Polar Express Party

I was a bad parent last summer when I had told my 5-year old daughter that I would plan a birthday party for her and I never got it done. So when I came across the idea of a polar express party, I realized I had found a way to redeem myself!

I have to admit, I probably had just as much fun planning this party as Summer and her friends had at the party. First order of business was creating the train tickets to send in the invite. If you ask Sean, I probably spent way too much time trying to make them perfect, but I think it was worth it! I found a template online, printed them on card stock and then sprayed them with a gold metallic spray. 

The night of the party, the kids were welcomed with luminaries lining the sidewalk. We found them on sale at Party City and I couldn't resist. They probably would've looked better if I had remembered to turn the front porch light off :)

And fun snowflake decorations all over!

We ate pizza once everyone had arrived. Then we had craft time and made snowflake ornaments. Once finishing those up, we gathered everyone in the living room to start watching "The Polar Express" movie.

Summer with her friends (minus a couple that couldn't make it)

While they started viewing that, I was busy in the kitchen getting the hot chocolate bar ready. 

All the goodies on the bar! Hot chocolate, marshmallows,
candy canes, M&Ms, cookie sticks and more!

Cupcakes

Christmas cookies

Popcorn is always a must with movies.

Peppermint Oreo Pops (I found these on Pinterest and couldn't
resist making them. They were super quick and easy to make.
You can find directions here.)

Once the kids had their fill from the bar, we went back to finish the rest of the movie. While on our "train ride", I punched their initials in their golden train tickets. When we got to the part where Santa gave the boy a bell for his gift, I handed bells out to the kids so they could have their own. They loved it!

Our evening was filled with crazy excitement! I only wish I had room in my house to have her whole class here. Maybe I'll have to figure something out for next year :)

Pinterest Party

We all know how consuming Pinterest can be, right? I tend to pin a ton of things and then never get to creating, baking or cooking most of the things I'd like to. Well, a friend of mine planned a Pinterest party so some of us ladies could have a night out and be able to create a craft together. It was so much fun. She found the craft and the rest of us were to bring an appetizer or dessert that we found on Pinterest to share.

Below is the counter full of goodies we shared!

 I brought my homemade caramels in this cute 31 carry-all caddy I have.

Since my caramels weren't a "pinterest" item, I found a really cute and easy cheese tray to put together. You buy multiple cheese flavors and just do rows of cheese, thyme sprigs and grape tomatoes. I used a tree tray for the form, but it can be done on a cutting board as well.

I missed getting a picture of the beverage bar, but Kris had it stocked with wine, beer and an amaretto slush she made :) You're jealous, aren't you?!

And to prove to everyone that the night wasn't just full of food and drinks, I've attached a picture of us with our final products: Santa Tulle Wreaths!

Thanks to Kris for organizing and hosting this for us! It was such a great night!

Chicago Weekend

The end of July we had decided to take an impromptu trip to Chicago. It'd been on our list to take the kids there to do a few things for quite awhile and since we didn't have any athletic events going on, this was the perfect time.

Our weekend started with a visit from our good friends from Pella, the Schmitz family! Whenever we head back to Pella we try to see them so it was really great to have them stop by our place before starting their vacation. We were able to spend Friday afternoon/evening with them as we grilled out and let the kids play in the backyard. We also watched some of the opening of the Olympics.

All of our kids together before the Schmitz family headed to the Abraham
Lincoln Museum on Saturday morning.

After they took off, we packed our things and headed to Chicago. First stop: American Girl store. Summer had some birthday money that she wanted to spend there. While we spent time in the store, the boys headed to the Lego store that was next door. It worked out great.

Summer with her daddy :) Love!

Once we finished there, Sean talked us into walking over to Garrett's Popcorn to grab some goodies there and then we walked back to the van. It was time to make our way to Schaumburg, IL where Legoland awaited us. Everyone had been telling us it was the place to go if our kids enjoyed legos and I think it's safe to say that they really enjoyed it.

A few pics from our trip (click on it to enlarge & see the pics in the collage better)

We were all pretty tired after the day we had so we headed to the hotel to relax and watch some Olympics! The next morning we headed back to Chicago for a Cubs game. It was a first for all the kids and all I could do was pray that the little ones made it through :)

We ended up having a great time. We were playing the Cardinals and the game had gone into the 10th inning. Unfortunately, I missed the home run that hit in the game winning run because I was taking the two little ones to the bathroom :( Oh well. I guess that's life with kids, right?

As soon as the game finished, we headed down to the field so the kids could run the bases. Even though it was a pain to get down there and it was incredibly crowded, the kids had a blast getting to run on the Cubs field! It was a fun getaway and a time we'll always remember. As Mason would say, "Go Hubs!"

Fourth of July

We started our 4th of July bright and early so we could go watch Sean run in the Park to Park 5-mile race. We dropped him off at Miller Park and then drove over to the Cornbelters ball park to wait and cheer for him as he came through the finish line.

