LOL!

Ok, I am having a frustrating day...so I am turning to pics to make me laugh...check this out...Logan and Sophie on the 4th of July...it was their first "lover's quarrel"...though I really only caught the "love" on the camera and not the quarrel....here's Logan going in for the "feel" :)...have I mentioned he's a lot like most men and has to touch everything...including his friends! :)

Sophie makes a good effort at ducking out of the way, but she is no match for Lil' L...

He goes in for the kiss....lol!  Don't they look like they are making out.  If they ever got married this would be hilarious on their wedding slideshow!

And then they look so innocent :)  And truly adorable...they are the cutest babies I know :)  And that's when Sophie turns to him and gets revenge.  At this point I wasn't taking pics, but she turned to him and very slyly pulled his hair and smiled the whole time she was doing it. He was NOT happy and let her know it!  They are so darn cute together even in the midst of a little tiff :)

A Productive Day...finally! :)

Well, hopefully this will be my last picture-less post for awhile. You know how it pains me to post w/o at least one pic!  But, Kev is still working on our Picasa photo program as we speak and I am not sure I can stay up much longer...

But, I will say that today was a lovely day.  First off let me say that on the 4th, we had a stroke of bad luck in that our Yukon bit the dust and died on the way home from the parade.  Not sure how it made it to the gas station which happens to be our mechanic, but it did (maybe that was stroke of good luck?).  Anyway...Kev knew it was the alternator...sure enough it was.  All this to say that it left me w/o a vehicle today.  And honestly that was just perfect...to not be ABLE to leave the house and be forced to wallow in (or clean!) oru filth.  So we buckled down and worked hard--me and the kiddos--even Logan was a doll baby and took two good naps (by good, I mean, 1 hour naps...he is not a napper unless I am holding him or on a car ride which is a major reason I get nothing major done most days).  So, we just hustled and bustled our little booties all day long.  I am sure the kids would say I was a bit of a "work Nazi", but "fun mom" can't always be in charge :)  And I did find one motivating factor for the day...cold, hard cash :)  I gave the kids the job of cleaning out our coat/craft/shoe closet...which I might say is pathetically small for 7 people to live out of, so you can imagine how atrocious it can look in just a few months when things don't get put away properly.  But, they dove right in and did the job and luckily there was LOTS of loose change in there and I told the kids that whoever worked the hardest would get the cash.  I won't spoil the surprise and tell you who won, but maybe you can guess.  I'll try to post pics tomorrow...but we'll just say that it was motivation enough to get them all helping.  Had I known that small change would be such motivation I would have started this long ago.  Anyway...so it was just a productive day.  Nothing real exciting happened...but we got our closet mostly cleaned out...I did about 4 days of dishes in about 1 hour (I forgot I had a kitchen counter!) and am now demolishing our mounds of laundry and will maybe discover my bedroom under them!)  And wonderfully enough we have NOTHING going on this weekend!  This is a Steg first!!!  We can actually sleep in tomorrow (if Logan allows, which I'm sure he won't now that I wrote it out :))....and we might go to see more fireworks at the lake later at night (Log actually liked the ones last night we saw...though the bats flying around freaked me out!) :)  And then Sunday we just have church and our sweet friend's baptism...and then my wonderful in-laws are coming to help redo Shelb/Ash's "failure of a closet".  I am actually looking forward to this weekend.  I am realizing more and more what a homebody I am and how nice it actually is to not be go-go-going all the time!

In closing I just wanted to say how much I love watching my kids play.  They have been super good about just hanging out this summer...and they even mostly get along while doing it.  But, tonight was superb.  They played house and grocery store and other such pretend play outside on our swingset for hours.  They even went through our very old garden and picked strawberries (and grains?)...it was funny to watch.  And my sweet Logan just LOVED sitting with them in the playset and swinging on the swing. He was giggling his manly little boy giggle.  Love that so much.  And then they all took a big bubble bath in our garden tub.  Now if you know our community plumbing you'll know we can really not even use this tub b/c we don't have enough hot water in our house to fill it....but they didn't care...they loved it and had been begging for a bath for probably a year now.  We normally just do showers now b/c they are quick and easy!  They stayed in that tub till they were all pruney and would have stayed til 10pm had I let them :)  Even Logan took part in his first real bath. He loved it til crazy big bro splashed him.  But, it was an all around good day. The kind of summer days I remember from years ago...laid back ones.  They are the best.  And, I am hoping my city girl had a great evening at the ballet (ABT-Sleeping Beauty).  I miss that ballerina of mine, but I just looked at her ballet website and saw that she is in almost every grouping of pictures.  She's made progress this year in not avoiding the camera like last year! lol :)  Way to conquer your fear, Hays (or at least make your mama happy that she can see pics of you!!)

