This Little Piggy

Brad's mom had arranged to take the kids to a pig farm on one of our recent visits up north.  Let me tell you...this just reconfirms why I don't eat bacon.  The stench took your breath away.  Once you got past the smell it wasn't so bad.  The place was pretty clean...but it was pig, after pig, after pig.  We came during feeding time.  Some piglets were squealing...They were really cute.  One of the piglets still had its umbilical cord attached.  The first set of piglets we saw were a few weeks old.  The other piglets were just a few days old.  The one with the umbilical cord was only a few hours old.  The girls all got a chance to hold a piglet.  It was really cute to see their faces.  They had fun!!!

After we left the farm, we got in the car to drive back to Hoffman.  We stunk pretty bad for only being there 15 minutes.  It's all we could smell all the way back to town.  One of the twins said, "Do I have poop on my face, because that's all I can smell." 

Deb also had a friend that had just gotten some baby goats.  They were fainting goats, but none of them fainted while we were there.  The kids had fun with them.  They were really cute!

After our farm adventures, we had to go home and take showers & wash our clothes.  

Preschool Screening

Emmy had Preschool Screening last week.  She did very well and wasn't shy one bit. 
They tested her vision, hearing and also checked her height & weight.  She is 38" and weighs 34 lbs.
The comments from the screener say, "Easily completed screening, cooperative, followed directions well."

Some of the development areas assessed:

• Cognitive - Basic concepts...counting, colors and completing sentences.
• Fine Motor - Small muscle & eye-hand coordination.  Block building, copying shapes, and drawing.
• Gross Motor - Large muscle activities (hopping/balancing).
• Speech/Language - Say sounds correctly and ability to use words and sentence patterns.

Emmy played a memory game with the screener and got them all right. 
Overall, she scored 23 out of 25 points.  One of the things she got stuck on was, "A table is made of wood and a window is made of ______."  Emmy looked up at the window and said, "Light."  The screener said it was so cute because she wasn't really wrong - that's what Emmy saw was the light shining from outside. 

She's all set for Preschool in the fall.  My baby is growing up so fast!  :)  She's very excited about going to school.  She tells me that she wants a pink backpack with a princess on it. 

Dance Pictures

Yesterday was picture day for Emmy's dance class.  I practiced with her hair and make-up on Saturday.  I'll just say, It's not easy putting make-up on a three year old.  Once she was all done, she looked in the mirror and said, "I look beautiful!" 

When I was doing her hair and make-up on Sunday it went a little better.  I skipped the eyeliner because she just hates it.  She doesn't need it anyway.  I'm really not a fan of make-up on children and wasn't on board with this for dance.  But, her teacher explained how washed out their faces would look on camera and on stage.  Plus, they want all the kids to look alike...brown eye shadow, red lip stick, reddish blush, black eyeliner & black mascara.  Ultimately it was up to us if we wanted make-up on our kids or not.  I caved. 

Emmy did really well for pictures...even without getting a nap yesterday.  I asked her if she smiled good. (parents weren't allowed in the studio)  She said "Yes, but Sophie didn't." 

After pictures were done, we stopped for ice cream!

Her recital is not until May.  So we have a couple more months to practice her dance moves. 

Her ballet song is "I Love Colors."

 Her tap song is "Fun 2 Be a Bee." 

State Swimming & Diving

The Amazing 200 Medley Relay team took 4th in the State Swimming competition and beat their own record breaking time twice this weekend. Way to go boys!!! Everyone had great personal victories in each of their State events! Congrats to all!!!

The state prelims were held on Friday at the UofM Aquatics Center.  Each of the Monte kids moved on to the Saturday events.  Tyler took 1st in his heat for the Beaststroke event.  He shaved two seconds off of his previous time.  However, he eventually was beaten out by the other heats after him.  He missed qualifying for the Saturday breaststroke event by one place.  He went from 33rd place to 17th place but they only take the top 16.  The 16th place person got 102.35...Tyler got 102.43.  He was very happy with his time though.

Tyler is pretty close to breaking the breaststroke school record.  He's currently 2.4 seconds away from the school record. He reached his goal of 1:02 this year so it's very possible that he will break the school record next year. Once he sets his mind to something, he stays focused and gets very determined to reach his goals!


The 200 Medley Relay team placed 5th in the top 8 on Friday, broke their previous school record, and finished with a 140.34 to move onto the Saturday events.  They took 4th place on Saturday and finished with a 139.43.
All the boys had determination to succeed and they dropped time all the way through.  It was exciting to see!  They represented Montevideo so well. 


As a team, Montevideo placed 10th out of 35 teams that scored.  Congratulations on a great season boys!

Tyler = Yellow Cap

 Fan Club

4th Place 200 Medley Relay

 Front Row: Tyler & Jack Spaeth.  Back Row:  Adam Peters & Tommy Payne