59/365

This afternoon we went to Doug & Becky's house to celebrate Tyler's 2nd birthday.

58/365

We braved the bitter cold & strong wind this evening during Drew's first soccer practice of the season. Thankfully the rain held off until we were packed in our van and on our way to Grandma & Grandpa Stroud's house for the weekend. While there was just rain in the St. Louis area, back home in Republic had a couple of inches of snow the next day!

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To end their unit on maps, they had a "Pirate Day" at school. Everyone dressed like pirates and they searched for the hidden treasure. When we got to his classroom, his teachers had also created a Pirate ship out of an box and large tube. What a fun day! Thankfully we were able to borrow Logan Fraker's Halloween costume for Drew to dress-up in. He was one of the best dressed Pirates in the class!

56/365

This morning Drew got Zach and his breakfast out (poptarts & cheerios) while Mommy took a shower. When she came out, this is what she found...the boys with an extra "guest" at the kitchen table eating breakfast.

55/365

Drew had his first sleep-over last night! It was a last minute thing, but they had a blast. Nikki Bethune called me the night before and asked if they could bring over Trey to spend the night because they needed to take Dylan (their youngest) to have tests run the next day to try and figure out why he was continually complaining about his head hurting and getting sick. We used the Aero Bed we borrowed from Grandpa & Grandma Stroud for Trey to sleep on in Drew's room, but he ended up being scared so Drew crawled in bed with him. They did VERY well about going right to sleep after that. They next morning they had a lot of fun playing before Drew went to school and then again when school was over. I call it a successful 1st Sleep Over!

54/365

We got our Wii back from Nintendo today! *CHEER* We had to send it away about a week & a half ago to have it repaired because it wouldn't recognize any of the game disks.

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This afternoon Rebecca, Evan & Jake came by to have lunch and visit for awhile. He is getting so big! Hard to believe he is 6 months old now.

52/365

Family Movie Night #2 - "Space Buddies"
Tonight we had additional guests join us for our FMN. John's mom and Grandma were in town as well as Rebecca, Evan & Jake. So while Rebecca, Evan, Joanie & Steve went out, Jake, Alyssa & Blake come over to play for the evening. After some Domino's pizza, I pulled out or theme snacks for the movie (dog bone & star shaped sugar cookies, little Milky Way bars and Starburst all serves in new bog bowls). They all get a big kick out of the snacks and really enjoyed the movie.

51/365

Both the boys are fascinated with a small Barbie set of mine that they found after we moved. It is a little bakery with a table and 2 chairs. It is not unusual to find either one of them in the empty dinning room take the set out and putting it all up, "baking" and then serving the goodies to Mommy & Daddy.

50/365

When Zach and Mommy went to Wal-Mart today, they found this cute, HUGE tea cup flower pot. So Mommy picked out the tea cup and Zach picked out a little plant to pot in it.

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Two Wednesdays a month, right at the beginning of their school day, all the preschool classes meet together in the library for "Rise-N-Shine". They say the pledge, sign songs, honor the birthday people for the next two weeks as well as giving out a "Caring Kid Award" to one student from each class. There is also one class a month that performs something for the whole group. Today Drew's class sang a little song for everyone ("We Are All Together"). They end their little gathering by singing an adorable little song "See Ya Later Alligator".

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This evening, Drew's school held their "Winter Curriculum Fair". Families were able to go from activity to activity set up in the hallways letting the students show off what they had been learning at school. At the above pictured table, Drew was matching where different food items came from - Plants or Animals.

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WHAT A MESS! If Zach is being too quite...BE WORRIED! He gets into everything!! When Zach had been quiet for a few minutes, Jen went to find out what he was doing. She walked into the kitchen to find water all over the floor & on the counter by the sink. Evidently Zach had moved a chair over to the sink and then proceeded to dump any water that was sitting in cups and bowls in the sink out onto the floor.

