The Stevens Fam

2009-04-09T20:30:00.003-07:00

Now that she's TWO MONTHS OLD, we figured we better post some pics of Brielle finally!! Sorry for taking so long to do this. Anyway, the first one is at the hospital on her BIRTHday, then just about a week ago, we got a smile out of her. The white dress was on her blessing day, and lastly a picture of her with Brooklyn and Spencer. We love little Brielle and we're so glad she's a part of our family. In the coming days, I'll add a slide show of recent pics. We've got a ton of fun ones since Christmas, but obviously the focus has been on Brielle, so here you go for now!

Praise to the Man

2009-01-19T20:09:00.010-07:00

This year in Sunday school we are studying the Doctrine and Covenants and during Priesthood/Relief Society, we again have the privelege of studying the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. What a great combination! So with that, I've been reflecting a great deal on my testimony of the gospel and specifically about the restoration and how much it means to me.

A few years ago, I heard a version of the hymn "Praise to the Man" that was arranged by Lex De Azevedo. I was driving in my car at the time and when the song came on, I nearly had to pull over as I listened to it because it hit me so powerfully that I was no longer focused on the road, but on the magnificent life of the prophet Joseph Smith. From the time I was a young boy, I have always had a really intense interest in and testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel that he was instrumental in restoring to this earth. I believe with all the energy of my soul that Joseph Smith was (and still is) God's prophet. I know that he was foreordained to do the work that he did and I am so grateful for his example, his energy, his work, his testimony and all that he did so that we could have the gospel on this earth once again. So the music became in my mind anyway, a soundtrack for the life of Joseph Smith. I would listen to this version of "Praise to the Man" over and over again and often I'd close my eyes and picture different times in his life, or events, or pieces of his personal history or the church history. Eventually I determined to make this movie in my mind into a reality, so I gathered every picture I could find that had anything to do with Joseph Smith and I got to work. The video in this post is the end result of the project and really is the ultimate expression of my own testimony of this incredible man. I love and appreciate him so very much and when I pass onto the other side, I can't wait to personally thank him for being such a instrumental part of the restoration and for making it possible for the world to know their Savior once again. In Amos 3:7 we learn that "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets." It is a pattern that was set forth from the foundation of this world. To know Jesus, we must know His prophets and their teachings. Their whole objective has always been and always will be to lead us back to our Father in Heaven through the Savior. As I think of the prophet Joseph Smith, that's what I think of. I think of his life, but I think about it in the context of what he did for us to help lead us to Christ. I'm confident that if we learn about him, we will learn about Christ.

A couple of years after I did the video, I had an opportunity to visit some of the church history sites in Missouri and Illinois including Nauvoo briefly and Carthage. My favorite place on that whole trip was Carthage because I felt such powerful gratitude for the blood that was shed and the lives that were given there. I hope you enjoy the video!

Happy New year!

2009-01-06T21:17:00.009-07:00

With the start of a new year, we thought it was a good time to give our blog a bit of a face lift. The red font highlights are in honor of the glorious Sugar bowl win by the Utes capping off a most triumphant 13-0 football season. Go Utes!!

We had a very nice December with plenty of parties and family fun time. As you can see, the kids were able to get past Santa's naughty radar in time to enjoy plenty of presents on Christmas morning. Brooklyn had a hey-day and before we knew it, her opening was done in about 10 minutes, so she had to help Spencer catch up. Notice that all our ornaments are on the top half of the tree. That's in honor of Spencer's curiosity and lack of self control! When all was said and done, Christmas was wonderful, our kids enjoyed it, and they can't wait for it to come again! Santa brought our family a video camera, so now we'll have to start blogging videos too. Now that December is done, we're in full-on baby preparation mode (only six more weeks until the stork visits us)!

Here's Brooklyn enjoying the traditional holiday gingerbread house

Spencer learning to ride a wild animal at Nana's house!

Here is Brooklyn's dollhouse with plenty of Christmas visitors

Spencer finally conquered his fear of Dakota over the holidays! This was really cute and hilarious. He has always loved dogs (from a distance), but has been pretty nervous up close, but he was bound and determined to make friends with Dakota (Grandpa's dog) and he found out that Dakota is actually pretty nice! So much for Grandpa's built-in mischief preventor!

Brooklyn decided to practice what it would be like to be homeless. We hope it never comes to that, but if it does, she will know how to work it with the shopping cart for sure!

This reflects how we all felt after the holidays were over! After a fun day at Grandma's house, Brooklyn's energy was finally spent on the ride home. Fortunately, I kept my eyes open long enough to get us home safely.

October vacation to Monterey, CA (Pebble Beach)

2008-12-15T22:18:00.002-07:00

I know we're way behind with our posts, but we had to share pics of our Pebble Beach trip from early October, so here they all are in the following slide show! More posts coming soon hopefully. Pictures are supposed to be worth 1000 words, so with that in mind, time for the video now:

2008-11-10T21:34:00.007-07:00

It's been awhile since our last post, so we thought we better get going and share a few recent pics! The plan is to add a video this week of our October vacation to Monterey, CA, but this will at least get something on here. October was a very hectic month that came and went very quickly - capped off of course with a very warm Halloween! Interestingly enough, within 5 days, we had four inches of snow on the ground! Snow on the ground on election day. Symbolic? Are we heading for four years of winter now with (gulp) President Obama? Crazy and perilous times are coming to be sure, but one thing is also for certain - "No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing! Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly and independently..." What great words from the prophet Joseph Smith and what a fitting description of all that has been happening with regard to prop 8 in California! We are extremely proud of all our family members and other members of the church in California who worked so hard to make proposition 8 a reality. That is one of the bright spots of last week's election day for sure. We appreciate your efforts and your endurance. May God continue to bless you as you stand up for what is true and right and good!

