Kick-O-Thon

Master Choe had a kick-a-thon today for anyone who wanted to participate. I wasn't sure we were going to be able to do it until late last night, so we just signed up this morning.

7 and younger were the junior peewees and they went 1st.

Ammon was next to Kayden and Kaydens dad counted for him while I counted for Kayden.
Corrine was a great photographer of Ammon kicking.


Ammon kicked 403 times in 5 minutes. He was the 5th highest kicker in the group. Dillon had the most at just over 600!


3 1st grade Lemme Leopards Dillan, Ammon and Kayden




The grand champion of the kick-o-thon was Lauryn (9 years old). She had over 2,000 kicks in 10 minutes. She happens to be a good friend of Corrine's, so Corrine was extra excited to see her win!






Ammon was so excited for his trophy and wanted everyone to see it, so he stuck it on the piano with his "Supersib" trophy. He later moved them to his dresser so he can see them every day in there.


We are so proud of Ammon and his determination to work hard.

Swinging in the spring

We have 3 swingers in our family! Corrine has been big into swinging for years. Ammon has discovered his LOVE of swinging and swinging fast and high. Rebecca just moved up from the baby swing to a big girl swing and loves it. Today was a beautiful warm day so we spent the afternoon out back swinging. I snapped a picture of Ammon's dirty feet so Rebecca needed one of her feet too. I think I should judge the enjoyment of the day of playing by the dirt on the kids at the end of the day!

Spring Break 2012

WOW, OH, WOW. We were spoiled rotten with beautiful, sunny, warm (even hot) spring break weather!! I don't remember ever having such amazing weather during spring break. Looking back I'm even more grateful for the amazing weather, because our week didn't go as planned.

Friday the boys and Rebecca planted pumpkin, peas and tomato seeds while Corrine was at science club.

Saturday we wrote up our "to-do" list for the week. It included cleaning bedrooms, reading, Simeon doing his book report, the boys getting hair cuts, Taekwondo and playing.

Monday we stayed home, cranked up the music and cleaned bedrooms. They were sparkling and clean and better organized.

We set the tent up out back for the kids to sleep in. Rebecca thought it was an extension of our house. She brought her dolls and their things out there to play house!

Tuesday we made our lunch and headed out the door to the Niabi Zoo in Coal Valley, IL. It's about an hour southeast of here. Johann wasn't feel great so he stayed home from work.
I decided to get a membership to the zoo for the kids and I, since the kids cost $5 to get in and a membership for them is $5, and comes with 2 guest passes and 2 train tickets.
The zoo was busy. We made the rounds seeing all the animals. The cute baby monkey was everyone's favorite. It was like a little kid with LOTS of extra energy who wanted to jump on all the other monkeys. Some monkey's weren't so fond of it and would be mean to it. The kids would get mad at the mean monkeys.
We had a fun picnic lunch on the wet grass, then headed for the train. About this time Ammon started acting tired and said he was dehydrated and needed to rest. We rode the train and you could see he was tired. It didn't surprise me that he was hot and tired since it was the 1st warm day this spring.



After the zoo we went to Sam's Club in the Quad Cities. Ammon was really dragging and saying he was tired and didn't want to go to Taekwondo that afternoon. He just started last week and loves going.
When we got home Johann felt him and he was super hot. We took his temp and it was 103. He wasn't just saying he was tired, he was sick!!

Weds we stayed home and played. I decluttered and organized and got rid of 6 bags of outgrown clothes and unwanteds. Ammon slept all day or laid in his bed watching movies on the portable dvd player.

Thursday we had more staying home. I ran Ammon to the doctor because his throat was all white and his temp was still 103. The culture came back negative. Darn!

Thursday night Ammon still had a temp of 102, so our trip to the waterpark the next day was no longer happening. I founds friends for the Simeon and Corrine to play with the next day.

Friday Simeon went with Nick ice skating, had lunch and a movie. Corrine went with Lauryn to the library, Buffalo Wild Wings and Build A Bear. Ammon, Rebecca and I had a backyard picnic.


Saturday was much the same. Rest for Ammon, playtime at home for the others. He ran a temp of 102 before bedtime.

We spent alot of time watching these seeds sprout and grow this week. It's been an amazing week to watch these little seeds go from something dry and asleep to something growing and thriving.

Sunday-Ammon's temp was normal all day, and he seemed to be feeling stronger.


