New Photos to share

Ok - Josh turned 4 in July. Jakin turned 3 at the end of August. I finally had time to pick through all the photos I took and grab the best ones. I decided to not use my standard black background and went with some on location shots. I think both boys' pictures turned out fantastic! But you be the judge.

First Family Camping Trip!

IMG_6981
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse

We took our first family camping trip. It was quite the adventure for sure. The boys loved sleeping outside, in a tent. We did some great hiking, swimming, playing and truly enjoyed our time. We stayed at Gooseberry Falls State Park. This picture was taken at Temperence River State Park. I look forward to many more camping trips and starting the traditions....

More pictures to follow.
Photos Here

Congratulations!

IMG_6793
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse

Jon and Nicole, I don't know you two, but I do pray that you have a wonderful marriage. It was fun being able to capture your special moment. Good timing on your part! Also, if you need anything else, please contact me. ryancstahl (at) comcast.net.

Enjoy!

Photos Here!

Josh, Jude and the Monkey

IMG_4384
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse

Josh's 3yr pictures were taken with his favorite shirt. The red flowered Hawaiian shirt he is wearing. We only had 2 shirts, but Josh had grown out of his. Well we found another shirt in a 4T size at a thrift store for $1. That allowed me to get this great shot of the kids.

The Boys

IMG_3303-A
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

The boys and I went out a couple of weeks ago to do some hiking. If you ever wonder what is in the heart of little boys, take them to a place where they can hike, climb, get dirty and throw rocks in a river. You will understand really quickly, how much they love adventure. We took this picture at Minnehaha Falls park. We gave it to Laura for Mother's Day.

More Photos Here

Juicy

IMG_2861
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

Jude in the Sink

IMG_3150
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

Josh and Jakin were in the tub and didn't leave any room for Jude. He is pretty funny and gets into everything. I thought this was a great picture of his bath in the sink. It had great light and a great expression on Jude. "you looking at me?"

Jude's First Birthday

IMG_2528
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

Jude celebrated is first birthday on March 21st. It is funny how time does fly. We must be having fun! I have posted many photos from both of Jude's cake eating extravaganzas. By the second time around, he got the hang of it. Click the photos link on the right hand side to see more photos!

Octubre

Octubre
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

I used this photo for emails sent out to our families. It is our way of saying that numero quatro is on the way in October. Boy? Girl? Who knows - we are very excited and look forward to this arrival in a few months.

From the mouth of babes...

In the past, to encourage Josh to eat his dinner, we would tell him that he needed to eat his dinner or no dessert. Seems fair right? Anyway, as of late, Josh as been doing such a great job at eating his dinner. He eats his food and then proceeds to tell us that he would like some "zert". We don't always have dessert, but we do have after dinner treats often. Laura has this thought that Josh and I are really alike. Josh sometimes thinks of the same thing for dessert that I do, without me mentioning it. Laura said that I probably wanted a malt, but I said I was more interested in the "C-A-K-E", in the freezer. I spelled this out so Josh wouldn't hear or understand.
About a half an hour later, Josh asked momma for some "zert". Laura asked what do you want for dessert? Josh said, "cake". So Laura said, "Josh, go downstairs and ask daddy." So Josh comes downstairs and comes to me on the floor and gets about 2" from my nose and says "daddy, I want some cake!" Now Josh hasn't seen cake in a few weeks, so I thought Laura put him up to it, so I asked him if momma told him to come down, he said "yes". So I sent him back upstairs to tell momma that she is silly. I thought Laura told Josh to ask for cake, but this wasn't the case. So after I went upstairs to straighten it out and for Laura to build her case that Josh and I think alike, I went down to the freezer to get the cake. Josh asked are you going to get some cake? Then he said "Are you going to hook me up?" We all laughed pretty hard from that one. I certainly did hook my boys up with some "zert."

Sad Excuse..

I am such a sad excuse for a blogger. Can I use the excuse that I have been busy? We had an extremely blessed, but busy December. By the time December is over, we will have taken 2 vacations covering a total of 1700 miles, we will have had out of town guests, we will have served nearly 80 people for 3 different dinner parties within six days in early December. It has been a ton of fun and we really enjoy having people over. On another note, Jude turned 9 mos old yesterday. Yeah Jude! Picture Jude clapping, because that is what he has started doing the last couple of days. Pretty fun!

