School days are here again!

This week Morgan started in her new junior kindergarten class and they have already been doing so much! She switched school in July and for the most part the summer was filled with lots of playtime. She would bring home the occasional colored page, or painting, but it was all pretty non-structured, so I was surprised to see that this week they started their "curriculum".

(Note- for some reason the colors are slightly messed up so use your imagination!)

Well maybe this picture isn't really a learning activity, but you can see that she is trying to write her name. The letters on the bottom of the page are her first attempts!

The started out with the letter 'A'. (See her name in the upper right corner!)

And I promise this apple is really red in the original. But this is one of the first pictures that she actually stayed in the lines!

And they are learning the #3. She got incredibly upset when she was telling me about it because she pointed to the ones on the bottom and said "But I didn't do it correctly!" I tried to assure her that she did great, but she wasn't having it. It sounds like she is going to be a perfectionist....not sure where she gets that! (said with a hint of sarcasm- I know right where she gets that...me!)

This picture is much better in person but I had to include it. I think it is a family picture. There is the sun, and Elizabeth is the smaller person in the left corner, and Morgan is the one in the middle. They are wearing stripped shirts. I can only assume that the other two figures are me and Greg, but she wouldn't go into that much descriptive detail. Only, "this is Lizzy, this is me and there's the sun!"

I can't wait to see how much Morgan learns this year. It should be pretty exciting!

And since Elizabeth is going to be 2, and is the second oldest at her daycare she gets to start the pre-preschool program. It's the same thing Morgan did when she was there. Her school program won't start until September, but they are trying to let her and Riley (the oldest at daycare) do a few projects to keep them occupied. Elizabeth gets pretty proud of her crafts when she brings them home.

This is one of Elizabeth's first pictures. You can see she was pretty into it!

One day when I brought one of Elizabeth's pictures home I showed Morgan and said "Morgan, look what your sister did today." Morgan replied "She didn't do a good job Mom." Apparently since Elizabeth didn't stay in the lines on the coloring page Morgan was not impressed. Poor Elizabeth.

It should be an exciting year at the Clark house!

Let me tell you about it....

So for awhile I was wondering if Miss Elizabeth would ever talk. Don't get me wrong, there was lots of jabbering on but no real words. It wasn't until our stay-cation in June that she really started to put sentences together- and she hasn't stopped since!

She started with small sentences:

"I want Mommy."

"I want mo (which really means milk)."

"Where's Mommy?"

And since then she has mastered many more. Here is just a sampling of Elizabeth's conversation skills.

"Mommy....Get me out!" She says this in the morning. So nearly everyday this is what I wake up to.

"Mommy...I want yo-yos." Which means I want those crackers that are on the table.

"Where's Kathy?" Kathy is our neighbor who is incredibly friendly to both Morgan and Elizabeth.

"No Belle- out pool!" This weekend she came up with this while Belle was swimming in her pool.

"I want waffle." Again I hear this nearly everyday. Elizabeth loves waffles!

"I want Sissy." We haven't mastered Morgan's name yet, but she definitely knows who her sister is. And she loves her.

"I wanna Wiiiii!" No she doesn't love playing the Wii, she loves the slide. And instead of calling it a slide- she calls it a wiii. Probably because that is the large shrieking sound she makes while going down the slide.

There are so many more but they have become a part of my normal day that I can't think of them. But next time you see Elizabeth be prepared- she might just talk your ear off.

Introducing.....Abby Clark!

Some may know this already- but there is a new Clark in town. Her name is Abby and she is an eight week old Golden Retriever. We were able to bring her home this past Tuesday.

A few months ago Greg decided we should add to our clan and found a wonderful breeder here in Carmel- and to our surprise her dog Lizzy was due shortly after Greg found her. Once Lizzy had the puppies (9 total!) we found out that we did indeed get the female we wanted. The litter had 7 boys and 2 girls. At about 3-4 weeks old we were invited over to see the puppies- Morgan and Elizabeth loved it. Not only did we get to visit once, but we went twice! And the entire time we waited to bring our puppy home, the breeder provided us with pictures of our puppy and her brothers and sister.

The puppies taking advantage of the nice weather we have had recently.

The nine puppies trying to drink from the same water bowl.

Sleepy time (Turns out that one with the red mark on her hip is our Abby!)

All piled on top of each other.

Once the puppies were born, we still didn't know which puppy was ours. We were second on the list for a female so we had to wait until the first person chose her puppy. So this was the first official picture of Abby Clark. Otherwise she was know as right- hip female.

Since she has been home we have been acclimating her to the Clark household. We've been spending a lot of time outside with her and the girls because the weather has been so nice! Here are a couple of peaks into life with Abby.

We showed her the deck and she got to splash in the water that Elizabeth spilled from the hose.

She has been investigating (and tasting) the flower pots on the deck.

She followed the flower tasting up with a little drink from a puddle.

And she has been enjoying chewing on the many sticks found in our back yard.

