Feb. 20 - The M & M jar. At my house we have a jar (I know a big jar) that I try to keep full of M & M's. Of course the only time it stays full, is right after I fill it. My husband is a chocoholic. My addiction is coffee, his is chocolate. He gets kinda grumpy is there isn't any in the house, thus the M & M jar. Today when I was taking the picture, Rylie just happened to walk up behind the jar and ask me what I was taking a picture of. She loved the picture...she thought it looked like her head was in the jar with the M & M's.

Feb. 19- - Off to School. Days like this make me wish time could stand still. I don't really want them to grow up. I love how cute she looks all bundled up and how big she looks getting on the bus. Before I know it, she'll be asking me for the car keys and what time is my curfew. Dear Lord, please prepare me for what's to come, but let me enjoy this time now to the fullest. I don't want to miss a single second!

Feb. 18 - Rylie's portrait. Rylie was painting today and decided she wanted to try and copy Regan's picture of ET. I don't know about you, but I can see a striking resemblance. Maybe my girls will be famous artists and paint something great like Michelangelo......no, I'm sure it will be better than the Sistine Chapel!

Feb. 17 - Burgerberger Tuesday. Today was my Tuesday to have my nieces and nephew for the day. However, when they came today, Isaac had decided to stay home with Ahmed, so it was just us girls. With no where to go and nothing planned to do, we spent the day watching movies and hanging out in our jammies. Love those jammie days!!

Feb. 16 - President's Day. Since Regan had the day off school for President's weekend, and we had just returned from our first trip to Disney, she decided she wanted to paint some pictures of things from our vacation. My favorite all time ride is the ET ride at Universal Studios. My sweet Rylie, is scared to death of ET, don't know why, but we had to bribe her to ride the ride and she vowed she probably wouldn't do it again. However, Regan loves ET and loved the ride. This picture obviously was my favorite. Rylie thought the picture was pretty good too.

Feb. 15 - Thank you!! Remember back in January, my girls went to their first sleepover at the White house. Well, my good friend, Crystal, had already gone above and beyond on her sleepover and we knew the bar was set very high. Today we got this Thank You card from Olivia for attending her party. The girls opened it and brought it down to show me their feet. Their feet you say....yes, my good friend, Crystal, took a picture of all the girls in their slippers and socks with their flashlights and made it into a Thank You card. What a great keepsake of their first slumber party!! Thanks again Crystal for making their first slumber party great!!

Feb. 14 - Plane Ride home. The girls thought it would nice to draw pictures for the pilots thanking them for flying them home safely. As we disembarked the plane, the girls went to give the pictures to the flight attendant to give to the pilot, when the flight attendant told them to go ahead and they could personally deliver them to the pilots. They got to meet Captain Tom and personally thank him for doing such a good job flying. They thought the cockpit was really little but really cool!

Feb. 13 - Cocoa Beach, FL. My girls absolutely loved playing at the ocean. Rylie spent the entire day, collecting shells while Regan thought she had to jump every wave. Regan was quite surprised the first time she fell in...she said that the water didn't taste like the water at Lake Michigan. She wasn't too crazy about all the salt. We took a long walk down the beach and on the way back, Rylie thought it was cool for us to be following our shadows. Of course, I thought it warranted a picture. (Not much doesn't warrant a picture from me!)

Feb. 12 - Epcot. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband who isn't afraid to show public affection to his children. I love to just hang back and watch them interact as they are walking. It makes me so proud to be a wife and mom...these are the kind of moments that cancel out all the bad ones. (Not that we have any bad moments in the Koepke house)

Feb. 11 - Swimming at the Condo Pool. After a shorter day at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), the girls begged us to go swimming at the pool at the condo. My wise husband had told me not to pack suits, because the weather would not be warm enough to swim anyway. Lucky for us, he was wrong. Also, lucky for us, there was a Walmart right down the road from the condo. On the way back, we stopped by and picked up these cute little suits. I was very surprised at their lack of swimsuit selection considering its Florida. Dan quickly reminded me that it was still winter there. 80 degree weather in the winter; I could get used to that!!

