Ella Grace Montez - Newborn pic

Natalie took Ella's pictures the other day and this one turned out so dang cute! For those of you who didn't read up on my past posts, this is the newest member of the Montez family. Ella Grace Montez was born on July 5th. She's such a blessing to our family! Such a sweetheart!

Fun Tag...

I always do the tags that are different. This one was fun. Thanks Cara!

i am: Stefany Ann Pew (formerly Montez)
i know: How to make really good grilled cheeses
i want: To be pregnant
i have: The best mother-in-law ever
i wish: I could stick to a diet and work out plan
i hate: Cooking last minute meals
i miss: As weird as it may sound......I miss nursing! (my baby)
i fear: Something bad happening to Kylee or David
i feel: Gross and need to take a shower after a humid open gym session at the school
i hear: Nothing but the air conditioning (it never stops)
i smell: Nothing again because I haven't cooked anything all day
i crave: Cravings! Ironic as it sounds - - it's the best Mexican food ever!
i search: For good black church shoes and can never find them anywhere
i wonder: If our economy will ever get better
i regret: Not picking out better colors for my wedding
i love: The gospel
i care: For my Young Women's choices in life
i always: Am in search of good coaches (for club and high school) - it's draining!
i am not: A blonde
i believe: In faith
i dance: When I'm happy
i sing: Disney songs all day long! They won't get out of my head!
i don’t always: Shave my legs
i fight: Over stupid little insignificant things
i write: Emails everyday
i lose: My bobby-pins all the time
i win: When I play any game against David - - Ha ha! :)
i never: Sleep without my body pillow
i listen: To Kylee sing in the car
i am scared: Of David's work going under
i need: To stop this blog and start cooking dinner
i am happy about: The future
i tag: Everyone who has a blog! :)

Come on now....!!!

Okay, so I just have to post a quick little blurb in here because too many of you took me seriously on my post about David's birthday present. NOOOOOOOO.......I didn't really get him a new lifted truck. It was totally and 100% sarcastic! Are you kidding me........it would be crazy to buy him a new big truck when for 1, he already has one - 2, the economy sucks and we don't want to make any crazy new purchases right now, and 3, GAS is crazy expensive and if I was going to buy him any type of new vehicle it would be some kind of little gas economy car!

Okay, I feel better now knowing that I've explained myself! Go check out my last two posts if you haven't already! Good night! :)

Play or Clean??? That is the question.....

So Natalie took Kylee to Chick-fil-A the other day while I was at open gym and Kylee was being her usual funny self. Luckily Natalie had her camera to catch her in action. She played on the playground for a little bit but then discovered the wet-wipe packets. This girl LOVES to clean! She helps me clean all the time. Oddly enough, however, she doesn't pick up toys off the ground though. But wiping things down is definitely her thing! But she's not your average "cleaning toddler". As you can see in this video, she's very particular in the way she cleans. (hint - watch how she wipes in perfect circles and even reaches up to get the corners of the mirror)

This one's for you Gramma Montez! I can only imagine how proud you must be of your little clone!!!

Happy Birthday David Kent Pew!!!

Tomorrow (July 17th) is my hubby's 29th birthday. He has been an amazing blessing in my life and I can't believe I'm so lucky to have him as my eternal companion and the father of my children! Through the years, he's accomplished so much and has had many different "looks". I captured some of my most favorite moments and pictures since we've been married and posted them for your viewing pleasure! :)

I have the hottest husband ever!!! I love you so much David and I hope you have a good birthday. P.S. - - your brand new lifted truck is sitting in the drive way! Happy birthday!!!

My future volleyball star

Kylee loves to play with her little pink volleyball. I taught her a couple things so I wanted to catch them on tape for future reference when she is a teenage volleyball star at her high school!!! Ha ha - in my dreams! Anyway, you'll notice a couple funny things in this video. First of all, it's really dark so sorry if you can't see it very clearly. Second, I had to bribe her to "perform" in front of the camera so you'll hear her say "candy" after her first move. And thirdly, David was filming and has this obsession with making a fart noise out of his mouth everytime someone bends over........so when Kylee bends over at the end, you'll here a little treat coming from the camera - NOT my child!!! Although it wouldn't be unnusual if that "noise" really did come from Kylee. Ha ha!!!

