The newest Clark...

About a month ago a new Clark joined the household and I have to admit he is the most maintenance free one in the bunch. For the longest time Morgan has said she wanted a hamster. I'm not entirely sure where the idea came from, because to my knowledge she hasn't known anyone that had one and they didn't have one at school. So my best guess is that she saw them at the pet store and got it stuck in her head that it would be a fun thing to have.

Now when I say the "longest time" I mean over a year....at least! So I guess I wasn't too surprised by our latest addition. Morgan and Greg went to the pet store to get food for the dogs, and while they were gone I got a phone call. It was Greg saying that Morgan was begging for a hamster. Apparently she got to his heartstrings, because about 20 minutes later they walked in the house with this.....

Of course I immediately knew what was in that little white box, because I had this little face smiling at me.....

Morgan was so excited to show me what was in the box....so we carefully opened the lid and inside this is what we found!

A tiny dwarf hamster was huddling in the corner of the box. I think he was a little afraid of the shrieking and screaming that was coming from Morgan and Elizabeth. While they were at the pet store they picked up a cage for him, some pine shavings for his bed, food etc. So Morgan patiently waited for Greg to construct the cage so we could get her new hamster out.

Finally it was done, and we were able to introduce the hamster to his new home. For awhile Morgan just sat there and watched him investigate his new digs.

Now in case you didn't notice in that picture above, there was another member of the Clark family that was interested in the new addition......

That's right, DeWalt was very interested in this new creature, but more about that later.

In order for you to get a sense of how excited she was I grabbed this little video.

Now it wasn't too long after this video was taken that Morgan decided that instead of calling him "Rhino" (which was inspired by the hamster in the movie Bolt) that she would rather name him "Rainbow". So the hamster will forever be known as Rainbow Clark.

Now onto Rainbow's adventures......

Probably about a week and a half after we got Rainbow set up in Morgan's room (he lives in his cage which is on Morgan's bookshelf) Greg came across a near catastrophe. Now before I tell the whole story, think back to that picture of DeWalt introducing himself to Rainbow. Well every since that moment DeWalt has been sticking pretty close to Rainbow. He sleeps that the foot of Morgan's bed so he can watch the cage, he pretty much lives in Morgan's room now. So one Morgan after we had all gone, Greg walked into Morgan's room and saw that DeWalt had someone popped off one of the tubes to Rainbow's cage. Right as he walked in he saw Rainbow poke his little head out of the tube....I'm sure you can guess who was patiently waiting for this to happen....DeWalt! As soon as Rainbow popped his little head out, DeWalt hit him and knocked him out of the tunnel. Greg quickly threw something to scare DeWalt and grabbed Rainbow and put him back in his cage. It was a near catastrophe.

Since then DeWalt climbs on the bookshelf, lays on the floor beneath it and sleeps at the end of Morgan's bed all in hopes that he will have another chance at Rainbow.

Since Rainbow made it through his near death experience about a week or so later I decided he needed a new toy. So I got him a ball. Every hamster needs a ball, right? Morgan was pretty excited to see him in there, so when Greg was cleaning out his cage, Morgan brought him downstairs in the ball and we watched him move around. It was pretty funny, and the girls quickly lost interest but what was even better was when Belle got a chance to come face to face with Rainbow.




I think she was scared. Rainbow had to go back to his cage, mainly because Morgan kept forgetting that he was in the ball and would walk off and leave him. So for now his exercise consists of nightly running on his wheel. That little guy is loud!

So surprisingly Rainbow has been with us for over a month and the girls are still interested in him. For all those visiting over the holidays we hope you can meet Rainbow in person.

Funny things kids say...

So since I figured out that I can make a hardback book out of all of these blog posts I am trying to make more of an effort to capture the funny moments of my girls. So here goes...

Morgan: Mommy there is a spot on my pillowcase.

Me: I know Morgan, I tried to get it out in the washer and it didn't come out.

Morgan: Well Mom did you try OxyClean?

No joke- she actually said this. Maybe she is watching too many commercials.

The school bell is ringing!

