Little projects

Well, they are minor projects, but I don't know if little is the best word to use considering the amount of time that went into them. I know some people don't care about these kinds of posts, but we're really just posting them because our moms and sisters ask about them...so here they are!

This first one makes me SO HAPPY! 

Matt "built" me a pantry!!! I know that most of you are thinking, "whoppie, everyone has a pantry," but out here in Cleveland that is clearly not the case. Most of these old houses don't have any kind of pantry or closet in the kitchen. In our apt we had to use one of those big ugly utility racks for our food. I hated how it was always out in the open and that everyone could see what we ate (is that weird?). Anyway, when we got here we were still planning on using the same rack, even though I really didn't want to. But we have this little closet off the side of our kitchen and decided to put shelves in it and I LOVE IT! Good-bye ugly black rack, hello pantry that hides all of our food.

Before:

After:
Notice the little door in the back of the closet? That's our laundry shoot or "intercom" (because there is one on each floor) whichever one you prefer, either way it's so nice to have! 

Food!

I'd say this was a much bigger and much more expensive project...our curtains for our bay window.

For weeks, since I knew we were buying this house, I tried to figure out what I was going to do with this window. We knew it'd be expensive, but it had to be done considering you can see our whole first floor through it. 

We were lucky enough to get some nice looking rods at JoAnn's for 80% off! It was weird because you had to cut them down to the size you needed (with a hand saw), but it worked out perfectly for us. We were able to customize them to fit our window perfectly. We got them for two other windows by our stairs and two windows in the master bedroom. I'll have to post pics of those later, because those ones are beautiful! 

These aren't great pictures, but you get the idea. This was before we painted. The yellow was fine, it just was too much for my curtains and other furniture/colors in the room. 

The curtains open:

And closed, and a freshly painted room!

You probably can't tell the color that well, but it's Mushroom Bisque, if that helps. Haha, it's a darker shade of tan I guess you could say. We love the way the walls turned out. Now we just need to get some things hung on them!

We are planning on getting two big book shelves in there, eventually, possibly recovering the green chairs, adding a love seat and removing one chair, and replacing the coffee table....at some point. :)

I love how the curtains hang on the floor.
 Matt did an awesome job of putting this all together.

He's quite proud of the rods, so he wanted me to take a close up.

Today he spent the entire day cleaning out or hobbit garage and doing yard work, while Luke and I played and vegged at the pool. He's the best.

The biggest project of all...is still coming along.

Hello third trimester!
Today I'm 26 weeks.

Baby is doing great, I'm not gaining too much weight (hooray!), but I still feel like I am getting huge.

Feet are swelling, cravings are out of control, and someone is very excited about the world cup and wants to play too (and it's not Matt).

Hello belly.

Fun Stuff

This week is Matt's last full week off before residency begins...before real life begins (sniff, sniff). We decided to do some fun things and not just all house stuff, which is what we've been doing all day, everyday the past two weeks.

We took little Lukey to the Natural History Museum here in Cleveland on free day. It was fun, but a little above his level. He liked to see all the animals, even though he's not a huge fan of animals-he's a little scared of them.

He really liked the dinosaurs.

They have a cute, little outdoor walk way where they have (live) animals that are native to Ohio. We saw some foxes, squirrels, vultures (yikes), otters (who'd a thunk?), bald eagles, beautiful birds (namely cardinals and blue jays) and a few others.

Now this is just random.

We've been growing Luke's hair out for a while now and it's getting really long. I love how it gets curly after we give him a bath, but it only stays curly if I make it. It usually just goes flat. It's super cute huh? But if he wears a shirt with a collar, he looks like he has a mullet, due to his bigger forehead :). Should we cut it or let it grow and maybe just give him a trim?

Back to the fun, today we went to the zoo (another free day). The weather couldn't have been better. It was upper 60's, no humidity-perfect! We packed lunches and saw the animals.

We just got our pool passes so we'll be living at the pool this summer as well. I'm trying to come up with several outings for Luke (pool, zoo, park days, museums, etc) and to help the time go by during this long summer. Matt will be working night float until the end of August, so we won't see him much and with me being very pregnant, with a two year old-well, you can see why I need things to pass the time.

We're going to hit up the strawberry patch this week and pick us some strawberries and then make some yummy jam. We might also go to an Indians game. Any other good ideas for fun activities we can do this week?

A little break from the chaos

We're still alive. 

I guess you could say we are in the "survival mode" of moving....we have only done it once before (well, I have) when I moved out here after we got married to join Matt. It was easy then, we shipped all of our stuff and it was sent to our house and it was not nearly as much as we have now. If I haven't already said it, I hate moving!!! In our next move we are getting rid of all of our hand-me-down/tree lawn stuff-which is most of what we own. :)

We have been here for a week and half and still love having our own place. We cleaned the carpets, repainted our dinning room and living room. Now I feel like we can get everything into place, since those big projects are done. We also had to hang some curtains and they were a huge project of running from store to store a million times to get it just right.

