Birthday pictures (finally!)

Birthday pictures-a bit of an overload, sorry!!Our first little party was Saturday night, family, presents and cake.

The little toy car that they were all chasing!

Snuggly puppy!

Birthday cake!

He wasn't very crazy about it-tried a bite and didn't really want to touch it again!We got to party again on Sunday. More family, presents and cake.

Birthdays are exhausting!

Again? I don't think so!

More snuggly toys!

Up and walking! No stopping him now!

One partied-out little boy!

Happy birthday, Gideon! We love you! Thank you to everyone who helped make this a special day for our boy!

A little boy's birthday

Last year we were blessed with a little baby boy and last week we celebrated his one year birthday! I think I have been putting off this post because one week later, and I'm still not ready for this! This year has gone by much too quickly and my baby boy has grown and changed and become a little boy. He is such a special part of our family and I pray that God uses Jesse and I to train him up to be a man of God, a loving husband, and wonderful father.

(Oh dear, did I just say he could be a FATHER?!! Ok-no more birthdays...ever!)
We had a great weekend full of celebrating and of course, Jesse's bday is the next day so there was lots of partying going on! (Cake overload!!) Thank you for all of your birthday wishes!

Pictures soon to follow-I'm having trouble uploading them tonight.

Today the tree in our yard lost the last of its leafs. And of course that means...Gotta love fall!!

Elianna Rene Olsen

Congratulations Valerie and Mark! We love you guys!

Craaazzy Hair!!

Wild and Crazy hair night at AWANA was soo much fun tonight!! The girls had so much fun getting ready! Last week when we found out about it Gabrielle told me she wanted "lots and lots of bows!" It made it that much more fun that it was her idea!!

We decided to do more of a "Whooville" look for Lyla! It was too cute!

Even I got into it as a leader trying out some purple and green hair! It was a blast! Thanks aunt Jenna for your help getting us ready!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

WE LOVE YOU, MOM!

STEPHANIE, JESSE, GABRIELLE, LYLA, AND GIDEON

Weekend review

Friday evening we took the kids to the park. Gabrielle and Lyla brought their bikes and we went for a nice walk. I've brought Gabrielle there with her bike before but Lyla has never been fast enough before because I'll be going for a real walk so she and Gideon are in the stroller. But since it was just a little family stroll she got to bring hers, too and she was so excited. After a little ride we stopped by the river to watch the ducks and splash around a little And I wondered who was going to end up in the water first. It was Lyla. Fell right back onto her little bum! She was a bit shocked at first but went right back in to play some more!

And as we were at the river a young Mennonite woman came up to me to ask me about my sling I had Gideon in. Now those of you who know me, know that I think the Amish culture is fascinating and I secretly wish I was Amish :) So getting to talk to a Mennonite was as close as I've ever come and I was pretty excited! I know I'm a bit weird. We really had a great time at the park-we don't get the chance to do that as a family nearly enough!!

Saturday was party day-two birthday parties in one day! It was a lot of fun! The kids always have a great time running around with their little friends while Jesse and I get to visit.

Sunday was a great morning of worship. I am really enjoying being back in an adult Sunday school class. It is so good!! Then Jesse's parents came over for a bit. I just now thought of it but, I should have had my camera out -they were all bowling on the Wii. It was great fun and let me tell you-Gabrielle is one great bowler! She just flings that "ball" down the lane and usually ends up with a spare. It's hilarious! After Bud and Kathy left we were able to have some down time before it was back to church. We are starting an AWANA program and it was our registration/kickoff night. We are pretty excited about it!

It was a great weekend and now I am looking forward to taking the kids to Phoenix this weekend to visit some dear friends. I'm so excited!!!!

She did it! Gabrielle read her first Bob Book yesterday!! We've been working on letters and sounds for awhile now and I got out our Bob Books to see if she could do it, and sure enough she read through it! (for those of you who don't know what the Bob Books are, it is a little series of books that are written in three letter words and short sentences for beginning readers. Each books introduces new letters along with few new "sight words". They are great little tools!) The first reading was really slow, sounding out each letter but she did it entirely on her own. I had her do it again, then a third time when I covered up the pictures to make sure she wasn't relying on them to show her what it should say. I'm pretty excited for her, this is a proud moment whether she realizes it or not! It also encourages me to know that as clueless as I might be on this homeschooling adventure, I've started in the right direction! What a great way to start out her preschool year.

Lyla is really enjoying the idea of sitting down to do school,too. I had to get a workbook just for her because she was really wanting to get into Gabrielle's. She almost went straight through it in one day! I love that the girls love to learn(even if they don't know that's what they are doing!)

Even Gideon is learning new things. He is now pulling himself up on everything!! He also starting clapping the other day! So fun! I can hardly believe that he is almost a year!

Well that's all I can think of for now.

Here's some random pictures of the kids!

Trying out some new goggles in the bathtub

Exploring the river

Look what I can do!

This is the day that the Lord has made!

This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. It is a choice we can make and I have been choosing poorly this last week. But by God's amazing grace I have a new day to make a new choice. So I choose to rejoice, be glad and share it with you!
(Pictures soon to come!)

