5 Things

This year the kids really took Thanksgiving to heart and were thankful for everything. It was amazing how many times Wilbur told us he was thankful for his pocket knife that Santa was going to bring him. They each made a list of the top 5 things they were grateful for. Here are the pics and I will translate the meanings.Millie is thankful for: Freedom, bed, food/water, friends, and family
Sambo is thankful for:Snow (snoo), food, trees (threes), home (hoom), and United States of America (unibid stas uv amereka). Sam's picture is of the wind, which symbolizes freedom blowing through the trees.And Wilbur is thankful for: Pets, sun, friends, family and house. His picture is of his friend Zander and the sun.

O Christmas Tree

Saturday the 6Clarks headed to the local tree farm in Alpine to pick out our 08 Christmas tree. The tree farm basically has thousands of trees varying in size, shape, color, etc… Every tree costs $50. You walk around the farm and find the one you like. A worker chops the tree down and loads it on your car. This year we found “the one” within a half hour, which was record time. Take a look, how does it look?

Thanksgiving 08

This year was Thanksgiving at the Clarks (at Sam's folks). However, only half of the Clark's were able to make it. Sarah and Brady live in Phoenix and just had a baby earlier this week, so they were excused (welcome Sadie)! Mom and Jenny went down to Phoenix to help out Sarah. Jake and Ashlee went to California to be with her family, and Sean is in Minnesota. That left our family (6 clarks), Grandpa Jim, Casey and Dave, Adam and Jess, and Candice. We told her (Candice) she could bring the “Goalie” but I guess she had other plans. Can you believe we all fit around the table? I think this is the first time we have EVER been able to do this. Quincy took her after dinner nap before dinner, so she enjoyed her feast by herself and loved every morsel.

With Grandma away this put the cooking of the bird responsibility on Grandpa Jim. We were all a little nervous because the last time grandpa was in charge of cooking dinner he made Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup with water. To his credit, he cooked the bird with love and did a fine job.

Another tradition that the kids look forward to is the great "Horn of Plenty" and as you can see from this pic there is plenty stuffed into the horn. Funny thing is, every year the horn has same items (cheese puffs, pretzels, bugles, rolos, reese’s cup’s, reese’s pieces, m&m’s, skittles, and starbursts). Quincy was a huge fan as you can see here. She insisted on keeping her boots on and for a half hour carefully picked out everything with a gold wrapper (rolos and PB cups).

A side note; whenever you say "thank you" to Quincy she says “so much”. It is dang cute!

Here are some other pictures from the fun-filled day:

Is Shortleg Dead???

Shortleg is Sambo's African Bullfrog and when he (Sam) brought him (Shortleg) down to be fed a couple weeks ago we noticed that he (Shortleg) looked like this:(A gremlin in a mucus cocoon)

I couldn't find the picture of the Gremlins in their cocoons, so I just included a picture of a Gremlin and the old guys from Cocoon.

Anyway Shortleg didn't look too fresh. He was shriveled and couldn't open his eyes. We thought he had moved on to swampier swamps! After a call to the exotic pet store and some online research we found out that the African Bullfrog spend up to 3 months of the dry season hibernating! Shortleg had made a mucus cocoon and was taking a long nap. Too bad we didnt study up on this earlier because we removed the cocoon and woke him up. Sorry Shortleg. He now is really grumpy and wont go back to sleep. Oh well according to the calendar the dry season begins again in 9 months!

Bah Humbug

A Christmas Carol "Scrooge" will never be the same. Millie tried out today for the school play and according to Millie this is EXACTLY how she auditioned. She came home in high spirits as she landed a part as the "2nd Gentleman". She crafted all the facial expression and hand gestures by herself. I hope the 2nd Gentleman role is flexible enough to handle this amount of DRAMA!

Recent Video-Transylvania

Here is Dracula and anything Halloween related one last time. Notice how seriously he takes this role

Pre-Halloween Scene

Here are some pictures taken a week before Halloween at Gardner Village. This was the 1st time the kids were in costume for this year's Halloween. The 1st of about 6 times total. As you will see, I needed some serious practice putting the white stuff on Dracula's face. The more I rubbed, the worse it got. Finally I got it looking fairly decent. Then next came the fake blood dripping from his mouth. The make-up kit I bought (from the dollar store) came with a tiny plastic bulb that you are supposed to bite and let the red stuff drip out of your mouth. After making sure it was non-toxic, I placed it in Sambo's, I mean Dracula's, mouth and told him to bite it. He did, and suddenly he was dry heaving all over the place, with red junk pouring out all over. I guess it tasted totally gross. So what happened next? Yep, tears. Tears that left streaks in the white make-up running down his face. So I stayed calm, cleaned the red ooze up, and fixed his face. It took awhile. All better. Then when I got it looking fairly decent again, I moved on to Millie's face/hair. Literally 30 seconds later, he comes running into my bathroom with tears running down his face AGAIN. He was sad because he put on his cape prematurely without help and smeared red and white make-up all over it. Once again, I really tried to stay calm, and fixed his face once more. (Then as you saw in a previous post, his pumpkin was eaten up by our dog. RIGHT before the big event. More tears, but do you think I cared this time?)
Anyway, every once in a while the girls are actually less drama than the boys. I had the Vampire Princess (is there such a thing?) and the Quincess ready in no time, with smiles on their faces. But the Ninja was another story. He was last to get dressed and when he had his costume on, we were making a big deal about how cool/tough he looked. He had a total break down and said he didn't want to wear his costume because everyone would think he really was a ninja! (I thought that was the point). Then I had to do some major back-pedaling and just say whatever it took to get him excited again about being a Ninja.
By the time I had all 4 kids ready to go, we were running an hour late.
Note to Self: No more fricken face make-up. And no more fake blood that costs $1.
All in all it was a wonderful day. Perfect weather and fun company.
Here are my little goblins: p.s. - Halloween Day was another adventure. Is 4 parties too many to go to in one day? I'm too tired to tell about it now. Mom left late after Halloween to be with the girls in Island Park. Mom is missing you all.
p.s. - Thanks babe for taking good care of our little ones while I was at the lake house. I love you.

Obama drama

It is official John McCain has just accepted defeat and Barack Obama will be our 44th president. After hearing this news our Drama Queen (Millie) broke out in tears. Apparently it is a known fact amongst the 3rd graders at Ridgeline Elementary that Obama will be adding 2 hours to the school day, was lying when he said he was born in Hawaii (they think he really was born in Africa), hates white people, will make the country wussy (I had no idea she knew the word wussy), will start some new wars, will make us learn a new pledge of allegiance, and basically is nothing short of the DEVIL. After a brief discussion on the role of a President and how the Senate and House of Reps figure into the mix she was able to accept the fact that Obama will be her Commander in Chief for the next 4 years. Now her only concern is with McCain being 72 years old what will he do for a job the rest of his life. Millie said "the saddest part about him losing is this was his only chance to be the President. He was a war hero and put in a China prison and now he doesn't have a job."

My Millie, we love you and don't you worry about John McCain or the next 4 years. That is our job!

Quincy doing her civic duty.

Dracula meets his match

In recent posts we mentioned the weather for Halloween was going to be nice and that our dog Daisy loves pumpkins. Well this picture says it all. Sambo took his pumpkin out on the porch, went inside to get a candle, came back outside and this is what he found: Needless to say the tears washed away some of his scary make-up. As far as the weather; it rained hard during trick or treat hours. We will have a complete Halloween post sometime this week as Holly is on a girls trip for a few more days.