46/365

This Sunday, while John ran the video control panel, Jen ran Media Shout. She was incharge of putting the words of songs up on the giant screens in the auditorium during the song service, as well as Preacher's message.

45/365

The search for dinning room furniture (both informal and formal) continued this afternoon. This time with the boys in tow. BAD idea!! They both just wanted to run around the showrooms, "testing" all the furniture. UGH!

44/365

John and Jen celebrated Valentine's Day a little early. Casie from John's office came over and watched the boys while they went out for dinner at Fedora Social House (a new fondue restaurant in downtown Springfield). After dinner, since the movie theaters were PACKED, they decided to start looking at dinning room furniture. The night was rounded out with a drive through Dairy Queen for some ice cream.

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Drew's Class Valentine's Day Party - (a couple days early since Drew was off school on Friday, February 13th) Today Jen was able to help with Drew's class party (with Zach in tow). They enjoyed a game of Pass the Candy Heart, created a cute heart picture frame around a photo one of the mom's had come taken of each child, put together a yummy snack and enjoyed some Krispy Kreme heart-shaped doughnuts. They ended their party by exchanging Valentine's with each other.

42/365

Over night and into today it has rained quite a bit. We even were able to see where the little stream flows behind out house.

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It was gorgeous today and John was still in Texas for work. Angela Walker called and asked if we would like to come over for the evening since Jeff would be gone. So after school the boys had a playdate with Peyton and Addison at the Walkers' house. The road bikes, drew pictures with chalk on the driveway, jumped on the trampoline and played on the swing set. After all the playing, we all enjoyed dinner before the boys and Jen headed home.

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Today after school, Drew and Jen worked on his Valentine's Day box. Mommy covered the box and created the legs and Drew did all the pasting and decorating. His lion turned out pretty cute!

39/365

John left this morning to drive to Dallas, TX for business for the next 4 days. Since Drew had been running a little fever the day before, the boys and I hung out at home for the day. They had a blast spending time playing in a bubble bath together, as well as enjoying some air-popped popcorn after Zach’s nap.

38/365

Family Movie Night Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa – Since this was an impromptu plan (we received the movie in the mail today from Netflix), I made a batch of brownies and used cookie cutters to cut out “M-2”, “A-F-R-I-C-A” and two airplanes out of the finished brownies. This was our snack during the movie. Both the boys really enjoyed the movie…and I had a hard time keeping Zach back away from the TV! He would get so engrossed in it, that he kept walking closer and closer to the TV.

37/365

The Fraker family came over for dinner and a visit this evening…and stayed until midnight! Drew was very excited to have his friend Logan over to play with.

36/365

Laundry day again! Will I ever reach the end??!?!

35/365

Drew had his first field trip with his new class. They loaded all the kids on a bus (complete with 5-point harness seatbelts for each of them) and took them into the Springfield Nature Center. While there they were able to see a salamander & frog and pet a toad and a snake! Drew enjoyed the visit, but his favorite part was the bus ride – a first for him. In picture: Drew & friend, Jacob, checking out an exhibit at the nature center .

34/365

One of our favorite dinners:
Pepper Steak

1-1.5 lbs Round Steak - cubed
1 small onion – chopped
1 green pepper – chopped
Ketchup
1.5 cups water
Salt & pepper
Flour (if needed)

Brown round steak with salt & pepper. Add onion & green pepper and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes (until onions are soft). Add water and salt & pepper – cover and let simmer for about 1 hour.

Add ketchup to thicken, re-cover and simmer for another hour.
If the mixture is too running, mix warm water with some flour and add to the meat mix to thicken.
Let simmer while preparing your rice.

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Zach cracks me up! Whenever possible he likes to build with his food.

32/365

Super Bowl Sunday! After our evening church service, the Walker and Williams families came over. While the guys watched the Tivoed game, the ladies sat upstairs chatting and the 6 kids ran wild. Everyone had a great time!