We're Pregnant!

Baby #2 is 12 weeks already and due on May 3rd. We are super excited about this little one and know that Clark will be the best big brother!

Our Little Rock Star!

New haircut!

Considering we pay anywhere from $12 to $18 for Clark's haircuts, our new $25 clippers from Costco are a steal!

Here's our little man's new 'do!

Before

During

After!

Clark's 2nd Birthday

Our little boy is two! I can hardly believe it!

We celebrated Clark's birthday three times in these last two weeks - lucky kid!

1. Grandpa Paul and Grandma Julia were in Portland about a week before Clark's birthday, so we had a family celebration first. We at spaghetti (one of Clark's favorites) and had chocolate chip cookies for dessert while we opened presents.

2. We then hosted a Hungry Hungry Caterpillar party with friends the next weekend. We had tons of people who love Clark just as much as we do (!) come over and eat the same foods that the caterpillar does in the Eric Carle book - fruit, sausages, and green leaves (salad). My sister made the most amazing cupcake cake and my brother-in-law made some great signs for the table to tie-in the theme! We all had a great day!

3. Ben had parent teacher conferences and worship practice on Clark's actual birthday, so Clark and I had a picnic on the floor to celebrate. We ate macaroni and cheese ("roni"! - Clark's most favorite), ate leftover cake, and watched Finding Nemo.

Here's the pix!

Birthday dinner with the fam.

Coooookiiiiieeee.

Checking out his new laptop from Grandma and Grandpa.

The spread.

The awesome Hungry Hungry Caterpillar signs!

The yummy cupcake cake!

Clark with Olivia, Jake, and Maggie.

That silly smile again. Happy birthday, Clark!

*Check out our beach trip post below!

Spring Break Beach Trip

I'm going to try and squeeze this post in before I recap Clark's birthday-palooza...

Ben's job at McKinley has not only been a blessing to him, but a blessing to our whole family. We have made some great friends at McKinley and on spring break (since they all had the week off) we decided to take off to the beach! Marla found a rental house in Waldport that could fit all eight adults and four kids. We took off on Thursday afternoon and had a blast that weekend!

Everyone arrived by Thursday night, we put the kids down, and then the party started! We stayed up way past our bedtimes and crawled into bed after midnight - we shared lots of laughs, though!

The next morning we got up, made breakfast, and packed the kids up for a trip to the Newport Aquarium. The aquarium was very cool! It had one building with various tanks of fish and a touch pool, then a beautiful outdoor area with seals and otters, and then another building called Passages of the Deep which was all tunnels that you walked through to look at the fish. We went through the aquarium at Clark-speed (quick!) so we could see everything before Clark needed to have some lunch and head back to the house for a nap.

The rest of the weekend was just spent lounging around the house, watching movies, playing games, and walking on the beach. Clark had a great time with Jake (4), Maggie (4), and Olivia (6) who are fantastic friends to Clark. My favorite memory of the kids was when they were letting Clark chase them around! When they got too far ahead of him, they would all stop and let Clark catch up. I'm sure our neighbors could hear all of them squealing and laughing!

We ended our trip on Saturday night at Nana's Irish Pub in Nye Beach - super yummy chicken pot pie and the best Irish bread ever! The next morning we packed up and headed to Nye Beach once more to visit the Chowder Bowl. I know this is going to be shocking to some of you, but I think this place had better clam chowder than Splash Cafe... Can we still be friends? :o) Come on, you can't go wrong when the chowder is served with a pat of butter on top!

This was truly a fantastic weekend with some great friends and a relaxing way to end spring break!

Outside the Newport Aquarium.

Standing at the outdoor sea otter tank for a feeding. It was all outside in this beautiful courtyard!

Feeding the sea otters.

The touch pools. Clark liked touching everything, but really just wanted us to touch stuff.

View from the dining room window.

View from the dining room table. (Jake, Clint, Marla, Ben, Gretchen, David, Susan, & Sean)

Bubbles!!

Clark and his silly smile.

Clark and Jake on the beach.

My favorite picture of my boys.

The whole fam at Nana's Irish Pub.

All of the kids playing together. (Jake, Clark, Olivia, & Maggie)

So hilarious!

This might have to get sent to America's Funniest Home Videos!

Why, hello there blog!

It's been a while! Actually, it's been almost four months since our last post and that post (in October) was a catch-up post for everything we did over the summer. Needless to say, life has gotten a little crazy. Chasing after an almost two-year-old keeps you busy, but Ben is also waist-deep in his master's program and lots of things are on the back-burner for now. So here comes another catch-up post!

Like I said, Ben is getting his master's degree right now. He always wanted to do this, but Oregon requires all teachers to get their master's degree. He could have gotten his degree super slow over like 7 years and been ok, but he was worried that he would lose momentum so he's going for it! So far, so good - he's got a 4.0! He's going through University of Phoenix so all of his classes are online, but it means he spends of good deal of his evenings and weekends reading and writing papers. I'm so proud of him, but this also means a lot more of the housework falls on me so we're all a lot busier now!

So now for the Clark updates - which I know you were all waiting for! Well, our little boy is not so little! He's about 32 pounds and is most definitely in 2T clothes, and he's not even two yet. He is a bundle of energy, but is still so sweet. I'm going to try and keep him sweet as long as I can! He really likes playing with his Little People, cars, and any ball he can get his hands on. He also loves doing puzzles, building blanket forts with Uncle Chris (did I mention my sis and bro-in-law live here now?!), and being read to. Clark's vocabulary is also growing. Just today he started really consistently stringing two words together - hooray! Our little boy has had some doctors visits, though. We are learning that he has asthma and it really acts up when he is sick. This has happened three times, so we are learning what signs to watch for and he is getting much better at his inhaler - he will even ask for "puffs".

My favorite thing that Clark has done recently happened the other morning when he and I were leaving for Shae's (day care). Ben and I were hugging good-bye when Clark said "sandwich". When we do family hugs with Clark, we put him in the middle and call it a "Clark sandwich" and squish him. I asked him if he wanted a Clark sandwich and he nodded. Awwwww! Just melts my heart! He such a great kid and we are so blessed!

Here's some pics from the last couple of months. Hopefully, I won't be gone from the blog for so long next time!

LOVING the trampoline at a friend's house for a Super Bowl party.

Wearing his new "helper hat" and apron.

In a blanket fort with daddy!

At Sushi Zen with the whole family.

In daddy's scarf and mommy boots at Christmas.

*Ok, so I promise some pics of Ben and me, too, someday. :o)