Wall-E and Wow What a Weekend

We have had a very busy weekend. Friday afternoon my mom watched Ty so Carl and I could take Gabe to the new Dinsey-Pixar movie Wall-E. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. We loved it and Gabe loved it too, I don't think he understood everything that was going on but he loved the robots and the spaceships and even laughed a few times, of course anytime he gets to eat pop and popcorn he is having a good time. After the movie we took him to the new Japanese steak house here in town. We had to wait quite a while for our chef to come out and cook our food but once he did it was worth the wait. Gabe was a little scared of the big fire that starts when he first starts cooking but he loved watching everything else. I didn't take my camera so I don't have any pictures but his expressions when he was twirling around the cooking utensils and throwing eggs into his chef's hat were priceless. Gabe even wanted to take a turn trying to catch a piece of egg in his mouth, the chef asked if he wanted to try and he said yes, Gabe sat there open mouthed and the egg hit him right in the forehead. Everyone including Gabe thought it was hilarious. On Saturday we headed up to Burt/Algona for my home church's 125th birthday celebration. They honored the 50+ year members of the church and my grandparents were recognized. On Sunday we went to the church service and lunch afterwards. It got to be a lot of sitting for two little boys so they were very excited to go play at the park after the lunch on Sunday. Gabe was disappointed he didn't get to go on a tractor ride this time but hopefully the next time we make it up. I didn't take any pictures of our weekend until our ride home from Algona Sunday afternoon. I thought my boys would be dead tired but they were sitting in the back making each other laugh and cry and just being all around goofy. Gabe also is trying to perfect his photography skills so I posted a few of his masterpieces. Finally I started a DVD and they both fell asleep, Gabe's position doesn't look very comfortable. When we got home Gabe continued to sleep and Ty decided to help me with the laundry. It was good to be home after a whirlwind weekend. Carl is taking Thursday-Monday off from work and we will hopefully get our wall done finally! I am so excited at the prospect of a completed wall. I will post pictures when it is done!

Happy Birthday Gabe!

We have a 3 year old at our house! It was a great weekend with lots of fun, family and friends and oh yeah food. Gabe woke up on Saturday morning and came into our bedroom and the first thing he said was "It's my party today!" He was so excited. The day started out rather interesting as Daddy and Gabe went on a daddy date down to Ankeny where they were going to enjoy pancakes at IHOP and then go watch cars in the theater room at the home show house. Well about half way down Carl's car sputtered and wasn't quite running right so they took it straight to Big O to get in looked at, while they were looking at they did get to go have pancakes at IHOP but the car was going to take awhile so they got a ride to the home show house from Josh and just hung out until they heard back about the car. It apparently just sputtered because it was so low on gas before Carl filled it up that it had some air or something in the gas line no big deal however the back brakes were completely gone and were rubbing metal on metal and they were leaking fluid so new brakes for the Sunfire. In the meantime Carl's parents were on their way down to look at the home show house so Carl and Gabe ended up just riding back to Ames with them since he needed to get home to start smoking the meat for the party. Saturday was a gorgeous day until right at 5:00 when the started party started and then of course it dumps rain, wouldn't have been such a big deal if the majority of our tables wouldn't have been outside. It didn't last too long though and Gabe had a blast playing with his friends and family who made it to the party. He loved his tractor cake and all his presents and did a pretty good job of blowing out the candles. It was a great day! He was a bit confused about his birthday being on a different say then his party though. Yesterday when he woke up we told him happy birthday and for a long time he insisted that it was not his birthday but I think we finally convinced him otherwise. We had birthday pancakes for breakfast in the morning and then we got to go swimming in the afternoon. Gabe is little fish. He loves the water and is not afraid at all! I think I need to sign him up for swimming lessons. Ty liked the water too and kept forgetting that it was a little too deep to crawl around in like he does in our bathtub. He got more then one mouthful of water I think. In the evening we met my parents at Hickory Park and Gabe got his birthday sundae. He was a little apprehensive until they started singing to him and then he got a huge grin on his face. We also got his picture in our chair. I leave with a few progression pictures of our big 3 year old!





















Gabriel Quintin Clark 6-23-05










Gabe at 1 month 7-23-05










6-23-06










6-23-07









6-23-08

Big Weekend

We have a big weekend coming up. Mr. Gabe turns 3 on Monday but his party is this coming Saturday. We are smoking meat with Carl's new Father's Day present and Aunt Andrea is making a tractor cake. Gabe is pretty excited, I will post pictures when I get a chance probably not until after his "real" birthday on Monday. On a different note Ty LOVES to climb our stairs and look out our big window now. I got a cute picture of the boys doing their neighborhood watch duty:)

Bi-Plane Pictures

As promised pictures from the airport.


and two little boys being Grandpa's helpers!