Back to school on Monday and I didn't even think to send Ammon only half day. He came home and you could see it in the way he was walking, he was exhausted! He went right to his bed. He rested, then fell asleep a little after 5:15. Poor guy.

(It took him another 5 days before he was back to his normal energetic self.)

Even though our week wasn't full of activites outside of the house and Ammon was sick, we were able to find fun things to do at home. The beautiful weather and being able to get outside ready helped make the week a better one.

St Patrick's Day

This year the Leprechaun must have been tired,really tired because not much fun St. Patricks Day stuff happened around here!

There are a few reasons why today went off without much hoopla, traps, and greenish goodness.

1. It's spring break so all the kids are home and I couldn't get out to help the little green guy prepare.
2. Ammon has been sick for 5 days and he's tired, and I'm tired and I haven't gotten out of the house all week.
3. The kids didn't seem that into it and never even talked about making a trap until bedtime last night.

Earlier this week when we didn't realize Ammon was going to be sick this many days, Corrine and I ran into Target to get a bathing suit for our waterpark day on Friday. While we were there I ran and got a box of Lucky Charms and some Werther's caramel candies. I didn't say anything about what it was for.

This morning when the kids woke up and Corrine saw the cereal and candies on the table, she was onto me. She told me I was the Leprechaun. Even Rebecca started saying it.
The kids asked where the green kool-aid was, since today's the only day we let the kids drink it.

So I was feeling a bit bad about not doing much for today, so I put a little green dye into our Serra Mist at dinner, which is also a rare treat. We also ate other "green" things with dinner-pickles, lettuce, green soda.

It was a week attempt at making the day end on a green note. Now I know that I need to make the day green and festive even if the kids are not saying much about it. They remember the little celebrations and have good memories of them, so next year we'll have more green, and gold, and traps and fun!!

Rebecca and the worm

Seriously this post is about a worm and our sweet curly haired Rebecca.

But before I get to the cute story of Rebecca and the worm I have to talk about this sweet girl and her totally lovable, happy personality. Today we sent Simeon and Corrine off on playdates since they're totally and completely bored of staying home with a sick brother on spring break when the weather is gorgeous, so it was just Ammon, Rebecca and myself today. We needed to get out so after dropping Corrine at her friends house we went through the drive thru at Taco Bell for lunch and Wendy's for a much deserved chocolate frosty.
After a picnic outside, Ammon was wiped out and ready to rest, so he layed on my bed and watched a movie.
Rebecca had knocked over the crib mattress (that had taken up residence in our hallway this week for some random reason-I think it was Corrine's mattress for her sleepover in the boys room, when they, for the 3rd night, didn't make it in the tent out back.) in the hallway and went about giving me the sweetest and brightest smiles that I had to take some pictures of our cutie.





Her hair is still getting curlier by the day! Any chance of it turning straight are pretty much gone by now. Her bangs reach her chin when they are soaking wet, the back goes halfway down her back soaking wet, but dry they are light bouncy ringlets that so beautifully frame her sweet face.

In taking these pictures her feet look different sizes-way different sizes and I think one really is bigger then the other. Funny how it took taking these pictures for me to see this.





I love her face in this picture. She LOVES peanuts, really nuts of any kind. We crack them open and leave them on the counter for her. She was stuffing her mouth full of peanuts right before I snapped this picture.


Okay back to the Rebecca and the worm story-

Since the weather has warmed up and we've been leaving the back door open to the screen door and Rebecca has discovered that she can go out back by herself whenever she wants. As long as the side gate is closed, she is contained and in heaven!
Today she was out playing in the sand box when she came to me with an urgent plea that there was a bug in the sandbox and I had to come see it! I went to check it out and I couldn't' find any bug. She kept telling me where it was, but it wasn't there anymore.
Then she spotted it moving. The bug she was so scared about was a small worm covered in sand. We took it inside and washed it off, then went back outside with it. We had it in a shovel on the picnic table. I asked Rebecca if she wanted to hold and she told me "NO!"

I took a video of her and the worm. The worm is crawling out of the shovel and Rebecca says "it's flying out".
Then when I ask her if she likes worms and if she wants to hold it, she gets scared and pulls back. She says that "Corrine, and Simeon, and Ammon and mom and dad like worms." When I ask if Rebecca does, she again tells me "NO!"

I'm pretty sure she liked and held them last year. Corrine and Ammon LOVE worms!! They ask me to give them to them whenever I come across one!
Oh well, maybe by midsummer she'll be back to holding them and asking me to give them to her when I find one in the yard.

