Steve and Jenny Valentine

Our mother's day was pretty low key...mostly because I was out of town the days prior and flew back to Orlando returning the evening of mother's day.  Steve had a meal planned to cook, but had to adjust plans since my flight was delayed and we were pushing up against Karis' time to eat!  So he took me out to eat at Longhorn steakhouse.  I think the best part of my day was Isaac and I coming home and getting to spend the evening with Karis and Steve!  It was fun to be away, but I was glad to be home.  Steve and Karis had spent time planting flowers with cousins, Char and Eloise, along with Uncle Rob on the Saturday before mother's day to give to the mommy's in their lives.  It was fun to hear the stories Steve told about Karis "helping" plant.  Apparently she liked playing in the dirt more than anything!  I didn't get a picture of Karis with my new plants until a couple days later, which was perfect because there were several really pretty blo...

Five years ago today, Steve and I began the journey of our relationship.  We went out on our first date May 15, 2007.  I still remember it like it was yesterday!  I'll keep the details to a minimum ;) I had been working at the Texas Tech Baptist Student Ministries (which is how I met Steve in the fall of 2006).  We had been building a friendship with the intentions of dating.  We both didn't really want to waste time in a pointless relationship, so we were very intentional from the beginning.  Some time in April, we had a conversation about how when I was finished working at the BSM we would like to start dating with intentions of marriage. (Because I was working with a student ministry on campus I wasn't "allowed" to date students-so this is why we waited until I completed my time with the BSM to start dating). On May 15, Steve had been doing some odd jobs around the BSM offices (mostly to spend extra time around me and also so my boss could get to kno...

Karis is in a fun stage these days.  One of the things I find fun is playing with her long blonde hair and making her look "so pretty" as she will say when I'm done.  She is at the point where I can braid it, but have only done so a couple times...afterall getting a 20 month old to sit still for a long time is quite the challenge!  But it's fun to see her than look in the mirror afterward and say, "so pretty"! Here are some pictures from our first braiding session: Steve and I tell her often that she is so pretty and that God made her that way.  But we also try to make it just as much a point to talk about inward appearance as we do her outward appearance.  It's always funny to see the look on her face when Steve is trying to talk with her about her inward beauty!  I know she doesn't fully understand it now, but we desire to lay a foundation now that we will continue to build on as she grows as a lady.  We want he...

Karis always seems to "teach" me something about life, myself, my imperfections, etc.  She has brought out the best and worst in me at times.  I really do thank God for this little girl and that by His Grace he teaches me through moments with her each day.  This morning was one of those moments.  She was flipping through her Bible while I was feeding Isaac.  As I began reading a story to her, she started flipping through the pages.  Normally I try to get her to focus on one story at a time, but I figured it wasn't worth a fight.  She started saying "Jesus" in her cute little way.  She was looking for Jesus in the Bible.  So we found baby Jesus and she said, "Baby Jesus, night night"! (yea pretty much adorable I know!)  She continues flipping pages and starts saying, "more Jesus, more Jesus"!  I laughed and said yea, we all need more Jesus.  So we flipped through pages to find more pictures of Jesus while she continued...

I had every intention of writing Isaac's one month blog...but here we are at two months!  I can see why as a third child it's hard to find many pictures of myself as a baby/child, let alone a baby book (no offense mom...I totally get it now)! Month one: this is a blur mostly...even with my mom here to help the entire first month of Isaac's life...there isn't too much I remember about his first month.  He did the basics: eat, sleep, poop.  That pretty much sums it up!  He did start to hold his head up a little on his own if he was leaning up against your chest.  Definately a better sleeper than Karis was in the first month (although he is a very noisy sleeper, so we were glad to move him to his own crib/room at 4 weeks old)!  In the first month, he proved to eat like a champion and like to spend as much time getting mommy's milk as he could...now earning himself the name "Big Man" and oh so affectionately "Chubs" or "Chugalug".  It...