My poor sweet husband…here he is working on the floor of our office/playroom sitting against a play kitchen!  I guess we might need another desk, or at the very least a table for him to sit down at!  Thanks for letting me use the desk so much, Josh.

After dinner I asked Josh if we could all take a walk.  And being the gracious & giving husband he is, he said, “Sure.”  We got the strollers (our neighborhood is virtually all uphill, until the return trek) for the ones with little legs, leashed the dog, and were off.  I decided to bring my camera to see what we could find…

Emma’s strawberry plant survived the winter snows & came back bigger!  (Emma doesn’t like strawberries, but Brooke does!)

Brooke noticed a few of Josh’s tattoos.  Here she is asking what that guy’s name is.  Let’s hear a shout out all you LKP fans!

And my favorite:  Emma swinging her hair as she walks her empty stroller.

It’s snowmaggedon!  The snowpocalypse!  And whatever creative “snow” terms you can think of.  We’re averaging on 30″ of snow here in Arnold, Maryland.  And before the biggest snow hit, Josh had 6 boys from his high school bible study come over to spend the night.  We took on these extra six kids knowing we’d probably have them for a day or two.  And when I went shopping on Thursday, I accounted for that too.  Well, last night, after consuming a LOT of energy drinks, the boys had some energy to burn.  So they went out until 1:30am and built a massive snowman, threw snowballs at each other, & began the biggest igloo I’ve ever seen (in Maryland, that is).  We are guessing the snowman tops 7 feet.  It’s hard to measure since there’s so much snow piled up around it now.  But it is above Josh’s head and he’s 6’4″.

So the above photo  – which I snapped VERY quickly in my t-shirt & jeans – features:  Josh, Dan, Chris, Jake, Brian, Teddy, & Steve.  Thanks for coming over guys, and thanks for eating half a bag of wings, one bag of pizza rolls, 2 batches of pancakes, one pack of bacon, 1 dozen eggs, half a gallon of orange juice, & half a gallon of milk.  We loved having you!

Photos:  I’ve been reviewing Mark & Lindsey’s photos.  They got married back in October & I was working on their wedding album before I go to Ethiopia.  I’ll share that a little later.  Now I’m off to put kids to bed & work on perfecting our igloo!  We’re thinking chimney & fire!

Today was my husband Josh’s 30th birthday!  He’s soooooooo old!  (I’ll be 30 in 10 months).  We had a low key party for him today at home.  Emma told me she wanted to get him a “bideo game” (aka video game) so we visited Target, then GameStop & finally found Super Mario Brothers for the Wii.  We made birthday brownies, had breakfast for dinner, blew out candles & just loved on Daddy.  What we did get at Target, and what I’m calling the “bonus blunder” is a card that I accidentally let Brooke pick out.  Let me just show you the photo below:

Yup, you read it right.  I let my 2 year old child choose a card for her daddy that has profanity in it!  And I let her sign it too!  I didn’t even notice!  The kids didn’t notice, but I sure did give Josh and I a good laugh after she opened it.  Oh, well.  Just wanted to show you proof that I make mistakes too…and LOTS of them!

Photos I’ve been looking at:  Um…honestly today…none!  Sorry!  I was busy addressing all of my support letters for Ethiopia, cleaning up the house, & making a little birthday party.  I’ll look at two people tomorrow, just to make up for it!

Well, I’m off to hopefully break my 3-month losing streak at Settlers….any bets?

Yes, family & friends, it was only a matter of time before a Settlers blog post appeared.  In case you don’t know about Settlers of Catan, it’s a German board game that my family is obsessed about – or, that I am obsessed about winning.  Personally I think it’s like a cross between Monopoly & Risk.  Currently I am on a 3-month losing streak.  And, people, we don’t just play once in a while – we play at least once a week, sometimes more, and even more than one game in a sitting.  I am the official Settlers loser in my family, and I make sure to let them all know about it.  I stink!  I just don’t know why (they could all probably tell you), but I can’t seem to win.  Oh well, such is life.  And it’s just a game, right?

Today after Bert & Laura brought Emma back after her sleepover, we all had lunch at our house & played two games of Settlers.  Congratulations to Mom (Bonnie) & Bert on winning.  (You won’t be invited back, since you didn’t let me win).

In the photo above I’m the blue pieces.  As you can see at this point things didn’t look too terrible for me until Mom came full force with a massive road, cutting the entire land of Catan in half!  And Bert with his stinkin’ castles!  OMG!  How’s a person supposed to win with this kind of competition?  I even have Settlers of Catan on my iPhone so I can practice against highly-skilled computers but I just can’t seem to bring the winning into real life.  I’ll be sure to let you know when my streak ends.

Oh, and if you want to play with us, come on over.  We’re usually up for playing any day of the week, even into the wee hours of the night.  Sroka’s are always up for some competition!

Photos I’ve been looking at:  Melissa C.  She’s a person I randomly found though…you guessed it….Facebook!  I think I saw her comment on another 365 blog & clicked through to her blog & saw her photo of a crossword puzzle.  Immediately I thought of my dear grandmother who loves crosswords.  Melissa gave me such an encouraging comment the other day when I felt like giving up on this 365 thing.  Thanks for the push forward Melissa & I love looking at your work.  Keep it up!

*oh, and we’re such Settlers nerds that we bought Kids of Catan for our children.  Yup, we took it that far.