My life with the 3stephensboys is exciting, trying, fulfilling, entertaining, amazing, tiring, inspiring... what God made me for & what I love. Therefore, you may not see many pictures of Darrin or me, but you will get an eye full of my 3stephensboys in all of their glory, amazement and cuteness! Thanks for visiting! Enjoy!
Today, 6 years ago, a precious baby boy was born. He was an answer to prayer and a prayed for baby. After the loss of a little girl 2 years earlier, Kye was prayed for by many!!!!
Kye changed my life in many ways... He taught me that everything can't be scripted, that imagination is amazing and contagious, that a small little person can have a fabulous sense of humor and that I could fall madly in love with 2 little boys!!! (of course now, 3)
Kye you are special and God made you an individual. I love you very much and look forward to enjoying this next year of life with you, no matter what comes up!
I pray that you will continue to love Jesus and grow to know Him better every day; I pray that you will not conform to be like everyone else, but stay true to the person and character that the Lord made you to be!
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! I love you very much! Mom
A dinosaur party was requested and I attempted to comply!!!!
I needed to have a white and chocolate cake, so I made 2. And a good thing, we didn't have any left over!!!!
Kye had a great party at Tiffany Park splashpad! Friends from church & school came and Granma, Pappy, Aunt Shelly and Stephen came too!!
One reason we love to have the party here is that Kye LOVES water!!! It was a perfect hot day! And the kids enjoyed cooling off in the water!
Waiting for the bucket to fall!!! Jax, Kye, Daniel, Shane and George
Pinata, Darrin style!!! We never have pinatas at parties, but we tried it. Using Granma's cane and a nightstick, yes you heard me right, A NIGHTSTICK!!!! We clubbed away!!!
Dakota helps out to get a rip started!
Kye takes a swing!
Trying to keep the flames lit with the wind!
It was a great party and Kye received many wonderful gifts! Thanks to all who came and we missed those who couldn't make it for whatever reason! ;)
Dakota's soccer season is well underway! He has scored in all of the games so far! We have a great coach who has taught them all a lot. It's so fun to see things clicking and the team working together at the beginning of the season instead of just about the time we are done!
Wanted to put up some pics of him playing! He's a lot cooler with his short hair this season!
At school the last couple of weeks, Kye has been learning about life in the "Olden Days."
We went out to Barrington Farm at Washington on the Brazos to see a real "Olden Days" farm and that was a lot of fun. Of course, Kye enjoyed the ducks, chickens, cows and pigs the best!
Zoe, Kye, Kru, George and Rylan
Feeding the Chickens feed
Enjoying a ride in a cart!! Old Style of transportation! SLOW!!!
Kye beamed! How fun it was!!!
The dining room
My boys with the bluebonnets!
At school, they made homemade bread, beef jerky and grape jelly. He sewed a wonderful bird picture, a quilt square and made a pin cushion as well.
Kye's wares - he actually drew that bird and then sewed it himself!!!
Last Friday, we were invited to their "store" to purchase the items that he had made. It was so cute!
We began by doing the Pledge of Allegiance.
And then a few songs and dances of that time including, "There's a Hole in the Bucket." So cute!
"With what shall I fix it, dear 'Liza, dear 'Liza?" Kye is truly quite a little performer!!!
For the store, Kye was in charge of selling the bread that everyone had made!
I'm sure many of you have seen or heard about this already, but as of late last night, I hadn't.
I have to tell you that after watching it, I wanted to throw up and cry all at the same time!!!
This disturbed me so much! And even after sleeping I am still bothered.
This morning in my quiet time I asked the Lord to show me why it bothered me so much! I mean the obvious is that she has denounced Christ! And is "teaching" untruths. Another is because of the enormous influence and impact that she has on SO many people.
I never knew that she had denied Christ! Really blew my mind and upset me. She does so many wonderful things for so many, but she obviously is lost and needs the Lord. She is believing lies.
To be honest, 5 years or so ago I probably would have believed everything that she said. I was lost. I didn't know for sure what I believed or why I believed what I thought I did. (Wow! Did that make sense?) When Dakota was a baby, I watched Oprah religiously! I read every book that she had for her book club, no matter how disturbing the material. I thought, "well, if she recommended it, it must be good and I'm reading things that I would never be exposed to otherwise."
I know stupid and naive!
But I did! I would set the vcr (before dvrs) and watch her when I got home from work. I would say 8-10 years ago she had a book called The Seat of the Soul. I bought it and began reading it. Very different from anything that I had heard or read before. I think I actually discussed some of it with my dad. I didn't finish that one, but probably a little part of me believed it.
