it was fun walking around with our neighbors and the kids LOVED running from one doorstep to another with their friends. We have an awesome ward and neighborhood-I'm so glad to be here.

My cute little Captain Jack Sparrow (Drew still can't say that name, and I WISH that I could write down what he's saying, but I have no idea what he's saying) and Buzz Lightyear..."To Infinity and Beyond!!!

The serious shot, before taking off ;)

There's my boy! It's taken 2 years 22 months 19 days and 10 hours for this kid to actually smile for the camera. Sheesh dude!!

I love this shot of Cam climbing up to get his loot :)

And another. He would RUN from house to house, and would ask for more than one piece of candy. It worked, because he came home with almost twice as much candy as drew...what a little stinker.

Can I just say how much I love this picture. I'm tempted to blow it up and hang it in my house...I love the intensity in his eyes and his facial expression. I asked Drew at some point during the summer what he wanted to be for Halloween. Pirate-he didn't even hesitate! Here he is and loving it!!

More pages, and TJ's chest hair...

2009-10-18T23:49:00.002-06:00

I made some more pages with some new kits from Gina Marie Huff at WW. I'm on her creative team and get to use all of her amazing products on my pages. I made these two pages one from a Halloween kit (All Hallows Eve) and one from a sweet little boy kit (Such a Boy). I had to post these so that you all could see mine and TJ's stinkin' AWESOME costumes. Our cool next door neighbors had a party and this is what we came up with. It was so funny doing his make-up and dressing him up. The best part was that he wore a low cut dress so that his chest hair would poke out, AND he didn't shave either!! It was so funny, needless to say he had all kinds of respect for women afterward for putting make-up on every day, for having to wear a bra and do our hair.

I found these CUTE pictures of TJ and Drew that I took back in July. I'd forgotten about them!! They're so cute, I'm glad I was able to find them and scrap them :_

Three Little Witches

2009-10-16T21:51:00.004-06:00

Drew learned a new song at school this week. I love that he loves to sing!! He's been singing it all week and shows anybody who will watch and listen to him. I get a huge kick out of it :) My favorite part is how he enunciates "little." And I love how he has no inhibitions in front of the camera-I mentioned that I would like to record his song today, and he begged me to do it ALL day. Great singing buddy!

*p.s. I take all my videos with my still camera and I took this one vertically, so sorry about the difficulty in viewing! :)

What I did this weekend

2009-10-10T14:20:00.011-06:00

I decided to take a little time for myself this weekend. I left Thursday night and stayed in a hotel downtown for two nights. It was so nice, to be able to relax, sleep in, read, take photos and also to do some digi-scrapping. Life has been so crazy these past couple of months, and the summer was really busy too. I haven't scrapped since April, and I was really missing it. It felt SO good, to be able to do this fun hobby again. Here are the pages I made...

p.s. Thanks T.J. for letting me go do this, I'm so thankful! I love you sweetie!!

All from All Crafty Things by Kasia Designs at Shabby Pickle Designs.

All from Shabby Princess Designs, Barefoot kit & Cuddlebug kit.

From Shabby Princess Designs, Barefoot Kit and Something Blue Studios at Catscrap.

From Gina Marie Huff at WW designs; Full of Wonder. Template by Cinzia Loosemore.

From Gina Marie Huff at WW Designs; Full of Wonder.

From Gina Marie Huff at WW Designs; Off to School.

From Paislee Press and Audacious Designs; Photogenic

My Sweet Drew...

2009-10-06T19:53:00.004-06:00

I have been enjoying my little boy so much lately. I am really loving his age right now, Kindergarten, his curiosity, cello lessons, reading the Magic Treehouse series together. Because of cello and homework...and all the reading ;) we've had a lot of time together. We've always been close, but I feel that we're so much closer now. I just love this stage... I love his involvement. I just signed him up for Basketball!
And he is so sweet. Sure, he has his sassy moments. But, he always want to hug or cuddle. He loves to come up to me and hold my hand, or he just likes to be with me for whatever I'm doing.
Last week, while Cam was napping we got out Drew's sand art kit. He had so much fun creating-something he usually doesn't like to do.

Yesterday, I bribed him (which usually doesn't take much, he'll always cooperate when I get my camera out!) with candy corn pumpkins and got my favorite photo EVER. of Drew. I love how he'll pose every time.

Today, Drew was supposed to come straight home for singing class. He came flying around the corner on his scooter and right when he got to the garage, I said "Hey buddy, how was schoo-" But before, I could answer, he started bawling. I started asking if he was okay, thinking he'd fallen down, or gotten in a fight or had gotten bullied or something. No, he started saying how bad his head hurt. He told me how bad it had hurt all day at school, but how he was afraid to tell his teacher. Poor little guy. He was pretty warm, he was shaking and was really upset. So I put on my best comforting mommy hat and got his blankies, a drink, and turned on a movie. I just sat with him, and it hurt to see him feel so bad. Drew is not usually one who complains about pain or discomfort, so I knew he had to feel bad.

I'm so glad I can call this little boy mine. He makes me so happy.

Family Camping Trip

2009-09-29T20:52:00.012-06:00

Ok, first of all I HAVE to post this photo of a TARANTULLA!!!! We saw it up in Farmington canyon-the place were we were supposed to camp...that is until we saw this dude, also the one-lane-fall-to-your-death-road up to the campground sealed the deal-no Farmington Canyon!

The next morning we went on a walk and took these photos. These are some of my favorite photos I've ever taken, I love the light coming through the trees...beautiful!

This past weekend we took our trailer out for its inaugural Stevens Family camping trip. We headed up to a beautiful campground in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was gorgeous! We got up there Thursday night around 7-ish and TJ and I were just stunned by the colors of the leaves-it was spectacular!! After going through the campground to find the "perfect" spot, we set up camp and went on a walk around, while the boys played on their bikes.

My MIL and cute sister-in-law Janelle, along with my adorable niece Emalee, came up to spend the day with us. We started with a yummy breakfast of tasty's donuts (thanks nelle!!), eggs and O.J. Then we went up to a hike to donut falls..and NO we didn't plan on the similarity between our breakfast and our hike. It was a fun hike, it wasn't too hot and I got some fun pictures too ;)

I took these cute pics of the boys. I love their cute personalities!! They really loved the hike. Drew was pretty much always in the front and Cam was always trying to get people to hold him...he's just a little guy though and it was kind of a long hike!

That night, we had a simple dinner and then roasted marshmallows over the fire. The boys weren't to keen on the smores, but they did LOVE roasted marshallows and the cookies plain. The would NOT eat them together...so funny!
I love this photo of Drew-it's his crazy-cross-eyed-silly boy look.

While we were sitting around the fire, I snapped some photos of the boys, and am PRETTY SURE I'll be hangin' these on my walls! I LOVE these!!

I didn't bother to "photoshop" out the marshmallow and chocolate stuck to his little face, I thought it added to the picture!

Ok, you've probably noticed by now, that I've used a lot of textures and kind of fun, funky processing on these photos. I've been experimenting and really like how these all turned out!

When we put the boys to bed, I took these cute photos of TJ reading to the boys. They both love stories and are usually mesmorized by them.

Yellowstone Days 4,5 & 6

2009-09-05T20:17:00.019-06:00

Day 4:

Wednesday was our last "real" day in the park. We went to Old Faithful, then to Mammoth hot springs. After my dad and I stole away to take some photos.

First, we went to Old Faithful, we were there early enough that we got great seats to watch the show. Afterwards, we took a 2 mile walk to see more geysers and some pools. I got some ok photos of the other geysers, but my dads are SO much better, so go and check here to see what I mean.

Here's my shot of Old Faithful:

My kids LOVED playing with their poppa. He was always willing to do whatever they asked him to do. It was so cute! We put a leash on Cam while we were on the walk because of all of the hot pots, geysers, and mud pots. It was a fun toy for them!

This was one of the photos, that I had all framed ready to shoot, and my dad told me to move to get a better photo. I really learned a lot from him on this trip, and hope I can continually learn from him.

One of the gorgeous pools on our walk.

After we went to Old Faithful, we stopped for lunch at a cute little picnic spot by a stream. The boys had fun exploring and running around. After lunch we headed to Mammoth Hot Springs. It's really sad, actually. When we used to come to Yellowstone, when I was younger, Mammoth Hot Springs had much more water coming out of it, now it's almost dry.

Here are some fun photos I took while we were at Mammoth Hot Springs.

I love these photos of TJ and Cam. They were always two peas in a pod, it melted my little heart.

After Mammoth, my Dad and I took off together to get some more photos. He took me to some of his favorite spots. I loved the patterns of the grass in this meandering stream. I like the color photo better, but decided to post both.

We drove to this valley to practice taking photos of landscape shots and my dad showed me some cool things. I have a polarizing filter, but didn't realize I'd been using it wrong until my dad showed me what it could do. The first photo of the next three is without the filter, see how the sky is to light, and doesn't have very much color? Well, the polarizer fixed that...doesn't the sky look so much better in the other two photos?

I'm likely to get a comment about the processing in this next photo. I actually really like it! I think it has a lazy days of summers kind of a look.

This photo, is one of my favorite ones of the trip. This photo was a product of my dad suggesting different vantage points.

Day 5:

Today was the day that we drove from Yellowstone down to Jackson Hole. We stopped at this waterfall before we left the park. Earlier in the trip, my dad bought Drew some disposable cameras. You can see in this photo how proud of himself and his cute little camera. I love Cam's face...huh?!?

Our lil' family.....awwww.

One of the funny things we learned about Cam on this trip is that he's kind of a squirrel. We had this big bag of trail mix throughout the whole trip, and whenever we'd give Cam a handful, he'd start wining for more. For the first few days, we just thought he was really hungry and wolfing down the trail mix as fast as he could. On the way to Jackson, I found out what he was really doing....

Awww, sweet little boy. Seriously, look at those lashes!!

That night we went to Bar J, a tradition we had as a family while growing up. The boys were not quite as enthralled as I'd hoped. TJ and I and my parents laughed our selves silly, the food was so good, and overall it was such an enjoyable night. I'm really glad we were able to go.

Day 6:

This was the last day with my family, and we had a great time taking photos, shopping in downtown Jackson, and hanging out together.

First, my dad and I woke up early, early to go take some photos. We went to Oxbow Bend, and I got THIS shot....woah. I LOVE it!! My dad has driven through the Grand Teton National Park, several times and has never seen the water this still. We really lucked out.

After taking pictures at Oxbow Bend, we drove to a place my dad usually sees moose. We hiked back for a little bit, and unfortunately didn't see any wildlife. I did see this gorgeous feather, with dew all over it, and in the morning light it looked like it was covered in teeny tiny diamonds. The best part though, was as we were driving home, my dad thought to put the feather in the still water. I WISHED we would have thought of it while we were back there, it would have been such an amazing photo...

While my Dad and I were out shooting, TJ went on a white water rafting trip. He had a great time, and I wish I could of seen him have so much fun. After we all got back from our morning activities, we went to lunch at the Merry Piglets, a fun mexican restaurant in Downtown Jackson. After lunch, we walked around and enjoyed Jackson. My dad started to feel sick and then a freak rainstorm came up, so we went back to the campground. I got some cute pictures of the boys playing at the playground. It was a great last day. I'm so glad we were able to go on this trip with my parents, it was so much fun.

Ok, I LOVE this photo-isn't that caterpillar amazin?! My dad let me borrow is macro lens. I really want this lens for my own one day!

Yellowstone Days 2 & 3; The 1st Day of School and a New Toy...

2009-08-24T17:51:00.018-06:00

This post is a big one folks, so sit down, you'll be here for a while!

On our second day at Yellowstone, my Dad and I woke up early (6 am!!) and drove to Tower looking for some wildlife. It was beautiful and peaceful, and COLD! It was nice to not have as much traffic as well.

First we some two Sandhill Cranes. There pretty skittish birds, and my Dad thought they had chicks with them. They didn't, and that's why we were able to get some good shots. By the way, I used my Camera but I used the following lense:

When you get the lens hood on it, it's huge...and it's really heavy. The only downside to this lens is that when people see you get it out, they freak out and ruin any good chance of a good shot...more examples of this later.

Anyway, back to the sandhill cranes. They're really cool! My dad has some REALLY amazing photos of them. Mine are ok, this was my first shots with a 20 lb. lense -k-?

Next we found a blue herron. It was a miracle he didn't fly away, we were trying to be as quite and as unassuming as possible while shooting cartography (that's photographing from your car). But sure enough, as soon as passing cars saw my dad's ginormous lens sticking out of my window, they'd slam on they're breaks thinking we'd found a bear (rolling eyes).

We found this hawk next, so we pulled over. I love the depth of field, the bird and tree are sharp, but everything behind is out of focus. I was shooting about about 640, I think. I was using the 400mm lens, but my Camera has a crop factor which adds more focal length. Dad, if I'm explaining this wrong, just set me right in the comments :)

I love the one of him just sittin' there in the tree. SO cool.

Here is the Elk, that wandered through our campground at Canyon at least 4 times while we were there. This photo looks like I'm pretty close, but no, I was running around with that huge lens again and got this one (hand held-that's an accomplishment-the thing is HEA-VY!)

While my dad and I were out, we got out of the car to try and track down a pronghorn, and saw two coyote two. They're kinda hard to see, because we were really far away and because they blend in with the background really well. Hopefully you can see him...

Here's the Pronghorn, I was talking about earlier. Isn't he cool! We hiked up over a hill to get these shots.

Another Hawk...

After my dad and I got back, we had to fix the battery in the trailer, and then we headed out again to drive around and enjoy the park. We were driving around and we saw two male dear. We hurried to stop and get the Cameras out. My dad and I hiked around (we were back far enough to not scare the animals) to get some better shots. Everything was going well, until some dumb kid runs up at full speed to within 20 feet of the dear. My dad and I both told him to stop, so he wouldn't scare the dear away. He just got closer anyway!! This happened right when the Dear was about to step into a well lit area with beautiful flowers all over the place. We were SO mad. This is just one of many examples of how careless most tourists are around wild animals.

In this photo, we stopped when we saw another buck, and as soon as my dad and I got our cameras out, a couple of tourists ran up the hill and behind the dear to try to get a shot. This was the last shot, and only real one that I was able to get before he ran away from the dumb people.

This next photo is actually out of order...I hate when things are out of order!! This is from day 3, when we moved from Canyon to West Yellowstone to camp. It took a while to get there because of all the construction. Then we took the boys to the swimming pool at my parents hotel. There are videos (also out of order) at the bottom.