Happy 4th!

Well, I'm still picture-less here (not like me at all, I know!), but wanted to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day now for fear that we will get in kinda late tonight and not be able to post.  We started off the day with a bang...Logan surprised me with a big "rice cereal" poop that not only got all over me and the couch, but my fav. couch blankie.  Not cool, man, not cool!  Highlight of the day so far was the fun(ny) Bloomy parade. Never been before and there were sure some strange sights there (no worries, I have pics!).  Best sight though was seeing my oldest boy (and hubby) walk in the parade with the cub scouts :)  Dylan loved handing out candy and they sure decorated a prized float (lol).  And I love sitting street-side with my bestie to watch the events.  It was fun to be together for our babies' first 4th!  Both of them took lil' catnaps.  We've spent the middle of the day planning our next trip to/from NYC.  Only partly planned, but we made progress.  We have a surprise destination that I think looks fun and fairly relaxing (for our 15th anniversary trip).  So, we're making strides...small ones.  The house is an absolute sty, but that's the story of my life.  Time to head out to our besties' house for dinner and fireworks in Ellettsville.  Here's to hoping the rain holds off (it was sprinkling earlier).  Hope ya'll have a fab. fourth!

A Change in Mindset...

Well, today I had a talk with myself (I do this sometimes :)) and me and myself came to the reality that I just need to take this pressure off myself to try to get this house in perfect order this month....and probably ever.  I just cannot do it with the load I carry already as a busy mom of 5.  I need to not set myself up for that disappointment or it will take way every joy I am  having this summer.  I will be saying to myself..."you took your kids to the pool and didn't clean today", or you "saw a friend and didn't clean today".  I just cannot and will not do that to myself...b/c it is starting to rob me of my summer joy.  So I have decided to just tackle things when I can and to let myself be ok with the mess and to just enjoy my kids (which really I have been doing anyway).  Yes, my small house can sometimes frustrate me, but I've come to realize that the grass is not always greener on the other side and maybe a bigger, cleaner how is not what I need.  Maybe I just need to be content with what I have...and right now that's 5 young (healthy and happy!) children who just want to enjoy their summer with their mama :) 

So, I am heaving a sigh of relief about this today.  It was just becoming too much for me to try to enjoy my days and getting none of these house things checked off my list.  Now if I do them, it'll be a bonus b/c they won't be on my list to begin with!  I like the sound of that better. :)

But, it has been a busy day and as much as a hate yet another pictureless post, our photos are still in limbo-photo-land and I can't access them.  But, it's been a busy day...of appts and such...nothing fascinating, but I really was only home to feed the kids and that was that.  I will say I was disgusted on two occasions today by my middle kids.  They just were a bit rotten at the dentist and the physical therapist.  I seriously think the weather has something to do with it (it has rained more this summer than I have ever seen!) and my biggest boy specifically needs to get outside and do some laps and not be cooped up!  He was a rowdy fella today and he and both the girls spent too much time in timeout in the corner...but I was not taking their loudness, bickering and rudeness in public.  So, it was a long morning for me toting the kids to appts with them not behaving their best.  We had a long talk about this and also about everyone lending a hand to help get chores done. On a happy note, they did work really hard on laundry tonight. I was impressed and it was almost like Hailey was back (she's our super launderer!) :)  So, it's been a super busy day and now the 4th is almost upon us. I love the 4th, but it's still weird for me to spend it here at home...and especially w/o Hays here.  I am used to us all being at the cabin in NC for the 4th. I sorta miss that. But, we'll have fun at the parade tomorrow (our first time doing this in Bloomy...Dyl is in it making a float for cub scouts)...and I'm excited we get to hang with our besties and go see fireworks.  The girls and I even made some fun 4th goodies today in prep (ya' know in all that free time I have! hahaha :)).  I will say that I am not thinking our newest boy loves fireworks.  He cried through most of his first ones tonight as we watched from our van.  We'll see how tomorrow goes....Happy 4th-Eve...and hoping my girl in NYC has fun at the Bronx Zoo tomorrow....and so glad she love Wicked tonight!

