Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

(favorite activity--walking on the rocks) (Taking our morning constitution. It was cold!!) As we drove away from the Albany airport, Elisabeth saw the colorful trees and exclaimed, “It’s fall!” Fast forward a week or so to when we were back in Houston. She looked around at the green trees and asked, “What season is it now?” How grateful we are that we can take trips like this and experience the breadth of God’s amazing creation! We loved the cold weather, topography, animals and of course trees that we were able to see in the Adirondacks and later in Saratoga Springs. We spent Saturday through Tuesday at Camp Fowler near Speculator, NY in the Adirondacks. The first 2 nights were in an uninsulated cabin. There was a fire going downstairs, but I could see out the little cracks between the log walls and the chimney. So we snuggled! Elisabeth had a bunk bed and slept great. We were in a double bed and also slept remarkably well. Before lunch on Sunday we took a lovely canoe on Lake Sacand...

(this is the end of our trip--there's more to come) walking with Grandma Saying goodbye to Lake Superior and finally some big waves.

Here is a preview of our coming attraction, Baby Stevens, coming to a hospital near us in March, 2007. I wish you could have seen the movement we saw during this ultrasound on August 10th, 9 weeks. You can see the baby's hands and head very clearly here. The baby measured nearly one inch. Wow—we both marveled at this gift that God has given us. Over and over I kept saying, “This baby is a gift.” This picture was taken a day before the one year anniversary of our miscarriage. We are awed by God’s graciousness to us. We haven’t told Elisabeth yet about the big change coming in her family—9 months is about one fourth of her life right now, a long time. But I have been happening upon various children’s books and poems that talk about the coming of a new sibling. The older siblings never seem very happy about it once the baby comes. But we know eventually she’ll be happy! In the meantime, I nap when she naps (fatigue is my main symptom) and am grateful for the one-on-one time...

Elisabeth loves going to Grandmère and Grandpère’s house. Grandmère has collected many fun dress ups over the years. Here Elisabeth is playing “bride.” She likes to say, “I’m getting married” and asks for the music. This is the tulle and cap from Aunt Claudia’s veil. Sometimes Grandmère even adds shoes and a white slip. I never thought my daughter would be pretending to get married so young! Elisabeth is also really enjoying classical music. I’ve been playing Benjamin Britten’s A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra and she loves to talk about which instruments are playing. There is also a book that goes with it, and she turns the page to the correct family of instruments. And every night after she finishes eating she was to dance. This is not typical dancing music, not even a minuet or waltz. But kids can dance to anything, especially when they like to hop. So Elisabeth hops around vigorously—she especially enjoys the “noisy loud parts.” One night she got up and put her scarf on her ...

Elisabeth makes her tent with a quilt from Grandma Marva. She happily read books inside for a week. John had a birthday on June 6th. Elisabeth was happy to celebrate with him by making a mess with a cupcake. Later in the week we had my family over to celebrate and Elisabeth was very excited about celebrating a birthday again—sure enough, after she and Timothy ate their dinners, she asked for a cupcake. Can’t sneak much by her these days! John's birthday box from home included a marvelous gift that would keep his daughter occupied for hours--a potty for her dolls and things to go with it. John's gift will be much used: new baggy bike shorts. John enjoys a piece of his Ding Dong cake made by his mother-in-law. It was a cake she just had to make for him. And did he love it! A prominent feature in our home these days are potty accoutrements: downstairs we have a potty seat and various books by the toilet. Upstairs we have a potty, a doll’s potty, various books, and various stu...

Timothy turned 2 on May 6th and enjoyed a red fire truck cake (not much left!) Elisabeth enjoyed eating a hot dog like a "big girl." It has opened up a world of opportunities. Oh, look, there's even pictures of Laurel and John on this blog! We're the mature parents. (ed. note: my daughter must be getting older, because we aren't taking nearly the number of pictures we used to! hence not many updates on the blog. Sorry! I could tell you lots of stories though! Today Elisabeth and I were standing in the bathroom (we spend a lot of time in there lately) and she closed the door. Then she said, "This is how we're going to get out" and went to open the door. Then what she said must have reminded her of a book so she said, "Hi, Mommy, this is how we are going to get out." I was confused until I remembered Mike Mulligan and his steamshovel: "Hi, Mike Mulligan! How are you going to get your steam shovel out?" I laughed and laughed, then ...

On Palm Sunday weekend we went camping at Lake Livingston State Park, along with our friends the Kirks and the Oosterhuises. As with all good camping trips, we had some adventure. We arrived Friday early evening and found our sites (with room for tents and well as existing shelters, sort of modified cabins) right on the lake. It was a gorgeous afternoon—not a cloud in the sky. The sunshine was great and there was just enough of a cool breeze. We enjoyed being with our friends, and Elisabeth enjoyed being with her friends, Ricky (3 ½) and Douwe (2 ½). Jennifer and John worked together to get our tents up, but the Oosterhuises had already put up their super duper Dutch tent that could withstand gale force winds on the top of a mountain. It was like a house. I didn’t really think the value of their tent would be shown on this trip. By 7:30 Elisabeth was getting so tired that she just burst into tears about nothing much, so I asked her, “Are you ready for bed?” “Yes!” she said, ...