What will Zach be?....

While in MO, we went to a fun exhibit that was called, What do I want to Be? It had all kinds of fun jobs that the kids could act out.
Scientist

Surfer
Barber

Race car driver
Teacher
President of the United States (with a funny hat on)
Bull Rider

Beautiful hair and Sparkly blue eyes

Visiting the Weatherspoon's

Playing at the fountains in downtown Kansas City at Crown Center.

On April 15th, the kids and I jumped in the car and went to Missouri to help out at my younger sister Marci's house. She was not able to lift her little Owen for a bit. It was a tiring, but fun trip and lots of fun for the kids. Marci and Dan put up with us for a whole week and we were grateful for that!

Morgan and Zach didn't always see eye to eye on a lot of things, but for the most part, had a pretty good time together! I got to have lots of cuddle with Owen which was lots of fun for me! He is a total squish! Marci missed his cuddles a lot, but it was sure fun for me while it lasted! Morgan loved having Chloe around to play dress-up and be an older sister to.

Chris was traveling in St. Louis that week, so he ended up driving to Kansas City for the weekend to be with us. That was fun to see him. It made a longer trip home for him, but we were grateful to spend the time with him. The kids and I came home on the 23rd. Marci is doing much better and was excited to have her home and kids back to herself. I would be too after having my crazy family running around for a week! Marci is an amazing mom and has a beautiful family. This is them (and us below) when we went to Bass Pro shop.

It was fun being with Marci's family and getting to see many old friends from my childhood! Now it's everyone else's turn to come to us!! Any takers?......

Is it really SPRING?

Chris and I have anxiously been waiting for Spring to come. We have been so excited to see our flowering trees in action. We love trees and put in quite a few last year while doing some landscaping in our yard. I added a bunch of pictures from around the yard, mainly because my sisters have asked to see them. Enjoy! We have a cold snap coming tomorrow, but after that, the yard is where I will be! I had so much fun on Saturday picking out flowers to put in the yard. I feel like a kid in a candy store! I just can't get enough and can't figure out which one to pick! So much fun! Hopefully it will turn out pretty this year. I think I will add a picture of what it looked like last year....if I can find it.

Yoshino Cherry - white flowers (front yard) and Plum Tree - pink tree (backyard)

We have a tradition in our family where we plant tulips and other bulbs in October on Karleigh's birthday. Flowers have always reminded us of her. This last year, we also decided to plant a tree on her birthday in the area where we someday want to make our "Karleigh Garden."

Here are our newest friends! This mommy and daddy duck have decided that the perfect place to lay their eggs is right next to our front porch. It has been so fun to see these two out in the yard everyday. They are together quite often. I guess it's a sign of true love! Hopefully soon we will catch a picture of little ducklings walking around our yard!! How fun is that!

2007 landscaping - This is before it got fully grown. All the flowers got really big!! I will post this years flowers after I get them all done!

I hope you are having a wonderful spring and enjoying all the beautiful colors all around. I just can't get enough of it and wish it would stay this way all summer long!

I WIN......ONCE AGAIN!!!!!

Are there any other wives out there that can sympathise with me?.....Anyone?.....

So here is the story. Out here in good old Indiana, they put the electrical boxes right in the front yard. I guess they think that they are beautiful and will give character to your landscaping. So....I decided that I wanted to put in a new flower bed around it and plant a bunch of grasses to cover them up. So I did the proper thing and had the utility company come out and mark all the wires so that we wouldn't kill ourselves.

So, my good husband decides to get a head start on ripping up the sod by using our neighbors rototiller (sorry we broke into your garage, Ryan and Carrie).....yes, against my wishes. He assures me that he has worked with all kinds of electrical when he used to be an electrician, and also when he did excavation work. Basically - "Auughh, it's all right, honey. I can take care of this one!"....attitude. So - whatever. He set to work.

And the pictures say it all........yes, he is repairing the AT&T phone line that he totally cut in two!!! Auughhh!! SO - needless to say.....once again.....I WIN, CHRIS!!!! I need to start recording all of these wins that I have been getting lately. I am getting quite good, and he is doing quite a good job at giving me reasons to gloat!!!

Anyway, luckily I have a VERY handy husband with many, many talents and he put it all back together! Yes Chris, I still love you completely....but let's just let everyone know right now.....I WIN!!! (wink, wink)

Beautiful Karleigh Ann

Today has been a day of remembrance of our sweet Karleigh. It was three years ago today that she passed away. We had a good day remembering her beautiful smile, curly hair, and sweet personality. She brought us so much joy and taught us more in her 2 1/2 years than we ever thought possible.

I am a firm believer that blessings come in mysterious ways. For three years now, we have thought that we didn't have any videos of her - not one. It has been an extremely hard thing to swallow because I wanted so badly to see her smile in action - not just on a picture.

