Mancation

Trent Perry, Quinton Smith, Teddy Davies, Nic Clark

Nic had some of the best college roommates a guy could ask for.  He's stayed in touch with all of them through the years and they finally had a little reunion in Park City last weekend (minus Brian & Parker).  They went snowmobiling, skiing (and sat by Ashton Kutcher on the lift), hung out at the smore bar and hot hot hot tub at the Waldorf Astoria, and made some sweet memories trying to drive up to the snowy cabin for the night....that didn't have working water for some odd reason.  They ended up at our house on Saturday night and I was so happy to see them all.  For all the time I spent at Nic's apartment with he and his roommates, they're my good friends too.  Teddy even got to play goalie at our 11pm soccer game that night :)  Wish these guys lived closer.  Hopefully they'll make it an annual thing- they need it.

Beethoven

                                                          He's even got the hair for it.

American Idol Party

Nic has started a little tradition with the kids.  They have an American Idol night where they all lay on the floor in their jammies and try to predict who's going to be good and who's going to be bad.  It's pretty awesome :)

More snowstorms

Here is a little collage showing a few different snowstorms.  Notice the bottom right picture.  Do you see that!?  It's the sky!!!!  Something we haven't seen in a month due to the nasty inversion.  That was the only day we saw the sky, about an hour later, the clouds rolled in and so did more snow.  Maybe we'll see the sky again in February...

B's Spelling Bee

This little smarty pants gives me so many reasons to be a proud mama!  On this particular day, I was proud of a few things.  First, she won her in-class spelling bee and got to compete in the school spelling bee!  She did so well in the school Bee and knew EVERY word on her study list.  And seriously, 'encyclopedia', 'conscience', there were some hard words!!  She made it pretty far but accidentally missed an 'i' in the word 'invisible'.  I was one of the judges and my heart just broke when I heard the mistake.  But here's the best part.  She was handed a treat as she walked off the stage.  She walked over to where Nic, Kendyl and Nixon were sitting and gave the babes her little treat.  She has a heart of gold and I could learn a thing or two from her.

Popcorn

It's about time I reserved a special post just for movie popcorn.  It's my favorite food in the world (as long as they layer the butter).  On this particular night, Nic took me to the theater so I could run in and get my popcorn.  He snapped this picture as I was getting back in to the car.  Part of me thought, "I'm a giant loser!".  But then, I realized I am just smart ;)

Kendyl & Great Grandma

                                            These 2 just love eachother!  It cracks me up :) 

Dani's Swimming Party

Happy 6th Birthday Dani!  My girls were SO pumped that they're finally old enough to go down the big slide and the lazy river on their own.  It's pretty nice not having to worry about them too much at the pool!

SNOW

When it snows...and snows...and snows some more, Nic likes to go snowmobiling down the street and go off jumps in our yard.  Davis county was hit HARD by a snow storm called "Gandolph".  It snowed a couple feet in just over a day.  They even cancelled school- which is very rare. 

Love this..

St. George for New Years

We braved the CRAZY stormy weather and drove to St. George 2 days after Christmas.  Some spots were a little scary in the mini, but we made it :)  The cousins spent the majority of their time doing shows on the disco ball stage.  We even humored them one night and all the adults gathered around the stage to see them each sing a Christmas solo.  We were fairly impressed!  The guys did a lot of football watching and pool.  My Dad spent half the trip trying to figure out Netflix....poor guy just wanted to watch The Bourne Legacy.  The women went to Les Mis one night.  Holy cow, we all bawled our eyes out.  We couldn't believe our husbands didn't want to come give us huge  hugs when we got home!  haha.  We actually got back from the movie just in time to celebrate New Years with all the kids (Eastern Time of course).  They all banged pots and pans and did a parade. It was cute.  We did a little Zumba, a little Razoring, a little hot tubbing, a little movie watching and just the usual stuff, but it was fun to be with the family.  Hopefully it's warmer than 40 degrees next time we go down there!

