Jason had the amazing chance to go back to Africa and was gone the last 10 days.

Needless to say, we are so thankful he is home.

The kids and I did really well, I think!

We stayed busy, stayed in our routine and I even got one whole night completely to myself.

Seriously, I don’t think I have spent a night in my own home, ALONE, since before the kids were born.

It was pretty wonderful.

I am not going to lie.

Anyways, Jason had a great trip from what I have heard and I am so thankful we are apart of  a church that invests in the Nations.

How are you serving?

This came home from school the other day and I thought it was just precious!

Dear President Obama,

my name is Parker. Are you a Christ Follower? How are your dauters? How old are they? When are there birthday? My birthday is Dec. 7.  God bless you

from

Parker

Age 8

What a crazy week we had last week. We helped out some friends and kept their kiddos a few days, kept my niece over the weekend and the kids were out of school! Not to mention that Emery got strep throat. Needless to say, we had a packed week and weekend. On Friday, we took the kids and Lauren, my niece to lunch and bowl. This was one of the best things we have done in a while as a family. The kids did great! Bradley actually was beating Jason and I through the 7th frame. I kid you not! I think that says a lot about Jason and my skills as well as Bradley’s!

Friday night Jason and I went to Romance and Roses, which is an annual night out for married couples. I LOVE that our church is actively involved in strengthening marriages.  I can’t say enough about what a blessing it is to be on a staff that values our marriage and seeks to protect the relationship that Jason and I have with each other.

So, come Sunday night, it was all about celebrating as a family!  I will be honest, I am not a big fan of  V-day.  But, it does make for an easy family night!

Parker helped me get ready by cutting out a lot of hearts…she also set the table for us!

This is an easy night to decorate for…just throw out some red and call it done! I used red hots, red candles, heart plates

and white serving pieces.  I also picked up some fancy glasses at the Dollar Store. Such a big spender, I am!

For dinner, we had heart shaped pizzas from Papa Murphy’s and breadsticks.

Here are the fancy glasses with cherry 7-up added. Yes, we had several spills….

For dessert, we had Red Velvet Cake Balls

…they have the face only a mother could love,

but were yummy….I am laying off the cake balls for a while….they do too much damage to the ol waistline.

maybe they were a little messy….

We also had chocolate covered strawberries…white chocolate and dark chocolate.

Emery had been battling strep throat, but her meds kicked in and she was able to

join us at dinner.  She is such a trooper..

Next, we all wrote out things we loved about each other.

I helped Bradley a little…

He liked that Emery plays with him, Parker helps get him breakfast,

dad plays wii with him and how his mommy loves him.

This was really cool to hear what the girls wrote.  It is also fascinating to see how they listed

things about their daddy that they loved and just said I am the best mom or that I love them……not sure what all

the psychology of it means, but it is interesting none the less.

The look on their faces when reading their notes and hearing what others said about them is priceless…. (even with a low grade fever)

Jason had also written out scripture on love on some of the hearts. So, we read them, talked about them and how we can live it out….simple devo.

Next, we played a little game of pick up stix, conversation heart style.

We used some sticks and tried to see how many we could pick up in 30 seconds.

This

was harder

than you

might think (check out the tongue for concentration)

Then we tried to use our hearts to make sentences….yeah, not so much!

Afterwards we dumped out the hearts and let the kids build away.  Emery make a city with hers…

and Parker just kept stacking hers…

I hung our hearts in the window to help remind us about loving each other

and about loving Jesus….

Another one in the books…..

When you think of the word frantic, you come up with some really not so pleasant images.  Hurried, stressed, impatient, at the end of your rope!  When you pair that with your family, it becomes downright scary.

For those of you who know Jason, you know he is a strong leader and extremely strategic.  He likes things to have a purpose and objectives that help meet that purpose.  Obviously, that is one of his roles at church.  If you don’t want him to ask the Why? question, don’t invite him to the conversation!  This also manifests itself in our family.  Don’t get me wrong, we don’t outline everything we do and identify what our goal is and 5 subsequent objectives to meet that goal!  But, we are very future minded, in terms of our parenting, our finances and our faith.  We look at the end result, I guess you could say and work backwards.

Enter this book….

The author of this book is a business leadership guru and Jason had read all of his other books.  Then, this one came out geared toward the family.  The basis of the book is restoring sanity to your family.  Not really something that is gushy, lovey and warm fuzzy.  During our addition, we let a lot of things slide, so we were ready to restore some organization, time management and routine to our home.  One aspect that is seen in all of Lencioni books are that he tells a fictional story about a company or in this case, a family.  He also gives a lot of examples on how to apply the techniques to your family.  The book instructs you to ask your family 3 BIG QUESTIONS:

1. What makes our family unique?

Basically, this is a combination of a mission statement and description of your family.  When we started answering this question, I looked at him and said, “The fact that we are doing this, makes us unique.” (insert somewhat cynical voice.) We did end up having quite a lengthy discussion, though. We had to determine the distinction between who we ARE and who we WANT to be!  This is 3-4 sentences.  One of our lines is : We believe in strategic decisions that impact our family’s future, living out our strengths for God’s Glory, to display the joy of Christ, and join God’s heart for the nations.

