GARDEN SALSA!

We didn't know if we were going to get very many tomatoes this year because we planted a little late but suddenly we had more than enough. The only plans we have with planting tomatoes is to make our yummy salsa. We have made 6 batches of our homemade salsa. It is delicious!

HERE'S TO YOU, MEREDITH!!

So, when I get online to update my blog, I end up whithering away my little window of time looking at my hotmail or facebook, therefore, my blog ends up neglected. My lovely friend, Meredith, has been so kind as to point out that it needs...an update!

:)
Thanks and I hope this makes up for my lameness!

Jake just started smiling lately

Ava tried to get herself a bowl of Golden Grahams, can you say, 'greedy'?




**(Andy don't look)**


I got in the van to do a little tidying and found Ava's melted strawberry milkshake, I was wondering where it had disappeared to.


Jake was crying so I asked Addie to bring him to me, so she brings me him, Ava, and his bassinet.
Jacob's cute little jacket my friend gave him



I discovered that Ava made herself her first PB&J. She must have got tired of waiting for her breakfast.

Isaac fell off of his bike and got a huge fat lip (he is wearing his mouthgaurd in this picture)

Ava came out of my room all decked out in my makeup, fancy girl!

PEACE!

JAKE'S NEW WORLD

Here are some of the happenings at our place since Jacob was born. Some other events include going to the drive-in to see Aliens in the Attic, meeting G'ma & G'pa Christian, the Peters, the Wests, & the Rennakers. Life doesn't slow down at our house, infact we are heading out for Nevada tomarrow. We'll keep you posted!

meeting Aunt Lexi

meeting Grandpa Clark

Sunday dinners at Grandma & Grandpa Zollingers

going on a family hike

the whole family on our first hike with Jake

added to the family tree the kids made

learning to tolerate baths

admired by the neighbor kids

playing the Wii with dad

Christian loves to carry him around the house

meeting Great Grandma and Grandpa Feigleson

taking naps with dad

getting to be held for about 30 seconds before getting passed to the next kid

Jake's second hike up to the wind caves

WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY, JACOB!

HOSPITAL PICTURESone last pregnancy picturein labor, i wanted to die! I couldn't even crack a smile! Ahhh, he is here!

Andy holding himmy sister Kristi, came up to spend time with us

At last, our baby is here! On July 7th, around 6:30 pm, Jacob Zera Clark, was born. He was 9 lbs. 4 oz. and 21 in. long. I was scheduled to be induced on the 8th but went into labor the day before. This made it a little complicated to try to find people to watch the kids at the last minute but wonderful friends stepped right in and helped us out. Mary took me in to get checked around 9:00 am and sure enough I was in labor and making progress. Dr Z. (aka: Jeff) said to head up to the hospital around noon and get checked in. So Andy came home from work and we got the kids off to where they needed to be and headed up to the hospital. Well apparently July has been a very busy month for them with babies being born. It was similar to when you go to Dairy Queen and tell them what you want and they give you a number and then, "NEXT". Anyway, I eventually got to where I needed to be and was moving right along. I called my sister Kristi, who was planning on coming up the next day, and she quickly rearranged her schedule and came up here to be with us. She was a huge help and we are so thankful to her for coming here! Meanwhile, I decided to try going natural, mostly out of curiosity (at this point I wish I had known how big he was going to be!) It wasn't too unbearable until the point of no return and then I realized why someone created the ever so dreamy 'epidural'. Oh how I love the epidural!!! All in all, my curiosity has been cured. Did I mention how much I love epidurals?! Well, our little, I mean big Jacob is here and we are crazy about him! All of the kids love him and it has been so fun to have him in our home. There is something so special about having a new baby in your home. They are so fresh from heaven and you can so strongly sense that about them. We are so grateful to have Jacob in our family!!

ADDIE GETS EARS PIERCED!

Waiting to get her earings put in
Grandpa doing the honors

Addie showing off her new earings
(that you can't see in this picture)




For Addies 5th birthday, she wanted to get her ears pierced. Her cousin Edie also wanted to get hers pierced so we waited until they came into town for the 4th of July and then they did it together. Grandpa Z has an ear piercing gun, so we went down to his office and had him do it. Thanks Grandpa!!

NEW COMPUTER...UPDATES COMING SOON!!

So, I haven't been able to blog because of major computer problems (mixed with a bad pregnancy). We have been looking around a saving for a new computer and FINALLY found one! Hopefully I can keep updated on our family, especially now that Jacob is here.

LONG BOARDING WITH BIG 'D'!

Devin letting Ava go solo
Isaac's turn

Christian pretending to be Harry Potter on his broom.

Isaac, Ava, & Addie getting the grand ride

Whenever Devin comes over he usually rides his long board to get here. Needless to say, my kids are fascinated by it and always want to try it out. So Devin took them all for a ride up and down the sidewalk. They LOVED it!!

