It's Good to be an Eagle

 The Richardson Eagles basketball team took 1st place in district this season!  It's been a super exciting, fun season (and we're still going strong in playoffs).  We're not able to stay for full varsity games since they don't start until 7:30 and Luke has a pretty strict internal clock of 8:00 bedtime, but for the final game of the season we made an exception, so we go to  see all the celebrations!  Here's Daddy cutting down his own piece of the net...

Go team!

 Yay Eagles!!!!

Friends!

 We got an extra special Valentine's Day treat because our friends, the Pollards, from Austin, came to hang out and spend the night.  We were super excited they chose to include us in their little weekend getaway.  The kids played, played, and played, then ate, then played some more.  Here's Joshua and Luke enjoying their Valentine's heart pizza.  These guys are only 3 months apart, so it's fun to see how they have both grown and changed when we meet up together.

There was sleepover fun in the boys room.  It was super sweet to see Ryan and Jake before going to bed.  They both recently got their own Bibles, and they were reading together and seeing how the pages matched up...

 Before the Pollards headed home, we did our best to get a group kids shot.  Luke was not interested at all.  So, here's our first shot while Luke is pouting about the picture...

 Mr. Joe rallied Luke and had him giggling and smiling, but then he tried to get him back in the picture.  Luke was not fooled!  Here's his "I DON"T want to be in this picture" picture...

Sic 'Em

 We always like to support the Baylor Bears in sports, and for this occasion, we got to enjoy a basketball game with friends.  Here are some silly pre-game shots of the boys while we're waiting for our friends to arrive...

 Here are the guys: Kelton (you can just barely see), Jake, Kolt, and Luke...

 Here are the two youngest, Shep and Luke, enjoying the game...

 Luke decided to share a seat with his brother for a little while...

 Kevin's childhood best friend, James, who now lives in Waco, has some nice connections to Baylor sports.  For this game, he had 2 tickets for front row court side!  He was very generous and the dads and oldest boys took turns sharing their time in the awesome seats.

 The players were so close...

 Look, I'm on the court!!!

WOW

Jake got some cool new blocks.  Look what he and Daddy made!!  WOW!!

His heart

For his class Valentine's, I gave Jake 3 options for what to give his classmates: 1. go to the store and buy typical Valentine's 2. I showed him cute printables from the Internet to use or 3. make his own.  My crafty guy decided to make his own.  He had exactly what he wanted to do in his mind without any suggestions or input from us.  I helped him draw the hearts, but the cutting, decorating, and writing were all his own creation.  Here he is working hard on his cards.  He wanted the girls to have pink hearts and boys to have red...

 In case you can't read it, it says "To:**** From: Jake Jesus oves you so much." When I first saw his writing, I said, "Jake, you left out the "L" in love" to which he replied, "No, I didn't. The lollipop is going to be the L."  I couldn't be more proud of his hard work, creativity, but most importantly the message he chose to share with his classmates.  Valentine's Day is a holiday about love, and love originates from God.  So much so, the Bible tells us God IS love.  There is no greater act of love in this world than Jesus' sacrifice for us because of his love for us.  I think Jake got it right on this one and I couldn't be more proud of his sweet and tender heart!

Here's a crazy class pic at the school party...

Multicultural Night

 Jake's school had a multicultural night complete with a potluck, many booths to learn about many different countries and cultures, and 3 types of cultural dance performances.  It was great!!!!

Pets?

 Jake got an ant farm from Big t and Nana for his birthday.  I'll admit, I wasn't too excited when I first heard the idea, but I actually grew to love it!  It has been like having our own pets/science experiment.  Jake also got several books about ants, so we've been able to learn about them and then watch them up close in action and have it match up to what we're learning in the books.  Ants are pretty amazing creatures!  Here's the first day when we put the ants in their new home...

zoo

 My parents generously gave us memberships to the Dallas Zoo and Dallas Arboretum for Christmas.  Jake had the Monday right after winter break off from school, so where did we head?  The zoo, of course! Jake's acting like an elephant in this pic...

Riding elephants...

 Although it turned out to be a lovely, sunny day, the morning air was a little too chilly for us to see some of the African animals, but we did get to see the cheetahs up close and hear some interesting facts about them...

 Wild turtle ride!

 Not sure how much Luke liked these next two poses, but Jake is loving it!!!

 Jake said his favorite animal for the day was the eagle.  Eagles are pretty beautiful!

7

 Jake is 7!  Although there are parts of me that find it hard to see him growing up, I am enjoying parenting an elementary age child.  Jake is such a good kid and such a blessing to our lives.  I am excited to see what this year holds!  It's not a birthday around our house without some kind of special breakfast to start your day...

Jake asked for a pizza dinner, so we hit the road with the Lawson clan for some yummy pizza!

 I love this look on his face.  He's so happy!

 Ice cream sundaes were the birthday dessert of choice!

 Here's our "kids" table enjoying their ice cream and party hats!

New Year's

 Our good friends, the Davises, invited us over for New Year's Eve.  We rang in the New Year around 8:30.  Amy was so sweet and spoiled the kids with these New's Years goodies, along with poppers we did outside.  They LOVED it!

 Amy generously hosted us again for brunch on New Years Day because a family from Austin was briefly in town and we definitely did not want to miss them!   It was so fun to see the kids playing and having fun together once again!

 Moms and kids...