The cool thing is there is no wrong answer.  Each family is wired differently and has different things that are important for them.  It could be being outdoors, sports, serving others…anything goes.

2. What is our top priority- rallying cry- right now?

This can be anything you are dealing with as a family that you want to address and intentionally focus on for the next few months.  It can be finances, a project, a child’s behavior, or planning for college.  Our rallying cry was to Re-Establish our Family Routine and Daily Strategy.  Next, you define your objectives to address your rallying cry.  One of ours was Family Nights two times a month and date nights two times a month.  So far, we are doing a decent job at this.  Then, you look at your standard objectives.  These are just the things you want to be addressing as a family in general.  For example, finances, exercise and faith were three of ours.

3.  How will we talk about and use the answers to these questions?

The book suggests meeting at least once a week to check in.  Jason and I check in on Sunday nights and give ourselves a “color” to grade how we are doing.  We also look at our budget. Red means needs a lot of work and green means doing well.  We also check in daily about the next day.  These are things that most couples probably do in some form or fashion.  This just gives structure and accountablity on seeing it through.

We have all of our quesitons answered and hanging on our fridge to remind us what we are rallying around right now.  For a girl who has struggled with being disciplined my whole life, this is really helpful.  This is really just a jumping off point for conversations that we need to be having as a couple and as parents.  In my times with the Lord and in the Word lately I keep coming back to living the abundant life.  I think great marriages and strong families don’t just happen.  We have to be intentional in creating those relationships. As a wife of one and the mom to three there are a lot of things that can fall through the cracks.  This is just helping us minimize those crack fallers!

Here is our Valentine’s Family Night from last year…in case you needed any ideas!

We had our third family night this week and it was good.  It had been a really taxing day for me, and I was not looking forward to all I needed to do once we got home from school, but we did it!

We decided to have a Valentine’s Day celebration.  This was an easy one, because there are tons of websites, blogs and magazine articles related to crafty ideas focused on the Day O’ Love.  Heaven knows, I am not a Creative Guru, and our motto is “Originality is Obscurity of the Source.” (Rick Jenkins)

I decided to make a fancy dinner, decorate with red and watch our wedding video.  Our children have never actually seen it, and honestly, it had a been a while for me, as well.  Parker’s verse at school this week was 1 John 4:12, “No one has never seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”  So, we talked about it at the table some.

How pretty are these strawberries??

How pretty are these strawberries?

Check out that technique of dipping the strawberry into the chocolate!

This is so simple to do, but looks super fancy!

Our table, before I added the chargers, dishes and food.

Our pink drinks, to add to the look of love.

Our fancy dinner consisted of baked spaghetti, garlic toast,

strawberry applesauce and our drink!Again, be in awe of how good these look, especially in a footed pedestal server.

I also through in some Ritz/Peanut Butter crackers, dipped in chocolate!Eating her dessert!

Bradley went for the crackers.Loving the strawberry after declaring she would not like it.

Also, take note of the future orthodontic work that will be needed!!

During dinner, the girls told us what they love about each person in our family and a way they could show that person love this week.  Emery said she loved my hugs and kisses, which is funny because it such a game to see if she will let us kiss her!  They also loved that Bradley is wild, yet that is what they also get tired of after he tries to tackle them (out of his love for them) all afternoon!

Here are a few things I learned after watching our video:

1. 1997 Video Technology- NOT SO GOOD.
2. My music, while progressive at the time, or so I thought, included an organ.  Why?
3. My bridesmaids were hot!
4. I still get chills watching it.  Such an amazing day.  I have no doubt that I got a much better man than I deserved.
5. I would wear my dress again, which is no easy thing to say 12 years later!
6. It is a little confusing to an almost 3 year old to watch his parents get married. He kept asking “Where I are?”  Try explaining you were not born yet to an almost three year old!
7. Favorite Line- Parker says, “I didn’t know LuLu had those kind of clothes!”

All in all, it was a good family night!  What have you done with your family this week?

Here is our Valentine’s Family Night from last year…in case you needed any ideas!

We had our third family night this week and it was good.  It had been a really taxing day for me, and I was not looking forward to all I needed to do once we got home from school, but we did it!