Look for some more updates really soon! I will take some new pictures of Jude tomorrow and will post them for you to see!+

This is a long exposure shot of the stahlhouse on Halloween. I think it is cool that you can actually see stars in the photo. Fun stuff for sure. We did have quite the fun on Halloween this year. The boys and I carved pumpkins and hit the neighborhood up for some loot. Josh and Jakin didn't like cleaning out the pumpkin, it was kind of yucky. I have posted some new Halloween photos on flickr for your viewing.



Josh and Jakin were firefighters this year. They had fun. Did I mention that they like candy?

Jude the PeaPod

That is all for now!

GO Here for Pictures!

Updates!

Sorry, it's been a while since I last gave an update. I will try to recap.

The Rock had a baby dedication on Friday night the 20th. Jude got dedicated to the Lord. This is a ceremony where we all promise as parents to raise our kids on the values of the Bible and for us to do that publicly at church. There were at least 20 kids that night which is quite amazing since the Rock started as a singles church. We now have 40-50 kids coming to The Rock. Pretty cool.

The boys and I have been busy outside doing some home projects. Electrical service upgrades, tree triming, retaining wall rebuilding, fence removing, brush removal, sandbox relocation. It has been fun to say the least. The boys certainly have fun with dad outside. We went outside and worked in the dark tonight, then went on an adventure to Menard's. We picked up some supplies for the retaining wall/fence project. I will post some pictures soon, so check back.

Jude is funny as ever. He has this thing with his tongue - he likes to have it stick out. He is also getting more mobile. He is crawling now and before we know it, he will be flying across the floor to get some juicy prize.

House church - The Rock started house churches which meet twice a month in people's homes. I guess that is where the term house church originates. We still meet weekly on Friday nights for the Rock. In the house church we are trying to immitate the example of the church in the book of Acts. We have 4 house churches led by 2 guys each. Our pastor has been mentoring 8 guys at The Rock going through the GCLI program which is our leadership program and in house seminary training. I am one of those 8 and I am co-leading a house church with my buddy Kevin. Each week time we meet for house church we sing, take communion, preach and then pray. I haven't spoken yet, my first preaching stint is on November 14th. I will be talking on Servant/Kindness Evangelism. I am really excited and pumped to be involved in something so unique.

Halloween - the boys and I carved some pumpkins and did some prep on the 30th. We went out on Halloween and got some loot along with Laura handing out invites to a neighborhood progressive dinner. Josh and Jakin were fireman this year. Jude was a pea-pod. Pretty cool costumes. The boys sure like candy.... just like mom and dad!

That is all I can think about right now...

Oh yeah.. more STAHLHOUSE Dictionary Items.

Sheen - Machine
Biper - Diaper
Gaykin - Jakin

Family Photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thestahlhouse/sets/72157594324824540/

See this link for the polished versions of the latest "milestone" pictures. Josh at 3, Jakin at 2, Jude at 1/2. Then our family photo too!

The Stahlhouse Dictionary

Boobins - in the last post Josh had used this term in conjunction with a police car toy. He did use the term again 2 weeks ago. We were on our way home from house church and we had to wait at a stoplight as 2 squad cars went flying through the intersection. Josh said when we got home that he saw two boobins. In talking with Laura, we think this pronunciation comes from Ambulance. As in boolance to the term boobins.

Guk - this is milk. Both Josh and Jakin used this term for milk without learning it from each other. The jury is still out on Jude, he still has some more time.

Sawgage - this is Josh's term for Sausage.

Brocky - Brocolli (Jakin really likes Brocky)

BanBan - Band Aid

PakPak - Back Pack

.... more to follow....

Commonly Heard Phrases in thestahlhouse!

As we are growing as parents, and as our kids are growing up to be more vocal contributors to our household, we have heard some mighty fine "words" come out of the mouth of our "babes."