I love this photo, He's turned around just enough to see his eye, as if he's looking over his shoulder monitoring the situation. Right when I was taking this photo, an asian guy jumped right in front of me and started taking pictures. So, TJ starts yelling at him to get out of the way. He then proceeded to mock this guy for a few more minutes...kinda funny, but maybe too far. Wait, my husband, too far?....nnnooooooo.

My last photo of the day, two hawks in their nest. Pretty cool!

Ok, now onto part 2!

Today was Drews first day of Kindergarten. It was really exciting! I almost cried, but held it in. I tend to lose all control when I cry. Drews favorite part of school, was when his teacher told the class about her magic necklace. When she puts it on, she speaks Spanish! Drew was absolutely beside himself with this. Even when another (one year older too, by the way) boy told him the necklace was NOT magic, Drew said, "Michael, the necklace is magic, the teacher knows more than you!"

So overall, it was a successful experience. I hope it continues this way!

Ever since Yellowstone, TJ and I have felt the itch to get a trailer. We looked all over for a tent trailer, saw some really ghetto ones, and then this came up on KSL a couple of days ago. TJ worked really hard to get it, beating out another guy and he brought it home today. It's perfect for us, it's small enough for us to tow with our van, but big enough to sleep six. So, we'll be able to use it for a long time.

Yellowstone Day 1

2009-08-20T11:47:00.010-06:00

I took about 800 photos on this trip to Yellowstone, and going through them all is proving to be a rather daunting task, so I've decided to take it one day at a time. We Left Saturday the 8th and it took us just about the whole day to get there. My parents suburban had water pump problems, and fixing that took a couple of hours in the middle of the day. Once we got that taken care of, the rest of the day was smooth sailin'. As soon as we entered the park, our "unofficial" park guide, a.k.a. my dad, showed us everything and anything worth looking at in the park. We drove in two separate cars, and we used walkie-talkies to communicate. The kids loved being able to talk to grammy and poppa over those radios..."On the road again!"....

That night we had hot dogs for dinner and made smores over a roaring fire in our Canyon campground spot. It was really cold-in the 50's when we go there-and we were pretty cold that first night.

On our first day, we went and saw the lower and the upper falls, the Yellowstone Canyon, and lots of hot pots and mud pots....and some "bolcanos," but I'll talk about that in a bit. My dad took this first photo of us by the upper falls.

This next photo is actually out of order...but Drew and Cam each had a pair of binoculars (or bigknockers, as Cam called them) and here Drew is trying to get Cam's 'noculars and you can see Cam getting upset. Funny kids...

A photo-op of the two hooligans ;)

I took this photo of the lower falls and the Yellowstone Grand canyon. Had I known how to shoot HDR with my camera, or had I actually remembered to bring my tripod on this trip, the following two photos could have been a lot better. But, for what I have, I really like how they turned out. I'm not sure which one I like better, the B&W or the color...

Here is another photo that could have been better HDR...oh well.

Drew HATED the hot pots and the mud pots because of the rotten egg smell. He got really upset a couple of times and refused to go on a trail because of the smell...but, like he got away with that. He had to do some serious bucking up!!

Cam called anything with steam coming out of it a "bolcano." It was really cute, until he got closer and started screaming and crying. Luckily, poppa was there to help protect him.

Poppa was a favorite on the trip for the boys. He provided rides on long trails when the boys got tired...or scared ;)

This was my first attempt at an artsy shot...I really needed to have been shooting on my tripod, and also, wish the mushroom wasn't broken. But, I love the colors, and the randomness of the grass, little weeds and the pine needles.

For lunch, we stopped at Nez Pierce and spent some time with old friends from my ward growing up. It was fun to see everybody and to spend time with them. Afterwards, we drove around looking around for wildlife and we found this guy...a buthalo (another Cam word) going to challenge another buffalo to win the female. They had a good row, and the challenging buffalo lost, and walked away in shame and embarrassment. I actually felt bad for him, there were quite a few people watching him get spanked, I'm not sure his ego will ever recover. My dad played out the whole story for us, knowing what the buffalo was going to do, but he never got out his camera. He was pretty mad, and we spent the rest of our time in Yellowstone hunting for a buffalo fight!

At the end of the day, we drove up toward Tower, over Washburn mountain looking for more wildlife-particularly bears or big-horn sheep. We found a grizzly, but he was sitting down by a bunch of dead, fallen down trees. I didn't get any good photos of him, but I did get a photo of the mayhem that his presence caused.

Boy Sounds

2009-08-06T09:12:00.002-06:00

The other night, I took Drew out to take some birthday pictures. His prize at the end was that I would take a video of him playing with his toys. The best part of the video is the noises he makes for his helicopters. The first part of the video is kinda lame...just wait for the good stuff. Drew loves watching it, he laughs like crazy every time!

How is that boys just know how to make sound effects?

Happy Birthday TJ & Drew!!

2009-08-02T15:29:00.013-06:00

Yesterday was Drew's and TJ's birthday. My boy turned 5 and TJ is one year away from the big 3-0. I'm trying not to think about what will happen in three weeks...it's too hard to talk about and I'm not sure I like it at all. Don't ask. All of you with kids who are 5 and are embarking on this...ahem...journey, you know what I mean. It really just hit me today. But I digress. It was really a good day. TJ had taken the boys camping and then when they got back TJ, my dad and my brother got to work on TJ's part of the day: installing a new toilet and a hose bib in the back yard. He's really easy to please....sometimes. My mom and I in the meantime, made cupcakes, played with boys, mopped up pee-puddles (Cam's potty training!!). I'm really grateful for these two special people in my life. TJ is an amazing husband and dad, and I love him for all the things he does for our family, the sacrifices he makes, how hard he works. He's a great example for me and both of the boys, and I couldn't be happier about that. Drew is my little sweetheart and truly one of my best friends. I love this boys to pieces and am so happy he's my son and in our family. I love his sense of humor, his imagination. I love how tenderhearted he is, but how independent and fearless he is. He's a good big brother to Cam and is a wonderful boy. I love you TJ and Drew, Happy Birthday!!

You'll have to excuse the picture quality in most of these, they're quite grainy. I won't go into what happened, suffice it to say, that whenever I have to take photos for an important family occasion, my camera and I both suffer from some kind of stage-fright.

I found a recipe for the coolest cupcakes a while back and have been waiting to bake them for a special occasion. Drew LOVES cupcakes, so I figured it was a good time. They're a little time consuming to make, but totally worth it. They were really fun. My mom and I made them, while the boys, i.e. TJ, my dad, brother and the little boys worked on all of the projects.

So pritty.

Are these the coolest cupcakes or what?!? You can find the recipe HERE.

A little photo-op before the present opening hoopla. P.S. I don't always let Cam go around in his under-roos, but since he's potty-training right now. For those of you that have come to my door and he runs up naked, I'm sorry and for the Koster family, who probably sees him running around naked in the backyard way to much, I'm also sorry.

Drew had NO. ID-EA. that we were getting a Wii. These photos say it all....

I got Cam a present so that he wouldn't feel left out. I won't do this for every birthday though...in fact, I should have never started it!!!

Seriously, look at those lashes...I'm so jealous!!

Drew loves the Magic Treehouse books, and between my mom and myself he got 10 for his birthday. Cam was loving all the present action, he wanted to be in the middle of it all, just like Drew was.

TJ already knew what he was getting, but acted surprised for Drew and Cam's sake....and in true TJ fashion, exaggerated it.

TJ was SOO excited to get guitar hero....even though he already knew he was getting it. Like he'd let me spend that kind of money without the go ahead!!

I can't believe my little boy is 5...I'm not too fond of this whole growing up thing... ;)

My Kids Give Me....

2009-07-15T23:47:00.004-06:00

Anxiety. Really, I should be medicated. Anyone know a good doctor, have a good drug recommendation? I won't tell, it'll be COMPLETELY anonymous, I promise! No, really, I love my kids to pieces, but sometimes I find myself having an out of body experience looking at a situation thinking. You've GOT to be kidding me. Like the time when Cam wanted to go play at our next door neighbors house and he just WALKED in their house like he owned the place, or how Drew finds it necessary to growl at me in public when he doesn't like something I say or do. Or, when Cam rubs sunscreen on the tile, or how someday we're going to have to have a wad of half-chewed up gum the size of a soccer ball removed from Cam's stomach. Seriously! It's funny, how even after all of these experiences, I have learned to let things just roll, and when I say roll, I mean I'm not hiding in the closet rocking back in forth singing It's a Small World After All. I think...I think, I'm on the path to enjoying the journey. In fact, I had an experience this morning that would have pushed my fragile self over the edge and came out happy and proud of myself (and my cute kiddos). TJ is out of town this week at scout camp and it's been hard for me to work out in the mornings like I like to do and have been trying to do to get healthy and all that stuff. Well, I took the boys running with me today. I had planned on putting them both in the bike trailer/jogger, but Drew really wanted to ride his bike. All I could think of was him stopping and asking for water, or to go back 57 times during the run. I chanted "I am a hollow reed," a couple of times and just decided to roll with it. And guess what, I made it through, I MORE than made it through, I came home really happy. Drew asked for a drink once and wanted to stop once (right at the end), and I only had to tell him to get out of the middle of the busy and dangerous road 4 times, and Cam was as happy as a lark. It was. Awesome. I was so proud of my kids! I was proud of me too, I had my ipod on (with the volume down low) and was able to enjoy the outdoors, have fun with my kids, enjoy my music and in general start my day off wonderfully. So, the moral of the story is, I STILL should probably be medicated, so that I can have more of these experiences...Naw, I'm just kidding, no the moral of the story is, is that maybe I can handle it, maybe I can have a third kid sometime in the near future. Maybe it's ok that my house isn't spotless 100% of the time. Life's good, cause I'm learning to roll.

Happy Fathers Day Schmoozie-pooh!!

2009-06-21T08:21:00.004-06:00

Don't laugh, we used to call each other Schmoozie-pooh when we were dating...cause we watched Monsters Inc. on one of our first dates. Anywho, I just wanted to write down my feelings for today. I am so lucky to have the husband that I do. He works so hard for our little family, and not just at his job, which he loves and is amazing at by the way. He started a business a year and a half ago, and it's thriving. He absolutely has built this to be what it is today and I'm so proud of what he's accomplished!! He is also super-husband. He helps in the house, not just every mothers day, but EVERY day. He does dishes on a regular basis, makes the bed, does laundry (albeit he will mix reds, colors and whites in one load every once in a while...) sweeps the floor, helps with dinner, cleans up kids toys. And he also has an affinity and LOVE for gardening. Seriously, come see our square foot garden and you'll see. Thanks to him we get bowlfulls of strawberries EVERYDAY and have broccoli, lettuce, potatoes, carrots, peas, cauliflower, and MUCH more coming our way this summer. Most importantly though, he's a great dad. He loves his kids and they love him to pieces. He loves to cuddle with them, wrestle and have tickle fights. He does cute things like take them to air shows at Hill AFB, take them on the frontrunner, he'll take him with them while running errands. He reads books to them, teaches them, and is such a sweetheart. I love you sweetie, I hope you have a wonderful fathers day!!

luv, luv

p.s. and on TOP of all this, he runs. He isn't some lame jogger like I am, ...no, no he ran the Wasatch Back this weekend and ran a total of 26.2 miles in less than 24 hours!!! A marathon. Granted, he can't walk right now, but what an amazing accomplishment. I'm so proud of you honey!!

Storm talk

2009-06-05T09:31:00.002-06:00

With all the stormy-ness that has happened this week, Drew has become the expert in meteorology. On Monday an awesome storm came in and this is how Drew explained it: when it rains, a mean witch makes the clouds come and then when they bump together they cry, and then the teardrops come down to the earth. Then this morning, we looked outside and I told him it looks like its going to rain, to which he said, no mom, when it rains the clouds are blue...the clouds up there are just a bunch of white ones stitched together (said while rolling his eyes). Seriously, this kid is just too much!!

Our Day...

2009-05-18T22:09:00.012-06:00

This is how we started our day...Drew came downstairs with "underpants" on his head. He calls them underpants now (he used to call them undie-wears) because his friend Ethan calls them that....and so does scooby doo. It's very funny. It was really dark in our house, so I pulled him to the back door to get a photo of him.

Tonight Drew had a My Kind of Music concert. MKOM is what my mother-in-law Karen teaches. She has several groups of kids from pre-school age up through 6th grade. I didn't get that many photos of Drew because we had to sit SO far back. But, I got some C.U.T.E. ones of Cam.

This is how our day ended...on a high note, get it....high note...Drews concert was wonderful, despite having to sit really far back (because of all of the people who save seats 5 hours early!!) and the heat, it was awful! Drew was really cute, the songs were fun. My mother-in-law did a really great job!

Sweet Little Babies

2009-05-16T17:57:00.001-06:00

Look at the stinkin' cute baby birds we found in our tree...

More Funnies...

2009-05-11T21:12:00.002-06:00

Here's Cam attempting to say "yellow" for the first time.....FUNNIEST. THING. I. HAVE. EVER. HEARD!!!!!

Today, while we were running some errands in SLC, Drew noticed the cotton from the Cottonwood trees floating through the air. He asked what they were, but before I could answer, he said, "I think they're pieces of clouds, or, or, orrrr (he stutters when he gets excited) or they're little baby clouds." It was SO cute! I love that he'd think of that.

Stevens Family Funnies

2009-05-04T15:52:00.003-06:00

Here are some of the funny things my kids have said, or did recently:

Drews new way of saying Thank You: "I'm so proud of you mommy, good job for getting my cereal."

Cam has a blister on his foot from his crocs but he calls it a blisterd...I don't know whether to think of it has a swear word or a name for poo.

Drew is very bossy, manipulative, and an amazing negotiator (I love him anyway...but he's way too much like his dad). He should be an AMAZING lawyer or salesman one day. When playing with Cam, he often says, "Camren (I didn't mispell his name, that's how Drew says it and I have to be exact when quoting), we've talked about this. What did I say." (The sad thing is, is that I say the same thing to him, he just thinks that he's an adult)

Whenever I give Cam choices, i.e., what would you like for Breakfast, what book would you like to read, which movie would you like to watch, etc. He responds with a thoughful, "Uh, hmmmm." In a very high voice, eyes looking up and he even sometimes taps his chin with his 1st finger!! This kid is a crack up!!

