He has a name!

First, here are a few photos of our sweet little guy from his anatomy ultrasounds and such.  He is SUCH a wiggly boy.  I don't remember my other kids being so active until much, much later in my pregnancy. Both Liam and Wes have felt and seen him wiggle around.  He was doing all sorts of karate kicks during the ultrasound. It was sooo cute to watch. I could sit and watch him on the little black and white screen all day.

Next order of business: a name!  His name will be:

Griffin Dieter Stephenson

'Finn'

Now, for the meaning behind it.  Initally his first name was just going to be Finn by itself.  This would have been Addy's name had she been a boy(we've just loved the name).  However, we decided he needed a formal first name because Liam (William) and Addy (Adelyn) both do. None of the 'Fin' first names sounded good to us and then we came up with Griffin and we both loved it.  It just felt right and even though he'll be called Finn all of the time, we knew Griffin was the perfect name.

As for his middle name, we wanted at least one of our children to have a very German middle name, for obvious reasons.  In our church, one of the members of the first presidency and of the quorum of the twelve apostles is an amazing German man who Wes and I have always felt connected to.  He's always inspired us with his amazing talks and his perseverence throughout his life. His name is Dieter F. Uchtdorf. When we came up with Dieter, we knew without a doubt that that was the perfect middle name for our Finn. :) 

Here are some quotes from President Uchtdorf that I love:

"In the end the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happines, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance."

"What we love determines what we seek; what we seek determines what we think and do; what we think and do determines what we become."

"Often, the answer to our own prayers does not come when we're on our knees, but while we're on our feet serving the Lord and serving those around us."

“When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer—no matter how eloquent the oration.”

There are a million more amazing quotes, stories, talks, etc, that I'd love to share, but the point is, I'm so excited that our little guy will be named after such an amazing apostle of the Lord.

A Bouncing Baby...

BOY!

When I was 15 weekish pregnant, I had a few little complications which warranted an early ultrasound (everything is FINE, thank goodness!) and we found out we are expecting another sweet boy. I just knew from the beginning that this baby was a boy. I've never been so sure like I was this pregnancy. We are very excited, although Liam did say that, "Both boys and girls are nice. Either would be good." We announced it on facebook and to family with these fun balloons. It was nice to be able to find out the gender a little early because things had just been sooo rough with this pregnancy, that it was nice to have some good news and fun. I'm happy to report that I am feeling much better finally and the baby is starting to ever so slightly pop out. The next post will be of a more recent belly photo as well as the anatomy ultrasound photos. I have a feeling that now that I am feeling better, time will fly by and this little guy will be here before we know it!

Official Hair Cut

A couple of months ago, I decided to finally give in to Addy's mullet. I just couldn't handle it anymore. So I called up my friend Melina who is a cosmotologist and she came over and cut Addy's hair. Addy loved it and we are slowly getting rid of the mullet as her hair keeps growing! yay!

Easter Monday Hunt

Friends in our ward invited us to a big Easter Monday hunt they put on. I got some cute photos and the kids had a blast. Thanks, Tolleys!

Happy Easter

Blogger has changed it's formatting again, so hopefully this post works out! We had a wonderful Easter Sunday. Liam was *so* excited to find his basket. The Easter Bunny hid it in the cabinet with glass doors under the island. Liam is a terrible looker so he thought it'd be tough. Liam went out before mom and dad and spotted it right away and showed Nana, "Look where that bunny hid my basket!" Silly kiddo. He and Addy both loved their basket of goodies. They tried on their new swimwear and goggles. We all went to church together after Addy had her first adventure getting her hair curled (she did very well. :) After church we went to the Annual Y-town hunt. Unfortunately the kids were split up this year so I only had photos of Addy on my camera from the hunt. She did great and got lots of eggs. Liam was still bummed he didn't find that golden egg. One year we will! We had a very yummy dinner and flew kites after dinner. It was a really beautiful Easter Sunday!

Pre-Easter Fun!

With the crummy sickness I'd been having, I was REALLY looking forward to Easter, getting out of town, spending some quality time with family and just having fun. The weekend did not disappoint!

Saturday morning was spent with mom, dad, Larry, Heather, Shaawn, Peyton, Izzy and Pam. My parents put on their annual Easter Egg hunt for the kids. I think they had the most fun with the silly string. Addy, however, REALLY hated it. She screamed when they sprayed her. Otherwise, she had a blast hunting for eggs with the big kids.



























Addy discovered her love of peeps and candy... It's all hidden now!


We also enjoyed a fun afternoon full of egg dyeing (Peyton was by far the most enthusiastic), baking of unicorn poop cookies, and making chocolates with Pam. We had so much fun!





















The kidlets topped it off with a party in Nana's 'pool'.


That night, the sneaky Easter bunny let me snap a photo of the kids' baskets before he hid them...