A bit of a funk

Just thought I'd drop in to let you all know I'm still alive and well! I've been wanting to post for awhile, but have been having trouble coming up with something to say. I think I'm just in a bit of a funk right now. I love my life, my husband, and kids, but right now I'm very lonely and feeling a bit blah. Jesse has been so very busy lately we hardly see him. I'm not complaining about what he's doing, it's all things I support him in doing, but I miss him. I absolutely love being a stay at home mom, I would never change that, but right now I am feeling very lonely for adult friendships. I'm not that much of a people person, but I do long for good friendships. My kids are my comfort zone and can also stretch me to do things I wouldn't ordinarily do. If it weren't for me wanting to make sure they don't become introverts like me, we would be a little hermit family never going out to do social things.

Oh, for crying out loud!! I'm in the process of making cookies and have just about burnt every batch!! That's about how i feel today!

I'm missing my sister Valerie this week. She is going through a rough pregnancy and was just put on bed rest for the next 6 weeks.(they are hoping she'll make it to 6wks) I really wish I could be closer to make things a little easier for her. I want to be there when this little one arrives. I hate not getting to play a bigger sister role right now. We've never really been hang out sister-friends but I am feeling a closer connection to her right now and it's hard to not get to be there with her. Love ya, Valerie!

I'm also feeling pretty blah about really shallow things such as looks and such. I really don't want to go there because it is so meaningless, but let's face it, I am a woman! Who doesn't go there every once in awhile? But I'm not going to take you there with me!

Well, I've got one more batch of cookies to bake, I'd better go keep an eye on them! Next time, I'll try not to let it be a"poor Stephanie" post!

Little Joys

Okay, I wasn't able to get back to this as soon as I would have liked, but life gets busy!! (or I just get lazy, but you'll never know which!!!) Here's a quick update.

And he's off...

Yep, Gideon is crawling!! Slowly but surely! My favorite part is watching the girls' excitement over his new accomplishments. They'll come running into the room-"Gideon's on his knees!!!!" "Gideon sat up on his bottom by himself!!!" "Gideon's crawling!!!" and of course all of this is not just spoken but squealed! It makes my heart so happy to see them love each other so much!

She's got a what?

Gabrielle recently discovered a love of toads at Grandma and Grandpa's house. (Thanks Grandma) She played with the poor thing almost all day. Who knew? She definitely did not get that from her mama!

And there's little Lyla...

Who you never really know what she's getting into next! She is now in this phase of wanting to fix her own hair. Which means she has to put in all the clips she can find! And they all seem to go on the one side. What a fancy nancy!

What other little joys will today hold?

I hope you all take the time to notice yours!

Jesse comes home tomorrow!! He's been gone this week for a youth missions trip and we are quiet ready for him to be home!! I'm still up tonight(12:11) and thought I'd try to post a few pictures from this week but the longer I sit here trying to focus, the more tired I realize I am so I think I'll call it a night and try again tomorrow.

A picture's worth a thousand words...

Gabrielle's first dance class!

Happy belated 4th of July!

I've been trying to post this for several days, but been having problems with the computer. So we'll see what happens.
Our holiday weekend started out with Jesse getting half of Friday off(business was slow for the holiday) which was a nice surprise because we hadn't seen much of him at all this week! When he got home we headed up to spend the evening with his parents. It was extra fun because Jesse's nieces and nephews were visiting that week and the girls don't get to see them very often. It took a little while for them to warm up to the other kids but before too long they were out on the trampoline having a ball. Gabrielle laughed and laughed! It is so good to see them enjoy their cousins like that! I think the girls all spent most of the afternoon/evening on the trampoline while the boys took some time to play with fire. (Jesse had brought some firecrackers and such to play with!) That night we got to do sparklers with them all. Those are always a big hit! (my favorites, too!) Gabrielle and Lyla were invited to stay the night and it was a big ordeal trying to get them to make that decision!! They wanted to stay, they didn't, they wanted to, they didn't. It didn't help that by the time Jesse and I were ready to leave it was past their bedtime so they were just exhausted anyway. They did end up staying and having a great time!

Jesse and I enjoyed Saturday morning just the two of us and Gideon. It was a quiet morning! Then we went back up to get the girls. We spent a couple more hours at the Roussets with Grammy, Poppy, and the cousins. More trampoline fun, a little basketball and some fun toenail painting. The girls had so much fun with those kids! We need to get them together more often.

That evening we had been invited to the neighbors house for a little get together. They have a pool house and all the kids were invited to go swimming. Gabrielle was braver than I'd ever seen! They had provided life vests for the kids and so she was going down the water slide and jumping of the diving board and having a great time! Lyla was just hanging out on the steps until she slipped off of one!!! She had her life vest on so she was only kind of twirling around front to back but gulping water, nonetheless. I yelled at Jesse, (he had his suit on)but he didn't come fast enough for my liking so I had to get in to grab her! Fully dressed. She was ok, but a bit shaken up. I on the other had was very, very shaken up! I made Gabrielle get out of the pool and couldn't go back in until Jesse went with her. (punish the one who was doing fine, right?) Well, they did get back in(and had a great time) but I just couldn't hardly watch anymore. That is why I have no pictures of them in the pool! Well after the pool they did a pinata and made out with gobs of candy(which I have been eating too much of!) Then it was time for the fireworks! Where we live there's a guy who does his own fireworks show off of his property, a cliff right behind our house. It doesn't get much better than that! The girls would have been ok with the regular fireworks, but we were still at the neighbors and he was shooting off a few of his own and they were just too loud for them! So I watched the majority of them from inside with the girls(which is why I have no pictures of that!). Gideon, however, thought it was all pretty cool and wasn't bothered a bit by the noise! He really enjoyed his first 4th of July festivities! I hope you all enjoyed your celebrations, too!