Kids decided to race each other in the outfield while we waited for Sean to finish his race.

Later that day we had our friends, the Sanders, come over for a barbecue and a little fun before it was time to check out the fireworks. The Clark kids made 4th of July fruit kabobs before they came over.

All the kids had so much fun playing outside on the slip 'n' slide!

While the kids were enjoying themselves with water activities, Matt, Sean and Mason started a game of bocce ball (as Matt would say, another "old man" activity). 

Amanda and I finishing up a beer on the front porch while Matt had gone home to make popcorn for the fireworks. And no, we didn't plan our outfits :)

We had such a great time with our friends! I'm not sure why we don't plan more get togethers like this. Maybe life wouldn't seem so stressful at times. Definitely will make more of an effort in the future!

Early Birthday Present

Summer has been very determined to ride her bike without training wheels and she has made it happen. She's doing better with using her brakes instead of using the grass to slow down, but we're still working on it.

We told her that we'd get her a new bike for her birthday once she learned to ride it without the training wheels since she was using Noah's old "boy" one that was passed down from my nephew and it was also getting a little small for her. She just happened to be with me when I had stopped at Often Running the other day and there it was. A used Trek bike in great condition staring us in the face! How could I say no?!

So she got her birthday gift a little early (birthday is July 25). There she is above and is super excited to be on her new "girly" bike! 

And another of her riding her new bike. It's all she wants to do anymore when we're at home. She just can't get enough of it. 

Below is a short video of her riding her old bike and all the siblings watching her accomplishment.

I had another video of her on her new bike, but I'm having issues uploading at the present time. Oh well. Maybe I'll get it figured out later. Until then, way to go Summer!!!

Dam to Dam 20K

I have to say, I was dreading this race because I knew I didn't get the training in that I should've before hand. I signed up for the Dam to Dam back in April because my sister and I decided to do it together. My training was almost non existent during the junior high track season, but I was able to pick it up enough afterwards to help myself out.

Sean, the kids and I drove to Des Moines Friday afternoon/evening and met up with my sister at the hotel. We ate a little something there and then tried hitting the hay as Jessica and I had to get up around 4:40 to get ready and get to one of the bus pickup locations. 

This is our view as we waited in line to get on a bus to take us out to Saylorville Dam. So many people all waiting to go run 12.4 miles from the dam to downtown Des Moines. 

Here we are out at the dam. Everyone was walking to the sign that had their estimated pace on it to help from faster runners being stuck behind us slower runners :) Some crazy runners were warming up on the huge hill to the right of us, right Jess? It was a beautiful morning to be out with 8,000 other runners! I should've gotten some more pictures with my phone but I was too busy soaking up the experience and visiting with Jess before the race. 

If you like to see maps and race routes, here's a link to the course map. I think it's fun to see it on paper. 

The only thing we didn't enjoy about this huge race was getting stuck in the crowd at the beginning. Our first mile was about 20 seconds or more slower than we wanted it to be. After a couple miles, we were able to weave much easier, though. The miles seemed to go quickly with all the distractions of other runners, spectators and music playing along the way. Oh, and did I mention all the guys running over to the tree lines to relieve themselves?! Hilarious!

We decided to pick up the pace for the last couple miles or so because after seeing where we were for time, I realized it was possible to hit two hours for overall time. It was tough, hurt a bit and the finish didn't come quite quick enough, but when it was all done and over with, I hit the finish line at 1:58:11! That gave me a 9:31/mile average pace. Pretty happy, but now I want to run something similar and try to run it faster :)

Me and my kiddos after the race.

My sister, Jessica, only finished 18 seconds behind me and did awesome for her first 20K as well!

And here we are with our finisher medals around our neck! It was such a great experience that I think we may make this a tradition every year if it works out. Now we just need to recruit more of our family members to join us!

Last Day of School 2012

Madison and Noah were pretty willing to take a picture for me yesterday and I'm sure it may have had something to do with the fact that it was their last day of school before summer break. And now I have a 6th grader, 3rd grader and incoming Kindergartner next school year!

It was a great day for the last day of school as well. As always, I tend to wait until the very last moment to get teacher gifts done. Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to skim through friends' teacher gift ideas they had pinned and get some great ideas to steal. Then I had the kids choose what they wanted to do for them and thankfully they chose the same thing :)

The above gift went to their main teachers. A 6-pack of A&W Root Beer, a bag of chocolates held in the top center and create the tag to tie on. Madison also had me make this popcorn stuff I made for them at Valentine's Day because she said her teachers loved it.

I loved the Starburst idea. All I had to buy was those awesome hard plastic cups w/a straw in them (holds cold or hot liquids) and fill it with Starbursts. Then make the tag and tie around the cup. We gave this to the school administrative assistant and teacher assistant for Noah's class. Isn't that cute!

I hope all the teachers/helpers enjoyed their gifts!

