Some Catching Up

I realized that I haven't posted in a while and THEN I realized that I never even posted Clark's baby dedication photos. That pretty much convinced me that it was time to work on a blog post.

Clark was dedicated at church on February 14th (Valentine's Day!). Lots of our friends were in the service and Uncle John and Aunt Alexis came, too. During the dedication, Ben and I dedicated Clark to God and made a promise to raise him in a loving, Christian home. After the service, we all headed over to the Cornelius Pass McMenamin's for lunch.

All of us on stage with Pastor Ron.

Uncle John and Aunt Alexis at church with Clark.

Since Clark turned one in April, I wanted to take some kind of picture to show how he changes from year to year. My mom always took a picture of me in the same bathing suit every year. When I was little it just sort of hung there and was kind of cute, but as I got older (read: teenager) I was horrified each year that I had to put on this bathing suit. I decided to pick something a little easier for Clark. A men's t-shirt. It's huge and funny and has a Superman logo - SO cheesy, I know. That will probably be the thing that he complains about as I force teenage Clark to do this. However, in the end I will get 18 pictures showing how Clark has changed over the years. The other thing that I hope changes...having a kid that will sit still for a picture! I really wanted the picture outside, but Clark was going crazy and wanted to eat all of the grass, leaves, bark, etc. In the end, I think I got one or two that will work.

I know - we can't help it. :-)

Right after we took this picture, we took Clark to get his first haircut. Oh my goodness, he looked like Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) from Dumb and Dumber (and kind of looked like Harry before the cut!). The woman (girl) just cut around Clark's hairline in one foul swoop. Ridiculous! It was so uneven and not blended at all! The only good thing was that Clark LOVED, I repeat LOVED, being in the little car chair. He was bouncing up and down and spinning the wheel! We may need to take this kid to an amusement park someday. Anyway, we paid as fast as we could (bummer), and got out of there! When we got home, we put Clark in his high chair and gave him a bottle while Ben went to work fixing his hair. It's not perfect, but it's so much better and makes him look like a little boy!

Before, with wings and curls.

Why don't I have one of these at home?!?!?

After. You can't really tell in this picture, but TRUST ME, it was bad.

After, after (thanks, daddy!).

Later that week we tried putting Clark in the soft carrier on our backs on a walk through Noble Fir Park. He absolutely loves it and was being so goofy!

Trying to take a nice photo, but...this is the Tommy Boy face. (I'm so excited! I've managed to reference two of my most favorite movies EVER in one post!)

Happy birth day, baby!

Happy first birthday, Clark!

We love this picture - he looks so posed!

Wow, what a year! I can't believe that Clark will be one this week. I'm sure all moms say this, but it's true! Someone asked me if I was ok with Clark turning one and I told her I didn't even think about not being ok with it. We love Clark so much and even though he keeps changing, we love each new phase. I'm just so excited to see what this next year brings with Clark that I'm not really that sad about being done with this first year.

So, without further ado (and more of my ramblings), here's some pics of the big day!

Big boy birthday dinner - hamburger, cheese, and pineapple!

Before the cake was destroyed...

Oh, my goodness. Cake is good. (Check out the video in the last post below. Priceless.)

Hanging with Amelia.

Books!

He seems pleased. Such a funny face! Thanks for the pj's!

Taken at the park today. Happy birthday, baby!

One Year and Cake!

Just a little teaser from Clark's first birthday! This is the first time Clark has ever had anything so sweet. As you can see, it gets the stamp of approval.

Forgive Me Father...For I Have Sinned...Twice!!!

This one's for you, Paul! Double Dawg from Costco!

House!

Here it is!

Front door & landing (& baby gate)

Downstairs half bath

Kitchen

Dining room & slider to the backyard

Living room

Living Room & door to half bath

Master bedroom (not pictured: huge walk-in closet!)

The office (no longer a nursery/office!)

Clark's room

Clark's room

Just for Fun

We took Clark to the park a couple of days ago when the sun was out and the weather was warm. It's really the first time he's been to a park since he was too little last summer and we live in a 3rd story apartment AND we live in the Pacific NW (the grass was pretty dry that day!). He was completely bored by the swings, teeter-totter, and slide, but went nuts in the grass!

Videos galore (Part 3)

Here's a sampling of Clark's babbling.

Videos galore! (Part 2)

Clark just did this on Sunday - crazy! He thought he was pretty hot stuff.

Videos galore! (Part 1)

This is Clark trying banana custard for the first time. I kept feeding it to him because it was just so funny!

More videos to come. Stay tuned...

Crawling AND Standing!

Gosh, I haven't even posted anything about Christmas and I have cute pics of Clark eating his first finger foods, but I have to make a quick post because not only did Clark start crawling this week, but he also just stood up for the first time. Crazy! Here's a quick pic and a video. Enjoy!

Clark's first Thanksgiving (in Seattle!)

Gosh, I actually wrote this post before Christmas, but never got around to publishing it. Oops. Oh well, here's our Thanksgiving post. I promise I'll post something about Christmas before Easter!

We've now lived in Oregon almost 2.5 years and haven't ventured out of Oregon to the rest of the Pacific Northwest. We decided that this Thanksgiving was the perfect time to take a quick trip up to Seattle. We left Thanksgiving morning and spent most of the day traveling, sitting in Seattle holiday traffic, and checking in to our hotel in downtown. Since it was Thanksgiving and Clark's first one, we knew we wanted to go out to dinner. However, nothing was open! I had figured out earlier that most of the restaurants that were open were either serving fancy Thanksgiving dinners or Chinese. Chinese, here we come! We headed down to the International District to Ho Ho Seafood Restaurant (which we thought seemed a bit more Christmas-y!). It was delicious! Ben and I had the Peking duck and honeyed walnut prawns. So good! As you can see, Clark had a soup spoon for his first Turkey Day!