Our Realtor gave us this framed watercolor painting of our house as a house warming gift (and two free tickets to a horrible play that we walked out of).

And here are a few pictures of some of the rooms right after we moved in. My sister asked me for some pictures...and these are as good as they get for now. :)

It was a disaster!

Trust me, it has gotten a lot better than this. But doesn't this overwhelm you just by looking at the pictures? Whew.

Meanwhile, Luke has been surviving. I try to take him on a walk, to the park or library-some kind of outing a day. He's been a good little guy through the move, but it hasn't been easy on him. I think he's starting to get used to everything now.

Luke loves his food in stick form. Matt served his lunch this way the other day, he loved it!

Hot dog sticks, carrot sticks, cheese sticks and apple sticks. Whatever works!

Now that we are getting things put away, our house seems more like it's empty! I knew this would happen. 

I took this picture today before we started painting. We repainted the dinning room from a putrid, mustard yellow color to an olivey green color and the living room to a tan color.

So the break that I mentioned was Memorial Day. There is parade that comes right by our street, so we sat on a friend's lawn to watch and get some candy. It was hot and humid. Luke kept asking if we could go inside. It was only an hour, so it was fun I thought.

One float gave out water instead of candy....I had to take a picture.

As soon as we get everything else into order around here I will post some more decent pictures of our house.

Tonight we're taking a break, watching Wipe Out (because are feel that way), in our kitchen. I think I'd rather be on the couch. :)

Another big milestone

We are officially homeowners!

Tonight is our last night sleeping in our apartment, but the only stuff left is all of our furniture-everything else is at our new house. Tomorrow morning the Elders are helping us move all of our furniture, so we'll be out of our apartment for good.

Wednesday evening we got our keys and started some cleaning. Thursday our friends let our us borrow their truck for the day. Matt made a million trips back and forth, while I cleaned. Thankfully Luke was able to play at a friends house for quite a few hours and we amazingly were able to get a lot of things done (funny how that works). And today we made a few more trips, and wrapped things up around here. It is EXHAUSTING!

Last year my sister was about as pregnant as I am and told me how awful it is to move while being pregnant and now I completely understand! I almost feel pathetic because I am constantly taking breaks and I don't think my feet have ever hurt so badly! At the beginning of all this madness I was starting to feel sorry for us because we don't have family to help out, but Matt has been amazing! I don't know how he has all the energy to move seriously everything in our entire house. And on top of that we have a wonderful ward. So many people have called and offered to watch Luke, help us move and bring us dinner. I am so thankful to be in such a great ward, they really take care of us! We couldn't do it without the church.

I'll post some more recent pictures at some point. We have a ton of cleaning and unpacking ahead of us. Matt is off for the next three weeks and he wants to put a fence in before he starts residency too. Whew!

We love our new place!

Ps. We have a very comfortable guest bed! 

Visitors anyone???

Introducing Dr. Matthew Brent Clark, M.D.

Sunday, May 16th, 2010 Matt graduated from medical school!

We waited so long for this day and it turned out beautifully, and really we can't believe it came and went already.

The day started before 7am. We had breakfast with the Deans of the medical school.

Class of 2010 pictures.

And then Anne and I went to the convocation where Katie Couric was the guest speaker and gave some great advice to the graduating students at Case.

Then we hurried down the street to Severance Hall where they had the medical school's commencement. 

Severance is where the Cleveland Orchestra plays. It is such a beautiful building! A HUGE thank you to Rob for watching Luke (for a few hours!) while Anne and I were at the other event (we could only get two tickets) and for saving us some great seats at Severance.

Dr. Matthew Clark receiving his diploma and being hooded by his society dean Dr. Kent Smith

Luke slept through the entire commencement, so he wasn't very happy after when we were taking pictures.

And there is my 23rd week pregnant belly.

Anne and Rob flew into town for the weekend. We had such a great time having them stay with us! We LOVE visitors! :) We did some fun things that I will post later. 

We loved having them. I think they really enjoyed their stay as well.

The proud parents.

Dr. Clark hooding the newest Dr. Clark.

Matt is the first grandson in his family to be a doctor. His grandpa Clark and dad were/are both Family Practice doctors, both doing a lot of Obstetrics and Gynecology. However, Matt is the very first doctor in my family, so my family is very proud of him as well!

Matt's graduating class (about 133 students).

Can you find him?

And little Lukey, maybe he'll want to be a doctor too?

He kept calling Matt "doctor daddy."

Matt, I am so proud of you and all of your hard work over the years. You have accomplished so many things and I am so grateful for your ambition and your desire to work hard and help people. You will make a great doctor! Congratulations sweetie pie!

The time has finally come...