Born to be Wild... Literally...

I don't know about y'all, but Spring Break at the Clark house is a big deal... PAR-TAY! No school, no schedules... a much needed and much anticipated reprieve. To officially kick off Spring Break, the kids and I took a trip to the Rocky Mountain Wild Animal Sanctuary. A place where large carnivores that have been rescued from being abused, abandoned, or illegally kept, are taken to live out their lives. Hayden had read about this place in a magazine and then saw a show about it on Animal Planet. So when we realized how close it is to us, we decided to put it on the list of places we wanted to visit. Today was the day.

It was really interesting to read the stories of all of the rescued animals. Some had been kept as pets, some rescued from illegal entertainment venues. Hayden has such a tender heart, especially when it comes to animals. He got tears in his eyes as he was reading about some of the awful situations that the animals came from. And then tears again as we talked about how happy they must be now to live in a nicer place, with lots of room to roam.

Sophie was hilarious! She got so excited every time she saw a new animal. She would climb up on the fence and growl and roar as loud as she could. It was so funny and cute, but also freaked me out a bit because the walkway was directly above all of the tiger enclosures. She insisted on climbing and leaning on all the fences and I was sure she was going to fall into one of the cages and get eaten. Not that it could have easily happened, but the thought of it was making me nervous anyway.
We brought our lunch along and enjoyed a fun picnic on the deck by the lion enclosure overlook. This guy was entertaining us rolling around on the ground and roaring really loud, Sophie kept squealing and clapping every time he did it.
All in all, it was a fun adventure and the kids had a grrrrrr-eat time!

Bring on the snow! (As long as we can stay home)...

This is what was happening last night... I'm done with the snow for the year, but if it's going to snow, it better be a lot so that we can have a SNOW DAY!! Wahoo for snow days and sleeping in a bit! Since school was cancelled, Ana decided to make Hayden a special breakfast-in-bed picnic. On the menu: mini fritattas...


What a great way to start off a super fun-to-be day!

Monkey see, Monkey do...

No matter what Monkey #1 is doing, Monkey #2 is doing it, too.

 

Picassa? Monet? No, it's... Clark.

 

Green Day...

Happy St. Patrick's Day Clark Kids!
Love, the Leprechauns

 

Exploring and Creating...

Science and the Arts. Left-brained and right-brained. Intellectual and creative.

Call me completely naive, but when Ana was born, I just assumed that she would act a lot like Hayden. They definitely looked a lot alike. So why shouldn't they act alike? I know, I know - total new mom idea. Well, that obviously led to one of the major "discoveries" I remember making as a young mother. All kids are born with unique and wonderful personalities, and there is nothing you can do to change that. We have been blessed with two fantastically different children (Sophie's true nature is still yet to be determined, but it's coming along, and I'm slightly afraid of what it might be. That crazy little monster:) )

Hayden is our little intellect in training. He is so intrigued by the world around him... the WHOLE world. He is in love with maps(and globes), history, how things work, and anything that can be taken apart and put back together again. Not to mention his love for animals and any fact that can be produced about them. I love to watch his brain work, as he sits and studies a toy dinosaur that has a button that causes it's head to move up and down. He pushes it over and over again, watching it closely, and then finally... "Oh, I get it! Mom, it works like a teeter-totter on the inside. When you push on the button it's like sitting on a teeter-totter, it makes the head go up!" That's the kind of thing that really gets him excited. Here he is timing how fast his RoboXplorer can go 10 feet on different terrains... seriously! (Notice Sophie, this is regular acitivity for her, messing with whatever anyone is doing. Rascal!)

We also have a star in training. I say star in general, because from day to day (actually hour to hour), the kind of star changes from ballerina, to singer, to actress, to artist. For as intellectual as Hayden is, Ana is equally and oppositely creative. I'm not joking when I say that Ana sings or dances 90% of her day, no matter where she is or what she's doing. She loves to commentate her life through song - it's quite hilarious to listen to her sing about shoes, food, the toilet, her hair, and anything else that crosses her path on a given day. She is also very into creating things... anything and everything. I put together a craft center in our kitchen, because I was so sick of dragging out and cleaning up craft supplies that belonged elsewhere. It was one of the best ideas I have had in my mothering career thus far (I wonder how many hours it has saved me already?). And there is not a day that goes by that Ana is not into the craft center, creating one thing or another. Does anyone know if messiness usually goes with creativity?

I love my polar opposite children! I'm so grateful that assumptions aren't always the way it goes down, and that we have at least one right-brain and one left-brain running around our house... who knows if any of us have a whole brain!?!!

Ice Cream Sundaes...

For bedtime snacks one night this week, we had ice cream sundaes. The kids love to get out every kind of syrup and topping and put them all on their ice cream. After Ana put chocolate, butterscotch and strawberry syrup on hers, she declared "Look Hayden, I've got blood, snot, and veins on my ice cream!!" You can definitely tell that she has an older brother, when she is proud to shout out things like that.

Birthday Bonanza 2010 Comes to an End...

Man, I love birthdays and parties and everything that goes along with them, but I sure do wish that they were atleast a month apart. February is great with all of our birthdays, but I'm sure glad when it's over and we can think of other things besides BIRTHDAYS!

That being said, Hayden's was the last in the line of parties this month. He had a super fun Piranha birthday party, per his special request. There were piranhas swimming in the cake...

That's about as "piranha" as it got. My creativity died at that point and the rest of the party was a mish-mash of games and crafts, but the kids still loved it. (Notice the one girl in the sea of boys, that is Hayden's best-friend Jaylen, she is such a sweet friend to Hayden, and didn't mind at all that she was the only girl. Actually, I don't even think she noticed)... It always helps to give them as much candy as they want. It's a sure-fire way to make them think that the party is great...
And you can always please Hayden if there are animals involved. Painting reptiles was a hit...

Happy Birthday to our sweet Hayden boy!! We love you so much, and holy cow, how can you already be 7 years old!?!

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...