My Hubby

With Father's Day just recently, it has been fun for me to read the blogs on some of your wonderful husbands. They seem to be doing a wonderful job as Fathers and everyone has great things to say about their "man." And as much good as is being said..... I would not trade with any of you for the world! :) But that is how it is supposed to be. Isn't it? We are all so in love with our husbands and think they are the best things out there, but we would have a hard time talking someone else in to marrying them. To me it seems like that is the plan and it is working. We SHOULD be bragging about our men and I certainly am in love with mine.

Steve and I had a bit of a rough start in marriage. We had a lot that we had to get used to in one another, and neither of us were very good at just ending the argument. We have learned so much since then. About each other, and about effective arguing. :) It has surprised me how much I have learned about myself after getting married. I have someone that is telling me things about my personality that I never realized or thought was a problem. It is a great way to learn and grow.

Steve is just the man I need in my life. He has so many qualities that have made my life what it is.
Just to name a few.....

1. I love his adventurous spirit! Who would have guessed that I would end up moving to places like Georgia, and then Germany! What a wonderful learning experience these moves have been for both of us. Steve is also one that will decide one morning that he wants to take a trip and an hour later we are in the car headed out of town. Since we have been here it has been really exciting. A few of his spur of the moment ideas were, Belgium, Prague for my birthday, and The Black Forest in Germany on a couple different occasions.

2. I love his love for our children. He really is great with the boys. He loves to play hide-and-seek(which I hate). He is great at wrestling. And we are currently learning how to teach them more respect for their Mother. So far Steve is doing a fabulous job. Although if he saw how the boys behaved sometimes when he is not home, I think he would be pretty shocked. :)

3. He is a great fixer. I already talked about this in another blog, but it really is true. Recently he decided that Tawna (my sister) needed her own computer so that she is not bored stiff after Krista leaves. So, he took a couple of hours, got all of his left over computer parts together, and built her a nice fully functional computer so that she can be on the internet when Steve and I are playing our game.
{Side note: Sorry about the look of our office. It is so hard for us to clean this room because whenever we are in here, we just want to be on the computer. :)
And...we bought a new computer chair today, so Tawna only used that baby chair for about half hour last night. Now she is much more comfortable.}
4. He is a great priesthood holder. He leads our family in the direction we want it to go so that we can be together forever. He has a great knowledge of the scriptures. And he is always willing and worthy to help others out if they are ever in need of his assistance.

5. He is a kind and loving husband. He tries to help me out with anything that I need. He makes me laugh all the time. I tell him he is making my dreams come true of having a loving home with a wonderful family.

6. He is a fabulous cook, as we all know

7. And as was mentioned last blog, he is great at singing and making up new songs. He keeps life interesting.

I love Steve so much and am so grateful that Kristin (his sister) decided that we needed to meet. I have had many happy days with Steve and I see many more years of the same in our future.

Happy Birthday Steve :)

It seems like every other post of mine is a birthday post, but I guess it is just Hughes birthday season. On June 21st we enjoyed celebrating Steve's 33rd birthday and welcoming in the first day of Summer. As you have all commented, we love to have a BBQ with friends and that is what Steve asked for for his birthday dinner. We invited all neighbors this time (no one from church believe it or not), but the funny thing was none of the husbands could come. They were all working. So it ended up being 5 women, and a bunch of kids for Steve's birthday. He didn't mind of course, growing up with 3 sisters and no brothers, he is not bothered being surrounded by females.For dinner Steve BBQ'd his famous chicken in Italian dressing, and it was some of the best he has ever done. I made funeral potatoes, and dragon breath salad. Then we had watermelon, an onion baguette, and grape juice mixed with sprite (not as good as the stuff Gma Great makes). Dinner was fabulous.I found a German cake mix that I made for the birthday cake that was actually very good. It had little pieces of walnuts in it which I could have done without, but it was rich and sweet, so it did the trick.
{Proof that T&K are here, and happy :)}Then on to presents! The neighbors gave Steve a great wrench set which he will use for the cars. And Steve and I(haha) got Steve a flat screen monitor which is really cool. He made sure it was dual voltage so he can take it back to the states with us whenever we go.