Our monumental year of events just keeps going! This August- August 10 to be exact- Morgan started kindergarten. Morgan has known she was going to her "big girl school" for awhile. We drive by it almost every day so she has been pretty excited. She actually was confused why she didn't get to go to her new school the day she turned five. We probably should have explained a little better, because we did tell her she got to go to her new school when she was 5- we just didn't say how long she would be five before she went.

So she was pretty excited when we started picking out her supplies. Greg ordered her a new backpack- which of course had to be pink. And we got her a Hello Kitty lunchbox and thermos and a couple of notebooks. Then the day came that she got a postcard from her new teacher. After that we found out that Lauren the girl who lives across the street was in Morgan's class too!

Morgan was pretty excited about starting school until we went to the pediatrician. The poor girl had to get three booster shots. She was less then happy, but we celebrated the appointment with Dairy Queen which is conveniently right across the street from the pediatrician's office.

Greg and I attended Kindergarten back to school night and got to meet her teacher and hear about the curriculum. Greg was pretty surprised that there is homework in kindergarten! And we found out that two of Morgan's old classmates from daycare were in her new class. The Sunday before school started the elementary school had a back to school carnival so Morgan got to go see her class, meet her teacher, eat some yummy carnival food and play on the playground. All that was left was the task of actually putting her on the bus!

School started on Tuesday so I stayed home late that morning so I could watcher her leave on the bus. She picked out her outfit, ate breakfast and then we patiently waited until 7:50 for the bus to pull up outside. Lucky for us the bus stop is right out in front of our house!

Finally the bus came down the street and Morgan was so excited she wanted to run the half block just to get to it. We forced her to stay put and when the bus driver got to our stop she opened the door and introduced herself to the Morgan and Lauren (who lives across the street). The older kids that pick up the bus at our stop were so nice and let the girls go first.

Both Morgan and Lauren had assigned seats and Morgan plopped herself right down and was ready to go. Once she drove away I packed up Elizabeth so we could go on about our day. Poor Elizabeth has struggled the most with this transition. The first day she didn't understand why she couldn't ride the bus, and when it was time to go to daycare she wanted to know where Morgan was.

Elizabeth does really like riding with mommy in the morning all by herself, but once she gets to school she isn't excited and cries pretty much every time I drop her off. It probably didn't help matters that Elizabeth switched her daycare class the day before Morgan went to kindergarten. So now Elizabeth cries every morning....the good news is that she has a blast during the day!

Since Morgan gets out of school around 2:30 we decided to try having her take the bus home since Greg works at home. Her first day he was able to get a picture of her existing the bus after her long hard day!

He gets her ready in the morning and waits with her at the bus while I leave earlier to take Elizabeth. Then he meets her at the bus stop in the afternoon. Since he has to work for a little while longer, Morgan gets to chill out upstairs and watch her cartoons. Then when Elizabeth and I get home she comes downstairs and tells me all about her day. So far our new schedule is working out great!

Happy Birthday Day Morgan!

This year marked a memorable year- Morgan turned 5! This girl was lucky enough to celebrate her birthday numerous times too! We had a party in Florida and then a few weeks later we celebrated at home on the night of her birthday. It was pretty low key and we let her pick the dinner menu which was Chinese food and we followed it up with a giant cupcake! And I was even nice enough to give Elizabeth her own cupcake.

That night we sang Happy Birthday and gave her a few presents from us- Two new Zhu Zhu pets and some other things that I can't even remember! But we new her big day was that weekend. Since Morgan started at her new day care her social calendar became pretty full. She was invited to four or five other birthday parties, so she caught on quick that her turn would come. We told her she could have a party, and since we just got back from Disney World we decided to keep it fairly low key. I asked her what she wanted to have (since we were doing it at home) and she said she wanted her friends to come over, she wanted a pinata, balloons and cake. Seemed pretty easy so we set the date and invited all the girls in her class.

In the end we had about 10 girls RSVP and Morgan was so excited. We came to find out later that she was talking up her party at school to all the parents. Since Morgan and Elizabeth are normally one of the last to get picked up Morgan realized she had the attention of nearly every parent in her class. So she made a pretty detailed birthday list for each parent. She was so detailed that she even had different items for different parents! Luckily the parents thought it was funny.

So the day finally came (we had the party on a Friday night) and I had everything set up. Morgan picked out the pinata and helped me fill it with candy. She also helped make the goodie bags for her friends.