(You might need to mute the music first to hear the great sounds of this video!)

And there you have it.....my little tootin', candy-bribed volleyball star!

Flashback Friday

As my summer is coming to an end and another Higley volleyball season is about to begin, I took a look back at all the teams I've coached there so far. I'm going into my 5th year as the head volleyball coach at Higley and I can't believe how fast the years have gone by. I still can't believe that I'm really a High School coach sometimes! It still blows my mind! I never thought I'd be a coach until I was way older! I'm very lucky to have had this opportunity to coach at Higley and I just loved my girls! I don't have a picture from the year 2005 because I actually didn't coach that year due to my recovery after delivering Kylee, but I was still involved and count that as time "served" there! Here are some pictures from all my teams....

This is my first team in 2004. We won the State title this year. It was amazing!

Here is my 3rd team in 2006. This was a crazy bunch of girls and I loved them! We barely missed the State play-offs this year by a half point - based on the Power Points system. Boo!!!

This was my team last year in 2007. This was a very special group of girls. We made it to the semi-finals in the state tournament. I graduated 6 Seniors this past year and it's going to be really hard to recover after that. But I'm really excited to get going with my team this year!

I don't have a current picture for my girls this year but tryouts are on August 11th so I'll take some pictures once my team is complete and update then. I feel very lucky to have had great success so far at Higley. I take this program very seriously and personally. It's my baby and I to think of the day that I won't be coaching there anymore makes me sad! I'm not sure when that will be but for now, I keep taking each year one at a time and putting my all into this program and each team that I coach. Go Knights!!!!

Ella Grace Montez

Up until July 5th, Kylee was the only girl on the Montez side, but now she finally has a girl cousin to play with! My brother and his wife have 4 boys (Zachary 9, Dallin 7, Brigg 5, and Keaton 3) and now they have finally been blessed even more with a beautiful little baby girl! Ella Grace Montez was born on July 5th, which happens to be Dallin and Olivia's birthdays as well. There are now 3 people in that family with the same birthday! Crazy! I love my brother so much and he's such a great example to me. He has such an amazing-beautiful family and I'm so proud of him! Here is a picture of the family, prior to adding a little pink bow to it!!!

And below here is a picture of Kylee holding Ella Grace very proudly! She didn't want to put her down. She saw a video of Ella being born (C-section) and when she saw her umbilical cord, she was facinated by it and told everyone about Ella's cord. She wouldn't stop talking about her "cord". It was funny!

Photo Shop What???

So thanks to Gina, I discovered this wonderful website called www.picnik.com. It's like a photoshop type of program (only a website) that lets you mess around and "dress" up your pictures. Here's an example of what I did:

ORIGINAL

PICNIK

It's so fun! You can do so much with your photos. Check it out! I highly recommend it!

Where have I been???

For the past week I was in Texas with my sister's club team for the Junior Olympics. It was amazing! The whole experience was something that I've never experienced before. The athletes that were there amazed me. I saw little 11 and 12 year olds hitting the ball like they were 18. I seriously dream of the day when Kylee will be old enough to play. I already "train" her a little here and there! She has awesome form baby!! Ha ha! Anyway, I was excited to go to Texas for the first time too. We played in a huge convention center with over 50 courts in one facility. It was crazy! I hope that I can take my team next year and that we qualify because I want to get back there so bad! It was awesome!

These are some pictures of the team. They had to walk out to the middle of the court before every game and wave to the crowd. It was so "official" because it was the Olympics.

Here's the pretty gang early in the morning eating our free hot breakfast at the Embassy Suites!

I would've taken more pictures but I forgot half the time. I really wish that I would've taken pictures of the incredible green scenery all around. It was SOOO green! But it was increcibly humid! Yuck! We all went to Six Flags on our last day and that was so fun! I went on the biggest roller coaster of my life. I can't believe how high it was! The drop went on forever. I thought I was going to pass out! But it was fun and such a rush!!! I can now say that I've been to Texas! And that I've been to the Junior Olympics. It was awesome!!!

