July 4th

The Fourth of July was a weekend event for our family this year. There was a lot going on and despite not getting to bed until very late each night from Friday to Monday, the kids were awesome. It is so exciting to share all of these first holidays with Owen and Gavin continues to party hardy!

On Friday, my mom, brother, and I took the boys to Gavin's favorite spot - Knoebel's. I love the Friday night bargain prices. You can't beat it. Gavin is such a dare devil. We don't even venture to the kiddie section anymore. Gavin's favorite ride is the Phoenix. Usually this is a Daddy and Gavin event, but since Daddy was umpiring a game, Mommy was allowed to go with him. We sat in the very front and if I wasn't with him, he would have flown right out of his seat. I was scared, but Gavin decided that it is more fun if he doesn't hold on, so I was holding on to him for dear life! Can't wait to see what he will want to go on in Disney World!

Saturday was spent with great friends. We all went to Autumn and Nick's house for the steak night we have wanted to do for 2 years! The food was great and the company was even better. Dominick and Penelope's new swing set is awesome and all the kiddos enjoyed themselves. We even topped the night off with smores and fireworks. Unfortunately, Owen and Penelope fell asleep before the show, but Dominick and Gavin enjoyed it!

Sunday was fireworks night in Ashland. We took a walk to get some light up swords for Gavin and his friend Jake, and my Uncle Jim got Owen a light up spinny ball thing that he absolutely loved! There were some personal fireworks set off before the actual show started and Owen finally got to see his first fireworks. He thought these were great! He sat with Aunt Brenda for Ashland's official show and though he loved the bright lights, exhaustion got the best of him and he fell asleep on her lap.

Finally, Monday was July 4th and we started the day with swimming lessons at Knoebel's. Since many kids didn't show up because of the holiday, Gavin got a lot of personal attention. He learned to float on his back today and enjoyed going down the slide a million times and going underwater. As I said before - he has no fear! In the afternoon, we went to my parents' house for our traditional family picnic and though we were missing some cousins (we do miss you guys!!), we still had a great time swimming, eating, and playing with sparklers!

Me and my Boys!!

Hannah posing with Owen and Penelope!

Owen and Gavin enjoying the slide with Aunt Teri.

Owen and Pap Pap watching Gavin with the sparklers.

Gavin enjoying the sparklers that Daddy got for him.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is always special, but it was exactly one year ago that Greg's Valentine's Day present was a positive pregnancy test. It was very nice timing!

Sunday - Gavin and I spent the day baking. We made cookies for his Valentine's party at school and a cake to take to my mom's house for supper. We also spent a considerable amount of time writing out valentine's for the kids at school. It was a lot quicker when I just wrote them out, but since Gavin loves to write his name, he had to put his signature on every single one. He got a little sloppy by the 43rd valentine but I am proud of him for choosing and signing each one! He is growing so fast!

Monday - Gavin went to school to party and little Owen and I chilled out together. Unfortunately, Owen's first Valentine's Day was the day he got his first major illness. Poor little bug has an upper respiratory infection and is taking medicine. Luckily, he is such a trooper and takes his medicine like a champ. Also, despite feeling pretty crappy, he managed to muster up a smile for the photo albums.

Owen giving smiles despite his sickness. His hands are always in his mouth. I can't believe this kid won't take a bink!

Choosing the right Valentine for each friend at school.

Writing his name on every single card! I was tired watching him.

Mixing the food coloring into the icing.

Spreading the icing.

Enjoying the benefits of icing the cake!

Christmas - Stepanchick Style

On December 26th, the entire Stepanchick family came to our house for our family get together. It is nice to not rush around on Christmas day and we get to spend the entire day together, which is a real treat. Many who know us say that our family could have fun in a dark alley and its the truth. We had karaoke, games, and of course lots of presents - mostly (once again) for my boys since they are the only little ones so far. I look forward to the day when there are more!

I am very glad that everyone came to our house b/c I wouldn't have wanted to lug everything home. I'm not sure that it would have even fit in the car. Although having this the day after Christmas meant that Greg and I were up to 1:30 am getting the house ready, putting away presents so everyone would fit, and cooking. Thank God Greg is such a big help!

Jenna and Owen with Aunt Nan in the background.

Owen's godmother, Hannah. That's Gavin's helmet. Not sure if Gavin's head is big or Hannah's is small????

Gavin opening his millions of presents. Toy Story is not his only love. Gavin also loves to pretend that he is a dinosaur. Now he has a hat and slippers to add!

Playing horsey with Uncle Jim.

Playing Toy Story memory with Daddy and Jenna.

This was also a very special day b/c the Stepanchick cousins got together on November 5 and secretly got family pictures taken to surprise all our parents! It was very difficult keeping the secret for so long, but it definitely brought all the cousins closer and we managed to pull off the surprise. My cousin, Jenna, and I put together pictures in a collage frame for each family and my cousin, Danny, put together a nice DVD presentation to show them before we handed out the presents. It was very rewarding seeing our parents welling up with tears watching the DVD and enjoying their surprise gifts!

Even though we lost our grandparents, we want to keep our family strong and though we are grown up and some are moving away, we will always be family and we want to make sure that our children know what it means to have a strong extended family as well!

Christmas - Grammy & Pap Pap's

My parents and brother are very wonderful people and love my children so much. Nothing makes me happier than to watch them interact with my kids. It is everything that I dreamed about growing up playing with my baby dolls (believe it or not, I wasn't always a tomboy). However, my children are also very spoiled. They got so many gifts that I don't know what we are going to do with everything.

Another very wanted present: the Toy Story landfill.

SURPRISE!! A Toy Story scooter from Uncle Aaron.

Owen was just as interested in presents as he was at our house earlier in the day. Instead he opted to assume his usual position on Pap Pap.

Greg posing with one of Owen's presents. I think that Daddy liked some of the presents more than the boys!

Family picture time!

We also visited my gram in the evening. Gavin loves to show off for Great Grammy and my Gram of course loves to see the boys as well. It was nice to share Owen's first attempts at rolling from back to belly though he didn't quite get there - it was entertainment for the night.

Pictures with Great Grammy. We are going to have to work on Owens's faces for the camera. Gavin is playing it cool for this pic. He is such a ham!

Owen was much more comfortable on the floor. This is the first time that he tried to roll onto his belly. He didn't quite get there today, but it's coming soon.

Christmas Morning

Well it is safe to say that Santa definitely made it to Lavelle this year for Gavin & Owen. It's so funny that Santa left all those presents since all Gavin really asked for was an Ironman mask and more importantly - Buzz Lightyear. Santa had strategically placed his presents so that those would be the last 2 presents opened since he wanted Gavin to open all his presents before wanting to play with everything, but that Gavin is too smart for Santa.

He skipped all small presents and pulled out all the big ones looking for Buzz. When the present wasn't Buzz, Gavin simply stated "That's not Buzz Lightyear" and moved to the next big present. He finally opened Buzz and for once I was grateful for the difficult packaging b/c while I struggled to get Buzz out of the box Gavin decided it would be ok to open the rest of his presents.

Gavin dreams of being a football player and loves to tackle. He also got a Penn State tackle dummy to go with his new Bears uniform, which included shoulder pads. Now he can stop using the Boppy as his shoulder pads.

Santa remembered his Ironman Mask!!

Could this finally be Buzz Lightyear??

Yep, Santa didn't forget!

We had a nice waffle breakfast and then Gavin dug into Owen's presents since Owen was not exactly excited by this Christmas. It is amazing how many presents a 2 month old gets! Overall, it was a beautiful Christmas and we are very blessed to everything. Hope you all had a great Christmas as well!

Owen had a better idea for Christmas morning. He slept through all of Gavin and his gifts.

Christmas Decorating

Last Sunday we decided that it was time to put up our tree. Since we have been married, it has been tradition to get a real tree and this year was no exception. We do not have as much fun as some of my friends though that actually cut their own tree down (Marisa & Kristen - I thought that was so great!). I think that we may have to try that one year!

We brought it home just before the bad rain started, but didn't get to work until later that night. The tree went in the boys' play room this year because we felt that they would enjoy it the most. Gavin did enjoy decorating it, but was not fond of the long wait until night to finally do so. We put the Christmas music on and got to work. Gavin had the most fun putting the ornaments up high because he got to climb on a small ladder to get there. He has a weird obsession with ladders - definitely my part of the kid :)

Posing in front of our "naked" tree as Gavin called it. Owen looks really interested - doesn't he?

Gavin & Daddy putting on the first ornament. Gavin picked a random Coca-Cola polar bear. I am not even sure where it came from. Notice it had to go up high so Gavin could be on the ladder.

Finally getting down to decorate the bottom of the tree.

Me & Owen putting on his 1st Christmas ornament. He was more interested in the lights. I do love this wrap. It makes doing things a lot easier.

Christmas Village

Last Saturday, our family decided to spend a day Christmas shopping in Reading and then head to Christmas Village on our way home. Overall the day was great. Gavin loves Christmas lights and this place is full of them. Unfortunately, we always seem to try to do too much in one day. First, we waited for 1 hour 15 minutes in traffic just waiting to get to the parking lot. This was completely unexpected so the baby was not happy because we were moving at a snail's pace and of course he was getting hungry since we were not expecting that wait. Second, Gavin decided that he wanted to go with Grammy and Pap Pap from the restaurant to Christmas Village so my mom said that Gavin was whining for his mommy the whole time in their car. However, when we finally got there, even though Gavin was tired, it still turned out to be a nice (but cold) night. I just have to remember that we cannot do everything in one day!

When you enter Christmas Village, they have a cast of characters walking around and the cutouts for photo ops. Gavin took pictures with Rudolph, Frosty, and a Teddy Bear.

Gavin and Owen in one of the cutouts.

When you donated money to a local charity that helps kids, you got to ring a bell. We donated a good amount b/c Gavin loved ringing the bell.

Family picture in front of some of the lights.

We waited in line for a half hour to see Santa and Gavin decided to be grumpy anyway. Owen didn't seem to mind.

Uncle Aaron, Grammy, Pap Pap, and Gavin wearing his new Rudolph nose.

Some of the lights.


This was at the end of the path of lights. I just thought it was cute!