Clark's Birthday: Part 1 of 3

The day we left Washington, we celebrated Clark and Brianna's birthdays with the family all together. Brianna's birthday is on November 26th, which is actually kind of kookie because my niece not only shares the same name as my little sister, but the same birthday as well. Clark's is on the 28th, so why not have an early party? The kids decorated cupcakes and Clark and Brianna opened their gifts. Clark got a pair of Spiderman pajamas, winter clothes, and some wooden blocks from Grandma and Grandpa. When he opened the blocks he looked up smiling and shouted "Cool!" Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the Cool! gifts.

Thanksgiving in Washington

This year we were able to fly out to Washington to see Tanner's family for Thanksgiving! The 5 hour+ flight from our layover in Atlanta to Portland wasn't my idea of fun (or Tanner's and Clark's for that matter), but we knew we would have fun once we got there! While Washington is definitely colder than Florida, it was actually pretty mild with temperatures in the upper 40s most days. The real benefit was that it wasn't cloudy and rainy the whole time, which is always a good thing!

On Sunday, Grandma Nielson was able to come over for dinner and it was great to see her and talk to her. She was so cute with Clark and the rest of the kids and she was especially excited that she is getting two more great-grandkids this coming year.

The little cousins had a blast playing with eachother and with all of Grandma's toys and the Nielson boys even managed to break out the bouncy castle for all the little kids. Clark loved it, and clearly didn't care about the cold weather. Clark also took a particular liking to Emily who is Heath and Stephanie's oldest. He would go and grab her hand and make her go wherever he wanted. She was such a good sport about it, and I have never seen him latch onto another kid like that. Tanner's mom did a fantastic job preparing Thanksgiving, and she let me make the rolls my mom always tasks me to do every year, and I also got to do an apple pie! I really don't consider myself an avid cook or baker, so I have to post my successes in this area whenever they come along for posterity sake. Whenever we visit Tanner's parents, all my meals are supplemented with homemade fudge and rolls. I can pack it down, just ask Tanner's mom. She saw me continously cutting pieces off to eat while we were having girl chat one day. That stuff is yum.

Tanner's mom is also very cute with all of the kids and did such a cute job with family home evening and doing chocolate turkeys on Thanksgiving with them. Clark loved it...shocker there.

The food was great, the company was great...what more could you ask for on Thanksgiving?

Lunch with Dad

Ever since Tanner started work, we have wanted to go meet him for lunch in the park across the street from his office. It is a beautiful park with a lake, a playground, and a "nice fountain" (Carters are all about nice fountains). It has been so hot for so long that we didn't do it until today when it was actually quite chilly out (for Florida anyway). We picked up sandwiches at Panera Bread and walked across the street and sat on a bench by a little pond. Clark had so much fun chasing the ducks and wildlife. Tanner and I had so much fun watching him and it was so nice to just spend 45 minutes with Dad in the middle of the day.

Dad and Clark feeding the birds

Clark met some other little boys while we were there, and they ran around together chasing and feeding the birds. Boys will be boys.

Tuckered Out

Sometimes Clark likes to play for a little while in his room before he decides to take his nap. I don't mind because he does it quietly, and usually, when I go in to check on him, he has climbed into his bed and fallen asleep. Today, however, when I went in...I saw this...

I think his bed is more comfortable.

North Carolina (my other home)

Clark and I have gone to visit Trish and her family twice in the last month, and it has been a blast. The first time was for us to go and see So You Think You Can Dance, which you can read about on her blog...I have nothing to add to her blog since I helped her write it! The second time wasn't really planned until about a week before when her babysitter flaked out on her and she needed to find a babysitter asap to come watch her kids for two days while she went up to NYC with Dan. Enter me (and Clark), stage right. Apparently I am the go-to babysitter for the family in a time of great need (look for me in Connecticut in December!) , and I am happy to do it, until child number 2 shows his face.

I got to BE Tricia for 3 whole days, and it definitely gave me a glimpse into what my life will be like if I end up having 5 kids under the age of 7 (which is SO not going to happen...but not because it wasn't fun because it was...most of the time). I did school runs every morning and afternoon, cleaned up poopy underwear (thanks for that JB), and did homework with two kids every night, which I really enjoyed actually...but I am sure that could wear off after a while. After Carter got home from school one day, I took Clark, Bella, and JB in the red wagon, and we went and watched Carter ride on his bike with no training wheels! Go Carter! They also played in the back yard a lot, and Courtney was so nice to make sure Clark was safe on the slide.



We pretty much just had a blast. The kids also decided that they needed to pile on top of each other every night while I was making dinner, and it was just the funniest thing to watch. They each had to take turns being on the bottom.


My favorite quote from this trip was:

Carter: "Chez, I just love living on Earth!"

Don't we all?

Numbers, Shapes, and Colors Oh My!

Clark knows his numbers 1-10, his shapes, and his colors, although we can really only take credit for the numbers and colors, while a shout out must be given to Baby Newton for helping Clark learn his shapes. He still thinks red is orange and blue is purple sometimes, but we figure that is close enough. He is a pro at green and yellow, and I actually think green is his favorite color because he knows green means GO! when we are in the car. I can't believe how fast kids learn...it makes me wonder what he knows that I don't know that he knows...

I can dance, I can sing...

The videos say it all...

Oh Oh Oh It's Magic!

I have some major blog catch up to do...so here goes...

October 10, 2007

Tanner received tickets from work to go see a pre-season Orlando Magic basketball game. We were so excited to take Clark to his first b-ball game. We had a great time and Clark loved watching the ball and climbing on the seats. He even tried to grab some guy's beer when he wasn't watching!

The Orlando Magic have a very interesting mascot named Stuff...I guess it is some kind of magical creature/dinosaur? Clark loved him, and he was very entertaining.
They came out a couple of times to throw t-shirts into the stands, and between my and Tanner's skillish moves, we caught one!
The magic won the game and we had a great night out together!

Profile

Check out Tanner's attorney profile that was just posted on the firm's website!

Treat!

We originally wanted Clark to be Superman for Halloween this year, but I was unable to find a Superman costume that would fit him in the proper way that would adequately show his bulging biceps. So as I was walking down an aisle in Target trying to decide what to do, all of the sudden, Clark starts pointing and screams out ELMO!!! And he was right, there was Elmo...at least a red furry thing with a Elmo face on it. I just had to get it after seeing Clark's reaction. I got home all excited to try it on Clark, but he would have nothing to do with it ON his body...he just wanted to carry it around with him. So, after days of both me and Tanner wearing the 'Elmo hat' (Clark loves hats, so we figured if we called it something he liked, he might
wear it) around the house, Clark was sufficiently happy to wear it for Halloween. We spent Halloween at my parents' house and went trick-or-treating in a neighborhood close by. It was actually a lot of fun because there were a lot of people around, and it reminded Tanner and I of the 'old days' when everyone would walk the neighborhood with their kids and it was just good clean fun.


Clark really enjoyed ringing the doorbells, and he wanted to go into every house to hang out...especially if he heard a dog inside. We couldn't get him to say trick-or-treat...but he would say "treat!" He would wear the Elmo hoodie for the initial door opening but would inevitably pull it down while standing at the door. The funny part was, he got more of a reaction from people when he would take his hoodie off and people would see his blonde hair underneath! He wanted nothing to do with his trick-or-treat bag, until he saw that people put candy in it...and then he wanted to carry/drag it everywhere. We had a lot of fun!