10 YEARS!!!

Tomorrow Jeff and I celebrate our 10th anniversary. We always wanted to go somewhere cool for our 10th like a cruise or trip but being 32 weeks pregnant makes for some minor inconveniences. Anyway we are excited and glad we've been so lucky in love!

Christmas Preparations

Here's a few of the fun things we've been doing to usher in the Christmas spirit.

Decorating the tree of course!

We got to go carolling with a few of our friends.

I had to get a photo of the 100+ suckers we made for neighbor gifts. Surprinsingly it is only half of the amount I made last year. I made peach/pineapple jam and grape jelly this fall to save my back from all those suckers.

The gingerbread house.

Mom and apprentice making banana bread. (I can actually see the resemblance between us that everyone notices in this picture.)

Pregnancy

10 Weeks to go!!!

Farewell Carmello, We'll Miss You

Last night We discovered out pet hamster Carmello had passed away. I was grateful to have Jeff home when we found him so we could all grieve as a family. We are very sad but grateful he made us so happy while he was here.

Family Picture time

We were happy to finally get a family photo taken. The last photo we had on the wall was when Katherine was 3 months old. It was about time!




This was the only picture that did not have her sticking out her tongue. I think it captures her personality perfectly though.





Joshua in 3rd grade. How'd he get so handsome?

Girls, look out for this one!!! He's a heartbreaker

I like this photo because it looks like Kyle has just whispered something inappropriate in Katherine's ear.

Thanksgiving 2008

We were lucky enough to have Jeff's parents drive out from northern California for this year's Thanksgiving. I prepared my very first Thanksgiving dinner all by myself and I had a lot of fun doing it. There's a lot to be said about cooking everything days before and freezing it! That day I only had to make 2 apple pies, cook the turkey, potatoes and gravy. Everything else just needed to be warmed in the oven for 30 min. Jeff's younger brother Brent is at BYU and we had him over too. We are very grateful for our families and friends and had a wonderful time with the Carlsons. The kids got to swim in the hotel pool, play games, do crafts and play lots of football outside. Jeff, Brent and the boys played in our ward's turkey bowl even though it rained most of the night before. Here's as many pictures as I could find!

No pictures lately

We have been quite busy for the past 2 weeks but no pictures to show for it. I thought, "maybe I'll look up some old pictures and post them. I found these pictures of Kyle when he was around 5-6 months. Kyle was our "chunky monkey" and answered to that nickname more than his own name. Now you can all see what a chunker he was. He was 10 lbs 4 oz at birth and has never stopped growing. This picture cracks me up because his sweet personality is sooo visible even at this age. (Yes he's nude. Babies are too cute with naked cheeks!)

Here's some pictures of the boys at Jeff's brother's old house. Joshua has always been amazingly photogenic. He can never take a bad picture. Wow, look at Kyle's rolls!!!

Hopefully I'll get my butt in gear and get some current photos for the next post.

Pumpkin Mystery/Halloween Celebrations

I did not get a picture of it but take my word for it. My pumpkin on the far left started out the week showing BYU. I did it because my younger sister visiting from Houston would be going trick or treating with us and I wanted to do something she would love!!! I don't know what happened but after she and her family spent the night eating our food and carousing our neighborhood for candy they left and when I went outside my pumpkin had mysteriously changed. Is there bandits in the condos that go around changing pumpkins? Maybe it has something to do with my sister and her husband graduating from U of U. Yeah, that must be it!!
Thanks for the good times Trinie!!!


Here's all of us in our glory. You can't see Katrine's costume but she made this fantastic Bo Peep costume and her two kids she made a white sheep and a black sheep. max kept his sheep ears on for a total of 2 1/2 seconds. Trust me they were adorable. Joshua had planned to wear his mummy costume again this year but I don't know if he is too old be he freaked out two days before Halloween and changed his mind. AARRRGGGH We explained we were not going to buy him a new costume so he came up with this injured skateboarder. Not bad huh? Katherine was , to quote her, "A purple butterfly with wings on my back". Kyle was inspired by Charlie Brown and wanted to be a plain sheet ghost but I worry about seeing clearly through two small eye holes so he let me cut out the head as long as we did spooky makeup. He asked Mom and Dad to be Mommy and Daddy ghosts too. I thought that was a great idea since the costume only took 2 1/2 yards of dollar fabric. Jeff would not get dressed in his that night which made me sad at first until I realized he saw how stressed I was getting everyone else ready he let me off the hook. Thanks Jeff!

Here are pictures of our Halloween feast. After a few years of Dead Man over worms meatloaf (picture follows) I found this great idea for mummy hotdogs in an advertisement for Rhodes rolls. I'm always ready for super easy fun food that kids will actually eat. Of course they never eat the meatloaf but I have to make it every year for tradition.