Grrr...

Feeling frustrated yet again tonight...not only by the current state of this house, but now we had more snafoos occur with our next NYC hotel stay in a few weeks and have spent a good portion of the evening trying to figure things out with no luck.  Also frustrated to learn that we will be staying in FIVE different hotels on this next trip.  Not sure how relaxing of an (anniversary) trip this will be (with a baby in tow to boot).  I am trying not to get overwhelmed by it all, but it seems like every time I try to sit down and work on the house new "obstacles" like this just seem to suck up time.  Anyway...so I have nothing super uplifting to say today and no pics to boot.  Kev had some trouble with our real computer this morning and our pics our in limbo somewhere needing to be reorganized.  Ugh.  Only great part of the day was spending most of it with one of my sweetest friends (who just happens to be someone I knew at Calvin in nursing school). She is just a doll and we had the best time at Jumpin' Joeys letting our kids run wild while we caught up.  I have to say that good friends sometimes make these dumb non-important frustrations all better.  So, while I have a waste-high pile of laundry taking over my room and a counter full of dirty dishes, I am happy I at least spent the day doing what really matters, being with people I enjoy and letting my kids have fun!  And I think my NYC girl had fun at the Freed (ballet) store in Long Island and she got our big ol' care package early (I thought it might not arrive til Fri!)...yay! 

Wishing I was here...

 ...can you blame me?!  AWESOME!  There is just something about the beach/ocean that makes me feel free and almost like I can breathe better!  I have this thing about living in land-locked places like Indiana that makes me feel almost claustrophobic!  Maybe that was due to growing up on a peninsula all my life?  But, I really just LOVE waking up to this kind of view every single morning.  It refreshes me even during a tropical storm like we were caught in for a couple days in Holden Beach :)

 And we really miss this...a pool!  I think if the kids had a pool they would never leave it!  Makes me wish we could trade houses with Nina and Pops in FL!  And LOL on daddy and Hays (below)....I missed walking on the beach like this...even at night...and seeing who can do better cartwheels...can you guess who won that competition!?

 Here's our first time on the beach in NC...thank goodness for that jogging stroller!  Logan was a happy/sleeping camper in it most of the time!

 And I always love the openness of the mountains in NC...especially on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Maggie Valley! 

 And this time we even viewed it from the back of horses!  Breathtaking!  And below is one of my fav. views in NC...Big Creek.  Love this!

Just wishing I was in these places today...and even NYC, except I don't have pics downloaded to show off of that yet!

It's been a humm dinger of a day.  Logan seriously cried for most of it.  I think his rice cereal has him backed up and he is in bad need of a big poop and feeling pretty crummy while waiting (not to mention his gas about makes us pass out!) :(  He cried in my arms, cried in his crib, cried in his high chair and cried in his car seat. He finally cried himself to sleep long enough for me to get some store errands done. But, what was supposed to be my first day of "decluttering" was not a successful one :(  Defeated once again.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day...

Update...there is hope for tomorrow being more productive/less cryful as Logan apparently did his big poop while I was typing on the blog. Hallelujah!  On a side note, it wasn't even all that stinky of a poop...also a big hallelujah! :)  Hopefully he cleared himself out and feels better!  Oh the cruelty of poop :)

An "Un-full" Day...YAY! :)

Well, I am frustrated today. It's officially July and I actually posted this post yesterday and somehow it got deleted. I actually can see that 10 people looked at it so now I am wondering if something fishy is going on and I need to password protect my blog, which I really don't like to do.  But, I simply cannot be redoing posts or worrying about if things are going to get deleted.  I have invested too much time in all this :)  So I am feeling VERY frustrated this morning b/c I spent quite some time on this yesterday and now it's all gone :( :(  Just tack it onto my life lately...one step fwd, two steps back.  Can't seem to make any progress with anything!  Ugh :(  Anyway...in regards to our day yesterday, I just thought it'd be fun to post some MV, NC pics from our awesome Gritz vacation--one of my fav. stomping grounds!  And I had no real "theme" to this post but to say that I always love how we try to match some of the kiddos in their clothing and this year Nina and Candy were pro "matchers"! :)  LOVE the bright colors.  Candy found all these outfits and our new fav. store (Crazy 8!)...kids looked so cute!  Love this one of Nina and Pops and their super 7!  It really is a great pic of all of them, which is rare to come by with 7 kids sometimes!

