Stir Crazy!

We have been SO busy lately! I am not sure how things got so crazy around here. Suddenly, in less than 2 months, Adam went from no clients to 5, and I am working 10-15 hours a week. So I have been working a lot on Saturdays, and Adam comes home at 4 on weekdays and makes dinner with Lily while I work. Unfortunately, this has been limiting his time to study for his classes, grade assignments for the class he is teaching, meet with his clients, and work on his dissertation. I have also been doing a home-study HypnoBabies course, which I am really excited about! It is a different approach to natural childbirth, and I think it will make this a really great birth experience. However, it is "labor" intensive (haha), and requires about an hour each day, which I can only do after Lily goes to bed. And Lily never goes to bed before 8:30 (usually more like 9), has stopped napping, and always wakes up at 7. If we put her to bed earlier, she wakes up earlier. So by the time we get her in bed, clean up from dinner (some days), read scriptures, and I do my Hypnobabies studying, it is past our bedtime already! In fact, it is so busy that I am almost excited for this baby to come so we can have more time . . . I said "almost". I recognize that once that actually happens, we won't even have time to sleep!

So how's that for an explanation of why I haven't written in almost two months? Let's see, since I wrote last, we went to California for Christmas, had a wonderful time, got completely spoiled by Nana & Papa, visited San Francisco for our 7th anniversary, got fairly sick, but had fun anyway. Here are some pictures of our fun trip to California.

Lily decorating the tree with her cousin, Amelia. 

And her aunt Amber. 

Playing Mr. Potato Head with Nana 

Christmas morning! 

It was a fun trip. Lily got her fairy wings from Santa, and a lot of other fun gifts. May too many . . . :) We all enjoyed it, but it was also nice to come home and start regular life again.

Then I had a lovely week in January when I couldn't do anything because my back went into terrible spasms. It was so painful that I couldn't sleep or do anything else for four days and had thoughts like "If only I were in labor right now. At least that ends!" Ultimately, the chiropractor said that my huge belly has been pulling my back out of alignment while I sleep. So I invested in a super-awesome maternity pillow, and every night I look forward to snuggling with it! I also spent a lot of days in a friend's hot tub, borrowed a massager from my neighbor, tripled my intake of calcium, and increased my exercise regimen. And now my back feels great, thank goodness!

Otherwise, we are doing well. Lily is growing up and saying funny stuff, as usual. She asks "why" to everything, and has for about a year. Those conversations usually terminate in "because that's just the way God made us." So for example:

"Lily, put your shoes on please."
"Why?"
"So we can go to the store."
Why?"
"Because we need to buy food."
"Why?'
"Because we have to eat in order to live."
"Why?'
"Because that's just the way God made us."

Well, that has backfired. Now, whenever we ask her a question, she responds with "Because that's just the way God made us." Whether we ask her why she doesn't want to eat her cereal, or why she threw her sippy cup on the floor, or why she took a toy away from a friend, or why she is screaming. "Because that's just the way God made us," she replied, with a pesky little grin. It has been funny, but also really frustrating.

The other day, Lily was singing "Jingle Bells" and a little while later I told her, "Lily, you got Jingle Bells stuck in my head." She replied, "You have dingle bells stuck in your hair?" We laughed, and I tried to explain what having a song stuck in your head means.

Then the next day, I was brushing my hair and Lily asked what I was doing. I said, "Getting the tangles out of my hair," to which she excitedly replied, "You getting the dingle bells out of your hair!" Classic.

