Happy Halloween

We have had...

class parties, 

school parties, 

dance parties,

friends parties 

 AND trick or treating. 

The costumes are dirty, the kids are high on sugar, and I am exhausted! 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Fall

Aiden started preschool this year.
It makes me so sad to see my "baby" in school but he is doing great.
Ellie, on the other hand, has entered the "terrible twos"!
If she wakes up on the wrong side of the crib....WATCH OUT.
We are knee deep in potty training with her.
She doesn't quite understand how to "poopy on the potty" yet.

Halloween brings a firefighter and a Supergirl princess from our family this year.

A Busy Spring

There has been a lot going on in the Clarke house this Spring.
We have pictures to prove it...


Ellie in her Easter dress, searching for eggs at Mimi's!

The Mini-Marathon crew! Matt finished his first mini in 1:52!

Ellie is trying out Aiden's new grill. Thanks Solomon's!

All the kids at Aiden's 3rd Birthday Party!

Ellie at the zoo today!

Looking forward to a great Memorial Day Weekend with The Waelty's!!

First day of Soccer

Aiden started soccer today. It was actually everything BUT soccer. They drove a boat, played with a parachute, threw the ball and did a lot of running. Whatever it was, it was cute, they had fun and were definitely worn out when we got home! Especially Ellie.

More pics from Florida

Here are some pics from our most recent trip to Florida. We spent our time in the pool or at the beach.

Long overdue update

This is very long overdue. We tackled potty training and won! Aiden is an A Plus at using the big boy potty. I think I annoy him by asking him too often if he has to go but he has had very few accidents, usually when he is in timeout or upset about something.

We went to Florida for Christmas break. This was a rough trip. I went down early with the kids. Matt stayed home to finish up a few things only to come down with appendicitis. He ended up joining us in Florida but was not able to enjoy the freezing cold weather as he was pretty much recovering on the couch the whole trip. Thank God we survived that one. The highlight of our trip though was seeing our cousin, Charlie. He was scared of us at first but then he thought we were pretty funny. We miss you, Charlie!

Ellie is all over the place these days. She is keeping up with her brother and has learned to fight back when necessary (or when not necessary). She is talking like crazy and although we don't understand everything she says, she understands everything we say!

We just got back from a quick getaway back down to Florida. This trip was much more exciting. The weather was great and we could not keep the kids away from the pool. Aiden is swimming by himself and Ellie has no fear when it comes to jumping in the pool. We had a blast! Aiden starts soccer this weekend with his "friends". This should be interesting...

Potty Training

After pushing this off for quite awhile, I decided to tackle potty training with Aiden...on Thanksgiving weekend. I feel like I was talked into it by: (1) Erica, who believed I was waiting too long and he would be too old and "untrainable" if I waited any longer and (2) my mom, who was conveniently going to be out of town that weekend. The first 2 days were the worst I have ever been through as a parent. Saying I hated it is an understatement, it was pure hell. But, I realized it was because I made it that way. I was a freak of nature about the possibility of my kid peeing his pants??!! Who cares, clean it up and move on! Since the day we stopped using diapers, the poor guy has had only 3 accidents. He loves to pee and poop in the potty! That's not to say that he isn't addicted to Dora, Diego and/or a "special surprise" each time he goes to the potty!