holiday happenings

Oh how busy and fun this time of year is -
Office parties {2}, girlfriend parties, couples parties, family parties {5 of them}, neighborhood parties, bunko parties, school parties, school plays, school Christmas sings, pre-school programs, piano recitals...
Whew!

Last Saturday Millie and Sambo performed in a Christmas piano recital at a rest home. It was Sambo's first recital and he was as chill as ever. Not one nerve in his body. We are really proud of him! He would rather be playing sports, but he tolerates piano well enough. Luckily he had a basketball game right before his recital. He was so sweaty hot from the game and he was changing clothes in the car and he was sooooo bugged that he had to put on a "hot itchy sweater." It was funny.

As ever, Millie played great...but if you ask her, she messed up. You can tell from her face after she played that she was not pleased with her performance. She was upset and I told her to look around and asked her if she thought anyone noticed. It was a room full of old geezers who didn't seem to even know where they were, let alone notice a little mistake :) Kudos to her for taking on such a challenging song to play.




Sambo also performed in his 3rd grade play, "Twas the Night Before Christmas." They held auditions 2 months ago and he did not say a word to me about trying out for the play. I went to school to volunteer and his teacher told me that not only had he auditioned, but that he sang a solo! I was dying that he would do that on a whim! He hadn't even memorized the lines.
Well, they must have liked him because he made a part playing an elf named Lively. It was a speaking part, not a singing part :)

The biggest excitement about this play was that he got to {or had to} dance with a GIRL! He "even had to put his hands on her waist and lift her up." He secretly loved it. The video is sooo cute! He did awesome.





Today, we had the great pleasure of attending Quincy Lu's pre-school program. She did the actions so good and sang every word to every song. Cute beyond words. They wore santa hats, then angel halos, then played the bells, a triangle, and sticks. I was fighting tears of happiness and sadness that this would be my last 3 year old recital.






Tomorrow is school parties and the Christmas sing at Ridgeline so I'm sure I'll have yet more pics and stories.

Tonight we held our annual Eagle Crest neighborhood party. More on that later.

Here are some quick videos:
Grandpa and Grandma got there at the very end so we did a couple of repeats for them {they played 2 songs each}. Notice Millie's sassy pants smile because she was so bugged that she messed up.

Picking the Tree

Traditionally, we go to a cute tree farm in Alpine to pick 0ut our Christmas tree. We chose a really good day to go because it was 50 degrees. This year it only took us 20 minutes to find it. It caught Sambo's eye and he was the winner. It's a blue spruce.



We drove it to Taco Time to get some dinner on the way home. The kids tip-toed to our table with no shoes...their boots were sooo muddy from the warm weather.

That night BS got the lights put on. The deal is, if we get a fresh tree he has to put on the lights because we have a perfectly good fake tree downstairs in our storage room. He hates bringing that tree upstairs...there is always wall dings and injuries involved. So for the past 5 years we have had a fresh tree. He is really good at the lights too! It was getting late so there was no time to decorate the tree that night. We made a plan to hang ornaments the next day right after school.

The next day, I went to the bus stop to pick-up the kids and Sambo and Will had made plans for their friends to come play. So I had 4 extra boys...plus my 4 kids...all hanging ornaments at once! Such good helpers! Didn't they do a great job?

Elf on the Shelf

This is such a fun tradition...love this book!

Even more, I love this little elf that comes with the book. We named our elf Buddy. Each day, he watches the kids to see if they are being naughty or nice. Then when the kids go to sleep, he goes to the North Pole to chat with Santa about that. Before the kids wake up, Buddy comes back to our house and finds a new place to observe for the day. With Buddy watching us, the kids try hard to be on their best behavior. If they start getting naughty, all I have to do is point my eyes over to him as a gentle reminder that he is watching, and they shape up in a snap! Love it.

On December 1st, we brought out Buddy and put him on the shelf in the family room. This is where he was yesterday morning...


One of the rules is that he will lose his Christmas magic if he is touched by one of the children. Last night, Buddy was moved but nobody knew who had touched him. The kids were really stressed about if he had been touched and if he lost his magic. Especially Will, he was really really concerned and worried. We decided it was Quincy who moved him and explained that since she is too young to know, it was probably okay.

This morning, this is where we found Buddy:

In Will's stocking! Phew, he still has his magic!!!

Shopping Frenzy

Continued from the last post...