This next little guy is also making his presence known. He can really kick! He kicks much harder and much more often than Lily did, and I thought she kicked me a lot. I am also getting bigger, and have already had someone ask if I am having twins. Really?! In fact, most Sundays and Tuesdays, when I take Lily to the library, I have multiple people ask, "You must be getting really close, right?" No. I am not getting really close. I am just getting really big! But, honestly, do you have to rub it in? I am certainly grateful that I don't need to worry about him being a low-birthweight baby. But I had really hoped to gain less than 50 pounds this pregnancy. That will probably not happen. I guess I should just be grateful that I lose it easily. :)

To ward off any unnecessary weight gain, I have been successfully avoiding sugar for the past month. However, yesterday I went to a friend's house and she taught me how to make fudge. That kind of catapulted my sugar-resistance efforts. But I thought it was worth it since fudge is Adam's favorite thing ever. I really wanted to make him some for Valentine's Day, but I have failed at making fudge so many times that I knew it would be a bad idea to attempt by myself again. Happily, our fudge was a fantastic success! We made the marshmallow creme kind and the old-fashioned kind - so much work, but vastly superior!

And today, it snowed another 10 inches in Corvallis, and it's still coming down hard! I ended up watching a friend's children most of the day since school was out, but she still had to work. We played in the snow a little, but Lily got cold really fast. Hopefully the whole city doesn't shut down again, or we will be really stir crazy! But if it does, maybe I will get caught up on all my neglected sewing projects. :)

Year in Review

Merry Christmas! We hope you (whoever you are) are doing well and enjoying the holidays! We don't send a Christmas letter because we know many people won't read it anyway. But for those who are actually interested in what we have been up to (but don't want to read an entire year of blog posts), here is a summary of 2013:

January: Started the year in Utah with Lily, taking care of my mom. I spent three weeks with her, and it was very special. Of course, it was a little hard to see her so weak and in so much pain, but I will be forever grateful for the time we spent together, and the time she spent with Lily. As for Lily, she had a fantastic time playing outside and thoroughly enjoyed her first experience with snow.

February: Adam turned 30 in February! He wasn't too upset about it. I kept trying to tease him, and I didn't get anywhere. I think he feels like he has more credibility as a therapist now that he is out of his 20s.

March: Lily thoroughly enjoyed playing outside in the not-as-cold weather. We attended story time at the library and played on the basketball court a lot. She became very attached to our BYU basketball.

April: We received a call from my grandma that we needed to come to Salt Lake City to say goodbye to my mom. It was a painful and tearful visit. She passed away on the 13th, but peacefully. It was a special experience, and I know she is happy. I stayed in Utah for two weeks to plan the funeral, sort through her things, and be there for my dad.

May: I was recruited to be the music director for the stake musical, Promised Valley. I spent many nights practicing demanding music and trying to figure out how to teach it to the cast. Adam also began his therapy practice. It took a long time to get the supervisor, paperwork, office space, advertising, and state requirements finished, but he finally began meeting with clients as a Marriage and Family Therapist!

June: Spent the month taking Lily to Promised Valley practices, dancing and singing. We made many good friends and had a wonderful time. We also moved to a new apartment, which has been a huge blessing. We are saving almost $200 per month, and have many more social opportunities with other moms, dads, and kids for Lily to play with. I do, however, miss our dishwasher.

July: Visited Adam's family in California for a week. We hiked, went to the beach, visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, cooked, and had fun with Adam's family. Lily and her cousin Amelia played outside in the inflatable pool with their Nana, and loved every minute. We also finally had our play performances, which were very fun and memorable.

August: We found ourselves in California once again. Adam's brother Travis returned from his LDS mission to Brazil! We were able to visit and spend some time with him. We also found out that we were expecting our second Clark baby! I spent the rest of the month sick and exhausted on the couch.

September: We finally got out into the beautiful Oregon wilderness and went for a quick one-night camping trip. Lily had fun throwing rocks into the river and listening to owls hoot in the middle of the night. Lily and I also took a trip to Idaho and Utah to visit my family. First we went to see my grandma, which was a lot of fun. My sister also came to stay with us there. Then we traveled down to Utah to see my dad and meet his fiancee, Elizabeth. We had a great time.

October: We returned to Utah, driving this time, for my dad's wedding. It was beautiful and fun to see family. Lily wants to get married in the temple like Grandpa and Elizabeth.

