Ella's First Christmas

Early Christmas Morning....We all got new PJ's from Santa Clause....Ella's Smile says it all!
Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Clark's-Ella was helping Travis play with his new toys! She acts like a little Mother Hen with Travis....she makes sure he stays happy!
Merry Christmas! Ella got her picture taken in her Christmas Dress....and shinny black shoes....she is such a girl!

Olives Anyone?

Ella Jane is definately a Clark! Between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities Ella ate a WHOLE CAN of OLIVES by herself! She devoured them, after of course putting them on her little fingers!

Emerson Michael Clark

Here's the recap:

Born: 12/30/07 at 7:00 am

Weight: 9 lbs 9 oz

Height: 21 inches

Heather and Emerson are both doing really well. I'll try to post some more pictures on our family site within the next day or two.

Christmas Eve

We had a fun Christmas Eve party with a few friends from our ward.  Everybody brought soup and then we had a couple of musical numbers and a puppet nativity reenactment.  It was a big hit.

Then we sang a few Christmas songs and everyone headed home by 7:30 to get ready for Santa.  Thomas got to open one of his presents from Grandma and Grandpa.  

He decided to take his clothes off right there to put on his new "Cars" pajamas.  He could hardly sleep he was so excited about them.

Merry Christmas!  We miss you all!

Serious Disease

I ran across this public service annoucement that I think we all should be careful attention to, especially where some of us have small kids. Check it out here.

The GIRLS

Here's a little something to get us all in the holiday spirit...

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Merry Christmas!

Ready

So we finally got a crib! After we gave up trying to paint the old crib (my bright idea) and realized that we had totally ruined it, we started looking for a new crib. The problem is that new cribs are either pieces of junk or expensive furniture, there really isn't anything in between. For instance, Walmart just recalled one of their cribs because it was somehow strangling babies, YIKES! We were about to fork out WAY too much money for a nice crib but Jason and Allison came to the rescue. After we spent Thanksgiving together Allison called and told us her neighbor was giving their crib away and wanted to know if we were interested. Umm, YES! So here it is, our cute, sturdy, 4 poster crib. Hurray, now this baby won't have to sleep in a drawer!

Church History

So I was reading some documents that were assigned for my church history class of when Brigham Young spoke as if it was Joseph Smith speaking and to my surprise one of the select few that were chosen to have us read about was by Ezra T. Clark. So that was really cool, because he is totally like my Great, Great, Great, Great Grandpa (give or take a Great). Anyways, the very end of his long journal entry he said, "Two days later the Prophet was martyred, and two or three weeks later, when the saints held a conference, and Brigham Young arose as leader of the Church, I want to bear record that he spoke as Joseph used to speak; to all appearances, the same voice, the same gestures, the same stature. I bear this record to all the world, to my children and to my children's children, and also bear record that this is God's work, and that it will roll on as it has done from that day to this." Anyway, I just thought that was really cool.

Baby

What do you think that scary baby-thing will do when the countdown gets to zero? Will the baby disappear? do we get to cut the umbilical cord? I'm so curious?

Jill and BeBeez:)

I'm trying to think when this picture was taken. I think its way cute! I love how Ella and Travis are almost the same size. She still has him beat by 1 inch and 2 lbs. Jill is going to have to sprout a couple more arms soon in order to hold all the the Clark grandkids:)

Thanksgiving

We had a lot of fun while Amy was here, we miss her a ton! She was a huge help getting Thanksgiving dinner put together and a lot of fun to hang out with.


It was so funny to see her and Thomas interact. Actually, to see how Thomas started bossing her around! It was hard to convince him that Amy was in charge and he couldn't tell her what to do. He went crazy for all the attention and has been pretty bored since she left.

By the end of her visit he was going straight downstairs in the morning to see Amy and Michael and I could sleep in, it was so awesome! The first morning after she left we woke up to Thomas yelling loudly from downstairs, "Amy, Amy, where are you?!"

Here's a funny little video we took the day after Thanksgiving as we were polishing off the pumpkin pie (yummy).

baby blessing

I like this one cause everyone's different faces.