Drew tends to have a hard time with arguing, stopping the arguing that is. He asked me for some 'nilla wafers and milk on the way home from the grocery store today and I said, please wait until we get home and don't ask again or you'll have to wait until after quiet time. (That's me thinking, I'll nip it in the bud...yeah. hugh. right.) So, when he asked me again, I said, sorry buddy, you're gonna have to wait until after quiet time, to which he threw a fit and then said, ok mom, I won't ask anymore I promise. This cycle of asking, then promising not to ask went on about 12 more times. After the ump-tillionth time of asking I (was STILL not yelling-good job me) I told him to stop or he wouldn't get to ride bikes (the ULTIMATE punishment) and he stopped talking and would rub his stomach when he though I wasn't looking. Seriously...he just WON'T ever stop!!!

My cute friend Jan made the cutest quilt for Drew, it has all of these patches and the is frayed around all the edges, even the ones on the inside of the blanket (I don't sew, so I don't know how else to describe this or what it's name is). Anywho, Cam has become attached to this blanket and has one particular edge he has to have whenever he sleeps or needs comfort and he's named this edge fuzzy. It's the stinkin' cutest thing ever!!

2009-04-30T23:54:00.003-06:00

Drew and Cam and I have found a fun new hobby. We've been watching You Tube videos for the past two days. I came upon a video of Itzhak Perlman and then started searching for more. I found some AWESOME ones. I found this awesome one of YO YO Ma and Itzhak playing Dvorak's Dumky trio. It's really cool to watch, they're like superstars to me!! Don't laugh, it's true. Drew has really been enjoying it, which is so exciting to me because he starts cello lessons next month. Whenever I think of it I get so excited and just get this totally ridiculous grin on my face. Anyway, I hope you like it :) And for any piano loving friends, go check out Lang Lang's version of Chopin's Etude No. 3...but don't watch his face, it's too distracting.

Photo Assignment and more...

2009-04-22T13:35:00.006-06:00

My Dad and some of his co-workers do photo assignments every week, and this week they invited me to join them. The assignment is to walk, run, drive, etc. 10 min. from home and take a photo. So, last night, I took the boys on a walk to see what we could find. The first photo is my favorite. Right as we were crossing the street, one of Drew's training wheels popped off. I loved how the picture turned out though, with the long shadows and the texture of the road. The second picture could of been better, but I didn't notice that dumb light pole in the photo until I got the pictures on my computer. I like sunflare, it's kinda fun. I had my aperture at f/22 to get the sunbeams. I had to bring up the exposure in Camera Raw and then did some other tricks to brighten up the sign, it was really dark. This is a fun assignment though, it gets me away from the every day "smile-for-the-camera-kids!!" shot. P.S. Dad, how do I make my photos horizontal? It's totally crooked and it's buggin' me!! Also, you might be wondering why I would choose to take a photo of a crosswalk sign. I thought it'd be fun to do, since Drew is going to Kindergarten next year.

Kinda Random, I know

If any of you are interested, I made a REALLY yummy salad today. Here's the recipe!

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

1 Box short pasta, i.e. rotini, penne, farfalle, etc.

Fresh Spinach

1/2 bunch Cilantro

1 English Cucumber (they're wrapped in plastic)

1 red pepper

shredded carrots

Feta Cheese

1 pkt. Good Seasons Italian Dressing

Vinegar

Balsamic Vinegar

Olive Oil

Cook the pasta, drain and put in the fridge to cool down (don't wash it off, it takes all the starches off and then the dressing won't stick very well). Meanwhile, chop the cucumber and the pepper however you'd like-I chopped the pepper up in tiny little pieces, cause I don't like big chunks of pepper in anything. Put Cuc's, pepper, and carrots in a large salad bowl. In a seperate bowl, mix up the salad dressing (just follow the directions on the back). I used white wine vinegar and about 1 T. of Balsamic. You can use any kind of vinegar though... When pasta is cooled, combine with veggies in the salad bowl, top with the dressing and combine. Take the Cilantro and set it on top of the salad and put this in the refrigerator (covered) for a couple of hours for the flavors to do their thing. When you are ready to eat, remove the cilantro and you might need to add a tablespoon of vinegar if the salad is too dry. Add the spinach to each serving and toss together-you want it to wilt a little-if you put it in before you refrigerate it, it gets too wilted (blech!) and then top each serving with feta cheese. Also, if you're wondering why I don't just chop up the cilantro and include it in the salad, it's because I'd gag if I did that. If you love cilantro, put it in, I'm sure you'll love it!!

Enjoy!!

Thank you, Love and Logic.....

2009-04-17T18:22:00.003-06:00

This past week has been BLISS with my two little boys. Before that though, life wasn't always so wonderful. I've had a hard time with Drew-he's really argumentative, and Cam-just his getting into everything. I was having a hard time enjoying my kids and the hard (but cute) stages they would go through. I've actually been having a hard time since Cam was about 3-4 months old. I've also put off having bebe no. 3 because of my own feelings of insecurity of being a good mom. So, after having Love and Logic recommended to me by more than 1 person, I ordered the book. I have read through the basic principles (I haven't finished it yet) and already have started to implement the parenting style that is taught. I have noticed such a difference. My kids have been wonderful yes, but I've noticed a bigger difference in myself. I have learned SO much about myself, how to be a better mom and I'm really happy right now. I feel now, that I can really enjoy these two sweet boys that I am lucky enough to have in my life. So, thank you Love and Logic, for helping me :)

Hukt on foniks

2009-03-30T19:53:00.005-06:00

Last week we experienced a big new thing with Drew. He played in his first EVER soccer game! It was really fun. This week we are embarking on a new adventure. Reading. Drew brought a little book home from Pre-School a few days a go. We are in full homework mode! It is getting me excited for him to go to Kindergarten! Anyway, this book that Drew brought home to read is pretty basic. The book teaches two word endings-am & en and four new words-I, am, and & the. He had a hard time the first couple of times through (I was surprisingly patient...I know, take a moment, gather yourselves). As we have read it through more and more, he is getting better. I have found though, through teaching him these new words, that he has a certain way of saying things. He kind of has Utah talk. You know, moun'in (mountain) Lay'in (layton), etc. Instead of "and" he says "an," "da" for "the," then there's "at" for "that." Then there's my fav: Ith...which is supposed to be "if." It's been so, SO funny to see him realize that what he's been saying is wrong. I love this new journey though! I LOVE to read, so I'm excited to help him learn. I hope he loves it too (I'm worried he won't though....TJ HATES reading!).

Photo Contest

2009-03-27T10:34:00.005-06:00

There's a little photo contest that I'm going to enter and I'm hoping this photo is it!! It's a photo I took of Cam this time last year, but it's one of my favorites!! Wish me luck :)

How a haircut will save your life....

2009-03-19T00:21:00.006-06:00

Cam got a haircut this morning, he looks so cute, all fuzzy. I love when his hair is short. I love it medium and long too, but there's something about a new haircut. His ears stick out a little bit, his eyes look bigger, he looks more like a baby. Another thing about a haircut; it can save your life. Today, Cam was into everything, you know, just being a typical 2 year old. Plus, he resisted for about an hour for going down for a nap, the kid is stubborn. He was driving me crazy! I turned around at one point to just yell at him, and I saw this beautiful light touching his cheek and his slight elf-like ears were silhouetted by the light, and my heart melted. His big blue eyes looked up at me... but he knew I was about to lay the smack DOWN! So, when I grabbed my Camera instead, he gave me this look.

then this one...oh she's NOT yelling, ok turn UP the innocence.

then this one, ok now the cuteness...

now the silliness...moment over. Everybody's happy.

You see, if he wasn't cuter than he was say, yesterday, than I might of sold him to the first person who stopped by the corner. Thanks to TJ for being inspired to shave that boys head...

Toddler Talk

2009-03-13T15:52:00.005-06:00

Cam is learning to say more of what is on his mind these days. It seems his intelligence increases daily! I love to see him understand more and express himself more with words (and not crying or throwing fits), a sign that babyhood is truly behind him. Even more than speaking though Cam loves to sing. He has quite a few songs that he can sing: The Wheels on the Bus, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, the ABC's, Rocky-bye (I really don't know the real title to this one...), Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, I am a Child of God and Popcorn...(again, the title?) But before you get too surprised at the library of songs he can sing, lets look a little closer at each song, and his, well, .....interpretation.

The Wheels on the bus:

He knows the actions, and rubbing his eyes for when the "babies on the bus...", but he usually just ends up singing, "all too da town."

The Itsy Bitsy Spider:

He loves the actions, and I get a HUGE kick out of what he calls that spider. Instead of saying the itsy bitsy spider, it sounds more like the itchy (now add a "b" to that and, and there's your second word!). Very funny.

Twinkle twinkle is so, so sweet. It usually goes like this: "twinka, twinka witta stah, ha uh wuh uh whu uh are. Uh, uh, uh, uh uh uh uh high, wike a dye-min in da sky, twinka twinka witta stah, ha uh wuh uh whu uh are." He usually repeats this three or four times.

The ABC's:

This is my personal favorite: A _ _ _ _ _ Cheese (G)_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ P_ _ S _ _ _B (V) dubba a X ah eh C (Z), ow i o i ABC's (sung VERY loudly), X ty o eh sing wif eee. I'm really proud that my 2 year old is teaching himself the ABC's, I hope he'll understand what his teachers are talking about when they start talking about the letter G (what? there's no G!! or how'll they'll explain to him that there aren't two "B's" in the alphabet).

Rocky-Bye: This song goes like this (this is how TJ and I sing it) "Rocky bye, don't you cry, for we are going to Gram-my's, over the hill, down by the mill to see the little lam-mies." He loves this one so much, he requests it at church...

Now Cam's version:

"Wockee bye, don a cwy, ..........gwam-my's, ................................lam-mies"

Now the next one is PROOF that the crazy antics that are acted out during "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," are natural. Cam will sing this on the top of his lungs, well, all he can say is "BEAM!" really loud and he jumps up. I did NOT teach him this. See, I told you.

I am a Child of God: This one is so sweet too, all he says is "..............God,........................................kind an dear...................walk be...me....hope me fiiiin away.............do...........a gin.

Popcorn: He doesn't really know the words to this, but I love it when he does the actions along with me!!

One of the other things he has learned to do lately is Pray. Well, we help prompt him. But it is absolutely, without a doubt, hands DOWN the cutest thing EVER. His voice automatically goes up at LEAST 3 octaves and ....okay, here's how it usually goes (the words in the parenthesis are me or TJ prompting him):

(Heavenly Father): Heehhh Faddah

(We're thankful for this day): a tank-uh uh dddaaaayyyy

(We're thankful for our family): a uhhhh uuhhhhh faaaammmmweeeeee

(Please help us to sleep well tonight): uhhhhhhhhhaahhhhhhuhhhhh night

(We say these things): ah suhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ings

(In the name): a naaaammee

And he can say the rest very well. The first couple of times that he said it, TJ and I kept looking at each other because it was just so stinkin' cute!!! (Don't judge us, you would too if you heard it!!) :)

p.s. I didn' really take a photo of him praying...that would be totally sacra-lidge...I just had him fold his arms and bow his head as IF he were saying a prayer.

Cam's Blankie

2009-03-03T18:17:00.003-07:00

This is actually Drews blankie, but Cam has taken it over and he cannot go to sleep without it! The best part of it is that he loves to touch the fuzzy edges to his lips. This is HOW he falls asleep! I love this photo of Cam. I actually took it about a year ago, and just found it again (I have ALOT of photos!!). I could take a picture really similar to this right now-a year later- because he still loves this blankie :) I love the way the editing turned out, and then the scrapbook page I made with it...

How I scrapped it:

Time to train...?

2009-02-28T12:16:00.002-07:00

I'm tempted to start potty training Cameron and before I do this, I'm giving anybody who reads this the opportunity to stop me from going insane or ending up in the loony bin. He is only 25 months old (almost 26!) and is...well, Cameron. He runs when you ask him to come here, he runs when he knows he has something he shouldn't. He is VERY quiet about all of his mischief and loves to eat...umm, poo. Am I crazy for wanting to attempt this?!? Here is what's making me want to try... He is ALWAYS talking about the potty and wants to sit on it before naps and bedtime (this could also be stalling...). He loves the potty book and and recently purchased Elmo Potty DVD. He doesn't run away when I ask him if he's pooped...in fact he tells me then says "ooh, gross...stinky poops" and then agrees with me when I ask if I should change it (again, he used to run away in fear whenever I asked him if I needed to change his diaper). TJ was trained at just 17 months...could he have passed this ultra-early potty training (especially for boys) gene to Cam? I have memories (they're buried very deep) of when I potty trained Drew...shudder...and it was NOT fun. I also have visions of cleaning up poo from more than just in his bed. As soon as I open this can of worms...I'm REALLY worried what will happen!! If anybody has any wisdom that they could share, I'm open to anything. If you want to just tell me I'm CRAZY and then run away saying, haha sucker!!! I understand. Really. Tell me what you think!

He ate WHAT!?!

2009-02-18T13:58:00.002-07:00

So, we had a interesting experience the other day...Drew had already awaken from his nap and then we heard Cam babbling to himself. Drew raced up the stairs (we always have to race up the stairs) and opened Cams door and came running back out and said, "mom it REEKS in there, Cam pooped." Ah well, same old really, nothing new in the life of this SAHM. Except when I went in, I was struck with a smell so foul, so wretched, I thought that a skunk had taken up hibernation somewhere in the house, farted it's nasty stank, threw up, rolled around in it..., and then died. I could hardly make myself go in there...but thinking that the stink could infest the rest of the house, I rushed into action. And then I saw it. Greenish-brown streaks all over his bed. So this is what other moms go through when they have a child that plays with their own fecal matter. I had never experienced this with my older (normal) child. So I picked up Cam (with as little contact as possible) and set him on the changing table to survey the damage. There were these same greenish-brown streaks on his cheek, his shirt and on his legs...and it was stuck under his fingernails as well. But, he wouldn't have eaten it would he??? So, I gulped (to hold the bile rising in my throat), and smelled inside his mouth.......My son ate poo. POO!!!! PPPOOOOO!!!! What the? Where did he come from?!?!? What is wrong with him!!! EWWWWWWWWWW!?!?! What about Hepatitis...? Salmonella (?) He's going to die!! I'm so grossed out at this point I can hardly think what to do next. I don't know the number for the Haz-mat people...I don't want to involve poison control...So I gave him a bath in hydrogen peroxide, bleach and rubbing alcohol (I'm totally kidding...). After I scrubbed him down with a rag that is now trash, I let him soak all the nastiness off. Now, I am terrified that whenever I lay him down, he's going to wait until I've left the room, poo and then have himself a little snack...