"Momma, my nose doesn't work!" ~ This was uttered by Josh one morning when he woke up with a stuffy nose.
__

Momma - "Josh do you have to go poop on the potty?"
Josh - "No, I don't have to go poop on the potty?"
Momma - "Why don't you go and try?"
Josh - "Can you help me?"
Momma - "How can I help you go poop on the potty? Go up there and try to go."
Josh - "grunt, grunt, grunt - No poop coming"
Momma - "keep trying!"
Josh - "no poop coming"
Momma - "keep trying"
Josh - "Poop is coming"
Josh - "I poop a lot"
Momma - "nice job Josh"
____

Jakin - "nak"
Momma - "what's that honey?"
Jakin - "momma, nak"
Momma - "You want a 'snack'?"
Jakin - "No, nak"
Momma - "does you neck hurt?"
Jakin - "No, nak"
Momma - "can you show me what you want"
Jakin then takes momma to the bathroom where he gets his Kleenex. I guess that is what he heard. Klee Naks!
____

Josh - "I want my bloobins"
Daddy - "what, you want your bloobins?"
Josh - "Yes, my bloobins."
Daddy - "Can you show me where your bloobins is?"
Josh then takes me upstairs to the toy bin and points to a police matchbox car. So today that was a bloobins. I have know idea where that came from.
____

Jakin - "Bee-yo"
Momma - "you want to watch a video?"
Jakin - "no, bee-yo"
Momma - "Josh, what is Jakin saying?"
Josh - "bee-yo"
.... to be continued, we still aren't sure what Jakin was saying.
___
Daddy - "Josh it's time for you to rest"
Josh - "It's not time, I don't want to go to sleep"
Daddy - "you don't have to sleep, but you do need to rest in your room"
Daddy - "I have to go out and spend time with God"
Josh - "I don't want you to leave"
Daddy - "I have to leave so that I can pray and seek God for direction in leading you and being a good daddy."
Josh - "I want to go with you"
Daddy - "I need to go and spend time alone with God."
Josh - "I don't want you to leave"
Daddy - "I need to spend time with God so I can be a good daddy, don't you want me to be a good daddy?"
Josh - "no, I don't want you to be a good daddy?"
_____

Other news.. Jakin went poop on the potty tonight. As his reward he got to go get ice cream with Daddy. It was a cookie dough blizzard. Jakin was nice enough to share it with me. Yummy!

Nana's Prized Tomatoes

MNStateFair002
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

Here is a shot of Nana posing with her tomatoes. Nice work Nana!

MNStateFair001
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

The Great Minnesota Get Together

MNStateFair004
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

I know I am a little behind in posting updates. I have been busy. Anywho, the boys, Nana and I went to the MN State Fair on a wednesday night. It was quite an adventure. We did pretty well with curbing our eating, but who can resist donut holes and Sweet Martha's Cookies? We had a absolute blast. The kids rode some rides. I even went on the Giant Slide with Jakin. Josh went down all by himself. Nana said "you should have seen the look on Josh and Jakin's face". They loved it. It was also cool to see the Fine Arts building. I always like to look at the photographs. I had wondered about entering some photos in the fair, but hadn't done so yet. Nana asked someone about the process. What she found out is that 660 people submitted art and only 130 were accepted to be displayed a the fair. Odds like that really challenge me, so I just might try and enter something next year.

The really cool thing though is that Nana entered some tomatoes and she took 4th place. Not bad. We are all so proud. This is another reason why I want to enter the fair. Nothing like a good old competition.

Family Photo

FamilyPhotos013
Originally uploaded by thestahlhouse.

Here is a recent shot of our family. We don't all get into the picture very often. We were on our way over to Nana's place all dressed up for Jakin's Birthday. I recently purchased a remote switch for my camera. It has a 9' cord. These pictures were taken with my toe!

It is hard to make the kids smile when there is no one behind the camera. Maybe I need to set up a mirror for us to look at.

All for now!

#2 is now 2

Jakin turned 2 today. It seems weird. In one sense 2 years doesn't seem like that long, but with kids it is a huge difference. It was just yesterday that he was born, right? Man do I feel old. When you are younger, you look forward to when you are older. When you are older you just want things to slow down. Life gets that way sometimes.

Jakin had a great day. He loved all his presents. It was a beautiful sunny day for a birthday too. That was a bonus.

Photos to follow soon!