New Church Calling

After lying low for awhile and hoping I would be forgotten, I got the call from Chris Barker to meet with Brother Terry from the bishopric. Brother Terry ended up having to see too many people at our alotted meeting time, so Bishop Pitt ended up extending the call to me. I was totally unprepared for what he asked me to do. When he asked if I would be a Gospel Doctrine teacher, my heart sunk. I thought for sure that I would be on the activities committee. My previous calling as chorister in sacrament meeting took me out of my comfort zone, but this one takes the cake . I think the Lord keeps challenging me to progress. While I am terrified, at least the Book of Mormon will be the book we are studying and I am excited about that. I was set apart right after church and was comforted to know that my calling was given after prayerful consideration and that Heavenly Father would be there for guidance if I would ask. I will do much studying and praying for guidance.

Frozen Turkey Day Run

So, until I married Heather I had no idea that Thanksgiving Day races even existed. The big thing in her family is for at least someone in the family to run the Turkey Trot (10K) in Mesa Thanksgiving morning. I've made it a goal to some day actually run this race. One of my friends in Colorado talked me into running the Highlands Ranch Turkey Day 5K (his company is one of the sponsors so he could get me in for free). I haven't run in quite a long time, but I agreed nonetheless. We only started training for this race about 6 weeks before it started, but we were confident that we could at least finish. Well, Thanksgiving morning came around and so did the below freezing temperatures (the high for the day was only going to be 32 degrees). The race started at 9:00 am and it was bitter cold. I have never run anywhere with so many layers on. Despite the cold, I did finish the race (under 40 minutes which was my only goal). I think running a 5K in below freezing is somewhat equivalent to a 10K in Arizona, right?

My first Ambulance ride

On November 8th Ella and I were doing laundry in the morning. She loves to help me take the clothes out of the dryer and put them in the basket. Well, after all the clothes were in the basket I put Ella in the basket which I then put on top of the dryer. I turned my back to get the hangers on the door and Ella jumped out of the basket. She did a nose dive onto the tile floor and knocked herself out. I couldn't bring her back so I called 911, she was unconscious for 3-5 minutes. The paramedics, EMT squad, fire truck, police cars all came to the rescue. We had a living room full of trained professionals. Ella did not know what was going on until twelve men huddled over her. She was then assessed and taken to the ambulance. We had a bumpy ride to Primary Childrens Hospital and Spencer met us there. Ella recieved a sticker from the paramedics which she held onto the entire day. Long story short... after neck xrays and a CT scan Ella was just fine, not even a bump or a bruise. Thats the last time Ella gets to sit on the dryer.

Elder's Quorum Fun

So I had one of the most interesting experiences teaching Elders Quorum today. I was teaching lesson 20 from the Spencer W. Kimball manual on "The Women of the Church". First, this was a difficult lesson to teach since it was really geared towards women and I had to teach it to a bunch of men. Second, probably 95% of the men in Elders Quorum are married, but there are some that are not (either never been married and a couple that are divorced). So that adds to the complexity of teaching this lesson.

The lesson started out ok until about 10 minutes into it. After one guy made a comment regarding the good things that a woman can bring to a family and church, another man got up and, very vocally, stormed out. Apparently he's going through a rough divorce right now and didn't appreciate the fact that we were talking about the good things about women (I found this out after the fact).

I think I'll chalk this up as one of the most "interesting" things that has ever happened to me teaching a class in church.

Toilet Paper Fun

Ella Jane loves to help me clean. When we clean the bathrooms...... For some odd reason, she knows when I put a new roll of toilet paper on the dispenser. She has discovered how to unroll the ENTIRE roll of TOILET PAPER. She has done this now many times. Spencer and I have now learned to shut the bathroom doors. We started with Ella's bathroom. She figured out that there is another bathroom by mommy and daddy's room. We have since learned to close that door as well.

Ella likes to make a mess with anything she can get her hands on! I caught her in the act of unrolling the toilet paper and couldn't help but laugh when she jumped....I scared her when I took the picture! She is such a cutie...even when she makes a mess! :)

I promised

I don't know why but I have the hardest time with pictures when I'm pregnant. I love seeing everyone else's preggo pictures but it's like torture to get me to take any of myself. But, I promised Kim so here's me and my belly

Teaching an "Old" Dog New Tricks

I know this may sound silly, but I made it a point that when I got married I would always put the toilet seat down. It was just a small thing that I knew I could do to add a little more happiness to my marriage. How have I been doing over the last few years? Excellent. It's a shocker when Heather finds that I haven't put the seat down.

