Tootsie!

On December 30, Camp Clark welcomed a new fur ball to our family. Introducing..Tootsie! She is a pure breed Bichon Frise who was born on November 4 and was named after my love of Tootsie Rolls (not my idea). The kids thought that was a perfect name for "being full of love and sweet" (in their words). So now we have this little 4 lb white cotton ball running around the house harassing Millie the Cat who simply ignores her as if she is a dust ball blowing across the floor. She is NOT potty trained, YET, and we are seriously working on that. Good news is she is hypoallergenic, has amazing temperament for kids and is only supposed to get to be 9-10 lbs. 

The deal we made with the kids is that they are responsible for taking her outside every day, at least 3x daily (1x each) and helping feed and care for her. So far, so good. In fact, most days by the end of the day, she is exhausted from all the attention. She sleeps in her kennel right next to our bed and sleeps soundly through the night (unlike the first few nights in the laundry room). The fact is, she wants to be near us so having her at our bedside in her kennel works MUCH better for her and allows us to get some shuteye.

She is not much of a fan of the cold weather but thankfully she uses her kennel to "find her spot" (crate & grate method proposed by our breeder) when she can't get outside, and sometimes the hardwood floors! Thankfully, she spends the majority of her time on our main level which is mainly hardwood so accidents are not that big of a deal.......but it sure is testing our patience. We are hoping she catches on very soon :)

The kids adore her and even Dave (the Cat Whisperer) has taken a serious liking to her. We look forward to many years with our sweet puppy and all the memories we will make together. 

Our First Christmas in our New Home

This Christmas, Dave and I decided it would be nice to spend Christmas in our home in Savage versus travel to North Dakota like we ususally do. We were so thankful to have Grandma Good, my brother Bruce (San Antonio, TX) and my niece Larissa and her two angels, Kyla and Kaden (Rogers, AR) join us to celebrate. In fact, it was perfect! We truly enjoyed having our family share time with us. We got to go sledding, tell stories, LAUGH (Bruce has the loudest laugh on the planet!), watch movies, bake, go to a Christmas play on a riverboat in St. Paul (the drive there was a bit challenging), celebrate Christmas with a candlelit feast, attend Christmas Eve service at our church which was amazing, watch football and let the children play and enjoy camping out (aka sleepover).It was hard to say goodbye but we are very grateful for the loving memories. I am updating our photos on Shutterfly and hope to have them all posted by the end of this week. Here are just a few:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clark Christmas Gathering at the Balke's

Papa and Grandma Clark stopped in Mpls on their way to sunny Texas for the winter and we had a gathering at Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jeff's house in Edina to celebrate Christmas with Dave's sisters and their families. Unfortuantely, Uncle Ken and his 4 angels couldn't make it and they were greatly missed. We had a great time! Uncle Jeff was the life of the party! Poor guy works much too hard as an MD at Allina so we will give him a break :) Aunt Lisa is always such a gracious host and we love sharing time with the Clark family. Miss you already, Papa and Grandma!

 

8 Year Celebration at MOA (Looking Back)

We're back!!! After a month of hiatus amd chaos, Mama Bear is finally back in her Director chair at Camp Clark and hunkering in to get caught up on memories from December.

I believe I mentioned that 3 little varmints recently turned 8 years old. NOOOOOOO!!!!! We celebrated with parties and with a certain furball of a gift which we will talk about later (aka Tootsie). I took the kids to the MOA (Mall of America) on their birthday, let them visit Santa, took them out for lunch at RainForest Cafe and let them buy themselves birthday presents with the money they received from their grandparents. It was the girls very first trip into an American Girl store. Holy Cow - so little for so much ($$$)! The girls were in awe; Dylan not so much. However, he was SO patient and his is eyes brightened when he saw the hermit crab kiosk and the games store. Of course, we had to go on a few rides but the favorite was the sky high tightropes and slides (5 stories high!). There was no way Mama was getting up there since I have a fear of heights but LTD had absolutely no fear. The girls had the perfect climbing attire on with their skirts and furry boots :)  Regardless, they had an absolute BLAST! Check it out.