We decided to have a Valentine’s Day celebration.  This was an easy one, because there are tons of websites, blogs and magazine articles related to crafty ideas focused on the Day O’ Love.  Heaven knows, I am not a Creative Guru, and our motto is “Originality is Obscurity of the Source.” (Rick Jenkins)

I decided to make a fancy dinner, decorate with red and watch our wedding video.  Our children have never actually seen it, and honestly, it had a been a while for me, as well.  Parker’s verse at school this week was 1 John 4:12, “No one has never seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”  So, we talked about it at the table some.

How pretty are these strawberries??

How pretty are these strawberries?

Check out that technique of dipping the strawberry into the chocolate!

This is so simple to do, but looks super fancy!

Our table, before I added the chargers, dishes and food.

Our pink drinks, to add to the look of love.

Our fancy dinner consisted of baked spaghetti, garlic toast,strawberry applesauce and our drink!

Again, be in awe of how good these look, especially in a footed pedestal server.

I also through in some Ritz/Peanut Butter crackers, dipped in chocolate!

Bradley went for the crackers.

Loving the strawberry after declaring she would not like it.

Also, take note of the future orthodontic work that will be needed!!

During dinner, the girls told us what they love about each person in our family and a way they could show that person love this week.  Emery said she loved my hugs and kisses, which is funny because it such a game to see if she will let us kiss her!  They also loved that Bradley is wild, yet that is what they also get tired of after he tries to tackle them (out of his love for them) all afternoon!

Here are a few things I learned after watching our video:

1. 1997 Video Technology- NOT SO GOOD.
2. My music, while progressive at the time, or so I thought, included an organ.  Why?
3. My bridesmaids were hot!
4. I still get chills watching it.  Such an amazing day.  I have no doubt that I got a much better man than I deserved.
5. I would wear my dress again, which is no easy thing to say 12 years later!
6. It is a little confusing to an almost 3 year old to watch his parents get married. He kept asking “Where I are?”  Try explaining you were not born yet to an almost three year old!
7. Favorite Line- Parker says, “I didn’t know LuLu had those kind of clothes!”

All in all, it was a good family night!  What have you done with your family this week?

On Thursday night, we had another Stew Family Night with a snow theme.  I had been planning this one for a while,  just looking up what we could do and let me tell you…there are endless possibilities with building a night centered on SNOW!

For decorations, I painted some branches white and hung some snowflakes from them and switched out all the red in my kitchen with blue and white.

You can see that we all wore white shirts to celebrate our snow night!

On Wednesday, I started making these cake pops with  my handy assistant, Emery Kate.  She loves to help out in the kitchen.

This was my first attempt at these, and let’s just say….it was pretty obvious!

We started out dipping the snow pops in the chocolate and it pretty much went downhill from there…

I had major chocolate melting issues for some reasons and wasted about 3 bags of white chocolate.

So, I ditched  the idea of making them look like a snowman and settled for snow pops!

Or Snow Balls!

Either way, they were amazing to eat!

Working with the kids was interesting as well…can you tell who did which ones???

This is the reality of doing family nights. Sometimes our efforts in creating a fun, happy night end in disappointment at times. Things don’t always go as planned or hoped.

This was one night, that at the beginning, I was ready for bedtime! Just the way it is sometimes!

For dinner, we had Potato Soup or melted snowman soup!

After dinner, Jason talked to the kids from Psalm 51:6-7

⁶ Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

We talked about sin and the holiness and purity of God. We also talked about the cross and how Jesus

watches us clean, like snow.  Such an amazing picture of salvation that the kids could understand…at least somewhat!

Next, we did a little craft. My kids love to paint and do crafts, which is fun, stressful, and messy!

I bought some votive candles and we went to work creating our own snowmen candle holders.

Their personality traits are

so evident when we do things like this.  Parker, the perfectionist, can get caught up in getting just right.  Emery wants to do it a little differently than

what we have suggested.  Bradley just jumps in and has fun doing it!

Bradley managed to cut his hair twice with the scissors…I told you it was one of those nights…

Bradley creating his masterpiece…

Emery putting some finishing touches on…

Bradley’s completed craft…the face only a mother could love!

We were going to play a game and “build a snowman” by wrapping them in toilet paper and scarves, but

it got really late, so we headed to bed.

And the next morning it started to snow……

The Stews have been quite busy lately.

Last weekend, we went to Knoxville to visit the grandparents and for me to have a visit with a family who are adopting.

About a year ago, I started working part time for an agency that completes a homestudy for families who are wanting to adopt. This is one of those things that God has
completely took be surprise. I was set on one path, but as usual, He has another plan! Needless to say, I am loving working with families who are
adopting. If you have any questions about adoption, please feel free to ask me. I would love to answer your questions!