But all that has changed over the past couple of months. I am now in trouble if I put the toilet seat down. Why? Well, given the nature of pregnancy, Heather has been making more frequent late night trips to the pot. Given that she is barely half awake during these midnight runs, she is quickly awaken when she sits down on the cold, closed lid. I've now been repremanded for keeping the lid closed. Unfortunately, this has been a really hard habit to break. In fact, I've only successfully done it once.

Only two more months!

Halloween in Denver

We had a fun Halloween, Thomas was a lion and really got into it.
He had so much fun trick-or-treating and getting candy. Earlier that day he had had a little stomach ache so we made him wait until today to eat any of his loot. When we got up in the morning I flipped on some cartoons so I could jump in the shower before breakfast when I came back downstairs this is what I saw

He had found the candy but at least he sat at the table to eat it. He's a funny kid.

Halloween costumes

So every Halloween some BYU students think they need to dress up to go to class... I, of course, am not one of them. Anyways, it was interesting to see all of the different costumes. I was on my way to the JSB when right in the middle of the lawn I saw a pink and blue power ranger totally going at it. They were full on fighting... it was pretty crazy! So if you ever want any attention on Halloween (besides the little attention from dressing up) then definitely dress up as power rangers and start beating each other up.

Favorite Smile

Travis loves to smile, but smiling for the camera is not his forte. It is a rare occasion when I can get Travis to smile for the camera so I consider this pic a gem!

Is that a Baby ZEBRA??

Ella Jane will be a baby ZEBRA for Halloween! On Saturday Spencer and I took Ella Jane to the Hogal Zoo to 'Trick or Treat' along with the entire rest of the State of Utah...he!...he!... She loved dressing up in her Zebra costume and she loved to see the little children. She went BANANAS over the MONKEYS! We love our season pass to the Zoo!

RoDeO GiRLs

While the boys were at Priesthood Session on Saturday, October 5th......us girls went to the Bull Ridin' Rodeo.......we had a great time. We saw lots of CowBoYs and wanna be cowboys.....we enjoyed the PBR-but best of all was Kimmy's question on the way home from the rodeo. I quote "What is the difference between a BULL and a BRONCO?" Amy simply replied, "A Bull is a COW and a Bronco is a HORSE." We all got a good laugh out of that one!

FHE or a Movie?

Here's how the conversation went:

Heather: Tonight is family home evening!
Thomas: Watch a movie?
Heather: At this point, Thomas, I would be happy having family home evening or watching a movie. (It had been a long day)
Thomas: Watch a movie!
Michael: No, daddy has veto power. We're having family home evening.
Heather: OK Thomas, we're going to have family home evening and sing and play games!
Thomas: No, daddy go do it.

Apparently movies with mom is a lot more fun than family home evening with dad, especially at 7:30 at night. So what are we going to do tonight? Have Family Home Evening, because I still have veto power in my home (when Heather lets me).

Merry Halloween

So yesterday we had weather in the 70s, today we woke up to light rain and cold temperatures that turned into this:

The best part of living in Denver is that within two days this will all be gone and by the end of the week we will be in the 70s again. Oh well, at least Thomas will have something to do tomorrow. All we've heard this morning is how he wants to wear his new boots. Merry Halloween!

And the winner is ...

So based on last week's poll, David will be dressing up as Peter for Halloween. Just make sure to post a picture on the website so we can all get the full effect of how scary your costume is.

This was at my dad's work party. Justin rode the swing of death! I later tried it but my video is much longer and kind of embarassing. Ah, the simple pleasures of life.

Fall baby

Travis Justin Clark

Description:

15 lbs >25 in Extremely Cute!!

The Boys

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!I love my brother-in-laws, they have so much personality and talent, here's what they do in their spare time.

Disco Fever

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!So is this what you do in your spare time?

I just like having older brothers

So yesterday I had a billion trillion things to do and I was getting pretty frustrated especially with homework. One of the things I had to get done was Biology homework. I didn't think it would be that hard, but when I started it I realized that we had not gone over the concepts in class yet. So after not having a clue on some of the questions I was getting really stressed out and then I remembered- I have a Biology genius as a brother! So after calling and getting some help I actually understood the questions and in the end I got 100% on my assignment... it is too bad I can't call Spencer during the test next week!
I also got to see Michael yesterday, which was fun because I haven't even seen him forever! We went and got shakes (I got a Peanut Butter Cup shake and it was good) and visited for a bit. Then today at the career fair I got a free stapler from Michael which I have been needing one so that was really nice!
Oh I like having younger brothers and a sister and sister-in-laws too!

