The Stones

Easter

2010-04-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

We had tons of fun hunting eggs with our cousins at Mimi and Grandaddy's... Nana and Papa supervised while the kids hunted. Of course, we had to turn it into a competition - big mistake. We managed to all find plenty of eggs without too much drama. It's hard to believe we had no crying or flipping out since Aunt Olie thought it would be sufficient to bring empty eggs to hide. I guess she thought someone else would supply the candy...

Take Me Out to the Ballgame....

2010-03-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

It was a perfect day to start our baseball season. The sun was out and we even got a little burned on accident. Colby started his second year as a Titan in his coach pitch league. He went 3 for 3 and hit the ball great each time. Jace made his tball debut as the pitcher. Yes, I realize I said "teeball" so you're thinking, "why do we need a pitcher?". The truth is the pitcher is very important because the boys hit the ball back to that guy almost every time. He did a good job stopping the ball and throwing it to his buddy Maddox for the out several times. There's nothing cuter than watching boys that age do a little hop because they did well and then give each other a high five.

The Stone family was well represented in the stands by two of our Aunts, Lori and Laci. We also had Kade there to watch for a while. All in all, it was a fun day.

Lia was there cheering on her brothers.

Jace getting ready to "pitch" with his windup.

Colby was concentrating on something...

Best baseball buds and brothers. Hopefully we'll have many more pics like this as they grow up through the years. This was a good day in the Stone house!

Vacation #2....Colorado

2009-09-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

The Stones (minus Lia because of the elevation) went to Colorado in August for a huge Stone family vacation. It was awesome. I came back wondering, "Why do we live here?". The weather was perfect all the time, the accomodations incredible (thanks Edmonds fam), and the company was so much fun. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Mexico baby...Vaycay 2009

2009-08-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

Corey and I go to Mexico every year. Did you know that about us? Last year, however, we were unable to go so we've been looking forward to this for over a year. We had a wonderful vacation in Cancun at our favorite resort so far. It had everything we love...good food, nice pools, poolside cabanas, a great beach, and even good entertainment. Corey's sister Jen went with us and we had an awesome time. We did alot of relaxing and reading books. We ate alot of food and did alot of nothing. It was everything you could've asked for in a Mexico vacation.

Lia's Birthday

2009-08-04T07:28:00.001-07:00

Our baby girl turned one year old on July 22nd. On one hand our year was fast and furious, and yet on the other it seemed to move unbelievably slowly. We had a year of lessons learned about faith and love, friendship and family, and the power of prayer. We are still learning, and I feel like it will continue to be a work in progress, as we live our lives everyday with our eyes focused on our Lord and what he has planned for us. If you are reading this, then you have in some way been a part of our sweet Lia's life her first year. Thank You...Corey and I will never be able to appropriately express our gratitude for the support and prayers that you all have given on behalf of our family.

The Wedding

2009-07-12T15:47:00.001-07:00

Here are some pics from the wedding...it was perfect.

Wedding Weekend

2009-07-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was my baby sister Laci's wedding. She married John Nottley, her college sweetheart. They met at Oklahoma Christian where Laci cheered and John played basketball. The wedding was beautiful, perfect, and Laci was a stunning bride.

We went down on Thursday and stayed in a hotel so the boys could feel like they were on vaycay...you know all kids like to stay in hotels. We had a good time hanging out with Lori (my other sister) and her family. Corey's brother Chad and his daughter Shelby were there too.

The next day was the rehearsal dinner. We got to meet all of John's family and friends from England. (Did I mention he's from England? He has an accent and everything) I wanted to try and pick up a little of the "English accent" but it didn't really work out that way. Woulda really been cool, though.

Fourth of July

2009-07-12T15:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, as usual, it's been forever since I've updated this thing...and as you can tell, I never figured out how to upload videos from my new Flip camera. Oh well, I'll get it figured out eventually.

Our Fourth of July was casual, lazy, and wonderful. For the first time in probably about 6 years, Corey and I were both off. We slept in (as late as you can with 3 kids) and pretty much did nothing all day. It was great. We didn't want to be out and hot all day, we just wanted to do whatever we wanted to do at the moment. That's exactly what we did. We did end up that evening going over and swimming at some friends and watching fireworks that night. We meant to go to our other friends' house from church to get a good view, but in usual Stone style, we waited too late and then couldn't get in their neighborhood. We had to settle for a worse view, but sitting on top of Aunt Laci's car, the kids never knew the difference. All in all it was a great day.