Last night, Chris and I watched a little video slide show of our kids that my little sister, Joy, put together for us for Christmas. Afterwards, Chris made a comment about how we needed to get our old videos copied onto disks. Then I commented back about how it sure would be nice to have some of Karleigh. He then said that he thought that we might have some. I was in total shock, and knew I would not be able to sleep until I found out. So, needless to say, I found all of the old tapes and found a lot of different clips of Karleigh on them! All the way from her first bath in the hospital, to the Christmas before she passed away - 2004. I was so excited that I had to call my mom and dad at 11:30 PM and tell her the good news. I then stayed up until 2:30 to go through all of the tapes - scouring them for even brief moments of Karleigh!

My mom said that she had just gotten done saying her nightly prayers and had asked that Chris and I be comforted on this day. Then she got the call from me saying that I had found the tapes! Talk about an answer to your prayers! These were the best present I could have and have comforted me so much through this day. We honestly did not think that we had ANY videos of Karleigh. Why it took us three years to figure it out, only Heavenly Father knows. But I firmly believe that He knows what we need WHEN we need it. And He knew that I needed these tapes at this time. I think I probably have an even greater appreciation for them now than I would have a while ago. So tonight for Family Night, we sat on the couch and went through her videos as a family.

What a joy it was to see her smiling face, to hear her voice and to look into her shining eyes again. What an amazing girl she is. She went through so much, yet was so happy despite sickness and pain. I look up to this sweet spirit and can't wait until I am reunited with her again. She helped me grow in more ways than I will ever be able to express. She helped me have a better perspective on life and have a better appreciation for all I have. I look at her struggling to just hold her head up. How blessed we/I am that I have been blessed with a body that functions properly. How blessed I am to know that she will have a perfect body someday. How blessed I am to have been given the wonderful opportunity to be her mother and to care for such a perfect Daughter of God for a brief time.

I miss her terribly, but have been comforted in many ways throughout this week. From pictures of the flowers coming up in front of her headstone, to supportive calls from my mom, siblings, friends, and beautiful heart-felt gifts from dear friends. I thank everyone for their continued support in helping us deal with the pain that sometimes feels almost unbearable. You all make it so I can get through these times and I am eternally grateful for each of you. I hope someday I can return the kindness that you all have shown to me. I love all of you.

I love you, Karleigh and pray that I will live my life in such a way that we will be together forever.

This is a story that describes Chris and my feelings about our time with Karleigh and dealing with her disabilities. In reality, her disabilities were what gave her the ability to touch so many lives - especially ours. This story can also be related to many things in our life, regardless if we have a child with special needs.

Welcome to Holland
by
Emily Perl Kingsley


I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this…

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around… and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills… and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things… about Holland.

Apple Blossoms

This blog is kind of turning into my journal in a way. So if you are reading this today, you will need to bear with me as I get some feelings out. I have a lot of mixed emotions these days.

This is the apple tree in our front yard when we lived in CO. This tree was absolutely beautiful when it was in full bloom! The dark pink buds all over the tree are beautiful, but then when they all open up to these pale pink flowers, it is a sight to behold.

This tree symbolizes many different things to me. It gives the hope that a long cold winter will soon be over. It reminds me of the beautiful nature all around me. It symbolizes to me of how each of us are like these little tiny buds - beautiful in our own way. But then when we humbly let our Father in Heaven mold us into what he knows we can become, then we turn into something amazing!

Lastly, these flowers are a symbol to me of the great gift we have all been given through our Savior's sacrifice. We have all been given the opportunity to be resurrected after we leave this earth. And it will be in a perfect body.

This tree had buds all over it the day that we held Karleigh's funeral. It was an amazing day as we said our last goodbye's to our sweetheart. It was a hard day for sure, but a day of peace. When we came home, this is how our apple tree appeared. Beautiful pale, pink flowers all over it! The buds had opened up that day! It was such a comfort to me that a loving Heavenly Father would give me one last thing that day to bring me comfort - and that was in the form of a pale pink flower - Karleigh's color. I will be ever grateful for that.

I remember my dad was standing there with me and I said something like, "Dad, the tree bloomed today! Look how beautiful it is!" He put his arm around me, gave me a big hug and with tears in his eyes said, "Of course it did, Tracy. Of course it did."

Happy Birthday, Chloe!!!

Today is Chloe's birthday!! Has it really been 2 years already?!?! The time sure has flown by! This little Chloe Hope has been such a blessing in our life! Little did she know when she was born (or did she?) that she had a big mission in front of her - to give her Mom and Dad some hope to carry on and much needed cuddle time. She truly has done just that!

This sweet little girl was born April 5th, 2006. She was 6 lb. 14 oz. and 20 in. long. She had black curly hair and was the sweetest little baby. She only cried when she was hungry or needed a diaper change. I prayed so long and hard that our next baby would be healthy and easy to care for. That prayer has been answered time and time again.

