T-Mac and the Booger

This was going to be titled… “That’s what she said…” and then I wondered how many weird hits that would bring to my site.  Either way.  I had to write this down, it was so ridiculous.  Yesterday in the car”Let’s Dance” by Lady GaGa came on and Jeff changed the station… we don’t mind her songs, we just don’t always listen to them.  After we changed the station Sophie says, quite determinedly, “I want my Lady GaGa…” so back to the song we went.  Just glad she doesn’t dress like the woman!

Filed under: Sophie on February 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »

Yesterday Violet turned 4 months old… can’t believe she is that old, though, just like with Sophie, I couldn’t imagine life without her.  Isn’t that so crazy, that someone can be in your life for such a short period of time and become so necessary?  Violet is becoming more and more mobile… no rolling, though I checked Sophie’s baby book and she didn’t roll until 4 1/2 months… so I guess it should be coming soon.  She is loving standing in her exersaucer and LOVES Sophie, she calms down when Soph is near her, when Sophie smiles at her or plays with her Violet just beams.  It is cute, I hope they become good friends, that is what sisters are for, right?  Her eyes are staying undecided right now.  They go between blue, green and gray, and her hair is sticking with cool red highlights.  She is really such a happy baby, and we are loving having her around, she is so much fun.  Her giggles crack me up… they are hilarious.  Anyways, didn’t want to jip her a shout-out for 4 months… here are a couple pictures of Violet in her exersaucer.  The first one is her laughing at Sophie…

Filed under: Violet on January 24th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Now that you have finished reading the monster of a post I wrote last time I figured I would put up a couple pictures of what the girls are up to…

Violet is moving a lot more… she is recreating the fun positions that Sophie created in the swing.  Sophie LOVES her new dresses… and loves posing with Violet even more.  Here is a picture of Violet, looking all grown up.  I can’t believe how big and filled out she is getting.  She is such a doll.  By the way… LOVE THE BUMBO (which is how Vi is sitting up in that last picture)… thanks to the chain of girls who passed it on to me, I wasn’t sure I would like it, so I didn’t want to buy one, but I would buy one in a heartbeat now.  It is so fabulous.  It sits on the countertop while I cook or do my hair.  She is chilling next to me while I type right now.  It is great!  End ad for the day!  We are having a good time, and enjoying each others company quite a bit.  I will someday get all together enough to make it to playgroup… but at the moment we are having a good time with all the new Christmas toys that we have gotten.  I am also trying to figure out what I am doing with my new calling (RS secretary) and spent a lot of time putting emails into a contact list last night so I can send out weekly emails.  It will take me a little bit, but I think I will get there! 

Filed under: Violet, My crazy life, Sophie on January 14th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

The end of the year was so busy… so I am going to do a quick pictorial rundown (with my, hopefully, minimal commentary….) so that I will be already to start the new year with a clean slate (as soon as I unpack all the luggage from our trip).

Christmas Eve is a big deal for Jeff’s grandma, Sharyn… so when we are here we head to her house the night before for good food and good company…

Sophie waiting for the festivities to start; my MIL has been waiting forever to dress up children and perform the Nativity.  This year she had a Mary and baby…  Sophie LOVED the donkey, couldn’t stop riding it!

Christmas pj’s and sugar cookies… what else is Christmas Eve about?  Violet getting ready for her 1st Christmas!

Christmas morning: opening stockings and the PINK CAMERA!!!  It is all she talked about, and she is actually getting pretty good at aiming the camera, she gets our faces 9/10 times… not bad!

Christmas dresses from Grandma… they had big full skirts that made Sophie twirl around the living room.

At my parents house in Utah… new ski goggles and Sophie’s favorite way to unwrap large gifts!

Sledding… Vi wasn’t even phased… she just went along for the ride!

Sophie using her new vacuum, in red heels… don’t your shoes always match your vacuum?  Sophie finally met her 2nd cousin BBJ… and I finally met her mom Aunt LoLo, whom I have talked to on the phone, and emailed for years… yea for meeting friends, and getting along just as well in person as over the computer!  Sophie and BBJ bowled together, played crazy toddler games, played CandyLand and then, along with Prince OGO, fought off dragons well into the night, both surviving (just barely) until the clock struck midnight on New Years!  That was fun!  (PS my dad made those crowns for the girls and must have slain the same stuffed dragon about 200 million times… those girls thought that was the best game ever!)

I got to meet up with one of my best friends from forever ago, Bethany… it is always nice to catch up, and then I am always so upset that I don’t get to spend more time with her… I have tried convincing her to move out here about a hundred times… she never bites.  Finally, we got to go to a BYU basketball game… we destroyed the other team… won by about 50 points.  In that picture you can see my brother Andy with his girlfriend Daisy (sorry ladies… you snooze you lose).  Daisy came to visit us for the New Year… and it was really fun to get to know her better and hang out.

