christie

(please excuse the horrible picture of me...I was totally sober, but it sure doesn't look like it!)

Our dear friend Christie came to visit a couple weeks ago. She is in the process of getting ready to leave for Africa for 6 months. It's been so neat to see her get all prepared for the journey and to see her heart for the people in Africa and how excited she is to go back to see them.

She also helped us out and watched Jack for a day when we were in a day care crisis. Here is a picture of Jack helping her get her paperwork together.


We love you Christie and will miss you when you are in Africa! Happy late birthday on the 12th!

March?

Not much new and exciting for us here in Iowa...besides having to shovel snow and scrape ice off of everything many times! Again tonight we're suppose to get a bunch of rain followed by a few inches of snow. Great.

Here is a picture of Jack eating his snack and watching "ball" on TV. That's his favorite thing to watch...thank goodness March Madness is starting so there always seems to be a game on since we don't have cable.



Jack has been keeping us laughing a lot. He's wants to copy everything we do and then do it himself, without our help. We're trying to teach him things like throwing away his diaper, putting dirty clothes away, cleaning up his toys, etc. One of his newest facinations has been with belts. Every morning when he's helping me get ready he wants me to put a belt on him. Here's a funny picture of just how silly this new look is:



We have been having fun setting up our summer calendar. First we start off with Jack and I heading to April and Jesse's wedding in Cook! We're also looking forward to a week at Timbuktu with the Bolands around the 4th of July. After that we're going to go for a week to Lake Ellen Camp (where we use to live) for the high school mission trip. I'm excited to be able to go and bring Jack. Followed by in August we're heading to Trout Lake Camp for a week where Steve is going to be a seminar leader for middle schoolers, again Jack and I will tag along!

Can you tell I'm sick of winter and ready for a change of pace? Our spring calendar is filling up quickly as it always does with graduation stuff, end of the school year stuff and we're in desperate need of some house repairs...broken garage door, new gutters, etc. We've talked my dad into coming down to help with those over Easter weekend, which is my 3 day long Spring Break!

Today it's suppose to be 50 degrees here! YIPEE! I'm hoping to head out for a walk after church with my friend, Debra.

extended girls weekend-o-fun!!

I'll try to recap the weekend's events in a post (along with some pictures that I'm having a hard time putting in the right places, so bear with me!)....

Friday after school April and Trisha were here and I met them at the repair shop so April could get her breaks fixed. We then headed out to eat at El Portal which is a local favorite. It was complete with some of good conversation over some amazing cheese dip, and yes we each ate a meal too! We then started to work on the wedding invitations for April.

Saturday morning we went to David's Bridal to get bridesmaid dresses, which are really cute! Then we came back and went out to Applebee's for lunch, did some shopping at WalMart and came home and finished April's wedding invitations! They turned out so cute. I'm impressed with our skills. We also headed out to the Marshalltown Mall and to HyVee for groceries.

We woke up Sunday morning with no one going anywhere because it was a few inches of slush followed with some thick, wet snow and everything was canceled in town. We spent the day eating nachos, watching a movie, playing with Jack, and talking. It was a nice relaxing day. Too bad April and Trisha weren't able to leave town, which I was secretly glad because Steve was stranded in Wisconsin on the Winter Extreme High School trip.

Monday morning we woke with FREEZING temps and glare ice/snow drifts which made for no travel (or school) today! Steve and the youth group made it to Iowa City today and are crashing at Linda and Gary's house. We attempted to play the Wii, watched another movie, chased Jack around the house and by the end of the day we're starting to go a little stir crazy. We're hoping tomorrow the roads will be okay for people to travel on. I'm also hoping that we don't miss any more days of school or it's going to be a quick trip to make it to April's wedding after school gets out.

I will let you know when everyone makes it home safely. I think April and Trisha are hoping they'll get out of Iowa by the 4th of July!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from the Stepecs!

Sorry, I had high hopes of getting a card in the mail with Jack's picture but that didn't happen. Things around here have been REALLY busy...Steve has been gone in the evenings for the past 4 nights and leaves again tomorrow and will be back late Sunday night. With Jack being such the great helper that he is, somethings just don't get done. I will admit that I tried to get out some card making things last night and he proceeded to empty the door of craft things out and open and empty many containers of things. My bedtime is also more on the early side, like 9 o'clock at the latest since I get up at 5:00. So there is a long explaination of why cards don'e flood your mailboxes! But thank you to all the treasures and funny cards we got in our mailbox!

This weekend with Steve being gone April and Trisha are heading down for some fun girl times. We're going to David's Bridal on Saturday to get fitted for bridesmaid dresses...well, Trisha and I are! Who knows what else we'll get into this weekend...I think maybe some shopping, eating and making invitations for the big wedding!

Hope everyone is having a great day and eating lots of candy! (Sorry these pictures are placed funny on the page, I can't seem to figure out how to get them right next to each other)

ear infection

just wanted to let you know that Jack has another ear infection (it's only his 2nd one ever) but he's on meds for it, which I hope will help all of us get on a better track of sleeping through the night!

Yippee...tomorrow's Friday!

Snow day!

YES! No school in Marshalltown! We got about 8 inches of heavy, wet snow and since we live in Iowa that means they cancel school. It's amazing how long it takes them to clean the streets. I think they have all of 1 working city snowplow. It's so annoying. The other thing that's annoying is that every snow day we have gets tacked on to the end of the year so we just have to go to school that much longer. At the rate we're going maybe we'll be out by July 4th!

However, even if we have to go longer I am enjoying my day at home with Jack and Steve. Poor Jack still has his cough and runny nose and without being able to give him any over the counter medicine for coughs he has to go back to the doctor tomorrow to rule out pnemonia (sp?) and ear infections. He's kept us up at night with his coughing and isn't able to take very long naps (which he really needs!). I'm praying the doctor will be able to give him something besides just more nebulizer treatments. We'll see...

Super "Flu" Bowl!

Yes, you guessed it...we have all had the flu this past week. It started with Jack on Monday night not able to keep anything down, which is ever so lovely with not being able to hit a bucket or the toilet. Steve was hit on Friday morning and finally started feeling okay on Saturday and I was hit on Saturday night and am just coming around today. Needless to say, I stayed home from the Super Bowl Party and Steve and Jack went and I'm going to try to get a little more rest while I watch the game from home.

The good news is that I made it through conferences last week at school, which made for a LONG week and I don't have jury duty this next week. I have to call back in on Friday to check out the schedule.

Here are some pictures of Jack today (yes, we dressed him in his Vikings outfit)!





Here is a picture of Jack and Steve heading out to the party, they decided to walk since it was just a block away! Way to save gas, boys!