Music flashback and Friends!

This past Sunday, we all got together as friends to have a "farewell" dinner party for Kimberly. Her and John and moving to Texas to pursue a family business. I can't believe she's moving! We have been the best of friends since we first met in the 3rd grade. At least I "hooked" her up with a blog though so we can keep in touch and see pictures of the family. We had a fun night at Tausha's and I'm glad we all got together one last time before Kimberly left. We'll miss you Kimmie!

Here we all are..........we are missing Heidi and Heather but they are always there in spirit!!!

Just messing around in this picture! Where was Kimberly in this picture???

Below is Kimberly's cutie-pie's (Mikenna and Andon) and my Kylee girl.

And here is the cute couple below! I'm gonna miss you so much Kimmie! Love you!

P.S.......I was getting sick of my music on here and I don't really care for any of the new music out right now - - so I decided to go back to the good old days and post some of my most favorite songs of all time! Do you think I liked Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson??!!! Ha ha! Love it!

The Trek

Words can't even express how much I LOVED the Trek! It was one of the hardest things I've done, but one of the most spiritual and eye-opening events of my life. The kids in our family were great and I love them dearly! I had the opportunity to go listen to one of them speak today in church too and it was so much fun to see her all dressed up and cute.......rather than all dirty and "pioneer-ish". One of my "sons" from my family was in that ward too and he had to do a double take to realized that it was me.......his "Ma"! I had the best time and miss my "kids" already!
Below are our boys and David setting up the hand cart on day one before we trekked off. We ended up going 15 miles the first day. This included some CRAZY steep and high hills and also, a 4 miles detour from going the wrong way!

Below is the handsome couple - Ma and Pa of the Pew family!

Below here is the boys in our family. Jeffrey, Fernando, Zach, David and Johnny. So handsome!

Below here is the girls from our family. Amanda, Heather, (Me - Ma), Emily, and Mickey!

And here is our awesome family! We bonded like crazy and had the best time!

Kylee was at home being watched by her Grandma Deedee. She loves to wear Daddy's "Cowboy" hat around the house now! We missed her so much!!!

All together, we ended up trekking over 25 miles in the 4 days of the Trek. It was an amazing humbling experience that I'll never forget, and I'm sure our kids will never forget either. There were many tears shed, along with loud and long bouts of laughter. It was great and I'm so thankful for the experiences I had in these past 4 days of the Trek. I love you Pew family!!!

For HAVOK....yet again!

This is a random post (end of the season team party) for my club team so for those of you who don't want to see crazy girls jumping off a rock into a pool, feel free to skip this one!! Ha ha! As for my team....HAVOK....here are the pictures you've requested! I'm sad that Lindsay Rock and Tiffany weren't there for these pictures, but for the rest of you crazy girls, they turned out good! A little dark, but fun! Here you go girls!

Sam.....you're pool is freakin' amazing! Thanks again for letting us use your house for another team party! We love you!!

Week two down, 2 more to go...

I can't believe it but week 2 (of my crazy month of June) is already over! I had my youth volleyball camp, where I only had a disappointing 34 girls attend, but it was still a good and fun experience for my returning varsity players who got to coach hands on. That always humbles them and helps them learn fast! They appreciate more of what I put up with for them on a daily basis at practice!!! Ha ha!

GO KNIGHTS!

Coming up this week is what I've been anticipating the most. I'm also the most nervous about this week, more than any of the other weeks in June. I have my Stake Trek that I'm going on. But at least David will be with me so it won't be just me all alone like I've been throughout the rest of this month (meaning, no family)! You'll have to excuse the extremely blurry pictures that you are about to see. I don't have a scanner so I took pictures of pictures! These are pictures of me when I went on my own Trek as a youth in the Peoria Stake. It was awesome! This first picture, however, doesn't look like I'm enjoying myself. This was the morning after we had trekked 20 miles and all we got to eat was this amazingly salty and NASTY corn-meal mush. It was gross!!! I seriouly lost about 15 pounds on this Trek. But it was GREAT!

And this picture below is of me and my family, pulling and pushing our HEAVY hand cart. If you can't make it out, I'm the blurry red blob in the middle-back of the picture!

