Getting all hooked up

This was Corrine's 4th year of her control part in the stuttering study. Each year it's a repeat of the same tests as the years past, but each year Corrine starts asking when she can go do the study months before she needs to go in.



She had to wear this hat 2 times over the course of this years visits. This year we needed to get everything done in a week so we jammed everything into 3 pretty long visits. Usually it takes 4-5 visits to get everything done. The 1st time it was put on her this year, the guy pushed hard with the stick and made sores on her cheeks. When she had it put on when I took this picture a lady did it and she was much gentler. They put the hat on, put a water base jelly in each of the wholes, then they take a stick and rub it against her head in each whole. This makes the computer able to see the electric impulses put off from her brain she she does different activities.

I liked seeing how calm Corrine was getting the hat put on this year. She knows to not worry about her hair that morning, because it'll have to be taken out anyways to put on the hat, and the stiller she sits the quicker it gets all set up.


After this appointment we went to get Corrine's hair cut. When the jelly dries it turns white and flaky. I told the lady it was from a study she was in and that it would come right out with water. She looked less then thrilled about it. After she finished cutting her hair, she said "she still has some of that jelly stuff in her hair". I just smiled, paid for her haircut, told her thank you and left. I've decided it's not worth the energy to get offended when something like that happens.

Corrine only has one more year of the study. She's sad to see it end next summer because it's fun and she gets paid $100 each summer.

A trip to the County Fair

Nothing says summer in Iowa City without a trip to the Johnson County Fair!

I feel like such a Iowa country girl with that opening line. Johnson county isn't very big and neither is the fair, but we go every summer that we're here. But despite it's small size it does hold the kids attention for a few trips and it does have some fun things to see and do.

Tractor and truck pull

This year I wasn't able to go the whole time since I had class. Johann invited his brother Justin to go with him and it was his 1st tractor pull. This years pull was pretty uneventful without anyone catching fire or braking down mid pull. The Hill's fire department firefighters saw us checking out their truck and gave all the kids hats and badges to wear.

Animals


We spend alot of time with the animals. The sheep/goats and pigs get the most attention from the kids. Mom prefers the sheep and goats to the pig-less smell! They also like to see the rabbits, but since you can't pet them they aren't as big of a pull.

Fireworks

The fireworks are always Thursday night, the last night of the fair. Usually the fireworks are fun to watch, but this year all the bugs that bit our legs made us grateful when they were over!

Horse Fun with Cub Scouts

This summer the Cub Scouts have only met for a few activities. Today's activity was horseback riding and fishing (but we ran out of time to fish, much to Simeon's sadness).

We went out to a horse place just past the Johnson County Fairgrounds. I had no idea that there was a horse corral out there. It wasn't the cleanest and organized of facilities, but they were very nice and good at what they did.

The activity was for the cub scouts, but families could come out too. We ended up being the only family that came out. Since the activity was for the boys, our kids could ride horses if there was time. They taught the boys how to groom a horse and they all picked a different horse to groom. There ended up being a horse that wasn't being groomed, so our kids got to take care of that one. And since they had enough horses out our kids also got to ride the horses. We didn't ask about Rebecca riding until the very end. She was excited to get to ride a horse just like the big kids.






While the boys were riding horses I took some pictures of them, but I couldn't get the lighting right in the arena so not many turned out, so I took the other kids outside to look around. I love the look of old buildings with the paint chipping off and the little quirks that older buildings have, so I wanted to get some pictures of the kids out there.








Corrine is our cowgirl and really wants to take riding lessons.

Nauvoo Pageant

Tonight was our combined youth activity to Nauvoo. When we rolled out from the church tonight our group was a 3rd of the size it was this morning, and we had way more siblings then youth going. The weather the last few weeks has been awful. The temps have been in the mid 90's with tropical humidity, which results in heat indexes (what it really feels like outside) in the 110-115 range. I think the weather tonight had some part in so many families deciding to stay home.

When we drove into the parking lot Rebecca real excitedly pointed and said "Look, the Temple!" She was so excited to see the temple and since no one had said anything about it up to this point, it showed us that she recognized it all on her own, and her excitement showed us that she knew it is an important place.

We got to Nauvoo with enough time to play some of the games. We started with a potato sack race. The 1st race the boys asked me to race with them-and I SMOKED them all!! But then I had to rest because I don't do so well in this weather. So I caught the 2nd race on film. Lots of smiles, jumping, falling and fun was had.




