Grandpa Clark's Birthday!

Grandpa Clark's birthday was on Saturday -- Happy Birthday Grandpa!

To celebrate, on Sunday, we drove to Fort Dodge and met Grandma and Grandpa Clark and Carl, Hollie, Gabe and Ty for lunch. After lunch dad opened cards and gifts--he brought Em's card along to share too. This year my sister Emily gets the win for best birthday card for dad (there have been times she and I pick out the same card for dad) -- Good Job Em it was a great card!

We now have large quantities of tomatoes to use up that mom sent home with us. Looks like cucumber and tomato salad a lot this week.

While dividing tomatoes and squash Ty cleaned off the hood of our car for us! It made a great slide!

On our way home we stopped at Sonic to grab something to drink for the trip. Next time I guess we need to get Clark his own little juice cup since he did end up drinking a lot of my real fruit lime slush (and after backwash who wants the cup back). The kid likes lime what can I say.

Not much new today (Monday). Clark helped me put supper in the crock pot. This week will be a lot of crock pot cooking because I simply cannot stand the sight and smell of food come 4:00 pm. So at least if its in the crock pot I may smell it but I don't actually have to work with it at that time. We also made some banana bread to get rid of some old bananas. Clark stood on his new work platform and dug right in. He would put the chopped celery and carrots in the measuring cup as I finished chopping and moved them over for him. He also enjoyed stirring items and using the whisk along with dumping veggies and raisins into various bowls. Our supper menu included chicken and rice casserole, squash and bread pudding.

Clark is using more words but often he still will say a word once and then not use it again for a long time. But he is up to dada, mama, ditty(kitty) -- he uses this one more than mama andbath. Other words he has said but doesn't repeat often: tractor, ball, stick, apple -- I know there are others but am having a hard time coming up with them right now. He has no problems understanding though.

Clark really likes watching Handy Manny and Curious George. We watch one either right after lunch or before naptime. He claps along to the music in Handy Manny which is really cute. He also goes nuts anytime he sees a rabbit on either show. He has a thing for rabbits because he heads straight for them in Earl May too. I don't know where that comes from. He recognizes ducks and cats too on those shows (but we have those so that's understandable) but doesn't go as nuts with those as he does with bunnies. He is also a fan of Jumpy Squirrel on Curious George.

All for now -- have a great week!

1st Cyclone Game!

On Saturday we went to the Iowa State vs Kansas game at Jack Trice Stadium. We sat in the South End Zone where Grandpa Spencer has tickets. This was Clark's 1st Cyclone football game. He seemed to enjoy the experience -- so much to see! Since the game started at 11:30 am we ate at the stadium. Clark had a hotdog and we all shared some fries (Clark ate most of the family fries I think). The first half was great! And at half time Clark was getting pretty sleepy so we walked back to the Clark (Uncle Carl & Aunt Hollie's) household to put him down for a nap. Clark rode on dad's shoulders on the way home and fell asleep up there too. Clark did get to see the best part of the game (where we were winning) because it all went downhill from there and the Cyclones ended up losing 33 to 35.

Watching the band at half time!

Riding back to the Clark house on dad's shoulders. Had a great nap while the Cyclones lost yet another game :(

Oh well, we all shared pizza when everyone came back from the game -- at least we had some good family time later in the afternoon. There's always the next game right? Go Cyclones!