Friday, February 2, 2007

January Happenings!

Hello Family and Friends! We are into a new month yet again. Time goes by so fast.
The month of January has been good. After the visits from our family members in December we realized early on in January that we just miss everyone too much. So, we have decided to move back to Utah. This decision did not come easily because we did not want to feel like the move here was wasted. We feel like we learned a lot by being here and experience what it is really like to be on our own. We will be returning to Utah in March and living with Rochelle's Mom for about 2 months before we find an apartment. We will be in the Salt Lake area for about a year and a half finishing up school with Columbia College and Milton will continue to work at Best Buy and if all goes as planned we will move to Logan Fall of 2008 to do our Master's Degrees and then life will be an open page from there, although we do know that we most likely would not leave Utah again.
This month has been back to school time for Milton and Rochelle. Classes are going well for both of them. The kids just keep getting bigger and bigger. Anya is talking better and better everyday and always adding new words, she cracks us up! Gavin is our BIG baby boy. He is almost 16 pounds last he was weighed and we have him in 6-9 month clothes because he barely fits in 3-6 month clothes, he also wearing size 3 diapers. He even has chubbiness on the top of his feet. He is so cute. He is sitting up with support quite well so he really enjoys the excersaucer. He also started this week on rice cereal and some basic baby foods. He loves them! He is such an eater!!!
Not too much has happened in the month of January. We are just trying to get things organized to get moved. We look forward to seeing all of you soon and hope all is well with everyone!

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

December Happenings!

Happy New Year! We hope that everyone enjoyed their holiday season. It was enjoyable for us to spend time with many of our family members.
The first part of December was just spent finishing classes and doing finals. Milton worked quite a bit-the joys of working retail during the holidays.
We had our ward Christmas party on the 15th. It was fun, but a little stressful since we are on the activities committee and Milton was unable to attend due to work. So I was juggling the children along with trying to do my part for the party. We just had a nice ham dinner and some musical numbers from people in our ward and then Santa came. Anya got a cute picture with Santa. Gavin was way too whiney at that time so we didn't bother to get a picture for him.
The real fun of our month began when Grandma Stevens arrived the Friday before Christmas. Anya and Grandma had a fun time making a gingerbread house on Friday night. Saturday we all went to Rochelle's uncle Keith's house for a Texas Earl family party. It was nice. We all had a good time. We did a gift exchange game and Keith's family prepared a game as well.
On Christmas Eve we had Rochelle's moms Christmas party. We got a heat-and-eat turkey dinner from Target, it was quite good. Then we opened all of Grandmas Christmas presents and the kids decorated cookies with Grandma. The kids had a great time.
Christmas day was nice. Anya was not feeling too great that morning so we didn't get up until 8:30. However, after she came into the living room and saw the Ariel Kitchen Santa had brought her she seemed to feel a bit better. She also enjoyed getting into her stocking and finding the one other thing she asked Santa for, a pair of scissors.
After we unwrapped our presents we went to Brett and Deb's house for our traditional Christmas breakfast of scones. It is a great tradition. We had an enjoyable day just letting the kids play with their toys and spending time with eachother. We had a rather untraditional Christmas dinner with snack foods galore. We had seven layer bean dip, spinach dip and sourdough bread, mozarella sticks, chicken strips and much more that I can't even think of. It was good and we didn't have to spend all day cooking.
On Thursday Rochelle went with her mom, sister-in-law and some of the kids to a ranch about an hour from where we live to check the place out for our first annual Stevens family reunion. The place is very nice and we are looking forward to the opportunity to have our whole family there for a special time this summer.
Later, our other family members arrived. Milton's parents, brother and his fiance arrived on Thursday night. Rochelle's Dad, stepmom, sister and her fiance arrived on Friday.
Rochelle's niece McKenna got baptized on Saturday morning. It was a very nice. Saturday night we all hopped in cars and caravaned to Dallas to go to the Cheesecake Factory (our favorite restaurant) It was a good time, with some good food and excellent cheesecake. Sunday was the blessing for Gavin and it was very nice to have so many family members there from so far away. It was a beatiful blessing. He is a very special little boy. We had a nice little lunch after at Brett and Deb's house and then I think most people went back to their homes/hotels for naps. We all got together that night at a meeting room in Rochelle's Dad's hotel. It made a nice area to set up food and they supplied tables and chairs for all night game playing. We were all pretty much done before the new year came but it was a nice opportunity to get together.
I wish you all the best in the new year and we are looking forward to all the things the new year has to bring.

Gavin's Baby Blessing

Gavin's Baby Blessing
Proud big sister

Gavin's First Christmas

Gavin's First Christmas

My scissors!

My scissors!

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning
Anya loves her Ariel Kitchen

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve
Anya and Karissa in their matching PJ's

Grandma and Anya making a gingerbread house

Grandma and Anya making a gingerbread house

My two cuties!

My two cuties!
zzz!!!

Santa and Anya

Santa and Anya