The next time I post, I will have new pictures from my recent Trek experience. I can't wait to experience it in a whole new level (as a Ma)! It's going to be great! I'm also really nervous because I want to make sure the kids in my family have an amazing and spiritual experience like I did 10 years ago. It's a lot of pressure on me and David! But we are soooo excited to start this amazing journey with the youth in our Stake! Wish us luck!

BEST DADDY EVER!!!

I know it's not quite Father's Day yet but it's very RARE that I find any free time during the day lately, so since I have a couple minutes right now, I feel I should post this before I don't have the time later. I just want to tell David how much I love him and appreciate him. Kylee LOVES her Daddy soooo much. He does so much for both her and I. He's the hardest working man who tries so hard and works so hard to provide for our family and keep us safe. He's so incredibly good with kids and that goes triple-times over for Kylee. Her favorite thing to do is hide from Daddy when she hears the garage door open so he can come find her and tickle her and give her the biggest hug ever. Here are some recent pictures of the two together. I espeically love the first one with them sleeping together. They are my most favorite pictures! So sweet! I love you David! Happy Father's Day!

Week one down, 3 more to go...

Girl's camp was an amazing experience (as usual). We had camp on a ward level this year (instead of a stake level) and the girls all bonded and interacted so well with one another. There was no contention or usual mini-fights, and the atmosphere the entire time was happy and cheery! I LOVE these girls! They are such good examples to me of how friends and good young LDS women should be. And they are so beautiful.....even with no make-up on and being all dirty from the crazy winds and dust we got while up there. It was great and I'm so glad I was able to go. Love my girls!!!!

How dedicated am I??? Or crazy!!!???

I've been dreading this month (June) for a long time now. This is the busiest month of my life. My poor baby is going to feel like she doesn't have a mother for the next 30 days! I really should be heading to my soft warm bed right now and try to lull myself to sleep but instead, I'm blogging! What?!!

Let me tell you why I should be using my time more wisely. As of 7am tomorrow morning, I will be driving out to Mount Graham where I'll be a YCL leader for girl's camp for the next 4 days. Mean while, the same day I come home, David and Kylee are flying out of my life to Utah for a family reunion (that I will not be attending because of my crazy busy life). A couple hours after I unpack my stinky camping bags, I'll be heading off to volleyball practice to enjoy the last 2 hours of working my 9 girls on the court. The next morning (EARLY) I will be heading out to a gym somewhere to coach my team in the regional ALL-DAY tournament. I will hopefully make it home by 10pm and crash on my bed alone without my hubby next to me.

Then I have a day of rest at church, alone, but happy to see my young women after I will have just spent a spiritual week with them a few days before. Then I will have a couple presidency meetings, followed by a home-made meal for one!

Come Monday (a week from today) I will be running my 3 day volleyball camp for Higley High School. Then that weekend, I have a fundraiser car wash at the Albertson's (Power and Queen Creek.....COME) for my High School team, yet again! After the car wash, I'm heading out to my Mom's house for a BBQ because my Grandma will be in town. That next day (Sunday), I'm going to my cousin's missionary farewell.

The week following that, I am heading off to a Trek for my Stake as a Ma (with David as the Pa of course). That will be a fun and HARD 4 day journey!

The next week is actually kind of low key with only a couple open gyms and a car wash that weekend........(yes I said another freakin' car wash)!!! Fundraising is the pits but someone has to do it!

And finally, at the end of this month, I am heading off to Texas with my sister Natalie to help assist her team at the National tournament that they qualified for. That will be a 5 day trip and will bring me home into the first of July.

So yes everyone......this is my crazy life! Luckily my July is pretty low key. Everything somehow got jam-packed into June and it's really starting to hit me smack in the face as I'm preparing to start this crazy month tomorrow morning. I am going to miss my Kylee girl so much this month. I just pray that blessings are awaiting me once this crazy month is done and over with! Wish me luck everyone! I just hope that I don't forget anything, or somehow forget what camp I'm at. I would hate to start coaching my young women volleyball skills and then preach to my volleyball girls the next week. I would seriously be the one to do that though. Just watch me!!!!