Thank You, Thank You!

This year we had Thanksgiving at the Stephenson's. We brought the home made stuffing. who new stuffing was pretty much just bread drenched in butter. I guess I did since this wasn't my first year making it, but it is always somewhat shocking at the amount of butter used.

It was fun cooking with Madelyn. She thought it was fantastic. We have been making candy for Christmas and I haven't let her help very much because it can burn so quickly. Every time I tell her no she says, "but you let me make the stuffing."We ate a great thanksgiving meal, and then of course followed it up with pie. It was fun tasting all the different pies. For the first time I really liked the pecan pie. It is Spencer's favorite and I have always wondered why, but this year I understood. That is probably because last year I made the pecan pie and I guess I don't make pies very well. This year we bought it from Village Inn, and it turns out that they make a fantastic pecan pie. I also must mention Mama Stephenson's coconut cream pie. As long as I have been part of the family she has always made a fantastic coconut cream pie and this year was no exception.

We did a lot of talking and hanging out. All in all we had a great and very relaxing thanksgiving.

October Fest

Our October started out by finding pumkins in Grandpa Stephenson's pumpkin patch.

Apparently we found the perfect one!

...and apparently painting and decorating those pumpkins with Madelyn's friend Matti was pretty fun too.

We visited the Vineyard pumpkin patch where we had our pictures taken, saw the animals...

...and played and played and played on the play ground.

Then we rested.


For halloween we were the Princess and The Frog. Madelyn was a sick little princess who woke up just in time to go trick or treating. And Sawyer was a cute little frog who I wish I could dress up in frog costumes more often.

And because he deserves a little face time too, here is Sawyer helping dad with the laundry.

"I forgive you mom"

The other day Madelyn had a few treats and it wasn't even lunch time yet. I told her that she couldn't have anymore treats, but she found a chocolate which she concealed between her hands, and as I walked by her in the kitchen she stood there and watched me with very focused, concerned eyes. I knew something was up and as I looked closer I could see the chocolate wrapper between her hands. I thought it was super cute and funny, but I felt like I should follow through. I told her that it was not ok to hide things from mom and that she could not have the chocolate. Of course she continued to ask for the chocolate and I gave in. That is right, I tried to follow through, but I didn't. She got her chocolate and followed it up with a very sincere, "I forgive you mom."

All The Funny Things

I really get a kick out of Madelyn and all the random things she says. I love the way she sometimes says things kind of backwards or out of order in her own Madelyn dialect. I have loved hearing her language change. She used to sing the ABC's with the letter"Q" and "R" as one letter like "queyaw" but now "R" is its own letter, just with a thick twang that I am not sure how to explain. You'll have to hear it some time.

This morning Madelyn was painting and she got paint on the table. When I came down from getting ready she had the dish towel over the table and said to me, "don't look under the towel." I just now yelled down to her and asked her how she was doing. Her reply was, "don't come down". Of course I went down to find her once yellow paper covered in A LOT of pink paint.

Yesterday she took two pencils and proceeded to go under the kitchen table. She said to me, "don't look under here." She likes to bite the erasers off of pencils.

Also yesterday, she wanted to put on her swimming suit to play in the hose. She asked if she could just wear the swim skirt without the swim suit. I told her no of course and then she asked if she could wear a bra with her skirt. It took me a second to figure out she wanted a bikini top. Ha.

I love how she interacts with little Sawyer. She is such a little mommy who makes sure he is content while playing on his mat by saying "Are you OK bud". Or when he cries she will sooth him by saying, "Its OK, I am hear, I am hear". And then she will give him encouragement when he rolls over or semi sits up by saying in a very high pitched mom voice, "good job buddy, good job!" She will say it multiple times to make sure he catches her enthusiasm.

Sawyer doesn't do anything especially funny these days. He is just cute. Like I said, he rolls around and is working on sitting up. He loves being tickled and we love tickling him.

ABC's & 123's

This morning I got Madelyn ready for her third day of pre school at Miss Mischa and Miss Becky's A-Z pre school. She thinks it is the best thing ever. Once I tell her it is a pre school day she will ask me every couple of minutes if it is time to go yet. This morning I was blow drying my hair still and realized she was no longer in my bedroom. I just new she was outside looking for the car pool. I went out to find her waiting at the bottom of our grass. So cute. Because I am a little weary of leaving my three year old outside alone I told her she needed to come get her back pack. Of course she came running. There is no way she would forget her princess back pack.

I really love thinking about how much fun Madelyn is having at pre school. I think she feels like she gets to go to a birthday party every Tuesday and Thursday. She has started telling me about new friends that she is meeting, and she loves all the little crafts that she gets to do.

I feel like I have entered a new realm of motherhood. I have a little girl who is no longer a baby. It is fun having little conversations with her, and so fun figuring out how to be a good mom to her (I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like I just make it up as I go).

Summing It All Up...

...because I have been busy taking care of my kids, and doing a few others things on the side (like cleaning my house).

Sawyer is growing, growing, growing. You know how it is. They get so chunky and change so quickly when they are so little. Just when you think you got it figured out they change on you. He went through a pretty fussy stage where he cried whenever he was awake (that is when the blogging came to a halt), but that is over now. He is pretty easy going and pretty happy most of the time now. We are currently working with him on sleeping. He was down to one feeding a night and then reverted back to waking up often in the wee morning hours. But I am working on it, and I am not too worried about it. I have already made some changes and it looks like we are back headed in the right direction.

Sawyer's baby blessing was on June 26th. It was special to say the least. It meant a lot to me to hear Spence bless Sawyer with so many wonderful things.

