I wuv my Yion

I thought I would post what we got Matthew for his first birthday present from us. I actually bought it about 4-5 months ago when Pottery Barn Kids was having a killer sale. We gave the lion chair to Matthew after we got home from our vacation. He doesn't really get the concept yet that it's a chair for him to sit on, but is having a great time climbing on it and biting it's nose. He loves to charge right at it with his head. I gave him the book for the picture below so it's not like he sits there all the time reading his books (although he does LOVE his books). We're trying to teach him not to pull Mr. Lion's hair out or Mr. Lion is going to be bald very shortly. Mr Lion is so cozy and comfy-I wish I had a yion chair of my own.

My foot is asleep

Matthew has always been a good nap taker and slept through the night when we moved him into his own room around 4 months (I know, I know we definitely should have moved him sooner). Once he started rolling over he's taken on his favorite sleeping position (see below). You know he's really tired when you put him down and he gets right into the bum in the air position.

We've found him in a few funny positions during naps over the last six months (see pictures for evidence), but the other day took the cake.

Matthew was having trouble taking a nap so I went in to check on him and here is what I found (he had finally fallen asleep). I just had to take a picture before I moved his feet into a better location.

















You may think that Matthew always goes down easy for a nap and that just isn't the case. On Sunday we were trying to get him down for a nap early in the morning so he could get in two naps before we left for church (we have church 3-6p). He had a football in his crib for some weird reason and he just wasn't taking a nap. Jordan checked on him and told me to go see what our son was up to. At this point Matthew had been in his crib for about 45 min. trying (I use the term loosely) to take a nap. I peeked into his room and saw that he was throwing his football around and crawling back and forth in his crib having a great time. I knew that Matthew just needed a little settling down as he had been up for 4.5 hours at this point and was tired (even if HE didn't know it). I had to be a mean mom and take his football away, lay him down, and start his quiet music. I told him it was time to take a nap and that I would see him soon. Sure enough he was asleep in about 10-15 minutes. Needless to say he didn't get in his second nap before we left for church and consequently fell asleep on the way home from church (a 10 min. ride). There is way too much to look at while at church even if he is past exhaustion.

So there you go...the most exciting thing in our life revolves around Matthew's sleeping habits. :)

BTW-here's one more funny position I found him in just this morning.

Keeping Up With the Stephens

As we approach our 10th anniversary in about a month, it has caused me a bit of reflection on how good those 10 years have been. One of the bonuses of having moved around quite a bit is that we have made some amazing friends along the way, but one of the difficulties is that we don't get to see some of those friends or our families quite as much as we'd like and have lost touch a bit with some people who have been very important to us.

This blog is an attempt by us to keep in touch with all of you a little better. I'll still do my blog, and that will continue to be more focused on my own observations on life, so the five of you who read that can look forward to more of that. This blog will be more about what's going on in our lives, which, as you can imagine, will be absolutely fascinating and compelling stuff. Or it might just be a lot of stories about Matthew's latest adventures.

We'll keep our picture site going, too, and I'll have the latest pictures & blog entries at www.jordanandkarin.com, so you can just check that site instead of checking all three (think of all the time you'll save).

We'll see how this goes - enjoy!