Butterfly Garden

We've had a butterfly garden for the last few weeks. The butterflies are painted lady butterflies to be exact.
We started out with 5 caterpillars; 3 were healthy and happy and we set them free to live on their own; 1 was sadly damaged by a curious 4 year old and so he remains with us for the remainder of his days; 1 had problems and so never successfully hatched out of his chrysalide. It's been interesting and the kids have had fun. I'm not sure if I'd do it again, though, because it's just so sad when things don't go the way you expect them too (sad for me - not necessarily sad for the kids)!

Here are the kids letting 2 of them go:



Check out the curled tongue on this one!


This is Limpy - he's the one that stays with us. He was originally just "hurt," but then eventually his wing fell off. Sometimes we take him outside to sit on the grass. Poor little guy (or girl, I guess!):

Our Bicknell Trip

This last weekend we went to Bicknell, UT with Adam's brother's family (Jess, Jen, Abby, Leah, Lauren). Jen's grandpa lives on a ranch down there and they love to visit. The opportunity came up for us to go with them and we took it! (Thanks Jess and Jen)

Here are some pictures of the weekend:

Abby, Ella, Leah and Henry the night we arrived.



Ella on the beloved swings!



Adam and Ella going on a 4-wheeler ride.



Jess, Adam, Abby, Henry, Leah and Lauren hiked to the rock at the top of this picture.



Henry on the hike.



Henry sitting on the rock at the top of the hike (check out the beautiful valley!).



Leah, Abby, Lauren and Jess on the way down the mountain.



I was able to have a little visit with my friend Vanessa - she lives in the near vicinity (thanks, Vaness!). PS. Henry took this picture if you're wondering about the low angle...



Henry and Ella with Vanessa's kids (Nate, Kyle, Ryan and Katie).

We had a great time and it was great to spend time with family and friends. AND it was fun for me to finally see some of Utah (15 years later...).

June 9th is a special day

June 9th has been a special day for our family for the last 3 years.
June 9, 2007 - Ella Mary Clark was born:

June 9, 2008 - Ella turned 1:

June 9, 2009 - Ella turned 2:

June 9, 2010 - Ella turns 3 today:

Thanks to everyone that helped us celebrate this special day!

Happy Birthday, Ella!

Gracie's Helmet

Grace got her helmet yesterday. This has been a really long process and I'm glad we finally got to this point because we will only go up from here.
Yesterday was hard for me. Our appointment was in the afternoon and in the morning if I would think about it I would cry. I know, I know...but I couldn't help it. I just knew it would be hard for her and I was so sad about it.
She didn't like it at all when they first put the helmet on her, but it surprisingly didn't take long for her to adjust to it. I was expecting her reaction to be much worse. They warned me that even though she may acclimate alright during the day that she would have a hard time going to sleep that first night. And she did. She cried for about 2 hours, poor little thing.
She has to wear it 23 hours a day. We can take it off for an hour each day and we have to wash the helmet and her head.
Her head is super hot. It's dripping wet all day long. That's one of the saddest parts to me. She probably wonders why her head is so hot all of the time.
All in all she's doing great and I hope her head changes quickly!

This picture kind of shows the flat spot on her head:

Here she is with the cast (she was so sad!):

Here she is just before we left for the appointment yesterday:

Here she is after the appointment with her helmet:

There you have it. Gracie sure is a trooper, I'll tell you that much!

A little of this, a little of that

I've just finally downloaded pictures from the last little while and so I'm going to do one post to cover a few events from that last few weeks.

Here are the kids on Easter Morning:

Here is an example of one of Ella's outfits (she likes to dress herself - sometimes it works out, sometimes it's funny):

Here are the kids being silly:

Here is Gracie in her highchair (I know, she looks like a boy with the blue bib...just ignore that part!):

Here we are celebrating Grandma Chris's birthday:

Here is Henry's "graduation" day for his second year of preschool (we still have one more year to go!):

Here we are at Lincoln Beach on Memorial Day:

Stay tuned for another post next week when Gracie gets her helmet!