Update on our lives

So, just a little update on our lives...

1) Amy is still pretty darn sick from pregnancy. It's a bit tough to keep up with everything at home, but we're doing ok. We want to thank Chelsey and her kids for coming over and helping clean one day and Jen for taking the kids for a while today. It is very appreciated!

2) Sam is now standing a lot and is a very funny boy. He loves getting into every drawer/cupboard he can and has already broken some items. He crawls all over the house and talks a lot (nothing understandable, of course). Oh, and he took his first steps this last week. He'll be walking around in no time.

3) The other kids are doing well, enjoying summer and a lot of time outside with friends.

4) Amy was released as the 16-17 yr old sunday school teacher and then called to be the activity days leader. Although I'm not sure how much of that will get done till she is feeling better.

5) We are still enjoying living in South Jordan. The house has been good for us, but we are still trying to get the basement organized. I finally have the garage mostly organized and under control. It's been a nice ward and a nice neighborhood.

6) I was called as the assistant deacons quorum adviser/assistant scout master. It has been lots of fun so far. We have a great group of boys. We spent 4 days a few weeks back up at Hyrum Reservoir boating, swimming, and having fun - this was our "scout camp" this year.

7) This week I made arrangements to leave my business, Kyazma Business Consulting. I am leaving the company and selling my shares in the company. It wasn't totally my choice or decision, but in the end, I believe this is going to be a huge blessing. I have worked on this business really hard for the past 2 years and it has been a really great learning experience. I leave Kyazma in good shape and in good hands. We have grown from 2 employees to 7 and revenues are going to hit nearly 1/2 a million this year, with a lot of great opportunities in the pipeline. This year we added clients like KSL (Desert Media), IHC, Megadyne, Huntsman Chemical, Lightspeed (ADP), Celtic Bank, Gluten Intolerance Group of America, the Reier Group, Sorenson Construction, Clyde Co, and many others. I am proud of the progress we made and the bright future the company has because of our efforts. Now I am ready for the next adventure. I do have a number of great options right now, and am close to finalizing my new chosen opportunity. I will let you know when that is finalized and what the opportunity is. It's going to be pretty exciting here. The nice part is that buy leaving my company, we are able to pay off some debt and make financial progress that we have wanted to make. Also, I will be able to transition upward in my career and into an industry that I am very excited about. It feels a little like coming home.

8) We are all working hard to be healthier and eat healthier. I have lost 35 pounds in the past 2 months and am already feeling a looking better.  I have a long way to go, but we have a long way to go - if you know what I mean. This change has been good - and better than dieting, for sure. It's a good place to be headed.

9) I am blogging regularly now over on my blog, clarksystems.blogspot.com. Check it out if you want.

10) And lastly, look at this...we're updating our blog. hahaha.

Thanks to everyone's support and love. We love you back!

Adam

Green Smoothie Girl!

So. Adam and I have been working on changing our diets a bit. We like the idea of eating more whole foods and we're trying to get away from processed foods. This is a process (no pun intended) for us.
A few months ago we went to a wellness workshop by Dr. Jerry Duggar and his wife Tammie Duggar. All in all it was great and it was a good motivational experience for me. We've tried to incorporate a few things that we learned there. And I bought Tammie's cookbook - it's called "Scratch" - it's all about making food from scratch. We have tried several of the recipes and we like most of them. Some are fantastic and then there are also some that I haven't loved.
But like I said, we're still working on this whole food diet thing and we're hoping to get better and better.
Adam's brother, Jess, and his wife, Jen, have been drinking green smoothies. They went to a little class by the Green Smoothie Girl and they have added these smoothies into their lives. Jen was telling me yesterday that she has more energy and she can tell if she hasn't had her green smoothie. This got me thinking. And then last night I dreamt of green smoothies and so this morning I looked up the website. It is http://greensmoothiegirl.com/. It looks pretty cool! And this lady travels around teaching free classes and next weekend she's going to be really close to us. I got tickets for Adam and I to go. And I wanted to try it before the class and so I got a recipe that was linked from her website (at least I think it was). It is made up of frozen mixed berries, banana, kale, and water. We had it tonight for part of our dinner and it wasn't bad. The kids all liked it and Henry LOVED it. He kept saying it was the best smoothie ever. The only problem is that our blender didn't blend up the kale very well because it is not a good blender. The smoothie was pretty chunky! Oh well - we'll keep trying and maybe get a new blender soon because we've been wanting a new one anyways.
But something else I'm happy about is that she isn't just about smoothies. She promotes whole food/raw food eating in general. I'm excited to see what else she has to say.
So that's it. Check it out if you find that sort of thing interesting and let me know what you think.

Sam's Birth

I know, I know.
I've been thinking about this blog a lot lately and I really want to start blogging again.
Since Sam is now 9 months old, I thought it would be nice to first blog about his birth... :) This is a good place to start, right?

Sam was born on May 30th, 2011. My water broke in the middle of the night - I believe it was around 2:00 or so. I woke up immediately to the feeling (which was actually just one little squirt). I had my bag packed and so I just grabbed a towel that was on the end of my bed (just in case) and told Adam - "my water broke, we need to leave now." He jumped up, told me that it was all going to be okay, and then got dressed (or whatever he did then).
My mom was sleeping in Henry and Ella's room and so I poked my head in to tell her we were leaving. I wanted her to come, but I didn't know how to do that since she was with the kids.
I went upstairs (we were living with Adam's parents at the time) and I told Chris we were leaving and that it would be great if somehow she and my mom could both come to the hospital to be there for the birth.
And just like that we were off! It didn't take too long to get there because there was no traffic in the middle of the night. They got me all checked in and hooked up to IVs and all of that good stuff in no time. Chris and Carole (our moms) were not far behind us. I had been worried that the baby would come fast if my water broke, but the labor actually took about 5 hours. That was a great blessing because I was able to get enough antibiotic in me (strep b positive), which had been a concern of mine.
Not long after getting there Adam noticed that Kaitlin (his sister) was on facebook because she was having a hard time sleeping. So Adam asked her to go up to the house to be with the kids when they woke up. She agreed and that was a huge blessing! Thank you Kaitlin!
For some reason my blood pressure had a hard time with the fluid that was accompanying the epidural and so a few times it dropped down kind of low. That made me feel sick almost the whole labor.
We had asked Gillian (Adam's sister) to come to the birth. I called her when we left for the hospital, but then we didn't call her again until it was almost time. She rushed over and it was great to have her there. It was a full room with Gillian and our moms and I'm so grateful they could all be there.
Sam was born around 7am (I can't remember the exact time now) and he was 8 pounds, 6 ounces - our biggest baby yet. The doctor asked if anyone wanted to cut the cord and since Adam didn't want to (not really his kind of thing), Gillian decided to do it. So Gillian cut Sam's cord.
That's about it. Oh - and it was Memorial day! He came 1 week early and was born on Memorial Day.

This is me right after we go to the hospital (mind you it was in the middle of the night...).



This is Sam not long after he came out.


Happy and tired new parents!


Big sister Ella meeting Sam for the first time.


Henry meeting his best little brother Sam for the first time.


Gillian came back to the hospital later and painted my toe nails - my favorite hospital gift ever!