Muddy Boys

This afternoon Simeon was out back playing baseball with the neighborhood boys Joe and Aidan. I could hear them enjoying themselves, then I heard them singing "Take me out to the ballpark", so I figured they were in the 7th inning of their game.
A while later it was quiet so I poked my head out. Simeon and Joe were sitting quietly on the swings. They looked tired, and they were covered in MUD. They had so much mud caked on their shoes I'm not sure how they could even walk straight!





I snuck a few pictures before they saw me. I love that Simeon has some boys to play with and that they all love sports. He has so much energy and needs this time to get it out.


Too bad he had on his only pair of tennis shoes outside today. Guess it's time to get a school pair of shoes since these just became his play shoes!

Our 1st Outdoor Picnic

Today was such a bright, sunny warmer day, that we decided to have lunch out on the deck. What a treat it was!! We had a gourmet lunch of frozen pizza and juice, but what we ate didn't matter, it was the fact that we were outside eating it that did.


Corrine was at a friends house today so she missed out. When she came home she told me "I had to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich INSIDE at their table."
After we ate Rebecca wanted to swing, and swing and swing. She did NOT want to get out. When I'd stop pushing her she'd say "again". When I did finally take her out, I got an ear full of her crying for "MORE SWING!!"


Simeon & Ammon were playing with nerf guns running around having a great time.





We are all so excited for more days like this.

Puddle Jumping

This week the temperature has been warm enough to melt the foot and half of snow we just recently got. Since the ground is still very frozen, it doesn't soak in very quickly which leads to BIG puddles.


Our neighbor Rowan discovered the puddles on her side of the street, and when she saw Rebecca out she came over and the 2 of them together discovered a really big puddle in front of the neighbors house.
At first the girls were tentative to go into it, but soon they were stomping, running and kicking in it.







Corrine was riding her bike through it sending tidal waves towards the girls. Corrine went through 3 outfits today, ending with flip flops. It was 64 degree outside, but it still wasn't warm enough for flip flops with all the snow still on the ground. She eventually had to go inside to seek warmer ground.





Ammon came out towards the end and joined the girls, but it didn't last for long. He jumped harder and splashed higher and soon the girls were too wet, and he was soaked, so we had to go in. When Ammon came in he had to change his clothes head to toe and his boots dumped a cup of brown water out of them. Talk about playing hard!


We learned that Rebecca's "cute" winter boots were just that-cute. They filled quickly with water, so she switched to her "regular" winter boots and her feet stayed dry.


Rebecca thinking if having a big brother jumping with is all that it's made out to be!

Walking back to the house she fell down. Luckily it wasn't as big or deep of a puddle-she was wet enough already!

Snow much fun

The temps are rising and that means the snow is melting. Melting snow means GREAT packing snow, which of course leads to snow ball battles.

The boys started off having a snow boarding competition across the street. Simeon and the 2 neighbor boys started it yesterday afternoon and Ammon joined in on the fun today. They would judge eachother and give points after each run. Ammon was so sweet to Simeon. Simeon took and run and Ammon said "I give you 100 points", then he gave the next boy a 1. I think I know who he really loves!! They scored extra points for doing a jump and landing it.

I think Ammon looks such the part of a snow boarder with no jacket on and with this hat. I can't believe how grown up he looking all of the sudden. He's getting taller and thinning out alot.

Once Aidan (the owner of the snowboard) went it, the playing turned to snowball throwing. The boys spent 45 minute out throwing snowballs at eachother. I gave them 5 minutes before someone came in crying-but amazingly it lasted for a long time. It did end at an injury though. Simeon got Joe in the back with a snowball and they both went tumbling down the hill in Joe's front yard onto the driveway. They both took a few minutes to get up and Joe was pretty wobbly after it. So thus ended the snowball battle.

The boys came home absolutely soaking, but smiling and talking all about the snowball battle.

*Sorry for the crazy layout of the pictures & text. My setting changed on me during downloading. They'll look right in the book.

Goodbye Tree

Today Dalton's Tree service came to cut down the rest of the tree. They got here around 8am and started working right away. I took pictures throughout the day to see the progress of the cutting down of the tree.


8:15am



9:40am




noon




1:15pm




1:54pm




2:50



Monday afternoon



There are still 2 more steps to go to finish getting this monster of a tree all the way out. Sometime in the next week they will come and get the piece cut from just above the stump out. They were going to cut it into a bunch of smaller pieces and take it out that way. But while cutting it he ran into metal and dirt and had to stop cutting. So now we're stuck with a monster piece of tree in our backyard. Dan found another tree cutting company who has a special crane that can get the piece out of the backyard by taking it over the house.

Then this spring when the ground has thawed out, he will come back and grind the stump and roots out and take all the grindings out of the yard. This will leave us with one HUGE hole to fill with dirt and plant grass on.


This was taken last September before MidAmerica came to take down the branches over the powerlines.


I know it was the right decision to take the tree down after seeing all the rot and hearing of more rot then we knew about, but it's still sad. The tree was so big and provided so much shade, yet enough sun got through to have grass. It's going to be so strange this summer to have so much hot sun, luckily both side neighbors have large trees that will provide morning and late afternoon sun. I'm also excited to be able to have a bigger garden that will grow better with more sun.

My Bike

When Corrine turned 2 we got her this bike and she LOVED it!! (Insert a picture of Corrine on her 2nd bday on the bike. Coming)

Now it's Rebecca's and she LOVES it!! The other day I pushed her to the corner and back for over half hour. Today we got home from errands and Iistead of carring her into the house like normal I got her out of the van and let her walk in. Instead of walking in she went to her bike and wanted a ride. It's in the low 20's today, but she wanted a ride, so that's what we did.
We put on the helmet and gloves and went for a walk around the block decked out in her snow suit.






When we got back from walking the kids to school this morning, she did NOT want to take her snow pants off, so she wore them to the store. She must have known that we'd be going on this walk and having to wait to put her pants back on just wouldn't have gone over good

She looked so cute from behind. Her helmet is called "cupcake" and it's the perfect fit for her. She's a sweetie all the way through like those cupcakes on her helmet!