The next day we hung around the northern part of downtown, so we were able to walk everywhere. We first found Top Pot Donuts for a little breakfast. After finding out there was a pumpkin old fashioned donut, I was a happy girl! We then walked down to the waterfront to the Olympic Sculpture Park. This day happened to be bright and sunny, so the view from the park was amazing. We could even see the Coastal Range all the way up to Canada. After the Sculpture Park, we headed over to the Seattle Center and the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum. I had fun, but Ben's mind was blown! Both parts of the museum had awesome exhibits. I think Ben particularly enjoyed the Jimi Hendrix one and the science fiction one with all of the movie stuff in it (i.e. a storm trooper from Star Wars, the captain's chair from Star Trek, and all the weapons from different movies). We decided to stop for a snack when we left the museum, so we walked over the International Fountain in the Seattle Center. This fountain is huge! It shoots water at least 40 feet into the air and the whole thing was set to Christmas music. The best part was watching little kids and even big kids run up to the fountain when the water would go down and then run screaming when it all came back on again!

After that we went back to the hotel to rest and feed Clark. That evening, though, was my favorite part of the whole trip. We barely made it downtown and barely found a parking spot, but we did! We made it over to the Macy's (along with thousands and thousands of people) to watch them light the Christmas tree. It was great! They did a whole count-down and then there were fireworks afterwards. I loved it! We then fought the crowds and made it to our restaurant for dinner. We had some yummy sushi at a table in the corner where Clark was able to stretch his legs and play on the floor. As always, Clark charmed the ladies and our server loved him!

The next day we drove down to Pike's Place. After paying and arm and a leg for over-priced parking, we wandered through the market. We feel a little spoiled because the market was a lot like our own Saturday Market (arts and crafts) and the Portland State University farmer's market. It was fun to see Pike's Place and take a picture with Santa, but I think next time we'll see some other stuff in and around Seattle. We took the rest of the afternoon to drive around downtown. We did stop at the library to take a look at the new building. It was amazing! It's all made of metal and glass and is totally open on the inside. That afternoon we went back to the hotel again to rest and take care of Clark. Then for dinner we went to a pub in downtown for some fish 'n chips.

On our last day we were pretty ready to go home, so we just checked-out and drove through the Queen Anne neighborhood before heading home. The Queen Anne area is north of downtown on a hill and is named so because of the style of the houses. Wow! There were some beautiful homes and some expensive ones. Rightly so because many of them had a view of downtown and of the Puget Sound!

We had a great trip and loved having Clark with us. He is so easy-going and did great while we were out-and-about. We love our little boy and look forward to lots more Thanksgivings with him!

All I want for Christmas are my two (bottom) front teeth!

Clark's got teeth! Which, I guess, makes the title of this post make no sense. Oh well!

I tried to get a picture of said teeth, but realized that when he smiles you can't see them. So here's a pic of his teeth while he's not smiling - two on the bottom and one more coming in on the left (your left) side. I also added one of the smiling pics since it's just too cute!

If you click on it, you can view this much larger for a close-up of those pearly whites!

Hey, party people!

Fog!

Why, hello, Mt. Hood. Lovely to see you today.

Taken from our office by my co-worker, Emily, this morning. You have to click on it - it's awesome.

A boy and his ball

Clark and his first ball. This is really for the grandparents since they'll watch anything with Clark in it, but enjoy!

Auntie Mimi & Uncle Chris!

I'm so excited that the newlyweds, Amelia and Chris, were able to fly up here this past weekend and hang out with us! We packed the weekend with tons of activities and had so much fun together. Clark loved seeing his Aunt and Uncle again!

We picked them up from the airport on Saturday morning, stuck Clark in his monkey costume, and headed to the Portland State Farmer's Market to check out all the yummy goodness. After Chris gobbled up the red pepper jelly, we picked up a few items and then headed out to the Stash Tea store in Tigard so Amelia and Chris could restock their tea collection. That night Amelia and I tried our best to make pumpkin, shallot, and sage pasta - peeling and cubing a pumpkin is hard work!

The next day we all headed out to Multnomah Falls, Hood River, and the Fruit Loop. Funny, the only fruit we partook of was grapes! We managed to visit five beautiful wineries - sharing tastings, of course, otherwise Clark was going to drive home! We could not have asked for a more beautiful day! Clear blue skies, pretty leaves, and good company. We then went back to Hood River to Full Sail brewery for a tour and a tasting. Amelia and I couldn't resist the baked brie with preserves and a baguette. Oh, so good! We tried to go to dinner that night, but Clark decided it was time to go home and relax. That was fine with us! So after some Chipotle, we just hung out and watched our favorite movie, Just Friends.

Monday I had to go to work, so I brought Amelia and Chris with me. They hung out in downtown visiting Powell's and trying some of the food carts. That evening we went to McMenamins (of course!) and enjoyed our last meal together.

Thanks for coming up here, guys. We love you and miss you already!

Me and my little monkey!

 

 Multnomah Falls

 

Hanging out on the patio at one of the wineries.

 

 

Mt. Hood Winery

 

Dinner at McMenamins.