My First Tag

Can you believe it? I've never been "tagged" before on someone's blog, and if I have, I just plain don't remember it... but my friend Janeal tagged me and so I thought "hey, why not? It could be fun... or not." So we'll see. Here goes:

8 Things I am Passionate About:
(note... for those of you who really know me, I am not a passionate person, so let's just say "8 things I really love")
1. My husband (and best friend) Mitch
2. My four children
3.My family- especially my sisters (but my brothers rock too, so do my parents!)
4. My friends
5. Baking- especially at Christmas!
6. Going on vacations
7. The Gospel
8. Decorating cakes and cookies

8 Words or Phrases I say a lot:
1. Holy Moley!
2. freakin
3. oh garbage!
4. no problem
5. Okey Dokey
6. What the crap?
7. I love you
8. What the...!

8 Things I want to do before I die:
1. Go on a cruise with my whole family!
2. Get out of the house we are in
3. Get out of debt
4. Get back to the temple (it's been a while- oops)
5. Take my kids to Disneyworld
6. Serve a mission with Mitch
7. Go back to a Culinary School to be a pastry chef
8. Travel with my hubby

8 things I've learned in my life:
1. Don't say things when you are angry, cool off first before speaking (I'm still working on this one)
2. I can't just eat what I want- it did catch up with me
3. Prayers are answered
4. Trials do happen, it doesn't mean God doesn't love you
5. Stay close to family- they're all you have in the end
6. Lies will always slap you in the face
7. Happiness is contagious
8. Smile, if you don't, everyone always thinks you're in a bad mood!

8 Places or things I would love to see:
1. Conference center at Temple Square and the park on top (I have never seen them!)
2. Italy (again)
3. Alaska (as a cook for my Dad's fishing trips)
4. Broadway Musical "Wicked"
5. Church history sites
6. My kids married in the temple
7. Hawaii (again)
8. Me, at the weight I was when I got married, and Mitch's face when I look like that again!

8 Things I currently need or want:
1. Alone time with Mitch -a date would be nice
2. My nails done
3. Money, Money, Money
4. To lose weight
5. The motivation to lose weight
6. To see my family
7. To be a better singer
8. Another cruise

8 People I Tag:
Whoever wants to do this- it definitely makes you think about things! Kind of fun too, but I think I'll wait a while before doing another one.

More Collin entertainment

This is Mitch for those of you that are used to reading Carlie's posts. I thought I would step in for a brief visit.

I know that the last post was about Collin and the funny things that he does, but he keeps doing them, so we needed another post to try to keep up with him.

First a picture that he drew of me. Now I know what you are thinking. What wonderful arms...., or ears...., or whatever is sticking out the side of my head. Now what is that below my head between my legs. What a nice, big........

CHIN! Of course! (at least that is what Collin says it is) Get your minds out of the gutter! This WAS created by a four year old don't you know.

Next was dinner tonight. We finally convinced Madeline to try a tomato. Once she tried it, she proudly proclaimed that tomatos were her favorite vegtable. Of course Collin wants to be like his sister, so he tried one. It was so funny that we had to convince him to eat another so we could record it. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

If you can't hear what he says last, it was "I think it was a barf!"

I am sure that he will pull something off again and we will have to do another "Collin did something funny" post soon. Who knows, maybe one of our other kids will decide to be as funny as Collin and we can post about them instead.

Never A Dull Moment...

In the McClellan home that is- anywhere Collin is- there is usually laughter! The most recent comic incident happened to be at church on Sunday. It was the Primary Program for our ward and Collin is a sunbeam (his teacher needs to be exalted!) First off, let me just advise you all to never be late on the day of the program- we were sitting in the gym in the last row! Well the first few talks went by smoothly, and then when they sang their first song, it had just ended and we hear (on the back row) a little voice that could only belong to Collin, yell as loud as he could "Did I do good mom, huh, did I?" This got quite a chuckle out of the audience. And the second song came along and the same thing happened after it was done... more quiet laughter. And we had full blown laughs when he popped off for the third time asking if he did good. It's a good thing he's so dang cute!

Then when Mitch was tucking Collin in bed, they were telling each other how much they loved each other. Mitch tells Collin "you are the best Collin in the whole wide world, and the whole universe, and forever", and Collin replies with a serious look in his big brown eyes... "No dad, I'm the best Collin in Idaho!" Guess that shows us the mind of a child and their understanding of mind boggling concepts.

Our little cowboy chillin in his Bumbo chair! He prefers this chair over the bouncy chair and his swing.

Here is a clearer shot of Creed- almost a smile!