A great day!

2009-02-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with a big smile on my face. It was one of the first Saturdays in a LONG time where we were all able to sleep in. I didn't feel the rush or stress of the weekdays, AND my kids slept until 9 am!! I looked out the window and saw new fresh snow-and with it the sound of snowblowers (I love this sound!) I have high hopes for today and am excited to enjoy this Valentines day with my sweetie. My husband is so good for me. He has taught me so much. Unfortunately for him, I tend to resist him and usually go kicking and screaming and in the end I recognize what a wonderful man he is and how much he loves me and really, truly wants to help me. I'm so grateful for how hard he works. He usually puts in 10-12 hour days and when he gets home he does what ever he can to help me with the kids and around the house. He is such a cute dad and I love when I see him with our boys, it melts my little heart. Ok, enough of the gushy. I hope this day is as amazing for you as it as been so far for me. luv luv!

I'm Selling my Camera

2009-02-07T10:51:00.004-07:00

**Edit-It's sold!!!**

Hey guys, I am going to post my old camera (my Nikon D40x) here and on KSL to try and sell it. This is a great camera, I did get a newer camera for Christmas, so that's my reason for selling it. It is a little over a year old and VERY well taken care of!! I just wanted to give anybody a heads up who is interested! I am selling: the Camera body; two lenses a Nikon DX Nikkor AF-S 18-55 mm 1:3.5-5.6 GII ED and a Nikon DX Nikkor AF-S 55-200 mm 1:4-5.6G ED and two UV protective lense filters. This package also includes the battery plus the charger, the USB cable for your computer, the warranty information, and two instruction books. I'll be selling it for $549. This is really an AWESOME deal!! I would really like to sell it before the end of this month, so if anybody is interested, please e-mail me at lindsay-stevens@hotmail.com

The camera and lenses

The lenses:

Just one of those days

2009-02-03T15:22:00.003-07:00

Do you ever feel like your day is going like a roller coaster ride? It's just been one of those days for me. I feel like I've felt highs and lows ALL day and can't seem to get out of this funk. I can't pin point one single incident...unfortunately there are many! I fell a little overwhelmed and am trying to get myself to do those things that I KNOW will make me feel better. But for some reason, I just can't. I just feel bogged down. It's times like this that I rely on my Heavenly Father for complete emotional support. It's days like these that have me thinking of how truly blessed I am and how wonderful my life really is. Isn't that funny? Here I am having a rough day, and I'm thanking my Father in Heaven for everything I have. That's the beauty of it, with out these rough times, we wouldn't feel the peace or sense of accomplishment from a really great day. I'm thankful for these hard days, even though a part of me wants to go curl up in a ball on my bed and close my eyes. The minutes and hours go by quickly, and I don't want to miss out on what this life has to offer me and what I can get out of it. So, here I go, I'm going to pick myself up, dust myself off, turn on a little rachmaninoff and go sweep my floor. Thanks for listening (or reading) this whoever it may be...

Going Private

2009-01-18T12:20:00.002-07:00

Okay guys, I've been contemplating this for a long time and some weirdo just posted on my blog...so I'm done! I'm going private! I really would love to have all of your email addresses, so PLEEEZE leave me your email in a comment. Thanks!

The forest for the trees...

2009-01-15T16:00:00.004-07:00

I actually took this photo back in December, it was one of 300. I passed over it because Drew's head was coming in on the left side of the picture, but I found it again today, and fell in love with it!! What a handsome little devil! This week has been a trying week for me with my little Cam. He is SO different from his brother. Not BAD, just different and he is throwing me some serious curve balls as of late. I'm so glad I found this picture though, because it is yet another reminder of how much I love him, and how important he is to me. It's hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes (I hope I quoted that right!), much how we as mom's get bogged down by the day to day, or maybe the minute to minute stuff that is so hard in parenting. I am going to try and be a little more patient, be a little more understanding, be a little more loving. Wow, all from one little picture. Oh yeah, and I found this new trick to make the eyes 'pop' and so I had to try that one out ;)

Happy Birthday Cam!!

2009-01-12T00:25:00.012-07:00

Happy Birthday Cam!! My baby is 2!! The past two years have gone by way too fast. It seems that not to long ago, he was my little newborn baby boy. Now he talks, walks, makes LOTS of messes, loves books, has the whitest, shiniest blond hair you've ever seen, has BEAUTIFUL, big blue eyes, he is SO sweet and loves to sing songs AND be sung to. Sigh, he is so, very precious to me. I love this little boy SO much. I hope you have a great birthday little man!

A photo a day: project 365

2009-01-10T22:58:00.002-07:00

I'm sure most of you have heard of "A photo a day," or Project 365. If you haven't, it's simply a goal to take a photo a day for an entire year. It being the beginning of the year, it's coming on strong and I have decided to take the challenge. Because of my involvement in digital scrapbooking, I have found several sites that have come out with digital kits made just for this project. It's really a lot of fun and if you're wanting to become a better photographer (like I am), in any way, this is a good way to do that, You get to practice every day! So, if you want to check out my 365 blog....click on the link (my 365) under my photo blog link. And if you want anymore info on some of the sites that are really making this project fun, then check out www.weedsandwildflowersdesign.com and www.afterfivedesigns.com (look for Kristen Rice's kit).

New Years with the Deevens

2009-01-08T09:14:00.015-07:00

We had THE best weekend with our BFF's :) the Dees over the New Year Holiday up at my parents cabin in Bear Lake. We drove up last Wednesday (with a short stop in Evanston to buy some pyro-entertainment-ahem...fireworks). For New Years Eve, we made a TON of food...it was sooooo goood...watched fireworks (Debbie, Emmi, and I stayed up at the cabin while TJ and Ben took the boys down to light off the goods. Emmi was pretty bummed she couldn't go help. It was freezing!!), played games, wore New Year tiara's and screamed and yelled to bring in the New Year. Here are some pic's I took of the fireworks...thanks to my new tripod...

The next few days we just enjoyed the opportunity to relax. We read, took naps, watched movies...ate tons of twinkies ;) We played some really fun games too. We really loved Scruples and Cranium.
We LOVED playing guitar hero, Debbie was the Queen of it all, she was AMAZING!!!! Even Drew and Ethan played. They were so cute with the huge guitars around their little necks, hee hee!

I took some pics of the SWEET little Eiley...look at those EYES!!! She is the happiets, cutest, sweetest little girl. I just loved taking pictures of her!

Ben and Debb brought up their Wii and we had THE best time playing it! Here are a few pics of Teej and Ben playing Tennis...so funny!!

Under the Tree

2008-12-28T10:23:00.005-07:00

This is what was under the tree for me this year ;)
Merry Christmas to me....

*EDIT*
Our Christmas was AMAZING! We had such a great time with both of our families. We spent Christmas eve with TJ's Dad and his family up in Park city. We went up in the morning and had a great time taking family pictures, opening presents, and just catching up. That night, my family came up for dinner, games, presents and some GREAT family time. I cooked dinner-this was so exciting for me because I haven't really cooked in months!! I made a Ham, scalloped potatoes, pear and goat cheese salad, garlic carrots, rolls (my mom made the rolls :) and then we had an ice-cream bar after. After that we opened presents and then made up a plate of cookies and milk for Santa, sprinkled reindeer food for the Santa's reindeer, and watched Joy to the World and then put the kids to bed. Then all of us adults played Mexican Train...my new favorite game! I love my family so much and am SO glad they were able to come up so that we could spend time together.

The next morning, we got up and opened presents-just our little family. TJ and I LOVED seeing the looks on the kids faces when they first walked into the room! They loved going through their stockings, and opening all of their presents. My favorite was when TJ opened his blue ray player. He had NO idea that he was getting it and I loved seeing how excited he was ;)

After opening all of our presents we went over to TJ's mom's house and had opened more presents and had a yummy breakfast. TJ's family is SO much fun to be around! It was so much fun to hang out with all of them!
While TJ and his fam went to an afternoon movie, I took the kids to my Grandma's house to visit. It has been a tradition for as long as I can remember to go up to my Grandma's and this is the last year she is having everybody over. It was great to see my uncles and cousins-people I don't see often enough!
After visiting my Grandmas, we came home and and played games and hung out with my hubby's fam. We played a game called Curses and it was HILARIOUS!!! Thanks for a great day guys!

Last but NOT least, we took family pictures today at TJ's mom's house. Craig's daughters Julie and Christie came this weekend and since it is rare for EVERBODY to be together, we decided record this day. We a had a great dinner prepared by Karen and then we spent the rest of the night just spending time together!

Only 4 left.

2008-12-17T23:27:00.003-07:00

So, after a week of rehearsals + shows, then another two weeks of shows....I am down to the final four people. Yeah, don't worry, you heard me....thats 17 down...4 to go. If I EVER sign up to do one of these shows during Christmas again, I give anyone who knows me permission to trip me so that I'll fall and break my little arm.

Kinda Random...

2008-12-08T16:20:00.004-07:00

Two of my fav artists right now Sara Barielles and Ingrid Michaelson just came out with a new Christmas song called Winter Song. I found a video on YouTube...it's a really great song, their voices blend so well together, I love the simple arrangement and instrumentation, and the sound of both of their voices. Check it out HERE.

Also, I am playing (my violin) in a show at the Pioneer Theatre Company at the "U" and if you go to there WEBSITE you can see a little clip of several scenes in the show. It's really a great production if anybody is interested in going!

Thankful

2008-11-27T10:32:00.003-07:00

With this day of Thanksgiving, I just wanted to take a minute and tell my family how grateful I am for them and also how much I love them. I would like to start with my AMAZING husband. He is so, so wonderful. I'm so grateful for ALL that he does for me and for our family. He works so hard in every capacity and I don't tell him enough how happy he makes me. He is so thoughtful, so sweet, so caring and so loving. He is the absolute sweetest daddy! Cameron is his little man :) It just melts my heart to see how sweet he is with our boys. Next I'd like to tell my little boys how much I love them. I lose my patience a LOT and I fee bad, because they are the sweetest, cutest, happiest little boys. I love their little personalities. I love that Drew is smarter than he should be for his age (this is also the thing that drives me the MOST crazy). I love how sweet and tender Drew is. He is always concerned if anybody is crying, sad or just upset. He is quick to help and he tries his hardest to obey. I'm grateful for his happy spirit. I'm grateful for just how stinkn' cute my little Cam is. He is into EVERYTHING, but his cute non-pain-in-the-butt times are what really makes me smile. I love how he loves books and loves it when I sing to him (even though it sounds awful!).
Next I would like to tell my parents how much I love them. They have always been there for me and have always shared everything with me. I'm so grateful for how generous and caring they both are. I'm grateful for all the time they have spent helping me developing my talents and accomplishing the things I have. I love you both SO much!! They are also SUCH great grandparents!! I'd also like to tell my brother and sister how much I love them...they are both some of my favorite people and two of my best friends. They make me laugh and I love hanging out with them! I'd also like to tell my MOL Karen how much I love her. She is so much fun to talk to, so sweet, the woman who raised such an amazing son for me to marry and a great grandma. Thanks to Craig too for what a sweet Grandpa he is. He is always so attentive and loves to play with them! I love all my bro and sis in law too!! You guys are so much fun and such amazing people. I am truly blessed to have all of you in my life!

linds

Sneak Preview

2008-11-22T22:52:00.003-07:00

If you want to see more of this GOOORGEOUS couple, visit my photo blog....

Tagged....

2008-11-16T21:41:00.003-07:00

7 things I can do:
1. Play the violin.
2. Cook pasta like NO other!
3. Organize closets, drawers, cupboards...nothing makes me happier than perfectly folded towels and color coded clothes :)
4. Waste time...I REALLY have to try hard to stay on task!!
5. Creativ-y, Crafty things...scrapbook (digital of course).
6. Stay up late for SEVERAL nights in a row...but I always regret this. It's just so nice to have no distractions!
7. Lose my patience really fast, something I'm REALLY trying to work on.

7 Things I CAN'T do:
1. Be consistent with dieting...I'm picture perfect for about a week, week and a half. Then I crash! Ughhhh!!!!
2. Argue...My husband always wins :)
3. Remember things... I can be so flighty! My uncle Bob calls it "a fart in the wind."
4. Eat spicy food...I hate it when my mouth is on fire...you can't taste anything else!!!
5. Take naps. I'll be up ALL night, and if I take a sleep aid...then I'll be groggy til' noon.
6. STAND mouth noises!!! Chew with your mouth closed! (TJ!)
7. Control myself with spending money. I'm slowly getting better. TJ is definitely the frugal one in our relationship!

7 Things that Attracted me to my Husband.
1. His lips, they are SO smooth and super squishy. (and NO, that's not too much information) hee, hee
2. His sense of humor, I give him a hard time for going "over the line," but I have to admit, it makes me laugh.
3. He thinks that I'm HOT-but he was dropped on his head multiple times as a child.
4. He things I'm funny.
5. He honors his Priesthood.
6. He can speak Italian.
7. He's TOTALLY sexy...especially when he wears cologne (hint, hint teej).

7 things I always say:
1. For the LOVE!
2. Really...REALLY!!!
3. Yeah....ok!!!
4. Can you chew with your mouth closed please!!! PLEASE!!!
5. What the H (I learned that from my girl Mandi) hee, hee
6. Because mommy said, that's why!
7. Uh, uh, no, No, don't touch!!

7 Things I love to eat:
1. Sugar.
2. Chocolate.
3. Diet Coke with Lime.
4. Pasta.
5. Cheese.
6. Cereal.
7. Scrambled Eggs.

7 People I am tagging:
1. Jen Jenkins
2. Becki
3. Meghan
4. Debbie
5. Sarah Talbot
6. Janelle
7. Whitney

Check it!!

2008-11-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

I've posted some new pics on my photo blog!!

2008-11-07T14:35:00.002-07:00

I've seen this on a few different blogs and it feels as though this talk was given just recently! They things Elder Maxwell says pertain to us right now. I feel now, more than ever before that we need to choose the side we want to be on and cling to those ways. There are so many gray areas and opinions in this world right now and we just can't be in the middle anymore. Luckily, we have Prophets who tell us (and have been telling us) what to do, what to avoid, what to plan for. We are all so blessed to have this.

The below was given in an address to BYU students by Elder Neal A. Maxwell in 1978.

"Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, in the months and years ahead, events are likely to require each member to decide whether or not he will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions. President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had 'never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional or political life.'

"This is hard doctrine, but it is particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ. . . . Your discipleship may see the time when such religious convictions are discounted. . . . This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions.

"Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened.... Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even in these, however, let us leave a record so that the choices are clear, letting others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, but others will step forward, having been rallied to rightness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds which was, till then, unconscious of itself. Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves, 'summer is nigh.' Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then complain of the heat."

--- Elder Neal A. Maxwell

My Dad :)

2008-11-04T11:09:00.002-07:00

Those of you who know me well probably know how much I love my Dad and how much I look up to him. Well, he has FINALLY created a website to showcase his work-his AMAZING photography. For as long as I can remember, he has been involved in photography. Before digital, my dad had a darkroom and him and I would develop pictures together. These are some of my favorite memories of my childhood and of him and I together. He is Incredibly talented, and would deny it if told so...one of his more endearing qualities. Now that I have begun my journey to learn more of this beautiful art form, I am even more amazed by his knowledge and talent. I'm grateful he has taken the time to show me and teach me. Most importantly, my dad always relates the beauty of the subjects in his photographs to the Lord and the beautiful world He has given us. I'm so grateful that he shares his testimony through his talent. I love you DAD!!!
To see my dad's Photography click HERE

It's been THAT kind of week...

2008-10-30T18:23:00.005-06:00

It's just been one of those kinds of weeks. Nothing horrible has happened...but my boys have pushed me to the end of my rope every day this week! Every Sunday I have this grand planning meeting with me and my planner and I sit and make goals and plan my week. And, after four years, one would think I would plan "kids" into my day. I'm having a hard time balancing between having a clean house, being a good mom, a good wife, plus having personal time. I SUCK at it!! So, I start the week with these GRAND plans, don't get them done for various reasons, get frustrated when I can't do everything then I start over on Sunday....what a cycle!! Maybe I'm just too high strung! :) I tend to have a little OCD, ahem, I mean perfectionism (is that a word) problem :P
Anywho, this week really wasn't that bad...maybe I feel that way now that I've successfully vented about it :)
Here is some of the "highlights."

On Tuesday...or was it Monday...anyway, yeah Cam (bless his little blond heart) decided to break into the pantry (he can officially open doors-yes people, the round door knobs, not the levers). He brought out a FULL box of Macaroni and Cheese crackers and dumped the ENTIRE box onto the couch.
Observe exhibit A:

Cam has been trying my patience ALL week. He climbs everything (including my grand piano) and laughs when I punish him. Mom, since I'm blogging this and we're not talking face to face you can have your little laugh. I know that your are just LOVING karma right now.
Today, I decided to get the boys dressed up and try to take their pictures. I drove to a favorite site and 45 minutes later I was ready to slit my wrists. Don't be fooled by the cuteness of the following pictures. These are three of 150!! This was all I could get!!! Every time that I'd get them arranged, Cam decided to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction! And he would laugh while running, thinking that it was a game!!! So there I was running as fast as I could to get him with my camera around my neck and a lense in my hoodie pocket. I can only imagine what I looked like! And, it seems a little ironic that I'd get my kids in position, chase Cam, swat his bum, then sit and try to make them smile for a picture. Am I the biggest hypocrite EVER!?!?! ARGGGGHHHHHH!! Thank goodness Drew is a HAM, he cooperated. Good job Drew.

Last, but not least, Cam woke up with a Snotty nose this morning and so I gave him gallons (not really) of sugar-free grape kool-aid. This was the result: (his diaper literally weighed 3 lbs...yes, I weighed it, hee, hee)
Now, I call him my little Joe the Plummer. :)

Photo Shoot

2008-10-23T22:34:00.005-06:00

I did another photo shoot tonight and I LOVED it!! It is such a rush for me!! I just love, love LOVE capturing great moments on film...a...or SD card :) Phil and Whitney were awesome!! They are so stylish, photogenic and fun...here is my fav so far. I still have to go through about 700 more! **Check out my photo blog (link at the left) for more!!

*click on the photo to make it larger.

Lost in Translation

2008-10-18T13:32:00.004-06:00

My little Cam has been learning so many words lately. It's hard to understand him, unless you see him everyday and your used to his language...mom's you understand!? So, I thought I'd give some translations to the words he is saying...or trying to say.

Drink: (this is my favorite) a wink!
Milk: moke.
Juice: a juce, juce.
More food: a num, a num.
Snack: a nack, a nack (usually very whiney)
Monkey: a mokey, a mokey
*Note..notice how much he repeats. Very, very funny :)
Blankie: a bankie, a bankie.
Train: too toot.
Car: Bee beep.
Truck: wuck.
Tractor: Toppie
Scoop: coop.
Gross: gose.
Eww: (wrinkles nose, squints eyes and grunts) ewwwwwww.
Shirt: shuit
Hand: a han, a han.
Toes: tow.
Nose: (very nasaly) gnose (gn like nya).
Tongue: ton
Button: (as in belly button) butty.
Bath: a bat, a bat.
Daddy: a daddy, a daddy.
Mommy: mommy, a mommy.
Drew: a doo, a doo *he always asks me a doo? a doo? whenever we Drop Drew off at singing class or at Pre-school.
Elmo: emmo
Doggie: a goggie, a goggie.
Sheep: ship
Boat: a bote
House: house...I love that he knows this?
Get in the Car: a go, a go.
Piano: pano
Music: zic.
Movie: a mowie, a mowie.
Get Down: a down, a down.
Bike: a bike, a bike, a bike.
Outside: a side, a side.
Motorcycle: sookie.
Horse: moose.
Pumpkin: a puhkin, a puhkin.

Family Sticker

2008-10-15T22:44:00.001-06:00

This is really cute...

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.

Hysterical!!!!

2008-10-08T00:20:00.002-06:00

hee,he, hee, hee........ahhh! I've watched this video about a hundred times and I can't stop laughing!! I don't know if any of you are SNL watchers, but you HAVE to watch this. Kristen Wig is so, so, SO FUNNY! Watch the WHOLE thing too! heee, heee HAAAAAA!

Easily entertained...

2008-10-03T16:24:00.003-06:00

After tumbling today, the boys and I were headed home, when Drew started talking about bird pooh on his window. He made up some fantastical story about how the bird pooped on our car window and insisted on getting a car wash. Ok, I mean, I was having a hard time seeing clearly through my bug-spattered wind sheild. So, off to the car wash we go. There is this great new car wash place across from Sam's in Layton and it is AWESOME! They even offer free vaccums after you get your car washed! To say the least Drew LOVED the carwash! He was so thrilled and excited and I won coolest-mom-of-the-day award. It was a win-win. Except that the huge blue spinning rags barreling towards our car totally freaked out Cam. I won coolest-of-mom-of-the-day award from Cam once we left the building :)

A new page

2008-09-20T10:16:00.004-06:00

So, I haven't been able to scrap a whole bunch lately because of the play I'm doing (I'm in the pit orchestra for "My Fair Lady" at the Pioneer Theatre Company). So yesterday, I made a quick little page from a template. I used Kasia's Dear Diary Kit over at Shabby Pickle designs. I really love how it turned out!!

favorite things

2008-09-11T14:11:00.008-06:00

I thought I'd just write a short little post about some of my favorite things these days. If you would like to, do the same on your blog or tell me your favorite things (at the moment) in my comments.

First, this song makes me so happy!! I just found it a couple of days ago, but I just love how fun and quirky it is:
(p.s. be sure to turn off my blog music)

Also, I discovered John Mayer a couple of years ago, ( I know he's been around longer than that :) and just recently found his live album on itunes and must say it is AWESOME!! I so want the DVD! My fav's from this album are Heart of Life, Neon, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, and Free Fallin. So, so cool!
I've rented a couple of pretty cool movies lately-I don't really love to see movies in the theatre, I prefer to watch them at home in my jammies. Have any of you seen Definitely, Maybe or What Happens in Vegas? Both are great! Definitely, Maybe made me cry and What Happens in Vegas made me pee my pants! Both are a MUST SEE!!
I love THIS new eyeshadow pallette from MAC is so gorgeous, I love, love love love love playing with shadows...and isn't the green so stinkin' awesome?
Also, I read THESE great books and LOVED them. They are called the Gem series by Lynn Gardener. Debbie Dee suggested them-that girl has great taste in books ;)
And last, but not least, I have a GREAT recipe for you all. I tried it the other night and got rave reviews :) I subsitute Japanese udon noodles for whole wheat spaghetti (you can find these in the produce department at Wal-mart by the wonton wrappers). Yum, yum!!

August in pictures...

2008-08-27T13:03:00.015-06:00

This has been a Great month! I know I've been a bad, bad blogger lately, so hopefully the following will get everybody back up to speed ;) We had a great final month of Summer! Here's what we did:

Cam has been learning to eat with utensils... he has done REALLY well, the times I actually let him use them, you see I have OCD, and seeing the mess that ensues after he is given a fork or a spoon is just too much. The funny thing is that he just picked it up one day and started shoveling!?! I had to teach Drew for months!

Drew took swimming lessons. He LOVED them! At one point, his teachers asked him to do circle arms (freestyle stroke) and he couldn't do it. I had one of those you-mean-my-child-doesn't-get-something-so-simple moments. I was of course, still proud of him. He wasn't afraid of jumping off the diving board and loved flying off of the slide!

We had a lot of play dates with our friends we met in Vegas-the Nielsons-and Drew got to play with his very best friend Emily. They always have such a great time together and their is NEVER any drama, it's incredible! I just love this picture of them, it really just shows what good friends they are and how much fun they have together.

I did a TON of scrapbooking. I finished Jessica Sprague's third scrapbooking and photoshop class (Digi: In Deep) and it was SOO much work, but I got so much done too! I did a whole 24 page album and I finished Cam's 1st year scrapbook (I did about 20 pages to finish it...I had NO idea I had that many pictures left to scrap when I made that goal!!).

My mom, my sister and the kids and I went to the Zoo and had a really fun time. Cam LOVED it and I think Drew liked it ok. I don't know why, but whenever we take him to a fun place like Sea World, San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, he get's into this awful mood and refuses to have fun and enjoy what we're doing. It totally bums me out!! Cam on the other hand loves everything. Kinda wierd huh? Anywho, the picture above is of Cam "moo-ing" at a Zebra, because in his world, all animals moo.

We went to Bear Lake two times this month...and LOVED every minute of it!! We had a lot of fun just hanging out together, jet-ski-ing, catching grasshoppers, working on the house, and watching the Olympics-go Phelps!!!

In all the years I've been to Bear Lake-all 28 of them-we've NEVER rented jet skis. We had a boat, and the jet-ski's are so, so expensive, but this year we decided to. It was the most fun I've ever, E-VER had in my life!!! I got some pictures of my brother Dallan, my sister Mandy and my sweetie...they all had a great time too.

A new Layout and birthday pics!!

2008-08-05T11:57:00.010-06:00

I haven't scrapped in a while, but was challenged to do something that I have been putting off. I've been wanting to finish Cameron's 1st year scrapbook, but haven't yet! My goal is to finish his book in two weeks...only about 5-7 pages or so. Here is the first of those pages...

Click HERE for the credits for this page :)
And here are some pics from Drew and TJ's birthday...I didn't get many of teej, sorry babe!!
Here is a pic of the pretty decorations-sorry I had to throw an artsy type picture in :)

Here is Drew when he first saw all of his presents...including his new bike!!

Here is Drew opening his presents...he'd just opened his new Mac truck from the Movie Cars.

More presents...I LOVE this picture!
Here's Drews first ride on his new bike...without any help!

Here is Cam opening a present that Grandma Judy and Grandpa David sent him so he wouldn't feel left out.

This pic pretty much sums up Cam's feelings about not getting all the attention and presents, balloons...etc.

Here are some fun pictures from the party with his friends...
The first is of Drew, Ethan and Carter playing with a fun sprinkler, the second of all the kids posing, and the third of Ethan "bobbing for ducks"

On Sunday, we had our families over for a family party. TJ got some money towards his new iphone (that he can't even get 'til September) and a GC to Nielsens frozen Custard-his absolute FAV!!-and Drew got a Banana Chair from Grandma and Grandpa Stephens and a Leapfrog learning video game from Grammy and Poppa. Thanks to all of our cute family who came, we love you guys!!
Here is Drew blowing out the candles on his cupcake...We didn't have a real cake 'cause he or TJ don't like cake. We had TONS of ice-cream though!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TJ & DREW!!!!!!!

2008-08-01T00:47:00.003-06:00

It is officially August 1st, so ....Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear teej 'n' drew......Happy Birthday...too....yoooouuuu!!
Four years ago, our sweet Drew made his entrance into this world...on his Daddy's birthday. They were born 15 minutes short of being exactly 24 years apart. Only TJ could be happy to share his birthday...he has to deal with Thomas the Train cakes, buttercream frosting, and everyone forgetting about his birthday for Drew's sake. I appreciate that he lets Drew have all the glory...what an AWESOME DADDY!!
Teej, I love you, and I hope you have a wonderful birthday! You are so special to me. You make me laugh, you help build me up, you work so hard for our family, your selfLESS, fun to be around and are my rock. I love you so much sweetie!!
Drew, you are my sweet, special boy. You amaze me everyday...mostly with your sassy little attitude (which I love...but get frustrated with!!) and your intelligence. I love your sweet attitude, your innocence, your sweet, gentle, tender heart. I love your big, blue, expressive eyes. I'm so glad your my little boy. Happy Birthday buddy!

Photo Blog

2008-07-28T17:45:00.002-06:00

Hey all! I've made a photo blog to post all of my pictures. If any of you are interested, check it out here. I'll post more soon!!

shaZAM!!!

