Updates

So I know it has been a long time since an update from the Stephens family but we do have some pretty good excuses. Early last Sunday morning, after a long 4 1/2 year battle with cancer, my paternal grandfather passed away at the hospice house. He was truly an amazing man and we all miss him terribly already but his strong faith in the Lord was always unwavering and we know for sure that the moment his physical body died his spirit was free with Jesus. that is truly a blessing to know and be excited about for him. We last saw him in mid December and could tell that he was getting weaker but he fought long and hard to be sure that his bride of almost 62 years got to spend as much time with him. They got married when my grandmother was 18 years old and my grandfather proposed on their first date. My grandmother waited until a short time later for another proposal to say yes and their love story is one of movies. Life has been hard at times, wonderful at times, and trying at times but the Lord was their stronghold and their love remained. My aunt got married about a year and a half ago and we were not able to go but there is an amazing picture of them dancing at her wedding after just celebrating their 60th anniversary and it makes me cry to think about it.

I also just want to say that my aunt Jayne is a wonderful woman. She is returning home this weekend after being gone since right before Christmas. She has spent much of that time with my grandparents while my grandfather was dying and was by his side almost ever moment at the hospice house holding his hand, touching his face and just showing such love for her human father. She spoke along with my dad and my uncle at my grandfather's funeral and it was such a blessing to see how God has called us to love and take care of each other especially our earthly families. We love you aunt Jayne and we know that Nana and Big Daddy were so blessed by your love and attention. My parents also made several trips to SC to help care for my grandfather and we know it was tiring and hard on everyone but it made a big difference to him I know. We didn't get many pictures while we were in SC, my aunt took a few of them when we went to lunch so hopefully she will have a cute one.

Here we were with my grandparents this fall when we visited. My grandfather loved his grandchildren and great grandchildren very much!

It was good to see my cousins that we haven't seen since our wedding 4 1/2 years ago. My cousin has three little boys and one is just about 2 weeks older than Savannah so it was fun to see them playing with each other. Her other boys are 7 and 6 and they had a good time playing with Tom. This picture is the oldest one Jacob chest bumping with Tom while he was holding Savannah and James. He was very cute and even came up to me and asked if Tom could chest bump with him while holding the little ones. I felt like I was being asked if Tom could come out and play. So cute!


We actually went to NC first then found out that my grandfather passed away so we traveled to SC for the funeral. While in NC Savannah spent a lot of time riding rocking horses at my parent's and Jayne and Jason's house.

Look no hands!

Savannah knew just what to do since she has a rocking sheep at home from Grandma and Grandpa!

Here is the best picture (we only took a few) of Savannah and Harrison. He is too cute!

One of the highlights for Tom of all of our travels this past weekend was getting milkshakes hush puppies at Cook Out (a NC fast food chain). Here is the list of milkshakes on the board, I don't know if you can see it but Tom was very excited and they were very good.

How can you not like a place with drink options that include "Huge Tea" and "Fancy Shake"?

We also tried to give Savannah some plain grits to see what she thought. Yeah, the first bite was ok but that was about all she wanted.



Don't pin her as a yankee yet though. Jason made a wonderful breakfast for us while we were in NC and Savannah really ate up the cheese grits.

Here is Savannah reading with Daddy on the couch. She had a book and so did Daddy. So cute!

Savannah has also started doing a lot of new things. She is talking and talking ALOT! We love it! It is so cute to have her talk to you and tell you what she wants and say "I Love You". This does mean that she has finally discovered what "no" means. We try not to use the word "no" and say other things because I wanted to her hear something other than no all the time. She will now answer you when you ask her a question by saying "no" and it really is appropriate for the question. She is very close to 18 months and you can tell it. She has decided that she wants to feed everything to herself now and won't even let us feed her oatmeal or applesauce. It gets quite messy but we like the independence that she is asserting. Her total vocabulary is easily 75-100 words and she can even pick out animals when she sees the pictures and say the name with no help from us. Some of her favorites are pig, sheep, dog, cat, cow, duck and sometimes horse. She knows most of the sounds they make as well. Ok, I will stop bragging about how smart she is but we just love her so much!

Here she is walking around in my high heels after we got back from SC and I was trying to unpack. She did a full lap in the house in them!


We realized that we haven't really taken that many pictures of her this week but her is a cute one when she was just playing in her room. Every now and then her cheeks gets rosy and cute!


Tom took Savannah to the indoor play place at the mall today so I could get some time to just clean without Savannah here. I feel like such a bad wife because our house was such a mess. He said she didn't really want to play much or play with the other children. Last night we had a ladies fellowship at our church and I went while Tom took Savannah to our pastor's house to play with their 4 kids while the ladies went out. He said she didn't want to play much last night either and just kinda hung out by herself. That isn't like her but I have a feeling it be because I wasn't there. Tom said last night she just kept going to their front door looking out for me. I feel bad but she does need that time away from mommy sometimes. Here is one of the pictures he took of her today kinda sorta playing.