After Thanksgiving dinner and the Horn of Plenty was all said and done, I started to panic because now it was time to start thinking about black Friday. Grandma Judy had tons of newspaper ads and I was so unprepared what I needed and where I needed to go! BS and I sorted through many of them and after much deliberation, we decided to join the other crazies who go to Toys R Us at opening. There were a couple items we needed and they had the best deal.

So we went at 10:00 pm, Thursday night. I am telling you there are no words for the crowd that was at this place! I could not believe it. Somehow BS managed to work himself into the line very discreetly and when he got to the entrance of the store I joined him. Once we got inside it felt like the end of a the world...people rushing, shoving, almost panicked to get somewhere they needed to be. Soon we found out the items we needed were of course, gone. Electronics go fast.

So BS got in the eternal line while I did some shopping. I ran into a couple of girl friends who were totally prepared and organized which was very helpful. They helped me find the best deals and where I needed to be when. Apparently the next release of electronics was at WalMart at 5:00 am. So we made a plan.

We left Toys R Us and noticed that the parking lot at Fashion Place Mall was completely full. It was now midnight. I really wanted to go inside but I didn't dare ask BS to stop. He had already sacrificed so much by going to the toy store! But shockingly he said, "We better check it out and see what the deals are." Holy cow. Not what I expected. Love him.

Long story short - we spent the next 2 hours at the mall doing something like this:
BS gets in the line,
I shop,
He pays,
I go to the next store,
Start again.

He was a total trooper! But I know it was because he could see how much we were really saving! Every store we bought from was 40 or 50 percent off everything!

Towards the end, I went to get a drink and when I came back this is how I found him:


In the Brookstone store in the massage chair :)

We left and he dropped me off at Walmart and when home. I stayed there until 5:00 am so I could get what we needed. It paid off. The early bird gets the worm!

I joined my other friends for a little bit more shopping, and then BS picked me up at 7:30. I went home, slept a few hours, then was back at it again. I spent the rest of the day at Gateway with my mom and brother. We had a great time! And, I've got Christmas pretty much done! Yay!

At one point, BS texted me a picture of the boys and Quincy pretending to be babies...diapers, binkies, and all! Do they play great together or what!

Thanksgiving

Some of us, but not all of us, after the big feast.

Well, we're back to reality today. The past 5 days have been wonderful! We kicked-off the holiday with sleep-overs for the kids. The more the merrier, right? They have the cutest friends...with great manners too! This was also the night that there was supposed to be a HUGE blizzard and nobody was supposed to leave home all afternoon/evening. That storm ended up to be almost nothing. Wednesday we slept in, ate a big yummy breakfast, then cleaned house and had a catch-up day. I love these days! Everyone is home to help and by the time we're done, the house is mostly clean. Is it ever ALL clean at the same time?
That evening we went to eat at Salt City Burger, then caught the Trax train to go downtown to the Jazz game. As a thanks to the fans, tickets were only $5.00! We met Grandpa Jim, Uncle Dave, Adam & Jess, Doug & Candice, and Jenny there too! They played the Hornets and it was an awesome game! The kids always have a good time. One funny moment was when Will was dancing a stiff "robot" dance along to the loud music, oblivious that people were watching. :)


Another funny moment was a Hornets fan got boooed for messing up the Jazz Bear's stunt - he got a pie to his face and his hat stolen (the bear tied it to a huge helium balloon). Funny. There is a cool play land in one corner of the arena that is sponsored by Backyard Adventures. The kids loved playing there during half time. Look who they ran into...

And of course, we had to have ice cream & Red Mango.

Here we are on Trax. For some reason, kids love this. They think they are on a choo choo train. It's nice that we don't have to worry about parking, especially when it is zero degrees, but it took us longer than we thought it would to get there.


Thursday {Turkey Day}, it was 10 degrees. No Turkey Bowl this year. So, we all slept in. Ahhh so nice. Then we went to Grandpa Judy's house to celebrate! This year, we had everyone there except for Jake's family and Sarah's family. 6 out of 8 siblings is not too shabby. It was so great to be with everyone, especially Casey's fam and Jenny who have been in Ohio. We miss you! Dinner was yummy as usual. We wrote what we are thankful for on leaves and placed them on trees for the centerpiece.

Millie & Norah

And the best part.......the Horn of Plenty! This is a tradition we all love - a cornocopia filled with all of the good junk food you can think of!




