Beach Fun

Yesterday was beach day (ok I LOVE the sound of that!) I love the fact that there are A LOT of beaches within 30 minutes of us which makes it really nice for my plan of having Reena's birthday party at the beach since she's going to have a Spongebob's theme. We are so close to the city where we went kayaking Friday and we're also so close to many places to hike. I'm usually afraid to take my kids out to do too much because it seems that any time we do a lot of things, kids come home sick. I hear people's kids throwing up after a day of fun and I wonder "is it worth it?". But the beach was such a great and refreshing place to be and it was a nice break for us. We drove to our friends house and met up with them and we all crashed at the beach for lunch. We're just so happy to be in Seattle. We love it. I know of no other places that you can go kayaking in the city like here in Seattle. It's absolutely beautiful. The weather has been great, too. The coldest has been about the high 60's and the highest has been about low 80's.

My beautiful family

Me and my best friend

Me and my 5 weeks old Debrie

Reena and her best friend

The girls after all the fun at the beach


Our Kayaking Date


We kayaked to the lake house that was in Sleepless in Seattle

5 things I've noticed about Seattle

First of all, I love blog. It's my journal pretty much. So my topic today is about Seattle's drought. Yes we went through a drought and broke our record. 30 days of sunny 70 degree weather and without rain! But of course it rained today and it ended that record. This however, lead me to think of some things I've noticed about being here in Seattle/Issaquah. Here is a quick peek of some of those things for ya'll.
1. Seattle doesn't really rain, it sprinkles. We get overcast often but we do see the sun even on a cloudy day. Drive 15 minutes is our theory for getting the sun. Oh look, the sun just came up as I'm writing this and it's forecasted to be cloudy today.
2. Seattle is the number one place to eat. Besides going to all the fun museums and zoos for a date, you can also go out to eat. There are so many choices on restaurants here to pick from. We just recently went to a Persian and Afghani restaurant.
3. If you like water, you've picked the right place. Puget Sound, Lake Union, Lake Washington, Lake Sammamish are all within 25 minutes of our house. Lake Sammamish is 5 minutes from our house. We are going to take advantage of kayaking in it in July.
4. Houses are expensive here. No home builders build just a simple boxy house like our house in Spanish Fork. They're all fancy with all sorts of angles and vaults and they all have a fine dining room even though they also provide a place for a nook. Makes it nice for less decorating but you pay the price for it.
5. It's very green here. They plant evergreens where ever they can such as on top of freeway bridges and overpass and you also have the natural evergreens...hence, this city is called "Emerald city". Very beautiful.
Once you've lived here, the desert seems boring. It grows on you, too!

Leviticus 24:11

While reading their scriptures, Dan's brother Troy and his wife Erin stumbled across this scripture in Leviticus 24:11
"And the Israelitish woman’s son blasphemed the name of the LORD, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:)"
Although the first part is nothing neat, in fact it's quite the opposite (we better watch out for Debrie's grandson), the last part is pretty NEAT! It made it look like we got the idea for Debrie's name from this scripture. It's not, but still pretty cool.

The girls and their daddy

While watching "The office" on our computer (We have 4 computers why pay for cable right?), Reena saw that her daddy was holding Debrie in his arms so she told him "I want to sit on daddy's lap" and so Dan picked her up. After a while I guess he just realized how cute it was that he had his 2 children in his arms with one on each side so he turned toward me with a huge grin on his face and said " Look at this" and I had to get our camera out to capture this. Our camera is a little old (We bought a Mac rather than a nicer camera) and couldn't really capture this as sweetly as it looks, but this picture is still a really good picture showing how happy Dan is that he is a father of 2!

The girls and I

Yesterday while watching a movie Reena fell asleep...which she hadn't done for a while and it was great for me until she woke up. She was a bit cranky so I had her sit next to me on our recliner and I had Debrie laying across her and I and it was so cute. All three of us cuddled and rested and tears started creeping through the corners of my eyes. It was so wonderful that we had that moment together, something I never want to forget. I'm so glad that families can be together forever and my kids will always be my kids because we are sealed. What a great blessing it is. It makes it all worth it in the end to have your body change for a while to get these wonderful children into the world. I feel so blessed, so happy!


Because of the economic turn down my craft supplies have also taken a cut back. It's really not a bad thing because it forces me to be creative with the stuff I already have without running to Michaels for more. So working with the limitation of papers brought out my creativity in Debrie's announcement. They won't all be the same but here are a few of the many different looks on these announcements; at least they're all the same style.

Debrie's possible announcement pics

We just got our family pictures and the girls pictures in their tutus I made for them taken professionally and they turned out SO GREAT but of course we won't get them back until another week and a half because we didn't go to Kiddie Kandids this time (a first!). But I need to get Debrie's announcements out and I don't have the patience to wait so with our camera I took these shots and they turn out great. Reena and Debrie look absolutely adorable together in their red tutus when we got them taken professionally and when I go to take Debrie's pictures, Reena wanted to be in the pictures with her also just like at the studio. She still looks beautiful in just her long shirt and no pants :) With 2 girls there's not as much time to get both dressed I guess.

Best Friends Forever

Reena is the greatest sister ever to Debrie. She loves her. She wants to hold her and give her kisses all the time. Whenever Debrie is in her bouncy chair, Reena gets her own bouncy chair out and sits in hers like Debrie. When Debrie is on the bed she would lie down next to her and they would cuddle up next to each other. Sometimes when Debrie sleeps, she would sit and watch her and tells me "I like my baby sister". She has also been very helpful at getting diapers and wipes and binkies and bottles for Debrie. I think they will be best friends when they grow up. In her own words she tells us "It's going to be my friend". It brings tears to Dan and I as we hear that. We hope they will grow up to be best friends.

TMI or not TMI

My discussion today is on TMI or not TMI. I had a conversation with an anonymous to my blog and a thought came into my mind. Remember this is Thuan Stevens' blogs which means Thuan Stevens will share lots of info about herself and her family and sometimes it may seem a little bit much. I apologize if it seems to be too much information, but who is to say what is too much information to share right? What might be too much to someone might not be too much to others. I'm a very open person. It's my nature. You sorta have to be if you're going to be a therapist. Although the context here is different in that it's a blog, it still holds true that a blog is a place I chose to have these things discussed. Hope those of you who read my blog will have fun! If it seems to be TMI, please disregard the invitation to read it. Friendly and funny comments are invited to share!

Bottle Baby and Sweet!

Here's a little update on what's going on at the Seattle Stevens' house. It's been a week and a half since Debrie joined our family and she has been a joy to her mommy, daddy and sister Reena. She has been such a good baby and was willing to take formula before my milk came in and was not very picky at all. Since then my milk has come in and I have a very fast let down so the pump has been my life saver! It is so convenient to be able to pump for 5 minutes and have 5 ounces to feed her (I think I would win the race if there's a pumping competition :) It makes me very grateful to be in this day and age when technology makes everything so much easier. And of course I thought that since the baby is out of me now, I can reward myself with a nice piece of cheesecake. Dan came home from Costco with $31 worth of fruits, one was strawberries which as you all know needto be eaten fast. So I made the glaze out of fresh strawberries and made the cheesecake. My first cheesecake! I don't know why it's taken me this long to make a cheesecake. It was sooo yummy!

My Kute Kids

Having Debrie made Reena grow up so fast in our eyes. She went from our little girl to our big girl and she is so cute with her sister. She loves to hold her and give her kisses and she's a great big helper. Look how cute they are!