Now for those familiar with the Clark house you knew we already had a wonderful yellow Labrador retriever named Belle. After several weeks of worrying how Belle would take to a new puppy- she surprised us all and did wonderfully! For the most part Belle leaves Abby alone, but is getting better about interacting with Abby. Today I saw the two of them touch noses! I think the two of them will become friends in a matter of a week or two.

I think for the most part Abby is adjusting well to life with two kids, two adults, a dog and a cat. And the rest of us are adjusting to our new addition. I'm sure there will be many more posts to come on life with the newest Clark.

It's a Chuck E Cheese Party!

Today is Morgan's Birthday! In order to celebrate the monumental fourth birthday we decided to take her to Chuck E Cheese. Now there is a little back story to this big trip.

For the last year she has been asking to go to Chuck E Cheese, and up until now Greg and I have dodged the question. She also has been asking "Is it my birthday?" It didn't take too long for her to put the two ideas together and ask if she could have a Chuck E Cheese party for her birthday. Greg and I still resisted for awhile and we told her we would have a party at home and invite her friends over. The plan was to let her invites some friends over, cook out, swim in the kid pool etc. Well with switching her school she lost a lot of her friends that she would have invited, and when we started calling all of our friends who have kids they were all busy. So we didn't want her to not have a party- so we decided to take the plunge and visit Chuck E Cheese.

We invited our friends who have a little boy named Miles and they were brave enough to come along with us. I did some research and decided to reserve an official party- mainly because I wanted her to feel special on her big day! And boy did she get some royal treatment.

We kept the visit a surprise for two reasons. 1. I didn't really want to hear her ask "Are we going to Chuck E Cheese today?" a million times and 2. I wanted to see the look on her face when she figured out where we were. So we finally broke down in the car on they way to the party. She wasn't too sure what we were talking about, but this is how she looked when we got there.

And Elizabeth was pretty excited too.

Since I reserved an official party for her we got all sorts of special stuff. We had a reserved table with a tables cloth, fun plates and cups. And an enormous star balloon that had Morgan's name on it. We got there and played for 45 minutes before lunch and "the show". All the kids got pizza and lemonade which seemed to be a big hit.

This picture shows the whole gang: Miles, his sister Amelia, Morgan and Elizabeth!

Like I said, the pizza was a big hit. Once everyone had lunch the show started. There was a giant screen that counted down Chuckie's arrival. Once I told Morgan what is was doing she got pretty excited. The show started with Chuckie coming out, shaking hands and moving incredibly excited kids out of his way. He made his way up to the front by the stage. Then Chuckie and the table servers started the birthday program. They made a huge deal about the Birthday Stars (which include anyone paying for an actual party)! WE cheered, sang, clapped etc. They even went table by table and yelled out that so and so was celebrating his whatever birthday. So Morgan was really excited when they got to her! "And this is Morgan who is celebrating her 4th birthday today- give her a hand!"

Since she was a birthday star she got an inflatable birthday crown (with extra tokens!) to wear for the rest of our visit. Not only was Morgan excited about the pizza and her new birthday crown, but she was excited about all the games and rides that Chuck E Cheese offers. Greg and I took turns playing with her- this picture is from a Greg trip. He said that all she wanted to do was ride this thing around and around and around....well you get the idea.

She played video games, ski ball, whack-a-mole and plenty of other games. After all the main idea was to get enough tickets so that she could pick out a prize at the end of the day.

At the end of our trip we cashed in our tickets (a whopping 200!) and headed to the prize stand. Now let me tell you- from the minute we got there Morgan had her eye on a lollipop as big as her hand. Since is was her birthday I was ready to fork over the extra $2 and buy it for her. But she got to use her tickets- so she was pretty impressed with herself! In addition to the enormous lollipop she got a cool straw and three small Tootsie Pops which she shared with Elizabeth.

Now for those wondering how Elizabeth liked our trip, she loved it. Actually she loved Chuckie. At the front of the dining room is a stage with a robotic Chuckie. Every now and then the curtain opens, Chuckie comes out and talks and sings. Well she was pretty much in awe of the robot mouse. When he was gone she would stand there and yell "Chuckie!, Chuckie!" She would have been happy just standing there waiting for him to come back out.

When we got back home, we took naps. Both girls were worn out! But that night we celebrated yet again with cake! I made Morgan's cake on Friday and she got to help decorate it. I asked her what she wanted and we chose stars and circles. She even picked the colors- blue, orange and pink. Before dinner we had to stop at the grocery store for a couple of things and she was pretty insistent on getting candles for the cake. So we added some candles at the last minute.

This picture was taken before dinner, but Morgan was anxiously awaiting the cake. She wanted to see it about every five minutes. And that is her lollipop that she got at Chuck E Cheese!

Finally she got to have the cake- and it was a pretty big hit.

Elizabeth liked it too.

All in all it was a pretty good birthday! I guess I should start planning for next year. It might be hard to top this!

Father's Day Weekend!

