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.

Somebody Loves You

Today the 3rd/4th grade classes put on a play called "Somebody Loves You" at school. It was based off a book Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch and made to fit thier group. Simeon was in a group who ate brownies, and didn't have any lines during the play-but he did get to dance on stage!


The play was about a groucy lady who didn't have any friends. One day the mail lady delivered a package with a red heart candy box in it, and a letter that read "Somebody Loves You". The lady was so excited that someone loves her and she wants to know who it is. She starts being nice to others and helping them out, and everyone around her is nice back. Then the mail lady comes and says that she delivered the candy box to the wrong person and she needs it back. The lady gets sad and stops being nice to others because she thinks nobody loves her after all. All her new friends miss her smile and friendship, so they throw a party for her and show her that lots of people love her.


At the end of the play they sang the song "Put A Little Love in Your Heart" and had a slide show.


Corrine's class happened to sit right by us, so Rebecca went and sat with her during most of the play. Corrine looked super excited to have her sit with her and Rebecca liked all the attention from the kids.

Dance Marathon 17

Each year we go to the Dance Marathon Marathon and each time we come home saying "That was awesome, fun, a HUGE party. It was great to see our friends. We love going to DM the marathon", and again this year we said those same things except we added "Ammon's nose looks awful!" (more on that to come!)

This year was alittle harder knowing that we wouldn't be able to see and play with Becky, and that her name would be on the 'Dancing in our Hearts' quilt and the candle burning by the quilts would also be for her.

Becky's name is on the bottom row in purple-3rd from the left.

This year the family room was a Dr. Seuss theme. They had all the activities named after part of a book or story. They hid 10 Cat in the Hat hats around the room, and if you found them you got your name in the raffle, and got to pick a prize from the "Cindy Lou Who's Prizes for you-who" prizes table. Simeon's 1st prize was a neon green Nerf football, Ammon got a Star Wars Lego kit, Corrine got a bag with body glitter, lip gloss etc., and Rebecca got a Princess Aurora baby doll. But the prizes didn't end there. We went home with over a dozen new toys thanks to the prize table. There was a fishing game and everytime you got a purple fish-you got a prize. We had enough prizes to fill the stroller!! They also had a raffle that the kids kept getting tickets for from the fishing game. (We never knew what the raffle was, and weren't in the room when they gave it away.)




This year we had a new group of students cheering Simeon on. The Morale captain was Mary. She did a great job of sending cards to us and keeping us in the loop of things going on. Last week a big box came to the house with blankets she had made for the kids.



Nicole told us that this was her 3rd Marathon, and we were her first family to come to the marathon. She said it made it more real for her to have the family they were dancing for being there to play with, talk to and get to know.


Friday night we were in the ballroom dancing. A student got down at Rebecca's level and asked if he could hug her. (Remember she's in a lion costume.) She walked right up to him and let him hug her. It was the 1st person she had gone to other then family. We realized while talking that he (Patrick)was a member of our group. Because of scheduling conflicts we hadn't been able to meet our group of students before tonight, so it was really neat to bump into them in the crowded ballroom.

Rebecca LOVED the family room. They had a blowup pool filled with balls. She spent so much time in there. She also fell in love with a Lion costume, and wore it all night Friday. She even had it on when we went on stage to be introduced. She was adorable in it and had her picture taken by so many people! On Saturday she didn't want to wear the lion costume, but rather a unicorn one. It was so cute when the students would see her walking in the costume. They'd all stop and look at her and say things like: "she's so adorable", "look at her". Rebecca ate up the attention!! During power hour I put her on my shoulders so she could see better what was going on. She thought that was the best place to be! She loved all the music and dancing and never seemed overwhelmed in the main ballroom.







Ammon had so much energy this weekend. He ran around chasing Manish, and being chased by Manish. He jumped and jumped and slid down the slide in the bounce house time and time again. He had a smile on his face almost the whole time. He was much more independent this year. He'd stay in the room with us, but he'd go off and play or get a snack then come back to us, then go off again. He had at least a dozen snowcones this weekend. He'd go get one, and come back with a handful of candy, but most of the candy he got was for other people not himself. He was being such a sweetie! Ammon had an accident towards the end of the marathon. He was running around in the main ballroom and crashed into someone. He hit his nose just right and it started bleeding really bad. Johann ran him into the First Aid area and they helped him out. It took along time to stop the bleeding and he ended up in a new shirt. After this he wasn't in such a great mood and ended up falling sleep on the ballroom floor in the midst of Power Hour where the room is jumping it is so loud and energized.








Simeon of course LOVES the Best Buy room. They have a dozen tv's with different gaming systems and games for the families to play. Simeon played alot with Chris (Becky's brother) Friday night and his friend Carter and him met up there Saturday morning. The neon green football he got from the prize table was the hit of the party! If Simeon wasn't playing football in the best buy room, he was throwing the ball around with someone. Carter and him had quite the game with some college girls going in the hallway. Towards the end of the marathon, he went up and danced on the stage and then with the students, but mostly he likes to play.