This morning though, I think that what the Lord really showed me and told me, but look where you are now and how different you are. Thank you, Jesus!!! I am beyond words thankful that I know the Truth and that I no longer have confusion about what I believe. God saved me and showed me His way and His truth. And because of Jesus I KNOW I am saved and it is only through Him that I am saved!!! ONLY JESUS!!!
I don't read all of her books anymore and I rarely watch her, I may set the dvr if a star that I like or am interested is on. The last show I watched of hers was the Cosby show kids reunion, brought back some nice memories. The last book I read was "The Road."
I remember when this book selection came out, The New Earth, and then the web classes, I thought it was a little weird, but now after watching the video.... WOW!
My point in posting this is to make more people aware. Just because someone or something looks great and does wonderful things, doesn't mean that they are pointing people the right way or to the right One! I'm certainly not trying to get anyone to hate Oprah, we need to pray for her to get saved. Can you imagine how the Lord could use her for His purposes!!!
Tell me what you think! Comment!!! I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Did this bother you? Were you or are you confused by the comments made in the video? We are told in John, that Jesus is the ONLY way, the one and only way!!!!
Did you know that the Texas state flower is the Bluebonnet?
Well, it is! And even though it is illegal, every year, you will find people sitting in Bluebonnets, taking pictures. Yes, you heard me correctly! Professional pics too. People have gynormous portraits of their families.
Last year, I guess I wasn't Texan enough, because we missed out on the whole photo op. BUT!!!! I vowed that this year, I was going to take a photo with me and the boys in the flowers! Who cares if I have 3 boys! I'm not a boy, and I love flowers!
So a few days ago, on a cloudy kind of day, I made the boys change their shirts and nabbed Whitney to help me and we journeyed about a minute away from the house... AND .... WHALAH!!!! (disclaimer....there are so many to show you how frustrating it is to capture a good photo of all 3boys at the exact same time!!!!!!)
SERIOUSLY!!!! Out of all those, there really wasn't 1 that was good of everyone! And I was wanting to print of an 8x10 for Mother's Day for myself! So my fabulous husband did some magic in Photoshop! And here is the picture of all us looking oh so pretty!!!
It looks great and he even added some extra flowers in the back to take away the empty patch!!! Thanks babe! I LOVE IT!!!!!
So now you know.... and know that I'm not the only one who took pictures like this, how do you think there was an empty patch behind us!?! Someone else's hiney had smushed those Bluebonnets!! :)
And of course, we had to get some shots with Ms. Whit!!! Love you Whitney!!!!!
God has brought this delightful, beautiful, talented, special, loving, God-fearing, devoted, sweet girl into my life and my boys' lives! We are so blessed to consider her a part of our family and so happy that Jesus has connected us together FOREVER! And today.... she is DONE with student teaching and school!! WAY TO GO WHIT!!!!! We love you!!!!
I'm a wanna be gardener! I WANT to have gorgeous flowers blooming all over the front yard, back yard, everywhere! I want to have a beautiful garden with tons of veges growing, even though my family wouldn't eat any of it!!! I want to have a green thumb because flowers make me happy!!! Flowers and things growing make me stop and rest! They make me acknowledge how awesome God is!! I love this time of year because everything is green again!! And there are flowers everywhere! Spring is my 2nd favorite season!!!
So....because I want to be good at planting and growing flowers, I bought a couple of pots a while back and Kye and Kru helped me plant. We bought what was pretty to us and when the boys saw the picture of a strawberry on the front of a green plant, they begged to have strawberries!! So we bought 1 strawberry plant and planted it amongst the other flowers that we chose that day. My garden is a small pot, but you have to begin somewhere, right!?!
My flowers haven't been doing very well, I'm killing Marigolds for crying out loud! BUT... the strawberry bush is doing very nice!!! And today, we picked our first 2 strawberries!!! YEAH!!! I was super excited so of course had to document it with photos and a blog post!!!
The first one that we picked and tasted was nice and sweet! They do taste different than store-bought!
The 2nd one was a little smaller and not as sweet, but still a nice treat!
Kru was excited about what was going on, but didn't want to try either!
So Dakota, Kye and I tasted them both.
We have several other strawberries on the plant and look forward to many more to come.
I believe that we will be planting more strawberry plants soon due to the excitement!!!
So...I may not be a real gardener, but I'm ok with that!!! :)
Today, 6 years ago, a precious baby boy was born.