November: Lily turned 2! I also turned 28, but that didn't feel as significant somehow. I spent a lot of November working from home for my former employer, and Adam spent it working on his dissertation and grading papers for the online class he was teaching. Lily enjoyed attending a swim class, usually with mom and sometimes with dad. She learned how to blow bubbles, kick, jump off the wall, and lots of other fun water skills. We also found out that baby #2 is a BOY! Lily is very excited to meet her baby brother.

December: We are looking forward to visiting Adam's family again in California and celebrating the holidays with the people we love. We hope you have a merry Christmas too!

Strange things afoot in Oregon

Things have been a little unusual around here lately! Corvallis is not southern-California-balmy, but usually relatively warm. It only snows a couple times each winter, and it almost always melts by the next morning. But this past week, it was FREEZING! Literally. It snowed a week ago last Thursday. But this was no ordinary mid-Oregon snow dusting. It snowed over NINE INCHES overnight! School and about everything else in town was cancelled, including the big band Christmas concert I was very excited to attend.

What made this incident even better was that some ingenious high-up city authority decided that it would probably melt on Friday, so they didn't bother to plow the roads. By Saturday morning, everything was so packed down and frozen that they couldn't plow it. Brilliant. The result was an entire week of nothing happening in this town. Church cancelled. Choir performances and the stake nativity festival cancelled. The downtown entirely shut down for several days, and all public employees were sent home. Saddest of all (for me), the ward Christmas party was even cancelled. The choir, primary, and youth in our ward had been preparing an special program, which we have never done before. I had assembled a small group to sing a jazz number, and I was really excited. Finally, I had invited two non-member families to come with us, and they were both really excited about it. All cancelled. Stupid city planner.

It was also SUPER cold. As in, cold for Utah weather. It stayed below 20 degrees for almost a week, and dipped below zero one night. I haven't experienced negative temperature for a while, and I forgot how cold  they really are!

But there were good things - we got Adam at home more than usual, since campus closed for two days. Lily also really loved playing in the snow. Unfortunately, the snow was really powdery and "dry" so it was almost impossible to make a snowman. We tried every single day, hoping the snow had melted a little to make it wet enough, but it never did. She was very disappointed. So we improvised by using a spray bottle with warm water to make three snowballs, and stacked them on top of each other with the tiny end of a carrot for a nose, twigs for arms, and tiny pieces of raisins for eyes.  It was only about 10 inches tall, but that was good enough for Lily. She talked about our snowman for days.

Poor Lily was so tired after all that winter recreation that she fell asleep in her high chair!

Besides the weather, things have been busy, as usual. Unfortunately, Adam has not had many clients for several months. This has been a challenge for our income, but I have been blessed with the opportunity to work some from home. My former employer, DecisionWise, contacted me in October and asked if I would be able to do a project for them. It was only a 30-hour project, but it kept me busy for a few weeks, and Adam was able to come home early to watch Lily since he didn't have clients. That project led to another in November-December, and I will be doing another in January. Even though it has been a bit stressful to have deadlines, I have appreciated the opportunity to use my brain again and remember what I learned in college. And of course, the added income has been a huge blessing. I really feel that the Lord has been looking out for us this year. It has been a difficult one, but we have been blessed in so many ways.

And now, it's almost Christmas! I can't believe it came so soon! We will be going to California to visit Adam's family in Soledad (near Salinas). It will be fun, especially for Lily who will get to play with her cousin Amelia. Adam and I are especially excited to spend our anniversary in San Francisco. Ironically, he has practically never been there, even though he grew up less than three hours away. We are going to visit Chinatown and Fisherman's Warf and Ghirardelli Square and drive down Lombard Street. We are going to pass up Alcatraz, since I have already been and it is unbelievably expensive. But if you know of any other destinations we just can't miss, please comment!

