ITS A........

BOY!!!! We are having a boy! Lincoln is due in June and we are so excited!! lets just hope he doesnt learn from Porter how to be a nut job!! haha!

All is well, all is well

Well needless to say moving was a good move, but a sad one. In moving I seemed to have lost 90% of my friends, and my daughter has suffered the same loss. I didnt know that changing my address changed who I am, but oh well! It became obvious who my true friends are, and I love them. Lily has made some new friends thanks to her tea party we had for her this weekend. It was SOOO fun! Her BFF Ruthie came alllllll the way down from South Jordan (20 mins away) just to support her friend. I heart Ruthie, and her mama!Lily's first grade teacher even came to her tea party! She has been amazing and Lily just adores her, along with everyone else in the class!! We had 26 little girls here, and it was AWESOME!! Life has been slow here, but all in all, GOOD. Things are getting better, neighbors are getting to know us, and we love it here. We have a yard, something we didnt have in Daybreak. We have a very friendly ward, and have felt very welcome by our ward leaders and members. It took some time to open up and let others into our lives since we created such great friendships up in Daybreak. But we are doing good!!
Baby June Bug is growing, as well as my tummy. We are 16 weeks pregnant, and find out what this baby is in a week! I have fallen in love with a new baby name, but am not sure it flows with the rest of my kids names. Ruby! Its my favorite stone (also my birth stone), my favorite color, and its a precious stone! I have no say in the name if its a boy, Jake has made that clear to me, it will be Lincoln. Well his full name will be Dwight Lincoln, after my dad, and brother and great uncle. But he will be Lincoln! I think Jake is warming up to the name Ruby, but we shall see. Every name I mention, he shoots down! UGH!
We are hosting Christmas this year at the new house, since we have so much for all the Stephens' fam! I am so excited! I have a new ham recipe I am making...SOOOO good. you buy a RAW ham, on the bone. put in a crock pot on high for 2 hours with some water, about 2 inches of water. Then put on low and add 2 liters of cherry 7 up, and cook for 5-7 hours depending on how big your ham is! IT will fall off the bone and taste like heaven!

Enjoy the pictures of Lily's tea party!!!! Merry Christmas everyone!!

I just love my kids

What have we been up to? Well, its been BUSY. We are all settle in the new house, and we love it. Lily started her new first grade class, and WOW, her teacher is AMAZING! Miss Crowton is my super hero. Lily has had a rough start this year in school and was a pretty sad little girl. Now she LOVES going to school, has made some cute friends and has been so proud of herself. 3 spelling tests with almost all right, 1 test with 100%! Way to go Lily! She is really such a sweet girl, I dont know what I would do with her cute toothless smile.
Jackson started pre school again down here, and he is doing great!! learning letters, numbers, all the normal pre school stuff. He also just LOVES going to school and he LOVES that the big yellow bus comes and picks him up. He is such a active little boy and just drives me nuts 90% of the day, but hey, he is 4!
Oh Porter, Porter is such a little booger sometimes, but I could just sit there and kiss his cute face all day. His dimples make me smile, his silly laugh, the way he mimicks me, and even does the finger tisk tisk tisk with one hand on his hip as he yells...."oh no you didnt!" He is such a spitfire and just runs CRAZINESS through the house. I wouldnt have it any other way!! Loves to say please and thanks, blows kisses and will randomly walk up to you and give you a kiss and a snuggle.
Amelie, oh sweet Amelie. She is almost 9 months old and a totally perfect baby. Smiley, happy, vocal, loves to sing, crawl, walk along the furniture, EAT, snuggle and be chased by her siblings. She can say Mama, Dada, no no, and BALL! What can I say, she is a genius! haha!I love going into her room when she is sleeping and just looking at her! She is such a angel! I also love hearing her sing every time she wakes up. And when I walk in the room and say her name, she stands up in her crib and yells MA MA MA MA MA MA!! And has the most adorable smile on her face. Oh how I love her!!
It has been a rough month, but we are surviving. Lots of things went wrong that we wish didnt, but what are you going to do? I really miss my old neighborhood, and my friends. Its just not the same here. People are way nice, that isnt the issue. Its just not as social, and for those who know me.... Uh, I am social! So I am freaking out sitting at home all alone most days =( Anyways, anyone who wants to come play, please do! I miss you!

