Cub Scouts Police & Fire 3/25

The Cub Scouts had a visit from our police officers and K9 dogs. We also enjoyed a visit from the fire department who brought a firetruck and an ambulance for the Cub Scouts to climb inside and look around. It was fascinating to see everything up close! Steve Stuckey our police officer friend brought his kids and his K9 Teke. The kids put on the bite jacket and the dog treats the bite jacket like a toy. He gets so excited to bite that sleeve. Those kids were so brave And it was amazing to watch the obedience that the dog had towards his master.

Nathan’s Leo Soccer League

Nathan is playing in the Leo soccer league for spring soccer. He is on the black team with kindergartners and first graders. As we knew he would, he dominates the team with his speed and his passion. He is so much fun to watch! He pulls a win every single stinking game and usually scores the most goals. He’s just an animal out there! We love to watch you play Nathan! Keep it up!

Arm Wrestlers

While waiting for our Mexican food, the boys were competing in arm wrestling and thumb wrestling.  Of course Mom won all the matches. 

Jax is taller than Mom!

Jaxton has officially passed me up in height. We’ve been waiting for this day and somehow it has happened! He had a sports physical a couple weeks ago that stated he was 61.7 inches tall. I remain at a solid 60 inches. Sometimes I can be 61 inches depending on the day.  Regardless, he will now forever more be taller than his mom!

Garrett Concert Band

Jaxton performed his last Garrett high school band concert for the year. It’s always fun to see him dressing up all snazzy. The last couple of months Garrett‘s concert band has worked on some unique numbers including a minimalist clapping number all about rhythms and then some other really fun numbers that they performed and received a gold rating for at the ISSMA conference at Snider. So proud of him for making it through his freshman year and accomplishing so much. He’s a very successful kid! Great job Jax!

Mother’s Day 2022

Mother’s Day was beautiful. Cooper got up early and cooked a beautiful omelette filled with various vegetables and him. He put pita chips on my plate and a bowl of fruit. It was very very thoughtful. I actually had that breakfast in bed! Got me flowers and we ate chocolate covered strawberries.  The big kids had various activities and things going on so Nate and I took Owen to the park and spent some time with him.

I am so grateful to be a mom to six beautiful humans. Equally I am so grateful to my own mother and for the things that she taught me. She taught me how to love and how to be honest and kind and to serve others. I am very grateful to her.

Oak Farm High School Prom

Oak Farm held a high school prom celebration for all of the highschoolers to attend. They rented out Utopian coffee and had a dance there on the Landing. Jaxton invited Leila Stuckey to go with him as his date. Some kids had dates and others didn’t. Leila and Jaxton matched their colors royal blue. It was sweet to see their young friendship and the way they care for each other. Sounds like the night was fun!

Following the dance Nate and I walked towards the Landing to pick them up. We passed by Kiwanis ice cream that had already closed for the evening. The manager there invited us to come on in for some ice cream at 10:30 at night. We told him we were going to pick up our kids from their prom and if he’d wait 15 minutes we bring them back in with us. He agreed and we took the kids to get ice cream late at night. What a fun evening!

Cooper’s Passion Speech

Cooper wrote a passion speech in regards to the Leo Cedarville park outdoor basketball court. His passion is basketball and he decided he wanted to encourage the Leo parks department to improve their basketball court setting. He had to go to the park and observe areas of improvement and also for the purpose of the court and usefulness for the town. I remember he took a notebook and a pencil and truly studied this court. He studied the paint on the ground and the baskets and the benches.  He really took this project to heart. He turned that research into a passion speech to encourage and motivate the Leo Cedarville parks department to make improvements to the town Park basketball court. Janet the Director of the Leo parks was invited on the panel along with the mayor of Fort Wayne to hear the passion speeches of the middle school students. Cooper did a fantastic job! Immediately following his speech Janet raised her hand on the panel and stated that she had a budget of $800 for the park and asked Cooper where she she should begin placing this money? What would be the first action she should do? Cooper responded that the first action should be to establish ball bins and have a few balls labeled as the property of the Leo-Cedarville Park left there at the park for easy access to play. Following that he encouraged her to use the remainder of the cash for repainting the lines on the court.  Janet was extremely pleased with the speech and made his passion become a reality. Cooper is so thrilled that there are now two basketball bins mounted on each basket that can hold two balls each. It’s pretty neat to see a passion come to fruition! 

JA In a Day. 4/12

Nate and I volunteered our time again to JA in a day. This is a junior achievement program that teaches entrepreneurship to elementary students. We got to teach Kaylee‘s classroom of fourth and fifth graders. It was really fun to be with the kids and get to know them and have fun with them.

Primary 2 4/12

Owen is in the Primary 2 classroom at Oak Farm. His class consists of 3 to 6-year-olds and he is a pre-kindergartener.  Here are some photos from his teacher of the things he’s doing each day. I love to see him work hard and in action with his buddies at school. We had Bring Your Parent to School Day and that was super fun for him to show us around his classroom and feel proud of his work and his environment. Love this boy with all my heart!

Tiger Cubs Tree Planting 4/18

The tiger cubs were to plant a tree or shrub for one of their tiger requirements. I was able to get in touch with the Leo Parks Director, Janet. She helped us get in touch with Mark Ringenberg a retired naturalist and member of the Tree ReLeaf organization for tree planting in the area. He was thrilled to teach our boys how to correctly plant a tree. There was one crab apple tree that was planted last year at Riverside Gardens Park that had died. He had a replacement tree for us to plant. Janet also secured three shrubs for us to plant near the restrooms at Riverside Gardens Park in Leo/Grabill. It happened to be a very rainy and wet day. But all the Tiger boys showed up and we got our hands dirty working hard. Those boys are troopers! We learned a lot and now we have ownership of a tree at the park that we can visit and remember that we helped to plant it. Best of all, we made the Leo courier newsletter for the month! Our tiger Cub Scout group made the front page! Good work tigers. It’s great to support the community!

A week later, Bradley and his dad went out and watered the tree its first 5 gallon bucket of water!

Simplx Cares at the Zoo 4/23

Simplx Cares took a large group of workers, friends and kids to the zoo on Saturday. We were divided into groups and tackled clean up projects all around the African journey section of the Fort Wayne zoo. It was the most beautiful day to be working outside. Some of us were placed in the pelican area where we cut tall grasses, raked leaves and picked up fallen sticks and branches to clean up the area for visitors.  Other groups were in different sections. Cooper brought his friend Austin and they worked near the front of the African journey loading up all the grasses and debris and wheelbarrowing it all a quarter-mile to the dump yard behind the giraffes. So much hard manual labor this morning for those two boys. They really put them to work.

 Following our work they invited us to visit the giraffes in their barn. I had no idea the animals stayed all winter and have barns out of sight from zoo visitors. The giraffe barn is huge, obviously and those giraffes were ginormous. Apparently they all have different personalities and they let us feed them lots of lettuce. It was a one of a kind experience! Can’t wait to visit the zoo this summer.