Steve and Jenny Valentine

3/19/13 - Isaac's new favorite thing to do is sit in sissy's beanbag chair and read like she does 3/20/13 - I got to hold our nephews,  Anson {left} and Owen {right} for the very first time this day.  I went with Lauren to the hospital during a feeding for a few hours and got tons of snuggle time.  Oh so special!  3/21/13 - I told Steve a while back I wouldn't mind if he grew his beard out a little and he is taking full advantage of that!  Whenever he's holding Karis now, she just strokes his beard, it's hysterical, I guess she likes bearded daddy! 3/22/13 - Karis LOVES daddy/daughter dates {usually to Dunkin Donuts, extra bonus} and so on Steve's day off he took her for breakfast and she was so chatty and happy to be with her daddy alone 3/23/13 - We had the opportunity of attending a Parenting conference {speaker Paul Tripp}. We spent the night away from kiddos since it was about an hour drive from our house.  Thankful for sweet friend...

We were at our weekly neighborhood playgroup this morning when my "usually happy" little girl began having a meltdown...to me this is just a normal occurrence, to my neighbor mommy friends it was surprising. See most of the time they (along with tons of people I interact with) often comment about how happy my kids "always" are and so they were a little surprised to see one of them having a meltdown at playgroup!  I'm so used to people asking, "are your kids always so happy?" to which I will reply, "NO, they are not!" Although I'm very thankful for two kiddos with such sweet dispositions {most} of the time, they are still humans and they are sinful. They still have meltdowns {as today's episode proved to be true}, they whine, complain, yell, talk back, don't always listen or obey mommy and daddy, the list goes on.  As my child was having this meltdown, I looked at one of the mom's who has never seen either of my children cry {...

3/12/13 - This is what we like to do when Steve gets a day off, snuggling and napping :) 3/13/13 - Isaac learning new skills.  He gets so excited when he gets the rings on and claps for himself 3/14/13 - Eat More Chicken! After a fun morning at the Petting Farm with cousins and Grammy and Grandpa, we ate lunch at Chicken Fil-a (as Karis calls it!) to help support our friends raising money for their international adoption. 3/15/13 - Shopping can be a challenge with two kiddos, so I'm always thankful when we can snatch one of the two seater shopping carts. {And as many of you know about Karis' shopping cart accident, we don't want to put either of our children in the big part of the shopping cart, so two seats AND two seat belts are always my favorite types of carts!} 3/16/13 - Nana, Papi and auntie Cathy came through town and we got to have lunch with them before they headed off for a cruise. We love seeing them anytime they come through town. 3/17/...

3/5/13 - I got to visit my neighbor/friend Susan at the hospital and meet her little man, Victor 3/6/13 - On this day, I left my kiddos with my mom and flew to Phoenix to join Steve on a work trip {with a couple days vacation for our anniversary tagged on the end of the trip}. This was the first time I've been away from Isaac and I was a little teary eyed when I got out of the car at the airport.  They did just fine though and my mom was a trooper for the few days we were gone but was HAPPY when we came home {taking care of two littles is a hard task even for the most seasoned mama!} 3/7/13 - We had the joy of meeting with this sweet couple, Richard and Brooke, missionaries who have faithfully served in Poland for nearly 12 years now.  It was neat to hear about all that the Lord is doing through them in the ministry in Poland.  Pray for them :) 3/8/13 - Also on our vacation part of the trip we celebrated our 5th anniversary {dinner at Kona Grill, a restaura...

Today we celebrated five years of marriage. We are on a little getaway tagged on the end of one of Steve's work trips. We have enjoyed sleeping in and spending as much time doing "nothing", afterall, relaxation is sometimes hard to come by these days with two little ones in the house. Speaking of, we have missed them so much and look forward to seeing them tomorrow afternoon when we arrive back in Orlando. {My mom has selflessly given of herself this week to be in Orlando and care for our children while we're away, and we are immensely grateful for her} After waking up around 6 am today and finding it hard to fall back asleep wondering if my sister in law had her babies safely, we finally received a call from her around 7am {our time in Phoenix}. After talking to her for a little bit we got up and ready to head to breakfast. We got the opportunity to Skype with our children and my mom and it was such a joy to see their smiley faces. After our Skype call, we enjoyed t...

We are blessed to have a beautiful pond behind our house and it's always fun to feed the ducks. However lately, we have not been able to feed the ducks, it's sad really because we go outside and shake our bag of snacks and they don't come, always leaving a disappointed two year old. So it was a bit of a surprise one morning last week when we were just finishing up breakfast and I see Isaac looking out the back window out at the pond, pointing and making quacking noises, and sure enough there were several ducks right on our back patio.  I took this opportunity to get the duck snacks out and Karis was very excited to feed them.  Isaac was confused as to why I was giving away "his" snacks to the ducks, but enjoyed seeing them out there none the less.  The fun lasted a while, and then a duck snatched a cracker right out of Karis' hand and that's when I snapped a picture that makes me laugh every time I see it {no she was not injured folks} but she was traumati...

Aunt Lala has taken many great pictures of Isaac his entire first year, starting at his birth.  We are so thankful for her talent and she always knows how to make our kiddos laugh to capture such cute pics. {Not to mention she had her big ole pregnant self laying on the ground for some of these cute pics}  You're a rockstar, thanks Lauren!

Isaac is one year old! I admit I feel a little emotional...such a sweet little blessing he is to us. His birthday started off with him sleeping in just past 7am {all you who know how early Karis rises, you know this is amazing}…Steve got up with Karis and let me sleep a little longer too! Steve took the day off work and we spent the day low-key together as a family. We had a party Sunday following his birthday with our friends and family. If you know me at all, you know I'm an idealist and very sentimental.  His first birthday wasn't at all planned out like I wanted it to be and I was a bit bummed but I made the most of our UN-idealistic situations and we had a fantastic day as a family filled with many special moments.  I had wanted him to wake up and open his gift from us...but due to all the sickness we have had around here in the past weeks, we didn't have his gift and it just didn't happen that way.  So after his morning nap we all loaded up and went to buy his...