Happy Birthday Henry!

Today is Henry's 3rd Birthday! What a big boy!
We are so grateful to have Henry in our family. He has been such a joy these last 3 years. Henry is a really good boy with a lot of spirit and he is a great big brother. Here are a few pictures of his life so far:





Happy Birthday, Buddy! We love you so much!

New Hair Cut

So I got a little crazy and got a pixie hair cut last night. Well, I've been planning it for about a week or 2, trying to gather opinions, etc.
But you know what? I think I love it. I just showered and styled it for the first time and it was probably THE BEST experience of my life. It was so easy! And my hair has never been easy. For the most part it was already in place before I did anything and that is just NOT like my hair.
It's actually pretty fun.
Pictures are now here for your viewing pleasure (hopefully pleasure).

3 blessings

I know I'm post happy lately, but I just can't help it.
I wanted to tell you about 3 blessings from today.
Blessing #1: I went to the doctor to get a refill on my allergy therapy stuff that I've been taking (some of you remember my story about it a while back) and they said that my body is no longer allergic to any of those things and I am done (after almost a year of taking it). Yeah! I'm not sure what that all means, but now I can (someday) get pregnant with a POSSIBLE hope to not be AS sick as before, since one of the things I was allergic to was progesterone. Supposedly...? We'll see, I guess! It was well worth the shot.
Blessing #2: I bought wipes at Costco today and when I was checking out the checker scanned a $3 off coupon for the wipes for me. I thought that was so nice of her.
Blessing #3: Adam has been given a new responsibility at work. They asked him to be over training the new sales team members. I guess he's in charge of designing the program and implementing it and he'll get to do some of the training, which he loves. He said that he's done a few trainings already today. This is a great change because Adam loves doing this and he is so good at it. Way to go, baba!

Cute Ella

This is a dress that Ella's Aunt Brooke made for Ella's cousin, Maggie. We've borrowed a lot of Maggie's clothes and Ella finally fits this dress and it's so cute on her!

Old friends

Our good friends, the Warrens, surprised us on Saturday night. They called and said they were in town and wanted to come see us yesterday. They came over for about an hour in the morning before church. It was so fun to see them! Emily is on the left and Laura is on the right. And the picture below is a picture of me and Emily about 15 years ago! The Warrens lived in San Luis Obispo for a few years when I was about junior high age. I babysat for them and I LOVED them. They moved away and we've been good friends ever since. I used to visit them all the time and we've just kept in touch. It's fun to watch the kids all grow up and it was so much fun to see them yesterday.

Yummy quesadillas

This is probably my favorite quesadilla. It has refried beans, cheese, tomatoes, avocados, salt pepper and onion powder. Mmmm...I wish I had one right now!

Loving the outside and the water

Henry and Ella love to play outside and they love to play with water. These 2 pictures are of them water the garden this last week.
The baby pool in the front yard came about because Henry started splashing in a puddle that was in the street in front of our house. I didn't want his clothes all wet and so I his swim suit on. Then as he started LAYING in the water I decided it was time to borrow our neighbors little pool.
They had a ball in that little pool. Ella was a sleep the first round, but she happily joined in second round.

Note the absolute fullness of Henry's diaper! It soaked that water right up!

By the way

Just so you know, I'm posting a lot right now because I finally downloaded our pictures to our computer...

Bird House

So I bought this bird house at Roberts one day to paint for our downstairs bathroom. Henry loved it from the moment we got it. He kept saying that it was his birdhouse. Well, I painted it and put it on the counter in the bathroom and occasionally he would get the stool and climb up there to pull it down so he could take it outside to play with it.
So then one day I was trying to convince him to let me cut his hair and I came up with this idea. I said what if we put his hair into the birdhouse after we cut it and the birds can use it to make a nest. Well, he actually liked the idea! So we did it - just a little, though. He didn't let me give him a complete haircut, but I got to cut at least a little off and we put it in the birdhouse and the birdhouse now lives outside by the front door (hair and all).
Now I just need to get another birdhouse for my bathroom!

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!