Easter Catch Up 2- Houston

 After we left San Antonio Easter morning, we headed straight to Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Heather's for their annual Easter lunch, egg hunt, and volley ball game.  It's always such a fun day with tons of kids running around and lots of family time.  Ella went to whole day without a nap, this social butterfly doesn't want to miss a thing!  When we left she was asleep before the car was even in drive!  Fun times!

All the kids ready to hunt eggs

 Griffin on the move

 Ella had some help from Gigi and cousin Brittany

 Jack was having too much fun playing lacrosse, he's going to be a baller for sure!!!

 Ella was more interested in the Easter grass in her basket :)

Love this sweet girl!!!

Easter Catch Up- San Antonio

 I'm finally getting around to posting our Easter pictures!  We had a wonderful weekend in San Antonio visiting Uncle ConCon, Aunt LeLe, Carson, Lyndon, Mimi, Pops, and Uncle James.  Needless to say we had a full house.  We left early Friday and when we got there we all went to Guadalupe State Park which is about 10 minutes from their house.  It was beautiful and the kids had a blast swimming in the river.  Ella LOVED splashing and throwing rocks and Griffin jumped off a big rock into the river about 100 times!  Of course I took zero pictures.  We also went to a super fun Easter party on Saturday, complete with an Easter egg hunt, Easter bunny, and lots of swimming.  And you guessed it, zero pictures of that too.  So here are the pictures I do have :).

Sweet baby girl ready for bed

 Mimi got each grand kid a set of resurrection eggs for Easter.  They LOVED them and really got into the meaning behind each egg.  A great way to teach the true meaning of Easter.

 Griffin using the whip..ha!

 Miss cutie pie thought it was hilarious to crawl up the stairs into Conner and Leslie's room

 Peter Rabbit bedtime story with Mimi and Pops

 Easter baskets

 On the way to church with Mimi...all the little boys matched and looked precious

 The Austin Family...LOVE them!

Our family...best we could get

Grace Easter Party

Griffin had his Easter party at Grace Preschool on the Tuesday before Easter.  The kids were all so cute dressed up in their Spring clothes and they all had a great time!  The egg hunt was fun but Griffin was too busy talking about what was in the eggs to get very many!  Haha.

Catching Up

Wow, somewhere along the past month life just went in fast forward.  I just realized my last post was over a month ago!  We have been busy with Griffin starting soccer, two family trips, a busy Spring Break, and Jason has been traveling a lot.  The really sad thing is I don't have pictures of any of it.  I'm going to get back on the bandwagon and do better...or at least try!  Until then, here are a few pictures of the kids new birthday swing set (thanks to Gigi, Papa J, Mimi, and Pops) and our garden which has already grown so much since these pictures!

Introducing...

We are proud to introduce the newest member of The Stephens Crew, Chugger!  We lost our sweet Jeter in February, and we thought we'd wait until Christmas before getting a puppy.  Well, turns out we just really aren't the same without a doggie in our home, so after much looking, we found a puppy!  He's a miniature dachshund and just the cutest thing ever.  Jason and I really struggled over names and then we asked Griffin what he wanted to name him.  Now, if you remember his history of naming, he named our Elf on the Shelf "Elf" and our Easter bunny "Bunny".  But without much thought he said, "His name is Chugger!"  Funny, we all loved the name and it's a perfect fit for this sweet puppy.  No dog will ever replace our first baby Jeter, he was one of a kind.  I love the fact that Chugger is so different.  We love him so much already and know he'll be the perfect companion for our family!

Ella Update

 In all the birthday craziness I never got to post Ella's stats from her one year check up and what she's been up to lately so here they are along with her one year photo shoot taken by Sarah Long (she's amazing and took all these adorable pics in a matter of about 15 minutes!!!).
- Ella weighs 22 lbs (72%) and is in the 87% for height.  She seems so short to me so I was surprised by that!
- Had her shots and cried just a little bit and then she was fine.  Over the course of the year she has been sick twice, each time she had an ear infection in her left ear.
- Has four teeth (two top, two bottom)
- Loves anything electronic.  She's like a magnet to the remote, iPad, iPhone, laptop, ect.
- Really likes to play with balls and trains and pretty much shoves her baby dolls out of the way to get to her "boy toys"
- Is in another "mommy" phase when I'm around she wants me (or Jason) to hold her, but will still go to the nursery at the gym and church just fine
- Is creeping along the furniture and loves to walk while holding our fingers or behind her walker.  She's a fast crawler but I'm in no hurry for her to walk!!
- Such a cuddle bug and loves to lay her head on your shoulder and gives lots of hugs and kisses..LOVE this!
- Drinks whole milk now (yea for no more formula)!  This month has been insanely busy so we haven't completely cut the bottle our but she's down to 2 bottles of milk a day (morning and night)
- Eats mostly finger foods but still loves her squeeze baby food.  She's not too picky but prefers softer textures.  HATES anything sweet as you'll see in the last picture!
- LOVES to be the center of attention and I think she'll be our social butterfly with a big personality!
- Loves to clap and wave
- Can say mamma, dada, uh oh, ball, vrooom and recently she's added wow and whoa which is pretty hilarious.  Anytime she sees or hears something new she looks at us and says "WOOOOW" or "WHOOOOA".
I can't believe how much our baby girl is growing and changing.  It's kind of funny because with Griffin I couldn't wait for him to meet his next milestone.  Now with Ella being our last baby, I just want to freeze time and keep my baby girl squishy and cuddly. We love you sweet Ella Belle!

 Love this one...shows her little drama queen side

Told you she hates cake!  Poor baby but I still think this pic is priceless!