Man! Just get caught up already!

Alright, I'm tired of trying to play catch up. I had some different blog posts planned, but they just aren't happening. So, I'm just going to throw all my pictures into a couple posts. Here is the rest of our September (i.e. Just for reference, Brinley turned 9 months old the middle of September. Levi was 2 1/2 years old):

Brinley really started to get into the business of mess making. Amazingly, it really hasn't escalated too much over the months since. A lady in our stake gave the advice that whenever your kids made you want to scream or cry, grab your camera instead. I have lots of pictures.

Here are my cute kiddos at the McDonald's playground. One day, while Sam was out of town, the three of us went out to lunch. I was amazed at how Brinley just climbed right up there. She went just as far as Levi did... which is not very.

I can't believe these pictures were just three months ago. It was still so warm then! Here we are at the park by our house. Brinley loves the swing. Levi was such a sweet brother and was so good to push her.

Levi and his friend Andrew doing "supermans"

Did anyone else do "spider" when they were young? Needless to say, this ended in tears (for a minute, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get them out... oops!)

Levi--wearing my sunglasses upside down. Not an unusual sight.

I made these for Sam's sister Arina's 12th birthday. Sam's family aren't big cake lovers, so I had to get creative. These are mock-peanut butter cups.

My adorable kids... the not adorable mess they were making when I took these pictures follows.

Ahhh.... so sweet!

Nothing more peaceful than falling asleep in the midst of your toys...

I got these zucchinis from a lady in our ward at church. I have made lots of yummy zucchini bread (that's how my kids get their veggies) and still have loads of frozen shredded zucchini in the freezer.

I just love this picture of Levi taking a picture. Brinley holds much more still for him than me!

My kids love riding their bikes on the deck. I love our huge deck for that reason. This is towards the beginning of the month, so Brinley still wasn't quite walking still. She'd hold onto the back of the trike and push is.

Why do all babies LOVE the fridge?

And now, here are some videos:

"What is in your ear?!?!?!?"

One day (October 12th to be exact), Levi walked past me, and I noticed something in his ears... a lot of something. Upon closer examination, thie is what I found:





Blue marker. Seriously, where does the kid come up with this stuff?

Camping at Tucannon

In September, we were thinking about how we did not (1) go camping and (2) go on a trip with just our little family. So we decided to pack our bags and try out a new adventure. We picked a campground out of book and came up with Tucannon Campground on the Tucannon River. It is in the Blue Mountains near Dayton, WA. The trip there was longer than anticipated, and as we got near it was... ugly. I was not too thrilled. Then we couldn't find the turn-off because the sign was gone. But then, when we pulled into the campground, it was actually quite pretty. We found the perfect campsite: it was down off the road and pretty secluded, had several flat places, and had a shallow stream flowing through it. Although short, it was a very enjoyable camping trip. We wouldn't be sad if we ended up there again.

These pictures are in a totally random order, but I didn't feel like organizing them. So here they are!

Oh my goodness, Brinley loved the dirt! Thank goodness for Shout Advanced Gel and Tide with Bleach!

The Tucannon River at the entrance to the campground.

My kids love LOVE water!

Throwing rocks in the water... what is it about this simple thing that is just so great?

Daddy and Daughter

Levi at the stream in our campsite.

Sam, the fire guy.

Brinley loved sitting in the camp chairs. I wish I could have left her there, but I was way too afraid she would fall off or the chair and she would fall together. FYI, Brinley was 9 months in these pictures.

I set out this tarp with intent of having a clean place for our crawler to play. Good intentions... laughable ones, but good.

Mommy and her baby girl.

In the tent, getting tucked in for the night.

I think Levi is a total stud!

The night we got there, after setting up in near dark, we had tinfoil dinners for dinner in the dark. They were very yummy, if I do say so myself!

Look how filthly! Camping is a kid's best friend!

Levi played with this brush and dustpan almost the whole time. He swept the tarp, the bench, the table, the dirt, everything!

Farewell Asa!

The middle of September we said farewell to Sam's brother, Asa, who left to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 2 years in Boston Massachusetts. We miss him much, but we know that he is doing a great work. It is so awesome to read his emails and to hear what incredible experiences he is having. I'm looking forward to looking at these pictures two years from now and seeing how much everyone has changed!

Brinley (9 months), Asa (almost 20), Sam (30), Levi (2 1/2 years), Kelsey (26)

Lauren (15), Joe (18), Dad Clements, Mom Clements, Arina (12)

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!?!?!?

Once again this fall, if it was a Friday night we were most likely at a football game. Sam's youngest brother, Joe, played his senior year of football this year. There were some good games, some bad games, and a couple of VERY exciting games. They made it to the second round of playoffs this year... the best they've done in a long time. Joe was number 88... you can see him in the top right picture. Brinley and Levi did great at the games. I'm pretty sure Levi is planning on playing football when he gets bigger... okay, really there's no doubt in my mind about that one. That kids loves football! Check it out:

Momma's Helper

Levi is really into cleaning lately. These pictures were taken back in September, but it is still something you will often see at our house. I actually mixed up a solution of water and vinegar that I let him use to clean-I mean "wash", as Levi says- everything from the fridge doors to the table and chairs. After a while, the vinegar smell starts to get to me, and I have to distract him with something else. I do appreciate having a clean kitchen, though!

Bet you're glad you didn't hold your breath...

After just over a month... I am finally getting around to posting that news I was talking about. I'll let the videos tell the story...

