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!

Run for Relief

This morning Corrine ran our 1st official 5K at Lower City Park with Run for Relief. The race was put on by City High's cross country team. All the money raised was given to Joplin Highschool to help rebuild their highschool that was destroyed by a tornado earlier this year.

When we left our house it was sunny and cool and we could see clouds coming. By the time we got to the park it was cloudy and windy and COLD! After we checked in Johann ran home to get warmer clothes and gloves for everyone.

There were around 100 runners in the race. At the starting line there were 2 dogs behind us that made Corrine uncomfortable and she struggled for the 1st quarter mile worried they would come near her.
After the 1st quarter mile she settled down as the dogs got further behind us.


At mile marker 1 we had a pace of 9 minutes and I was working hard, but she was still comfortable. A few City High cross country runners ran by right then and asked her how old she was. She told them and then kept running with them. From them on she ran ahead of me. She was able to keep her pace the entire time.

The final results from the race were:
Corrine #48 29:15.4 Pace 9:26.3
Kari #56 30:05.2 Pace 9:42.3



She was 21st in her age group (18 and younger).
I was 4th in my age group (30-39).

It's so fun to watch Corrine run and to see how much she loves it. She has such a natural talent for running. She's already talking about running cross country in Junior High.

It was such a fun run and it made me want to do more!! I'm so excited that Corrine wanted me to be her running buddy for Girls on the Run. It helped give me that kick I needed to start running again. It's been hard to start running after 13 years of not running, but it's been so worth it!
This race gave the boys the running bug, so we've talked about training as a family this spring to do a 5K together. I remember lots of walks/runs I did as a family when I was a kid. I'm excited to do a walk/run with our whole family!!

Our trumpet player

Simeon had his "Super Lesson" tonight at City High School. All the trumpet players for the Eastside band met together with an instructor from City High to have their 1st lesson. The lesson went very slowly starting with how to hold your lips, to blowing with your mouth held the proper way. Then they finally got to open their cases and take out the mouth piece, and practice blowing into it the right way. Then came the time to blow into their trumpets.
WOW a trumpet is LOUD!!!


Simeon is really excited to play the trumpet. He has 3 friends ( Nick, Sam & Keaghan) from his school also playing the trumpet and a total of 31 kids from thier school are in the band. It's going to be a BIG band.
Monday the 4 trumpet players at Lemme have their 1st lesson with the band director at their school. In a few weeks he'll have weekly lessons at the highschool with all the trumpet players.

There's a Boogie in the Jungle

Corrine again participated in the City High Dance Team Fall Dance clinic this year. The registration form was due while she was at camp, and we thought she would like to do it, so we signed her up. When we told her about it, she jumped with excitement!
We dropped her off at the High School around 4:30. They learn the dance, eat pizza and play games until it's half time of the varsity football game, where they perform their dance.



When the girls came out on the field you could see Corrine with a HUGE smile on her face. She smiled and laughed the entire time. You could tell she was loving what she was doing.



Watching Corrine out there made me so happy. Our quiet little girl has come out of her shell so much in the last few years and it's such a joy to watch her as she becomes more confident and social.