So, while we were in, we had a blast. The reason I chose this weekend, was so my sweet man could go watch some VOL basketball. He LOVES UT basketball.
They were playing on Thursday night and Saturday afternoon, so we took the kids out of school and headed to Kville.
Jason was able to go to both games and I actually went with him on Saturday. It was so fun! It had been awhile since I had been to a game, so I was pumped.
They introduced the new football coach while we were there, Coach Derrek Dooley. His kids are just darling!
We won both games which made it even better!

Friday night we went to see the Harlem Globetrotters.

The kids had fun. They were funny, but it is sooo cheesy.  My favorite part, without a doubt was the mascot Big G.

It was really cute!

We also went to see Grandad at work. He is a bailiff for one of the judges and wanted us to come by! Bradley had a blast. He got to experiment with the xray machine and made many friends in the process!

Last night, I was able to take the girls to see 101 Dalmatians, The Musical.  Mom, Kim and I got season tickets to the Broadway series at TPAC.    They decided not to go for various reasons, so I took the girls. I will be honest, I was not looking forward to it.  It was raining, it started at their bedtime, I had to drive downtown and I was tired.  But, we persevered and they really enjoyed it.  Beauty and the Beast is coming in June and we are planning on taking all the girls!

Here are the 2 pictures we took before we left.  As you can see, I am taking my time in decorating the hallway!  I also have very few pictures of me with my offspring.  Ohh, the trials of motherhood…

fun times with my girls…

So there is a snapshot of what we have been up to…

I am planning a family night this week.  Anyone want to join me??

Like many of you I am overwhelmed with all the devastation that has occurred in Haiti.

The number of deaths, thus far, is being estimated between 50,000 and 100,000, larger than many of the towns or cities we live in. The amount of children injured, scared, alone is simply heartbreaking.

There are many organizations that are mobilizing to help. We have supported Compassion since 1996 and will be donating to support their efforts. Please consider how your family can help.

Haiti Earthquake

We have been very lax in our formal, themed family nights, but we are kicking the New Year off right!

I am excited to get back in the groove and have some ideas that I am kicking around to see how they will play out!

Here are some of my future family night ideas:

• Do It Yourself Night: I want to have a night and cook around a fondue pot. I haven’t worked out all the details yet..
• Arts and Crafts Night: Jason and I have big plans for our big hallway.  On one side, we plan to hang original Stew kids artwork. So,we are going to paint some canvases on this night.
• SNOW, SNOW, SNOW Night: All things snow and snowmen are on the agenda for this night
• Love is______Night: This is for V-day.

But, tonight, we started it back with Kid’s Choice Night.  I let the kids choose one item for dinner and one activity for us to do as a family.

Emery chose Pigs in A Blanket from her new cookbook Paula Deen’s My First Cookbook. Observe her creations and mine! With her half wet hair!

Parker chose Ice Cream and Bradley chose french fries…it was kid’s choice!!

During dinner, we talked about choices. We looked at all the choices we make during the day, why we make those choices, and what our decisions are based on.

Jason read Luke 4:1-13, which describes Jesus’ temptation by Satan. We talked about temptation, wise and good choices, bad choices and how Jesus

used Scripture to resist.  We also talked a lot about how our choices are based on God’s Word and His Truth.  We talk about how it can be

hard, difficult, not what those around us do, but that our choices reflect who we serve.  This turned into a great conversation.

We also want them to understand that they have a choice in how they respond and how to stop from reacting to a situation and think through how they need to respond.

GREAT LESSON FOR ALL OF US!!!

Next, we went on to the fun part of our night! Bradley chose to play Hot Wheels on the Wii.

It is a little above Bradley’s skill level, so we switched to Mario Kart.

He beat me twice in Mario Kart. I am Wii challenged and totally got scored by my 3 year old.

Parker chose the game Beat the Parents.  This is a trivia type game where the kids answer questions for kids and

parents answer questions for parents.

Our questions…not so easy.

For example, True or False: Polar Bears live in Antartica.

We chose True….WRONG!

List the colors of the Rainbow in order….We missed that with the first word out of our mouth.

The kids…so easy…for the most part!

Which is the pronoun in this sentence: She rode to the market.

Seriously??

The weirdest one was this for the kids: For what purpose did women wear a bustle:

To make their bu**s look bigger.

Seriously??

This should give you a good idea of who won!

and we didn’t even let them win, sadly.

Lastly, Emery chose to play High School Musical 3 Dance Wii game, which we had not played yet.

Surprisingly, this was a lot of fun!

We will be playing this one again!

All in all, it was a great night.  We had a fun, relaxing evening, that didn’t take much pre-planning, but I think will have huge

payoffs for the future!

So, what about you? Any family night ideas to share?