The Clements Family: May 2010

Mr. Fashion

Paul continues to impress us with his great sense of fashion. It still seems a little strange to me that at such a young age he is so passionate about what he wears and what he does not want to wear.

Bunnies & Squirrels & Ants Oh My!

Since receiving a book about animals and bugs for Christmas from Ba-pa, Paul has been slightly obsessed with animals and bugs. Luckily for him, we have a lot of friendly creatures visit our backyard.

One of many bunnies hopping around.

Paul collected a few ants and made a "house" for them complete with twigs, apples, grass, and rocks. To lure the ants into his hands, Paul would say, "Come here ant. You want to play with me ant?".

After this squirrel nearly made it into our house, it darted up into this tree looking for safety from the boys.

We also have a well-fed fox (perhaps more) in the neighborhood. We haven't been able to capture a picture of him yet...

{And We Think To Ourselves, What a Wonderful.... Yard}

We recently traded in our days of living in a nice, clean, cozy townhouse in Loveland for a new adventure of life in a big, dirty, old house in Fort Collins. When I say that it is dirty and old, I am not complaining. These aspects of the house are largely what attracted us to the house and what made it possible for us to afford the house. From the extremely pet-stained carpets, to the walls filled with holes, to the piles of garbage lying around inside the house, there were plenty of sights and smells to turn away many buyers. We, however, fell in love with the house the first time we viewed it on a dark, snowy evening with no lights, no power, and no heat (Jim was an amazing--and brave--Realtor).

Our motivation to move from the townhouse that we loved so much to a place in Fort Collins was to be closer to family, move into a better school district, and to have a fenced-in yard for the boys to play in. We have definitely enjoyed the 5 to 10 minute car-rides to the grandparent's houses (vs the 25 to 30 minute rides from Loveland).

As spring has been "busting out all over," we are continually thankful for our beautiful new yard. The boys LOVE playing outside and will spend hours at a time exploring, finding bugs, digging in the mud, and enjoying the fresh air.

This is the view up the hill from our back yard, where we can often see two brown horses (Paul loves horses). We are super close to shopping, Justin's work, and so many things in town, yet at the same time, it feels a little like we live in the country.

A tree fort and a tire swing that the boys are sure to enjoy when they are a little older.

Here is our garden that we just finished planting. We are excited to enjoy whatever fresh produce that survives! We planted onions, beets, carrots, peas, brussel sprouts, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, basil, mint, oregano...

Strawberries

Peas

Raspberries

With such a large yard, we certainly have plenty of yard care and maintenance to keep us busy. We have an abundance of weeds growing everywhere, though some of them are especially beautiful. Paul's favorites are the "yellow flowers" which he picks and brings inside for me.

We feel extremely blessed to be living in our new house and are continually reminded of what a great decision we made to move when we see how happy our boys are here.

A Surprise for Paul

Yesterday Justin called Paul and told him that when he got home from work, they would go out in the back yard and open a surprise that he was bringing home for Paul. Our excited little boy had trouble waiting until Daddy got home from work and continually talked about how Daddy was bringing him home a surprise!

As promised, Justin returned home with a surprise. A brown cardboard box that was making funny noises.

When Paul opened the box, he was startled and truly surprised to find two REAL frogs inside! (Paul tells us daily that he LOVES frogs and ants)

Paul was scared and decided, for a few moments, that he no longer liked frogs; that he only liked ants. After a few minutes of watching the frogs hop around from the comfort of Daddy arms, Paul warmed up to them and enjoyed his surprise.

Look- a frog!

{One Year}

On April 2nd, Ben turned ONE!

Ben entertained us as he devoured his cake. At one point we took it away from him, but we quickly gave it back after he intently signed "more, more, more."

Cake Before: