New Baby Stark

At Evan's birthday party on Friday, April 20, we annouced to the family that a new baby Stark is expected to arrive on November 4, 2007.

We had Evan open up a present with this doll inside. We attached a little note to the doll annoucing the news. Not only was everyone excited about the news, we caught everyone by surprise. We really had hoped Joe and Jennifer could have been at the party to hear the news with everyone else.

We've known for over a month this particular bit of news; however, we waited until our families were together at the party to break the news.

Evan's 2nd Birthday

Our family celebrated Evan's second birthday last night. His birthday is actually April 18th; however, we couldn't schedule the party until Friday, April 20.

Traditionally, we've invited our immediate families to the birthday parties. This time around only our parents and Justine were able to make it. Aunt Judith, Aunt Joann, and Uncle James all live out of town. No one knew for sure where uncle Joe was. Aunt Jennifer was at a conference, but she came by the house on Thursday night to see the boys.

Both of the boys really get excited for birthdays now. Ean just couldn't contain his enthusiasm. I think Evan will be that way next year.

If you click on the photo (or here) you'll be able to see all the photos we took along with some commentary. Enjoy!

Easter 2007

The boys had a lot of fun celebrating Easter this year. Not only did they learn about the resurrection of Jesus they also spent time with their extended family.

This year the day started off at church with a special fellowship time where the boys got to see some puppets, eat some yummy donuts, and see a lot of people. We then had a great lunch at grandma Mary and grandpa Terry's place. My mom made my favorite meal (noodles, mash potatos, green peas, sliced ham, and biscuts) and the boys were entertained by learning how to find easter eggs, getting an easter basket, a new car movie, some new toys and a bunch of candy.

Later in the afternoon we drove to Winterset to visit Jayne's extended family at the Frey farm. Jayne's entire family (except her dad) was their including her grandpa, aunt, and cousin Tim. We all did the tradition easter egg hunt outdoors. The eggs not only have candy inside but some of that really fun stuff called "money."

You can check out all the photos on Flickr.

Judith Leinen's Junior Recital

Jayne's sister Judith had her Junior Recital on April 1, 2007 in Sioux City, IA at Morningside College. Our whole family took the three hour trip to see her play the violin.

Judy has gotton pretty talented playing this particular instrument so it was fun hearing her play a wide variety of song. One song she even did memorized which seemed to be pretty complicated to me.

Following the recital Judith held a reception with really cool food which seemed to be a huge hit with everyone. I was the official photographer so I didn't get much of a chance to make a list of the food items.

Following the reception we all went to the Olive Garden which opened in the last year in Sioux City.

The boys behaved great on the entire trip. All of us were a little tired when we finally got home late that night.

The only bad thing about the entire trip was the high pollen count that weekend which really got my allergies reacting in full swing. I recovered a couple days later.

You can check out all the photos I took from the event on Flickr. We also video taped the recital for Judith who now has a pretty cool DVD made to remember the occasion. Ask Judy to play it for you sometime (if you know her!).