The Intentional Life

Owen has been doing an excellent job learning and writing his alphabet. He loves to write on his white board and one day I heard him yelling, "Mommy! See! My Q's" I came into the kitchen and this is what he had wrote. This picture cracks me up - he was so proud of himself : ) Just wanted to share - thought the grandparents would enjoy it : )

Hannah will be a year old in less than a week. I attempted to take some 1 year pictures of her this week. I have found that she photographs completely different from Owen. She has a much more stoic expression and it's hard to capture a smile. I also have a hard time getting her to look at the camera, whereas with Owen he figured out how to cheese for the camera at an early age. All of that said, I managed to just get a few of Hannah so hopefully one will work out to give to the grandparents.

This Easter we were on duty. It ended up going pretty well. On Saturday, Paul's parents surprised us and brought along his brother Ben, wife Jaime, and little girl Alayna . They hung out at the house for a little while. It was a nice surprise to see family, especially since we didn't think that we would get to see any this weekend. On Sunday morning, I attempted to take Easter pictures but as you can tell, it didn't work out. This was the best shot of both of them facing the camera. Sigh. Sunday afternoon we did an egg toss with the other houses on campus, along with a scavenger hunt. It helped fill up the afternoon. In the evening our house went for a bike ride to the local ice cream shop. Thankfully we had nice weather on Sunday so we were able to be outside. Unfortunately , we did not make it to the sunrise service, maybe we'll attempt it next year?

We were cordially invited to attend a Red's game with fellow Houseparents Bruce and Heather Drayer. The Red's (Paul's team) were playing the Met's (Bruce's team) in Cincinnati so it worked well to go there and back in a day trip. We had excellent weather - low 60's, full sun, slight breeze. Plus the Red's won which made the day even better. After the game we were harassed by some drunk fans (called us hicks or something, like I've never heard that before! : ) and then we went to the Creation Museum which is just across the river in Kentucky. If you are ever in the Cincinnati area, you need to make the Museum one of your stops. We only had an hour and a half to go through it but Bruce and Heather had been there before so they knew where to go to get the highlights. You really need about 3-4 hours to see everything. We got back around 11 that night and thankfully the kids were staying overnight with the grandparents so we didn't have to worry a...

This past Tuesday my mom, my mother-in-law, and my sister Amanda took me out to eat for my birthday. Afterward they came to the house to see the kids. Just a few pics from that. Thanks for the lunch, ladies : )

I have been challenged this past week by another blog i have read that said to not always talk about the fun times, but talk about the tough stuff, too. I feel i report a lot of the fun stuff, because it's easier to talk about, but i have an example of the tough stuff that is fresh in my mind and so (with a glass of milk and a piece of leftover b-day cheesecake at my side) i will dive right in... Sundays are hard...let me rephrase that...Sundays for young mothers are hard. I had no clue before having children how exhausting Sundays can be. I know i am speaking for mothers everywhere when i say we get next to nothing out of a sermon (except a few bruises from our children crawling on us with dress shoes on and a few wet cheerios stuck to our shirt). I am often just hoping to catch one good sentence or thought to go away with. I have found that I like to get into church first thing so i am there when they start singing. I hope to at least get the singing in so i can get the wor...

Dad's birthday was this past Sunday and we did a little surprise shindig for him. He knew that his own kids were coming over but thought that it was going to be low-key. But at 6 o'clock my Aunt Marcia and Uncle Brian walked in the door (along with Lori and Jack - a surprise to all of us! :) a minute later U. Derrel and A. Sue, and right behind them were U. Allen and A. Arlene. The surprise worked out great because Dad didn't even see them pull up to the house. He didn't know any of them were there until they walked into the kitchen . I was so glad that it worked for all of dad's siblings to be there. With everyone there, there were about 20 people in the house which led to quite a commotion, but then you expect that with the Steffen's : ) We managed to get 60 candles on the cake and after a bit of help from the propane torch, were able to get them all lit. Many thanks to my aunts and uncles for making the effort to come over to celebrate dad's bir...