February

Now that March is half gone, I thought I would post the pictures from our crazy February. Besides school being extremely hectic, we had a number of events that needed cakes and a fabulous trip to Springfield to celebrate Justin's 30th birthday. Thank you again to everyone who came out and helped make that a really great evening at the Harshmans. And a huge thanks to the Harshmans for hosting!

The first cake was for a coworker's son's birthday. That was a fun party-at a community center. So we spent the morning sledding at Art Hill and the evening swimming. The second cake I made as for Justin's party. The third and fourth cakes were baby carriage cakes for a joint baby shower for two of the wives of fellow optometry students.

The last cake was for another coworker's son's first birthday. I can't remember the last time I did so many cakes in one month!

Julia really enjoyed Valentine's Day this year. She signed her name on the "Valencards" for her friends at daycare. I was so excited about how she wrote her name, I had Justin take a picture of one. It is really neat to see what she is learning at daycare.

Valentine's Day itself wasn't too exciting for us. It marked our 8th year as a couple. We exchanged gifts and cards with eachother and Julia-before I headed off to class and Justin to a mandatory meeting. How romantic. Friday was much better. The couples without kids in our Bible Study gave the couples with kids a night of free babysitting. Julia had an absolute blast. And so did we. Justin made reservations for PF Chang's-a great chinese restaurant. We had a little trouble at first not talking about school or Julia. But once we figured it out, we had a great time.

This next picture is of Julia holding baby Landon. He was born March 3rd, the day before we got 12 inches of snow. He is the sweet son of one of our good friends from the optometry program and his wife. We are looking forward to "paying them back" for a lot of the free baby sitting we have received.

As I mentioned, our part of St. Louis got 12 inches of snow on March 4th. It was barely starting to stick when I got to work. They closed UMSL at 11:00. Justin said it took him over 1 1/2 hours to get Julia and get home (usually about 20 minutes). When I left work at 1:00pm, the snow was very deep and still falling. Thank goodness for the Protege! That little car can get through just about anything. I didn't get stuck until I tried to get in the driveway. Thankfully Justin was able to push it in because the snowplow in our neighborhood flies through. I think our car might have been done for if we had left any part of it in the street! We spent that evening sledding in our backyard and making snow angels. And by Thursday, it was pretty much all gone. Gotta love St. Louis weather!