It was a great day; and it goes on....but I will leave that for the next posting.

Pretty, Cute Stuff

Some pretty and cute stuff from this past weekend:

{Pretty}:

These 3 pics were taken within minutes of each other from our deck. Yesterday we were eating Sunday dinner and the kids noticed how neat the view was outside. It was dark and cloudy in most places except for a ray of sunshine that was peeking through the clouds right onto the Timpanogos Temple and up to a section of mountains. We thought the 3rd picture looked like a storybook Christmas village like Who-ville or something. We Love Suncrest!

{Cute}:

Saturday, Quincy was carrying her fuzzy pink backpack all over the house. She does this all of the time. She loads it with random toys, books, etc. and pretends like she's going somewhere really important. On Saturday, she had been doing this for at least an hour when I noticed a quiet sound coming from her backpack. I unzipped it, and this is what peeked out!
If we had to have a kitty, this one is the one to have. It puts up with Quincy's nonsense and handling of all kind :)

{Pretty & Cute}:

We went to Millie's Ballet Showcase Saturday night. It was a pleasure to watch her doing what she loves most. This was her first recital since starting at her new dance studio called "The Pointe." We were way impressed. This night was focused on ballet, and only lasted 1 hour! Millie is not a big fan of ballet, but you would never know it watching her big smile and grace. Her group put on an awesome performance, dancing an exerpt from Sleeping Beauty. Great job!
Thanks to our families for coming to support her (and Tepanyaki wasn't bad either)!

Buck Fever

The boys have been looking forward to the deer hunt weekend since last year's hunt! Again, BS broke the "Clark" rules of the hunt and took the boys before they were "old enough." Especially Will. He went last year as a 5 year old, but we didn't worry too much because the weather was exceptional. This year, however, it was cold and snowy!


The hunt is really just a glorified camp-out with the Clark boys/cousins/dads/uncles. Usually someone has a legitimate tag, and someone succeeds at bringing home a buck.
This year, it was Uncle Adam. Sambo and Will were initiated into the hunting club by tasting deer tongue roasted over the campfire :)

I love that I don't have to worry for one second when my baby boys are away from me in the mountains, I know BS will take good care of them.

They really get into the outdoors thing. Chopping down trees, hiking, campfires, tents, finding any reason to use their pocket knife, not showering/bathing, not brushing teeth, eating lots of junk food. Like last year, BS was super proud of his boys for being tough in the cold, wet weather! The hike up is 3 hours, and this year it was 3 hours down because of the slick mud. They were sopping wet when they got back and Will had a HUGE blister on his heel. But they were total troopers; no complaining.
That's my boys.

Fall Break

I have some catching up to do...

Hotch Potch was at Oh Sweet Sadie last weekend so things have been busy. But, it's over and I am officially working on simplifying my life! A few weeks ago, I finally faced reality that there are just not enough minutes in the day to get even one more thing accomplished. Something's got to give. I have been learning how to saying No. It takes practice :)

For example, I'm not going to design Christmas cards for people this year. Not because I don't like to do it, but because it's something I don't HAVE to do. And my sister and I are taking a little break from Hotch Potch. What started out as a fun hobby, has grown to a business that is more than we hoped for. It's very flattering, but it's not something we HAVE to be doing. Life is short, and I need to slow down and enjoy everything now!

Like this morning, I have some time to sit on my couch in my bathrobe by the fire, cuddle with my Quincy, read stories to her, and catch up on our family journal {aka blog}. I still haven't posted on our fun trip to St. George over Fall break last month. I am way bummed because I cannot find the pictures I took from this trip. I have spent the last hour trying to find if/where I downloaded them. I am baffled {See? Too much on my mind to remember what the heck I did}. Good thing I have a few from Sam's phone and Ashlee's camera.

Wednesday night we went to Tuacahn to see Tarzan! It was amazing with gorillas flying above us and all! The kids LOVED it. We met up with Jake and Ashlee and the cousins after for pics with the actors.

Thursday, we went to Sand Hollow to go boating with our awesome friends, the Pogues. Again, I wish I had my pictures. The kids had fun tubing, and Jamie taught Sam and I how to surf on the wake behind his new sweet boat. So fun! We had a blast and decided that we definitely need to take our boat there when we make our trips to St. George.

Friday, we met up with the cousins again and went to Dixie rock playground to run and hike on the red rocks. My kids love going up the "narrows." It was really fun and good exercise!