Stevens in a Nutshell: Busy June

1 year ago we all quickly fell in love with this little bundle:

She has been a blessing and fun addition to our family. We sure love her

her reaction to eating a lime popsicle:

all prettied up and ready for church:

She is a drama queen and quite demanding but we all love her crinkly nose smile.
At 1 year old she is starting to run. Loves eating whatever we're eating. Is weaned from nursing and drinking regular whole milk. She loves juice and will gladly take a bottle anytime. She has two teeth on bottom and two teeth on top coming through. She still doesn't sleep through the night but is doing better since we pinned her pacifier to her pajamas so she can find it easier. She is very good at expressing what she wants. All she does is point and babble and screech and we usually know what she needs. She hates diaper or clothes changing. You have to pin her to the floor or she will be off running across the room naked giggling with her powers of escape. She loves her bath time but doesn't really like the pool or splash park. I'm pretty sure it's because she doesn't like anything remotely cold.
To celebrate this past year of life I threw a ladybug bash.
This is the invitation I made and passed out

Polka Dots and Little Black Spots,

That's What Ladybugs are Made of.

Our Little Lady, Breahna, is Turing One,

so Fly on Over and Join the Fun!

The Infestation Begins on Saturday,

June 15th at 12:30 pm

meet at Porter Park Splash Park

(in case of inclement weather:

*** S. *rd W. Apt *)

A Feast Will be Waiting for all our Buggy Friends,

Come Ready to Dive in!

We Hope to Spot you There!

Give us a buzz at: (***) **-****

Head Gardeners: Jacob and Kristen Stevens

All week I prepared as much as I could. Friday night I put the cake together:

I have a bad habit of picking the worst cake frosting colors for my kids birthday cakes. I've had to mess with red and black before and I remembered how much I disliked it. This year I went to our local grocery store bakery and bought red and black frosting. I paid way too much but it was worth it!

No, I haven't been tasting the frosting:

It was a really crazy week and weekend.
Jake smoked 60 lbs of pork for a church ward dinner. Plus he made 2 1/2 gallons of bbq sauce to pour over the meat. We were dancing around each other in the kitchen. He was trying to get his stuff done and I'm trying to bake cake, make chocolate lollipops, and everything else that goes into a birthday bbq lunch. Friday night I was busy with this and that when I turned to Jake and declared, "I think I'm and overachiever" As crazy as I can start acting sometimes I really do love creating theses special birthday memories for the kids. I think I have more fun than they do.
My house suffered greatly and it took quite awhile to pull it out of this chaos:

Saturday morning the boys had a primary activity. Their activity was 10-12 and the party was at 12:30. I had Jake take the kids to the activity so I could finish things up. I was feeling pretty stressed by the time the clock was ticking close to 12:30 and Jake was just pulling up with the car. I needed to get everything loaded, to the park, and set up!

Since we were having the party outside at a splash park I made sure to have some stuff to help with outdoor fun:

I had so much fun creating lots of special little details:

I ran to our local grocery store bakery Saturday morning and grabbed a dozen white cupcakes. I had invited a family that I knew couldn't have red food dye. That's what most of this party food consisted of so I wanted something for this family ... they didn't even come. But, we needed the extra cake anyway so it was perfect.

I am rather proud of these chocolate lollipops that I made ... and the pot that they are in.

lots and lots of snacks. I went way overboard on food. We had a lot leftover, and sadly thrown away. The crackers are Ritz with herb cream cheese, cherry tomato, olive, and chives for antennas.

lots of kid friendly drinks:

and I had every kid friendly snack that I could think of:

Jake, as usual, was our grill man. He cooked up some delicious hot dogs and hamburgers:

and was a very good sport and help through the whole day:

This little guy is Jake's buddy. Will loves Jake and loves to hang out with him. He always runs up to him at church as is always so excited to see him:

We are grateful for our friends that could join us for this very sunny party:

Gundersen's
(they are from Norway! Jake has a lot of fun communicating with them)

Price
Jacob and Sharin

Mendenhal
Noah and Rachel

Watkins
Emberly and Sarah

Cake time!

Since Breahna was queen of the party she needed a staff to help her rule:

That was good cake:

We should have had her open presents before eating the cake:

After that mess it was a good time to go play in the water and clean up a bit:

She didn't mind it so much this time. As long as it was on her terms:

We gave Breahna our present later that night. It's a giant train with animals. It plays music and goes across the floor and makes animal noises and teaches you about the animals. I was so excited for this present. She also seemed to like it: