If you need to laugh today...

When I was studying Elementary Education at BYU I was required to take an art class. I was excited, I was expecting to learn some fun and crafty projects to teach my future students. I was wrong. My teacher was an actual artist (pronounced ar-teest). She gave us a one semester crash course and made us do actual art. It was painful.
For one unit we had to learn drawing, we were required to do a charcoal self-portrait, and a pencil profile portrait of someone else.
Let's just say my calling in life is not to be an ar-teest!

When I was packing the other day I found these two little gems and couldn't stop laughing. I hung them up (the only thing left on our walls), Clark cracked up when he got home. I'm sad to say my beautiful art did not make the cut for another move, so I had to take a picture before I tossed them.

This one I like to call "Alien Girl in Thought."

This one I lovingly call "Neanderthal."

Clark and I were dating when I got the assignment, so he was my model. For hours he sat there while I did my best to catch his very essence (did you notice I even got the little ear fold he has?). When I finally let him see my end result it was a little blow to his self esteem, he said something along the lines of, "is this what I really look like, do I look like a Neanderthal to you?!"

Seriously, I can't stop laughing when I look at these. My art is a success! The best part was that my teacher all through the course kept saying how we could take our art portfolio in for job interviews and really impress a principal, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have got my first teaching job showing up with these little charmers.

If you are looking for a profile sketch I work for cheap!

The Moving Shaft

Our sweet little Caden turned one yesterday! Good thing we celebrated his birthday early, because yesterday he got the moving shaft. We had to get our trailer loaded and we were racing the storm so both of our boys kind of had to fend for themselves yesterday. At one point Ethan got a jar of jam out and was eating it with a spoon on our front porch because he was hungry.

The fridge was left open and Caden found himself a cup of Jell-o with Coolwhip, he took off the plastic wrap and I found him eating it with his hands. It made quite the mess, but I was just happy he got some sort of celebration on his birthday.

Pretty proud of himself!

I can't believe that it has been a year since we welcomed this huge baby into our home.

In all of his 10 lbs. of glory!

From day 1 he has been such a sweet, content, cuddly little guy.

Today at his 12 month check-up we found out he's 30.5 inches tall (74%), and weighs 22.3 lbs. (42%). His doctor was a little concerned that he has fallen off of his growth curve in weight, she said, "not that he needed to stay above 99 percentile his whole life, but..." It made me laugh. I was given doctor's orders to feed the poor kid more.

At age one his personality is playful and fun. He is a momma's boy all the way. He is curious about his world and explores it carefully at a relaxed pace. He loves to grin at people and then gets shy and tucks his head in when they smile back. We love his cheesy little grin that he shows off when he's being mischievous.

He loves the song "If You're Happy and You Know It," he knows just when to clap and just when to grin:

Even though he got the moving shaft, we are very happy and we know it that he is one!

Our trailer ready to go...it is now somewhere between here and Colorado.

Johnson Family's Year Long Vacation

Our little family is about to embark on an adventure! We really do need a motorhome. From now until next March we will be traveling approximately 3,803 miles and living in 7 different cities. For Clark's schooling he has to go on rotations next year, basically he will be switching hospitals each month.

Since our boys aren't old enough for school yet and we are still young and full of adventure we decided to go along with him. Whenever I tell people about our plan for next year they look at me like I am insane...and they may be right, but I need a husband and my boys need a dad...so crazy or not here we come! For us, home is where the Clark is!

Sure there are perks to having a permanent address...sleeping on a bed vs. an air mattress, having friends, a washer and dryer in the house, church callings, Zumba class, etc...but we feel that being together as a family outweighs all the little perks. And really we are looking forward to exploring some pretty fun places next year.

Destination A. Evansville, Indiana

Destination B. Denver, Colorado

Destination C. Greeley, Colorado

Destination D. Federal Way, Washington

Destination E. Tacoma, Washington

Destination F. Seattle, Washington

Destination G. Albuquerque, New Mexico

Things are starting to fall into place, but if anyone has any leads on housing in the Washington area that would be appreciated.

The hardest part (besides the actually packing up and moving) is saying good-bye to our life in Iowa. We have loved the past 3 years here. We have made friends that I'm sure will be part of our lives forever. We will miss our wonderful ward family. We are so blessed for the experiences that we have had here and for all of the people we have met.

Caden's First Birthday Party

We celebrated Caden's birthday a little early this year so my mom could be around for the festivities! It was also the last hurrah we could have with all of our medical student friends before everyone takes off. It was such a fun night.

His party had a fish theme. I attempted to make him a darling little under the sea individual cake...and this is what happened:

The cake totally disintegrated!