Jace's Birthday Party

2009-05-03T06:18:00.000-07:00

We had big plans for Jace's birthday...that was before one solid week of running fever by all three Stone kids. That was before the swine flu. That was before the millions of gallons of rain that fell from the sky and ruined our chances of having a bounce house. We figured out a way to make due, and Jace never seemed to notice the difference. He's such a good kid.

After we cancelled his party because of our family fever we decided to just set the bounce house up for the boys and Lori's kids to have full reign of. Then the sky opened up and it literally rained away our hopes of the bounce house...or for playing outside at all for that matter. We had family over, the boys played the Wii as usual, and we had cake. We watched some Rangers and NBA playoffs and ate some rockin good burgers grilled by Corey. All in all...a pretty good night.

I got a new toy for Jace's birthday. It's a new video camera called a Flip...we'll see if I can figure out how to upload some video we took last night. Wish me luck...

What a slacker I am...

2009-04-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Man, I'm terrible at this. It's been forever since I've updated this blog. We've gotten over Chicken Pox, met Dirk, had Easter and I haven't written a thing. I'm going to try and do better. Really.

Ok, Colby and Laci got to meet Dirk. Laci won this sweepstakes (along with 199 other lucky people) at the Mavs Fanshop and put my name down since she lives in Oklahoma. She ended up getting to come down for it so she, Colby, Jace, and I went to the AAC to meet him a few weeks ago. We really wanted Colby to get to meet him since he's watched all the games all season with us. I forfeited my opportunity so that Laci and Colby could talk to him since they sure weren't gonna let us all in. We were there about an hour and a half early, so being the #1 fans we are, Laci and Colby were first in line. When Dirk walked in and sat down behind the table, Colby handed him his rookie card to have signed. They said he was great and talked to Colby while he signed it. Afterwards, Colby asked him if he could give him a high five. Well, what he didn't know was that Colby thinks giving someone a high five entails slapping them as hard as he possibly can. When Dirk held out his hand for the high five, Colby pulled back and gave him a typical "Colby" high five. Apparently, the sound of the slap echoed through the corridor of the AAC. Dirk's eyes got huge and he smiled and said, "Impressive, man...I've still got to play with that hand." Colby got a kick out of it...as well as the rest of the people in line behind them. And play he did...the Mavs turned it up and ended up the 6 seed in the playoffs to go on and beat the Spurs in the first round. Awesome. We sure do love some Mavs in our house...

We also had a great Easter. Corey of course was at the station. A shift works almost every holiday two out of every three years. Annoying, but that's a whole other post some day when I have time. Anyway, Easter was great. All the boys shirts were picked out to match the princess' Easter dress. They all looked adorable. After church we went to Mimi and Granddaddy's for lunch and an egg hunt. I've included pics of Easter.

Jace's birthday is next week. I'll try and get something posted before he turns 5...

Spring Break Fun...just kidding

2009-03-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

Well, we are on day 7 since we first saw the pox...looks like we're still getting them. She is pretty fussy so we know she feels awful, especially since she never fusses. The good news is she's eating well, and as you all know, that makes mommy very happy.

This stinks for the boys because we are quarantined to the house. (you're welcome, everybody) Today our cousin Kade is over playing...we're obviously counting on the vaccine working. It's beautiful outside, so I'm trying to keep everyone outside playing. I actually talked the boys into pulling weeds in our backyard for money...that oughta keep em out for a while because our entire backyard is nothing but weeds. They ate lunch on our front porch while they took a break. That's about as fun as it gets at the Stone house this year for Spring Break. Hmm...what other chores can I pay them to do? This might not turn out too bad for me.

Chicken Pox...Seriously?

2009-03-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

Yep, you heard it right...Chicken Pox. My mom took our kids to my sweet second cousin's first birthday party exactly 13 days before we saw the first spots on Lia. We found out three days after the birthday party that Kenzi had the chicken pox. That meant that she already had them and was contagious during her birthday party. Of course, as things like that go, nobody had any idea she had them until it was too late. I wasn't too worried about it. I mean, Lia was no where near her during the whole party and the boys have both had the immunization. Surely not...could we be that unlucky? Yes we could. Amazing.

