Butterflies to our garden

The butterflies have finally come to our garden! I've had this bizarre desire to attract butterflies to our garden and so maybe 2 or 3 years ago, Adam bought me a butterfly bush for mother's day. Well, we left it out in the store container too long and it died. Then last year maybe...?...Adam surprised me with a garden in our front yard and he planted this butterfly bush over in the corner. It was pretty sick last year and we thought that we might lose it. But we didn't! It's now a beautiful bush and finally we now have butterfly visitors - hooray!
PS If you know the difference between butterflies and moths and this one is a moth - just keep it to yourself because I like to believe that it is a beautiful butterfly. :)

Yummy Yaki Soba!

We at the Clark house love to eat this yummy dish called Yaki Soba. An old friend from work, Pepper, introduced me to it and it's an easy, yummy meal. You get it at an Asian market and it looks just like a ramen package, but it cooks up just slightly different - instead of the liquid remaining to make a soup, the noodles soak up the liquid, then you add the noodles to sauteed vegies and you sprinkle the packet on top. Voila! Adam and I used to eat it when we were dating and first married, but then I think I got sick of it or something and we haven't had it for years until a few weeks ago. I had to photograph this momentus occasion! And look - everyone likes it! Hooray for Yaki Soba.

Poopy in the potty!

Henry went poopy in his little potty for the first time yesterday! Hooray! Way to go, Henry!

Cravings for sweets!

Does anyone else have problems with eating sweets? My goodness. I've tried to stop this week because I am completely out of control with it. I didn't have any for a few days, then for 2 days in a row I talked myself into eating a few treats. Then last night we were at a corn feed for my brother's ward and somehow I managed to stay away from all of the yummy treats. And now for today...I want a treat right now I can't stand it! THat's why I thought I'd write about it here to get support from other sugar addicts. :)
Anyone have any suggestions on how to be better with it?

Listen to this

Henry did something that I was amazed at yesterday - something that he's never done before. We are at my parents house and his nursery leaders here seem to send a little packet home with him every Sunday. Yesterday they sent home this little page of stickers (a tree and a picnic blanket and kids and food, etc, etc) along with a page that he could put the stickers on. We worked on it together and he had the best time putting the stickers together to make a picture. When we were done it was time to go to my brother's house for his birthday dinner. Henry asked to bring the completed picture. When we were in the car he kept talking about about giving it to his Uncle Joe and how it was a present and how he would be so happy. When we got to their house he proudly gave it to him and told him Happy Birthday. I don't think Joe realized the significance of that moment. Henry has never done anything like that and he did it without receiving any prodding or ideas from us. I was so proud of him! What a sweet boy.

Camping

While Amy is in California, I have tried to keep myself busy with home projects, golfing, work, and even some camping. This weekend I went camping with my brothers Jess and Lance. We went to the high Uintas, backpacking 3 miles into Bench Lake where we were the only visitors. It was a fun time and the mountains were beautiful! It did get quite chilly and we woke up with a lot of frost on our sleeping bags. You can see above the view we had from our campsite next to the lake. Also, check out the frost on my bag in the morning! Chilly for an August morning. The one with me fishing is at Notch Lake, a nearby lake that had good fishing. Overall, a great time.

Adam is 34 today!

Happy Birthday to my Baba Cakas! I hope you have a wonderful day today. I posted a few pictures (I have only few on hand since I'm at my parent's house) of Adam...

The bottom picture looks so much like Ella, huh?

I love you so much, Babe - Have a happy day!

I'm a homemaker!

Well, not really, but yesterday I canned for the first time. I must say, it was successful. I canned/pickled banana peppers that I grew in our garden. I got the recipe off a website and when all was done, the cans sealed and I think we've got a winner. Makes me want to try pickling cucumbers. mmm, I love pickles.

Also, you can see above here, a picture of my second zucchini that I picked from the garden. The first one got grilled up with a little garlic salt and mixed with fresh grilled corn, scallions, unsalted butter, and pepper. Tasty indeed.

This one will get cooked in some Yaki Soba (sp?) I think. or maybe some zucchini bread.

Fun stuff.

Anyone read #4?

So who's read Breaking Dawn yet? I know it just came out last night at midnight, but it's possible that someone is already done!
I only just finished Eclipse (#3) this morning and so now I need to wait to borrow someone's copy when they're done.
Is the new one as good as the others and worth the wait? I'm glad I d0n't have to wait that long to read it as some of you have had to do this last year...