When is the BABY due Heather???

So I am so disappointed that you and Michael never called Spencer and I to tell us about the good news of your little BOY and the due date....We were waiting patiently for a call for 2 or 3 days and finally we just asked Amy and she told us!

Congratulations on another boy! Thomas will have a little brother to get into mischeif with.... And another great thing....You can use some of the clothes from Thomas if he didn't ruin a lot of them!

We are still waiting for a phone call so anytime would be awesome!

New Calling

Maybe I'll be jinxed if I talk about this, but I'll share anyway. I was told last week that I would be released from my calling as Sacrament meeting chorister. I've been in this calling for 2 years and while, I learned a lot, it's not been my favorite. I was told that I was really going to like my new calling and that it would be a lot of fun. I'm scared already! I'd like to hear any guesses as to what you think my calling will be. I'm guessing ward activities chairman or camp director (because what some people's idea of fun is a lot different than mine). We'll see if I'm right. My reasoning for this guess is that Wendy Pitt was just released as ward activities leader and I believe they might be looking for a camp director as well. I'll be surprised if it isn't one of those! They already called a ward music chairman and a new choir director. Pray for me!

MaMa

Ella Jane has finally learned how to say MaMa!!! I was so happy!
Ella babbles about everything and anything. She will call out MaMa when she wakes up and I just think it is the cutest thing....she still says DaDa when she wants Spencer to play with her. She is just getting so smart. Every stage has been fun but I have especially liked the last 2 months. I really enjoy being a mom and I am amazed at how much love you can have for your child. Even when she is notty and tares pages out of good books and ruins a new cell phone....I just have to laugh and look at the cute little girl smiling at me...

A NEW way of TalKiNg

Ella Jane is becoming very smart. We are taking a baby sign language class. Ella doesn't pay much attention ...she has discoverd that she can take other childrens's toys and play with them...she also likes to follow this little girl Sydney who is about 17 months old....Ella loves to play with her toys and finds herself taking them and not giving them back. Ella doesn't like it when the little girl takes her toys. I guess this is a great time to teach her how to share!
The best news it Ella has finally picked up on one sign...that is the word more!! I think by the end of the 6 weeks she may have a few more signs.
This has been a great opportunity for me and Spencer to teach Ella....although we find ourselves making the signs to each other and Ella laughs because she thinks it is funny! oh well!

New Feature This Week

So to help all of you think about things to blog about, I've included some of our favorite blogs on the right hand side of our family blog.

The Mormon Mommy Wars blog generally has hilarious posts regarding Mormon culture and is one of Heather's favorites to read. This seems to be a pretty popular blog and always has a ton of comments. On this blog you gain insight on things like "Saying No To A Calling" and funny interactions between Mormon mothers and their children.

The "Bleeding Heart Grafitti" blog is Heather's oldest brother Eldon's blog. His blog is always hilarious. On Eldons blog you learn things like what a "grup" is and the connection between Disneyland and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.


"The Good Apple" is Heather's sister Melissa's blog that she updates almost daily. She posts recipes and other fun things that might interest any or all of you.

The last blog we put up is "Bryant Milestones" which is run by Heather's cousin Liz. Her blog is more trendy and might give you some ideas on what you can post about.

On all of these blogs there are links to even more blogs, so the extent that someone runs across someone else's post on another site that they think is worth sharing, please post the link on our site. Hope this helps (and makes you laugh).

William Tell Overture

I think we can all appreciate this

Start 'em young

Today when we were planning our Saturday activities Mike said he was going to mow the lawn. Thomas responded, "no, Thomas do it." We tried to explain that it's a Daddy job but he wouldn't budge. We laughed and agreed that he'll just run away when he hears the motor, as usual. Oh no, he still insisted that he was mowing the lawn today. He'll still want to do this when he's a teenager, right?

Baby Clark

I think he'll be another cute one, just like all the Clark babies :)

Africa Ful

Now that it has been awhile since Jay and I returned from Africa I guess I should blog. We started out river rafting where I spent most of the time in the water. Then we went to the chimp sanctuary where we got to play with the chimpanzee's that was pretty much amazing. We saw lots of wild life up close and personal. Elephants, lions, hippos, and gorrillas. If I had the chance and the money I would go back in a heart beat. Nothing can really describe how incredible Africa is.

