A tiny glimpse of heaven... Dashel Montague Joyce

Once in a while, Heavenly Father gives you an opportunity to remember why we are here on earth and how important families really are...

My sister, Mari, gave birth to a little baby boy on February 13th. His name is Dashel, he weighed less than 3 pounds, and looked just like a Joyce. For about the last month, our family has been praying and waiting for the arrival of little Dashel. At Mari's routine ultrasound, they were informed that there was something wrong with Dashel's heart, and with lots of further tests, they found out that it was very serious. The doctors told them that if he could make it until he was 5 lbs. there was a slight chance that he could survive surgery, but with no guarantees. Mari's amniotic fluid started to decrease over the last couple of weeks and on Thursday of last week, it was basically all gone. The doctors told them that at this point there was no hope of saving Dashel. If he was alive at birth, his heart was irreparable. So their family was faced with two choices: to allow Dashel to pass away inside of Mari's womb, or to induce Mari and allow them to possibly be able spend a few hours with him. Through lots of prayer and thought, they decided to deliver Dashel. He was born in the wee hours of the morning on February 13th, amidst their other five children sleeping on the floor of the hospital, hoping to just get a glimpse of their baby brother. Heavenly Father blessed their family with 2 whole days of tender moments with little Dashel, before he passed away in the early morning hours of Monday, February 15th. It was such a sweet time for their family and for all of us as an extended family, to meet Dashel (via web-conferencing), and bond with him, knowing that it would be our goal as a family to all be reunited again in Heaven.

What a blessing it is to know of our Heavenly Father's beautiful plan of salvation. To know that we can all return to live with Him again as eternal families. What a blessing of hope that knowledge gives me at these very hard times during our mortal existence. I am so thankful, for the gospel of Jesus Christ, for the foundation it provides for my family here on earth, and for the peace it brings me to know that we can all see Dashel again, and that he will always be a part of our family.

 

Valentine...

Because Robbie was in Florida for the week, he was gone over Valentine's Day. We got this sweet note along with flowers on our door step that day...

Cousins Weekend...

Rob had to go to Florida this week for work, so I sweet talked 2 of my sisters into coming to visit for a long weekend. Ana came from Utah with two of her kids, Alta and Adlee. And Kris came from Minnesota with her youngest, Luke. Not the best picture, but the only one I had of the three of us... We had such a fun time, watching old movies, telling funny stories and celebrating birthdays. I already posted about taking Kris out for her birthday, it was too good not to share. If you missed it, check out the post titled "Brown Sugar Shenanigans", it's a good one! But here are the other fun things that we did with the kids. We spent an afternoon at the Nature and Science Museum...

Went to a place called "My Art Workshop", where the kids got to choose any art project and make it themselves. They painted and decorated treasure boxes... Made spin art frisbees... Laughed and talked... I think that Sophie painted herself more than the paper...
We went to The Hop, to bounce off some energy...



We also busted open a pinata for all the February birthdays, of which there were many...


Mostly, we just had a lot of fun laughing and being together... We wish that more of you could have joined us. Next time...

The Queen of Hearts...

We have our very own Valentine in the Clark family. Our sweetheart, Ana, turned 5 this year, and since she was born on the day of Love, we thought it would be so fun to throw a Queen of Hearts Tea Party for her. It was a super fancy occasion, just the way her Highness likes it... My sisters, Ana and Kris(in this picture), came to visit for the weekend and were so awesome to help with the party... The Royal court... Her Majesty, enjoying all the royal splendor... They ate fruit and cakes on heart-shaped plates, drank pink hot chocolate in real tea cups, and danced their little hearts out at the Royal Ball... They made candy necklaces... Sophie went around swiping everyone's candy beads. She was such a crack up... We finished off the afternoon by making iron-together bead shapes and then turned on the bubble machine to dance until they dropped, literally. All the princesses of the land had a delightful time and they all lived happily ever after...

Circuit and a stache...

Hayden got an electricity kit for Christmas and has been totally into building circuits. Here is one that he built with a paper clip and a light bulb... Notice the awesome Kool-aid mustache? Ahhh, to be a kid...

The Big 3-0h!!

So the saying "30 is the new 20" finally meant something to me this year. I turned 30 this month and I have to say, it was way better than turning 20! My friends planned a special birthday lunch, we all got together and ate and talked - always fun! Rob took me on a really sweet date. We went ice skating!
Then we played a giant game of checkers, Rob won (he does every time)...
And finished off the evening with hand-tossed pizza and cheese bread (mmmmmm... my fave, I'm pretty easy to please)... It was such a fun date, Rob did a great job of planning ahead and making it really special. The kids surprised me with my favorite ice cream cake from DQ. It was the perfect day, couldn't have asked for more...
Happy Birthday to me. It really was.

Brown Sugar Shenanigans...

It has been such a fun weekend with two of my sisters, Kris and Ana, visiting from Minnesota and Utah. But the highlight of the weekend, by far, occurred while we were taking Kris out for dessert for her birthday (yesterday). We took her to the d Bar, which is a great little dessert bar restaurant here in Denver. It is owned and operated by, pastry chef Keegan Gerhard. You will probably recognize him as the host of the "Food Network Challenge", where pastry chefs compete to make huge, crazy cakes on the Food channel.