2008-07-14T16:38:00.003-06:00

It's good to blog again. I haven't done it in a while because I've been pretty busy...excuses, excuses I know! Anyway, there's not much of an update. We're all doing well and having a good summer so far. We went to my family's cabin up at Bear Lake over the fourth and had a great time. We went up with my parents and my sister-mostly to do some work on the cabin, but we got to spend the whole day on Saturday down on the beach and we got ourselves some AWESOME fireworks in Evanston and then had a little show down on the beach too. Some good news....Cameron is in NURSERY!!!!! YAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I'm sure TJ is much happier about this than I am because he is the one who usually watches Cam while I am in YW. Lucky for us, Cam has absolutely NO problem going into nursery-yay! One of the reasons for this post is to post to some pictures for a little drawing over at Jessica Sprague's blog. It ends tonight and if I get chosen I get a totally adorable camera strap from etsy-double yay!! For those of you who are interested, check out Jessica's blog for photoshop tricks. No worries if you have elements (like me), because they can be used in elements!
Here is the original:

And here is the shaZAM!! version:

Pinecrest Vacation

2008-06-21T14:02:00.006-06:00

Last week Drew and I went on vacation to my favorite vacation spot in the world. I grew up going to Pinecrest, CA (near Yosemite) every year. I hadn't been back to the cabin since I was 14. My Aunt and Uncle have a 2 bedroom cabin. Their were 18 people there including cousins etc. My brothers Brad and Mitch and my sister Janelle came as well as my parents. Lindsay and Cameron couldn't come because the had to go to Violin Institute. We hauled a tent trailer that we borrowed from my uncle and towed behind my van, so that we had enough places for everyone to sleep. We couldn't drive faster than 65 mph so it made for a long trip. We ended up taking what was supposed to be a short cut that added 5 hours to the trip, so it took a total of 17 hrs to get there. On the way back, my sister Janelle, who is pregnant, was car sick so we had to pull over every 45 minutes so she could ralph. That also added about 5 hrs to the trip on the way back. All in all the trip was a blast. We did a lot of hiking and swimming. Drew and I went kyacking. It was just nice to relax and be with family. I went to high Junior High and High School in a small town just 20 minutes away called Twain Harte. We had a chance to go see our old house and school which was fun. Drew and I were able to bond which was a perfect way to spend fathers day.

Once upon a prayer...

2008-06-09T22:46:00.002-06:00

So, tonight, while saying our prayers with Drew before putting him to bed, he had a sudden memory lapse about how to begin a prayer. We always discuss with him what kinds of things he might want to say in his prayer and right when all of our heads were bowed, arms folded and eyes closed (these are the three things that we always make sure he is doing :) he looks at me and says: "How do we say it...once upon a time?" It was pretty hard not to laugh and to be serious. What a funny little boy. I love the things that he is always coming up with!

What do you think...?

2008-05-30T20:36:00.003-06:00

So I have been playing more with textures and the different blending modes in photoshop and have a couple of things to show. These two pictures are the same, they were both taken a few weeks back when I went shooting with my dad. Which one is your favorite?
This one....

or this one?

What a week...

2008-05-19T22:33:00.005-06:00

So, there are two reasons that I haven't blogged in such a long time. First, I wanted my cute husbands post to have enough time for others to read :) and also 'cause I've been sicker than a dog! I have had a sore throat since last Saturday...that's nine days now! I have also had a horrible cough-which sounds like a dog bark-so embarrassing! Anywho, I wanted to post a couple of pictures. Last Saturday...my dad (the best photographer I know) and I went to take some pictures. I'd like to make a little interjection here if I could, I am SO lucky to have such cool, talented parents. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to learn great things from both of my parents. My mom is an amazing violinist, musician and teacher. She has taught me pretty much everything I know about music. My dad, is immensely talented. Everything he touches turns to gold. He is a great cook, an AMAZING photographer and I have greatly benefited from his talents. Anyway, back to my story. So, my Dad I have been trying to find time to go and take pictures together, mostly for him to teach me about photography. We went around to a few places and then decided to go to temple square. I got this shot (after adjusting a few things on my camera)!

I LOVE it!!! My Dad thought it was pretty cool too, which is saying alot, because he is INCREDIBLE! Hopefully my Dad and I can find more time to take pictures together. I had such a great time. I love being around him, he's so funny and he teaches me so much. Thanks Dad and I love you!
As you all probably know, I love digital scrapbooking and I occasionally post my "stuff" on my blog. Well, a few people have commented on how to get started and I would like to HIGHLY recommend taking an online class from Jessica Sprague. She has three classes, I am currently taking the beginning class-I really, really wanted to know how to use photoshop right and I am...it's amazing! Each class is about 50 dollars, but think about how much a book costs, how un-fun it is to read it and how hard it is to apply it. Besides, most photoshop how-to books aren't geared towards scrappers. Anywho, if you are interested, here is the link to her website. Here are two of the pages I have made while doing her class!

Happy Mother's Day Linds

2008-05-11T19:38:00.003-06:00

I'm usually not inclined to post a blog, but wanted to express to my sweet wife how much I love her. She writes so many nice things about me on this blog, so I figured that it was my turn. This Mothers day has caused me to reflect even more about the things for which I'm most grateful. I realize today that she is truly the source of all my happiness. The gift I gave her today and the breakfast I made this morning seemed to fall short of expressing my true feelings. As I sit here writing this, I find it difficult to express how lucky I am to have found my best friend as my eternal companion. I'm so grateful for her selfless service to our little boys. I can't imagine the stress and patience that she must endure day after day dealing with the pulling, nagging, crying, pooping, etc. I don't know how she does it. I know that she feels inadequate at times, but I want her to know what a fantastic job I think she does. I'm so proud of the growth I've seen in her these 5 years we've been married. She cares so much about Drew and Cameron and puts her whole heart into teaching and being a perfect example to them. Linds, I hope you know how much I love you. I couldn't have asked for a better mother for our children, eternal companion and best friend.

T.J.

Something gross...but funny!

2008-05-09T17:35:00.002-06:00

So, my poor little Drew has been pretty sick this week. He has had a horrible cough, a fever, drippy nose and watery and oozing eyes (so sad!!!). Anyway, I noticed that he kept wiping his nose on his arm-gross! So I told him to use a tissue next time. His response, in complete frustration, was..."Mom, there's too much booger sauce!" Me: "Booger sauce....oh,....I get it. Drew it's really gross to wipe your nose on your arm," and he said, "but there is too much booger sauce to get a tissue every time mom!!!" Tj was standing right there and wondered if I had taught him that term....no, I didn't. Pretty funny, huh?!

Penelope...

2008-05-06T23:59:00.001-06:00

I don't know if any of you have ever seen the "Penelope" skits on SNL, but they are so, sooooo, so funny! I found one of the best skits for you...
ENJOY!!!!

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

For the bazillionth time...FOOD STORAGE!

2008-05-06T22:30:00.003-06:00

OK, I know that we ALL know about this, but who is actually doing anything? I know I'm not. Here is an idea...TJ and I are going to use our economic stimulus refund (the one that everyone is getting) and are going to purchase the most food storage we can get. I've read about five different blogs that have shared a link with a national news website or something...and found one I want to pass on. I feel like I hear something about food storage every day now and I am finally listening. For all of my blogging buddies who shared an article and/or their feelings about the subject, thank you...it has surely gotten me moving.
Here is the link I promised.

Same old, same old

2008-05-06T14:12:00.002-06:00

As a stay at home mom, don't you love being asked, "How's life, what's new...?" If I could only answer truthfully..."well, Cameron just barely went from size three diapers to size four diapers and has gone from two naps to one...he is less of a picky eater than he used to be...and Drew...well, lets just say it will be a miracle if he makes it to his fourth birthday." :) I am feeling the monotony of motherhood these days and am desperately looking for a way to change that. I guess we mommies go through it from time to time, it's just hard for me to really enjoy my kids 'cause I have so much going on in my mind, and then they just frustrate me...not purposely, I know. I love my little boys dearly and constantly have to tell myself that they are limited by their ages. Sometimes I expect more than I should and for that I feel bad. Poor Drew woke up this morning with the most horrendous cough ever! He was coughing so hard that he threw-up...poor kid. I was so worried about cleaning up the puke, that I paid very little attention to him and how he felt (see, it's like I have blinders on!!!). Anywho, any advice from any of you mommies that read my blog? How do you put aside your responsibilities and obligations to just sit and enjoy your kids? What kind of things do you do, or have you done to break out of the binds of monotony? I would sure love another point of view...For those of you who are still reading this...you're check is in the mail :)

On eyebrow waxing...

2008-04-30T00:04:00.010-06:00

Ok, so I would imagine that most of you who read my blog regularly have had your eyebrows, or something waxed before. I underwent my first "eyebrow waxing" yesterday, and with my fair skin, I have yet to recover. I was pink and red all day yesterday, and now I have pimples or something very tender growing just under my left eye...ew, gross, I know! Anyway, I'm hoping this is the reaction to a first time waxer, because I definitely want to have it done again. You see, I inherited the Child family curly, unruly super thick eyebrows, this has been a LONG time coming. I have waited to long to have such fine looking brows, and am happy, amidst the slight discomfort.
Now, on to other things, here are some pictures documenting what has been going in the Stevens household this past week. First off, Drew and Cameron have been playing together more and have come up with a new game, with my help. I place Cameron in Drew's very large dump truck and then Drew proceeds to zoom Cameron all over the house, or up and down the sidewalk in this case. It is very entertaining to watch...and I constantly have to tell Drew to slow down (there have been a lot of tight corners that have resulted in rollovers). The best part of it all though, is that Drew will get tired of providing the ride, and will just randomly stop and start playing with something else, meanwhile, Cam will sit in the truck and wait until Drew comes to push him again...so funny, I'm giggling right now as I write this!!

Last night, we were all outside enjoying our newly fenced and cemented back yard and I decided to snap a few pictures. Here are some of my fav's...the first I was trying to take a fun artsy shot, but Cameron just wouldn't have it!!! I did get some cute ones of TJ and each of the boys, but the best one of the night was for sure...cam's scowl. I think his features are likely to freeze into this scowl...he does it SO much!!

And last, but not least, I show this adorable picture of Drew this morning... he found this Lady Bug and it crawled all over him. I just love this picture! I love how you can see his expressive eyes and eyebrows, and the sprinkling of freckles over the his nose and cheeks....so cute!

My sweet Drewbie

2008-04-23T23:02:00.006-06:00

I know it's late, but I have to blog this before I forget!! For some reason, Drew has had quite a lot of little boy gas today. At our house we call them "fluff's." Anyway, as TJ and I were getting Drew ready for bed this evening, TJ started to call him funny names because of his er...problem. He started calling him Sir Fluffs-a-lot, Fluffalupogas, Fluff's a lot boy...and so on. So as we knelt down to say prayers, we reminded Drew to Thank Heavenly Father for his favorite things, activities, memories of the day. And Drew, bless his sweet little heart thanked Heavenly Father, and I quote "that we could say funny names tonight." He was thankful for other things (gladly!). TJ and I could hardly hold our laughter in!! We were cracking up! Sweet, sweet, Drew, how you make Mommy and Daddy laugh...we LOVE you!!!!

What I've been up to this past week...
click here to see more :)

credits: Weeds and Wildflowers Gina Marie Huff's Happy Garden; font: suzie's hand.

credits: Weeds and Wildflowers Gina Marie Huff's Loving You, A Better Me, Cherish Alpha, Happy Garden. ksharonk frame, font: suzie's hand.

credits: Weeds and Wildflowers: Gina Marie Huff's Knocking On Wood, Happy Garden, Cherish Alpha; Heidi Williams' Warming the Heart and Seeing Stars; Font: Swingset.

Credits: Weeds and Wildflowers Gina Marie Huff's Happy Garden

Credits: Weeds and Wildflowers Gina Marie Huff's Spreading Cheer, Breath of Fresh Air, Happy Garden Doodly Scraps Alpha; Gina Marie Designs: Template; Font: Tingle Institute.

A great life...

2008-04-20T23:32:00.008-06:00

This has been a particularly hard week for me as a mother. I have had some "issues" with Drew that have had me questioning if I was fit for this job. The good news, is that I have concluded that I am. I don't believe that I am perfect, but that I have the desire (thank goodness, right?) to want to do better and to try harder. My Heavenly Father has blessed me with an extremely bright little boy whom I love so much. He has also given me, with Drew and Cameron in my life, MANY opportunities for patience. This is a virtue that I do not possess when it comes to children. I know that I have each day to do better and to work harder at being a better mom. For this, I am so very thankful. I need to spend more time on my knees asking my Heavenly Father for help and guidance as a mom. Especially after hearing Elder Ballard speak at the last General Conference. I take my responsibility as a mom very seriously and realize the huge trust that my Heavenly Father has in me to send me his special little boys. I love my life right now and wouldn't change it for the world! I have THE most amazing husband who is turning out to be such an incredible dad. I love that about him right now! There is a lot to love, but lately it's like he has gone the extra mile for our kids and I love him so much for it. This morning, TJ asked Drew what he wanted to be when he grow up...a Doctor, a Fireman, a Policeman...etc. and Drew said, "I just want to be like you Daddy." TJ and I were both speechless! What a sweet thing to say! Even more, was where it came from. It came from such an innocent, naive, sweet, honest place. He is my amazing little boy. I love him so much!
I love my little Cameron too, even though he doesn't seem to understand (or doesn't want to understand) NO. He is so sweet and is cuddling more and more and is trying to talk. AHHH! I just love it! I'm going to end with a layout I just made with a picture of TJ and cameron. It is sooo sweet. I love it! Enjoy.

credits: Weeds and Wildflowers designs: Gina Marie Huff's Soft and Shabby Elegance paper pack, Playing with Wire Frames (W&W collaboration), Believing in you, Grandmas Pressed Flowers (W&W collaboration), and Cherish Every Moment; Heidi Williams' Vintage Comfort.

One Fun Weekend

2008-04-18T10:20:00.006-06:00

Last weekend TJ's older brother Brad and younger sister Janelle and her hubby Kirk came into town to celebrate TJ's Grandmothers 80th birthday. TJ's family are rarely ever in the same state at the same time, so it was really fun to spend time with everybody. Brad and Janelle & Kirk came on Friday night. We had fun that night playing guitar hero- this came is SOO addicting! Thanks to Janelle and Kirk for bringing guitar hero down to play...it was so much fun.

On Saturday TJ, Brad, Craig and Kirk all went golfing. TJ had never been before but after getting a "birdie" he declared golf his new hobby. Later, we all met at Karen's (TJ's mom) house for a open house for Grandma Miller. It was fun to see people I hadn't seen in a while, and some of TJ's cousins (most of whom he hasn't seen in at LEAST 10 years) came too.

After Grandma's open house, a bunch of us went outside and rode four wheelers around Karen and Craig's backyard. I had never ridden on one before...it was pretty fun, I would definitely love to take one of those to Bear Lake and ride around on the beach! Drew LOVED riding on the four wheelers, although he hated going down the hills! He rode a couple of times with Kirk and then with TJ...this boy is ALL boy.

On Sunday, we all sang (by all I mean TJ's siblings and their spouses-and Craig and Karen) in Craig and Karen's ward. Karen is such an AMAZING musician!

