Introducing...

We are happy to introduce you to our new arrival...

Lucy Christine

October 6, 2009

6:48 pm

6 lbs. 14 oz.

Bella likes her and thinks she is a doll that she can play with...we are working on keeping Lucy alive.

Clark is also excited to have another little sister and wants to hold her anytime he is home from school.

I will hopfully have some 'good pictures' of her soon...I need a class on how to take better pictures. She is wonderful and we are so happy to have her here! A photographer took some pictures of her at the hospital and here is a link, if you want to check it out.

CA Trip

If I don't get a few things posted about the summer it is never going to happen...we spent a month in California - split between San Franscisco and Bakersfield. San Franscisco has much better weather, but it was good to visit family in both places! Here are a couple highlights...


Our visit to the ocean in Northern California:
The ocean was COLD! It was a beautiful day but VERY windy - you can see Bella & Clark in their jackets but Clark still wanted to do a little wading in the frigid water!

San Franscisco visit:

Lombard street - I really enjoyed driving down it and checking out the cool houses; I don't know if the kids really were all that impressed!

At the Pier...we saw the sea lions, alcatraz and I got a sour dough bread bowl with hot clam chowder. YUM! (The rest of the family ate too, but personally I thought they were missing out since they didn't get the bread and soup :)

What is a visit to San Francisco without the Golden Gate Bridge? We drove over the bridge (and we have a lot of driving pictures on the camera thanks to Clark) and took these pictures on the other side looking back at the city. It was a really fun visit!

Bella's 3 Year Old Pictures

I am trying to do better about taking consistant pictures of my kids - so at least one good picture a year. I got Bella's pictures back yesterday from the photographer and I think they are cute. I could post several of them, but she made this cute little collage of some of the best ones, so I am just posting it. You can go here and see a few more (they posted some on their website). We are so glad Bella is THREE!! What would we do without her!?!

FAQ

This post is for the benefit of all those who do not live close...most of our family, many friends, etc. Since it has been almost 10 years since I have been pregnant there are a couple common questions I get so hopefully these will help out.

1. Q: Do you look pregnant?

A: YES! What do you think this basketball is that I am carrying around! :) And I am even posting a picture, even though I really am not a fan of self portraits. I look like I am going to fall over backwards but anyway, here it is.

According to a lady in California when I was there in July, she didn't think I was going to make it till October and thought I MUST be having twins. But most other people don't seem to agree with her appraisal.

2. Q: How are you feeling?

A: OK overall. I certainly can't complain and know it could be much worse but I have to say that doing this 10 years ago was definitely easier! I am grateful for this miracle, so I am just going with it!

3. Q: When are you due?

A: Technically, October 11th but Clark was 2 weeks early...can't I hope for that again?

4. Q: Do you have a name picked out?

A: No...still a work in progress. If you have any suggestions that are not currently on the top 10 list of names for girls, please leave them in the comment section. (I really like many of those names but when you have a last name as common as we do we have to try and find some originality somewhere else!)

Within the next month we should have pictures of a new baby and a name for her so even though I have been a terrible blogger as of late, check back sometime!

Happy Birthday Bella!

How can our little Bella be THREE already? Time goes by so fast! She had a fun day - playing with a little friend and having balloons and cupcakes with the family.

Three fun things about Bella:

1. She loves to talk. (Don't we already have a kid that does that too?) When Ryan comes home they both will talk away - at the same time - but that doesn't seem to bother either of them. She will also sing and make up words and tunes but we aren't quite sure what they are about.

2. She loves to dress up and do her hair like a princess. On any given day she has hair that looks like Mulan, Cinderella and Belle - all at the same time. Or it could just look kinda crazy because we haven't done it yet either!

3. She likes to color and has a strange fettish with taking the paper off the crayons. I don't know why but she really doesn't like the paper on the outside so we find piles of very small paper pieces around the house.

I didn't get really great pictures of her day, but here are a couple of fun ones:

From the Beginning

I guess if I am going to try and do our summer justice I may as well start at the beginning of our travels...The kids and I took a trip to Bryce Canyon for a family reunion. My dad and sister Elise and her kids were there and we were so busy trying not to lose any kids and we don't have any pictures of the group of us - pitiful really. It was great to see the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

My dad took Clark on a hike down into the canyon since I was really not up to a strenuous hike, so after the reunion was over and my dad and sis had to leave I decided to venture on a few 'walks' with the kids. That ended up being a little more than I bargained for. We went on a little hike outside the canyon to see this waterfall and cave. Clark had a great time and Bella did OK, until I was trying to take a picture inside the little cave - she was not interested. (see picture) But Clark had a great time and walked with his walking stick that he brought from home and had all shaved down with his pocket knife - he is becoming quite the scout.