Peach Days

So last Saturday Spencer and I and Ella went with my family up to Brigham City for the annual Peach Days. We went to the Parade in the Morning and Ella really liked the cLoWnS and she thought the OrAnGe TraCtoR was something special.
We got some peaches and we enjoyed a DeliCiouS PeAcH ShAKe at the best burger joint in Brigham City.....CALLS FAMILY BURGERS !

Thursday

Only one day left all you non-bloggers! David, Justin and Kimi, JAY, and Amy. Seriously, just a comment would be enough, but do SOMETHING!!! Maybe I shouldn't tell ANYONE what I'm having until EVERYONE participates, that way I'm not the only one bugging you people.

New gadget

So, aunt Bonnie was here last week and as usual she spoiled me. She bought me a Hoover steam cleaner and it's pretty cool! I've cleaned the 3 bathrooms with it. The best part is that you can clean the back of the toilet, behind the seat where pee gets trapped. It blasts everything out and leaves your toilet really clean. Be prepared to clean up a mess, though. It also cleans grout and shower doors, corners of floors, around faucets etc. And it's a fun toy to use. The pink toilet was the worst! Cleaning the back, the bolts at the bottom and the base was so gross, but I'm satisfied that it's about as clean as it will ever get. Just another tool to make cleaning easier and kind of fun. Jill, maybe you could borrow it for the gross apartment bathroom!

Alaska

Well it took me awhile but here it is. Alaska is a beautiful place, I highly recommend going there. The first day there we went out halibut fishing and we all caught at least one, but dad and I both got a little sea sick and lost our breakfast. After that I decided it was better to overdose on the motion sickness pills before going out on the ocean and it made things a lot more enjoyable. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday we went fishing on the Kenai reiver which was just right outside of the cabin we were staying in. We had to get up early and then went out on a riverboat to catch salmon this was probably my favortie fish to catch. When you fish for salmon you just get your bait out in the water and then sit and relax for a while and the next thing you know your fishing pole is bent in half and you get to reel in a big fish that fights the whole way in. The other two days we were there we went to Seward and went out on the ocean to fish for salmon, ling cod, and red snapper. These days are when we saw the eagles, whenever we caught a little fish that wasn't worth keeping our guides would wave it in the air and then throw it out into the ocean and as soon as it left there hands the eagles would leave the trees and swoop down and pick it up about 20 feet from our boat. That was pretty amazing to see. It was an awesome trip and we all enjoyed it. We came home with 450 pounds of fish between the five of us. Now I just somehow need to convice Kim that she likes to eat fish.

Becoming a Handy Man

One thing we discovered after we moved into our new house was that the toilet in the master bathroom ran a bit. Every 15-20 minutes it would refill and it generally would kick-on at the most opportune times as well. It's happened to both me and Heather that right as we were about to do our business, the tank would start filling up, giving us a little bit of a scare (especially in the middle of the night).

Well, I tried my hand at fixing the porcelain thrown recently. I replaced the flapper (the thing that covers the hole in the tank), but unfortunately it still leaked. So back to Home Depot (we make a trip there at least once a week for something we need). The next step was to replace the entire flush valve system. So back at home, I took the tank apart and installed the new unit. The result: no more running toilet! I now feel like I am well on my way to becoming a handy man around the house. I just hope more things don't break in the near future, because our trips to Home Depot are adding up fast.

Vacation

Hi! Well, while Dad was fishing in Alaska, I took the week off as well, thinking I would have a little R and R. While I had a few evenings of R and R (rest and relaxation,(Peter and David), most of the time was spent shopping, house cleaning and getting kids ready for school. Did not accomplish as much as I had hoped, but managed to clean the refridgerator and a few cupboards. I also took a couple of extra days off around Labor Day as Aunt Bonnie was here for a week. I had more rest while she was here. We went to the Joseph Smith movie at the Legacy theater and then to lunch at the Garden restaurant (best creme brulee). Jay was with us and you know how he's always telling us that he and his friends don't date? John LaFrance blew that cover when he walked in to the Legacy theater holding a cute BYU coed's hand. When Jay saw him, he just put his head down and started chuckling. All this talk about how he and his friends just always hang out - and no girls! Anyway, back to the movie - I highly recommend it! It was very powerful!
Last Tuesday, Bonnie and I went to the temple (which I did manage to do with aunt Linda as well while Dad was in Alaska). Jay and Jill are settled in at BYU, and Peter and David are glad to be back in school. I just keep plugging along, hoping to someday catch up on housework and be debt free! Love you all! Mom

Peter's first few days of school.