Feb. 10 - 1900 Park Fare. After another long day at the Magic Kingdom, we surprised the girls with tickets to 1900 Park Fare. It is an anniversary celebration of Cinderella and Prince Charming's Happily Ever After. Not only are Cinderella and Prince Charming present, but her stepmother and 2 stepsisters are there also. And boy do they really go at it. It was quite entertaining. The buffet....was phenomenal!! The perfect buffet for princesses...pizza, corn, mashed potatoes and mac n cheese. The adults could eat all the prime rib you wanted. The desserts...as my dear friend, Ashley, says....slap your momma good!! It was a fun dinner and the girls loved meeting Cinderella.

Feb. 9 - Fireworks at Magic Kingdom. After a very long day at the Magic Kingdom, stayed for the fireworks and we weren't disappointed. I took alot of pictures throughout the day, but this described the day best. Regan told us that Disney World was really a place where dreams do come true. She said that Rylie wished to go to Disney World for her birthday...so she is already thinking about her birthday wishes!

Feb. 8 - Sea World. My girls love animals, especially sea animals. But more than animals, they love rides. Sea World doesn't have many rides, much less ones that are "thrilling". They do have however, the steepest and faster water ride that I have ever been on. That is pure terror that you see on both my girls faces...but when it was all over..they wanted to do it again!! This was one of those water rides where you get really wet. Which at first I was completely against, but then I remembered we were in Florida and it was 75 degrees. Bring on the water!!

Feb. 7 - Universal Studios. Our first park visit was to Universal Studios. Picking just one picture is gonna be really challenging this week...I'm sure I'll take lots of pics! This picture makes me giggle every time I look at it. My husband is a Police Detective and usually he's the one "taking" people in. The girls loved the fact they were taking their daddy to "jail."

Like I said, picking one picture is gonna be kinda hard. We had dinner that night at Bubba Gumps...great shrimp. Don't we make such a nice family. :)

Feb. 6 - Vacation bound!! For months now, Dan has been planning our vacation to Disney World. The girls had wanted to go and we wanted them to be old enough to remember the trip. We originally planned to go in August..but I thought it would be too hot. Then we contemplated Spring Break...nuts! After more research, we found out starting with President's weekend it just gets busier and busier...so before President's weekend it was. We had to pull Regan out of school for 4 days (another story for another day) and we knew we wanted to try and keep it a surprise. We picked Regan up after school and went to my parents house, telling the girls we were going for a family drive and I needed to use the bathroom, so we could stop at Papa's house and use his bathroom and see if he wanted to ride with us. (Papa was our chauffer) The girls bought into it until we reached the airport, then we just told them we were going on vacation to Orlando. Regan didn't put together that Disney World is in Orlando. I think she was too excited to analyze it...first plane ride for both girls. My plan was to keep it a surprise as long as possible...maybe even until we actually got to the Magic Kingdom. Sometimes even though it isn't our plan, it couldn't have turned out any better than if we had planned it. Upon arriving at Orlando International Airport, we are disembarking the plane to go find our rental car to use on our vacation in Orlando, when.....the flight attendant proceeds to say to Regan and Rylie, "Have fun at Disney!" The look on the faces of my two little girls...I couldn't have planned it better!!

Feb. 5 - Florida here I come. Today as I began packing for our vacation, I thought this birdhouse covered with snow summed it all up. Tomorrow we are headed for 80 degree weather..going to join our feathered friends. The sad part about our vacation is it's gonna end and we'll be back to our snow covered house. My little feathered friends won't be back until the snow is long gone. Something tells me I'm gonna be asking myself why I live in Northwest Indiana. We definitely get to enjoy all 4 seasons!

Feb. 4 - Snow Day. Today was a snow day, so the girls got to play outside in the 25 inches of snow we've gotten the last few days. Dan shoved the sidewalk and ended up with a good sized hill for the girls to climb up and slide down. They had so much fun...I had to make them come in!!

