Warm Wyoming Welcome

Clint's brother, Daniel, came home from his mission in Taiwan about 3 weeks ago. (I put something in a post beforehand.) But his homecoming wasn't until yesterday, April 27th. We drove up Saturday afternoon after naptime. I'm so glad that the kids do well driving in the car. Mitchell really looks forward to driving to Wyoming because he knows that we'll be driving over the mountains and that there are train tracks along the freeway. Caleb also does pretty well. I'm pretty sure that he was eating for most of the 2 hour drive. It was great.

Daniel did a great job with his talk. He spoke about the spiritual experiences that he had while on his mission. It sounds like he really witnessed a lot of great testimony-building experiences. He also paid tribute to each one of his family members and how they've touched his life. It was really nice. He shared his gratitude that Clint has been a good example of honoring his priesthood. I'm not sure that there could have been a more touching thing to hear.

It was fun talking to Clint's family and Daniel's friends afterwards. There were a lot of people there and I wanted to make sure and get some pictures. As soon as I pulled the camera out Clint and Daniel started doing some questionable poses......I didn't include those pictures. This was definitely one of the cleaner ones.

Mitchell also had a great time. One of Clint's cousins had a baby just a week before Mitchell was born so it's been fun watching them grow up. His 2nd cousin's name is Ellis and he lives in Wyoming so they don't see a lot of each other, but when they do they get along really well. They spent most of the afternoon playing together. The baby picture is of them just 2 weeks after they were born. The orange one on the left is Mitchell and Ellis is on the right. As Ellis was leaving yesterday they gave each other a great big hug. I got a picture but it wasn't a very good one so I included a side-by-side one instead. (A before and after if you will.)



This is how Caleb spent most of the afternoon.

He must be a lot like his Aunt Korrine because this is how she spent most of the afternoon.

This last picture was taken last night after we came home. When we come home from out of town we always dump everything by the front door then systematically start putting things away. Caleb took advantage of my purse being on the floor and had a great time with the wipes. I thought it was too cute to pass up taking a picture.

Dad-less Week

This past week the kids and I survived without Clint. He was on a business trip in Connecticut from Monday morning until Friday. I hate to say that we are becoming accustomed to him leaving....but we are. We still miss him a lot, of course, but it's no longer a crying fest while he's gone. It helps that we had a really busy week. It started off great with a dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Clement's house. Mitchell set the table all by himself. He is becoming a really great helper. He is very willing to do little tasks like retrieving diapers and putting stuff down in the crawl space.

Caleb also enjoyed himself at Grandmas.....mostly. Both he and Mitchell suffered from nasty coughs during the week and so Caleb wasn't as happy as he normally can be. But he still didn't seem to mind when his brother started sitting on him. Sorry about the image of Mitchell with food in his mouth!

We also had our good friend, Megan, over for dinner one night and were able to have dinner at the Wall's house another. Despite the fact that our favorite dad was gone, the week was still full of fun and good company. We even got to go to "Old McDonalds" with Grandma Clement. It was Caleb's first experience in "the pipes" (as Mitchell calls them). They had a great time.

The best part of the whole week was when Clint came home. He came home Friday and we spent the afternoon on a date while my mom watched the kids. As we came home from the date Clint surprised me with an extended date. My mom had taken the kids home and Clint had a bag all packed for me. We spent the night downtown and picked up the kids the next day. It was really fun. He and my mom did a great job surprising me.

Birthday Fun

This past Tuesday was my 26th birthday. Hooray! It was a great day (except for the snow). Clint and the kids did a lot of fun things for me. Mitchell and Caleb had a great time helping Clint blow up balloons. They loved learning about how to make them stick to the ceiling and walls.

Clint and the kids had a great time making the birthday cake. I am including a video of Clint making the cake. I apologize to any of you who may have found a surprise in your piece. Mitchell also had a great time frosting the cake. He really loves to help in the kitchen. He was able to count out all 26 birthday candles as well.

We had a lot of family and friends over for the evening. Caleb's favorite visitor was his pediatrician and uncle--Dr. Uncle Paul. He has been a bit shy lately about going to other people but didn't hesitate at all to climb into Paul's lap. I think the fact that Paul had chocolate cake sitting in front of him may have been a factor, but cake didn't persuade Caleb to sit with anybody else so it must have been due to genuine affection.

Thanks to everyone else who able to come! We really missed those of you who couldn't.

We have had a problem with our toilet for the past few months. It was leaking from the tank a few months ago so Clint got out his tools and fixed it.....almost. The major leak was gone but it was still leaking very very slowly. We weren't sure where the leak was coming from and Clint hates to do plumbing so it got put off especially as we started the sprinkling project. But the procrastination came to an end this past week when I noticed a large puddle of water near the base of the toilet. Clint eventually had to take the whole toilet off and investigate every piece to find where the leak was coming from. Unfortunately he had to replace more than just where the leak was (obviously you can tell that I don't know the name of the piece that was broken) but he also had to replace the connection from the wall pipe to the toilet AND the main water shut off valve coming in to the house. It was quite an adventure. Luckily he only took 4 trips to Lowes before he had it all fixed and the kids enjoyed helping him with his tools.