I am now in high school. It is much better than junior high in my opinion. The classes I am taking are Seminary, Drivers Ed, English, Biology, Geometry, Reading, World Civ, and Art. The only class that I really hate is Art. It is so dang boring, I'm only taking it for art credit. It is a waste of my time though. I had my first school lunch since like 4th grade and I realized why I had been taking home lunch for all of those years. It dosen't taste good at all. Sorry this wasn't my most intelligent writing, but now that I'm in English maybe I will start writing a ton better, and not so boring. I can write better than this though. At this point right now I have strait A's in school so I'm doing pretty good.

What is it?

Ok, so I FINALLY have a doctor's appointment set for the 13th and we will be finding out what I'm having... BUT I'm not telling anyone what it is unless you ALL post something or comment!!! Except Jill, she's been good :)

First day of school

BYU is definately a unique place! To start off every class today every teacher has to make a remark about how so many people from his/her class last semester met in the class and got married, or look guys at all the pretty girls in the class and girls look at all these handsome RMs. So besides looking at all the cute guys in my classes today I also made a trip to the bookstore and spent about $135 on books for just one class... so that was really depressing.
After a trip to the magical bookstore I headed home and had to cook for myself, which is definately a different experience than I had last year when I was fortunate enough to have dining plus and never had to cook for myself. At least this year I hopefully won't gain any weight because it is definately a lot easier to eat healthier when I have to buy my own groceries. No more freshmen 15 for me, because I am officially a sophomore!

Arizona Trip

Well, Michael survived his first visit to Arizona in August. He and Thomas spent a lot of time in the pool. Thomas got very brave with his floaties and lots of older kids to imitate.

We had fun hanging out with my brothers and sisters. Now that everyone is older it seems harder for us to all get together. But now when we do get together it's funny how old everyone really is. When the 3 boys were teenagers they used to prove their manliness by wrestling and tackling each other. Now that they are all approaching 40 they dare each other to do "really hard" yoga poses. Oh yes, these are my rugged brothers.

Melanie's wedding was quiet and simple, she asked me to take pictures for her. Here are some samples.

Adventures At Church

Every once and a while you will find yourself in a sacrament meeting where the speakers leave a lasting impression on you. No, I'm not talking about the speakers that give talks that inspire you to do better or shed immense light on a gospel conversation. I'm talking about the talks that you will always remember and look back on that will always make you chuckle. This last Sunday in church down in Arizona we had one such talk.

One of the speakers was a young woman from my in-laws ward. She was giving a talk about the temple and the importance of living your life in such a way as to prepare for entering the temple some day. One of the things that she touched on a couple of times during her talk was the importance of dressing modestly. After one such reference to dressing appropriately, Heather leans over to me and asks, "Do you see what she's wearing?" I hadn't noticed, but this laurel-aged young woman was wearing a sleeve-less dress that was very low-cut. After that, every reference to dressing modestly made us start to laugh.

The only other "impressionable" sacrament meeting talk that I have, was actually a testimony in my sister-in-law's singles ward in Provo. She related to us one girl's remarks in her testimony one fast Sunday. She was all choked-up and apologized for being "filled with feelings of overwhelmtion." That one is still a house hold joke that gets brought up every once-and-a-while.

Anniversary

August 12th was our 3 year Anniversary!
Time flies! So I just wanted to let you know what Spencer bought me....
He bought me a new dress. It is very cute!
He took me shopping in Park City...then to Dinner at "The Roof Restaurant" in the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg....and the to the Anniversary Inn for the night! We left Ella with Grandma and Grandpa Clark....and all her Uncles and Aunts, for the night.
It was so nice to get away and spend time alone together and ReMemBeR what made us FaLL in LoVe with each other!

Moving

Today I went to our new house and let the carpet cleaner in and attached the hose in the back yard. Weird, we have a hose in OUR backyard! This whole moving thing is starting to get more real!

Starting Them Young

Thomas has always been obsessed with the computer. If Heather or I are doing something on the computer, he has to come and sit on our lap. I found an online car game that he and I could play to keep him occupied and out of Heather's hair (he would just watch while I got to play--great excuse, right?). After a while that kind of fizzled out as well.