Well, it turns out so far that Lia has handled this with rediculous resilience as always. Nothing bothers this kid. She is amazing. She has several spots all over her that are now crusting over like they are supposed to toward the end of the illness. She's only run a low-grade fever so far. She's been up more than usual at night and hasn't eaten great, but all in all...she's been fine. I don't know what else to say. Now, we can just hope that the immunization does it's job with the boys and that they skate through without a hitch or that at least they have a mild case. We'll see. I hope Kenzi's feeling better, too. Someday this will be a good story for them to tell together.

Action Shots

2009-03-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

Well, after creating a family blog because I thought I'd have so much to write about...turns out I have less to talk about than I thought. Actually, maybe I thought I'd have more time to write than I actually do. Between going back to work, kindergarten homework, starting baseball, and watching the Mavs break my heart over and over again, I guess I'm pretty busy. I do, however, have a few pics to show you. Lately, the boys have enjoyed taking pictures of themselves with my camera doing different kinds of action shots. Most of the pictures have something to do with different Star Wars moves so I thought I'd share some of them with you. The picture of Colby and Lia is before the coldest baseball practice ever known to man. I have more to say about Lia, but that deserves a post all to itself...stay tuned.

Fun Day

2009-02-12T12:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a great day. I was off after two days in a row in the NICU. Although I had plenty to do around the house, I decided I would rather spend my day hanging out with friends and their kids. Lia and I went to her pedi to get her 6 month shots and flu shot. After she handled that with amazing ease, Jace, Lia and I went to Sams. We met Stacey and Maddox there and shopped around while the boys climbed in and out of the huge boxes on the aisles creating chaos all the way. We left and ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A with Jan and her two kids. After lunch I again avoided the work I had waiting for me at home and opted to go to Firewheel and do some shopping instead. It was a perfect day for Firewheel mall...beautiful and sunny. Even though we kept getting very close to getting kicked out of every store because of our rowdy boys, it was nice to get out. I've posted some pictures to illustrate my point about Jace and Maddox...TROUBLE. O well...I think they are adorable.

Introducing...Our Family Blog

2009-01-30T14:57:00.000-08:00

Now that Lia's finished with her second heart surgery and we're in a holding pattern, I thought this would be a good time to transition into a family blog. I'll continue to update Lia's as things progress and change with her, but if things go as planned, we're not expecting to have too much to update you all on for the next few years. Again, we appreciate everyone who has followed her journey with us this past year and continue to ask for your prayers for not only Lia, but for our whole family as our life regains "normalcy" and we continue on.

Corey and I have been married for 11 easy years. We both work full time and have worked out a system of taking care of our kids and our home while the other is working. We trade out days and are able to have one of us home almost all the time. It works for us and allows us to have an appreciation and mutual respect for each other and the way we each handle things at home. He is my rock and I can't imagine my life without him.

Raising a house full of active kids always provides plenty of entertaining stories to share. That's what I hope to be able to do with our family blog. As most parents do, we think our kids are hilarious. They bring us so much joy every single day. (Okay... let's be honest, almost every single day). Our house is loud and crazy and usually not very organized or picked up. We do manage, however, to have a lot of fun and laugh a lot more than we cry.

Colby's our oldest and typically fits that "oldest child" personality to a tee. He's hard on himself and wants to make us happy as much as he can. Unfortunately, he has his mommy's temper and level of patience. He's one of the sweetest little boys in the world, and although a little quirky...he has no problem showing Corey and I how much he loves us. By that I mean any time, anywhere he will stop what he's doing to give us a hug and a kiss...no matter who's around. I love that about him.

Next is Jace...he's 3 years old and much different from his older brother. He's quiet and shy until he warms up to a croud. He is his own person...only doing what he decides he will do when he decides to do it. This kid is funny...hilarious. He's says the funniest things and does funny things. He adores his daddy. He is laid back beyond compare, hardly ever getting bent out of shape about anything at all. And sweet...oh is he ever sweet. We love our Jace.

That brings me to Lia...our precious baby girl. The little girl who has been prayed over more than we will ever know or be able to comprehend. Born with three major congenital heart defects, she has been through more physically at the ripe age of 6 months than most will endure in a lifetime. To look at her, you would never know it. She smiles her famous dynamic smile all the time. Through a stomach virus...through an ear infection...through two open heart surgeries. I believe that God has blessed her with this calm and serene spirit. And I believe he has blessed our family with her.