eat sleep and farm

These are not quotes or facts that all happened today. I have a journal for each child that I write in and so when these funny conversations/comments take place, I jot them down. *Rachel and Kara tend to speak like they're from England. We've been asked {from strangers} if we're new to this country. *Ethan's labor began on a Thursday and he was born very late Sunday night. *With Rachel I had on and off contractions for 2 weeks, but she came on her due date with only 5 hours of real labor. *Kara's labor began on her due date as well and she was born 10 hours later, sunny-side-up. -this reminds me that every baby is very different, even in utero and upon delivery. *Ethan hated pacifiers, but {still} adores his finger. *Rachel loved pacifiers, but when the habit was taken away, she didn't resort to sucking her thumb or finger. And she gave up the paci habit quite well. *Kara loved pacifiers, did not give up the habit very well, but when she did, she als

....Comment #28 - Megan Knight!     "I love your blog Stef! Happy 1000!!!!! Would love amazon :)" Yay, Megan!! I will email you to let you know you won and make sure you'd like the full $50 on an Amazon card. Thank you everyone for playing! It was fun to throw a big event for my one thousandth post :)

This marks the  one thousandth blog post   for me !  If you added the blogging over at Jastef.net, I'm sure it would be far more, but I haven't blogged over there since Kara was a baby. For my simple mind, Blogger worked out much better for me. Sorry, husband.  I've been at this blogging thing for almost 8 years and I'm still not sick of it! I like to write {never thought I'd say that} and I really enjoy interacting with people; friends and then strangers who become friends.  Its great and its been a great way for us to share our day-to-day life with our families, since we moved.  Jason and I have been mulling around what I should do for a 1,000 blog post giveaway, just for fun. Not because I think my 1,000 post is as special to all of you as it is to me. We tossed around the idea of a Kindle, since Amazon dropped the price, but it was still... too much for me. We settled on a fun idea. You get to pick the final result, so read on and then be sure to l

What I'm thinking:  How very blessed I am.  A nearby Shelter had 2,000 pounds of food stolen from them and our Pastors put out a notice, asking us to donate whatever we can, to build their supply back up. I read the email and realized we have a pantry filled with food that can be donated. Blessed .  What I'm/we're reading:   Still reading Sarah Plain and Tall to the kids and for myself, reading my Bible and then a book called Mom and Loving It.   Two mommy friends from church join me once a week so we can go over chapter discussion questions.  What I'm listening to:   Jason is reading the Bible story to the kids before bed.  What we're learning:  about obeying quickly AND cheerfully and being faithful in all things.  What I'm watching:  Biggest Loser is on tonight. I might watch... if there's time.  What's cooking:   today I made our favorite tortilla soup. I'm in a soup mood still, even if this warmer weather doesn't want to cooperate wit

Several weeks ago we went on a firehouse tour. We did this last year as well, but I'm learning its kind of good to go on these tours once a year, as they grow. I was shocked with how much more stuff they learned and understood, just one year later! Needless to say, we had a blast. One of the neatest things about this tour was having our tour guides suddenly getting a call and we got to watch them gear up and take the truck out, with sirens and all! They had the kids line up outside behind the white line and then we watched them 'do their thing' and drive off to their call. We thought it meant our tour was just over -- because they told us previously that they were the only guys there and so they warned us, "if we get called out, you'll have to leave." Lucky for us, some firemen had just returned back from putting out a fire {yes, these guys are amazing} and they jumped out of their gear and finished the tour. Doing a fabulous, detailed job, I might add.

Each one of our kids has had a phase where they say "punkin" instead of "pumpkin". Kara has officially left that stage, but I'm apparently hanging onto it. Ethan corrected me several times when I said "punkin" and they all 3 acted completely put out that I'd be saying a word wrong on purpose. Its so cute though! Like when they say "Balentimes Day" instead of Valentines Day?! I love it. Anyway, we went to the puMPkin patch on Saturday and had a lot of fun! It was a new patch {to us}, right by our house and the weather couldn't have been better. Or as Rachel says, "more perfecter."  the girls had fun in the general store, looking through Halloween, Thanksgiving AND Christmas decorations. I think its funny when Kara sees Halloween decor,  she calls it "evil decorations." Don't worry - we didn't tell her to call them that.  She just thinks they're all freaky looking {since they're meant to be} an

... coming April 2012!

I posted a few of these on Facebook a while back, but forgot to post them here. Since not all of you have Facebook, I wanted to share with you :)  I looked out the kitchen window and saw Ethan following closely behind Jason with his little lawn mower and fake head phones on and died laughing.  Such a cute moment!  Kara's birthday present from Jason's parents. She often tells me, "I'm just goin' outside to mow the   lawn. I'll be in for dinner." :) I think she thinks this lawn mower really cuts the grass because she comes in and has all of us go outside and check her work when she's done.  Not hard to believe. I used to think I was REALLY driving the boats at Disneyland :)   amazes me how dead the lawn was just a few weeks ago!  We had a week with off and on rain last week and its all lush green.  if you look up through the trees you can see my brother-in-law David.  He often helps Jason with the la