Steve and Jenny Valentine

We usually post this on Valentine's day, but not this year! Here's our yearly Valentine letter... JOY Rejoice in the LORD always; again I will say, rejoice! Philippians 4:4 J oy has been a running theme for us this past year.  When rooted in Christ, joy is continuous and something that is present through good times as well as in times of suffering.  In fact, sometimes our greatest joys can be found in our deepest sufferings.  For the believer who is in Christ, the purpose of life is to Glorify God, all while becoming more like Jesus and to call others to join us in submission to His Lordship.  This has been a truth we have had to fix our eyes on over this past year through many challenges.  Although very difficult at times, God has given us a deep rooted JOY through the many health complications within our family, a demanding travel schedule with work, the continued refinement of parenting two little ones and times of trusting the Lord during the unkno...

Our little Olivia Noël arrived on February 25, just two days shy of big brother, Isaac's, second birthday. Like the other two kiddos she came early. I kept telling anyone who asked that I expected her to arrive sometime during my 38th week of pregnancy, and even though I hoped for that, I was preparing myself to possibly be pregnant longer. In fact, the day before I went into labor I was having a conversation with a friend and said,"I don't know what it would be like to be pregnant past 39 weeks!" It's always exciting (to me anyway) to experience each individual story of coming into the world, so here's her story. *For those who don't want TMI and to see the story in pictures, scroll on down past my lengthy story telling ;) On Monday, February 24th I went to my 38 week check up by myself (thank you mom for being here with the kiddos!)  In going to my 38 week appointment, I was hoping I would be about 3 cm dilated (because that's what I had been a...

Isaac turned two on February 27 th .  Since his birthday falls around when I was expecting baby number three to arrive, we decided we didn’t want a large birthday party.  The thought of having tons of people in our home before a newborn would arrive was not preferable.  So we decided to have a small gathering with just a few friends at a playground.  The rain put a stop to that idea pretty quick and we ended up at Chick-fil-a instead for a couple hours.  Shout out to the Celebration Chick-Fil-A who gave little plush cows, balloons and ice cream to all of us, what what!  Seriously, we were so thankful for the way it turned out and Isaac had a blast playing with some of his favorite buddies.  It was a perfect celebration of our little man and despite the rain, all had a blast. ( Plus, I'm glad we decided to have the gathering on the day we did because little did we know that Olivia would arrive the following week! ) Isaac doesn’t eat sweets (except fo...