I love this song,and how it makes me feel!

MOVING!

Well we are on the move!! Moving just 20 miles south to Lehi! Its a sad, and happy move at the same time. Hard to leave friends, but thrilled to be in a house with our own huge yard. Anyways.... we are moving on Oct 24, here are some pictures!!!

where have I been??

BUSY!!! I cant even tell you any excuse that is good enough to why I havent blogged. SORRY!!! I know I have SO many followers (haha) This summer was a good one, long but good!! The kids are great, happy as can be, Jake started school again, I am hope with the little monsters all day, and oddly enough, I love my life. Weird huh? I had a fun weekend back in september with some fellow moms from my neighborhood.... we went to park city and just relaxed, had fun, ate good food, and had NO kids there bugging us, it was GREAT!! Hmm what else happened????? scroll down to see......












Thats right.....surprise surprise..... not a joke, very serious, as serious as I can be. We are OK... a little freaked out... I mean HELLO, 5 kids!! Its a little scary!! But hey, we have really cute kids... its my job to beautify the world right? I think I am doing a dang good job at it!! Oh, and we are moving to a bigger house. The house we are HOPING for is actually just a few streets away from our current house, but it has 8 bedrooms...need I say more? Well thats all for now.... sometime the last week of may baby IT will be born......Amelie will be 17 months old..... I will have 5 kids under age 6... do I sound so excited??

Summer pictures of the kids!!

My friend and neighbor Kara is a photographer and took some awesome pictures of the kids in July up in salt lake city at this amazing church house. Here they are!!


Sweet Amelie......she is seriously an angel!


There are no words to express how crazy Porter is. We had to chase him around the garden and I literally had to pick him up and tickle him to get him to smile for the camera.... crazy little monster!!



Sweet little Lily! Her toothless smile just makes me giggle!



My sweet little man Jackson. I just love him. He is my heart!



This was the best group one of all 4 the kids together...... it was so much easier taking pictures when they were younger!! haha here is the best for last.... I will for sure be showing this picture to Lily and Jackson when they are beating each other down saying how much they hate each other!!!!

A happy 24th of July........

Well it would have been a great holiday weekend if This didnt happen......








We went to Liberty Park in Salt Lake city to let the kids play, eat some yummy food, go on some RIDES.... let me stop there....




We have been to the park a dozen times with the kids over the past couple years, and when we lived across the street when Lily was a baby we were there daily!! We love that park!! Well, that love quickly grew to dislike when Lily was hurt. She was riding a car, and the car tipped over as it turned and she was dragged over 10 feet on rocky asphalt and got a narly case of road rash on her knee, thigh, side, hip,and shoulder. HEr dress was always murdered in the event as were her panties!! ERGH!!! HEr nose was gushing out blood, and she was HYSTERICAL!! Lets back up..... when the car tipped over, she was dragged......she was belted in so she was STUCK in the car, with it on top of her. I screamed bloody murder as my daughter was dragged past me on the inside of the 4-5 foot fence. I yell for Jake, he jumps over the fence I run around to the gate and Jake sends me to Lily as he gets our boys away from the "crime scene". We were whisked away to the cafe kitchen to get her cleaned up. The manager was FREAKING out all scared that I was going to sue her (still crossing my mind about that one). She seriously gave me $65 and 10 free ride tickets..... yea thanks.
All in all, Lily is ok.... she is more upset about her cute blue sun dress that is not wearable any longer and her favorite pair of panties =(
One of the ride workers pulled Jake aside and told him that this has happened before and a young boy had broken ribs and terrible road rash. SERIOUSLY!! AND THE RIDE IS STILL AROUND!! WHAT!!! And the mechanic who works for the park, isnt a licensed mechanic. Uh... yay for that one!! Everyone has to me to "get Gephardt" I guess you only understand what that means if you are from Utah. He is a go to guy to get things taken care of when you get scammed,mis led, injured etc etc. he works for a local TVstation. Some people have told me to SUE SUE SUE. I just want the ride to either be fixed and renovated or just removed! No other child and parent should ever go through what we went through yesterday..... I have honestly never in my life been so scared... watching Lily's body get dragged like that and hearing the pure fear and horror in her voice as she yelled for me... wow... brings tears to my eyes!

some good news..... and some not so good news.....