For Father's Day weekend our Mimi and Papaw came to visit. They came for a few reasons: 1. it was Mommy's birthday weekend 2. It was Father's Day weekend and 3. They needed to see us (personally we think that was the biggest reason!)

While they were here we had all sorts of fun. Lizzy and I always seem to get away with more when Mimi and Papaw are here. We got to have breakfast on the couch- which is way more fun then eating at the table!

Mimi and Papaw brought Mommy and Daddy two new chairs for the porch. These chairs had nice cushions that we decided to play with. I put them on the ground and decided to "go camping". Once I decided to play on them Lizzy thought they were an okay toy, so she played too. We "camped" for a long time and took turns covering up and going to bed.

Eventually we had to stop camping because Lizzy and I got too excited and while we were playing we bumped heads. Both of us thought it was pretty bad (I even got a band-aid!) and so a scoop of ice cream was needed to calm us down. We even got sprinkles and chocolate sauce on our ice cream. That never happens either!

We played in our pool since it was so hot that weekend.

We splashed each other with buckets of water in order to cool off.

We even went to the spray park one day. It was the first day that the water was actually really warm. It was great!

We had a great time. Not only did we get to play with Mimi and Papaw but we got to celebrate Mommy's birthday (which meant cake!) and we got to celebrate Father's Day which meant helping Daddy open his presents.

Happy Father's Day Daddy!

Chocolate Pudding is a Good Idea in Theory...

One day while at the grocery store I passed by the Jello Pudding and thought "Hey, the girls would probably really like that!" So I picked out the sugar free flavor (thinking this would make my life easier) and took it home and hoped to surprise the girls with a treat. Well a few days later when we were making lunch Morgan saw the pudding in the fridge and asked if she could have some. Remembering my great idea I said "Sure!" So after lunch I got two jello pudding cups out and handed them over.

The entire time I was getting them ready, taking the lids off, putting the spoons in- I was thinking "They will really like these!" Now I wasn't really wrong- they really did like the pudding. What I didn't think about was the incredibly mess it would make.

Note to self- Don't give a pudding cup to a toddler that is just mastering the spoon. Luckily we had the kiddie pool out and I was able to wash it off fairly easily!

It's the last .1 miles that kills you....

This post has taken a long time to write- sorry I'm a bit behind. So earlier in May I actually completed my first half marathon! Since it was a big accomplishment it deserves a little synopsis of what happened.

First I have to say, I have wanted to do the Mini Marathon since we moved to Indianapolis (that was seven years ago people.) And every year I always came up with an excuse. Well this year I decided that I was going to do. So I signed up with Team in Training to hopefully raise money for a worthy cause and have something that would make me more determined to finish the training program. So we started in late January. We met Saturday mornings and we started out running 30 minutes. That was a big deal because I hated running in the cold- but I proved to myself I could do it!

After awhile I got to the point that I had to come to the realization that I wasn't going to be able to make the minimum donation level that Team in Training asks you to raise, so I had to drop off their team. But I joined a local running group and kept on training. The runs were easier but really long! Without the ongoing support of the running group staff (who provided water and bagels) it would have been a miserable experience.

So the months went on, it got warmer (and thank goodness for that- there were mornings that I had frost on my eyelashes when we were done!) and the time finally came to show what all my training had done. I was slightly unsure how I would do. We trained on the relatively flat Monon Greenway and the race I signed up for was "The Race Around the Reservoir" at Geist Reservoir. Geist is hilly...and I was unsure how I would do. I made my way there, and it was incredibly humid and overcast- I could tell it would be hot. Now let me remind you that at this point the farthest I had run was 10 miles- it was going to take everything to make up the other 3.1....

So the race started- I kept up an incredibly pace (for me at least) the first 9 miles. I was averaging 10:30 per mile, which is much faster then what I normally run. (The pictures below were "borrowed" from the event photographers website). See how relaxed I looked- this had to of been early in the race.

By mile 9.5 I was tired, hot and dripping with sweat. I decided it wasn't worth being sick so I walked a little. The next 3 miles or so were the longest ever. The hills seemed like mountains and I seriously thought the finish line would never show up. This picture was probably in the last .1 miles. Seriously that .1 mile kills you. Because you think "Hey I'm done at 13 miles....but no..."

Finally I turned a corner and realized that the white tents I saw was the "party village" at the end of the race. I made it! See how excited I was to cross the finish line.

I finish in a respectable time of 2:38. Slightly slower then what I wanted to because I ended up averaging 12 minutes per mile. (See I told you I slowed down at the end). But I was still happy that I finished.
Greg was going to bring the girls down to see me cross the finish line, but getting to and from the end of the race was nearly impossible and it started to rain just as he was getting them out of the car. So I had to wait until I got home to share the excitement with them. Everyone got a medal for finishing, so to Morgan that meant Mommy won the race! Here she is modeling my medal and my sunglasses.


Needless to say it was a big accomplishment to train for and finish a half marathon. It was hard but exciting. And I liked it so much that my next one is in November- training started this weekend!