Clarkfam

Hello to everyone!! Well, January has been full of puppies, puppies and more puppies!! What a job that is to take care of 10 rapidly growing puppies!! Richy and Brooklynn do most of the work with Michael close behind. I took them in to get their shots last week and let's just say, it was an experience. Thier mother was not happy with me when I left her home and had all of her children in the car with me and the boys. But it all turned out ok. We had to number the puppies with a sharpie marker inside one of their ears to make sure we didn't give two doses of shots to any of them. We got the bill for heating the big building that we kept them in outside and about died!!! If we sell all 9 of them (we are keeping one) for $100 as planned, we should come out just about even with the shots and the heating bill. I didn't even count the bags and bags of puppy food we've been going through! Oh, well! I wouldn't suggest to anyone to have puppies in the dead of winter in Idaho, not that we planned it!! We keep telling people that it wasn't a planned pregnancy. Ha ha!!

Well, the kids are back in school and loving it! Rich has been in town all month!! And I am loving that!!! We have had lots of good family time together!! We have been working on getting our home more in order and it is a wonderful feeling!! We have also started taking each ot the kids out once a month with dad and once a month with mom. This has been a little tricky, but a lot of fun and very rewarding!!! The kids especially love it!! I love having the one on one time with each of them. And it doesn't have to cost a thing. Brooklynn and I went babysitting together and had good talk time on the way there and back and that was our date. Richy and I went to lunch after I helped at the school one day, and Michael and I played for a whole hour together!! Joseph and I also played early one morning when he decide that 5:30 was a good time to get up and get going!! Silly boy! Rich has been able to take the kids each out for ice cream and has had some good talks!! He said when he was with Brooklynn, some lady was smoking and he made the comment that he will never understand why someone would do that to their body. Brooklynn proceeded to tell him that she decided when she was 2 years old that she was never going to smoke! Well, I guess we gotta start them young, right?

Brooklynn and Richy started their after school program today. It is called Wonders of Clay. Once a week they get to learn to make whatever they want with clay, fire it, and bring it home the next week. They are loving it. The class is very small with just two boys from an LDS family we know in it also. Brooklynn has also auditioned for a part she wanted in this little school play and she got it!! She is very excited.

Michael loves to work on "homework" along with Joseph. They ask to do it every day as they see their older siblings go off to school. They each carry around a backpack with a preschool book and crayons and a toy of their choice. We think we have decided to keep Michael home for one more year. So he would start Kindergarten in 2008. He starts "official" preschool in the fall with a sweet mom in our ward who has done it for years.

Joseph did the cutest thing the other day, so I have to share!!!! He brought me Brooklynn's stuffed animal that he loves and told me that 'the baby ' was dirty. Then he proceede to bring me the changing pad, then the wipes, then a diaper. So he laid the animal down on the pad, wiped it's tummy, and pleaded with me to put the diaper on. Well, I did, and them he went and got some clothes. We dressed it and then he scooped it up lovingly, and proceeded to snuggle with it all the way to his room where he wrapped it in a blanket, put it in bed, turned on the fan, had me turn off the light, and shut the door. Then he said "Shhhh, mommy, the baby is sleeping." HA Ha HA!! It was soooooo funny and sooooo cute!!! Well, I hope that someday he remembers how to do all of that when he is a daddy.

Everyone take care!! Sure can't wait to read your letters and see pictures!! Love, Becca

Olson Family: We all saw our first snow and Ruth and the kids had a great time sledding down our hill in the back yard. Both times it snowed school was shut down until 12: PM, which didn't mean much for Adam since his classes are almost all in the afternoon/evening. We found out that the gender of the baby inside Ruth is a BOY! Oh boy, another boy! We have a trio on our hands now. Ruth has been going through much hassle trying to get a midwife and have our insurance cover it. We are paying a lot of medical insurance every month and it would be sad to not be able to use any of it. Adam has spent many hours trying to finish up this ongoing Cubase 4 project, teaching about software through online video tutorials (www.vtc.com). He even canceled a weeks worth of classes to finish by the deadline of February and still didn't finish. Ruth has now handed over finances to Adam, she has taken over it out of necessity the last 5 years because of the craziness of Adam's work and study. Well now Adam is trying to catch up and has spent about 60+ hours trying to get it all together and makes sense of the madness while still teaching and preparing for classes he has never taught before. Ruth has been teaching the boys a lot at home and doing home school hours pretty regularly. She has recess time and fun games with the kids too. It is neat to hear them tell Daddy about their numbers, letters and Atom is even reading a little. Joshua is working on his colors and for a while mommy was beginning to think Joshua was colorblind. The name for the new little one will most likely be Eliot (and go by Eli). The very day we found out it was a boy Ruth was reading a children's book to the boys and the main little boy in the story was named Eli.it's a sign!