The Pumpkin Patch

On Friday we went to the Pumpkin Patch with some friends. It was a sunny but rather chilly day. These girls were on the quest for the perfect pumpkin and went up and down the field before each finding "the keeper." On the lookout...
King of the haystack
Say cheese :)
Taking a break from the quest

Caramel Apples

Last Monday we went over to our friends house for a special family night of making caramel apples. It was a fun adventure that was simply delicious. Who knew that the tangy combination of a granny smith apple topped with caramel sauce and lots of goodies could turn into such a tasty creation! I think this activity has to go on the list of traditions for the month!All the kiddos being creative with their apples... there were so many choices for toppings!
Ellie making her apple
YUMMY!

Traditions....

I love traditions... what they stand for, the great memories that they help recall and continue to create. One of my favorite Clarke family traditions is making pumpkin shaped sugar cookies in October. Since my birthday is in October when the tradition stood that you brought cupcakes to class on your birthday.... we always made my moms amazing melt in your mouth sugar cookies.. and they were always a hit. Now we continue the tradition and make the sugar cookies every October and then again in February as heart shapes for Valentine's day. It is a good thing this tradition is just twice a year... because I have already eatten 8 LARGE pumpkin cookies today so I am glad we don't do this more often.

Our friends Hazel and Dewi came over to help us make our pumpkin cookies which made it a great fall activity. Ellie's favorite part was snitching the candy corns off the cookies!

Hard at work
The fun part!
Resting after a long morning of cooking!

Only in Park City Utah....

We took our semi-annual trip to Utah a couple of weeks ago to see my parents while they were home for conference. We enjoyed the sun and some eighty degree weather and then over the weekend... it snowed! It was unbelievable.... that only happens in Utah. We loved it though... I got my sun fix and my sister from Arizona got her snow fix. It was great.

We had a nice week with my parents. After the month in July it seems that this trip was so short... we didn't get enough time... but we will be able to see them in a few months.

Some of the things we did while we were there:

Trip to Antelope Island

Lots of crazy cousin time!
Ellie SO excited when Brandon flew in for the weekend
More cousin time...
Hot air balloons in Park City
All the cousins at temple square
Ellie at the conference center

Play School

A friend from Ellie's music class started a little "play school." It is a co-op of 5 of us with a total of 8 kids. We meet once a week... and we alternate teaching each week plus an additional "helper." It was the second week of class and my first day teaching. We focused on the letter B today. It was so much fun:) We had story time, singing time, craft time, snack time and then play time! Ellie had such a fun time having her little friends over. The Kid Crew

Her Shadow......

So Ellie discovered her shadow this past summer while we were at Cannon Beach. It is a pretty funny story..... too long of a story to write about. But it continues to be a bit of a problem for our family. The problem is... she doesn't like her shadow. She gets pretty upset when she sees it. She starts yelling at it and saying, "No Ellie." This means she doesn't want to see the shadow (which she calls Ellie) and doesn't want the shadow following her.

Fortunately, we live in Seattle. It isn't sunny all that often which means we don't see an overwhelming number of our own shadows... but when it is a sunny day... as it was today at the zoo... we have a bit of a problem. Today Ellie decided to sit down on the path at the zoo and have a bit of a fit at her own shadow. It is a bit of comedy for me and the rest of us... but Ellie has such a problem with it. Poor thing.

An afternoon at the Zoo

We took a trip to the Zoo this afternoon. Ellie was so excited when she saw that the petting zoo was open. We normally go to the zoo in the morning and the petting zoo is only available in the afternoon... Ellie was SO excited to pet the goats... she kept on calling them sheep.. oh well close enough. She was very concerned when the goat would stop eating and she would move the goats bowl of food closer to him so that he would eat more. Then she would tell the goat to drink from its' bucket of water and wasn't satisfied until it actually did! Sebree, Ellie and James
Ellie ooooing about the sheep
Trying to convince the sheep to "come ere"
On her tippy toes in order to get the best view of the sheep

First Day of Preschool!

Today Ellie had her first day of preschool! She loved every minute of it! She is going to a little a preschool at a church in the eastgate area... since she isn't three yet the program is set up so that all the parents stay but alternate everyother week. One week you help in the classroom and the next week you get to listen to a lecture on some aspect of raising a two year old... I am SO excited because I need to learn everything I possibly can!

Ellie had such a great time. There were so many choices as to which station to play at... she took her time at each....until something else caught her eye. She played with the rice station, the indoor slide and climbing station, next was the play dough station and then on to painting. Next she decided to give the baby dolls a bath and then spend some time in the little loft castle with some of her new found friends. When later asked by Brandon what she did at preschool she simply said, "Friends." So evidently her favorite part was making some new little friends which is no surprise to us as Ellie is definetly a social butterfly. There are so many other toys and activities she did at preschool.. I am so glad we decided to do it. We were actually really lucky to get in! I didn't find out about this program until August and upon looking into it in greater detail learned that you were supposed to sign up in March and even then it was a lottery as to who was to get it. When I sent in the application and a letter hoping to be put on a wait list or something... and heard from them in September that we had been accepted.. yeah! We are looking forward to this year of preschool!

