Welcome Rosie Lin Johnson to the Steen Family!

On January 29th after days and days of Amber being uncomfortable and ready to be done with being pregnant. ;-) (winky face to Amber from her own impatient mother) Our sweet little Rosie decided to make an entrance. What a beautiful little family! I couldn't be prouder.

Rosie was born at 7:32 pm. She weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces and was 21 inches long. A sweet healthy baby who looks like she has a smile almost from the very minute of birth. We can't wait to go to Utah for a visit. It's times like these that it is really hard to live so far away.

Photographs by  HOINS PHOTOGRAPHY 

Lacey's mission

I am not going to write all about Laceys mission on my blog. You can go to Lacey's Blog to see that. I just wanted to say that the hardest thing about Lacey leaving is I will miss her. I love talking to her. She is helpful and funny. She is a joy to have around and it is a huge sacrifice to have her gone. But.....

She will be the most amazing missionary. She is so kind and thoughtful. She has struggled with learning disabilities all her life but I know all of her struggles have made her strong and brave. She knows how to overcome her fears to accomplish what she want's. She has more faith than anyone I know. She has a very close relationship with her Heavenly Father. Lacey is a special young woman and Heavenly Father has been preparing her for a long time to serve this mission.

I was really struggling with her leaving because I know she doesn't like to write and I worried about it being too hard and her being overwhelmed. The first night that she left, the day before she entered the MTC I had a dream. Lacey was working in a field in Washington. Pulling weeds or harvesting or something. After she had been working for a while she looked around and realized she was alone. Her companion and all of the other sisters and elders were way back at the beginning of the rows. She panicked and looked over and saw the foreman watching her. She said "am I doing something wrong?" in a truly frantic voice. He looked at her for a while longer and said nope your doing everything right.
Later her companion said "you must really like this kind of work" Lacey shook her head and said "No, I just wanted to get it over with so I did it as good and fast as I could. I wanted it to be done but I didn't want to have to go back and do it over."

 When I woke up I felt peace. I know that Lacey will be fine. She knows how to work hard and  it won't matter if it is mental of physical she has what it takes. I am not worried anymore at all.
When we got our first letter from her it was amazing. First of all it was long. (shock) Next I could see she wasn't having an easy time but her attitude was great and I can tell that they can see who she is inside and what she is capable of. These next 18 months are going to be really fun to watch.
I love my Lacey and I am glad to share her with the people of Washington. I hope she brings as much joy to their lives as she has always brought to mine. She will be missed but she is doing what is right and that makes it worth it.

Living with Grandbabies

I could post hundreds and hundreds of pictures of these girls! I just love them so much!

 Evelyn is 15 months

Olyvia is 2 months and she just started to really smile!!

Evelyn loves baby's and getting into things 

But who could get mad at this little doll!

Evelyn knows where her eyes and nose are.

Olyvia is just happy hanging out with Grandma.

Evelyn still gets nervous trying to go down the slide.

She is a pro on Grandpa's Ipad

Evelyn loves her Grandpa!

And he LOVES EVELYN

Yep I love my grandbabies and I love my Sage. Thank you for sharing your cute girls with me!!

Christmas 2013

I love Christmas! Christmas always feels like the beginning to me so this is where I will start. We had a wonderful Christmas. I knew it would be.

 First my parents came to spend Christmas with us. I love it when they come because it is only fun. Never stressful. I love spending time with them.

Next I knew Christmas was going to be wonderful because Sage and Zach are here with their babies. Christmas is always more fun when there are little ones. I wish all of my children could be here but

 it was still pretty great.

 And one of the biggest reasons that I knew Christmas was going to be wonderful was because at church one Sunday early in the season our bishop got up and told us if we were committed to doing what is right he blessed our ward with a promise that we would have a wonderful happy holiday season. Well it worked. We had so many wonderful things happen.

 The best was Lacey got her mission call to go to Kennewick Washington. We had many wonderful temple visits and special experiences while we were preparing her to leave for 18 months.

 We had a new little one born in November. It has been so fun getting to know Olyvia. She is such an easy baby. A joy to have in our home.

 Christmas was simple but so so fun. We laughed and played games and just relaxed. Being together as a family made Christmas very special.

 Evelyn really loved opening and playing with her presents. Watching her get so excited and have so much fun playing was wonderful.

 (I made owl hats for everyone this year)

 Everything about this holiday was special. On Christmas eve Archie and Cindy smith came ad cooked steaks for us. We had Turkey and Steak. The most memorable meal ever. Good food and good company!!

 (Best Friends)

 (Evelyn is almost always happy)

 (Evelyn stayed up way too late last night)

 (lacey and mom doing nails)

 (Sage)

 (Dad)

 (Mom)

 (Marty)

 My dad painted a special oil painting for each of his Children and delivered them in person to each of us this year. Mine is of the stone bridge here in Nauvoo. I love it. We have a lot of great memories there.

(olyvia)

 Unfortunately Christmas can only last so long and Mom and Dad had other kids to visit so we put them on the train to Salt Lake City on Christmas day.

Begin again!!!

As most of you know I had a BLOG! It was a wonderful blog. I loved it. It made me happy. Then one day it all ended. I never knew what or how it happened but all of my photo's were gone. It made me give up. Then I decided to move on and add some more posts but after a few weeks the pictures would disappear. So I quit again.
I am finally over it. I am starting a whole new blog. New name. New address. A NEW BEGINNING!
Welcome to my blog!!