Halloween part 2: Pumpkins

Picking out our pumpkins is always a fun family outing. This year we went to a pumpkin patch at a charming little cottage near Quincy's pre-school. Each of us picked one of our choice.

I like mine because it has a bunch of wart looking bumps all over it. Really ugly but cute. Of course, the the boys were big and round, Millie's was perfect shape and size with no defects, and Quincy's was little and cute. BS found one that was shaped like a mushroom, but went for tall and skinny.

Oh yeah, it was also "crazy sock day" at school. You can see Sambo's and Millie's, but Will (with his good fashion sense) opted to take his off before going anywhere in public :)

Next door they were cutting down some huge trees. We had fun counting rings and climbing on the trunks.

Halloween Part 1: Frightmares

Right now I am sitting by the pool in St. George for Fall break. It is 80 degrees. The kids are swimming, and I am so happy that I have some time to read, relax, and get caught up on some blog posts.

We love October. It's always a month long frenzy of activities. To kick-off Halloween, we went to Frightmares at Lagoon a few weeks ago. We went the last Friday of September, which was their opening night. It was great because the weather was perfect and it was not crowded at all. They do a great job at decorating the entire park complete with eerie ghosts, jack-0-lanterns, and every kind of monster roaming around. The best part was we went with Aunt Sarah and Brady and the cousins from Arizona. Millie's friend Skye came too. We had an awesome time!!!



This year, the older kids felt brave enough to go through 2 of the 4 haunted houses. As far as haunted houses go, they were really well done. Just the right amount of scare without being totally creepy and psycho. Of course, the "Spook-A-Boo" and the hay maze are always a hit because you get candy and toys.


Every time we go to Lagoon, Will begs and begs to play the games. You know, the ones that cost $5.00 for 1 try. We always tell him no. This time, he was smart and brought his own money. He was studying all of the games forever, scouting out which one to play, based on the coolest stuffed animal. Problem was, he only brought $2.00 and the park was closing. When it came down to it, he totally choked and wasted so much time deciding which one to play, that there was only 1 game stand that hadn't closed called "Lucky Ducks." He proudly gave his $2 to the worker. In this game, there are a bunch of rubber duckies floating around a little stream. You pick one, look on the bottom, and if there is a dot you win. Will picked one and handed it to the lady. She said, you won a little ducky stuffed animal! And handed it to him. It was really quite small and not that great, but you would have thought he won the lottery! He was so proud of his prize! Ever since, he has his little ducky perched on the deer antlers hanging above his bed (he sleeps on top of bunkbeds) where he can reach it when he goes to bed. He secretly sleeps with it and puts it back up in the morning. So cute and funny.

Fall Sports

We've been doing a lot of cheering for the Hulks and the Knights!

This season Will has been a great little soccer player! It took a couple of games for him to figure it out but now he gets it. He took last year off from soccer because he wanted to play baseball and do tumbling. Soccer used to be about wrestling on the sideline with the other players who weren't in the game and the post-game treats, but now we're sure he's having fun chasing and kicking the ball. Way to go Wilbur!

Go Hulks!


This is the first team picture that a 6 Clarks kid has been on the back row.
Millie & Sambo are always one of the shorter kids on their teams - always in front.
It appears Will isn't shortish like the other 2. {Not that he's tall, just not short}


This recreation league is sponsored by "Land O Frost" which is a local lunch meat company.
At the first game, I heard Will tell his friend,
"Look, the other team is playing for the Land of frosting too!"
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Go Knights!

Sambo is LOVING playing football! On Mondays, he's always bummed because they don't practice on Mondays. He sat this week out of practice because he got a stiff neck from playing
something during recess! Recess! A bunch of boys were playing "2 hand touch" and a kid got a little rough with Sam and he got knocked to the ground, giving him a sore muscle in his neck.
Even though he didn't actually practice, Sambo wanted to go and watch so he could stay caught up on what they were working on. Such a good kid.
We love watching this cute team become best buddies and
learn about hard work and about team work. So far, they are 3-2.

G-mas & G-pas

Our kids are lucky to have awesome Grandpa's and Grandma's.
They've been able to do some fun things with them lately:

-Fishing with G-pa Jim at Strawberry Resevoir (Will). And hitting a badger on the way home!


-Sleepover with G-ma Cindy and G-pa Tom (Quincy). She LOVES sleeping in their bed!

-Boys building their fort with G-pa Tom:


-Millie went to BYU football game with G-pa Jim, then a sleepover at G-ma Judy's.

-Came to Sambo's football game:


-Came to Grandparent's Day at the school (every year)!

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you! We love you, love you, love you!!! We are always so happy to see you!!!
Happy Grandparent's Day (last Sunday)!