Against my better judgement I got horn blowers for the party. I am still finding horns throughout the house...sometimes the girls find them first and scare the living daylights out of me when they blow them. Every year I also try and make the girls a special cake for their big day. I asked Morgan what kind of cake she wanted and her response was chocolate. I dug a little deeper and she said she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake themed cake. After searching around the Internet for a good idea I landed on one and was able to create this for Morgan's party.

I thought it turned out pretty great if I do say so myself- and all the other moms were pretty impressed. The kids thought it tasted great so it was a gold star in my book!

I also let Morgan pick the menu for the evening. She wanted corn dogs, ketchup, chips, applesauce and pizza. Seemed like a weird combination, but we went to Costco stocked up on bagel pizzas and corn dogs and the kids loved it.

Before we ate we turned the kids loose in the backyard which we tried to turn into a water park of sorts. We have several sprinkles and water toys and I bought a new inflatable pool for the backyard. The kids had a great time playing in the water, and playing on the playground.

They even tried to turn the slide into a water slide!

Elizabeth was even able to invite a friend. One of Morgan's classmates has a younger sister who is in the same class, so Elizabeth was able to invite Annie along for the fun.

After splashing, playing and eating it was finally time to break the pinata! Morgan had done this at other parties so I figured it would work out well. This poor pinata took so many hits! I'm not sure if it was our bat, or the fact that I might have overfilled the thing with candy, but it took forever to open.

After what seemed like an hour Morgan finally hit the pinata and it's head came off. At that point I called it quits, and ripped open the pinata. From there the kids found every single piece of candy that made it onto the ground.

After the pinata there was present opening and more playing in the basement. All the kids had to try out the new stuff they got Morgan! All in all she had a great party and was pretty happy- which in turn made me pretty happy.

The Griswold Family Vacation Part 2!

If you haven't caught onto my reference in the title- then shame on you! Several times during our drive to Florida we compared ourselves to the great Griswold family in National Lampoon's Vacation. They traveled across county to visit what was essentially Disney Land, and we drove South to DISNEY WORLD!

Yep, we decided to take a couple of days and make the quick trip to Orlando to see Mickey Mouse. A couple of weeks before we left we started mentioning to the girls that we were going to see Mickey Mouse, but I don't think they really understood what it was. Morgan knew the princesses lived there, and knew about the castle, but that was about it. She also knew that she was going to celebrate her 5th birthday while we were there. So on Tuesday night we drove to Orlando and got ready for our big trip. Greg's mom, and two aunts came along with us and were able to surprise Morgan with a birthday party in their room. She was pretty excited when we walked in and saw a cake on the table!

So after indulging in some birthday cake Morgan wanted to open her presents! There were quite a few so she started tearing into them as soon as she could.

She got a lot of Disney stuff which was very appropriate given our surroundings and she loved all of it. Her sister on the other hand did not like the fact that she was not the center of attention and she really didn't like the fact that she didn't get any presents to open. After awhile I found her sitting in the living room looking like this.

That straight back and sad face quickly turned into a mini dramatic scene. There wasn't really any crying, but she did throw herself on the floor to add to the drama!

But lucky for Elizabeth she has some wonderful family members that figured she needed to open some presents too. So she got to tear into her very open stash of presents.

I think one of Morgan's favorite gifts from the trip was a new Jessie doll from Toy Story. At home we have Woody and Buzz and now there was a new one to add to the mix. Every night when we went to bed Morgan tucked Jessie into "bed" which was the couch with a pillow and blanket.

Since the girls were in a good mood I was able to catch them with smiles. Here is Morgan and daddy after cake and presents.

And here is Elizabeth and Grandma 'C'.

And here is the birthday girl. You can see the stash of presents and cake behind her.

So after the birthday party we went back to our room to get some rest. Morgan was pretty sad that we couldn't go swimming but by the time we made it back to our room it was dark and late! We told them we had to go to bed because we had a big day tomorrow. So within a few minutes of getting them tucked in they were out.

The next morning I got them dressed and told them that today was the day! We were going to Disney World! This was the basic reaction I got.

So we had breakfast and were ready to go. We were lucky enough to stay within the Disney property so there was a shuttle that took us from the park to our hotel. So while we waited for the shuttle I made the girls pose for more photos.

