Monday, May 17, 2010

Family...isn't it about--time?!

It is about time that we are closer to family! One of the hardest things for me living outside of Utah was being far away my family and extended family. I always felt bad when everyone was getting together and I was too far from home to be apart of it. It is so nice being back and only a couple hours from home!This weekend my cousin Katie had a bridal shower and I was able to go see all my aunts and cousins. It was so great getting together with them and catching up on all the news! Mara loved being with Kate and the other girl cousins.
If there is one thing you can count on with the Clegg Aunts it's delicious food! Those ladies sure know how to cook!
And Caleb had a fun time with all the girls. It turned out perfect that Ty and Nate were able to go to Father's and Son's campout--but Caleb was still a little young! He had a fun time playing with his cousins.

Balls anyone?!

Last week Ty had his last soccer game of the season. He also had a one night soccer camp to let the parents know about the soccer camp coming to Price this summer. They had all the balls out and Caleb knew just where to go! He was having a blast until the coach said "Okay everyone go get a ball!" I hurried and picked him up before he was trampled and he was sure upset when everyone took all the balls away from him! This kid loves soccer and can hardly wait to play!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

My New Life

What a powerful message! It truly inspired me to never give up--even when trials and hard times seem hard and overwhelming. Stephanie is an amazing woman watch her story and incredible message:

My New Life

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Happy Mother's Day--mom!

What says "Happy Mother's Day" better than breakfast in bed? Ty has wanted to make me breakfast in bed for a long time--mother's day is the perfect day for it! While I slept in--it's true, it never happens! The kids helped Nate make breakfast for mommy & Mimi!
It was a delicious breakfast: omelets, blueberry muffins, strawberries! Yum! Thanks guys!

wait a second...

Oh much better!!

Being a mom is seriously the best thing in the world! I love it. It's hard but it's worth it. I love being with my kids and playing with them. I love watching my children learn and grow. I love being able to laugh with them--and at them! I love reading them stories and teaching them new concepts. I love holding my kids, giving them 'rock-e-byes', and listening to their sweet voices.

And here is the best mom and grandma in the world: Mimi
I already raved about her on her special day post--but there's more! Nate has always been worried that I won't be able to cut the apron stings...well, I think he's come to terms with these aprons strings just don't get cut! My mom is one of my best friends. Nate knows he will always be #1, but next to him there is my mom. She is the coolest lady around!
She loves to have fun. Growing up we always did great stuff like art projects, painting activities, visiting to interesting places. Now she does all these things with my kids.
She is a great cook--taught me everything I needed to know. While the boys were fixing things with their dad, I was cooking by my moms' side.
My mom is my biggest fan (next to my dad that is), she went to every game and cheered me on. She pushed me to do things I wouldn't have done on my own.
She put up with me and my tears at the piano bench and made me practice and have piano lessons at 6am! This I will eternally be grateful for becasuse I now love playing the piano and grateful for the opportunities at church when I can play the piano and organ.
She always listens to me and knows what to say to make it all better. My mom never gave me a curfew, she knew I would come home at the right time, and she was always in my bed waiting for me when I got home to hear about my night and what I did.
Thank you mom for being my mom!
I really do love you and grateful for all you do for me.

Mara and Kate sure had a fun time playing together at grandmas!

Mimi's showing the kids a beehive--she is a great teacher, always teaching something to one of her kids or grandkids.

These three kids had so much fun playing in the dirt together!

Nice shirt Caleb--perfect for the day!

We came inside after playing in the dirt to find the dads had done the dishes and were now playing on their phones!

Helping Hands

When we're helping,
we're happy,
and we sing as we go,

for we love to help grandma
for we all love her so!

Happy Mother's Day Grandma Lewis!
For our gift to our mother we gave her the gift of time and service! Saturday morning we woke up ready with helping hands and smiles on our faces to work outside on Grandma's yard. While some of us made a delicious breakfast others started working in the back yard. Our projects included: pulling off ivy off the side of the house, painting the back fence, pruning trees and bushes, and cleaning off the patio.

