The Clark Family - This is Us

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Molly is Citizen of the Month

Molly was chosen by her teacher, Mrs. Appel, as Citizen of the Month for first grade. Very proud of my girl!

Molly with the other first grade citizens in front of the student body

A more posed group photo

Molly at home with her certificate!

The rest of Christmas morning

Now the frenzy of unwrapping the presents....

The kids got Nerf Lazer (yes with a 'z') Tag from Santa and let me tell you what a huge hit that has been in our household. No bullets to pick up, no eyes getting shot out. Dave and I have played this with them too. I am such a lousy shot, I always die first!!!

The kids also got a new sled from Santa, an inflatable tube. Since we don't seem to be having winter this year, it still sits in the package.

Kate and Rob got Molly a new leotard (competitive style) and a new pair of shorts that have 'S' for Supergirl. She *loved* her new clothes.....

.....as you can tell in this picture. I'm not sure who seems happier!

Granddad with his new digital picture frame - he had it up and running later that day!

Kate and Rob with their personalized calendar. Those are just about the best gift ever!! (I got one too!)

Let's Go Mets!!!! In the man cave for sure!!!

Opening their personalized, Mommy-made tent kit. It has been used many times in the basement already!

Nothing but pure Lego joy!

And Lego love for this guy too!!

Her new dress from Granddad, which she wore later that day.

What the living room looked like at the height of crazy....

A panoramic picture. This one turned out pretty well. (Did I mention I got a new camera for Christmas? Most of the pictures are taken on the new camera, only the early stocking ones are with the old one. Thanks Dave, it is a fun new toy!)

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Christmas Day!!!

Christmas Day had finally arrived!!! We were so lucky to have Dave's Dad in town, as well as our friends Kate and Rob. The tree looked a bit obscene, given how much there was under, around and on it. But it was a beautiful tree and scene before the paper shredding began!

The rule is not the wake any adult before 7 am on Christmas. This year, the kids all slept until 7:30! Stockings are the first order of business while coffee gets made, adults put in their contact lenses, and sticky buns are starting to rise. I mean, that is a lot of stockings and stuff!!!

Our kids have these crazy long stockings, handmade by a family friend. They must be at least 2 1/2 feet long, so they can hold A LOT!!!

Potter with some sugary nasty treat that only kids under the age of 12 can stomach....

Loading up on goodies!!!

Santa's crumbs....thankfully Caleb remembered to leave snacks out, the rest of us forgot!! If you can't read it very well, Santa really enjoyed the biscotti Caleb left out for him.

Rob is now an official Storm Trooper. His colleagues should beware!!! He is not the lawyer you need to see.

Kate starts in and gets some cool clips!!!

Rob, now with a full Storm Trooper of coffee!!

Caleb and Molly have school Christmas parties!!!

First off, Caleb and his preschool sing-a-long. Those of you who know Caleb well, know that he is funny, likes to joke and be the center of attention - at home. At school, that is usually the opposite. So when I jokingly told him to go up front and sing all the songs with his teacher, I didn't think he would actually do it and he surprised the socks off me!! And, he did all the sign language for the songs that had that as part of it too!!! Who is this kid?????

Caleb with Mrs. Hansen and his buddies, ready to put on the show!

In between songs, he had to check out the cookies.....

Caleb doing the sign language for one of the songs. Holy cow!

Molly's class party was so much fun. The kids had all brought in a wrapped present earlier in the week, girls brought one for a girl, boys brought one for a boy, then they picked numbers and got a present to unwrap. It sure got them in good warm up mode for Christmas Day, paper was FLYING around the classroom. Screams, shreiks 'I love this'!!! And then we loaded them up with hot cocoa and cookies with frosting and sent them home for the holiday break :)

Anxiously awaiting their number to be called.....

Right as the tearing of paper began....you can see Mrs. Appel is blurry, she is just trying to get out of the way!!

Potter's 6th grade orchestra concert

Potter's first orchestra performance was just totally amazing. We were prepared to hear a lot of screeching and tortured cats, that type of thing, but we were so surprised!! These kids, who have only been playing together for about 4 months, gave one of the best student performances that we have heard. The only bad thing about this concert was that, since it was in the gym, we weren't close to the orchestra (band and chorus were also set up in the gym too) and the pictures we have are disappointing. In the first picture, Potter is behind the girl in the front row, you can see his bow coming out behind her head. The second photo is a general shot of the entire orchestra. But we heard more than enough to make up for what we could not see!!

Post-birthday, pre-Christmas

After Molly's party, later that night, we celebrated an early Christmas with Wendy, Cameron, Lindsey and Ari (who was in town again on her way home for the holidays). Was a very nice night and everyone got cool gifts!!

Cameron and Dave are opening one of his presents. He seems quite happy with just the wrapping paper. Don't you wish that would last for many more years than it does?

Lindsey opened her Vera Bradley bag and almost had a heart attack right there in the basement!

Arimollyotti was speechless (amazing, right?) when she opened up her cool new 45 record bookends.

Molly turns 7!!

Molly has turned 7!! Since her birthday fell during the week, we had a weekend party for her, complete with a basement movie theater!! The kids all piled downstairs with their popcorn containers, found a good spot and watched Cars 2!! There was no cake, Molly instead requested that everyone make their own ice cream sundaes, and that was a huge hit, and super easy for me!

Many kids piled onto one sofa, just glued to the movie