Then, to finish up the evening we went in the backyard for the neighbor to smoke her cigarette, and found the hugest snail we have ever seen. So everyone had their turn getting snail slime all over their arm. I was just the photographer, I do not particularly like snail slime.


It was a great birthday for Steve and we are grateful for the fun friends, and comfortable home we have to entertain in. I love Steve and am so much loving raising a family with him.

Week in Review

There have been a couple of things that I wanted to blog about this week, but Steve has me playing this new computer game with him that we are both really enjoying. So, when the kids go to bed, we play our game until our bedtime. It has hurt my blogging time, but not too bad. We don't know what we are going to do when Tawna and Krista come and then when the baby comes. We will have to work around that I guess. :)

1. So, the first exciting news is.....Steven lost his tooth!!

It is so fun to see your oldest loose his first tooth. Unfortunately at the moment he lost it, my friend Ashley Hawkins had been here about 10 minutes with some friends of hers that she is touring Europe with. They stayed one night with us as they were passing through the area. AND I was on the phone with a friend from the Branch. So, the usual excitement that he should have received was totally lost. Oh the little failures of a Mother. Anyway, he put the tooth under his pillow that night, and Mr. Toothfairy decided to give him 5 Euros and a little one Euro toy! Way too much for a simple tooth, but Mr. Toothfairy doesn't plan on doing that next time. :)

2. A funny story. I was reading a book to Nathan and Jacob the other day that was about rescue vehicles. It talked about the sirens that are on police cars. So, I made the siren noise. Whooooooooh. Well, Nathan quickly corrected me and said, "It doesn't make that noise, it makes this noise. Weee Ohhh, Wee Ohhh. OK, any of you who have ever heard a siren in Europe know what I am talking about. There is a big difference in the noises, and since Nathan has been here most of his life, he makes a completely different siren noise than me. WEIRD!

3. One day this week the boys and I were a little bored, so we got out this really cool ball puzzle that I had bought. It is of the smurfs, and the pieces are made out of plastic, so that as you put them together, they form in to a ball. It was really a cool puzzle, although it did frustrate Nathan after the first half. Maybe it is made for kids a little older with a little more patience.
{This is what Jacob did while we did the ball puzzle.}

4. And the last story. Steve went it at 11:00pm the other night to take Nathan to the bathroom before we went to bed. Steve said, "Nathan?" and Nathan said, "Was?" pronounced Vas which is how you say "What" in German. Isn't it said that when you dream in a new language you are really starting to get it? I guess Nathan is well on his way. :) We thought it was funny.

A little about Steven

Our oldest child has once again done things by the book. Not even 24 hours after he turned six, he tells me that one of his teeth is wiggly. It is his first loose tooth, and the internet says that kids start loosing their teeth between 6 and 7. The reason this is so significant is because Steven has done stuff exactly when "the books" say he is going to from the time he was born. I have always said that Steven did a great job of teaching me how to be a Mom, because I saw what babies are capable of if you just teach them. He ate when he should have eaten, he sat when he should have sat, he crawled when he should have crawled. He really made mothering easy. :)

And he is also doing an excellent job of being an older brother. He loves to help his little brothers reach things, or put things back together, or whatever. Unfortunately he gets yelled at by them from time to time because they don't want his help. I am trying to change that behavior to be more kind on Nathan and Jacobs part. :)


I am very much enjoying having an "older" child. The things that he does on his own now, make my life so much easier. He is very good in Sacrament Meeting and can entertain himself for the most part, he takes showers all my himself now, he can go in the kitchen and get himself a drink instead of me stopping what I am in the middle of, he gets himself dressed in matching, weather appropriate clothes for school, and he just loves to wear his new suit to church. He is a real joy to watch grow.Steven has lots of little quirks about him as well, one of which I will mention. When he is given something to adorn himself with, he seems to hang on to it forever. He got a CTR ring in Primary at least two months ago, that he wears every day. The band has turned copper, and his finger is green all around where he wears the ring, but he still wears it. Some other things you will find on him that have lasted much longer than anyone expected are... a plastic bunny ring that the Easter Bunny gave him, a pin-on button that he got from school that advertises the electric company that he wears on his shirt every day, and a necklace that looks like an olympic metal that he got from a Primary activity we did forever ago. I am afraid for him to get any more trashy jewelry for fear that he will wear it forever.