We're having a GIRL!!!

2008-09-05T20:57:00.004-07:00

We're looking forward to another princess in our family! Brooklyn is excited to have a baby sister, and Spencer has no idea what's coming!!!

Let the craziness continue...

Waterfalls, Minivans and the Ensign

2008-07-21T08:11:00.003-07:00

Life continues to stay busy around our house. I spent every spare second from April to June completing the landscaping for our house. I buried all the drains, dug trenches for sprinklers, then put in our sprinkler system myself which was no small task, but very cool to look at the finished product and know that I did it all! We put our grass in right before we left for New York on June 10th and pleased to report that the sprinkler system actually works - our grass is not dead! It is so nice to have a yard finally! Brooklyn and Spencer go out there all the time now to play. We had intended to put in a playground of some kind, but later decided a trampoline might be better. That was a good move because Brooklyn jumps on it every day! We also put in a basketball court which provides a nice flat surface for riding bikes, wagons, or maybe even shooting baskets once in awhile. The final piece to our landscaping puzzle was completed on July 7th - a water feature in our front yard. Now we'll need to complement it with some flowers and such, but overall, we're real happy with how everything turned out. In other news, we turned in our Honda Pilot this month and replaced it with a Honda Odyssey - yes a minivan! despite the stigma about minivans, we're real happy with it and with #3 on the way, it will make things much easier for sure! I'm being lazy and not posting any pictures this time, but will do so next time around. However, there's a video below that you won't want to miss:

This month's Ensign talks about sharing the gospel through the internet, so in an effort to do our part, we put this together and thought it would be cool to post it on our blog. Hope you enjoy!

4th of July in Park City!

2008-07-15T19:19:00.005-07:00

The 4th of July found us in Park City which has become something of a tradition with the Stevens family. We go up there, stay for a couple of days, take in the alpine slide and all the other cool stuff in Park City, play golf, etc... We really had a good time and it was a nice getaway from the heat of the valley! While on the trip, we found out the Mitzi and Chris (Robb's sister) are also expecting a baby! Mitzi is due on essentially the same day as Lori!! That was a huge surprise to everyone because they had said they were stopping at two. Sometimes the Lord has other plans. Here are a few pics from our Park City getaway:

Brooklyn riding on the plane ride at the Park City Mountain resortAll the Stevens cousins. As you can see, the older ones know the drill, but the younger ones are still being trained. Let me explain: Nobody does ANYTHING at a Stevens activity until Nana Stevens has taken a picture or two or five. This one was the 2nd or third try, but they never all looked at the camera at the same time. "Lucky" for us, Nana never gives up! Oh what fun it is! Here are all the Stevens gals looking beautiful on a Sunday afternoon up at Deer Valley. (Lori is the hot chick 2nd from the left). If you hadn't noticed by now, Robb is the blog master for the Stevens fam, so I'm taking some editorial liberties.
Our little family at Deer Valley on July 5th.

Lori and Brooklyn walking into church on Sunday the 6th during our stay in Park City.
Here is Spencer attempting to ride a deer at Deer Valley

Brooklyn and Robb right before plummetting down the alpine slide. What a blast! While we did this, Spencer was asleep at the hotel, so Lori got burned at the pool!

The 4th in Park City is one of our favorite family traditions, so it's fun to share it with you all!

Stay tuned for more posts.

New York, New York!

2008-07-08T13:33:00.000-07:00

While it's now July, we thought it would be fun to tell you about our vacation to New York in June. While the kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Rasmussen, we hit "the Big Apple" for a few days We really enjoyed seeing all the sights, hearing all the sounds, but not smelling all the smells of a big crowded city! Highlights were definitely a lengthy walk through Central Park, our hotel in Times Square, Wicked (Broadway production), the David Letterman Show, the Statue of Liberty, cool views from the Empire State building, a high speed boat ride around the Manhattan, being at the taping of Good Morning America (although far from the view of the camera)and a bunch of other random stuff. We walked a ton and were glad to have comfortable walking shoes, ate New York style food, and mainly just enjoyed having a break from the little ones for a short time. Ironically though, while there we realized that #3 might possibly on the way! The pregnancy test in our last post was taken the day after we got home. In summary, we'd have to say that we loved visiting NYC, but we're also glad we DON'T live there! If you don't have time to watch the video, here are a few of the pics we are actually in.

We think this picture speaks for itself but if not...

2008-07-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

One more miracle on the way - due February 17th!!

Just a few random shots to get us started

2008-02-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Thought we might as well give in to all your peer pressure and get a blog going. Here are a few recent pics of Brooklyn and Spencer. As you can see, Brooklyn thinks Spencer is her "kissing" friend, Spencer seems to think food on the face is more fun than food in the mouth, after bath, the kids become two little piggies in blankets, Brooklyn is learning to fly, and in their spare time, the kids apparently enjoy wrestling. We predict that within a year or so, Spencer may actually win a few of the rounds! Hope you all are doing well and keeping busy in "good" ways.

Take care,

Lori

rs

If we must, we must!

2008-01-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

Well, with much encouragement from all of you and a little extra prodding from Robb, thus beginneth our blog! Nothing fun yet because it's late on a Friday night, but just wanted to let you all know that we're done dragging our feet and ready to joing the blog craze! More to come...

Lori