Lol...love this crazy bunch!  Even Nina is a crazy-facer!  I love how Hays is looking at Pops, maybe thinking, "if you aren't making a face, neither am I!"...little does she know that he's just "funny looking" anyway :) J/K, love you, dad! (but that hat says it all :)) 

The sweet 4 year olds....only 3.5 months apart and such good buds.  I love that they are so close in age!

SS (Sewing Shopping) Sharon made these cute shirts for the girlies...love them and so did they!

Nina and her handsome little men!  Candy found these cute "toughest lil' brother" shirts too.  Poor D just can't match anyone anymore...he's too big...almost bigger than Shelby!

And LOVE this pic...again...rare that all the kids are happy and looking in one direction!  Great clothes from Nina...love the orange, since it's Pops' signature color...very fitting for his grandkids!

The flashlight girls! lol :)  They don't officially match, but Ash saw Brooke wearing this and she loves to match her so she ran upstairs and found something pretty darn close!

Pops and his lil' guys in their "first mate" shirts on our fav. bridge over Big Creek.

Pops and ALL his FAVS! :)  Poor Brooke...I think she was tired :)  And love the pic below of the "shark boys" pretending to be ferocious!

Well, I am still miffed about the time wasted on this post yesterday that was deleted, but I will say that yesterday was a lovely day.  It was what I like to call and "un-full" day...I think every Sunday should be this way honestly!  We slept in a bit and went to late service at church. It was good to be back after being on hiatus due to vacations for like 6 weeks.  Great to see friends, worship and especially see our besties!  And then we had NOTHING on the agenda for the day!  That just never happens!  Kev and I had both decided the day before that we needed a free day (even though our house needs desperate attention).  We just both agreed that we needed a day to refuel or we are becoming even more worthless during the week as far as getting things done.  And I loved that even our sermon yesterday was along these lines....it was about Elijah and one analogy that stuck with me was about "feeling crusty around the edges" and that if you are to this point you are "burned out" :)  We are totally crustified here in the Steg house! :(  So, yesterday was our day off.  A rainy day and just a good day to do nothing much.  The one "fun" thing we did do was give Logan his first taste of real food (well, not counting the lemon he had in NC and the cake he totally didn't mean to put in his mouth on his half b-day :)).  The verdict is still out if he actually liked the rice cereal.  He didn't refuse it and did keep opening his mouth and thankfully he never gagged (like his brother before him :))...but he did start to puke and cry a bit towards the end.  So as Hailey said when we sent her the pic on the phone "unsure" is all we can say about Logan's first impression of food.  Now we wait and wonder how his first smelly real poop will be.  No more easy peasy not-too-smelly breast milk poops (which honestly do smell quit manly and gross!) :(  And I must admit I am a little sad that he's no longer a 100% nursing baby.  I just loved that he was growing so big just from his mama's milk--proof of how amazing God created us.  Ah well....it's all proof my baby is getting bigger too, which bums me out :( :(  On a happy note, Hailey was in great spirits yesterday.  She texted us bright and early to say she was watching our church sermon from last week online with 3 of her friends.  I was impressed to be honest. I have never watched one of our sermons online.  After that she spent the day out with friends...at Century 21 (apparently this is a shoe/clothing place in NYC and no a realty place...we laughed b/c she had fun trying on crazy shoes and sending us the pics...one looked like a bear died to make it...very wooly!), she also frequented Duane Reade (like a Walgreens) and Starbucks (her staple in NYC :)).  Sounded like she had a nice relaxing day off herself.  We all need those!  So, that's a quick recap of yesterday.  I am miffed this all got deleted, but it just goes to show that I am constantly behind on things and technology doesn't help! :)  Today officially starts "Steg clean out the crap/clutter"!  July is our hopeful month of getting this house ready to sell. We will need major prayers on this front b/c it's a major overhaul--major...I really can't emphasize that enough :)  I almost wish someone would drop off a big dumpster in a our driveway and I could just start tossing everything into it!  Wish us luck!!