HOW TIME FLIES

So I agree that I am a lame blogger. I have lost my motivation to get on here since I am unable to put any pictures on. Hopefully that will change soon and we can get back to business...that is until the baby is born and then I'll be out again, I am sure. So in the meantime, I will summarize what we have been up to for those of you who may be curious.
Fortunetly, Andy's company seems to be hanging on fine for the moment so we are very grateful that he still has a job! We have seen so many of our friends losing theirs and have been trying to get prepared for that circumstance, just in case. In the meantime, things in that area are fine.
I have been trying to keep up with the different demands of the children and frankly can't wait for school to be out, I love having things on my schedule (and sleeping in until 7:30). I am getting anxious for this baby to get here, I just want to see him and hold him! I love brand newborn babies and I am so excited to have one again!!
Christian just cut his hair, which was one of his trademarks, it turned out nice and it is great to see his beautiful eyes again! He has been reading the Harry Potter series and is just about to finish book #4. He has mastered riding his Ripstick that he got for Christmas and loves to go to the skate park to ride. Christian is playing baseball, his team are the Indians.
Isaac is also really into reading lately and is currently reading the Junie B. Jones books. He loves school thanks to an amazing teacher! So far he has gotten 100% on every spelling test this year. He has just about got his Ripstick figured out. He can go the length of our sidewalk so far. He is in baseball too, the Diamondbacks, an loves it. It will end the end of May.
Addie is very anxious for her 5th birthday next month. She has been making a vocal list of all the things she wants for her birthday for at least 2 months now. I told her she gets one present so every day the 'one' thing changes about 10 times. She gets to get her ears pierced and is super excited about that. She got registered for kindergarten and can hardly wait for it to start. She has been my big helper with Ava and always picks things up for me so that I don't have to bend over. (I must say a lot that it hurts to bend over) She can't wait for this baby to get here, she talks about him all the time. So overall, Addie has some very exciting events coming up!
Ava is finally starting to talk. Everyday she adds some more words to her list. I have noticed that if you try to egg her on to talk, she won't but if it is on her terms, she will. Reminds me of when I've potty trained kids. Anyway, she keeps us all laughing with all of the cute things she does. We tried having her sleep down in Addies bed since she suddenly decided she absoblutly did not like her crib. And fortunetly, she is doing great with the transition! The past few nights she has slept all through the night and today she even went in around 3:00 an put herself down for a nap! I guess she was just helping me out by freeing up the crib in time for the baby to get here!
Overall, things are going very well, no complaints, we feel very blessed!

CLOTH DIAPERS, HERE WE COME!

So, I have been talking about turning over to cloth diapers for a few months now. I should say that I have joined the bandwagon of everyone else who is 'going green' but that is NOT at all why I am doing this. In fact, I am so irritated with this 'green' tend, but that is another post for another time. I am sure I have my own personal landfill of disposable diapers out there from changing them for over ten years now. Anyway, my reasoning behind this is simple...the economy! I am just prepping myself for the worst in hopes that the worst won't come. But, if it does, diapers were going to be a big expense that we can't ignore. We will have 2 kids in diapers for at least another year and then one for another 2 years after that. So, I decided to invest in them now so that I won't have to keep forking out $ for the next 3 years. Anyway, I have only done it for a day now but I think so far it sounded scarier than it is. I have to say though, that they have come a very long way since I was a baby, so it really isn't fair to try to compare. My favorite thing is the diaper sprayer, it is like a sink sprayer, only it hooks up to your toilet so that you never have to dunk a poopy diaper into the toilet. In fact, I warned Andy that I better not ever find one of these diapers sitting in the toilet! Anyway, all in all, this isn't my first choice but I am just preparing for the worst. And if the worst never comes, I am taking all of the $ that I saved and treating myself to a trip to Hawaii!!

UPDATED KIDS PORTRAITS

So, I haven't taken real pictures of my boys since Isaac was 3 years old. This has definetly been on my 'TO DO' list for sometime now. So Monday I had a sitting and told myself that I wouldn't put my photography stuff away until I took a picture of each of my kids. So here they are, they are all now updated and even on my wall. Just in time for the baby to come and to be outdated again!

SUMMER DREAMIN'

I drove past the park today and looked over at the vacant playground and found myself longing to come back. I miss the feeling of the sun warming my skin and the kids running around...outside! I love summertime and I am so excited that it is just around the corner. So here's to hot summer days with an ice cold drink...I love you and I miss you!

DANG MEMORY CARD!

So ever since 'someone' broke our last camera we have been having camera problems. Our new camera works fine but the memory card is making me want to pull my hair out! At first the card just went wacky on us and 'died', we couldn't rerieve any of the pictures and lost everything that was on that card. So I went out to get another card and there was a sale going on that the 4 GB card cost the same as the 1 GB card so of course I opt for the 4GB. We took a bunch of pictures and went to load them onto the laptop but...nothing. We reformatted the card and still, nothing. Come to find out that our 4 yr old laptop can't process that much information so we went back to the store and got a smaller card, 2 GB, took some pictures and the same outcome...nothing. At this point I am pregnant and not up to dealing with anything that is going to cause me to move. So here we are still in the same boat, with no pictures. I think that posts without pictures are boring so I will be posting some oldies for now until I give in and add to my memory card collection that I have started. Better yet at this point, I think I will sell all of these memory cards and buy myself a brand new computer that can handle my 4GB memory card!!!

(almost one year ago)

FYI: I am going to try posting every Friday. Since I am private now, I realize that I don't get updated on peoples blog roles so I don't want you to keep checking when there is nothing new.