Here is the helping crew getting ready for breakfast and signing grandma's card!

For Dyann's mother's day breakfast we all pitched in and made the most scrumptious breakfast I think I've ever had! Cinnamon rolls, bacon, sausage, eggs, fruit orange juice! WOW it was good!

Beanie made 'Cinnabun' cinnamon rolls that were to die for. Just thinking of them makes me want to eat one right now--and they were even better than the Cinnabon ones! (It's probably a good thing I don't have the recipe--I would make them much too often and be sick and overweight!) Awesome job Beanie! I can't wait to have them again!

Ty loved them so much I think he ate three of them!

And Caleb kept saying 'more' 'more' with his little fingers!

After filling up our tanks we were able to get back to work. Everyone had a job and everyone helped out. Nate did a great job organizing the service project and helping us see what we should do and how to get things accomplished.

Ty was one of the best helpers I've seen. He pulled ivy, he raked, he hauled branched, he painted. Mara helped too--they were both such great workers. I was grateful for this opportunity for my children to give service. I think it's important that children learn how to work and I think they even had a fun time while doing it.

Caleb even had a job--he helped play in the dirt! He took a 3 hour nap so that we could get lots done and he was so happy playing outside.

What a mess! We can't even play soccer with all the ivy on the ground.

We cleaned up the ivy mess by using the tarp to haul it away. Grandpa was even a great helper too!

Grandma trimmed the bushes. She always works so hard in her yard.

The thing I loved most about this day--besides giving service and making things look so nice, was how well Ty and Mara got along and how nice they were to each other. Ty was so cute to show Mara how to paint the fence. I don't think we had any fighting they were just best-buds as they helped their grandma. I hope they can always remember that good feeling they had of giving service and whenever they see grandma's beautiful new fence it will remind them of the day they served their grandma!

Here's the crew painting away! After several attempts to try to spray on the paint it just didn't work so we had to do it all by hand. It really wasn't that bad when everyone pitched in and helped. It was fun talking and laughing together as we painted. And the fence looks so much better!

Mara was a great little painter! She worked hard and was a great help playing with Caleb too.

It turned out to be a fabulous day and I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to serve Dyann--she is such a wonderful mother to me and the best grandma any kid could ask for. She is always so willing to help out and has made sacrifices for my family. I think she is an amazing person and I really look up to her. I always turn to her for help and advice and suggestions and she always has the answers I'm looking for. I can't thank her enough for the wonderful job she did raising Nate. He is the most incredible man I've met and mostly because of his mother and how she raised him. I loved the opportunities I had with her when she came out and visited us when we lived out of state. I always looked forward to her trips out because we could talk and bond and my kids could get to know their grandma better.
Thank you Dyann for everything you do for us! We sure love you and grateful you're our mom!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Way to go!

Friday sure was a day of celebration! It began with Ty's kindergarten program and ended watching Aunt "Beanie" (Danielle--Nate's sister) Graduate from the University of Utah in Accounting!

We drove up to Salt Lake and met the other members of the family at the Huntsman Center.
Mara and Grandma so happy to see each other!

Nate's pretty glad he wasn't graduating again, and very proud of his little sister!

Caleb loved clapping his hands when he heard applause!

Me and my little buddy--not a great self shot but we tried!

Caleb and his Auntie Chelsie--who helped keep him entertained with her bracelet, fruit snacks, any thing really!

There I was sitting in the commencement ceremony flipping through the booklet of all the graduates when a name caught my eye: Lowry, Scott Clegg! What?! That's my brother! Above his name: Lowry, Lorisa Worthen! Hey! That's my sister-in-law! I then realized this too was their graduation because they graduated early but moved to California and were not able to attend their graduation! So this is for you guys: Scott & Lorisa a picture of your graduation ceremony! Way to go you two! I'm so proud of you and glad that you could graduate together.
An interesting thing about this graduation was there was no speaker! The announcer opened the ceremony and welcomed everyone and went right into reading the names. The cool thing I liked was the individual that got the biggest cheer and applause was a woman who was walking in place of her husband who had been deployed and sent to Iraq.