Corrine and Rebecca made rag dolls, Ammon and Simeon sawed a log, all the kids made button spinners and Rebecca played with the rope climbing bears.



We met a family in the pageant from Washington. After talking for a few minutes we found out that they also had a Rebecca as their youngest and they knew a girl named Corrine in the pageant. We got to meet Corrine, who lived in Rexburg Idaho, which is where Johann and I met and where we heard the name Corrine and fell in love with it.

The kids all enjoyed watching the pageant. Rebecca LOVED watching the temple being built and driving by the real temple in and out of town.

It was a nice night to remember the sacrifices that the early saints went through to build the temple and restore the Gospel.

A long hot weekend in Des Moines

Friday morning we took off for Des Moines to play and for Johann and Simeon to play baseball. The heat index this week was 115-120. The actual temp was upper 90's and the humidity was so high that it felt tropical outside.
Friday we went to the Science Center. There wasn't nearly as much as we thought there would be (especially for the admission price). We made rockets and shot them off in the cage, made an arch with blocks, built with legos in the space room (not sure how they totally fit into that room), the older kids were on the news with the weather guy and we watched some shows. The shows were hits with the kids. The 1st show was all about fire and explosions. She lit different gases on fire, made different colored fires and even lit a $1 bill of dads on fire (but don't worry it only got it wet). At the end of the show she lit bubbles on her hand on fire.
The 2nd show was about different kitchen experiments. She needed 3 helpers during the show and all 3 older kids got to go help. Simeon got to help get a polymer string out of water. Corrine got to pour water into a cup, then the experimenter put the cup upside down overs Corrine's head, but because of gel (like in diapers) the water was absorbed. Ammon got to help with alkaselzer film canister rockets. He took off running to get away from his rocket so fast. The last show was about reptiles and they got to pet them. We met a turtle, snake and skink.








Friday night we went to the hotel where the baseball team was staying. We swam for a while, then Johann and Simeon went to an Iowa Cub baseball game. The other 3 kids, plus a friend and I went to Sams club, McDonald's then came back to the room to play.
Saturday and Sunday were extremely hot days of baseball. We let Simeon play Sunday since it was his last game this season. Over the course of the weekend they played 12+ hours of baseball in the extreme heat. Fortunately none of our boys or boys we played had problems with the heat. We had the same umpires for all 4 games we played (they also umpired the 2 or 3 others games in our age bracket). It was so hot that if an inning went too long, they would call a timeout and have all the kids come in for drinks.
The kids watching the game stayed cool by sitting under the umbrellas playing in the dirt, pouring water on their heads and drinking LOTS of liquids. Rebecca was covered in dirt each day and loved it!













Sunday we played at 8:00, then we were done until noon. When we got back they were giving another team the 1st place trophy's before we had even started our game. Our record was 3-0, so there was no way we could have won the tournament, but the team we were playing could have won. They choose to not play a championship game if they beat us because of the heat. So our game was really just for fun because we already knew our places for the tournament since there were only 3 teams playing. Our game lasted over 3 hours going into over time. In overtime we got our second wind and scored run after run to finally win our very last game of the tournament. It was great to go home with a win after such a long weekend.

Sweet little Faces

Since I started my photography class I've been practicing different settings and playing with the light meter. Rebecca is a great subject because she sits relatively still and loves to get her picture taken, and since she's still at my side most of the time, she's usually there when I want to take pictures.
This week our assignment was portraits. I took some of Rebecca in the club house of our play structure and some out front under the tree. She came out with her puppy and a bowl of Kix cereal. She was showing them to me, when I caught her cross-eyed! The last one of her is from a baseball game last week. She was amking faces with Ammon. I loved the fluffy white clouds behind her.









Corrine came out to help so I shot some of her. She is gorwing up so much lately. Even the shape of her face has changed and matured.



Ammon came from the backyard with his nerf dart shooter ready to protect us. I love the closeup of his gap from loosing his bottom front tooth. THe last one of Ammon is also from the baseball game. Making faces and making Rebecca smile and laugh is right up his alley.

When the cousins come by to play...

there is lots of fun and movement and smiles, but not directed at the camera!! Oh well-you can tell they were having fun in the pool out front even if they didn't want to stop playing to take a picture!