Creed is getting so big and he's a lot happier. We can get some dang cute smiles out of him and even once in a while, a laugh! He is 4 months old now- time has gone so fast! He has the biggest blue eyes which we hope stay blue like his sisters. He also has a red tint to his hair- something the others definitely did not have. So, as much as he looks exactly like our other kids, he is his own little person too! And we love him dearly!

A "Complimentary" Dinner

This is going to be a short posting, but I had to share. Today is Saturday, and we have been working non stop all day long(okay that's a lie, we had a nap this afternoon.) We started early this morning thinking we were going to have family pictures taken, but we got rained out. So we busted in with our last two batches of canning pears. We got those done and then began the house cleaning... ugh! Well needless to say, Mitch took us out to dinner. We had only been seated for a few minutes when an older gentleman who was leaving with his wife, walked up to Mitch and said "I want to compliment you on your nice looking family- what handsome children." We looked at each other and grinned. Then the couple seated behind us was talking to each other and I was holding Creed over my shoulder- I heard the guy say "what a cute baby!" and he was only talking to his wife!
I always think my kids are cute, but it's really nice to hear it from other people-- especially total strangers. That made my day! Now, if I can just get my cute rugrats in bed(it's only 8:00)- that would just be too perfect of an ending to a good day!

The love of a big brother

Ever since Cam and Madeline started school this year, Collin has become more aware that he needs to step up to be the big brother to Creed. He is such a great little helper! He gives Creed his binky when he starts to fuss, or in this case, he thought placing a lei around his head would surely do the trick, and then if that doesn't work, then Collin sings his special song to him... here it is- very creative for an almost 4 year old I'd say!

And here are some pictures of my little vampires (again the red eyes... I really stink at photography!) on their first day of school.

The kids really like school so far, Cam still reads when he's not supposed to, but we're working on that, and we just found out from Madeline's teacher that she was holding hands with a boy at recess... we are going to be in so much trouble with her I can just tell!

Labor Day Weekend

This past Labor Day weekend, we traveled to Utah for Mitch's family reunion, where we camped at a place called Crystal Hot Springs- just a few miles north of Brigham City. Don't let the name fool you in to thinking you are going to some nice hot spring resort... the place is a total dump! We honestly were wondering if the building was going to collapse any moment! But the fact that it had 3 pools, a big water slide, and a couple of hot tubs made the kids as happy as pigs in poop!

We were told to expect a stormy weekend, but Friday night and Saturday were just beautiful! A few pics of Mitch and the kids while swimming:

Cameron and Madeline loving the pool

Isn't Mitch such a macho man?! Collin saying "cheese"

Creed- just chillin in the shade on mom's lap.

Sunday brought good weather for about half the day, then after the family auction in the afternoon, a huge beyond all huge storm hit! The scary thing was that I could see the sky getting ugly and so I went to put Creed down for a nap in the crib in our tent (which was brand-spanking new) but about halfway there, I stopped and thought to myself..."no, I'll just hold him and let him sleep while I visit with everyone out here." So I went back and about five minutes later, we get slammed with huge gust of wind. It ripped the canopies into the air and it was total chaos! I grabbed Creed and wrapped him in the blanketand ran for the car- lucky it was fairly close. Mitch found our other kids and they ran to the car too. We got in and the hail started! The kids were all scared and crying- they thought it was a tornado! Mitch ran back out to make sure the tent was secure, but when he got back, he was cussing and cursing! He had found that our brand new tent was shredded and the poles had snapped. The crib had collapsed too! I stared at Mitch and told him that I almost put Creed in there for a nap. We just held eachother and thanked Heavenly Father for small miracles and promptings- even when we don't know we are being prompted!

So, our tent was destroyed and all our clothes, sleeping bags and blankets were soaked! Lucky for us, we have a loving cousin who let us stay in their tent- which survived the storm- and her parents let the kids stay in their trailer. The horrible night ended with Collin barfing all night and Creed waking up about 3 different times (he had been sleeping all through the night so far). Needless to say, we were only too happy to get our sopping wet stuff and get out of there Monday morning! Which it was still pouring rain and had been all night long!

The postitive notes? No one was hurt... we have a great family... and Shopko took our ruined tent back with no questions asked! Hmmm- I guess there's always a silver lining.

If they could just stay little...

A good friend of mine in Caldwell loves to do photo shoots... especially babies! She was only to happy to come over and take some fun pics of Creed. These were taken a few weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to posting... you know how it goes! Madeline is somewhat of a camera hog and when she saw the backdrop, she ran and threw on her mermaid costume! What a ham!

Aren't they so cute? We had to take them before Creed got too big, he's almost two months now and pushing 14 pounds! Ugh! He still fusses a lot unless he's being held, and he still sleeps alot too. He is sleeping (mostly) through the night now, he'll wake up one time every few days or so. We are doing much better and life is looking up again!