Grandpa & Grandma Lewis--very proud and happy parents of their baby graduating from college!

Two Aunties!

Grandma Card came to honor Beanie!

Tom & Beanie-- a cute couple soon to be parents in October! YAY! Congrats!

Way to go Beanie! We are so proud of you! What an awesome accomplishment! We are glad you could graduate and hope you find a great job doing something you enjoy!

Kindergarten Program

Friday morning we went to Ty's school and watched his Kindergarten Program! What a treat it was to hear his songs and see him perform. Ty really is growing up! He did so well, I was a very happy and proud mom.
Here comes Ty and his best friend Cannon

Although Ty came in half way through the year he did great learning all the songs. His teacher was a little worried when he first came to her class because he had only been going half-day to kindergarten and he was behind in reading. But Ty worked so hard this year to get caught up to the other children. It didn't take long before Ty was reading right at the level he was suppose to be at.

Here is a little clip of one of the songs Ty's class performs:



And this is one of the moments in Ty's life that I am most proud of:

Ty spoke in the microphone all by himself for the first time! He has had several opportunities with primary talks, primary scriptures, and primary program parts, but he's never been able to have enough courage to do it! BUT HE DID IT! Way to go Ty! I am so pleased and happy that you would say those nice things about your mom and dad! We sure love you buddy!

Ty and his teacher Mrs. Averett. She is a very neat lady and we are so grateful for all her time and effort she puts into her teaching job. She taught Ty a lot and showed him love and support as a very new student at the first of the year.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

A Special Day

I also wanted to invite my parents down last week to celebrate a very special day: my mom turned 39 (again)!

We don't say she had a birthday--oh no! Never have! We just simply call it her special day.
I'm so grateful we could celebrate this day with my parents, it was fun to have them come down and visit us.

I felt very thankful on this day for such a wonderful mom and I truly can say I've tried patterning my life after hers because she is a very amazing person.
She made my life so fun and enjoyable I want the same for my children and hope I can be the same kind of mom for them like she was for me.

After we played at the San Rafeal Swell and watched the dinosaur dig we headed home for a delicious dinner, presents, cake & ice-cream!

Mara helping Mara read her card and open presents.

The most delicious chocolate cake I've ever made!
It makes my mouth water just looking at the picture.
In case you are looking for a good chocolate cake recipe here it is online:
Too-Much-Chocolate-Cake

Discovering an actual Allosaurs

We invited my parents down for a visit this past week because something incredible was taking place a few miles down the road: a real dinosaur dig near Castle Dale...not just any bones, but a real life allosaurus! One of Ty's favorite dinosaurs! We drove down to the San Rafeal Swell to check it out and watch the scientists digging out the dinosaur bones.

Ty & Papa going to check it out

Here they are--the BLM members working hard to remove the dinosaur bones from the earth

I can't even begin to tell you how windy it was!

We climbed up on a rock above where the diggers were working and looked below at the word they were doing.

It was pretty neat seeing actual fossils being dug out.


Papa and Nate found a fossil on a hike back to the car

Ty's holding part of the actual allosaurus bone.

After watching and seeing the allosaurus bones we drove a little ways through the San Rafeal Swell to what is called the Wedge Overlook.

What an awesome view--from the Wedge Overlook

Papa sitting right on the edge of the wedge over look!

Beautiful weather--just a bit windy!

Here we are at the Grand Canyon--of Utah that is. Well close it's called the "Little Grand Canyon"

We hiked around a bit of the overlook--and here the kids are looking down it

Look closely and you will see Mara Lou

Just checking out the prickly plants

What are they looking at? A dead snake on the side of the road!