Now the real adventure begins...we drove back into the canyon and I thought it would be fun to take a little walk along the rim of the canyon so we could just see it. I went inside the ranger station/gift shop and asked about a little walk and they said it was easy for kids, etc. Great. I jump on the little shuttle bus so they could drop us off at one point and we could walk around to the next and get back on. When I was getting off I asked the bus driver which direction to go to make sure the bus would get us at the next spot. He said either way, but he would recommend going to the next spot because then my walk would be all downhill. Great. So we stay on the bus and get off at the next spot and start our walk. What the little bus driver failed to mention was that this section was the LONGEST rim walk in the park. An hour later we finally get to the next spot. Here I am, the pregnant mom carrying my toddler UP and down this path - but wasn't it all downhill you ask? Overall the elevation did decrease, but there were many up and downs. Needless to say we were WORN OUT after that excursion. I gave Clark the camera to take pictures and he took enough to publish his own travel guide so I just posted one of the canyon here and our 'end' pictures.

Finally home

What have we done this summer?

put over 3000 miles on the car
bought lots of gas
took over 200 pictures
saw lots of relatives
went to 2 baseball games (2 different home teams)
went to the zoo (and it was a balmy 72° :)
saw the golden gate bridge
went swimming
went to the beach
went to the mountains
lit fireworks
and the list goes on.

But, we are finally home again and despite the great trips there is 'no place like home'. Once I get my life back together again I will make a few blog posts of all our adventures.

Updo

I was doing Bella's hair today and it was a frizzy disaster. I should have taken a picture. Anyway, I had just done mine and the flat iron was out and hot so I decided to try it out on her hair. WOW! She looks so different! Of course, still cute.

Princess

Going back a few days...my cousin got married a few weeks ago and she had her reception on Saturday. Bella had a cute little dress and to match and some flowers for her hair. She looked really lovely - just like the princesses that she is really into right now.

It's a...GIRL!

Everything looked good...still due mid October. Clark thinks we should adopt a brother for him now.

May Adventures

I haven't been a great blogger as of late...really I have never been all on top of it, but time for some more random journaling.

The Pinewood Derby:

Clark made a great car that won at least 6 races, but he didn't place in the top three. He was a little disappointed, but had a good time designing and making his car. I don't have a good picture of him and his car - maybe we will take one tomorrow when he gets in his scout uniform again!

Wading Pool:

The warm weather comes and goes, but during a 'hot spell' a couple weeks ago I got a little wading pool that we can have outside in the back yard. Bella LOVES it and asks everyday to go swimming! "I need my swim suit!" "I need water." It has been really nice the last couple of days, but too cold for swimming - she will just play in the empty pool for a while, but it just isn't as much fun as when it is full of cold water to splash in.

Mother's Day:

I had a lovely Mother's Day and Clark and Ryan and Bella were really sweet. On the Friday before Mother's Day Clark had a mother's day program in his class and gave me a really nice card. The kids had learned all sorts of songs that they sang to all the moms. It was really cute. I would post the video, but it was almost 30 minutes long and I don't think anyone would actually watch it except for me.

Memorial Day:

We went on an excursion today to several cemetaries and found the graves of several of our ancestors. I was amazed at the number of people and flowers at all the places we went. Living away from where my ancestors were buried I didn't realize how many people actually went on Memorial Day. It was a fun little hunt today. Clark took pictures of all the head stones and Bella went around picking up flowers that had fallen over, spinning the wind mills and running away from me. I am tired.

Latest Happenings

Here are some of the recent pictures from our house...

Bella decided to dress herself. She has been good at UNdressing herself for a while, but this was the first successful attempt at getting a full outfit on. Notice the backwards shirt and the pants that don't match. Although it is hard to tell in the pictures, she even put on shoes too - Sunday dress shoes. Nice work!

Baseball games have started. Clark is still getting used to kid pitch, but is having a good time. The weather has improved and is it really nice to sit outside in the sun and watch. Way to soon it will scorching hot so we are enjoying while it lasts!

Finding Spring

Since Spring can't find me here, we had to go find it! (As a side note - it snowed AGAIN today). Ryan finished finals last Saturday and on Monday we headed south for some much needed sunshine and relaxation. It is great to get a way, even for a couple of days. It was WARM and BEAUTIFUL and so nice. A few highlights...

We got to wear summer clothes....

climb trees and smell the flowers.

Clark and Bella (who is doing her newest trick - a wink) They loved being outside and having fun.


Fun at the 'Sand Dunes'. The sand is really red - kinda cool. Although, all pockets and hair were filled with the super fine sand before we left.


Time for some swimming!!!

Bella liked applying her own additional sunscreen (and eating it too I guess!)

What warm adventure is complete without ice cream?

Can I go back? It really was so nice to get away and we had a fun time.