Well, to start off my story, I pretty much took about 11 wrong turns in getting us to the restaurant, but we may not have had this hilarious experience if we had come at an earlier time. So Kris, you can thank me for the wrong turns. The place was packed when we arrived (Valentine's daters), but we were finally greeted and seated by a waiter named Jay Brown. We ordered our desserts (by the way, they have the BEST vanilla shakes in the entire world!) We ate and chatted with the other people at our table and as we were wrapping up, the wait staff started singing Happy Birthday to another girl in the restaurant. Kris leaned over to me and said "Don't tell them it's my birthday, it'll be lame after they already sang to that girl." So I said OK. But my other sister, Ana, wasn't having any of that, she caught our waiter and promptly told him that it was Kris's birthday. Kris piped up and said, "But please don't sing to me, it will be so lame after you already sang to that other girl." Jay's eyes got big and said, "Oh don't worry about that, we've got something extra special ready for you." He turned and walked back tot he kitchen. A few minutes later, the chef himself, Keegan Gerhard, came out to our table. He asked Kris, "Is it true that it's your birthday and you didn't want anyone to know?" Kris:"Yes." Chef Gerhard:"Well, are you familiar with Brown Sugar Shenanigans?" We all shook our heads and said no. Chef Gerhard pointed to Jay Brown and said, "That's our famous Jay Brown, and he has something really special for you." Chef Gerhard left the table and a few moments later the music started to get louder. At that instant, I remembered seeing a video clip on the d Bar website, and this is what happened to my sister Kris (you'll have to imagine this being Kris, I could have kicked myself for not having my camera with me) But I have to admit, Kris got a much better (and longer) show than what you'll see here. (So much so, that an older couple that was walking in the door, turned around and left):

jay brown at d bar with some brown sugar shenanigans from Keegan Gerhard on Vimeo.

It was hilarious, Kris was SO embarrassed! I laughed so hard, my stomach muscles hurt today. Chef Gerhard came back and talked with us a bit, he was such a nice guy, and when we received our bill it had a zero balance. Wahoo! Dessert and a show for FREE!! We left Mr. Brown a pretty good tip though, it was well worth the laughs!

Author's Celebration and an Award...

Every month, Hayden's class has an Author's Celebration where parents come and listen to them read the stories they have been writing that month. Hayden has really been working hard at reading in front of a group (his whole class and all their parents - pretty good sized group), he did a great job last month reading the story that he wrote called "The Nature and Science Museum"...

 

Sophie entertains the class by giving everyone hand sanitizer...

 

Hayden also received his very first award at school this last quarter. The award is called "Effort Creates Ability", he was one of the few kids that improved in all of his academic areas over the last quarter! Way to go Hayden!!

 

 

Mongolian Day...

What? You don't celebrate that holiday? This is what you do: Take a trip to the Nature and Science Museum to see the awesome Genghis Khan exhibit, if you can't find the time to go there, just ask Hayden, he can tell you about any detail that you ever wanted to know.

 

After that, you go to a Mongolian restaurant and try the native cuisine. Mighty tasty, the kids even liked it...

 

Rob's Dad (his name is Rob, too) came into town last week on business and we had a grand time with him while he visited. He's always so awesome to take us to do fun things like this. The kids loved it! Thanks Rob, come and visit again soon! And Ana says to tell you to bring Nona with you next time.

Farewell Hermana Clark...

When we were in Utah over Christmas, we were lucky enough to be there for Rob's sister Callie's mission farewell. She is headed to Concepcion, Chile for 18 months and we are so excited for her!! Wahoo Callie!! The last photo of the Clark siblings for a year and a half...

 

Since they do curbside drop-off at the MTC now, they only let you bring one vehicle into the drop-off zone. So of course, we piled every member of the family into the suburban (all 16 of us) to drop Callie off...

 

The snowflakes were so beautiful that day, it made for a sweet farewell...

 

We love and miss you already Callie, but we know that you will be an awesome missionary!

Would you claim them?

As many of you know, my Robbie has quite the sense of humor. But what a lot of you might not know, is that he's not the only one. This is just a sampling of what goes on when his family all gets together...
Someone decided to shove grapes under their lips, so of course it was way too funny for just one person to do it. We all had to try it. (That's Rob's mom on the right. It's definitely in the genes)...

 

Match made in heaven. No wonder they married each other...

 

One night we all played the game "Quelf". If you haven't played it, it's a good one! This is what everyone looked like by the end. Yes, that is Rob's dad with the soda bottle tied to his head...

 

I love my in-laws. They are like my own family. There's something to be said about a family that can randomly break out into song at dinner. Seriously, that happens. And it makes me all the happier to be a part of it all. I'd claim them any day...

Christmas morning, I mean afternoon...

Christmas morning was so funny this year. Since we were at Rob's family's house and they have no small kids anymore, our kids, and their two little cousins, were the only one's up at the crack of dawn to open presents from Santa. So we did, and then our little family just lounged and napped all morning till the rest of the clan decided to get up around noon. So we really had a Christmas afternoon of opening gifts instead of a Christmas morning... totally Clark style.
Robbie and I lounging and trying to keep the kids out of the gifts until the rest of the fam awoke (that is no easy task)...

 

Ana and cousin Dallin coloring a princess poster from Santa. Don't worry Dallin, we know you don't "really" like princesses...

 

Hayden and Dallin playing with their Zhu Zhu pets from Nona...

 

We gave Katelyn some fairy wings for Christmas and it was so cute to see her run around with them on. She kept putting on each new thing that she received. She had on her Christmas pj's, a new coat from Papa, wings and a fairy skirt, and a butterfly hair clip. I'm surprised she could walk with all of it on. But the funniest part was when she climbed on the rocking horse, I asked her "Are you a princess riding your horsey?" And then Dallin came running around the corner with his new tool backpack on, pushing Kate's new shopping cart, and shouts "Ya, and I'm a worker guy, pushin' my stroller!!" I laughed so hard, because he was so serious and excited about it.

 

The "twin" cousins sporting their twinner outfits... Testing out the new duds for flexibility. "It's a keeper, I can still stand on my head with it on..." Feasting on stocking spoils... All in all, it was a holly jolly Christmas day...