Garden, 10 months, and Airplanes

What a busy weekend around here! Friday was a gorgeous day so my mom and I took the boys to Reiman Gardens in the late morning. Gabe loved it! He loved everything, the butterflies, the spitting frogs, the chimes he could jump on and make noise but mostly the trains in the children's garden. I think he probably would have stood there and watched them all day if we would have let him. It took some coaxing to get him to move onto the next thing. Friday evening my parents took the boys and Carl and I worked the homeshow house again. I enjoyed working Friday evening as the crowd was not quite so big and I never felt the overwhelmed feeling of all the people in the house at once. It was nice and it was a beautiful night. Saturday Ty turned 10 months old! We once again struggled to get a good picture in the chair as Ty wants to be on the go constantly, and Gabe wanted in on the action as well so I think we got a couple good ones. we were able to take my parents down to the homeshow on Saturday also, while Allison(thank you so much we really really really appreciate it!) watched our boys. It was fun to show them J-Corps house and all the others. Saturday night we had nursery at church so we played with Ty and all his little girlfriends(he was the only boy the majority of the time) Sunday we celebrated Father's Day with my parents and Pete who instead of trying to maneuver him way from Cedar Rapids Airport(he was in CA all week on business) decided to come to Ames so he could do some laundry since North Liberty(just north of Iowa City) is supposed to be conserving water. After lunch we went to the Ames Airport and saw the old Barnstormer bi-level airplanes, I didn't have my camera so I took pictures with my mom's camera and she is supposed to be emailing me the pictures, I will post them when I get them. Gabe loved the airplanes and kept asking if he could go up in the sky in them. You could ride for 50 dollars per person per ride but I have the feeling Gabe may have been too small and Carl would have gladly gone with him but that would have been 100 dollars for a ride which is not in the budget at the moment. It was fun to get to celebrate Ty's first fathers day with Carl. We got him a smoker attachment for his grill so he can be the smoked meat king now! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful Daddy and husband! Thanks so much for everything you do for us Carl, We love you so much!

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today didn't start out all that great with all the thunderstorms we got late last night but it ended up being a pretty nice, although very wet, day. The boys and I were getting rather stir crazy(maybe that's why Ty decided to climb in the cabinet) so we decided to brave the muddy streets and sidewalks and take a walk. I asked Gabe where he wanted to walk to and he wanted to go see Jack Trice so we headed to the stadium( I love, love, love our neighborhood! It was such a pretty walk!) We took the double stroller but Gabe wanted to walk and since I wanted him to exert some energy I let him, he did a great job and walked the whole way to the stadium. When we got there he literally wanted to go see Jack Trice(there is a statue by the entrance) so we went to see good ole Jack and then we noticed they were working on the stadium today so we walked around to the side where we saw a back hoe, a skid loader and an excavator. We stood and watched them work for awhile and Gabe was in heaven, he kept a running commentary on all the action going on. Gabe walked the whole way to the other side of the stadium and then he decided I could push him for awhile. So we walked through the parking lot and down by Rieman Gardens and then back onto the sidewalk on the other side of the stadium, where he wanted to run up the hill so then he walked again until we hit the little park right by our street that has swings. Surprisingly it wasn't too wet so we went to swing for awhile. Gabe loved it! He wanted to push him higher and higher and even has learned how to pump his legs back and forth. Ty on the other hand was not so crazy about our swinging adventure. He never really cried but he didn't look too happy about it. Gabe liked to try and push Ty on the swings but he quickly stopped doing that when he realized he wasn't swinging too. Finally I convinced Gabe it was time to go home and have a Popsicle before nap. I don't think he really even knew what a Popsicle was but he happily agreed anyway. Now my very worn out boy is napping, hopefully we walked some of his energy off, it's been hard to get out the last few days with all the rain and mud. This weekend we have the home show going on again as well as working nursery at church and Father's Day(although Carl is working the homeshow the majority of the day) Should be a busy weekend. I leave you with a few video's of our adventures at the swings!(never mind blogger is not cooperating with me, I'll try to get them on later)

Bright Sunshiny Day

Finally! No rain today! We were outside quite a bit this evening enjoying the nice weather. Ty loves to crawl around in the grass and amazes me at how quickly he goes. He also surprised me with his climbing skills today and climbed up our little slide in the backyard. Speaking of climbing Gabe and Ty both like to climb on our steps or banister in Gabe's case. I often have to remind him that it is not safe to climb on the banister but the kid loves it for some reason. Here are some pictures from our lovely evening in the warm sunshine!

and Gabe wanted to try out his photography skills while we were outside as well, he was supposed to be taking a picture of Carl and me but as you can see he apparantly has bad aim:)