According to tradition, we went out for ice-cream. Sean met us at Dairy Queen to have lunch and/or ice-cream. What a great way to end the school year before break!

Mason's 3rd Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday to Mason!!! Yesterday, anyway. Even though the day wasn't completely focused on Mason, we had lots of fun!

We started by going to Anderson Park to set up for Park Day for Noah's second grade class. We were there for about 2 1/2 hours and then ran a few errands. After a couple hours at home, we headed back to the school to pick up kids and we stuck around for Noah's last cub scout meeting. They played kickball and I took the smaller ones to play at the school park for about an hour. We'll just say he was not deprived of park time today :)

Once we finished there, we met Sean at Toys R Us and had Mason look for a birthday gift. A new Fisher Price kids basketball hoop came home with us along with a basketball "Mason" size!

Since I didn't get around to making a cake, we picked one up from the store and wrote on it with our own icing gels. I was bummed that I didn't get a Cars cake done for him, but as soon as I came home with the cake, he was so excited.

A couple cute things from Mason today:

1. Every time I would say happy birthday to Mason, he would respond back to me or any of us with "Happy birthday." So cute!

2. When asking Mason how old he is now, he would say one. I try to tell him that he's three. He says back as he counts on his fingers, "I'm one - two - three - one."

Mason loves the frosting the most!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Mason! We'll celebrate more with you this weekend!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day turned out to be a pretty good day! Before leaving for church, the kids had a book sitting out that they had made me for Mother's Day. Very sweet! We headed to mass and Sean was lector for the 9 a.m. service. We didn't leave quick enough afterwards so the kids snuck down to coffee and donuts before we headed out to brunch.

Me and my kiddos!

As soon as we got back, I drove down to Tipton Park so I could take the trails for a long run. It felt great! We told the kids if it was nice, we'd head to the track so Madison could practice some pole vault drills and we could do some mini races. Noah's been wanting to take me on in the 100 meter dash for awhile so today was the day. My legs were sure feeling it half way through after running 8.74 miles earlier. No worries, I still took him down :)

The younger three got to jump around on the pole vault pit a little, play in the sand by the long jump and compete in short races on the track. Not really sure what happened to my oldest daughter, Madison, but she wanted (that's right, you heard me - she WANTED) to run an 800. If you don't know Madison, she loves high jump and wants to be like her dad and do the pole vault, but she's not a fan of running.

Madison hasn't wanted to run much more than a 100 at track meets and now she wants to do an 800 and a 400 at the 5th grade meet this week. She is definitely not the quickest in the bunch, but I'm so proud to see her actually starting to want to do more running on her own and get a little excited about it.

Anyway, so off she went running an 800 on her own and had me rattle off splits to her. Very strange! Once she finished, she decided she wanted to race Sean in a 100 before we left. So off they went to race and Noah joined the fun as well. What an awesome afternoon!

To end off the day, we ate dinner and the kids showed me the cake they made me. Well, Madison made the cake and the rest of the kids helped her decorate it. They are amazing kids!

Noah's First Communion

What an amazing, special day! Noah made his First Communion last weekend and we had such a wonderful time with family. Since mass was on a Sunday afternoon and most of my family is over six hours away, we decided to celebrate on the Saturday night before. It was great because all of my family was able to make it, except one sister who couldn't get out of work (and not for lack of not wanting to).

It was a huge blessing that my mom had taken the train into Galesburg on Wednesday for us to pick her up. Between the busyness of track and getting sick, I hadn't gotten much, if anything, done with the house. She was my savior and did so much to help me have things ready for when the rest of the family arrived!

The kids had a blast playing with their cousins all Saturday afternoon/evening. Then on Sunday morning we were able to see off the two families that weren't able to stay. Most of the morning we were able to relax and then I took Noah in early to church and the rest of them came to meet us a little later. 

Grabbed a quick shot before going into the parish hall.

Receiving his First Holy Communion. Almost made me cry!

Noah with Monsignor Powell after mass.

Noah & Grandma Helen

Noah & his Godmother, Jackie

And to finish things off, Noah with me and Sean!

Even though I was sick when everyone came, I can't even express how great a weekend it was. It's so wonderful having so much support and love from my family and having them here to celebrate such a beautiful, important event in our child's life! Thanks and we love all of you so much!!!

Easter 2012

We had a pretty wonderful Easter day in the Clark household! We went to 9 a.m. mass and then Sean went home with the three younger ones to start Easter lunch while Madison and I stayed for our adoration time in the adoration chapel.

Family photo in the front of church.

Pics of the kids. . .

at church and it seems that Summer is almost

strangling Mason with her hug

in front of the house

The kids played really well together most of the day. We even did a mini Easter egg hunt in our backyard!  Most of the rest of the day was spent relaxing :)

What a beautiful day it was! And the best part was celebrating Jesus' resurrection!

Happy Easter (even if it is a little late)!