She arranged "Reverently, Quietly" and it was so beautiful. I really enjoy singing with them. I'm not very good, but because they sound so incredible, I feel like I can blend in and I love just being in the experience. We spent the rest of Sunday making Chile Verde with TJ's fam (a Stevens family favorite!) and then it was time for the weekend to be over. It is always too short! It's always sad to see Brad and Janelle & Kirk leave...this family has so much fun together. I love you guys! Thanks for a fun weekend!!!

More New York!

2008-04-11T14:57:00.003-06:00

I really meant to have these two posts be closer together, but I just haven't had the chance all week. It was fun to see all of your comments...and I'm glad that you all agreed about the MOL! I'm so grateful that TJ and I were able to go on this trip together! We had such an amazing time and our relationship grew so much. I hope we have more chances to just get away so that we can be together, just the two of us, more often. We don't always have to go to New York necessarily, ;)
So before I blab too much more and get too mushy...on with the rest of the trip!
On Sunday, we decided, due to pre-scheduled events, to go to Chinatown and Little Italy (known for the shopping).

We were able to sleep in and around noon we stumbled out of our hotel to catch a subway to Little Italy. We were hoping for much more than Little Italy really was. We were hoping that there were people speaking Italian in every shop (so TJ could practice). We found a couple of very authentic deli's that had real parmigiano cheese, italian meats, sodas...the works. TJ bought a huge chunk of parmigiano cheese to bring home. We sampled some baked goods and some gelato that was delicious! Then we went over to Chinatown. Other than the shopping-which was actually very stressful-I really didn't care for Chinatown that much. There were wierdos EVERYWHERE! The reason the shopping was stressful to me was that I promised my sister that I would buy here a bag and sunglasses and was worried that I wouldn't find something that she truly liked. Also, there were so many stores, that we kept thinking that we would find what we were looking for at the next store, and the next, and the next...I did end up finding an adorable bag and bought some perfume that I've always wanted-but couldn't justify buying otherwise. Having, visited Italy and China before, I felt that these two places were nothing like the originals. I don't think that they were meant to be like their parent countries necessarily, but if guess if you've never been, you'd expect to feel like you were smaller versions of those countries. We left Chinatown having purchased all that we wanted without spending too much. I don't know that if it was because it was Sunday, or the fact that drastically different places can really affect me were to blame for my negative mood, but I just felt uneasy and that things were not right. I won't get into my weirdness. :) After visiting Little Italy and Chinatown, we decided to go back to our hotel to drop off our purchases before we went to the Lion King. We were in a huge hurry because there was a restaurant that came highly recommended by some native New Yorkers that we met in a Deli a few days before. TJ and I decided to take a Taxi, in hopes that it would get us there faster and to give our poor aching feet and TJ"s hips a rest. The restaurant (Italian) looked like it would have been delicious, but it was a little too pricey for us so we headed over to Times Square to eat at Ruby Foo's. R.F.'s was recommended to us by TJ's mom before we left. This restaurant was a fusion of all things asian (according to our waitress) and we ended up thoroughly enjoying the food. TJ got sushi, I still can't eat it. I try it every time someone offers me a free taste (I wouldn't ever buy it for mysefl!) and don't like it every time. Oh well, the other food that we ordered was AMAZING! After dinner we headed over to the Lion King and bought Drew a stuffed Zazoo (the bird) and the coolest replica of Simba's (the grown-up Simba's) mask. The show itself was UN-believable! The singing was amazing, the costumes, the humor....every way they portrayed the story was so amazing!
The next morning we woke up early so that we could visit the World Trade Centers site, Wall street and the financial district before we had to be to the Yankees game. Sadly, there was not much to see at the World Trade Centers site. There was a huge hole about 50 feet deep surrounded by tall fences that were covered by some sort of material that had small rips and tears (the only way we saw this big hole). There was this guy playing Amazing Grace on a flute that really made the whole experience a little more poignant. I was hoping to see more. I really wanted to have a more interesting experience while visiting this place that rocked our world 6 1/2 years ago.
After we visited the WTC site, it started to rain...it had been threatening to do so since we had first arrived, thank goodness we thought to bring umbrellas. We started walking over towards Wall street to see the financial district and we ran into this graveyard next to a church. It was so odd to see this in the midst of all the tall buildings. TJ and I wandered around the graveyard and found a grave site that dated back to the early 1700's. I loved the shapes of the gravestones.

After visiting Wall street and the financial district we decided to catch the subway to Yankee stadium. At this point I was not very excited (I had been up to this point) about the game. I didn't want to sit in a wet stadium for four hours! Well, we would end up not having to do so....We got to the stadium (it was still raining) so we each bought a Yankee's hat and headed into the stadium. There was security checking everyone's bags, so we opened ours to be checked and were told that they were too big to be taken into the stadium. They told us to go across the street to check them at a bowling alley, but when we tried to leave, the security guards told us that once we left, we couldn't get back in. Fortunately, the guy taking the tickets had mercy on our poor, poor little souls and told us he would let us back in. At this point we were both frustrated, but I was also mad. I had my brand new camera, ipod, my phone...you get the picture, all of my nice stuff in that bag and I had to trust some drunken baseball fans to watch my stuff...right. Well, I didn't have a choice, so I just rolled with it. Then we got back to the stadium and proceeded to wait for over 2 hours just to find out that the game was going to be cancelled. This was after we spent 20 dollars on stadium food! Let me tell you...angry Yankee fans are not fun to be around, everybody was cursing and yelling and complaining...it was crazy. It really was so sad though, because this event was what my husband was looking forward to the most. He was devastated, my heart ached for him. This game was special because it was the season opener for the Yankee's last season in Yankee stadium and the Yankee's are my sweetie's favorite baseball team. He overpaid for the tickets that we got, and was able to get a pittance from a scalper on the side of the road as we left. And, I saved the best for last, it stopped raining just MINUTES after we got out of the stadium and didn't rain for the rest of the day! By far, this was the hardest day of the trip.
After the sad Yankees experience, we decided to go straight home and take a breather. I was feeling very dizzy so I decided to take a nap. When I woke up TJ had the idea to try another famous pizza place and then walk around SOHO. So we went to this pizza place called Lombardi's and it is the first pizza place established in the United States! Pretty cool huh! Their pizza was the closest to the real thing that we have ever tasted here in the US. The atmosphere was really laid back and fun. The restaurant was gorgeous. Here is a picture of TJ enjoying his pizza:

After our amazing pizza experience, we went to SOHO....on the way we saw a small little place called rice to riches. At first we thought it was sushi or something. It was a dessert bar that served only rice pudding. What?!?!?! We were definitely interested, so we went in and TJ just had to get some. His favorite desserts are ice-cream and rice pudding. There were about 20 flavors to choose from. There was chocolate chip, caramel, hazelnut and original with raisins...the list goes on. TJ sampled a few and decided to go with the chocolate chip. Note: At this point I wasn't too interested (I'd just thrown down on pizza, bruschetta and coke). After a few bites, he freaked out and told me I had to try it. It was INCREDIBLE! We walked around SOHO for a little while then decided to go back rice to riches. This time we got a bigger size of caramel with pound cake croutons to go on top, to share. TJ was pretty impatient, but I made him wait until we got back to our hotel to eat it. It was, again...so, so good. It was so good in fact, that the next morning, one hour before we had to leave to go to the airport, we took the subway and a very short walk to go there AGAIN. Yes, again. We got chocolate chip again to share but neither of us were even hungry so we decided to save it until we got to the airport.
The taxi drive to the airport was quite a bit shorter than we thought it would be and arrived over three hours early. Surprisingly, the security people let us take the pudding into the airport...it had to go under the X-Ray machine though. There we waited and then enjoyed the pudding when we were finally hungry again.
After a slightly delayed flight, 6 hours on a plane sitting next to a questionable character, we arrived safely home. It was good to be home and to see our beautiful mountains again.
TOP 10 FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT NEW YORK:
1. Rice to Riches
2. Being Together
3. The amazing bagel sandwiches for breakfast
4. Seeing Wicked AND Lion King
5. The view from the top of the Empire State Building (even though it was FREEZING cold!)
6. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge
7. Seeing the Statue of Liberty
8. Little Italy-the gelato.
9. The shopping in China Town
10. Experiencing this incredible city!

The top 10 not so favorite things about New York
1. Missing the Yankees game..... :(
2. How sore my feet and TJ's hips got from walking around so much
3. How freezing it was in the line to ride the ferry to the Statue of Liberty (2 hrs!!)
4. The crazy swearing guy right in front of Grand Central Station
--I can't think of any more...it was just too great of a trip.
I just (really quick, I know this has been one long post) tell my sweetie how grateful I am for him and how AMAZING I think that it is that he put this whole trip together from start to finish. Thanks for a wonderful five years my sweet, sweet, sweetie!

linds

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!!!

2008-04-03T17:20:00.017-06:00

You'll have to bear with me, because this is likely to be one LONG post...I'll try to keep it simple! So, as many of you might already know, (due to an earlier post) TJ surprised me with a trip to New York!!! We left last Thursday (the eve to our 5th anniversary). We were able to see and do SO much! We stayed in Manhattan about 5 minutes from Grand Central station...so getting around was easy. On day one (Friday) we got an early start to head over to the Lincoln center for the performing arts to see the New York Philharmonic! We got there one and a half hours EARLY so we walked over to central park to check it out. Because we were there in March, we didn't see the park in its most glorious state, but nonetheless, we were happy to enjoy such a peaceful place amidst all the concrete. One of the highlights was walking into "Strawberry Fields." This was a portion of the park that was dedicated to John Lennon. This picture was a favorite. The flowers on the mosaic were put there by a man who put's some sort of peace offering here every day and has done so for 10 years.

After central park we walked back to the Lincoln center and on the way saw this:

For the rest of the trip TJ or I would burst out at random..."when there's gum on the ground, in the neighborhood....Who ya gonna call.....GUM BUSTERS!!" This was one of the funniest things we saw on the trip!
The NY Phil concert was pretty amazing! The only downside was the comments from the mean old lady at the end of the show. The conversation went a little like this:
MOL(mean old lady): "Young love is so sweet."
ME: "Oh, how sweet, we are celebrating our 5th anniversary..."
MOL: "But it is very disconcerting to me that you were cuddling and leaning in towards each other so often (we leaned in maybe...MAYBE five times by the way). I wasn't able to enjoy the concert because I couldn't see
TJ&I: stunned silence, with jaws on ground.
--an interjection, for those of you who know TJ, how many of you have ever heard of him being speechless?
MOL: a sweet smile...as if she had just done the world a favor, by telling us "young lovers" off.
EWWW! I was so mad, and so sad. I almost cried on the spot! TJ and I spent the rest of the day saying things like..."I still can't believe that mean old lady said....," To say the least, it put a bad taste in our mouth for the rest of the day.
The rest of the day consisted of walking around and seeing some of the different sites in NY. We saw Rockafellar (wow...I have no idea how to spell that!) Center, 5th avenue, Times Square, the empire state building, St. Patrick's cathedral and Macy's (the absolute largest department store I've ever been in-and in the world!)
Here are some pictures:
Some of my fav's from atop the Empire State Building:
What cute couple....awwww...

I still can't believe how HUGE this city is!

My handsome hubby:

The Channel Gardens in Rockafellar Center. We were so glad to see these flowers...they were some of the only ones in NY!

This picture (you'll have to forgive the orange, I forgot to change the settings on my camera...duh) is of St. Patrick's cathedral and when we walked in it was like going from NY city to a beautiful Cathedral in Italy...this hold's quite a bit of significance with TJ and I because TJ served his mission in Italy, and we spent three weeks there together when we were just newlyweds. The picture barely does it justice! This cathedral was INCREDIBLE!!

At the end of the day (around 8pm) we decided to call it quits...it was freezing and we were sooo tired!
The next day (Saturday) we woke up early again and headed off to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We got there around 9 am and noticed a HUGE line and realized that it wasn't for the ferry tickets, so we breathed a sigh of relief and went to buy our tickets. When we went to go get in line to wait for the ferry, we ended up having to get in this HUGE line. It was sooooo cold and WINDY outside! We stood in that stupid line for two hours!!! It was worth it though, because seeing the Statue of Liberty and the NY skyline was an incredible experience. Ellis Island was pretty cool, but after all the standing in line, we were pretty worn out when it came to look around there.

After Lady Liberty and Ellis Island we decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge-one of the highlights of the trip! It was suggested, in our guide book, to walk from the Brooklyn side to the Manhattan side. The guide book also said to visit one of the top 5 pizza places in NY afterwards. So we walked across:

We got to the other side and started walking around looking for the pizza place...and TJ, in typical male fashion, decided AGAINST calling for directions (I must say here though, that he did all navigating during the trip and was awesome...except for this). We walked around for an HOUR...!! We eventually found out that we were on the wrong side of the bridge.......cricket, cricket....what now? So, we decided to take the subway back across to have the pizza. TJ and I were willing to go through this for world famous pizza...So, we find the pizza place and there is about 20 people standing outside and we ask the people at the front of the line how long they had been there. ONE HOUR! By this time my husband desperately had to go to the bathroom and we were starving (poor us). So, we decided to go back and go to Times Square for pizza at a lesser, but still famous pizza place. We were able to get in at a decent time...thank goodness and the food was wonderful. After dinner, we started walking around looking for something to do. We were in middle of all the Broadway Theatre's so we thought we would try to find a show. Our first choice was "Wicked", but TJ had already tried to get tickets back in January and they were sold out...a long shot. So we headed over to the theatre, even stopping at and almost buying tickets for "The Little Mermaid." When we got to the Gershwin Theatre (for Wicked) we saw a small line of about 12 people and found out that this was the "cancellations" line. So we got in line, waited for 15 minutes and thought, who would cancel tickets to Wicked, and walked out of the Theatre, only to hear a Theatre employee say, "...your chances of getting tickets tonight are really good." to the other people in the cancellations line. So we went back in and stood in line for another hour and thirty minutes and at 7:59 (one minute to showtime) got two tickets!!! We had a to pay an arm and a leg each :) for them, but it was SOOOO worth it!!!

...until later...guys! Or else this post will be too long!

A great recipe and a tag...

2008-03-25T10:38:00.006-06:00

Thanks to Rachael Ray's Magazine, I found this absolutely A-MAZING recipe! It is sooooo good.