Feb. 3 - Rylie ER Visit. Today was Rylie's 3rd ER visit. Her first was when she was 3 months old she contracted some type of viral infection and spent 3 days in the hospital, the second was last year when she fell down the stairs and we thought she broke her arm (just a bad sprain and ugly bruise) and her third, today, she fell while playing with her cousins and just happened to land on the exact corner of her desk, gouging her eyelid. (For those of you thinking her 3rd was the rock in the nose...we didn't actually go to the ER for that, the doctor removed that in his office) Since it was her eye, I wanted to make sure everything was okay and also to make sure it wouldn't scar. It being Tuesday, I had my nieces and nephew, so I had to "dispose" of them before trekking to the ER..I'm not crazy. (4 children in an ER = bad news) Luckily, my grandmother was also with me, so I dropped them off at my sister's house and headed to the ER. At the ER, we had the best ER nurse, she was great with Rylie. The doctor, however, was obviously new. He preceeded to tell me it was very superficial and it wouldn't even scar. He didn't feel it needed any stitches, just a little surgical tape to hold it closed for a day or two. I'm not kidding when I say the longest wait of the entire trip was waiting and watching him try to find a piece of surgical tape. You'd think being at a hospital, it would be everywhere. Apparently not!! Long story short...the whole experience helped Rylie with her winking. (She can only close her left eye and with it taped shut...great practice.)

Feb. 2 - More Snow. We have gotten more snow this winter that we've had in quite awhile. Actually the last time we had this much snow, we lost power for 3 days, we moved in with Shawn and Ash and Shawn and Dan saved Katie and Jim from death by hypothermia. Anyhow, we've gotten alot of snow. I'm quite tired of it. We got so much snow this last time, it gathered on the window sills...I don't know that I've ever seen it like this in "real life." (as Regan would say) This is looking out my front window, snow still coming...It is peaceful looking. Maybe this is one of those images I need to file away to help remind that God has many ways to getting us to slow down and enjoy what he has created for us to enjoy. So, enjoy!!

Feb. 1 - Superbowl Sunday. This is the first year in a while that we didn't have any big plans for the Superbowl. It was actually pretty nice to just be home in my PJ's (of course) and not have to wait on anyone. I never used to be a football fan. My husband and a good friend of his had season tickets to the Bears back in the late 90's, so I started watching more of it then. (Always thinking I would get that glimpse of him at the game) It then became a Sunday afternoon ritual to watch whatever games might be on. Some of our best friends, Shawn and Ashley, are football fanatics (to say the least!) Shawn played in college and Ashley was a cheerleader, so they obviously know alot more about football than I do. This past season, Ashley and I, got to be a part of the Fantasy Football league with some guys from work. We actually did pretty well...we were in the top 4, most of the season. We got knocked out of Playoffs, but ended up 5th overall. Not too bad for the "bamagirls." Let me digress for a moment...we decided we needed a name and I of course thought we needed Tshirts. Ash is from Alabama..thus the "bama" and we're girls, so that part was kinda obvious. Anyhow, I made up these cute Pink Tshirts that said "bamagirls". During this year's season, we also had a Presidential election which lead to the inauguration of our current President, Barack Obama. Needless to say, we were mistaken for
(O)bama girls instead of "bama" girls. Considering we're Republicans, you can imagine the razzing we received. Anyhow, back to my Fantasy football story...our team only finished 5th overall; however, 3 of our players including our quarterback just happened to be a part of the 2009 Superbowl Championship Team. Guess we really can pick em...bamagirls RULE!!

Jan. 31 - Coach Shaun. Here's my girls with their soccer coach (and our good friend) Shaun. He is an awesome coach and the girls are actually learning and doing better because of his advice and coaching. Who knows maybe they'll actually score a goal before the season is over. :) And our Spirit Tunnel is getting better every week!

Jan. 30 - New Coffee Pot. Here's a picture of my new coffee pot..I love that I can just put my cup under and it automatically dispenses my coffee. The only draw back is that this is only a 10 cupper and my last one was a 12 cupper. We'll have to see if that really is an issue...if so, that just means I make 2 "pots" instead of one!! My husband asked if the coffee tastes any different, and of course I said yes, otherwise I'll never be able to get another new one if they all taste the same. Excuse me while I go make another cup...