After the blessing we met back at our house for a brunch with both of our families.

We spent some time up at the Stephenson family cabin. You may notice that Madelyn is with her Aunt Mary in three of the four below pictures. She loves loves loves her Aunt Mary. I don't blame her. Madelyn's Aunt Mary is seriously one of the most vivacious people I know who never seems to tire of playing Hide and Seek and multiple other games (many of which she makes up). Many of the games that Madelyn and I play together were inherited from Aunt Mary.

And then there is always the Zoo. We have made it once this summer. I loved taking Madelyn to the Zoo because she thought everything was amazing, especially the dinosaurs. You can see her below with her arms up dancing around the big "water globe" thing, sitting with Nathan and Jaxon on a dinosaur tale, stenching her arms out like a gorilla, and reaching her arms down saying "I am an Elephant". Yeah, it is fun going to the Zoo with a three year old.

And speaking of three year olds, we had Madelyn's third birthday party. It was a Rapunzel party. I was pretty proud of myself for pulling off a three year old Rapunzel party (my craftiness can sometimes be sporadic). It wasn't anything too fancy and seemed to fit a three year olds needs just fine. We decorated with purple flags with suns stenciled on them and some balloons.The party entailed Rapunzel coloring pages (that were delivered by Rapunzel herself...well at least we had a long Rapunzel Brade that came down the stairwell that made all the kids think that Rapunzel was upstairs). And the best part was that "Rapunzel hair" that each of the kids also received from Rapunzel. After we did the usual lunch, cake and ice cream, and gifts we spent the rest of the time dancing around to the Rapunzel soundtrack with our "Rapunzel hair" on our heads. Madelyn thought it was a pretty sweet party and that is all I was going for.

These pictures..

...remind me just how fast my life is going. It has been six weeks since Sawyer got here and it seems like just a couple of days. I feel like Madelyn grew into a little girl over night.

The other day she and I were getting ready in my bathroom when we heard Sawyer crying in his crib. I went to get him and when I came back Madelyn had put on some lip stick. She looked up at me and said with excited confidence, "those are cute lips".

These are just a few pictures of Easter. Seriously, is there anything better than watching your kids get excited about things like plastic easter eggs filled with candy. No, I don't think that there is.

On easter morning Madelyn wanted to be in her princess clothes. I often have to choose a dress for her to wear because that is what she wants. It makes sense I guess, dresses are so much prettier that pants or shorts. Why would you want to wear something practical to play in when you can wear something pretty as a princess.

And here is Sawyer with his daddy. Like I said, the last six weeks have flown by. I really don't know where the days went.

Our Little Buddy

Sawyer Mckay Stephenson made it safe and sound into this world on March 21st at about 2:00 p.m. He weighed 6 lbs 8 oz. and 18 in. long. Despite his little size he did great in the hospital and has been a great little baby since we have been home.

Madelyn has really taken well to being a big sister. She calls Saywer "littlebuddy", and is anxious to do thing for him like get him new jammies and "blankalets". She is also good at responding to his crying by shoving his binky in his mouth and saying "it's ok buddy, it will be alright". I am pretty pleased with how well she is doing.

As I mentioned before, I was anxious to see how Madelyn was going to react to having a little sibling and I must say that she is doing great. I would say that any misbehavior that she has had over the past week would have existed with or without a new sibling.

I also must say that Mom and Dad are doing great too. I was a little nervous about having two, but the transition has been pretty smooth. It was great that Spencer was able to take an entire week off of work, and that we had so much support from our family and friends. (We really had a lot of service via house cleaning, food and visitors). I attribute a lot of the successful two weeks that we have had to everyone around us.

So here we are with two now instead of one. I really don't feel like it is that different, but I am so excited that Sawyer is here. Not only because I am no longer 9 months pregnant, but also because he is a sweet little buddy and we are excited to have another member in our little family.

"Baby bwada Soy-ya"

I hope that you got the title of the blog. That is how Madelyn refers to the baby that is in her mommies tummy. She will hold up one of his outfits or maybe a blanket of his and say, "Dis is for my baby bwada Soy-ya". In case you didn't catch that, "Soy-ya" is Sawyer, and that is the name we have chosen for our baby boy.

I think we are ready for this baby. I am not as worried about having "everything" for this baby as I was with Madelyn. With Madelyn we bought things that we thought we needed and then ended up not using. So even though we don't have "everything" (like a million onesies) I think we will do just great getting started with this second babe.

Our families were gracious enough to throw us a shower. It is overwhelming just how generous friends and family can be. Not only did we get some fun clothes, but it was great to spend a couple of hours with the girls and get excited for baby Sawyer to arrive.

Mama Stephenson, Spencer's sister Mary, me and Spencer's sister Christina

My sister Bryn, Tanner's girlfriend Daniel, Cortney's wife Shannon, My mom, Me and my sister Carrie

Madelyn and Maci Helping with the gifts

And now the question on my mind is how will Madelyn do with adjusting to being a big sister. I think she understands that we are going to have a baby, but just like you can't understand what it is like to be a new parent I am sure she doesn't understand that this baby is coming and never going away. She is excited though, and I am hopeful that things will go well because she is a pretty good little girl as it is. The below pictures are of her helping me make soup. She was pretty excited about being in charge of unwrapping the bouillon cubes. I hope she will be as excited about going to get a diaper and waiting patiently while her Mama feeds the new baby.

I have less than four weeks left. If the baby does not come by March 21st then I will be induced on that day. I am glad to have a date that I can plan on. Between now and then we are just going to be wrapping up baby preparations and a few other household projects. It is a pretty exciting time for us to say the least.