Salt
1 lb. Spaghetti
3 T. vegetable oil (eyeball it)
3/4 lb. chicken cutlets, cut into thin strips
1 small head or 1/2 large head Napa cabbage, shredded (about 4 cups)
1 bunch scallions, chopped into 2-inch pieces
Shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced (a couple of generous handfuls)
6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
One 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 tsp. coarse black pepper
1/3 c. tamari (dark soy sauce)
2 T. sesame oil
2 T. toasted sesame seeds
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, add the spaghetti and cook until al dente. Drain. While the pasta is working, in a large nonstick skillet, heat the oil over high heat until rippling. Add the chicken and stir-fry until golden, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the cabbage, scallions, mushrooms, garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Season with a little salt and pepper and keep warm. In a large bowl, combine the tamari and sesame oil. Stir in the spaghetti and toss to coat. Sprinkle the sesame seeds on top. Using tongs, serve the pasta in bowls and top with the chicken stir-fry.

**NOTE: You can find pre-cooked stir fry noodles in the refrigerated part of the produce section (by the wonton wrappers), I used these instead of spaghetti to save time, and for a more authentic taste. If you do this, then add the stir-fry noodles after all the veggies and mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes or so, then pour the sauce over and toss with the sesame seeds.
Also, I would suggest using 1/4 of the amount of ginger that is suggested; it's very strong!
Lastly, To toast the sesame seeds, cook them over medium heat for 4-5 minutes, but watch closely, 'cause they burn easily. Let cool.
I know I added a lot of notes....I always do ;) But try it! All the ingredients are available at any grocery store! Yum-yum!
Now for the tag...my friend Debbie in Arizona tagged me....so here goes!
A- Attached or single: Attached
B- Best Friend: My sweet hubby, of course!
C-Cake or Pie: Cake!
D- Day of Choice: Friday, I love the anticipation of the weekend
E- Essential Items: My digital camera, ipod, photoshop, mega butter lotion from Bath and Body Works, lip gloss.
F- Favorite Color: blue
G- Gummi Bears or Worms: worms...and make them sour
H- Hometown: West Bountiful
I- Indulgence(s): my fav. show....FREINDS!
J- January or July: January, I HATE heat!
K-Kids: Drew (3 1/2) and Cameron (14 mo's)
L-Life is incomplete without: My family!
M- Marriage Date: March 28th, 2003
N- Number of Siblings: two-one younger sister, one younger brother
O- Oranges or Apples: Oranges
P- Phobias or Fears: a little of both...
Q- Quote(s): Bloom where you are planted (author unknown)
R- Reason To Smile: my boys
S- Season: Fall is my FAV
T- Tag Six: Jen Jenkins, Debbie Dee, Becki, Janelle, and Lindsay
U- Unknown Fact About Me: I sleep with four pillows...two of which are body pillows.
V- Veggies or Fruit: fruit!
W- Worst Habit: procrastinating
X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasounds...they can be used for relaxing muscles too!
Y- Your Favorite Food: This is too hard...let's just say....Italian.
Z: Zodiac: Gemini

Start Spreadin' the News....

2008-03-22T22:28:00.009-06:00

This Friday (the 28th) will be five years of marriage for me and my sweetie. We've been talking about doing something special for quite a while, and in December, it was decided that TJ would take charge of this momentous occasion. He started planning right away! He teased me in early February, telling me that he already knew what we were going to do. He was very open about the fact that he was planning something, but would give me no clues! In fact one Saturday, about a month ago, TJ asked me to go upstairs and keep myself busy for two hours....two hours!!! What the heck! So, I did and he made all kinds of arrangements while I was giving myself a pedicure :). With all this hype and knowing how long I had to wait to find out, I was becoming quite anxious to find out! I soon found out that EVERYBODY I knew had already found out about the trip and would just grin and laugh at me whenever I would talk about it. Some pretended that they didn't know anything....(Janelle ;), others were perfectly happy to be in the know, and to leave me in the dark. I'm not the type a person who likes to find out about surprises before they are due...so I didn't try to pry with those who knew, and didn't look at TJ's email, even though he left it open on his computer ALL the time. As our anniversary got closer, TJ started to offer up little morsels of information. He told me one Sunday about three weeks ago, that a FedEx package was expected for tuesday, but I was not to look outside or answer the door. It happened to be on my teaching day, so I had to ask my student to pick it up and hide it! I coudn't believe all that my sweetie was going through to get this trip together (major brownie points earned for this by the way). Then, when coming home from a Jazz game a few weeks ago, TJ tells me that I need to go shopping for some clothes...but he was sooo vague! He told me that the climate was similar to Utah's...that's it! So at this point I knew that we were going on a trip, and that I needed some clothes, and that the climate was similar to Utah's. That's it! I didn't know how long we would be gone, when we were leaving, and girls, lets face it, how many of you would trust your husbands judgement about what you should wear....I was just supposed to 'trust' TJ about what to wear...I don't think so, sorry sweetie ;)!! A couple of weeks ago, I was on TJ's computer browsing the internet and found "New York Yankees tickets" in the browser as I was typing in another address...nooo, not New York....no way...that would be AWESOME, but he wouldn't...would he?! So I asked Tj a couple days later when baseball season started. He said not until May (a diversion). Then, a few days after that my sister was up to take my kids to my parents and I happened to walk in on them after they had just finished talking about the anniversary. They were both gushing about how fun it was going to be and that they could hardly wait for me to find out. Just then TJ starts singing-opera style- NEW YORK!!! At that point I was thinking, it HAD to be New York...so we all just stood their awkwardly, like that didn't just happen. I called my mom shortly after and told her about the New York Yankees Tickets, TJ's New York singing outburst and told her I thought we were going to New York for our anniversary. She just laughed and didn't give me any clues either way. My mom even told TJ that I had guessed and he called me on it. I felt kinda bad, because I wasn't searching for it, it kinda just fell in my lap. But he did a REALLY good job of throwing me off the trail. He had me convinced that this was NOT where we were going. TJ's original plan was to tell me the DAY OF, about our trip, so last week I started getting really nervous. I was doing laundry every day, so that I would be prepared, and was trying extra hard to keep the house clean so that I wouldn't be stressed while we were gone. So me sweetie had mercy on my cute little soul. So on Thursday at about 10:30 (during the jazz game), he came upstairs and told me to close my eyes. He went into our room and closed the door. I could hear muffled thumps, some kind of rattling noise, and heard him set up his ipod on my klipsch (ipod dock)...Now I was really nervous! He came to get me and all I could think about was if we were going to leave first thing in the morning consequently would I be up all night packing! This was on top of three months of anticipation! So I went into our room and this is what I saw:

When I saw this I wasn't sure if this was him telling me about the trip, or if he was just being cute with surprising me with an Easter Basket. It was the first one. He told me to open all of the eggs. As I opened the first one and found "York" candies, he turned on the Ipod to "New York, New York," by Frank Sinatra! This song not only let me know that we were for sure going to New York, this song is mine and TJ's song! YAHOOOOOO! NEW YORK!!!!!!!!!!!! I was SO excited! I immediately knew that the Lion in the basket was for the Broadway Show "The Lion King." I dug deeper into the basket and found tickets to the New York Phillharmonic...at this point I just started bawling...the NY Phil! This was huge. Then I found Yankees tickets...I guess baseball starts earlier than May...

Anyway, so we leave to go on this FANTASTIC trip this Week and I couldn't be more excited! I'm going to fill my luggage with as many 'knock-off' bags as I can!!!

A little quality time.....

2008-03-20T17:00:00.004-06:00

This past Sunday, a friend of mine asked me, "How are you handling two kids?" I told her fine, things were harder in the beginning, but things were more normal (?) now. The question she asked me has been marinating in my head all week and I realize now that life with two kids can be a little difficult now and then, but mostly I have a hard time balancing quality time with each of my kids. Right now, Cam demands more attention because of his age, but I'm starting to realize that the time I had with Drew alone was priceless. I feel sad that I don't have that kind of experience with my little Cam. I find myself trying to distract Drew so that I can spend some one-on-one time with Cameron. I feel guilty though! Do any of you moms with multiple children feel like this? I imagine that I'm not the only one....Anyway, I'm trying harder now to take advantage of anytime I have with either of my children, in hopes that we can foster deep, trusting and loving relationships. I love my kids more and more everyday...I know that everybody says that, but it's TRUE isn't it!? I feel so lucky to have my little people in my life, even when things are hard. Here are some pic's I took of my boys this week....Enjoy!

A throwback...

2008-03-12T10:32:00.002-06:00

Hey all! I'm sure you know that I LOVE Idol, and last night the show was great! There were three performances that I just loved, but mostly I was so excited to her Beatles music! My fave performance of the night was Brooke White's "Let it Be." She ROCKED!!!!
I really enjoyed Jason Castro's performance, mostly because it brought back memories of growing up! My Dad used to always have great music constantly playing while we were growing up! I hadn't heard "If I fall" forEVER, but was so happy to hear it again. I searched on Itunes for the Beatles version...I'm really a sucker for the original...but they have NOTHING from the Beatles. What is up with that? So, I found the original BLACK & WHITE music video on YouTube....check it out (but turn down the music on my blog music player first :)

I love this song! The harmonies are gorgeous and it's such a simple but sweet melody.
In other Stevens fam news....
Cameron has had a croupe-like cough since Sunday! We go to the doctor today, hopefully he is alright....:( The silver lining to his being sick, now don't judge me, is that he is more cuddly!! For any of you who don't know, Cameron is usually 100% of the time ANTI-cuddly! So I have just been eating it up.
Drew has been serving up extra servings of cute lately. Last night he woke up crying at about 11pm because his leg was hurting. TJ and I were watching Idol, so we brought him downstairs and after a while he said.."Mommy, my leg doesn't hurt any more, it's all better now." So I said, "Does it feel better because you got to come down and be with Mommy and Daddy?" Drew: "Yeeeahhh." So funny! Then I gave him some tylenol and massaged his leg thinking it was just sore from jumping around ALL day long, and he said ..."Mommy, you take good care of me....you are like a Doctor Lady.....I love you." I just love that little boy!
Now I almost don't want to write this because I'm worried I'll jinx ourselves...but it seems to be that we found someone who wants to rent our house in Vegas. Not just rent, but Lease to Own! I know that with Lease to Own option, they have to pay more per month....we'll see. Right now, every little bit helps...so we're happy with whatever we can get! And it is official! The owners of our current home are putting in a fence!!!! Installation starts sometime next week!!!!! I'm so excited I can barely stand it. Wa hooo!! My fence will only serve as a child containment device, unlike the Longnecker's and the Jenkin's fence which will serve as not only a child containment device but a horse repellent device! :)
Hope you all have a great day!

A small pat on the back :)

2008-03-05T10:37:00.002-07:00

I woke up this morning and checked my email first thing. Usually there is nothing too exciting in there. But today, I recieved an email from my fav scrapbooking site W&W...asking if they could spotlight my pages in this weeks spotlight!!!!!!!! I am seriously so flattered. There are sooooo many other talented ladies out there! WOW! Anywho, if you want to check it out, just click HERE.

Creative Juices!

2008-03-04T11:26:00.004-07:00

My creative juices have really been flowing lately (scrapbookily-I know that's not a word-speaking). I LLLLURVE IT! Here is the product of those juices ;) For credits, click on the link below each image.

So in Love

Drew + Savanna

Cam's Sweet Scowl

Funny Faces
So, I don't know if any of you have heard the song "The Way I Are" by Timbaland, (Such a fun song!) but if you have, you probably want to groove anytime that you hear like Drew, Cam and I do. Drew just LOVES this song. He calls it his favorite song and dances to it whenever I turn it on. Well, he noticed the words a few days ago. At the end it goes like this: "Baby girl....(some other words I don't know) baby girl...etc. It does this a few times. So, for the past few days, Drew has been walking around the house singing..."Baby Girl..." Hmmmm....I know, I know: Mother of the year.
Some good news: We found out yesterday that the people who own our house (yes, we're renting 'til our house in Vegas sells) are going to put in a concrete slab (perfect to hold our Grill, and a fence up in the next couple of months. TJ and I are soooo excited! I am especially excited, because I am dying to cook on the grill again (in Vegas I could grill year round) and it will be so nice to let the kids play outside without worrying that they will wander! Wooo hoo!

if I were 16......

2008-02-27T15:31:00.002-07:00

I'd have one serious crush on David Archuleta from American Idol. So far, he is my favorite contestant (and not because he's the kid from Utah;) He sang Imagine by John Lennon (a personal favorite) and BLEW me away! I went to go buy his performance on itunes this morning and it won't be available until friday....FRIDAY!!! I am so not a patient person. Seriously though, I want to listen to it sooo bad! It helps that he's easy on the eyes. Don't worry though, I do know that he is 11 years my junior....For anyone who didn't watch idol last night or who don't watch (?) it at all, I found his Performance on YouTube. Just turn down the volume on my blogs music player so you can hear it!

Now, for SOME funny stories. Last thursday, my husband went to a Stake music function and was asked to give the opening prayer. For those of you who know TJ, I understand how nervous you are right now. So anyway, he gets up to pray and says..."We're thankful for this Sabbath day,....oh...wait, it's not the Sabbath day, what am I thinking." OUT LOUD!!! He continued on with the rest of the prayer, even though the people in the room were rolling on the floor, and then finished with a bright red face. So funny! Then, on Sunday, I had to run home during the second hour of church and left the kids with TJ. Cameron happened to poo while I was gone and poor TJ was the one to find out that NO diapers or wipes were packed in the diaper bag that day. The really sad part though, is that he didn't find this out until he had already taken Cam's diaper off and had used it to scrape most of the poo off of Cams butt. He totally panicked! He tried to put the diaper back on, but because he'd used it to wipe poo, it was too messy. I'm sure you can ONLY imagine! So, he picked up a half-naked Cameron and went out into the hall and started asking people if they knew where the bathroom was. Picture it, if you can: TJ, frantically running around the church holding Cameron at arms length, only Cam is half naked with poo still on his butt! He finally found the bathroom and had to lay Cameron over two sinks and was madly pumping the paper towel dispenser and trying to wash the off the mess. Only, there was a guy in there who needed to wash his hands. At this point we are the last ward in the building and this guy has to be in our ward. What a FREAK he must think TJ is! They guy ended up leaving, and tj went back to the original changing station and had to put Cams clothes back on but with no diaper! This is when I showed up. He then proceeded to tell me the entire story, VERY LOUDLY, in the hall at church. I can't remember the last time that I laughed that hard!!!