Trip to the park= meet the firefighter

We met some friends at the park today. While we were there a big firetruck pulled into a nereby parking lot. As the truck was leaving the kids ran to the edge of the park and were waving goodbye to the firefighters. Well the truck pulled around in the lot and parked again. A firefighter came walking over to us with these cute little hats for all three kids and sticker firefighter badges. I would have loved to have taken a picture but hadn't brought me camera... but here is the memorabilia Ellie recieved from her first contact with a firefighter.

Joe & Rachelle's Weddding Day!

On Saturday, September 15th, Rachelle (Brandon's little sister) and Joe were married. It was a beautiful day! Ellie was a flower girl so it was big day for her! It was a big responsibility for her but she did such a good job. I was so worried that she wasn't going to walk down the aisle but she did it!

Our little girl!
Family photo

GO HUSKYS!

This weekend we were determined that we were going to paint our kitchen. We have been planning on it for some time but have put it off... so this was the weekend. Brandon was even going to sacrifice watching the BYU vs. UCLA football game so that we could accomplish this goal. Well... Saturday morning started off great and we did our first coat of yellow.... it is actually the third coat.... the first two attempts of yellow failed miserably (as in neon yellow looking) so we finally went with Hawthorne Yellow... part of the new Benjamin Moore line in association with Pottery Barn. Anyway, we see our neighbor from across the street walking over to our house... and temptation was standing at our door..... two tickets to the University of Washington Huskies vs. Boise State football game. We caved in and went to the game. It was worth it! We had a great time. And we even finished painting the kitchen on Saturday night (while listening to the BYU game of course!

Labor Day

On Labor Day we joined our friends, the Karrens, on a hike. We had planned on hiking Mt. Si. It is about 4,000 ft and a four mile hike. With three kiddos and four adults we hiked Mt. Si... we just didn't make it to the top. But we had fun along the way :)

Ballard Locks

After our trip to the chocolate factory we headed over to the Ballard Locks. In this area there are 2 navigational locks, a fish ladder, and a botanical garden. The locks allow vessels to pass from fresh water Lake Washington, into the salt water of Puget Sound. Ellie had such a fun time watching the boats rise in the water and then as they passed through to the other body of water.


The highlight for Ellie was watching the fish ladder. We came at the perfect time of year... the ladder was FULL of salmon swimming up it on their way to lay their eggs.

I Won the Golden Ticket

Brandon discovered, through the recommendation of a coworker, that you can take tours of our local Theo Chocolate factory. He made reservations and we headed with our friends, the Karrens, on a trip to the chocolate factory. Before going on this tour I thought that I knew chocolate pretty welll.. considering the obsession that I have with it.... but I soon discovered that I really knew very little and had very poor taste in the quality of chocolate that I had previously adored.

Theo Chocolates, which has only been around for a couple of years, just recently won the top prize at the Fancy Food Awards in Manhattan. They say this award is like "the oscars of the the food world." But talk is cheap... I have tasted it and I am now totally a brand loyal costumer of Theo Chocolates.
I have never tried so many different types of chocolate.... especially so much DIVINE chocolate in one hour of my entire life. It was truly unbelievable. I am hooked. They make their chocolate bars with cocoa beans strictly from specific regions.... for example they have the Ghana bar, the Madagascar bar, the Venezualan bar. Did I mention that they are the first chocolate factory to only use fair trade cocoa beans. I was truly impressed. And I am now addicted to not only chocolate but more specifically Theo chocolate.

Ellie and Jack anticipating all the chocolate they would recieve along the tour. They were not disappointed. I know Ellie has never had so much chocolate in her little life. There were approximately 20 people on the tour. As Nicole, our tour guide, stopped to teach us things along the way... Ellie would see the bowls of samples that Nicole had on the table behind her. She would louder proclaim... ooooooo bite! Which is her waying of asking for a bite of that yummy chocolate.
This is the nib. We learned all about how they make chocolate from the cocoa beans. The nib is the final raw form of the inner core of the bean before they begin the process of turning it into the good stuff.
Ellie enjoying her treats along the way.

The Oregon Coast

We took a trip to Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast last weekend. We had a great time playing around in the water. Ellie was the most adventurous and wasn't afraid of the cold ocean at all! She loved running after and away from the waves! We had a great time watching her excitment with ocean!

Lovin' it!

A little game of catch me if you can!
All smiles Splashin' in the waves
The three of us in front of haystack rock Ellie getting burried in the sand

There were some beautiful state parks nearby and we had fun going on little hikes.