The Stevenson Story

We celebrated Jack's birthday last week with lots of Buzz Lightyear fun! He started the day by coming into my room and shouting- it's my birthday today! We went on some last minute birthday errands with grandma, and ended up eating lunch at McDonalds as one of her treats to him. I had been promising Jack a Buzz Lightyear balloon for 3 months leading up to his birthday. He kept asking for one, and I told him he could have one on his birthday. Three dollar stores later, no Buzz balloon! Finally I went to a party store, and they of course were out of their $2 buzz balloon, but had a $6 one. So I bit the bullet and bought it. My one splurge for his birthday, and 10 seconds after we got him he brought into a room with a fan on and it literally sliced Buzz's neck open, and Buzz died. I called Party World and they said they would replace it for free. That is some fantastic customer service! (I think I was more upset about the broken balloon than Jack though.) Jack's B...

I didn't realize it has been one month since I posted last, but it has been a little crazy around here, as you will experience in this super long post. We had a fun memorial day overnighter in Eden at Eric's uncle's vacation house . It had a fishing pond out back, a theater room with a baby grand piano and theater seats, an arcade room, and more. It was amazing! Jack dancing in the front walkway of the house with his cousin Jane The kitchen area. The refrigerator is hidden behind one of those cabinets- and the microwave is in a drawer you pull out. Sister in law Annie with her cute new little baby Lucy. One of two master bathrooms. Over on the side where I'm taking this picture is a bidet toilet and across from that a huge walk in shower with a built in steamer. Eric and Avey, aunt Mary, grandma Jo and aunt Nancy Avey LOVED the four wheeler. We barely got her off it to go home. And to show you we really are responsible parents... sometimes It was a fun two days, a...

With Jack turning three next month, we knew it was time to say goodbye to his pacifier for good. We were planning on getting rid of it earlier, but we had a 7 hour plane ride to get through in December, and then with our life being so up in the air, I didn't want to make too many changes in Jack's life at once. Knowing we were going to Disneyland at the beginning of May, I knew I wanted it for the car and to take good easy naps on the trip, but we should be done with it after that. Sooo, for weeks leading up to our Disneyland trip I prepped Jack. I told him after Disneyland we were going to have a big party and tie his passie to a balloon and let it go in the sky and we would say good-bye to it. He understood really well what was going to happen by the time the big day rolled around. We weren't sure if we were going to also let Avey's go as well, but I finally decided we would just lose hers too since it wasn't helping that much at church, and I was afraid Jack ...

Two weeks ago we went to Disneyland as part of our California trip to celebrate my (Eric's) mom and dad's 35 anniversary of getting married in the L.A. temple. What an amazing time. It was definitely worth the wait . Staying in a hotel that is right across the street from Disneyland is a bit mean to the kids though, cause even though they can see Disneyland we still have to wait to go even more. "Open, open, open" Jack and Avey really caught the magic of Disneyland. They loved to see all the Disney characters walking around; granted, we had to make sure we watched a lot of the Disney movies beforehand to make sure the kids knew who they were when they saw them. The whole time Jack kept wanting to see Captain Hook and we almost walked right by him; luckily we happened to turn our heads at the right time to see him in a little cove. Jack was pretty leery about him the whole time and made sure to keep his eye on him, in case he did any funny stuff. Ok we cheated on this...