Not really sure why Morgan is making that face, but imagine the face below accompanied by "When is the shuttle coming mom?"

And when I told her it was here this was the face I got.

After a brief shuttle ride we had to choose between the monorail or the ferry. We thought the girls would like the ferry so we loaded the boat and set sail for Disney.

Finally we made it into the park. Both of the girls got buttons that said it was their first visit which they proudly wore for about 20 minutes.

After renting a stroller and getting our stuff situated we were ready to go. The minute we walked onto Main Street the girls were pretty impressed with the castle. Morgan knew that's where the princesses lived and immediately wanted to see them.

After getting through the castle Morgan saw that there were rides at Disney world and immediately wanted to ride one. The first one she saw was Dumbo. So we stood in line for about 30 minutes (which I must say they tolerated well) and took our first ride. Morgan rode with Grandma and Elizabeth rode with me. Elizabeth and I stayed up high so Greg couldn't get a picture of us, but he was able to get one of Grandma and Morgan.

Then it was Elizabeth's turn to choose a ride, and she chose the carousel. The line for that was minimal so we got on quickly.

After wandering around for a little bit we decided to take the girls on It's a Small World. Greg and I both have great memories of this ride (as do our parents). The girls weren't overly impressed and we mainly enjoyed it for the air conditioning!

After awhile we stopped and ate some lunch.

And then went back to riding rides! The teacups were right outside where we ate lunch so we all piled in and spun ourselves around.

After the teacups Morgan wanted to drive the race cars, so we stood in line for a little while and waited our turn. While we were waiting I caught a glimpse of Space Mountain. Unfortunately on this trip Space Mountain wasn't in our future because both girls were too short and Greg and I didn't think it would be fair for us to go without them. Maybe next time!

Finally it was our turn to drive the race cars!

Morgan rode with me and while we were waiting for our car Greg and Elizabeth took off. If you look closely you can see Elizabeth's little head poking out of the car. This was the case in a lot of rides, she barley could see over the car!

After the cars we were all overheated. By this point is was 1 pm, and the sun was blazing hot, then add in that you are surrounded by asphalt pavement and you basically feel like you are on fire. So we ducked into Minnie Mouse's house for a minute to cool off.


Even the air conditioning in Minnie's house didn't help so we decided to retire for the afternoon and we headed back to the hotel. And the minute we got back what did Morgan want to do? SWIM!

After a dip in the pool and a nice long nap the girls were ready to head back to the park. They were kind of cranky earlier when we were there so we were worried that they weren't enjoying the park but we were determined to give it another chance. By the time we left it had been raining and was still sprinkling. We had our fingers crossed that it would stop by the time we got there.

By the time we made it back to the park it had cooled off quite a bit and people were already lining up for the fireworks and parade. So the lines were minimal and we were able to move around a lot quicker which made the girls happy. They were also excited to see the castle change colors as the sun went down.

Even though we got rained on a bit the girls were much happier this time around. Morgan was able to find her favorite ride when we went back. It was Aladdin's flying carpet. She even rode it twice!

Even Elizabeth didn't mind standing in line for the flying carpet.

After riding several more rides it was finally time to go. Our plan was to escape the park before the end of the fireworks so hopefully we could beat some of the crowd. We had said all along that at the end of the day we would stop in the candy shop on the way out. It was Morgan's dream- an entire store full of candy! So while Greg was in the shop I stayed out on the street with the girls. While we were waiting the fireworks started.

The girls have never really seen fireworks before so I was interested in what they would think. So I quickly grabbed the camera and snapped some pictures.

I think it's safe to say that between the music, fireworks and utter exhaustion they were pretty impressed. Finally it was time to go. we decided to take the ferry back to the parking lot and once we got situated the girls got to enjoy their candy treat. A giant lollipop.They also got a big Mickey Mouse balloon that made it back with us.

After Disney World we headed back to Clearwater for another day and just relaxed. Then after a week of being in Florida it was time to go home. We loaded up the car (which was much fuller then on the way down) and headed back to Indiana.

We decided to do the drive all in one day rather the stop and it actually worked out okay. The girls didn't get too restless and we didn't get too tired. We were all happy to be home!