Final days of summer...

*The failed attempt to have Cam's 2 teeth pulled (Heaven knows she won't wiggle them on her own)
*The Ogden Temple Open House
*The Mani/Pedi day at Nana's aesthetician school
*The over abundance of cuteness in one household

First day of 3rd Grade and Kindergarten!

My kids love school.  I'm talkin, never had a bad day.  When I ask them what the best part of their day was, they say, "All of it!!".  I. AM. A. LUCKY. WOMAN.  I feel beyond blessed to have kids who enjoy school so much and don't give me stress, anxiety and heartache when I drop them off in the morning.  Kendyl has been so excited to start kindergarten and wear her uniform.  These girls are bright and I can't wait to for another great year of school.  The twins have Mrs. Jackson this year (they had Stephenson for 2nd, Child for 1st and Merrill for K), and Kendyl has Ms. Neilsen.  Kendyl already knows how to read and her preliminary kindergarten testing put her in the top of the class.  Go Kendyl!!  Now to see if I can get all 3 girls to school on time all year!!

The Backyard

So here it is.  The reason we went through the NIGHTMARE of selling our other house and buying this property.  It's a little slice of heaven, and that seems worth it to us!  It will provide plenty of opportunities for work and plenty for play.  We're so excited :)

The Fantastic 5

This very well could have been the last time all 5 kids fit into the tub together.  Cherish these years, Steff.  I'm having a hard time with them growing up.  I really am.

Brothers

Few things tug at my heart strings the way these 2 little boys do.  I still can't believe I have 2 sons. 2 brothers.  It's still a foreign concept to me but I LOVE it!  2 tiny little innocent lovees who just want to be with their mama all day.  I can't even put into words my obsession with these mini men.  I'm so happy that they have each other and I'm positive they'll be best friends for life.

A whirlwind of a summer

 This summer started off fun and easy....then Nic and I (after months of looking) found a house we wanted on KSL.  It was an older house in West Bountiful, much smaller.  The kicker was the backyard.  Oh man, the magical, one acre, full of trees, more beautiful than I could imagine, back yard.  So we did the unthinkable and listed our house on July 1st.  We thought it would sell the next day, but it didn't.  Clark had it listed pretty high, but we still had showings.  Meanwhile, the West Bountiful home, which was under contract with a different buyer, became available when the other buyers couldn't get financed.  We made an offer and started working on getting a loan.  Hard to do when you haven't sold your other home!  We dropped the price on our home twice, had lots of showings, spent our lives completely stressed out trying to keep the house and yard perfect.  We finally got an offer, it was a little lower than we hoped but we were able to meet in the middle.  We were so relieved, even though they couldn't close for a month!  Well as luck would have it, they bailed a couple weeks later.  That day goes down as one of the most stressful days of our lives.  We were close to closing on the West Bountiful home and scrambling to find money to show we were qualified.  Oh, and did I mention we were also selling and buying different cars for each of us???  Yep, a couple of idiots we are.  So the day after our buyers bailed, we had 2 showings and one of them made an offer that night!  OUR PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED!!!  The offer was better than the other buyers' offer and we were ecstatic.  We finally closed on the West Bountiful home and felt quite fortunate to own 2 homes within a mile of eachother (that was sarcastic).  The inspection of our Woods Cross home was a little rough as there was a tremendous amount of water damage under the stucco on the exterior of our garage.  We had noticed cracks in the house, shingles bending, the door not closing correctly, among other strange things.  There was also a lot of cement cracking in the driveway, a water heater problem, window problems, blah blah blah.  Well we ended up cutting them a 5k check to cover most of the problems and we were able to close on Sep. 29.  A glorious, glorious day!!!!  We now only own ONE home, sold both of our cars and now have a Hyundai Sonata and Cadillac Escalade.  The house is 1200 sq. feet smaller than our last home.  Yes, we've sent LOTS of stuff to DI, sold lots of stuff, and just thrown stuff away.  We are nice and cozy here and hope to someday expand.  The backyard though.... Oh man.  It's incredible.  We even have a hot tub on the back deck!  We are happy here.  The ward is older and there aren't man kids, but we will adjust and learn to love our life over here.  The Lord has blessed us.  There were times during the last few months that I was so stressed out and angry that I really thought I might have a heart attack.  I'm glad that part is over and I can finally relax a little (although the "to do" list is insane).  So "cheers" to our new lives in West Bountiful!

Clark Family Photo Shoot

San Diego Anniversary

Nic had a 2 week long work training in Carlsbad CA for the first 2 weeks of August.  As luck would have it, our anniversary fell right into that weekend.  But as BETTER luck would have it, I had enough sky miles to fly myself over there for a few days :)  Ashley and Melanie watched the kids.  I even left Calvin (with a dozen bags of frozen milk).  It was the most glorious weekend I can remember having.  Seeing Nic pull up at the airport in his cherry red Mustang Convertible was the perfect way to start things off.  We went straight to dinner at a nice restaurant on the beach.  We went back to the hotel afterward and I just sat there thinking how lucky I was to have NOTHING to do but relax and have fun.  We were able to go to the beach and to dinner with Quinton and Tif.  We drove racecars.  (SOOO much fun...and he only beat me by a second with my dirty driving). We ate fabulous food.  We even went to Disneyland!!!  Yep, Nic was more than willing to take me.  We had such a wonderful time and ate at all the yummiest restaurants.  On my final day there, Nic had to go back to training.  Since he needed his car returned to San Diego, I drove down to Coronado Island for the day.  I parked by the beach, walked around some shops, picked up some lunch, and ate it on the beach all by myself.  It was heavenly.  At the end of the day, I drove the car to the airport and flew home.  It was nice to get back to my babies, but man, I'd give anything to relive that weekend.  Happy 11 years, Nic!!

Camryn * Brooklyn Baptism

What a special day for these 2 amazing daughters of mine.  I would say they were probably as prepared as they could be for baptism.  They understand what it means.  They love the gospel and I'm so grateful for that.  They got scriptures for their baptism and they haven't stopped reading them.  Brooklyn has all of her articles of faith memorized and Cam is close.  They understand the importance of prayer.  They want to be good.  They are my little angels.

I could tell they were a little nervous at their baptism.  The bishop brought them to the pulpit to talk about them a little and they wouldn't even get close to him.  haha.  The played "When I am Baptized" on the violin and piano and it was perfect.  Such talented little girls and what a great memory.  Camryn said she was nervous to go under water, but felt so good when she came out.

We went to the park afterwards and had a picnic with all the people we love.  They got some fun gifts from people and couldn't wait to go home and write in journals :)

We are proud of our little twinners and hope this whole "growing up" thing just slows down a bit!!!