Riding a bike

Katherine rides this little vehicle faster than it shows in this video. We posted this one because the crash at the end is funny!

Kyle has been bugging us to take off his training wheels ever since Joshua took his off this spring. We kept putting him off saying not until your birthday, not until your birthday. Well, a few days after his birthday he asked again and when we tried unsuccessfully to put him (what bad parents to break a promise) we decided to keep our word. We took of the training wheels and what you see is his third try. We were not looking forward to the long process of teaching him but he just put his feet on the pedals and took off. You should've seen the look on our faces and we ran in and grabbed the camera. He surprises us in so many ways.

Happy Birthday Kyle

October 15th our Chunky Monkey, or K-Dog turned 5. He wanted a transformer cake that could change and you can imagine what my response to that was. He had mentioned weeks ago that he wanted a basketball cake so I talked him into that. We opened presents bright and early before Josh went to school and had Uncle Brent over for dinner. Kyle got to pick the menu and we felt bad feeding Mac n Cheese and hotdogs to a college student. At least Kyle let me make his favorite homemade twisty breadsticks.

Bunk Bed Heaven

We had been noticing for a few weeks that the boys bunk beds had been leaning wickedly to the left. After pushing it back and it wouldn't stay we decided to check all of the screws and bolts. We then found that this seam on the head and foot board was coming apart. There was no way with our limited tools and knowledge we could fix the problem and realized they needed a new bed. I slept terribly that night praying that Kyle wouldn't be killed by Josh falling on top of him. These beds were awesome but were old heavy wood and would've injured an adult if it collapsed. We drove to IKEA the next morning and found this awesome set for only 159.99. They are quite a bit smaller and in our condo, space is so precious. Kyle can sit up straight in his bed and it actually has a ladder. We decided to get some new mattresses seeing that we had let them sleep on the old used set for too long. They were so happy and boy does Katherine love the ladder. It sure is inconvenient though to have to pull her down every time she climbs in Josh's bed.

Elder Bradley James Clark

So here we are at the Salt Lake Airport on Friday the 3rd. The youngest Clark sibling, Bradley came home from his mission in Argentina, Buenos Aires West. We were very excited but not as excited as my mom. You'll see from the video beneath. We were sorry to not have Katrine and her family there but that is why I took the video and posted all of the pictures.

Here we are waiting for his plane to arrive.

Of course my eyes are nice and shut. One less red eye correction!

Look how tan he is. I would never have thought a Clark could ever achieve that color of skin tone.

Sorry Patrick, I think he's the taller brother now!!!

My Daddy's the cutest!!!

Here's Anna Lisa and her family.

We can't wait to see you in two weeks Trinie!!

Summer Pictures

I wanted to post these cute pictures months ago but kept forgetting. I love Katherine's cute shoulders in this shirt. Daddy was not to keen when I bought this shirt for her (Is that modest? he asked). As soon as he saw her in it he was charmed and agreed it was okay. Of course only for this year. Next year she's too old!!!!

There are the inseperable brothers on their bikes. That's definately one bonus to living in a condo. They have complete tracks of sidewalk right outside their door.

Soccer season comes to a close

These are proof of what our family has been doing for the last month. They both had games on Tuesday night and Saturday morning. Tuesday night was interesting because we had to figure out creative ways to serve dinner between games. We found that if I prepared a crock pot meal it would stay hot in the car during Joshua's 5:00 game and we'd eat before Kyle's 6:30 game. What an adventure.
Jeff was Joshua's coach and was challenging for both because his league now plays with goalies and positions. Joshua really loved the new rules and challenges.
Go Green Dragons!!


What an action shot!!


Kyle was very ready to play his first soccer game. After 4 years of supporting Josh it was finally his turn. Kyle's favorite way to play is to wait mid field and wait for the other team to make a move and then he uses those awesome legs to kick it back to his team at the goal. We tried to work with him on being more aggresive too and on the last game he announced to his dad that he now knows how to push people out of the way. Is that a good thing???? In the last picture you get a glimpse of what Kyle's face looked like 98% of the game. The toungue was a very integral part of concentration. The other 2% he was laughing and just having the time of his life. What a sweet kid. He also made two goals this year.
Go Blue Dolphins!!

Final Olympics

Here is the olypmic medal ceremony (Clark's=Gold, Carlson's=Silver, Davidson's=Bronze). The Clark's solidified their standing by winning the Jacks tournament. Grandma smoked us all!! Sorry I didn't get any pictures of us playing Jacks. We were packing up and getting ready to go and everyone was scattered. There's also some funny pictures of Katherine's new obsession--Grandma's new kittens. What do you think of Katie's devious smile and the choke hold on the cat? Good thing she's not too strong.