Steve and Jenny Valentine

My mom came into town and spent the past month with us humbly serving our family.  She came down for a few weeks when Karis was born and we were excited when she decided to make plans to do the same thing when Isaac was due to be born.  She was originally planning to come for three weeks, but because Isaac came a bit sooner than expected, how could a mother deny her daughter's plea to come earlier when she asks her at 4:30 in the morning post birth of her first grandson?!  So my mom flew in the day after Isaac was born and we picked her up at the airport on our way home from the hospital!  What a joy it was to have her here.  A mere thank you doesn't suffice, but I think she knows we are very grateful and I tried to tell her often during her time here.  A glimpse of what she did to help us around here... snuggling Isaac for the first time after she arrived more snuggles She often rode cramped in the backseat between the two ki...

To the readers...this is a long story, but if you know me at all, you know I like details! And due to my lack of sleep, I may repeat myself!  Consider yourself warned :) A little back story: When we found out we were pregnant with Karis, I knew instantly that I wanted to have a natural childbirth...by that I mean non medicated and with as little intervention as possible. However, at 35 weeks pregnant, we found out Karis was breeched. Although we did hope she would flip to the head down position, it did not happen and I had a c-section on August 20th and met my first child, Karis Ann! Many people who are in the "I want a natural childbirth" camp, tend to be pretty diehard when it comes to "their" method of doing things...I wouldn't classify myself as a diehard and in the case of my birth story of Karis, I am thankful for doctors who can perform c-sections in order for us to have welcomed a healthy baby girl into the world 19 months ago.  Her birth story is as...

I wasn't going to do any belly pictures but my sister in law said, let's do some!  So we went out to a field near her house and took some pictures.  I always think its akward getting pictures of just myself, I never know how to stand or pose...but Lauren had some ideas of different shots and I think they turned out great!  It was good we took pictures when we did because Isaac was born a week later!  In fact, the day these pictures were taken, later that night I was beginning to have some regular contractions that actually started to hurt and not just the Braxton contractions.  I really did think that night I was going into labor...but prayed I wasn't!  I was so tired from the days events (we had some family in town and so I hadn't gotten much rest throughout the day).  The contractions did subside around 1:00am the next morning and we found out at my doctor appointment a few days after that I was dilated to 3cm...so those contraction...

I have this habit of starting blogs and never finishing them to post...this seems to be the story of my life right now in most areas!  I keep thinking it'll get better...but the more children we have it seems to make protecting time for myself (and the things I enjoy doing) a little bit more difficult.  Anyway, this is one of those blogs I started a while ago and things got crazy...and we had a child ;)  So here it is... My ever so talented sister in law, Lauren, has taken up photography as a hobby (and doing a fabulous job I might add!)  We asked her to take our family picture for our Valentine's day card knowing she would be super silly in order to get Karis to laugh and smile...mission accomplished!  daddy's girl The family picture we chose to use for our yearly Valentine letter I love this picture...it shows in picture how Karis is right now in life...always 10 steps ahead of mommy!  Our busy girl :) ...