Window Treatments

Our Boo just cracks me up. . .





Anybody need an interior decorator for their house?

Gold Will Shine . . .

We've just returned from a whirlwind trip. I know, you are all shocked that the Clark family was traveling once again. NO MORE until Christmas, I promise. Anyway, Steve and I headed out to Colorado Springs to celebrate his 10 year reunion at the Air Force Academy. I started my journey on Wednesday by flying with the kids to Chicago. After I got them settled with my mom, I flew to Colorado on Thursday, and met up with Steve who got to fly all by himself. We spent an awesome weekend with each other and lots of old friends before I headed back to Chicago to pick up the babies and he flew directly back home to a quiet house. I wasn't jealous of him, at all, I'm sure you can tell. Actually, the kids did GREAT on both flights and had an amazing time at Grandma's. They spent tons of time with Grandma, Nana, Papa, Aunt Melisa, Uncle Jay, and the cousins eating junk and going on all sorts of fun outings. No wonder no one really missed me. :)

I dragged my camera all the way to Chicago intending on taking Melisa's Christmas card picture, but the weather was nasty and I never even took my camera out of it's case. I didn't even both taking it to CO. Good thing somebody else took great pics of the weekend. Go check out her blog (and maybe Amy's, J.J's, and Megan's when they get pics up) to see what we were up to! And since I know she is going to call me on it - fine, Erin, I guess there are SOME perks to being your BFF. I'm just waiting for the Gayle King style perks to start happening. :) Love you. Thanks for documenting my life.

And for the record, yes, I really was THAT bored at the football game. I just do not get sports watching. B-O-R-I-N-G.

Caroline's Princess Posse

Monday afternoon has become the highlight of Caroline's week. Why, you ask? The princess play date, of course!

Over the past year, 5 little 3-year-old girls (including Caroline) have become an incredibly tight group of friends. Whether they are at the park, the pool, or a play date in some one's backyard, these girls absolutely light up the minute they see each other, take off to play, and enter an imaginary world where only they know the rules. The cool thing is that whether there are two or five of them at any given time, it doesn't matter. They all love each other, and they all get along in any combination of the 5. It is a magical thing to see.

This fall, the girls all began preschool. The 5 are scattered between 3 different schools and 4 classrooms, so one of the moms (Queen Patti) came up with the brilliant idea to have a regularly scheduled Monday afternoon "princess play date." All five girls show up in their finest princess regalia and run amok in the hostess's house; sugary sweets are eaten, dress up clothes are traded, and elaborate games of "princess baby" are played. It is chaos - girly, crazy, amazingly well-behaved chaos.

Princess play date was at our house yesterday. Unfortunately I'd left my Rebel in the car Steve was using, so I just had my little purse-sized point-and-shoot. Please forgive the quality of the pictures, but since one of the main objectives of this blog is to capture the stories and the memories of our family, I sacrificed good pictures for an incredible memory. Brianna, Bridget, Caitlin, and Cate, thanks for being fabulous friends to my baby girl.

First Day of Preschool!

Caroline had her very first day of preschool this morning! We've been eagerly awaiting this for weeks. We are so pleased with the school we've picked for Caroline, and so far we are off to a great start!

This little man couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to stay and play, too.

I'm so excited for you to start preschool, Caroline! I know you will have a wonderful year full of new friendships and learning many new things.

Camping... Princess Style

I have been waiting for the right time to take Caroline camping and decided she was old enough this summer to head out and give it a try. So, this past weekend we went on her first ever overnight camping trip and, I have to say, we had a great time together.

After packing up our gear--2 parts candy and treats to 1 part stuff you actually need--we left Saturday morning and headed out to the beautiful Tully Lake campground about 1.5 hrs Northwest of Boston. The weather was perfect and we had plenty of time to set up camp before kayaking out to one of the small islands on the lake--aptly named "Mermaid Island" by you know who. Each tiny island had little sand beaches and we spent the afternoon making sand castles, looking for fairy houses, and watching family-friendly "pirates" sail by in their canoes. All in all, just another magical day with my girl.

That night we cooked beans and roasted hot dogs and sweet corn for an appetizer before the main course of smores. As you might of guessed, the smores were a HUGE hit!

After filling our bellies we got all ready for bed and (yes, this is probably cheating) got all snuggled in our tent for movie night. We watched Tinkerbell on Caroline's portable DVD player. It was a great way to wind down for the night and not worry about all the terrifying crickets outside.

The next morning we cooked a nice breakfast and spent a few hours exploring some of the trails all around the lake, some of which led to some really amazing waterfalls.


The highlight of Sunday, though, was Smokey's 65th birthday party put on by the Rangers at the campground--that is after I convinced Caroline that Smokey was a dress up bear and not the real kind. To sweeten the deal, Smokey even had bear-sized pieces of cake and goodie bags, definitely a hit with Miss Sweet Tooth.



All in all we had a great time together and I even got a "I'll probably go with you again Daddy" which, in my book is mission accomplished. Let's just hope Smokey celebrates his 66th birthday next year...

Blueberry Picking

We spent a gorgeous early-fall morning blueberry picking today. We met up with some of Caroline's buddies from last year's preschool class at a charming little farm not far from our house. The farm included an apple orchard, a corn maze, and a fabulous little store chock-full of freshly grown/homemade goodies, but we were mainly there for the blueberries. I love that we have all of the advantages of living near a big city right at our finger tips, but that we can also be out in the "country" in less than half an hour.

William spent most of the time screaming "ball!" every time he saw a blueberry. It's his favorite word. :)



Photography peeps - I'm working on learning to use aperture priority mode. How am I doing?

Can you believe all of these blueberries? I thought the season was over. The thicket was just gorgeous.

My camera wouldn't auto-focus for this picture. Hope nothing is wrong with it. I love the picture even if it is a little fuzzy.

Thanks for a great morning, friends!

All Boy

William and I are just finishing up our weekend together. Oh my goodness, this child is so easy. I've always known that, but after a day and a half of just him, I'm really appreciating how truly easy going this child is. It's been awesome to just enjoy him, let him take the lead, and go at his own pace. Seventeen months is truly an awesome age.

So what's new with the big boy? Running and climbing. He's discovered both recently, and that's pretty much all he wants to do - preferably outside. The kid loves to be outside.

Here he is, running away from me up our block - our current favorite outside activity:

And climbing up the swing set. He's also gotten very good and pushing things around so that he can scale even higher heights.

Other items on his short list of favorites? Dogs (woof woof) and cats, trucks (vroom, vroom!), shaking his head no, cheese, books, the sandbox, and big kids who give him attention.

I love you, my sweet boy. You bring so much joy to my life.