Friday evening Clint took Mitchell to a scout camp-out at Grantsville Reservoir. This was the first time that Mitchell had ever been camping. We have been too wimpy in the past to attempt camp outs with him because we didn't know how well he would sleep. We were scared for a reason. He did really well eating the tinfoil dinner, roasting marshmallows and hanging out with the scouts but when bed time came he could not sleep. The wind had really picked up and was blowing the tent cover around which was making noise. So this is what Clint heard all night.

Mitchell: Dad, The wind is being noisy.

Clint: Close your eyes and go to sleep, Mitchell.

Mitchell: Dad, Dad! It's really bright outside. (There was a full moon)

Clint: Just close your eyes and sleep.

Mitchell: Dad, I need to use the bathroom.

Clint: Go outside then and go pee.

Mitchell: Where?

Clint: Go stand by the car.

Mitchell: Okay..................Dad. It's cold.

Clint: Put on a sweatshirt.

Mitchell: (puts on sweatshirt and goes outside)...............................................Dad, it's too windy to go pee.

Clint: Just stand close to the car and pee.

Mitchell: It's too cold.

Clint: Just hurry and do it.

Mitchell: (Goes and relieves himself and comes back in)............................Dad, the wind is being so noisy.

Clint: Go to sleep.

Mitchell: Dad, I'm cold....I want to snuggle. (He then proceeds to drape his entire body over Clint's and continually kicks his feet against Clint's legs).

Apparently this went on and on during the night with a few breaks of sleep in between. We'll probably put him in his very own tent next time (if there is one!).

Saturday was another exciting day of working on the sprinkler system. Clint spent most of the day working outside in the wind. In the late afternoon he started noticing some microbursts and hoped that they wouldn't bring a large tree limb falling down on top of him. A few minutes later a microburst picked him up off the ground. The same microburst also blew over our neighbor's fence taking our satellite dish down with it. Our neighbor is in New Mexico working and Clint is going out of town tomorrow so it could be awhile before its fixed. In the meantime hopefully the fence will keep our neighbor's weeds at bay so we won't have to pull as many from our lawn.

Cousins

We have had the fun opportunity to see my sister, Katherine, who is in town from Boston. She will be here for the weekend and it has been great to be able to spend time with her and her youngest son, Timothy. Timothy is only 1 month younger than Caleb but, unfortunately, was born with some brain abnormalities and so is cognitively and physically delayed. He is a very sweet little guy and it is wonderful to feel his sweet spirit when he is around. Caleb spent part of the evening carrying Tim's picture around and showing it everyone who would look. He also tried to play with Tim by shaking his toys that were dangling by his head. Tim very sweetly rolled over and put his thumb in his mouth so he wouldn't have to watch the toys crazily flying around the space above him.
We spent this evening at Grandma and Grandpa's house eating pie and ice cream. Upon arriving Mitchell and Caleb were shy of their Aunt Katherine but soon warmed up. Mitchell was giving her multiple running and jumping hugs before we left that evening. Caleb took longer to warm up but after he eyed Timothy's strawberry-milk bottle Katherine gave him his own and they were much better friends.

Mitchell and Caleb also really enjoy the company of their cousins who live here in Herriman. Mitchell and Zach love to box and wrestle together. They are seen here eating, and wearing, ice cream cones together.

This past week we also had the very fun opportunity to have Clint's brother, Daniel, come stay a night with us before he leaves for Boise for his new job in a week or so. I feel bad because I didn't take any pictures so I don't have any to post...but we had a great time. Mitchell and Caleb both adore Daniel. Mitchell was so excited that he got to take his Uncle Daniel everywhere that he went for a day.

Sprinkler Weekend

After a few summers of watering our lawn by hand we are ready for an automatic sprinkler system. This has been a project that we've thought about a lot but have always felt too intimidated by. Luckily, our neighbors, the Walls, offered to help and so we started the project this past Friday evening. We split a trencher rental with the Walls and set to work. The trencher is a pretty slick machine unless you have a lawn full of tree roots which we do. There was more time spent breaking through the roots with an axe than with the actual trencher.

Saturday morning Clint was able to finish trenching the back lawn. Luckily we don't have any neighbors that are around this time of year so Clint didn't worry about starting at 7 in the morning. By the afternoon they had finished the boxes and the stop and waste valve. We're excited to be this far along. Unfortunately it is snowing outside right now so it could be longer than we planned before it is totally completed. I'm ready to wait for a long time. I'm just satisfied knowing that I won't be watering our lawn with the hose this year!

Studying the plans and marking the lawn.

Our friend, Keven, wielding the trencher.

The cheering section.

Above is a picture of Mitchell getting dressed to go to bed. He was having a great time especially because I wasn't getting upset for once while he was jumping on the bed. I was too busy laughing.

Yesterday was a fun day. Mitchell and Caleb were really interacting and having a great time together. The picture above is of them "wrestling". It was more like Caleb laying on the floor holding still while Mitchell sat on him. But they were having a great time. Mitchell was wrapping Caleb in his blanket and telling him to go to sleep while he sat on him. Caleb thought it was hilarious. Later on we were on the couch reading scriptures together and Mitchell was sitting next to a kitchen towel that he had been playing with. (I'm not sure why.) Caleb came walking up and quietly stole the towel and slowly walked away looking back at Mitchell. When Mitchell realized what happened he burst out, "Hey! Caleb!". Caleb started laughing hysterically and ran away as fast as he could. He got Mitchell laughing as well while he was being chased.