Swim Lessons

We've heard wonderful things about the swimming program at Blackhawk College. We knew that it was time to get all 4 kids into the lessons. We signed them up for their first session last October and they will be starting another session next week. We are hoping to go through a few sessions before summer so we can have fun while traveling as well as visiting our local pools.

It is nice having all 4 kids in the same pool, at the same time. They all love going and have improved, just in one session.

John Deere Commons

This is a new exhibit at the John Deere Pavilion. Very impressive!!

Can sculpture facts

Height: 17-foot-3
Length: 80 feet
Weight: 170 tons
Number of cans of food: Approximately 320,000
Additional bags of rice and pasta: Approximately 10,000

Another fun fact: In order to replicate the color scheme of an actual S690 combine, the sculpture's designers picked what type of food to use for each part of the sculpture based on the color of its can. For example, the black wheels were cans of black bean chili while the cans making up the green body were mostly spinach.

One final fun fact: The cans of food in the sculpture could feed about 150 families for a year and after the sculpture is disassembled, they will be distributed through the River Bend food bank to nearly 1,100 families in the Quad-Cities area.

Maddie riding her two-wheeler bike

Maddie learned how to ride her two-wheeler this fall!! Much thanks to Alex for working with her.

Halloween 2011

In our quest of keeping our lives simple, I looked at the outfits that our kids already had and tried to come up with costumes from them. For the girls, it was easy. Mom made their "Little House on the Prairie" dresses a few years ago and I asked them if they would like to dress up in these dresses for Halloween. Will had visions of being a superhero...but I remembered his Daniel Boone coon-skin cap from this summer and thought that would be a perfect compliment to the girls' outfits. Only problem was finding him some clothes...thanks to Goodwill (and Mom's sewing talents), we completed our costumes!! I even found metal buckets for the girls (just like the lunch pails from years ago).

Here's the crew before heading out...my 4, Deb's 3 and my cousin's little boy (the skunk).
First stop - "Aunt" Barb & "Uncle" Willy's (my parent's neighbor)


One of our last stops had these "legs" under the garage door...Will & Emma were so worried and had to investigate!

Another Emergency Room Visit

I've never been fond of the hospital or ER (who is??). I praise God that our kids have been healthy and safe (for the most part) all of their lives.

So, with that said, Will walked out to the kitchen the other day and said that his finger hurt. We looked down to find a lot of blood. After examining it, we realized he would need stitches. A few hours and 6 stitches later, he was much better! During this process, we learned that he wanted to carve a stamp (like Matt) and cut his finger with the exacto knife. We praise God that he didn't cut the whole tip off!!

We had many people praying for him all day...this is the note we put on Facebook that evening...