This adorabe, blue eyed little angel is my little buddy. I have a hard time leaving her. Chloe is all girl and loves to try make-up and get her hair fixed. I have been fixing her hair since she was a day old (it was an inch long when she was born!), so she is totally used to it and loves it. She absolutely adores Chris and Zach and is learning how to play rough with them. She is talking very well and is a super smart little girl.

We couldn't have asked for a sweeter spirit to come into our home. She is truly our Chloe HOPE and I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father that he trusts me enough to care for his precious child. It truly is an honor to be her mother and I hope that I will do a good job raising her. Heavenly Father knows just what we need when we need it - and Chloe was just what I needed at this time in my life story! I love you, Chloe Hope!

Photo Shoot

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the kids photo shoot last Saturday. I am not quite sure what is up with the layout on this...but oh well. I remember telling my mom after Zach was born that I had the ablsolute cutest kid(s) in the world! But then I caught myself and said, "But I bet you thought that yours were the absolute cutest too, huh!" Of which she replied, "YEP!" So, I know that I totally think that my kids are the cutest, and you parents out there think that yours are the absolute cutest! That is the way it is supposed to be!! I hope you all are having fun with your absolutely cute kids!

Clean up on isle 13!!!!

Can I just say, I am sure glad there was not a cashier and customer on isle 14 at Wal-Mart tonight!!! Here is the story....

The kids and I went to Wal-Mart this afternoon to get Chloe some Motrin for her fever. We got a few groceries and a few other items, and headed to the check-out in isle 13. I unloaded my cart on the belt thing and then went to the front to start loading my groceries. The cashier rung up my milk and put it on top of the bagging carousel. If you can recall, the bagging carousel is in a triangular shape. Well - the cashier decided that 4 gallons of milk would fit nicely up on top of it.

So, here I am trying to help out and get my milk out of the way and into my cart for more groceries to be loaded. As I grabbed for the milk container, it totally slipped off and went crashing to the floor before I could grab it. And yes, guess what happened!!!! MILK EVERYWHERE!!! I am not even exaggerating!!! It sprayed the entire side and belt thing and cash register of isle 14, went all over the floor, some went on my cashier, and the rest was just pouring out of the milk container in a big puddle!!

I could not believe it! I was SO embarrassed. But then, to make it worse, the cashier is totally laughing at the top of her lungs so everyone and their dog could tune in to what was happening. She then picks up the intercom on her phone and announces - "Clean up in isle 13...(pause)...and...(pause)...bring a mop!

Oh, can I just say.....Wal-Mart is not my favorite place in the world! It was quite funny to see milk sprayed all over the checkout in the next isle. I am SO grateful no one was there because they literally would have been drenched in milk! Could you imagine!! Checking out with a load of groceries, or a baby in your cart, or nicely dressed on your way to an event - and then getting a milk shower!! aauugghh! I felt bad for the janitor that had to clean it up. Luckily, she was quite nice about the whole thing! Poor lady!

As we walked to the back corner of the store to get another gallon of milk (the lady charged me for it and told me to go get another gallon), I was asking Zach if that was totally embarrassing. I could totally tell he was thoroughly embarrassed, but was trying to be nice. He said, "I don't know". I started laughing and told him it was kind of funny and he could tell everyone about the most embarrassing day he had while shopping with his mom! Where is the camera when you need it!

Anybody else have any nice embarrassing stories they want to share?.....

Have a great week!

Happy Easter!!

The Easter Bunny came to our house! Did he come to yours?
Such cute kids!!


Trying to find some "Easter Bunny Eggs"


Chloe was so proud of
herself for doing her own Easter Egg!

Not quite sure what this is about....
just Zach being Zach!!! Funny Boy!!!

Another fun weekend!!!

TJ's husband and I planned a surprise weekend getaway (small, but tons of fun) for TJ! She has been long overdue for a break, and how could I pass up another trip to see Wicked again!! I was pretty proud of myself navigating around Chicago like I had lived there forever! We did a little window shopping, ate at a yummy Italian restaurant, saw the show, and then drove back home! We got home about 4 in the morning!!! So fun!

But then.....I got to get up a couple hours later and take a small number of my Young Women (and YM) down to the temple in Louisville, KY to do baptisms. Luckily, my home teacher offered to drive my van home! I was more exhausted that I have felt in a long, long time!!! But the entire weekend was worth it!
Just a handful of my girls....

Most of the other girls had school functions and couldn't make it. We still had a good time though!

And the 3rd place goes to.....

Zachary!!! Fabulous job!!!

Welcome to the world!!!

Everyone please welcome the newest addition to the Clay family! My sister, Julianne and husband, Ryan, just gave birth to their first baby on March 12th! He weighed 8 lb. 15 oz and was 21 inches long and is absoluetly adorable!

Here are the proud parents!!! Good job, guys! He is beautiful!!!