Guess What

I can crawl FORWARDS!!!

I started army crawling on Monday after Cherrios my mom put in a line on the floor. Then mid week I'd crawl a few times, then drop and army it the rest of the way.
Now I crawl more then I army it. I still go backwards sometimes and I get so mad, but I'm getting better each day!!
I DO NOT like the hardwood so I stay nicely in the front room. (For now anyways!!)

Watch Out-here comes Rebecca!!!!

Visiting Grandma Riddle

This morning Rebecca and I went to visit Grandma Riddle. When we got there she was in physical therapy, so we sat and talked with her in there. Rebecca was the highlight in the room with all the ladies in there. She was tired and it took her awhile to smile.

Spring Break 2010

This year I decided that we were NOT going to just sit at home being bored and hearing about all the fun things that other families were doing. I was determined to make the week fun even if day had to work all week.

Monday we had beautiful day, so we stayed home and the kids played outside all day with their friends. It was nice enough for the kids to even have a popcicle. Simeon crashed on his bike and skinned up his knee really badly.




Tuesday the day was cloudy and cool, but that was ok with us. We headed to Fun City with dad to play in the indoor waterpark and arcade. The kids enjoyed playing on the slides and the hot tub. Then he we headed to the arcade where Simeon was determined to get lots of tickets to get lots of prizes. After a little bit Ammon decided that he didn't want to play games, he just wanted an ice cream cone. Simeon and Corrine finished playing games and the kids all picked out candy as thier prizes. We ate at Village Inn for dinner, which the kids had never been to before.







Wednesday was St Patricks day. We met some friends from our MOMS Club at Party Zone to play. I forgot about Simeon's scooter crash on Monday that he couldn't crawl so it wasn't quite as fun for him. Corrine and Ammon climbed for over an hour. We then headed to Pizza Ranch for lunch. In the afternoon a friend invited us to go swimming at a hotel they were staying at. The kids LOVED it. After 2 hours of swimming I had to drag them home.



Thursday we went bowling with some friends also from MOMS Club. Simeon had gone to a birthday party at the bowling alley and had such a great time and was excited to go bowling again. We used bumpers which really helped the kids get more pins down. Corrine showed us that she was quite the bowler. She got a strike and a few spares. The kids all brought their quarters so they could play some arcade games and get a few prizes.




Friday we stayed home and played with friends.In the early evening we walked to Court Hill park to play.


It was such a fun week and it went way too fast!!

Rebecca's 1st sign

A few days ago I was eating a Lemonade Girl Scout cookie. I gave Rebecca alittle piece, but she gave me a "not going for the small piece look" and grabbed the whole cookie. I gave it to her thinking she woldn't like it and I'd get it back. Instead she loved the tartness and started eating it. I took it away from her. She looked at me and signed "more" very adimently. When I gave it back I was given a HUGE smile as a thank you.

Then this afternoon we were playing in the front room. I started taking pictures of her cute 'picture' face complete with squinted eyes and head tilted back when she started signing "more" again. This time I was able to capture in on camera. It's so fun to watch her learn and grow.

I have a video of her signing, but it won't download, but at least I have it to watch her learn and grow.

Optimistic Good Reader

At school the 3rd and 4th graders have been working on a program called the optimistic good reader program. They have a bunch of books they need to read, they do an activty about the book and write a summary about it. Simeon worked so hard on the program and finished everything he needed to to earn the highest level of the program.

He came home from school today with his certificate and pin to show how much work he had done. The kids who finished the program also earned a party in a few weeks. When they finish reading the book Matilda, they will get to watch the movie Matilda and have popcorn.
Simeon has worked so hard on improving his reading skills over the years, so it is so exciting to see him to fired up about reading and doing so well with it.

Skating

Tonight we met up with 2 other families from MOMS Club to skate at the Downtown Recreation Center. This was the kids 1st time skating. (I don't count the plastic Fischer Price one's they've used a handful of times in the driveway as skating.)

Before we went the kids were talking about how they were going to have speed skating races, and talked about who would win.


The kids are very into their helmets and they decided to bring them. I got lots of comments on them and how other parents thought it was a great idea. I'm so glad that our kids like to wear their helmets. We stared them wearing them as soon as they started riding the big wheel and they wear them for bike riding, scooters and skiing even when other kids aren't.

The kids found out real quickly how hard it is to skate and speed skating wasn't even attempted!!


Corrine was able to move around with very few falls. She concentrated very hard on staying up and went slowly


Simeon on the other hand tried to go faster then he was ready to go and fell ALOT. He kept landing on his elbows and was getting really sore.


Ammon held onto my hands and many times would have me hold all of his weight. We found the best way to skate was for me to hold Ammon's hand and have him skate behind me.

All the kids had a fun time and asked to go back. Every Saturday evening the rec center has skating and skate rentals for free. There were alot of other people there tonight. Some of them just learning, but many of them knew what they were doing.



I loved to skate as a kid. I remember going down the drive way and into the garage. There was a lip right when you went into the garage and if it hit it with your skates, it would trip you up. I remember how much it hurt to fall on my bottom on the cement. We would take old cloth diapers and rags out of a laundry basket in the garage and put them in our pants to make the falls hurt less.

I'm sure in the morning we'll find the bruises and fell the sore muscles-but it was so worth it and we'll be going again!

I LOVE IT!!!

