I'M STUCK

This afternoon Ammon decided to sit on Brownies dog house (Corrines stuffed dog).



What he didn't realize was that the top wasn't very strong-and IN HE WENT!



He looked so cute stuck in the box with his bottom coming out the doggie door. After a minute though-he decided it wasn't so much fun anymore and cried for help!

Corrine gives a talk

Today Corrine gave a talk in Primary. The theme for the month was: My family members have important responsibilities.



"In the Proclamation on the Family it says that parents should teach their children about Jesus and Heavenly Father.
Every morning we all get up and read the scriptures and have family prayer. We just finished reading the story about the 2,00 stripling warriors. The 2,000 stripling warriors knew that Heavenly Father would protect them if they went to battle. They listened to their mothers and were protected in battle.
I don't always like to get up so early to read the scriptures, but I know that when I do what Heavenly Father asks us to do that we are protected."

She proudly showed our Book Of Mormon reading chart and 2,000 stripling warriors picture. She did a great job and spoke loud and clearly despite being nervous to speak in front of all the kids.

Spring Break 2009

This year spring break actually had spring weather, and what a treat it was!! We spent most of the week out and about and loving every minute of it.

Monday- We met our friends at a school that has some really neat play equipment to play on. It was such a beautiful warm sunny day. When we got back from playing with our friends, the kids wanted to go fly kites at our school, so we headed up there to play and fly our kites. Today was the 1st really warm day we've had.

Tuesday-Today was St Patricks Day. We started the day off with some GREEN fun, then we packed our lunch and headed out. We stopped at the library to listen to some Irish music, then went out to enjoy the beautiful day. We made a stop at the Firefighters Memorial-which Ammon has been wanting to go to for a while. The kids liked feeling the names carved into the stone of those who have died, and looking at all the firefighting gear and pictures in the museum/building. They have a map that has red crosses for each of the fallen firefighters, and where it happened-we learned that our area has had 2 fallen firefighters.
We went to North Ridge Park which we've always seen, but never been to. They have a really nice walking path, which you can take and go under the Interstate to the mall. The wind was so strong out there, that we didn't stay as long as we had planned on, but we did get to enjoy the warm sun. There is alittle creek that runs into the lake. The kids were having alot of fun jumping over it and running over the bridges.

The Underground Tunnel. Corrine is in her Wonderwoman pose from dance!

Wednesday-Johann got off work at 2:00 today, so as soon as he got home, we headed out to the Devonian Fossil Gorge and Raptor Center. We weren't sure what we'd find at the fossil gorge since it flooded really bad last summer. There is alot of work to be done to repair the damage, but there were still lots of awesome fossils to be found. Last time we went to out here, it ended at a dirt embankment, but this time the gorge went right to the river, and there was more water in it. The kids had such a fun time finding fossils and looking at the wholes in the rocks from the water going through them. We were hoping to see a Bald Eagle by the dam-but luck wasn't with us today.
Then we went to the Raptor Center. On the road out to it, we were lucky enough to see 2 does right next to the road. We stopped and watched them for a few minutes. Ammon has a hard time seeing them when we are driving, and these were on his side of the van so he was super excited to get such a great view of them. We went into the bird blind to watch the birds eat, then went and saw the other birds. Simeon's favorites were the Bald Eagle and the Golden Eagle. There was an owl that was clicking it's jaw like it was trying to talk to us.
We ended the night going to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. This was the 1st time the kids have been there so it was quite a treat!


I think this picture is cute. I reminds me of pictures of my brother Jake and I sitting with our mom when we were this age.


Looking down the fossil gorge. You can see where the flooding washed out the bank sides.


Corrine showing off a fossil. She was trying to make rubbings of the fossils.


Simeon found alot of really neat fossils today.

Thursday-we took a field trip to Hy-vee with our MOMS Club friends. The kids were able to help frost some giant cookies, pet a lobster, go into the freezer and yell Hy-Vee (Simeon wondered why they were asking them to yell in the store). After the tour the kids got to decorated cupcakes.
After the field trip we picked up some pictures we'd printed, and left our cupcakes and giant cookie on the counter. I went to work for the afternoon, then after I picked the kids up, we headed back to HY-vee to get the forgotten ingredients for Corrine's cream puffs and we found the cupcakes. On the way out to the van the container tipped and they all fell onto the ground in the parking lot. Corrine was so sad that we had found them, only to lose them again, and that we had to just leave them for cars to run over.


Ammon checking out the lobster. He did touch it, but here's he's looking at it's face.


Corrine decorating her very colorful cupcake.

Friday-We went to the Children's Museum to see Dan Wardell. The museum was so incredibly crowded that we only stay for Dan, then left. Dan Wardell is such a fun person to listen to. He read the book "There's a rumble in the jungle" and had the kids and parents up acting like the animals. He told the kids the 1st one that could touch the ceiling with their tongue, he'd give $20 to. The kids sure did try-but no one had THAT long of a tongue!

