DONUT you want to be my Valentine?

Enjoying a Dizzie Izzie at Dear Lizzie

I'm pretty sure I dig Valentine's Day more than most.  Every year I find myself getting excited to find ideas and make cute valentines with & for the kids.  This year did not disappoint and we had a fabulous heart day!  Millie didn't have a "special" Valentine at the moment, but both of boys did! Sambo even gave a stuffed animal, a flower, and some chocolate to his.  Her name rhymes with Madison :)

Will had his eye on somebody and was planning to ask her to be his Valentine, but a different girl beat him and asked him to be her Valentine first.  Of course he couldn't say no!  As a 4th grader he wasn't quite ready to give her a gift but he did give her an extra donut.  

This was the first year that Millie didn't put together and hand out Valentines, so we only had 3 kid's classes. They unanimously voted on donuts.  Lucky for me Krispy Kreme makes really cute and scrumptious donuts for Valentines day. And lucky for the kids, assembling the valentines only required folding boxes, throwing in a donut, and slapping on a sticker!

The boys have sleepy eyes because they are putting theirs together at 6:30 a.m. They procrastinated.

But there was still enough time for pink pancakes

And here they are looking adorable and ready for Cupid to strike:

I gave them these cute mugs filled with goodies along with their favorite hot cocoa:

And of course BS and I went out on a date. We love Tepanyaki and going to the movies. It was hot in more ways than one ;)  Yep, still madly in LOVE!

BS and I gave ourselves one of these packages that came straight from heaven - a mix of homemade chocolate dipped strawberries, oreos, cinnamon bears, pretzels, and marshmallows.  The Young Women in our ward {mosly us leaders} made these and sold them for a fund raiser. It was super successful and we will probably do this every year! So Good!

Boy to Man

My cute little guy is quickly growing into a handsome young man!

He recently hit some exciting milestones that go along with growing up -

Going to the Temple:

Becoming a Deacon:

Getting braces:

And advancing to be an official Boy Scout!

We love you Sam...stop growing so quick!

Holiday outfits

It's a tradition to get a new outfit for church at Christmas time.  Don't they look great?!

Manti

In June, the youth group in our ward took a trip to Manti.  We got to visit the beautiful temple, provide a service project, and then watch the famous pageant.  

The weather was gorgeous and we were with a super fun group of youth and leaders. After the temple, we met up at the park for some snacks and then some weed pulling.  The cute old couple was so grateful and I know Millie and the other kids felt so good knowing they were part of that.

Then we ate dinner, the "famous Manti BBQ turkey dinner." I must say it was delicious!

Then BS and the kiddos met up with us.  He drove them down in our car because we were going to go straight to Lake Powell from Manti (post on that trip later). 

I was already feeling so blessed to be in an awesome ward with awesome people, going to the temple, and then I felt even happier when I saw my cute family coming to join us.  Here we are waiting for the pageant to start:

 I'm a little ashamed to say that I have never been to the Manti pageant before (well, my Mom says I went when I was little but I don't remember it at all). We really don't live that far away.  

But BS and I decided that the kids were perfect ages for the pageant.  Old enough to sit still and understand it, but not so old that they think it is boring ;)

We all really enjoyed it!

When the pageant ended, we said our goodbyes and the 6 Clarks were off to Lake Powell round 2!  We drove to Green River and stopped at a budget motel for a few hours of sleep.

*So glad we did this!!!*

Girl's Camp!

Summer started out with a bang - school let out on Friday and we were heading off to Girl's camp on Monday!  We were sooooooo lucky to go to Heber Valley Camp!  Designed and built specifically for the Young Women, it really is the nicest campground ever!  

We stayed at Camp Esther in 3 yurts - divided between Beehives, Miamaids, and Laurels.  There was about 40 of us which seemed to be just right.  Our theme was "Stand in Holy Places" which goes along with the 2013 YW theme.  Our camp director {who is AMAZING} centered it around an international theme, focusing on different countries each day, implying that it doesn't matter where you are standing...you can make it a holy place by our choices and actions.  We decorated our own sneakers ("stand") which the girls really loved.  Our food and activities revolved around the country of the day.  Monday was Israel, Tuesday was Mexico, Wednesday was Italy, and Thursday was USA. The food was absolutely INCREDIBLE! I'm sure we ate better than we have our entire lives!

