Stephens Family Christmas Party

We had a great time at the annual Stephens family Christmas party!!  We had a great time visiting with family and it was fun to have so many cousin babies and kids together.  Owen and Lexie are old enough to understand what Christmas is all about AND understand about what Santa is all about.

Owen was beside himself when he opened his gift.  Switch & Go Dinos have been ALL this boy can talk about.

We call Lexie our little mother and so she was excited to open her very own princess Belle baby.

Lexie's 2nd Birthday

It's hard to believe it, but Lexie turned 2 in November!  We sure love our Lexie and I love to throw parties, so we celebrated her birthday with lots of PINK and her favorite character, Minnie Mouse. 

Lexie absolutely loves shoes, and the day before her birthday I found some adorable puppy slippers that I knew she'd love.  I was planning on wrapping them up and having her open them on her big day, but she discovered them and insisted on putting them on her feet right then and there.  She wore those puppy slippers for almost 24 hours straight.  The only time she took them off (and it was forced!) was to take a bath.  She even slept in them the entire night.  That is dedication.

 

Here she is shortly after waking up on her birthday.  She's still wearing her slippers.

 

 

These were taken on her actual birthday.  She got an adorable little apron and a Barbie that came with a pretend pink camera. She was "taking pictures" all night!

 

 

 

We had a little party the following Saturday and invited family and a few friends from Nursery class at church.  Since Lexie is only 2 I didn't plan a lot of activities and it wasn't an especially long party.  I set out some toys, snacks and a craft table to make foam crowns and fruit loop jewelry. It was basically one big play date. It was so much fun to plan a very girly party.  I'd always wanted an excuse to use those cute polka dot balloons, and a Minnie Mouse theme was a perfect fit.  It's the little things in life that make me happy.

 

We also got the biggest and BEST surprise - my sister, Tammi, drove down from Utah for Lexie's party!!  We had no idea she was coming and it was SO MUCH FUN having her there!!!  Thank you, Tammi for coming down!  We were so glad you could be there!

 

Happy Birthday, Lexie Girl! 

You are growing up to be quite the little lady and we love you so much!!

Halloween

This year Owen had a hard time deciding what to be for Halloween. For a long time he said he wanted to be a werewolf.  I thought that was a great idea and I planned for Lexie to be Little Red Riding Hood to go along with his costume.  As it got closer to Halloween, Owen changed his mind when he saw the wide variety of costumes at the store and chose to be Wolverine.  I hadn't started on Lexie's Little Red costume yet, so I decided to have her be a kitty cat instead. The kids had a great time at the ward party and Lexie got the hang of trick or treating pretty fast.

 

On Halloween we went trick or treating in Rossmoor with Gloria and McKennan and got LOTS of candy. We had a lot of fun!!

 

 

Pumpkin Patch

We had a great time on our visit to the pumpkin patch.  Owen really wanted to ride a horse and Lexie really wanted to ride the "choo choo" so that's what we did. :-)

 

1st Day of Preschool

Today was Owen's first day of Pre-K.  He technically qualifies for regular kindergarten this year, but I felt like he needed an extra year, especially because kindergarten is from 8 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.  In my book, that is WAY too long for kindergarten.  He didn't qualify for the Transitional kindergarten class put on by the district (which is more like how kindergarten used to be), so we opted for the best little at home preschool run by a few ladies from church.  The teachers are as sweet as can be and even set up a little photo op for today.

I am happy to report that there were ZERO tears shed today.  He only had a "tickling feeling" in his tummy.  My boy is really growing up and I'm so proud of him.  Lexie, however, cried when Owen didn't come back into the car with us.  I think it was harder on her than it was on him.

We couldn't leave Lexie out.

Lexie Lately

Here's Lexie before church one morning.  She was putting on her "lip gloss."

 

I love having a daughter.



Disneyland

Thanks to Auntie Hannah, we were able to have a DISNEY day!!  We all had a blast.  I'm sorry, but no matter how old I am, I still get excited going to Disneyland. It was pretty crowded, so we did some things that are a little less popular, but were still fun for the kids.

Riding the Carousel.  She cried when it was time to get off.  We had to pry her fingers off the golden pole.  Seriously.

 

Eating cotton candy (Owen's absolute FAVORITE treat at Disneyland) and waiting for the "Mickey and the Magical Map" show to start.  The show was SO GOOD.  They haven't had a show there that good for awhile.

 

Innoventions - one of Owen's favorites, of course, because we told him it is a science building.  Iron man is Owen's favorite super hero, so Rick told Owen to stand in front of the Iron Man suit for a picture.  Lexie walked over right away and posed.  Owen didn't want to go near it.  After talking, he told me that he was afraid that when his back was turned it would, "come alive". 

After some reassurance, he joined the picture, too.

And here's another shot of all the Iron Man suits from the movies.  It was pretty cool.

 

THANK YOU, Hannah for helping us out!  We had a blast and made lots of fun memories!

Legoland

We've been trying to make the most of the summer before Rick started school again, so we of course hit up Legoland.  Ironically, we went there AFTER we moved from Carlsbad.  I'm still not sure how that one ended up happening, but it did.  Since Lexie is still too little for most of the rides there, basically I hung out with her while Rick and Owen hit up all of the rides.  Owen loved spending so much time with Rick.  It was a fun day!

Here we are in front of a life-size star wars space ship made of out LEGOS.  That is way too many legos. I would not have the patience.

Owen looks so small next to Chewy.  I couldn't get him to stand next to Darth Vader.  I think he was a little nervous that he might come to life.

 

We ended the day with Sea Life Aquarium.

 

 

Owen & Lexie Lately

We have really beautiful landscaping around our home and I wanted to take advantage of it by taking some pictures of Owen and Lexie.  I can't believe how big they are both getting - Owen will be 5 soon and Lexie is 19 months.  Crazy!  Here are LOTS of pictures.  Note the many faces of Owen.  He may be shy in public, but don't let him fool you. He is definitely a ham!

Attempting to touch a butterfly. He is still the bug whisperer.

I'm really not sure why he pulled his shirt up. 

Singing, "If You're Happy and You Know It"

"Then your face will surely show it..."