Recently

Recently, we've been busy! The biggest news is that our little miss Sophie has reached the 4 year milestone and has done so in style. Most of you know that Sophie told me she wanted to be a scary tree for Halloween. She told me this at the beginning of October. Between the beginning of October and the end of October, Olivia changed her mind on her costume about 13 times. Sophie however, never wavered. I wanted her to, but she didn't. Since I don't have a clue how to sew nor possess creative thoughts, I waited to see if she would in fact change her mind and want to be Hannah Montana, or better yet, a PRINCESS....we have 11 of those costumes....something, anything I could buy? Well, her big girl mind never changed and I found myself the night before Halloween at Hobby Lobby, frantically searching for just the right materials to fashion a scary tree outfit for my blonde little heartbreaker. I humbly asked the fabric lady for help. I couldn't figure out how to pay for the fabric I wanted and did that mean I had to buy the whole roll? How do I know how long a yard is? Am I supposed to cut it? Geez. This is difficult!!! No wonder I don't sew. The fabric lady lovingly made my problems disappear and told me I wasn't alone. Lots of moms were in that day trying to make a costume last minute. So I breathed a sigh of relief, and suddenly felt recharged and ready for my craft night. I came home with a sack full of fake sticks, spanish moss, glue, burlap sack fabric, googly eyes, and fall leaves. All of these were lovingly hot glued (thank god), not sewed, to a brown sweat suit to form the long awaited scary tree costume...proudly adorned on Halloween/the big 4 bday by Sophie G. Clark. see below:

We are missing the full effect however, since her hood is not up. There are leaves to frame her face and for the actual trick or treating night, Grandma Jan painted on some truly scary eyebrows to top things off. All of the houses we visited knew what Sophie was and complimented her on her creativity, except one, who asked her if she was a bush, to which she adamantly cried, "I'm a SCAWWWY TWEE!" Come on old man!!!!

On Saturday, family and friends of SGC gathered at the Clark household to celebrate the big 4. Sophie had a blast! We had 7 babies present I think? 7 kids too, possibly. LOTS of adults, all happily crammed into our humble little house, stress on the little. But we had fun! Soup and homemade ice cream, presents, and puppies too!







All in all, a good party. Lots of WONDERFUL presents for Sophie. The list of goods included: new art supplies, a homemade tote bag complete with an attached puppy to hold the art supplies, a cd player, cds, movies, clothes, a Barbie with a dog that poops (pooper scooper included), a magical princess sing along wand/mat, an elephant family, dora take along cars, a set of animal family figurines, coloring books, crayons, a "real" kitty that meows and purrs and drinks a bottle? I'm probably forgetting something.....but really? Could Sophie be in heaven? Yes she is. She sleeps in her bed like a proud prosperous princess with all of her new little treasures by her side. She ended the present openings with a thank you to everyone and all the kids helped her tear into her new things and play play play.

Since all of our family was in town, we met up the next day at Steve's sister's house for brunch. The kids were sent outside to play and given some rakes and we raked up some leaves to jump in. It was a perfect day, perfect weather, much like today. What is with these 75 degree November days??? I won't complain. I remember having snow on Halloween SEVERAL years in a row. Anyway, it was a great weekend and Sophie couldn't be happier.



As you can see, the babies weren't impressed with the leaves.

Steve has been busy revamping our bathroom. If you haven't had the honor of seeing our only bathroom, let me paint the picture for you. You open the door. It hits a wall behind it. You squeeze in the doorway between the door that hit the wall and a sink that is directly in front of the door to get to a toilet crammed up against another wall. There's linoleum on the floor. It's ugly. The sink is poorly placed and you can see it is torn away from the wall a little. Hmmm. Looking to the left of the toilet a little and behind the wall the door hits, there's another TINY room with a shower in it, several shelves and a sad scale. There's a different linoleum design in this area, but yes, in the same room....complete with a gold metal strip between the two...to make a proper transition of course. Sigh.

Steve has done away with our mismatched flooring, torn out the wall the door hit, moved the sink into our now much bigger shower room and has begun redoing the drywall. Next is ceramic tile flooring, brand new and still in packages, excitedly found at a garage sale no less....we are ready. The old sink, small and sad, sits where our big new sink and counter will go when the funds arrive for us to purchase it. In the meantime, we have plenty to do: mirror, lights, painting, trim, flooring, dreaming. If there's only one bathroom around here, it might as well not make us want to puke. Good job Steve. You know, the longer I'm married to Steve the great, the greater he is. The man can do anything! And not even read the directions! I asked him how he knew how to do all the plumbing and he looked at me like I was crazy. He said, "You just hook up the pipes." Uhhhh.....I know. Sure. which ones???...... Anyway, he's cool. I think so anyway.

Well, that's all for now. Enjoy our summer that has extended into November!

PS. Thank you Mom for the pictures!!!!