Mike started a new job in 2010 at Microsoft. What a wonderful opportunity for him and our family. There has been a great deal of travel for training and business and our family is still trying to adjust to the many changes. We do miss our daddy being home with us but are all so proud of him.

I finally got my diploma in the mail Saturday and now have my Specialist in Education!! I do not regret going back to school, but it has been a hard journey with 3 small children at home and a full time teaching job. I will be teaching at Little River Preschool Special Education next school year, which is the same location I taught at this year. It will be nice to be in the same location again.

Carter is such a big boy now. He turned 4 years old on March 31, 2010. He had a birthday party at the Bounce House with a Spider Man theme. Carter is writing his name, knows all his letters, counts to 100, spells short words, and is just too smart for his own good. My little boy is growing up! I look at him and wonder where the time has gone?!? It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming him into the world. Carter will start Pre-K in the fall and is registered. This was a huge step for me. He is ready, I am not! Carter is such a thoughtful and kind little boy.

Lyric is our little princess. She turned 3 years old on March 26, 2010. She had her birthday party with her brother at the Bounce House with a princess theme. Lyric is changing so fast and turning into such a girl. She loves all things that sparkle, are pink, and have any kind of princess on them. She is really starting to grow, learn, color, share, and is becoming interested in learning her letters and playing school. Lyric is still our “quiet one” and is still a little shy. She loves to help out in the kitchen, help cook, and help with the laundry. She is mommy’s little helper and a true love!

Ryder is no longer a baby! He turned 1 year old on March 6, 2010. He started taking a few steps on April 10th and then full out walking only a few days later. He climbs on everything, loves to play with his brother and sister, and will try anything. Ryder is a very sweet boy with a relaxed personality. He is always smiling and laughing. He will give out kisses on request and listen very well to the word “NO”. He uses sign language to ask for more, drink, eat, and all done. What a blessing he is to our family!

We love  you all!

Ryder has started eating all real “people” food, pulling up on his own, and standing for a few seconds without help. He loves to crawl up the stairs, especially when he is not supposed to! I can’t believe how fast he is growing! I always forget how fast those baby days go.

Lyric is starting to really act like a little girl. She loves any princess, playing with dress-up, helping mommy cook in the kitchen, and playing with her brothers. She is even starting to get herself dressed and undressed in the mornings and at night. What a big girl!

Carter is so independent! He has so many ideas that he wants to talk about and questions he wants answered immediately. He thinks about things that I never imagined an “almost 4-year old” would think about. Carter is very thoughtful and wants to be just like his daddy!

January was fast and very BUSY! Will keep you all posted on what’s to come with the Stevens family!

Take a look here for Christmas FUN!

Carter and Lyric can sing the entire Irish fight song numerous times in a row!

Look at a few of our Photos!

Mike and I took the kids to Cagle’s Dairy 2 weekends ago and they had a great time. We rode ponies, jumped, rode on a hayride, fed baby cows, and picked out our pumpkins. Last weekend, we took the kids to an apple orchard in Ellijay, GA to pick apples from the trees. What a great time we all had!

Tomorrow night we will be carving our pumpkins (all 5 of them) and going trick-or-treating on Saturday night. Carter will be Spiderman, Lyric is Ariel, and Ryder is Yoda this year. Mike and I haven’t gotten costumes yet, but plan to dress up as well.

Hope you enjoy the PHOTOS!

So much has happened in our family this last month! The kids are all growing up so fast that I sometimes feel that if I blink, I will miss it all. We have done several fun trips to the mall, Atlanta, the movies, the park, and our weekend “adventures”. Carter and Lyric are doing wonderful at school “daycare”. Carter amazes me each day with all the information he retains. He knows his letter, most all letter sounds, is coloring, cutting, singing his calendar songs, and letting me know what words start with certain letters. He loves to play with his friends and always lets me know who gets in trouble at school each day and exactly what they did. Lyric has now moved up to the potty trained class. YAY! She is doing so well in school and is also learning how to play with other children besides her brothers. She loves to sing, play with puzzles, color, and do centers. Even though Carter and Lyric have both changed, Ryder is the one that has changed and grown the most. On September 16th he suddenly began sitting up on his own. Then the following Saturday September 19th he got his first front bottom tooth and then the other bottom tooth the following day!! Now he gets so upset if you lay him down instead of sitting him up to play. What a big boy I have!!

This past weekend we had our Fall portraits taken at Sears. They turned out great. Carter is now 3 1/2, Lyric is 2 1/2, and Ryder is 6 1/2 months old. Take a look HERE!

Our (low-traffic, self indulgent, and narcissistic family) site is so 3008, your site is so 2000 and late… – Boom Boom Pow, The Black Eyed Peas

I updated the site this morning – overhauled the look and feel (using a WordPress theme from Woo Themes named Mortar) and added a bunch of new stuff.

Check out the new video gallery (using TubePress plugin).  All of our uploaded videos from YouTube are gathered there and will play in a “lightbox” when you click on their thumbnails.  Unfortunately, Wendy is a little behind on updating the video clips on YouTube…but I guess she has been busy with other, more pressing issues

I also added some “About Us” pages to be updated soon.  I installed and configured the WordPress/PHP plugin named Lifestream. I am very impressed so far, it allows you to gather all of your feeds (NetFlix, Picasa, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and displays them on a nicely formatted timeline.

No real reason for the update – just felt like changing things up a little bit!

OLD SITE:

NEW SITE:

Here is a silly poll for you to let us know what you think of the new site:

After our unexpected stop in Alabama on Thursday night, we rented a van to take us the rest of the way to Fort Walton Beach so we could enjoy our vacation. After a few days relaxing on the beach and at the pool, we began to feel a little better.

Our family went to the beach with Nana and Pop (Wendy’s parents). The condo we stayed at this year was amazing! It had 2 large pools, a kids pool, and a lazy river. The kids really enjoyed the slide at the pool and floating in circles at the lazy river.

We set up our tent and Nana and Pop’s tent on the beach and were able to have a little shade to sit under. Carter and Lyric played with their dump trucks and made "Happy Birthdays" or sand castles. They really likes the sand and swimming in the ocean as long as you went our past where the waves break. Ryder sat in his swing and even swam a few times. He is such a happy baby and was always smiling. The water in the ocean was very clear the first few days and we were able to swim out and still be able to see the bottom.

Mike and Pop went deep sea fishing and caught us fish for dinner one night. We also went on a dolphin cruise one morning and saw many dolphins swimming in the ocean and fed the seagulls.

We had a great time at the beach this year and it was so fun to watch the kids play and explore. Precious memories were made!! To see our photos click HERE