Arabella's first birthday

Yesterday we celebrated Arabella's first birthday. She is such a cute and sweet little girl and we love to have her in our family. Here are some photos of her enjoying her special day.

I may be biased, but I think this is one dang cute kid. She has such a fun personality and she knows what she wants.
Enjoying her birthday lunch. If you click on the photo and see the larger version you can see all six of her teeth. She cut the top four about a week ago, that was an interesting week.

More happy baby faces.
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to..." She did not like mom putting the hat on her. She was perfectly happy with everything else.

The free first birthday cake from Albertsons.

The box for the real cake that we got her.
The actual birthday cake. Isn't that a great cake! She loved it and was so excited to take the toys off of it. When I ordered the cake they quoted me the price and it was what we normally pay for a cake, when I picked it up the next day I was told they had misquoted the price and that this was actually a $40 cake. Now I love my baby, but I would never spend that much on a cake. Thankfully they gave it to me for the previously quoted price.

Is it possible for a a baby to be OCD about getting dirty? Bella refused to touch the cake, the frosting on her hands is from taking the toys off of the other cake.
She was very upset when I tried to get her to touch the cake, she would have nothing to do with it.


I finally got her to eat some of her birthday cake by eating some myself and then feeding her from my fork. She would not eat if I fed her from her fork though. You can also see that she was having a lot of fun with the toys from the cake, she was covered in frosting, but still hadn't touched her own piece.
I love the messy first birthday photos.

All clean after a bath and playing with her blanket that her Grandma made her for her birthday.
I love how she wrapped herself in the blanket. She loves to cover herself up completely and hide.

The only downside to Arabella's birthday was that the poor little one was sick. She had a double ear infection and RSV this week. By yesterday for the most part she was feeling better, but still has a nasty cough. I have to say that she is the best behaved sick kid that we have ever had. We didn't even know that her ears were bothering her we just took her to the doctor for the cold that wouldn't end. What a good kid.

I can't believe how fast the last year has gone by and I am looking forward to many more years with this sweet kid!

25 Things About Me

Several friends have done this lately so I decided to give it a try.

Rules:

Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to the "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people, in the right hand corner of the app, then click publish.)

1. I love to read! I usually have at least two books going at a time.
2. I have an obsessive personality. When it comes to books I will read to the exclusion of everything else, the same goes for video games.
3. I love to play games: board games, video games, computer games...
4. I never thought that I would end up in Idaho, let alone that I would end up loving it here. I love that I feel safe, that the people are amazing and that I want to raise my family here.
5. I have a hard time making friends. I love having friends, but I don't always have the confidence to make a friend.
6. I love taking care of the finances of our family. I have always loved math and this gives me an outlet to do it in. Also I know that if I am taking care of the money and we don't have enough, then it is my fault; it also gives me confidence that we are going to be okay and that we will be able to take care of the needs of our family.
7. I wanted to be a pediatrician when I was growing up. I changed my mind later when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to meet all of my goals in life and be a doctor. I also knew that I wanted to help kids and only seeing them when they were sick was not what I wanted to do.
8. I always wanted to have kids. I wanted to have a house full of boys. I wanted trucks, cars, baseball games, and all of the fun of boys. In the end I am having to learn to love pink and princesses.
9. I hated country music until I moved to Idaho. It seemed to be the only good music on the radio when I crossed over the border and I have been enjoying it ever since.
10. I want to go back to school for the fun and the enriching classes, but I do not want to do the work. I am not ready for the intensive studying that would be involved to get my masters.
11. I did not get my license until I was 23. MacKayla was almost a year old before I ever had it.
12. I love to build things. I love to see how things work. I like to take things apart just to figure out how they work.
13. When I was 13 I was jealous that boys got to wear ties at church and pass the sacrament. I really wanted to be able to.
14. I waste too much time each day on the computer. I enjoy reading the news, checking blogs, and being on social networking sites way too much.
15. When I am home alone with the kids I don't like to leave the house, but on weekends when James is home I want nothing more than to get out and do things together.
16. I love to watch a good movie.
17. 17 is my lucky number.
18. I enjoy taking photos and would like to learn to be a better photographer.
19. I want to travel one day, I would love to see the world and experience new peoples and cultures.
20. I saved the more serious ones for last...I love my family. James is an amazing man! I love how hard he works for our family. I love that one of his goals growing up was to be able to support his family without his wife working so that she could raise their kids. I love that he is a big kid and collects toys. I love that he would do anything for me. He is one in a million.
21. I love my little girls. They are the cutest, funniest and best kids that I could have ever gotten.
22. I came from an interesting family. I married into an amazing family. I love James' family as my family, and they have always treated me as such.
23. I love the Gospel. I love knowing about the Plan of Salvation and that Heavenly Father has a plan for me and that I can return to live with him again someday.
24. I want to be a better person and I want to make it to the Celestial Kingdom with my family.
25. I love learning and I hope that I can continue to do so forever.