The nice thing about Heber Valley Camp is that the main activities are already planned and provided.  Our favorites were the ropes challenge course {including a Zip Line!} and going to the lake. 

In our free time we made crafts, wrote notes, played games, and hung out in the yurts.

My most very favorite thing about camp was being with Millie.

I love that I get to be her leader!  We had an absolute blast!

I could go on and on about camp.  What a spiritual and fun experience!

Arrow of Light

Sambo earned his Arrow of Light and Webelos Badges last month at Pack meeting!

Now he moves up to the big BOY SCOUTS.  He is stoked for the campouts and to be with his other friends who have already moved up.

We are grateful for his awesome Scout leaders!

Good job bud!

Pinning on my Webelos pin (because he couldn't have earned his badges with out his Mother  to remind him :) 

Sambo's #1 fan. 

December Doings Part 5: Downtown SLC

Another favorite tradition for us and probably every family in Utah is to go downtown to see the lights at Temple Square.  Added bonus:  Front Runner Train, Trax, Dinner at Market Street Grill, and shopping at fantastic City Creek!

Sam's Fish and Chips.  When the waiter set his plate down, Will couldn't stop chuckling.  I wonder why?

The boys love their Zip up all the way hoodies :)

***Something else I must mention:  I don't have pictures, but we went to see a live nativity in nearby Riverton that is incredible!  We had to wait in line for over an hour, but we were with our good friends The Banks and enjoyed catching up with them and their kids.  The realistic town of Bethlehem and perfect nativity scene at the end was one of the most touching and awesome things we have seen.  We could tell it touched our children's hearts.  This will also be added to our family's annual traditions.

Date Night

BS and I had a date with this lovely young lady last weekend.  We went to the Draper Temple for baptisms and then to dinner at Pei Wei.  We really relishd our alone time with her. It was fabulous.  

Camp!

I still can't believe my Millie is twelve.
In June she went to her very first YW {Young Womens} Camp.  This year it was at Mutual Dell up in beautiful American Fork Canyon.  Every four years the whole Stake goes together and this was one of those years.  The group of YW in our ward is small so we were glad that there would be a lot of girls at camp.  I was so excited for her to have her first camp experience because I have great memories of camp when I was her age.  But I was a little nervous about sending her away for 4 days.  It was the beginning of June and the weather was really cold at night.  There is zero cell service up there but luckily it is only 25 minutes away and some of her leaders are my good friends so I knew they would take good care of her.

I was stoked when the Camp Leaders asked me if I would spend a day at camp doing crafts with the girls.  Of course I said yes, mostly because I knew I would be anxious to see Millie after she had been gone for a couple of days.  After browsing Pinterest she and I came up with some crafts that would be fun, cute, easy, and cheap.  That can be hard to find!

The girls left early on a Tuesday and I went up on Friday {they camped until Saturday}.  BS had volunteered to be the Priesthood leader for Friday so we got to go together and spend the day at camp.  I was eager to see how Millie was doing because she doesn't have a good track record when it comes to sleeping at other places without her Mom.  She is quite a home body late at night.  But when I entered their campsite this is what I saw:

Tatum {silly}, Mills, & Morann waiting to Zip Line

Wouldn't be camp without braiding and hair wraps

Team building activity. She's the smallest :)

 It was great to see her and the other girls having so much fun together!  Smelling smoky with braided hair, dirty hands and feet, dirty clothes, and happy faces.  I quickly knew that indeed my little girl is growing up.  She could handle this.  She had a great experience and came home with a stronger testimony.  Gotta love girl's camp!  I am so grateful for her awesome YW and Camp leaders!  They did a fantastic job!  And she said the food was delicious :)

Reina - Camp Leader.  We didn't plan the shirts {from Goldilocks Bike Event}

For the crafts we made Sharpie Tie-Dye shirts and jar lanterns.  Their theme was "Arise and Shine Forth" so the lanterns were perfect.  They both turned out really cute.