Ok.... we went to see Dr. Rope a geneticist up at Primary Childrens Med Center. Well he ran some tests, reviewed her blood work and ultra sound and bone scan and felt Amelie does not have Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. YAY!! thats the good news!! The bad news is..... she needs surgery. her tongue seems to be growing right along with her, so basically in a couple of months she will have tongue reduction surgery. Her tongue blocks her airway when she lays down on her back. This explains the apnea issues when she was newborn. So they will reduce her tongue,and give her a larger airway. Anyways, we go see the ENT doctor in a few weeks for a consult and to schedule surgery. She will be in the hospital on a ventilator for a couple of days or until the swelling of the tongue goes down after surgery. Poor baby, poor mama!! All in all, she is fine,and whatever comes.... we take it in stride!! Love my baby girl!

Amelie....

Well yesterday I took Amelie in for her 4 month check up. I was so excited that I just had her, the kids were with a friend and I was looking forward to a QUICK appointment, weigh in, measurements, "how is she doing", poke her leg a few times.... Well thats not what happened. I am not blind, I know my daughter has had a big tongue since birth...... its sort of cute! Well during the appointment the doctor said "hmm, your daughter looks like she has Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. BUT..... she doesnt have all or most of the signs of the syndrome. The major signs are large birth weight. She was only 6 lbs and 19 inches long. Her head was normal to small. Her blood sugars were normal, she doesnt have the crease/flattening on the top of her ear, and her body is proportioned. Anyways, friday she has a ultra sound appointment to see if she has any tumors in her abdomen, and to get some blood work. If the tests show any abnormalities then she will be sent to a Geneticist to see if she does in fact have Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. Amelie is a little angel and regardless if she does have this syndrome, she will be fine. We all have faith that she will be OK.

Blessing...

Well in June, Amelie had her baby blessing. It was a very nice day and I was just happy to be able to HEAR her blessing. Porter's blessing.... lets not go there.... needless to say...... the sound system in the chapel was broken, and they had to use a karaoke machine thing, and the moron young man kept on flipping the switch so you could only hear bits and pieces of the blessing... yea, lets not go there...
It was a GREAT day. Amelie looked GORGEOUS in the dress that Grandma (Jake's mom) made for her. Jake blessed her with a strong body and mind, many gifts like patience, love, kindness, service just to name a few. She didnt make a sound during the blessing and looked like a angel. We had a brunch at the house after. I was up until 3 am the night before prepping... crazy I know. But I know how to throw a party =) We had egg sandwiches, bagels and cream cheese, yummy fresh fruit, hash browns, juice, muffins etc etc. It was great!! enjoy the pictures!!

facebook took over my blog...