Christmas

Our Christmas was supposed to be spent in St. George, but a last minute funeral for someone in my parents' ward on Dec. 26th meant we all stuck around until the day after Christmas.  It was actually fun though.  We got to see some amazing lights (light show with music) on Christmas Eve, then drove to my parents for dinner, Christmas carols and treats.  We made sure we left some cookies out for Santa.  Christmas morning was a blast.  Nixon ran RIGHT to his new train table, Kendyl ran to her Hello Kitty blanky/stuffed animal, Camryn found her Barbie RV and B got her mini American Doll, Caroline, with all the books.  Some other memorable presents this year were:  Nic got me a Tiffany's necklace.  The girls got great grandma a porceline dog that she LOVED!  The bunkbed.  The blog book I made for the fam.  And lots of other little things.  Next year, please help me to buy 1/2 as much.  They were happy with the first thing they opened- why continue?!   Anyway, the rest of the day was spent playing, moving Great Grandma in to her new place and swimming.  That night, my sisters and their families came over for Chinese food, jammies and presents.

Clark Christmas

Nic's parents were in town the week before Christmas and we took advantage of every minute.  We made a Christmas tree pinata, played at the Provo Beach Club (bowling, carousel, games, etc), went to cousin Clark's basketball game, watched Home Alone in the back of the van while eating our 4 Krispy Kreme donuts ;), talked to Sean on the phone for Christmas, the girls saw Wreck it Ralph with Nana and Papa, and the best part of all was our Christmas party at Ashley and Ryan's house!  Our meal was catered by the Blue Lemon and Ashley had her house decorated perfectly for the party.  We ate, played games, had a special visit from "skinny" Santa  ( who may or may not have been related to Michael Schenk), had our gift exchange, then put the kids in bed and left Nana and Papa to babysit while the rest of us went to see Jack Reacher.  SO GOOD!  We slept over that night and spent the next day playing together.  It was so nice to be able to spend lots of time with Nic's family.  We had a GREAT pre-Christmas with them :)

Christmas Box House

I asked my Zumba class to bring gifts for a local charity in exchange for some free Zumba classes. We ended up buying quite a lot of gifts as well and decided to let the girls help drop them off. It's hard at Christmas time to teach kids how wonderful it is to give. I think they actually understand it pretty well. It was nice to be able to do such a special thing with them. Hopefully it's something they remember and want to do again.

Clark Party in Eden

We have a Christmas party with the extended Clark Family every year.  We've been lucky enough to be able to use the Eden house for the last 3 years.  It's big enough to hold all of us and it's fairly central.  This year we had a delicious dinner, a fun white elephant, a pinata, watched Wes and Wade wrestle, watched Nic and Clark wrestle, and enjoyed 2 original Clark songs played on the guitar by both Quincie and Nic.  Very, very impressive.  My kids were the only great grandkids there because all the others were either sick or out of town.  Major bummer, but at least my kids scored royally on the pinata ;-)  Like always, the food was delicious and the company was a hoot.  We feel so blessed to be a part of such an awesome family.

Kendyl's Preschool Christmas program

Oh man she's cute.  I loved watching her sing her songs and recite her little poems.  I also love Kendyl's teacher, Miss Shanna!  Kendyl loves her too :)  Kendyl was lucky enough to have her sisters, Grandma, great Grandma, Tanner, Daddy and Nana there.  My favorite part was when Kendyl gave Nic and I the present she made, a sparkly green ornament.

Spanky the Elf

Somehow this little elf ended up at our house this December.  The girls named him Spanky and fell instantly in love.  Each morning, he showed up in a different place in the house with a bucket of candy.  He wrote them notes, made them laugh and became a member of the family.  He decided to stay in Eden (oops) after the Clark Christmas party and his stuffed monkey friend, Jezbo, spent a few days with us until Spanky could get back.  He sent a note with Jezbo explaining that he just wanted to stay in Eden and ski :)  The girls are excited to see Spanky again next December!

Bitty Bunkbeds

 

 

 

 

 

Nic and I put our talents together and made this AWESOME bunkbed for the girls for Christmas.  Nic obviously did the building and I obviously did the sewing.  Neither of us had any sort of pattern, so we were blown away that it actually turned out so well.  The girls love it and they tuck their dolls in it before bed every night. :)

The most popular guy on campus

Nursery for Nix

Nixon started nursey!

Week 1- success
Week 2- they brought my bawling baby to me half way through.  Honestly though....I was kind of excited.  I got to play with him during Relief Society.  I'd keep that boy on my hip all day if I could.