Steven also has a lot that I admire in him. I think about first putting him in to the German kindergarten here, and leaving him at 4 and a half in a school for 3 hours a day where no one could understand him and he could understand no one. I would have Hated! that. That would have been so extremely hard for me. I am really one that likes to be in my comfort zone, and whenever I am in a new situation I am very uncomfortable. I think Steven is a lot like me, so it must have been so hard for him to be there. But it has been so character building, and I am glad that I didn't let my fear stop him from having this experience. He is almost fluent in German now and can communicate with the neighbor kids all day. He also loves to translate when the neighbors are here, and I have no clue what they are asking. It has been a wonderful opportunity for him to be here in Germany, and broaden his mind.

Of course Steven comes with his challenges too. As he grows older he has become quite sassy. He has a lot to complain about, and he says, "I am NOT doing that" to almost every cleaning task I ask him to do. We are working on this with him, because he needs to be a better example for his little brothers, and more helpful to his Mother.

We love having Steven in our family, and are so grateful to be his parents. He is going to be an amazing man, and I am really loving watching him grow into one.

Steven's Birthday

After a weekend I was dreading, I am happy to write and say, we had a wonderful birthday weekend for Steven. :)

He was really wanting a party, and I just did NOT feel like giving one. Partially because I was being lazy and partially because he wanted to invite all of his german-speaking neighbor friends who I have have a hard enough time talking to at my house, let alone at a birthday party where I am in charge of their well being. But after some discussion with Steve we decided we would invite families to a BBQ party, and since the parents all speak English I wouldn't have to worry about it. That sounded great so we passed out invitations. Well 3 days before the party, I got sick and figured out I have a sinus infection. I went to my OB on Friday hoping that he could heal me with something, and he was NO help whatsoever. Germans are just too in to natural medicine, and the things he told me to do were not going to solve my problem in a matter of a day. So, I was dreading having to get everything ready for the party when I felt horrible. Sinus infections are awful and have the strangest symptoms. Behind my eye hurt and my cheek, but most of all my teeth were killing me. I was taking Tylenol every six hours just to function, but I worry about taking that much medicine when I am prego.

Anyway, so Steve gave me this miracle nasal drip spray that I used Friday night, and I felt so much better Saturday morning, and am continuing to feel better. THANKS HONEY!

So... the party was Saturday night, and we invited all of our close neighbors. We decided just to use our little parking place out front since we have no backyard to speak of, and it would make things so much easier on everyone. The neighbors were wonderful at helping set up the front with this little canopy and all the toys from our backyards. Unfortunately there was one van we couldn't get moved because it is broken, and you can't put it in neutral unless you can start it, and the battery is totally shot. So, we just used that as a barrier in between the food area, and the toy area. Everything worked out just beautiful! Steve BBQ'd Bratwurst and "chicken on a bone" which is Steven's favorite food. Then I made funeral potatoes, we had watermelon, and chips, and rolls, and soda. There were about 25 people there including children and we just let the kids play while the adults sat around and talked, jumping from German to English depending on who was part of the conversation. :)

[Food area]

[Toy area][Chalk is such an easy entertainer, and our street is not busy at all. You can tell we invited some English speaking friends from church also]

[This bow and arrow is by far Steven's favorite present. It is really cool.]

So, that was Saturday. Steven's real birthday was Sunday, and it was less exciting because we had just done everything the night before. We did save the presents from Grandma and Grandpa Allred for him to open on Sunday, and he got sung to at church.

And then today he had his school Geburtstag (birthday) where he brought brownies to share with his class and they sang songs to him, and he blew out some candles on a pretend little cake. Wow! Birthdays that last 3 days can be exhausting. I am glad the celebrations are done tomorrow. :)
[In Steven's class they put the Geburtstag Kind on a chair in the middle and then raise him up in the air three times. As you can imagine, they hardly get him off the ground, but it looks like great fun.]