Saturday-We headed to Hills Bank to see the baby animals. The kids we able to hold a baby chick, pet a lamb, duck and guinea pig. Then we decided to head downtown and work on getting some more pictures for our ABC book. The kids really like going to the museums and library downtown, so we spent a good 4 hours walking around, checking out the museums and playing in the sun. That evening we celebrated Jonas's 4th birthday with a yummy Cars cupcake cake.


Simeon proudly holding a baby chick.


We found a tree that had a HUGE branch that the kids could all sit on.


Playing in the evergreen tree on the front side of the Old capital.


I love the way this picture turned out. The kids are the focus, but yet you can see the Old Capital behind them. There were people sitting on the steps to the capital, but with placement of kids, you can't even see them!

Cream Puffs

Corrine checked out a children's cook book from the Coralville library this week. She was so excited to look through at all the recipes, and find one to make. After looking at all the yummy recipes she choose to make the Cream puffs.
She did a great job following the directions and measuring and mixing the ingredients.



They were very yummy and looked good too. The only thing we would change next time would be to add some sugar to the whip cream to make them a bit sweeter.

That sneaky Leprechuan

This morning the kids woke up to find gold coins on the floor of their rooms. The trail led them to the kitchen table where a pot of gold candy eggs and a box of Lucky Charms was waiting.


Simeon & Corrine searched the house looking for another pot of gold since the 1st pot was too easy to find. When we opened the fridge to get the milk out we discovered that he had turned our fridge GREEN! There was a pitcher of green kool-aid and green jello, which Ammon would have nothing to do with because "it was green".
We went to hear the Beggermen sing at the Library. When the kids got in the van they started screaming-I thought that they were fighting, but they were just VERY excited to find that the leprechaun had gone into the van and left them some gold there too.

We spent the afternoon outside since it was near 80 degrees. We went to the park and walked under the interstate. The wind was so strong at the park, so we didn't stay as long as we had planned.


The boys were so cute walking with eachother.


The kids had alot of fun jumping over the little creek that ran through the park. We found a very good spot to jump over.

Lets Go Fly a Kite

This afternoon we met some friends at a school playground to play. One of the kids wanted to fly his kite, but right then there wasn't enough wind. After we got home, the breeze started to pick up-so we headed up to the school by us to fly our kites. Ammon was so excited to fly his kite. His kite though must have ripped last year as it was taped together and at one point broke into 2 pieces when it hit the ground. Scotch tape amazingly held it together enough for today.
At first he couldn't figure out how to fly it, he kept running towards his kite and away from the wind. He finally figured out that if he ran into the wind it would fly better.

Corrine took a few trys then was a pro at flying her kite. It was when we were trying to get them put away that we couldn't get them to come down and lay on the ground.

After flying we headed to the spacenet-a favorite of all 3 of the kids. It's so neat to see how much Ammon's confidence and physical abilities have increased since last fall. He was able to climb up to the seat all by himself, and with some sisterly love to climb back down by himself. One time though he claimed he was too scared to get down. I took the chance to get some pictures of my stuck monkey.

What is THAT??

It's Ammon's shoe nearly covered over with VERY sticky mud.


It was so sticky that he pulled his foot out of his shoe trying to get it out, then tried pulling it out with his hands-but had no luck.

Mom had to rescue the shoe-and it was hard for me to pull out.

That mud wasn't giving up without a fight!

A Spring Walk

Today we decided to take a family walk to go say Happy Birthday to Jonas. The day was nice and sunny but the slight breeze made it cool at times. We also wanted to get another item on our Bronze Leopard Challenge done, so we also turned our walk into a "coin flip" walk. What you do is you flip a coin at every corner, if it's heads you go right, tails you turn left. Amazingly the quarter always landed on the side that made us turn the way we wanted to go (Johann said it was positive thinking-I think it was that he called it out before the kids saw it).

Simeon lead the pack, while Ammon held onto Johann's hand the whole way, Corrine carried her baby doll in her baby carrier, and I brought up the rear-I'm not so fast these days and I have 4 more months to go.

On the way home we met a lady who had 4 retired greyhound racing dogs. They were so friendly and nice to pet. We asked why they were retired she said 2 weren't very fast racers, 1 broke his leg during a race, and the other retired after being a good racer and having 2 liters of puppies. When we walked away Simeon said he was so excited that he got to meet 4 racer dogs, and I said we could write that on our leopard challenge paper for all the kids to read.
We love spring days!

Fine Arts Night

Tonight was the kid's fine arts night. This year they moved it to City High School and had the performances on the stage at Opstaed Theater. It made it nicer to have more room for the parents to watch the kids sing. Johann, Ammon & I sat up on the top floor. Ammon enjoyed being able to look down on all the kids and people below us.

The kindergarteners sang a song about a Tree, a song about the different way dogs bark and Chi-Chi the Chihuahua. Corrine stood by her friends Lauryn and Mia.