OCD with Twilight

Okay, so I know I'm a little behind on all of this, but I just read Twilight and I really COULD NOT STOP READING IT. And when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it. And now that I'm done reading it, I want to read it again, but this time hopefully with a slower pace.
I absolutely love it. And last night we watched a movie and there was a sneak peak for it before the movie and I CANNOT wait to see the movie! I hope it's just like the book and that they don't change it much. Check out the clip - it seems like it will be similar.
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810010670/trailer
I want to read the next book in the series, but I don't want to stop all life around me again to do it and so I need to wait and cool down for a little bit... :)
Did anyone else have this kind of obsession with this book?

Ella walks!

Ella has been walking so much this week - she has just taken off! She's still so wobbly, but she's doing fantastic. And she's just so proud of herself.
Oh - and she's also learned how to go DOWN the stairs, which is great. Now we don't have to block the stairs off and she finds forever entertainment going up and down the stairs. What a big girl!
Hooray for Ella!

Our Garden

So, a neighbor owns a 5 acre lot a block away from our home and decided to let people who wanted, grow a garden in an enclosed area on the lot. So, I took him up on it, along with 3 others. I have about 300 square feet and am growing beets, onions, peppers, tomatoes, corn, squash, and cucumbers. It is located right behind the Carpenter Seed store located on the old State Street in Provo. Since these pictures were taken, I have staked up more of the tomatoes and weeded the onions. Notice I used two old stool bases for the tomatoes. They were $1 each at DI, which is about $3 cheaper than the wire cages at a store. Nice, eh?! It is fun to have a garden to take care of, but sometimes hard to take the time to water and care for it. Still, worth it.

Viewing

Last night I went to a viewing of 3 people who were killed last Sunday in a really bad auto accident. It was something I haven't done in a long time (go to a viewing) and hopefully I won't ever do it again in that way (3 people all at the same time). I didn't directly know the people who had died, but let me explain the connection. Barbara and Roger Keep are some of my parents best friends and I've known them my whole life (they live in San Luis). Their oldest son, Mark, was married to a woman named Chris a few years back and they had 2 children together (Mark and Alissa), I believe. Chris had a son from a previous marriage - Tyler. Chris had been re-married to a man named Darren. So Alissa (age 7), Tyler (age 15) and Darren were all killed in the accident last Sunday, leaving just Chris and Mark behind. Horrible, horrible situation.
The whole Keep family was there and I've known them all so long, I have a great love for all of them - they're almost like my own family. It was sad knowing how sad they are.
Alissa and Tyler had open caskets. Alissa was dressed in a really pretty dress and her hair was all curled. Leslie said that unfortunately with all of the make up on her you couldn't see her cute freckles, which was true - I would have never known that she had them. She was holding a horse in one hand and inside the door of the casket it said "our little princess." The funny thing, though, was that she just didn't seem real. It didn't seem like a little girl once inhabited that body. It seemed more like a wax statue or something.
I didn't speak to Chris (I don't know her at all), but my heart hurt for her. How was she doing it? How was she standing there, smiling, and talking to everyone? She just lost 2 of her children and her husband. She had a sling on her arm and is still recovering physically from the accident herself. How could someone handle such devastation?
And poor little Mark. The Keep kids were so worried about him, saying that he has NO idea how to handle all of the this, which is understandable - he's probably around 9 or 10 years old. He was also in the accident and saw all of it happen.
This was an interesting and very sad experience that I wanted to share. It's been sad and touching to watch this situation from the outside - I can't even imagine, nor would I ever want to, what it must feel like on the inside.

Bread

Check out my funny loaves of bread! We've been working on cutting down our grocery budget and so I've been making bread for the past 3 or 4 weeks. These 2 loaves were my first attempt. They look absolutely ridiculous (I kept picking pieces and putting them back and forth between the 2 loaves) and I had a funny time making them. As I was telling Adam about my experience he said to me "I can't tell you how many times my Mom left out the salt" and I said "...SALT...?" I forgot the salt, too!
It sure was a humorous first attempt!