People

New people keep popping up at our home. Everywhere I turn, we have some visitors:


Quincy has been drawing her very first people! In the last picture, she drew our family on the garage floor with chalk. She named each member of our family, from biggest to littlest. Even Daisy and Pork Chop, the little ones near her 4-wheeler. I was way impressed. I love this stage when the legs and arms come out of the huge head.
Oh, I could eat her up!

Tuesdays

Tuesdays are quickly becoming my favorite day of the week. Last Tuesday morning, I kissed and sent Mills, Sambo, and Will out the door to school. Then I kissed and sent Quinny out the door to preschool. It was only 8:30. I thought about all of the things I could do with 3 hours all to myself. It didn't take me long to decide what to do. I turned on the ceiling fan, closed the shutters, and climbed right back into bed. Then I slept for 2 hours!!! It was so awesome. I can't tell you how much I needed that rest, how long it's been since I could do that, and how good it felt!

Today {Tuesday}, I did the same kissing and sending off to school, and instead of climbing into bed I climbed on my bike. I spent the next 2 hours riding up American Fork Canyon with perfects temperature and gorgeous changing fall leaves! And the best part is, I wasn't alone. BS was able to put off his work for a couple hours and join me. We rode to Timpooneke, which is almost to the summit. It was fun, but not easy. I love how BS can be so fast and competitive with the guys, but so patient and leisurely with me :)
The riding down part was really fun! Here is a picture I took with my phone cam near Mutual Dell.

I'm learning quick the perks of having all 4 kids at school at the same time.

Labor Day Weekend

This year, Labor Day really meant LABOR DAY!

Outside of my number one priority of taking care of my family, I have been consumed by something called Swiss Days. Those of you who have ever been there, know what I mean. Soooo many people crowded into one tiny village with the intent to shop, eat, and shop.

Outside of the duties that come with being a mother - I have never, never, worked so hard, been so exhausted, or had such satisfaction than I've had taking on this little {big} project. Hotch Potch was a vendor there this past weekend. It was such a great experience! It's good that it came in a hurry because I'm sure BS was about to die putting up with me during my month-long spree of no sleep, non-stop sewing, and spending time at my sister's house trying to figure out the whole business thing. We would have been more prepared had we not sold so much inventory at Raspberry Days in Bear Lake a month ago. It was a great learning experience that was necessary, but definitely a double-edged sword in that it left us with so much stuff to make.

There is so much to talk about but I'm still too drained and emotional to think about it. The support we received is unbelieveable. Sadly, we were so busy selling that we forgot to take pictures of us in our booth at the big event! Our booth looked awesome, if I say so myself. We hung tons of enlargements of the girls wearing some of our newer stuff. So for now, I'll just post some of those.










So we spent the weekend in Midway, Utah. One of our favorite local spots for sure. We stayed from Wednesday night until Monday night. Sam joined us on Friday and the kids joined us on Saturday.

For BS, his LABOR was a HUGE mountain bike race in Park City on Saturday. It's called Park City Point to Point. Even though I had so much going on in my life on Saturday, my mind was on BS. This was the first hard race that I wasn't there to crew for him. I worried about him. I was feeling bad because I hadn't even really asked him any questions about the race because as I mentioned above, I was consumed. I didn't even know where the race started or finished. I didn't know how many miles. And I didn't know how challenging it really was. My girlfriends texted updates all day until I couldn't stand it anymore. I left the booth in the hands of my sister, my brother, my parents, and my friend Julia to catch him at the finish line. I made it there about 15 minutes before he came in. I was so happy to see him and he was so happy to see me. Tears.

He looked great and felt great. Of course, he raced awesome and finished in 9 hours and 15 minutes. I didn't realize how awesome this was until today when I heard from several people that the course was the hardest course they've ever ridden. Sam would have agreed, had he not raced Butte :)

Anyway, we kissed and hugged and then I headed back to Midway to finish our big day. By 9:00 pm we secured the canopy and went to a celebration dinner at a super yummy Mexican joint called Tara Muhara. We were all so happy but way too pooped to show any joy. You can say we slept like babies that night. Thanks to mom and dad for booking us a nice condo to stay in! If I made a list of all of the things my parents have done for my sister and I in this venture, it would never end. And Shad, thanks to you too. You know it was fun.

Saturday, Sambo had a football game (thanks to my friends who got him there). The other kids had birthday parties and played with our awesome sitter who can drive and get them where they need to be (thanks Braedin)! We all spent Sunday and Monday together and it was beautiful! We finally relaxed, swam, and even went to the Sheepdog Championship at Soldier Hollow yesterday! Random, but apparently it's a really big deal. It was fun watching all the dogs do so many tricks including the long jump into a pool. We couldn't believe how many people go to these things. Big deal.

I forgot to mention we sacrificed a trip to Lake Powell for all of this. That was hard. Really hard, but worth it.