He already knows how to start and stop a movie that is playing on the computer. In fact, yesterday he and I were watching Cars and I kept trying to pause the movie and he kept running over to the computer and starting it up again. He also loves to move the mouse around and feel like he's doing something. Usually that results in our desktop getting rearranged, and sometimes things get moved into the trash.

So, yesterday I decided to let him play a game by himself. If you didn't know, he's obsessed with Teletubies on PBS. It's not unusual for me to get a call around 9:00 am to here about Teletubies. So we went to http://www.pbskids.org/ to check out the "little kids" games that they have. They have a whole Teletubies page with tons of games that he is now in love with. The best part was letting him "drive" with the mouse. He's gotten really good over the last two days, but my favorite was how literal he took something I told him yesterday. He was having trouble clicking on an icon so I told him to move the mouse up. Next thing I know he lifts the mouse straight up in the air, still staring very focused on the computer screen. I couldn't help but laugh.

Nursery

On the way home from church today we asked Thomas what he did in nursery, he yells, "SNACK!"
Then Michael asked him what he learned about in his lesson. Thomas thought for a minute and said, "ummm, TRACTOR TIPPIN!"
Mike: "did you play with a tractor in nursery?"
Thomas: "Yes!"
Mike: "But what did you learn about in your lesson?"
Thomas: "ummm, SNACK!"

But really , isn't that what nursery is all about?

Triangle Man

Thomas never ceases to amaze us with his impressive intellect. His latest and greatest is "the triangle". He can spot them anywhere. It's not unusual for us to be out and about and have Thomas get really excited all-of-a-sudden and yell, "Tri-angle"! He has pointed out triangles in half-eaten sandwiches, the walkways by our apartment (they converge at an angle and do look like a triangle), things at the grocery store, things in parking lots, and clothes hangers. Most impressive is when he is coloring on paper, he'll actually draw a triangle and come and show us. At the rate he's going, I'm thinking he'll have mastered calculus by the third grade. Next week we'll be working on the Pythagorean Theorem.

Peter's Wall of Fame

Jill and I have almost finished one side of my wall with these NBA players and future NBA players. Once we are done with all the walls, which probably won't be for a couple years, I'm going to enter it into the sports illustrated contest for the best sports room and I will get money for this amazing room. With Jill going to college pretty soon I don't think it will get done for a few more years, and she doesn't trust me to put them on the wall, because she thinks the wall wouldn't look as good if I put them up. She is the artist in the family, I guess. The reason I said future NBA players was because I'm on this wall of fame. By the way if anyone comes to visit you will get this nice wall in your room because my room is the guest room. You might have to give me a tip for staying in my fabulous room, because of this nice wall. My room is also the cleanest in the house, ask anyone.

Ella Jane has 2 TEETH now!! She is showing them off with her beautiful SMiLE! She got her first one July 13th and the second one July 28th!! She twists her tongue and feels her teeth all the time now. She has discovered how to bite the spoon when she eats and also how to bite our fingers when she tries to put them in her mouth with various other things she finds to suck on!

WaTerMeLoN YuMMies

So Watermelon seems to be a big hit with the Clark Family!
Ella Jane and Thomas could finish a WaTeRMeLoN off by themselves! Ella makes quite the mess when we let her eat it all by herself....but that's all the more fun!

Our Family

So here we are!! Spencer, Kimberly and our cute little girl Ella Jane Clark.
We celebrated July 4th with a BBQ and some fireworks...which Ella did not really like...
She is such a cutie! She is learning how to crawl and has only figured out how to go backwards....she also scoots really well and rolls all over the room.....we are in for a real treat once she can crawl. She is such a curious george when it comes to almost anything!
Ella is 9 months old on August 16...boy how time flies! She loves her dad and has learned how to say dada.....which Spencer is very proud of!

Prayers

Thomas LOVES to say prayers and he's getting pretty good at it too. When he says the blessing on the food he always remembers to include the food in the prayer and sometimes at night he'll throw in little things that he can remember about the day. But one thing that is in every single prayer no matter what is Peter and David. I'm not sure exactly why, but he never leaves them out. He'll throw in Amy, Jay, Jill and SpencerKimElla (usually all one word) and he'll even remember Justin and Kimi and Grandma and Grandpa on occasion (we're still working on Travis) but it always ends with "and Pe'er and Dabid." I'm not sure if he just likes saying their names or if they really made an impression. Either way, both of you are getting prayed for about 4 times a day. You should feel very "blessed."