Finally Posting About Vacation

I had a few minutes and thought it was about time to post our Christmas and vacation photos. There's a lot here to go through....
Each time that we are with family the kids bond with different members of the family. This visit Annika bonded particularly well with her Grandpa and followed him everywhere. She had to be on him, touching him or talking to him all of the time. He was a good sport and I think even enjoyed it.
MacKayla smelling the flowers at the Temple.
Annika and the flowers at the Temple.
Mommy and Arabella on Christmas Eve.
MacKayla playing with some of her cousins on Christmas Eve.
A typical Annika look whenever we get a picture of her.
Opening their Christmas Eve present, they got princess jammies.
Bella opening her first ever present, she wasn't sure what to do but had fun being allowed to tear the paper.
Having gotten the jammies out, she found the candy canes on the tree and realized that they were much more fun.
Everyone in their new Christmas Eve jammies.
The Christmas tree after Santa arrived.
It wouldn't be Christmas if Kelsey didn't get the traditional bean dip.
"Are we having fun yet."
James and his new book, Mom and her new scrapbook.
The girls excitedly opening their presents.
"I love it!"
James loves his comic book.
Dad taking a break after playing Santa and giving out all of the presents.
Arabella slept through the Christmas festivities, so when she woke up it was her turn to have some fun.
"All for me, and I can rip it up, what fun this is going to be."
Arabella is having fun opening her presents and the girls are being their hammy selves.
Arabella playing with her Great-Grandma.
Great-Granddad playing hide-and-seek with Annika.
MacKayla cuddling with Great-Granddad.
One of the first exhibits at the San Diego Zoo. I used to go to the zoo every week when I was little and this scene is the one that is forever burned into my mind.
The girls on the hippo at Hippo Beach.
Family fun during lunch at the Zoo.
The most exciting part of the zoo for the girls, the elephants. They had never seen a real elephant and were so excited to see one.
Grandpa playing with his girls.
James cousin Jessica with her little guy Aiden. He is a little younger than Bella, but they had fun together. You could tell that he was an only child though, he didn't know what to make of Bella as she pushed past him to get the toys.
We had a picnic and played at the beach on New Year's Day. The water was cold, but the kids had a lot of fun splashing and playing in the water.
Bella putting her feet into the ocean for the first time.
MacKayla and Kelsey playing in the water together.
Annika running up to say hi to Dad.
This is in the hotel in St. George. We had been driving all day and were really ready for a break. I think Bella's look says it all, "we have been driving all day and you want me to smile, get real."
The girls are excited to be in the hotel. Shortly after this photo we went swimming in the heated indoor pool and we had a lot of fun.

Great deals

No pictures but I thought I would share the deal of the day...

16 boxes of Frosted Flakes for $0.25 each
12 boxes of Oatmeal for $0.67 each

Total: $13 Total savings: $121

Not too shabby

The Christmas Story

Here are the Clark and Wammack children preforming the Christmas Story. Make sure to listen to the end as we all sing "Silent Night." I think we all need some singing lessons.

Bad Mom Again

So at some point I will finish the blog about Christmas and our vacation, but for now here's something else.

On Saturday MacKayla was playing with some friends out outside when she comes in crying that she hurt her eye. She said that she got hurt with a stick (why were you playing with a stick...). When I looked at her eye and it seemed fine I told her to get over it and to stop crying. Well when we looked further we saw that there was a scratch on her cornea, which apparently can hurt very badly, oops, I am a mean mom.

Thankfully we have a wonderful friend who is an eye doctor and despite the fact that he was on his way home, and that he had a party at his house in an hour, he was still willing to look at her eye. She was fine, the scratch was not too bad and they tend to heal quickly. By today I can't see the scratch anymore and she says that she can see fine and that it doesn't hurt anymore.

I am usually the patient one when kids get hurt, but for whatever reason (it couldn't be genetics and the fact that James and I were klutzes) MacKayla is a klutz and gets hurt all of the time. I guess I need to be more patient and and caring when she gets hurt, sometimes it is real.