One year down....

Here is the latest on the Clark family:

William seems to have changed the most the last four months. He turned three the end of March and got the movie “Cars” and a toy version of Lightning McQueen, among other things. His parents have discovered that threatening the removal of Lightning McQueen has proven a great motivator for him. His biggest news is that he is now potty trained again after an eight-month respite. He also sleeps in a “big bed” (twin bed) and recently learned how to ride a two-wheeler bike (with training wheels) quite well. He has also helped plant pumpkin seeds and flowers and enjoys watching them grow. The letters of the alphabet have been another interest of his lately. For a while he went around saying the sounds words begin with (example: “D-d-dirt. Starts with the letter D.”) He now correctly identifies all lower-case letters (he’s known upper-case letters for a long time). William loved our recent trip to the zoo. He was happy to accompany Mom and Dad to the temple for his first time and enjoyed walking around the grounds. William keeps us laughing with some of the things he says and does. He remains quite active, loving to run all over. One day he said, “I’m the faster boy in the whole wide world.” When he had a bad cold and sneezed, he said, “I bless you on the table,” having forgotten the word for “sneeze”. When the financial advisor (described to William as the “money man”) came to our house, William went and got the loose change on David’s desk and gave it to him. While snapping together the button of his shorts after using the bathroom, he matter-of-factly said, “I have a lot of things to do, Mommy.” When we were discussing dinosaurs at the dinner table, he said, “Before I was a little boy, I woosta [used to] be a dinosaur, and I ate lots of little kids.” While playing with his stuffed mom and baby owls with Emily, he said, “The baby owl has to go to the doctor.” When Emily asked why, William said: “He can’t ‘hoo’ very well.” He is very imaginative.



Neil has gotten a little bigger the last four months. He is very good-natured and easy-going. He smiles often, and seems content to watch all of the entertainment provided by William. He laughs, grasps things, and loves to hold onto his toes.



Emily has enjoyed trying out our new wheat grinder and making bread a few times. She has discovered a new “pastime” the last several months: exterminating meal (pantry) moths. They had infested a lot of our pantry through a cereal box from the store, but she purchased some traps online, and also nightly kills any stray moths, and she has nearly obliterated them. Emily experimented with online coupons recently. She recently spent $70, and saved $170, which she felt was pretty good for a beginner. Emily has worked in the yard a lot this spring, and also hosted a girls’ night for some friends at our home.



David is nearing the end of his intern year of residency. Yea!! The last few months he has rotated with the Neurosurgical ICU, Hematology/Oncology, Nephrology, and Neurology consults. We went to Goodwill last week to check it out, and discovered a Hot Wheels motorized racetrack for a mere $5. We figured it would not work like it originally did, but it turned out to be fully functional and a big hit. It’s debatable if William or David has more fun with this!



In March we finally tiled our dining room. As a family we enjoyed a road trip in April to see family and friends in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. It was fun to see all of David’s siblings and his Grandpa Clark while in Fort Worth. While in Kansas City with Emily’s parents, we enjoyed going to the “farm park” petting zoo, and Fritz’s train restaurant, where a miniature train delivers the food to your table. In June, Emily’s parents came to visit us in Cincinnati for a little more than a day. We enjoyed seeing the dinosaur exhibit at the Museum Center, as well as the Children’s Museum. It was also fun to play a few games of Rook, and to have Grandpa Miller help William make progress on learning to ride his bike. It was great to have them here, and we hope they’ll stay longer next time!