Here is Brinley at 9 1/2 months old:


And 3 days later:


And another 3 days later (October 5, 2009):


That's right... my ity-bity teeny tiny little girl is a big walker. She was one week shy of her 10-month mark when she officially started walking. All 18 lbs and 27 inches of her. :-)

Of course, that was well over a month ago (getting close to two months now), so Brinley is totally cruising all around. It is so fun to watch her and to hear people comment when they see her. In the words of my friend "it just messes with the mind to see someone that small walking."

MIA

Yes, I have been completely missing in action... Life right now just feels too out of control to even think about sitting down and catching up on all the blog posts I want to do. Add to that the wonderful fact that I spilled hot chocolate on my computer (which has all our pictures on it of course), and you might understand why this blog is pretty much stagnant as of late. Trouble not your hearts, though... the pictures are not lost. My hard drive is fine--we just need to get it out of the non-functioning laptop and hooked up to this laptop.

I have footage of some exciting happenings at our house that I will post just as soon as I find time to get it off of our camera. So... stay tuned. (But don't hold your breath.... I don't want anyone passing out on my account!)

La Jolla, CA

Sam had a business trip in La Jolla, CA and this time I GOT TO GO WITH HIM!!!! We took Brinley along with us, and Levi stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Thurgood. Levi had a good time, except that he got really sick. I felt so bad not being there to take care of my little boy, but if mom's not available, who better than Grandma to care for you? Thanks Mom for taking such great care of my little boy!

This was Brinley's first trip ever on an airplane. She did a really great job! Especially since we had to be at the airport at 4:30am and that caused her to be wide awake for quite a while.

Our first stop when we landed in San Diego was the San Diego Temple. It was so beautiful.

Check out this awesome vegetation!

Sam's conference was at a really nice resort-type hotel. It seriously took about 10 minutes to walk from the front desk to our room. However, the pool was right next to our room, so we had no complaints there. I really tried to make this a very relaxing vacation. Brinley and I played and lounged around the pool, I watched movies while Brinley napped, and we went for a couple of strolls. I also got a chance to meet a lot of people that Sam works with and to put faces with names, which is always nice. Sam and I went out to a yummy Mexican place called Fred's. If you are ever in San Diego you should check it out.

After Sam finished his conference, we decided to walk down to the beach. The hotel gave us a map telling how to get down to the beach, but it was a ways away. A guy from Sam's conference told us a closer way to get down to the beach, so we went that way. Here is what we climbed down to get there:

Easier my foot!

We pretended like Sam made this for me:

Okay, but that treacherous descent wasn't even the worst part. As we start walking towards the shoreline, Sam says, "Hey, I think that guy's naked." Yep. And so was that guy, and that guy, and that guy. We found out later that it was a gay nude beach. Sam thought it was hilarious... I thought it was disgusting. We walked out in the water away from people until we moved far enough down the beach to be at the spot where the hotel had recommended we come down. All I can say is "EEEWWWW!"

Sam, me and sleeping Brinley in the water.
The water was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice! We overheard some girls giggling about it being cold. We were like "What are you talking about????!!!!" Of course, we had just been swimming at the Oregon Coast...

The courtyard of our super nice hotel--La Estancia La Jolla.

Bye-bye California. Hopefully we'll be back soon!

Camping... of sorts...

My kids are so lucky to have such a fun dad. One day I came downstairs to discover this:


We hadn't had the chance to go camping yet, and summer was almost over, so Sam took matters into his own hands. He and Levi had a couple of camp-outs (hmm... camp-ins?) and watched some movies from inside their cozy tent. I joined them from the movies, but my comfy bed was much more tempting than the hard floor. :-)

My favorite toy is a dishwasher!

We have a climber on our hands! Brinley loves to climb in the dishwasher. She has been climbing into the dishwasher since she was barely able to crawl. Unfortunately, the pictures I took of her the first time she climbed in were lost due to the faulty memory stick. Grrrr! Now Brinley is way beyond just climbing into the dishwasher. First she started pulling herself up to standing using the top rack, then she started pushing and pulling the trays (??? what do you call those things??) in and out. Now she is on to pulling on the dishes out of the dishwasher. So adorable, yet such a handful! I absolutely love watching my kids learn and discover new things, even if it creates a mess in the process. It is like watching a little miracle happen every day.... sometimes several times a day.

Say "Ahhhhh!"

This summer, Levi had his first trip to the dentist. He was so cute, walking so confidently down the hallway... however, once we got to the chair that all changed. As you can see from the pictures, it was not a joyous experience. Levi was anything but cooperative, which is weird because he has always been so good at the doctor's. I ended up tickling him to try and get him to laugh and open his mouth, but instead he just cried. Either way, his mouth opened up a little. The only thing the dentist did was sit about 4 feet away and try to count Levi's teeth as I tortured him, then told me that in 6 months Levi would do much better and would recognize the office and dentist. My comment to Sam about the experience: "I'm so glad we didn't have to pay for that."

Fair Fun!

We made another trip to the Benton Franklin County Fair this year. Levi wasn't quite as ecstatic about the animals as he was last year, but he still liked them a lot! Brinley wasn't incredibly interested--she's still a bit too young--although she did like the bunnies. The highlight was watching Motocross, or as Levi puts it "Bik-ee! High!" I like to call it "Holy craziness!" Another favorite at the fair this year for Levi was the rubber ducks floating in the hot tub. It was hard to pull him away from that booth! I personally liked the library booth where both Levi and Brinley got a free book.
Like this last picture here? Levi took it of Sam and I. A little blurry, but at least it is aimed well. :D

p.s. I live with a bunch of clowns. It's great!