Here are a couple more recent pictures.

Lily made a bed for herself under the table.

Mutual teeth-brushing

Lily's first french braids (Shortly after this picture, she started sobbing and demanded that I take them out. So sadly, she never wore them anywhere.)

This was our excursion to Storybook Land in Albany, which Lily really enjoyed.

Merry Christmas!

Catch-up: Halloween and Birthdays

I can't believe it has taken so long for me to write about these things! Halloween was well over a month ago. What can I say, things have been busy. We didn't do anything extremely memorable for Halloween, but Lily's costume was just too cute to pass up. Here are a few pictures of us. In case you can't tell, we were trying to be the family from 101 Dalmatians. Our costume probably would have been more obvious if we had, like, nine kids. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately), that is not the case. So most people struggled to figure out our costumes. But it was fun anyway.

Shortly after Halloween, we had a fire safety activity at our apartment complex. Lily was very excited about the fire truck, as has talked about that day every since.

Lily's 2nd birthday was on November 21st. She got to celebrate twice, since we couldn't have the party until Saturday. Here is Lily opening a few of her presents. The highlights included:

a Minnie Mouse doll from Grandpa and Elizabeth,

several fun books from grandparents,

a baby doll stroller from my good friend Amberly,

and two pairs of firetruck pajamas from my good friend Candice. If you read my first post from November, you will know that Lily greatly coveted Candice's son's firetruck pajamas when they come to visit, so they thoughtfully got her some of her very own!

Lily really wanted an Elmo party, so that's what we did. It was not extravagant in the least, but enough to make her happy. We didn't take many pictures, aside from these Elmo cupcakes I made, which Lily was so very happy about.

This is the community center where we had the party, with a few birthday decorations.

Here is Lily with her friend Jacquelyn, also a BYU fan. :)

Elmo balloon!

Happy birthday Lily!

This was Lily the day after her birthday, trying to wear my shoes to church,

And riding her brand new rocking horse. That was our gift to her, since she loves riding ponies so much.

I also had my birthday in November, although it was nothing super special. I was actually sick the day of my birthday and Adam took Lily to a Christmas parade while I lay on the couch at home. It wasn't a miserable day, but not the most fun birthday of my life.

However, Adam may have made the best birthday cake I have ever had in my life. He made me this peppermint cheesecake. It didn't look exactly like hers, but it was pretty close. Ours just didn't have shaved chocolate on top. I wanted to take a picture of it, but we ate it too fast (and shared with lots of other people). It was absolutely AMAZING! It might be my favorite dessert I have ever, ever had! I have dreams about that cheesecake now, it was so good. Good job Adam. I think I will just have peppermint cheesecake every birthday for the rest of my life.

Otherwise, I spent my birthday reflecting. I am not usually nostalgic on my birthday, but my life will be forever different after this year, without my mom. So I just wanted to think about the past 28 years of my life. I contemplated each one, and thought about what happened and how my life changed. Some of those memories made me cry because I am so grateful for them. These primarily revolved around meeting special people: a few very dear friends, my husband, my daughter. And my conclusion was this: I am so happy. 

True, this has been a hard year. There have been big trials and many little, frustrating struggles. But overall, I feel so very blessed. I have everything that is important. I love my husband and my little girl more than I ever thought possible. Adam truly makes my life amazing, and I am so grateful. He is so patient, unselfish, forgiving, validating, and fun to be with. He is an awesome dad and works so well with the young men in our ward. I know he has a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he lives what he believes with full integrity. I have a testimony of this gospel as well, and I am so grateful for my Savior! My life would be nothing like it is without my knowledge of God's love and His plan for me. There are many other blessings, but they are all peripheral to the gospel and my family. We don't have everything, but we have everything that matters, and I am so grateful. I guess that was my birthday gift - the opportunity to contemplate how blessed I am. I hope I can remember that throughout this year, and that 28 can be filled with gratitude and thanksgiving.