The 1st graders and 2nd graders sang together. They sang Forever Friends, Ways to make your life better and heathier and Wonderful World. Simeon stood by his friends Timmy and Camden.

After their performances we went to the cafeteria to see the artwork the kids made and to have a treat.

Corrine's picture has dogs and cats that she waterpainted.

We weren't able to find Simeon's picture, but were told someone did find it later on. His picture had a pheonix and a dragon fighting over lava, and he made it by piecing together cut up pieces of paper.

The CHALLENGE Update

Back in October I said we were going to read the Book of Mormon in one year and promised updates. It's now March and this is my 1st update on our progress.
We have been sticking to our plan to get up at 7:00 am weekday mornings, having prayer and reading 1-3 chapters, depending on length and time.


This is our coloring chart so we can see our progress.

We are currently in Alma Chapter 46. Some mornings it goes great, the kids are attentive. Other mornings are a wrestling match between the kids with them being separated so we can get through it. Simeon reads every 5th verse some mornings. It has been very helpful with getting ready in the morning. The kids are completely awake by 7:25 when we're done and they are ready to get ready for school.

We also set a goal to have Family Home Evening on Sunday afternoons. We are doing it about 75% of the time. The kids really like deciding who is doing what, songs, prayers, lesson, activity and of course TREAT! Once our home teacher said the treat is the most important part (meaning the time we spend together as a family doing something fun), so the kids always remind us that we have to have a sweet treat-"because it's the MOST important part of Family Home Evening!"


Our Family Home Evening Board-we use this or a white board.

1st signs of Spring

This afternoon we were playing in the backyard, when something stood out-because it was GREEN! We looked closer and saw tulips coming up. They are right under Johann and my south bedroom window.



Then we looked up and saw that our tree has red buds on the branches.

The last few days Johann's nose had been bothering him and he figured it must be because of pollen in the air-and he's right. Spring buds are budding!!

Today the temps reached well into the upper 60's. We could play outside without any jackets-what a welcomed day it was!

Bringing a Friend to Life

Corrine really wanted to use her birthday money and go to Build-A-Bear, so today we had a girls day out and went to make a new friend.

When we got there she instantly found her new friend-Spring Bear-a pink bear with pink flowers on her.


She stuffed it softly so it would make a good cuddler.



Then she picked out an "I Love You" heart to put inside of it. She wouldn't kiss the heart or make a wish on it, she just wanted to hold it.


Corrine and her new friend who she named Kaitlynn Bear.

After she stuffed it she gave it an air bath and put some (pretend) makeup on it.

She also picked out a pink princess shirt, pink skirt and pink underwear for Kaitlynn Bear. They gave her lots of hair bows to match every outfit that Corrine dresses her in.

Captive subjects as mom plays!

Today was month 30 of treatment for Simeon, which included a spinal tap and fasting which leads to no energy for Simeon. I decided to bring along my camera and instruction book to learn how to use more of the features the camera has to offer. So here are some of my shots as I took advantage of Simeon not feeling like doing anything but laying around, and Ammon being held captive in a small room for hours!

When Johann was looking for a camera to get me, the sale guy showed him color accent. Johann knew I'd love the feature-and he was right. I love accenting one color. I tried really hard to get Simeon's blue eyes to stand out, but they just didn't have enough brightness today, but Shadow's did.


Accenting his green shirt-I love the look on his face. He was getting annoyed at me for taking his picture so much-but was trying to be cute about his dirty looks!


Another color accent. I accented green-but yellow is a hue of green, so any yellow also got colored. Ammon's pants were khaki and must have had some yellow in them. He's not smiling in the picture, but was loving being hung upside down by Manish.


Then I switched to sepia. I think it adds a timeless feel to the pictures when they are taken in Sepia.

Ammon reading a book with Manish. Manish is a Dance Marathon rep. We have known him since towards the beginning of Simeon's treatment. He loves to come play with the kids, and the kids LOVE playing with him. On purpose I didn't tell Corrine that Manish would be at the clinic-or she would have insisted that she come with us to see "her Manish" instead of going to school.


Shadow has been Simeon's constant companion since May 9th, 2007. He's getting wornout and his nose is furless, but it doesn't matter. He means everything to Simeon.


I wanted to prove that Simeon did smile when we 1st got here. He always asks for a gameboy-since he doesn't have one at home. This is one of the things that the kids look forward to at the clinic.



This picture I used the "vivid" feature. It does just what is says-makes the colors more vivid-brighter.


This is a straight black and white shot. Simeon had ripped the paper on the bed and had it over his head trying to hide under it. He really wasn't feeling good when I took this picture and just wanted to be left alone.


The ET Light-aka oxygen sensor. This picture was taken just as is. I just liked seeing Ammon touching Simeon's red light.


I want to learn how to take really good pictures. I especially like to take closeups and with this new baby on the way I'll have a captive audience to practice more on!!