Fortunately, my mom helped me make some really cute fish cupcakes, so Caden got to blow out his candle on one of those.

When I was in Romania I was invited to 2 first birthday parties. One tradition that they did was present the 1 year old with a tray of objects. Whatever the child picked represented their future life. I thought it was a fun tradition to adopt into our family...so Caden got to pick his fate!

The heart = a life of love. The medicine = health. The medal = a future athlete. The bling broach = fame. The dollar = wealth. The comb = good looks. The book = great intellect.

What do you think Caden chose?

About a year ago when my Dad came to visit he brought Ethan a fish pinata on the airplane all the way from Boise. It took several months of convincing, but Ethan finally decided we could break his pinata.

Running for the candy.

Even Caden knew what to do!

A few treats landed on Ethan's head, but he was so busy picking candy off the ground he didn't even notice.

We also had a fish pond for the kids. We covered our deck with blue tablecloths and they got to cast a fishing pole over the deck and try their luck. They all caught some fun toys.

Clark looks more excited than Ethan for the watering can Ethan caught.

Such a fun night to celebrate our fun one year old!

A Real Iowa Tea Party (not the political kind)

For my mom's Mother's Day gift I wanted to have a fun Mother-Daughter date while my mom was in town. After a little researching I got us tickets to a Gone With The Wind Tea Party!

We started our adventure driving through the beautiful Iowa countryside to New Virginia, Iowa where we found this quaint farm house that had been converted to our English tea room.

I told my mom that wild hats were required for the event, so we went shopping and found these lovely fascinators (on sale for $2)!

We were the last ones to show up for the tea party (always fashionably late) and quickly discovered we were the only ones to be wearing hats. HA! We had some ladies ask to take our pictures! Everyone made comments like, "you must have gotten those for the royal wedding." Oh no, I informed them I had a much more formal hat for the wedding, this is simply my Saturday tea attire.

We also discovered that they had no record of a reservation for Stephanie and Tammy, but they did have a table reserved for Bethany and Pam (bad cell phone coverage in New Virginia?).

So with our new aliases as Bethany and Pam (the wearers of large fascinators) we found our seats.

We thoroughly enjoyed our 4 course tea luncheon and water (not being tea drinkers and all).

Then Miss Scarlett herself graced us with a witty little monologue!

We loved looking at the wonderful displays of antiques.

But the highlight for sure was meeting the queen herself! She loved our fascinators!!!

We loved our real Iowa Tea Party!

6 years ago today...

6 years ago today a moment of my life resembled a chick flick!

Almost a year after returning from my mission to Romania my parents and I were able to go back. I loved being able to introduce them to my friends and show them the beautiful country. On our trip we decided to take a train to Austria for a couple of days. After a few amazing days (including a Sound of Music tour) we returned to Romania on the longest train ride ever! I didn't know much about booking train tickets and ended up getting us a scary sleeper car. We had to share our stuffy, hot, tiny little cabin with another man...a man who found pieces of my hair stuck to things and wrapped them around a pen so he would always remember a "real American woman." Needless to say, after 24 hrs. of this fun we were SO ready to get off the train.

We were planning on arriving in Bucharest and then catching another train right away to the city of Iasi. Unfortunately, due to a hit cow on the track our train arrived late. My parents (who knew what was going to happen) told me to jump off the train as soon as we got to the station and go buy us tickets so we could make our connection while they dealt with our luggage.

As I was jogging down the train platform I noticed that there was a man with red hair (not so common in Romania) coming towards me, I thought I was really losing my mind from being on that train to long...because that guy sauntering towards me with a huge grin looked so much like Clark! After a few more steps I realized it really was Clark, I ran to him and yelled, "what are you doing here?!" He gave me a big hug and I realized he was shaking. He then got down on one knee, pulled a beautiful ring out of his pocket and asked me to marry him. In absolute shock I squeaked out a little "yes!"

That dusty, dirty train station in disrepair became the most beautiful place in the world to me. I still don't know how he managed to keep it a secret. When we came home I was so excited to tell everyone and quickly realized pretty much everyone was in the know about it but me. Clark was then able to finish our trip with us.

The next morning at the Black Sea (Clark and my Dad watched the sunrise together that morning, my mom and I attempted to get up but were too tired...ha!)

With the wonderful Stoica family. Radu is now on a mission in Scotland and Andrea in England!

On our layover in Amsterdam. I couldn't pass up buying that orange hat on the side of the street.

So 6 years ago today I got the surprise of my life...and I'm still surprised everyday by how wonderful it is to be married to someone as kind and wonderful as Clark.

On Monday to commemorate I couldn't help climbing the tree again for a few "engagement" style pics! Muah ha ha!

Clark and Steph sitting in a tree...