A few years back my parents gave us what we thought was a very strange Christmas gift. They gave us a Boot and glove dryer. I admit it sat in the closet for years never even coming out of the box.
Then a winter or 2 ago we pulled it out and gave it a shot. The 1st time we used it, it stunk so badly that I called the company concerned. They said it was because it was new and it would go away. They were right.
We weren't sure if it would work-but we had some wet boots and we decided to give it a try. It was love at 1st use. The boots dried from the inside out. We used it for gloves and the fingers all got dried. I was in LOVE!!


This is what it looks like without anything on it. You can even get another extention if you have really high boots to dry. For us this size works fine.


Right now there are puddles of melting snow everywhere. Ammon jumped in some yesterday and got his shoes soaking wet so I stuck his shoes on the drier to dry lastnight. Then today he got into more puddles at his cousins, so they went back on as soon as he got home. The don't dry stiff or crispy feeling.

I use this dryer weekly, if not daily at times. It sometimes take overnight to get a pair of shoes or gloves dry if they are really wet. It has saved many pairs of gloves and boots/shoes from getting trashed from getting stinky. There are times I wish I had 2 or 3 of them as we'll have a pair of gloves drying and another pair sitting in the bottom of it waiting to go on.

I'm not totally sure how it works as it doesn't get hot and it doesn't blow air out. I just know it WORKS!!

"Yep, it's still there!"

Every afternoon when we go pick up Ammon from preschool we drive past a very frozen pond with an upside down grocery cart sticking up out of it frozen in place.
It's become a daily tradition to look for the cart to see if it's still stuck in it's frozen home, and everyday one of the kids says "Yep, it's still there."



With the warm temps (40 degrees) coming this weekend the kids are wondering if it will still be there on Monday.
We stopped today to take a picture while it's still frozen in place. We're not sure how it got there-but it's probably been there all winter.



It's been fun to spend 30-40 minutes together in the van every afternoon to just talk with eachother as we drive to pick up Ammon from preschool. I've enjoyed getting a fun and different snack together each day for them. Half the days Rebecca is napping, but on the days she's awake she grins from ear to ear as each of her siblings get into the van.

Rebecca at 8 months

This past month Rebecca has learned so many new things. She has gone from contently sitting to a rolling, turning, crawling backwards mobile girl. She hasn't mastered crawling forwards more then 2-3 crawls, but she is all over the room. Since she can't go forward she has been more frustrated this past month and whined more then she had the past 7 months. She still smiles more then whines though and people always comment how easy going and happy she is. She almost always has a smile on her face, which gets bigger if she sees her siblings or mom and dad.

She pulls herself up on us. She can stand holding onto one of our hands. She figured out how to turn on the music on her play house. She gets such a kick out of turning it on herself.

She has days where she drools so much that she goes through 1 or 2 bibs and a top. Along with drooling she started making cute faces.

She really likes her exersaucer. She can happily play in it for half hour or longer. We have it in the dinner room so she can see whats going on.

She LOVES bananas so we sign "banana" ALOT! The sign we use is holding up our pointer finger. Since we use that sign so often, she now points to things. She points to things in a book with one finger. She loves to have you touch her pointer finger to yours. She found that she has 2 little holes in her nose that her pointer finger fits perfectly into. It's so cute to watch her stick her finger up her nose and grin ear to ear.


She likes to read books. She likes to touch and feel things in the books and to turn the pages. Her favorite book to read is "Rusty's Bone". It has soft fur to pull on, rub and other things to touch and feel.
She loves to eat, but not alot of baby food. She likes things with texture and something to chew on. She takes bites off of things. Her favorite things to eat-graham crackers, bread, potatoes, beans, fresh bananas, chicken, ground beef, peaches, puffs, yogurt and yogurt melts.
She sleeps 10 hours at night and takes 2 good naps during the day. One at 9am and one at 1pm. Then goes down around 8 or 9.


When Corrine was about 10 months old we have a picture of me holding her wearing these pink pajamas holding onto curly ribbon during our New Years Eve Party. I thought it was fun to see Rebecca doing the same thing, so I had Corrine take a picture.

Rebecca will lay her head down on the ground after she's been moving around. It's so sweet!

Rebecca playing with a ball at her 1st Dance Marathon.

I'll end with one more picture. I love this picture because Rebecca is so into the button on Ammon's shirt and Ammon is so cute holding her.

Ballet Girl

Today we went to Target and I showed the kids the cutest bathing suit for Rebeeca and they said "I HAD to get it for her." I agreed with them. It's oh so cute, so even though there is still snow outside I had to try it on her and do a photo shoot with her.

Ammon kept calling her his "ballet baby" and wanted to take pictures with her, but by then she was ready to be done.

We are going to have such a fun summer seeing Rebecca crawling (and/or walking) around in this this summer.

Ammon took the picture of Rebecca up in the air. He loves to take pictures and is becoming very good at it.

Hello There

If your reading this then you got an invite and wanted to keep up with our family. Now that you've gotten this far don't think you can sit back and relax, you still have something to do-LEAVE COMMENTS!!!
I now know who is reading my blog, but unless you leave comments I don't know if you are really reading it or just accepted the invite just cause. So leave comments often I love to know someone out there is reading my blog.

Also I added all the enteries that I wrote this past month but saved to post until it was private. The last one is "look at me Go". Corrine had a birthday this past month-so go read her interview and see how cute the chef hats and aprons from her birthday party were, and go check out Simeon's science fair project and read about Ammon's mice dream and Rebecca moving-Enjoy!!