Happy 2nd Birthday Rebecca

I feel so strongly that each of our children were born at the right time. They were born in the order they were born for a reason. This is absolutely true of Rebecca. After many hard years with the boys being sick, my faith that we could welcome another child into our family, and have them be healthy, was pretty weak. I remember knowing it was time to welcome our 4th child into our family, but not sure if after all we'd been through I could handle any more health issues with our kids. When we found out we were having a girl I knew that my prayers had been heard. Our boys were sick, but so far Corrine was healthy. I knew Heavenly Father heard my prayers and knew that my faith was struggling and that a little girl needed to come to our family at this time. I know He knew this long ago, and maybe we did too, and He saved her to come to our family now, because He knew it was when she was needed to join our family.
Rebecca joined a family that was so ready for her. Her birth was such a joyous occasion to all of us, that it's fitting that she joined us on the 4th of July. A day that all over people celebrate, just as we celebrate this sweet Heavenly child's entrance to our family. She couldn't have joined our family at a better time!

Rebecca is the sweetest little angel. She has the biggest, brightest smile. She talks all the time. She tells us what she needs, talks about things that have happened and talks with excitement about things coming up. If you ask her what her name is, she'll tell you "Rebecca Doodle Bops."


She talked about "her birthday party" for the 3 months leading up to it. She would pretend to make something and hand it to me and say "it's my birthday party mom", or "it's a birthday present." She had been talking about inviting her friends over for her birthday party, so we gave her friends-lots of friends to play with for her birthday. We invited a handful of families over all with kids and had a giant barbecue with lots of water fun and smiles. We sang Happy Birthday to her, and she sent them home with one of her favorite things-bubbles! She had a great time running around playing and eating yummy food.



She LOVES her siblings with all her heart. One day she is going to make them cry for getting in her face so often-but I know she'll then hug and kiss them and tell them that they she loves them. And their heart will melt.
If Rebecca had her way she would make herself older, so she could keep up better with her siblings and so she didn't need to stop playing with them to take naps! She adores each of her siblings. She loves to go wake Ammon up in the morning with a sweet kiss on his cheek, and to knock him over with giant hugs. She loves Corrine caring her around, wearing matching clothes, playing babies and house with her. She loves wrestling with Simeon and squeals with laughter when he tickles her. She is loving having them home with her everyday this summer.

Since the big kids each have scooters and bikes, and Ammon learned to ride his bike this summer) she has been asking for a bike to ride. She has a trike, but she can't pedal it, so we just push her on it. (Corrine and Ammon weren't able to pedal it either-something about the way the pedals are out in front not below them.) When she came out on her birthday and saw a little pink bike in the front room she was beyond excited!! She ran right to it and said "MY BIKE!!"


It's a balance bike, so no pedals or training wheels on it. She'll learn to walk with it, then to push off and hold her feet up, or rest them on the foot rest. This will help her to learn balance, which should lead to her learning to ride a bike sooner and without the help of training wheels.
She loves life and almost everything in it. She doesn't always like getting her face wet, having her hair brushed (because curls tangle easily), most the time going to bed isn't too high on her liking list, or having something taken away from her. Other then that she smiles and is excited about or embraces about everything else.
She LOVES to be outside. She loves to swing, play in the sandbox, swim, ride her bike, go on walks, go to the park, go camping in the yard with the kids and go fishing. Inside she spends her days playing with her trains, looking at books, building with blocks, playing with her animal friends, drawing and coloring and watching movies. She can spend alot of time on one thing before moving on.






Her hair has gotten curlier the longer it gotten. It's hard to tell how long it really is, because it is so tightly curled. When it's really wet it lays almost flat and the back is a good 4" long. She doesn't always like it brushed or pulled up, but after it's done she never messes with it.


Her favorite stuffed animals are her monkeys. She has 2 monkeys and a Curious George monkey and shirt. She doesn't take them around with her all the time, but does sometimes. If she's wearing a monkey shirt she'll point to it and talk about it alot.



We love you our sweet, fun, happy, playful, talkative, loving Rebecca Doodle Bops. We are so glad that you were saved to come to our family when you did. You have brought so much joy and laughter into our family. You can make even the most boring day or hard time more fun with your sweet loving spirit. I hope you'll always give hugs, kisses and "I Love you too"'s out so freely to your family.
Happy 2nd Birthday to our Little Firecracker girl!!