Corrine's Birthday Party

Since we were gone on Corrine's birthday and we were away from the other kids for 2 weeks we needed to wait to have her party until things got back to normal at home.

Today Corrine got to have some friends over for a Rock Star Party. We gave her Just Dance 3 for her birthday, so that started this birthday party idea.
We wanted to keep the party easy, inexpensive, yet fun. The plan was to play Just Dance 3, paint fingernails, decorate sugar cookies, eat pizza and open presents.

The girls started by painting their nails. Rebecca was excited that she got to paint her nails too!


Then we headed down for some dance time. Some of these girls have played this game alot and they were able to get alot of stars on each dance!


Then we decorate cookies. I loved the vibrant colors of the frosting! Simeon, Joe and Ammon joined us for cookie time. The kids all made 3 giant cookies. Corrine did a great job on her "9" cookie.


After cookies the girls went down to play more just dance, but the remotes died, so they started an impromptu game of hide and go seek. They played this for 45 minutes and had such a fun time. It got a little loud and wild a few times, but no one got hurt or upset.

The pizza finally came, and since Corrine isn't a big cake girl we sang Happy Birthday with her candle in a bread stick!


We opened presents then the girls went outside to play.

Corrine sent them home with a goodie bag with nail polish, lip gloss, a ring pop and rockstar glasses we forgot to give them during the party.
It was the most low key party we've ever had, but it was also one of the funnest.

The letter R

Rebecca has been in love with the letter R for months, because she knows that's what her name starts with. She finds "R" on anything she can. Recently she started learning to use a pencil in a more controlled way.

We started by learning to draw straight lines on the paper. Then we worked on circles, and lastly on "kicking" out the leg of the R from the bottom of the bubble.
Rebecca has really figured out the straight line and her bubble is getting better each time. She is so excited to be able to write the letter R.
This R she did 75% of it on her own. I just needed to show her how to finish the bubble and where to start the kicked out leg.

Now we are working on E and B. They should be fairly easy in caps since they have similar lines to a R.

Fine Arts Night

This year Fine Arts Night was a little different. This year instead of an art gallery the kids worked together with Lincoln Elementary school to make a stop motion animation movie. They took over 10,000 pictures and pieced them one after the other to make a 15 minute movie called "The Robot and the Butterfly."
The Robot moved through the story picture after picture which made him "move". The kids took turns slightly moving flowers, birds, the Robot and Butterfly to make them appear to move. The kids even did the sound effects for the movie.
Ammon was so excited telling me what parts he was involved in.
Their art teacher is really awesome and does some really fun "out of the box" art projects with them.

Ammon's group was combined 1st and 2nd graders. They sang: "Candle on the Water", "Wonderful World" and "Haukunamatata". Ammon stood by Andrew. They were really fun to watch talking before it started.



After they had the younger kids and families go out and the older kids and families come in, all the kids came back in and sang "We Appreciate you" to their music teacher Mr. Hielman who is retiring this year. It was really sweett to see her being sung to by so many people. She has been a wonderful music teacher. Simeon and Corrine have both done choir with her.

Corrine's group was a combined 3rd and 4th grade group. They sang: She stood by her sweet friend Lily.


Corrine also sang with the Lemme Choir. They sang:

Simeon's group was a combined 5th and 6th grade group. They sang: During "We are your Child" they had a slide show of pictures of the kids.


After Simeon sang they had the kids stay up on the stage and watch thier premiere of "The Robot and The Butterfly." It was just as cute the 2nd time!

Happy 100th Birthday Oreo's

I found this in the Correspondent today about Oreo's:
"Oreo cookie turns 100 today, celebrating a century as the top-selling cookie in America. Nabisco has launched a limited edition "Birthday Cake" Oreo cookie in honor of the centennial.

By Schuyler Velasco, / March 6, 2012

March is a big month for cookie milestones. Next week, the Girl Scouts organization will turn 100 years old. But first, the most enduring and dominant cookie sandwich in the world celebrates its own centennial: the Oreo cookie turns 100 today, March 6, 2012. That makes “Milk’s favorite cookie” older than the sinking of the Titanic (by a month), women’s voting rights, and the Russian Revolution, just to name a few."

What a better way to celebrate Oreo's 100th birthday then with their Birthday Oreo's. Since we're knee deep in Girl Scout Cookies, in was a nice break to have some Oreo's today!


We tried the Birthday Cake Oreo's. They have a different sweeter filling in them. I think I prefer the original ones.