Ward Camp out

Here we are at our ward camp out last week. We camped in Diamond Fork Canyon and had a fun time. Ella stayed with Adam's parents, which ended up being wonderful. But we quickly learned that it isn't very easy camping with a 2 year old. We went into our tent to go to sleep around 10:30. Henry first decided that he wanted to go home and sleep in his bed and so he cried and cried. Then once we got him calmed down he decided that it was time to play and have fun and so he went through a phase of talking and playing. Then finally he decided to go to sleep, but I think he was on his second wind because he tried and tried and tried to sleep for a very long time before he actually fell asleep. I have no idea what time it was by then, but it had to have been past midnight. Then he promptly awoke at 6:30. We were sure exhausted the next day! And now he keeps asking to go camping. All in all it was a good time!

Happy Birthday, Ella!

Happy 1st Birthday to Ella Bella. We are so grateful that she came to live with us one year ago today. What a joy she is! She loves life and she loves to have fun. She can be extremely stubborn, but also a very sweet, special girl. We can't believe that a whole year has gone by already. Here is a little slide show of her sweet little life:

New pictures of kids

These were taken just this last week. I'll tell ya - it's hard to get them to smile for the camera!

Cute Henry

Although Henry has been quite a handful lately, he is also a very cute little boy. Here are a few of the cute things he's said/done lately:
"Like Caillou" - The other day he wanted to wear his blue sneakers and he kept telling me "sneakers - like Caillou." Then today at church he was coloring and said it was like Caillou. I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about - I don't recall anything specific about sneakers or coloring with Caillou, but apparently he does!
"Princess Mommy" - A few weeks ago Henry noticed our wedding pictures in our bedroom and got all excited and said "Mommy is a princess!" I thought that was pretty cute...
Mask - A few days ago I put a dark colored face mask just on my nose and I didn't have a chance to wash it off before I went to get him ready for bed. When he first saw it he came in really close and asked to smell it. Then we were reading books in his room and our faces were pretty close and he was staring at my nose and he said with a very perplexed look on his face "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?" I laughed so hard I couldn't keep a straight face.
Our friend Jeri - Today at church he came into relief society with me because he was having a hard time in nursery for some reason and he went to sit with our friend Jeri for a few minutes. He talked and talked to Jeri. Then when church was over he decided he wanted to go to Jeri's house with her and so he grabbed her hand and tried to leave with her. Finally I convinced him to come to our house and that after his nap he could go over to her house to see her. So when he woke up, I walked into his room and the first words out of his mouth were "Jeri's house!" We went to Jeri's house and he had the best time talking to her and she gave him a lolly pop and he just loved it. Then when I wanted to leave he threw a fit and so Jeri said he could stay longer and she would bring him home later. He just loved being there. And that was actually a nice break for us, too! :)
"Pretty room" - When he first came into Relief Society today he looked around and said "Mommy's class....pretty!" (the room has 2 chandeliers so I'm assuming that's why he thought that)
That's all I can remember right now.

It's Official

So, as of Monday, it will be official. I am changing positions within the company I work for (AtTask, Inc.). I have been "promoted" to a more prominent position over in the sales department. I am not sure what my title will be, but my duties will include managing all RFI/RFP/RFQ requests for the company, as well as all documentation and official correspondence for the sales department. RF stands for "Request For", I stands for "Information", P for "Proposal" and Q for "Quote". They are all pretty close to the same thing. Many companies create documents that they require potential vendors to fill out in order to bid for business with them. These documents can be quite simple for some companies ranging from 5-10 pages and some can be enormous and complex, being 100-150 pages and very detailed. Anyway, without going into too much detail, I will be responsible for organizing, fulfilling, and sending out these documents. This will include answering lots of questions, writing cover letters, compiling technical, marketing, and other information about our product in a customized way for each client. This is a good opportunity for me and will be a good set of skills to gain. The executive team asked me take this role, gave me a trial one to do, and decided to move me over to that position. It's nice to be recognized for my abilities to write, and organize proposals, as well as having sufficient technical knowledge. I've been there a year this month, so it's good to be trying new things and moving forward in my career.

Ella is crawling!

Hooray for Ella - she just started crawling a few days ago. She's been SO close for a while now, but she finally pushed through and did it. She's still new at it and only goes a few movements at a time and she's still a little awkward, but she's doing it! Hooray! We're so happy for her.
PS If you're wondering why she's just now doing this and she's 10 1/2 months, it's because for some reason our kids just do these kinds of things slowly. Henry didn't crawl until he was 11 1/2 months and he walked at 15 months. I guess it's just one of those things!
Good job Ella - we're so proud of you!