Well its official, I am a facebook addict and find it hard to Blog and manage my facebook account at the same time. So I am sorry if I have annoyed you with my lack of blogging..... haha! Well.... what has happened in the past 2 months. Lily graduated Kindergarten, Jackson graduated pre school, Porter... is still crazy, Amelie is as cute as ever, rolling over, and is 4 months old today!! Where did the time go? seriously I am almost sad about it!! Life has flown by so fast I constantly forget what I did yesterday, and am missing when my baby was a NEWBORN.....
I got released from my calling in the Young Womens program...... not exactly happy about it, but what am I supposed to do? Lily had a dance recital and of course was AMAZING (ha). I nearly beat a woman up at the zoo..... here is the story. Lily's class went to the zoo and families were welcome. So I loaded up all the kids and we went to the zoo (I am so stooooopid). Well of course Jackson runs one way, Lily runs the other, porter is screaming in the stroller and Amelie is hungry. CRAZY!! They see the Merry Go round and FLIP OUT. I did not want to spend $2 each for them to go... but to shut them up, I did! I think Porter thought he was going to be killed and was FREAKING out. Jackson flipped out because he wanted to sit on a dolphin and some other kid got it before him. The cool Zebra just wasnt good enough. Lily was irritated because Jackson was ruining her ride..... I sat there wanting to shoot myself with a animal tranquilizer. So we pass by the Gorilla area..... I wanted to take a picture of all the kids in front of the big metal gorilla. Lily was being a snot and said "I dont want a picture with those kids". Uh THOSE kids are her brothers. She is refusing to stand there with a smile on her face. SO I took a picture, not caring what it looked like. Well during the picture issue I told Lily "stop acting like such a brat and just enjoy your time at the zoo, no one likes when you act like a brat". Some WOMAN/MOM/DEVILS SPAWN snaps out "well I wonder where she gets THAT from". Seriously the fire began to fill my eyes, my fist formed, white knuckles and all..... I held my tongue while there were children present.... but when we were heading up the hill back to the buses I saw HER. So since my kids were at least 10 feet away from me...... I had a CONFRONTATION. I told her "look, we are both moms, we both have bad days every once in a while.... what gives you the right to basically insult me in front of my children and my friends. You dont know me, you have no right to judge or pick on me for calling my daughter a brat when she was truthfully being a BRAT". She snapped at me and said "when I see kids act out, it is the parents fault". ooooooooh myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy gooooooooooooooooooooosh!! I said "you must have robots for kids, because every kid I know throws tantrums. Heck, every adult I know throws tantrums from time to time.
I would like to thank my anonymous friend for standing up for me and dropping the F bomb for me *wink*. I know I am not a perfect mom. I am the best mom for MY kids. And I feel no guilt in calling my child out and calling her a brat when in all reality, she was being a brat! The truth hurts sometimes.... Lily will not need counseling for me calling her a brat. Anyways.... thats all for now.. enjoy the pictures. My kids are cute!!


















Should I be worried about Amelie's TONGUE! All i got to say about that is HOLY CRAP!! Lets hope she grows into that THING!! hahahahhaaha
Jackson had his face painted at the daybreak festival as the HULK..... he just cant frown. I told him to give me a MEAN face.... yea, he smiled. Lily was a ZUTTER FLY for her morphed animal project. "I am a zutterfly. I used to be a Zatterpillar." She was SOOOOO cuute!! Porter is a total HAM. He loves to wear my shoes, and not just any shoes, the highest ones he can find in the shoe bucket. When he gets caught wearing them, he DROPS to the ground and kicks the shoes off "danget, I was caught!!"
I love my kids!!!

Lily, the rock star

This petticoat is the best thing I have ever bought for Lily. She loves it. Heck if they had one in my size I would wear it all around the house too!!

Boys will be boys!

Jackson and Porter are such Mama's boys. And I wouldnt have it any other way! I love these handsome sweet little men. And I cant wait to watch them become amazing men!

Sisters...... forever friends,hopefully!

LILY AND AMELIE, Lily adores her baby sister so much. They are so cute together!

My family.....

My friend Kara took our family pictures last week, and I love them.

Happy Birthday Porter!

2 years ago today Porter was born! I love this little man more than words and emotions can express. He is such a light in my life and I adore everything about him. I love how ticklish his neck is (the girls will love that later on) I love how he giggles and runs around like a maniac and never gets bored. I have only known this boy personally for 2 years, and it seems like I have known him all my life. I know my life would not be complete with out my Po Po.I love how much he looks like me and even has my dimple. I love his squishy cheeks (on both ends) and I just want to pinch them whenever I see him! Porter is such a joy and such a BOY.LOVES to get dirty, loves to get into trouble, loves his mommy!!! I love hearing him babble in his own little language we call "Porternese". And watching his deep concentration face when he is working on coloring or playing with a toy. I can already see a incredible man when I look at my big baby boy Porter.
He may hate having his picture taken by a camera, but some how we got some cute shots of this boy!