Each group has a student who can come be with the families during the event, this year it was Nicole and Corrine LOVED her. Corrine held her hand and they went everywhere together Friday night and Saturday morning. It's really fun to see Corrine attach so strongly to a student, but it's hard to get her to unattach when they leave! Friday night she kept asking where Manish was. She wanted to give him a hug and chase him. So many kids absolutely LOVE Manish. He's like a big kid who will play with them! During the night she started coughing and late Saturday morning it was obvious she wasn't feeling good, so she rested and played off and on Saturday. Friday night she found a cats mask in the dress up area and she never took it off all night. It was super cute, but super hot -according to Corrine.





Saturday morning we got to meet our entire group of dancers. We talked to them about our experience with cancer. They asked questions, some about Simeon's favorite soirts teams. It's a neat time for them to get to first hand see a family affected by cancer and to understand why this money is so needed. Mary had shirts made for our group.

The point of the marathon is for the students to raise money for the Iowa Children's Hospital, specifically for kids with cancer. This year they topped the last 2 years with the amount they raised. Patrick, from our group, told us that Thursday night he was going door to door trying to raise more money, and he told a lady about Simeon. She wrote him a check for what he thought was $50. Later when he looked at the check he realized that she had written it for $500.

$1,220,146.17

During Power Hour they hand out glow sticks to everyone in the room. During the last few minutes, they are throw in the air. It is so neat to see the neon green flying in the air as the music pumps out the last beats! At the very end, we all made a circle around the edge of the room. In the middle were all the glow sticks. The kids could hardly wait until they could go collect them. As soon as everything was said and done, we let them go collect-and collect they did. Thier shirts were so full they couldn't get anymore in them. We let them bring home a handful of them and the rest we made a HUGE pile with on the stage.



This was our 5th year going to Dance Marathon, and we're planning on going again next year and the year after that. These students do so much for the kids. This weekend they give them a party to always remember, and the rest of the year they give them hope, courage, a friend to play with and love. When Simeon has been off treatment for 5 years, he'll have a special graduation ceremony on the main stage complete with gowns and certificates. It's another way that they are cheering on these kids. WE LOVE DANCE MARATHON!!!

Digging Out

This winter I've heard about a few major winter storms that have dropped over a foot of snow in places, and I will be honest-I was envious. I wanted a BIG storm with LOTS of snow. I was tired of small storms that left little new snow, but you have to shovel it anyways. I wanted a BIG snow storm.
This week my wish came true. We got a MAJOR snow storm with LOTS of snow. The snow started Tuesday morning, then Tuesday afternoon the wind pickup and we had blizzard conditions. By late evening the snow was piling up, and Wednesday morning when we woke up we were buried under more then a foot and a half of fresh white snow.

Monday Morning


Tuesday Late afternoon


Wednesday Morning



When Johann went out to snow blow the driveway off, the road had been plowed one time hours earlier, but just on our side. The snow on our driveway was 18" deep. Luckily for him his truck has 4-wheel drive and he could go to work. We were lucky too that our road had been somewhat plowed as many roads weren't plowed all day leaving people stuck in their houses.



Wednesday was pretty cold-mid teens, but that didn't stop the kids from playing out in the snow. Corrine made a very big snow fort with secret passages and shelves for snow artwork. Simeon, Aidan and Joe in the morning made a tunnel and small snow houses. In the afternoon when the kids went back out their forts started braking, so they made passages through the snow, then ended up in the backyard jumping off the stump into the snow.




Tuesday the kids got out 2 hour early because of the snow, Wednesday there was no school and Thursday we had a 2 hour late start. Thursdays the kids always get out at 2pm, so the kids had a total of 3.5 hours of school on Thursday, and it counted for a full day!
The school only had it's parking lot and front door cleared Thursday so the kids all had to be dropped off at the front door, bus kids were dropped off at the front driveway and had to walk through the parking lot to the front. We drove up and it took 20 minutes to drop them off and get out of the school. It was a HUGE mess. The afternoon was better, but the sidewalks still weren't cleared, but getting out was faster and orderly. After dropping the kids off at school Rebecca and I headed for the library. We ended up going home after driving around looking for a parking spot and never finding one. Then we saw a city bus get stuck on a snow bank turning the corner, and nearly flipping on it's side. We got some lunch since it was after 11:15 now, and on the way home saw a SUV that had rear ended a trash truck.
The main roads are mostly cleared. Alot of the side street are cleared, but narrow because of all the snow and having no where to put it.

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.

100 day of school celebration

Today was the 100th day of school.

My class had a special breakfast. Every kid brought in 100 pieces of cereal. I brought in Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I like that cereal. I also brought in a collection of 100 warm fuzzies to show my class.


And on the 101th day we did all the activities like we counted 100 pennies to make 1 dollar. They were real pennies and fake dollars!