Zach surveying the scene

Speckles waiting on a pile of snow

snow hanging off the eves

More Photos...

Watching TV with the kiddos



Mommy and Zach cuddling



A happy girl



Mischievous



He was smiling so good until
the camera flashed!



Great smile!



She just kills me -
She posed like this for
quite a while before I took this!



A great morning!

posted by Elena

Some More Great Pictures




I just love this picture!
Her smile is so contagious...



I am FOUR YEARS OLD!






No pictures today, Mom!





She kept sucking her thumb
until I'd look her way -
Then she'd smile that huge toothless grin

Moments like these are what it's all about...

posted by Elena

A Quieter Day



A rare picture of Zach
sitting still and
smiling at the camera



Catching up on the latest news



Maddie's permanent
location every evening

posted by Elena

Happy Birthday Livi and Zach!



Very cool Finding Nemo cake




Balloons everywhere!




Thomas the Train was a hit!
(for children AND adults)




Olivia and Elena opening presents
with all the "assistants"




Maddie had a great time too!




Blowing out candles




Too much birthday party

Olivia and Zachary had their birthday parties together this year - and everybody had a blast! We had 9 little kids (ages 1 to 5 years old) getting high on cake and ice cream and soda - oh the energy was spectacular!!!

posted by Elena

Madeline Renee Watson
Baptism: January 14, 2007

So she was baptized almost a month ago... A little late getting the pictures on here, but such is life...

A good day was had by all. Madeline behaved rather nicely for the most part. She and I walked a lot during the sermon, and then we made it into the sanctuary in time for the baptism. Of course, she had kind of fallen asleep by that time, but she woke up nicely and didn't cry or complain at all! Although the morning was quite a busy one for her - she fell asleep in the van on the way home from church, and slept during most of the party afterwards.

posted by Elena

Big game yesterday for Iowa Basketball. A really nice win over Indiana. Looking at our remaining schedule shows two probably losses but the rest are very winnable. If they go 6-2 and do well in the Big Ten tournie it would look really good for the NCAA's.

It has been freezing cold out here. The projected high today is -2.

Going to the Menard's super bowl party tonight. At their house, the wife works with me only up in the Trust department. I'm indifferent about tonight's game. I guess I'll root for the Colts because they have a couple of ex-Iowa players.

We braved the elements last night and went to a different church. Elena had been there before but it was my first time. It was much smaller than Bethel. I bet they had 50 people there. The regular pastor was off in Florida for some convention. The lady they had to replace him said that her husband was a regular pastor at some small town church and that she regularly filled in around the area as needed. She seemed a bit nervous at first and she didn't have the polished big church pastor charisma and timing. She talked about how an unemployed carpenter told a bunch of professional fishermen how to do their job. Those were my own words.

She finished with a story from her past about how a young man fell into drugs, was arrested and sent to jail. She and her husband were worried that his family would stop coming to church from embarrassment. They did a "drive-by-hugging." The family did stay with the congregation. One lady in a church group wrote to the young man in jail. At their next meeting, another lady said that she had written as well. After a few more letters, one excited lady informed the group that she had gotten a letter back. This went on for a while and then the pastor got a letter asking him to lead a Bible study in the clink. They would visit the man on Saturdays and continue correspondence throughout his year sentence. Years later at the young man's wedding, the pastor and his wife were there as visitors. His mother came up to them and thanked them because she truly believed that without the letters and the visits that her son would have never turned his life around.

After that, Olivia wanted to go out with Mommy because she saw Zach and Maddie out in the entry room running around and that looked a lot more fun that sitting next to me. I went out to relieve Elena but then Olivia wanted to go sit with Mommy. So Zach and I went running around the fellowship hall. He messed with their sound system so I hope nothing goes wrong for them.

Everybody is doing great. No big news out there.

Maddie has been sucking her thumb until it blisters and bleeds. It doesn't look good.

We've been working in the basement a bit. Olivia, Zach and I have put up a bunch of shelves to help get things a bit more organized down there.

We had a really fun birthday party for the two older ones the other day. Lots of people came up from Decorah along with relatives. The guys played cards. Although we were mocked at first, Ben and I won handily over Paul and AJ.

The kids got a lot of new toys and ways to make messes. They really enjoyed their Finding Nemo cake and ice cream.