The week in Utah included all the standards.  We had a white elephant game (luckily there were 2 princess gifts to avoid serious breakdowns from the toddler princesses), bowling tournaments, Temple Square for the lights, Training Table for cheese fries and Cafe Rio for burritos… yummy.  We also played the New Super Mario for the Wii about every available moment that we had… that game rocked (thanks Jeffrey!).  We had a lot of fun and enjoyed all the good company, and it was nice my mom’s family could meet Violet.

This new year will bring a lot of crazy things… Vi’s surgery has been scheduled for the end of February, we are anxious and nervous, and ready to be done with it (but I can’t tell you how much I will miss her cute little cleft!).  Jeff and I will become Uncle and Aunt for the first time EVER!!!!  We are also going to keep up our crazy A’s obsession, cheer on the Eagles and the Cougars, and hope that everything keeps going well with me staying at home.  I also am excited to get into better shape (no pregnancy in ‘10… it’s the annual motto;) and start cooking more.  Can you believe that this year is my 10 year for high school?!?!  I think the 2 kids signify I am getting older than I feel, but that just seals it.  We are excited for the new year… bring on 2010!

Filed under: Violet, My crazy life, Sophie on January 6th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

First things first, yesterday Violet turned 3 months!!!  Yeah for her.  For the record books and the grandparents… she now weighs a whopping 12.6 pounds!  She looks nice and chunky and has officially grown out of the newborn clothes (I don’t remember Sophie ever wearing newborn clothes…).  She is such a happy, funny girl.  She smiles huge when you say “Hi!” and chats all the time, she is even giggling a little and I LOVE IT!  She still is such a good sleeper, she has totally gotten the hang of the 6 hour sleep and often times will go up to 8 hours before waking us up.  She is moving a bunch now, she will start out with her head facing one way in bed and after a couple hours she has flipped sideways and is kicking you in the back.  She does this super cute thing while she eats, and to self soothe herself… she holds her hair right next to her ear… if you want to help her calm down you just help her find her hair… crazy girl.  She also has given up on the binkie and just likes chewing on her hand, not any finger in particular, just the side of her hand and index finger.  Sophie still can’t get enough of her, and when Violet was crying while sitting on Santa’s lap, Sophie (who wasn’t going to even get near Santa) bravely sat down next to Violet, held her hand and tried her best to ignore the “jolly” man whose lap she was sitting on.  It was really cute, Sophie thinks she is Vi’s protector… it is adorable.

The other night we drove over to Tilden Park to check out the reindeer… it was crowded, and hard to park, but the reindeer were pretty cool.  There were a lot of pretty lights, but I think the crowds and the sight of Santa got Sophie all freaked out.  Which is why she doesn’t look particularly happy in the picture.  It was fun though, and I wonder if we had gone earlier in the season if we could have avoided some of the crowd.  Sophie liked the reindeer though… so that all worked out.

Yesterday Sophie and I made reindeer food.  I am not a big leave cookies out for Santa person… I just eat the cookies, and my waistline doesn’t need any help right now, so I had seen an idea about reindeer food and thought we would give it a try.  We mixed pearl dust (for cakes) and powdered sugar and then covered the oats with them.  Tonight, before bed we will sprinkle some on the sidewalks so the reindeer will know to stop here and they will have a snack when Santa is inside working.  Sophie is pretty excited, she shows everyone who visits her reindeer food!

This post has been a little random, but with the holiday craziness continuing , I wanted to put up a couple last things before Christmas and vacation pictures need to go up. 

Merry Christmas!

Filed under: Violet, My crazy life, Sophie on December 24th, 2009 | No Comments »

Last night we started Vi’s first year pictures with her 3 month photo session.  We decided to change photographers this time, I wanted to go for a new look, I love Sophie’s pictures, but decided to change it up, and I am really liking our photographer, Angela Chandler.  She is super nice, friendly, and patient with the fussy baby.  She put a sneak peek of our photo session up on her blog.  So, if you are interested, go take a look here.  I can’t believe how red Vi’s hair looks in the picture of her in the pink dress… it is kinda crazy… the Phillips hair lives on!

Filed under: Violet on December 19th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Last week we had our 2nd Annual Soup and Service, last year we made baby hats, this year I found a charity called Little Dresses for Africa, they send pillowcase dresses to girls in African orphanages.  We didn’t think we would be able to make very many, but we really wanted to see what we could do.  So we invited a bunch of girls over for good food and great company… and got 41 dresses made!  We were so excited.  It was a lot of fun, and I am now currently taking suggestions for next years service projects!  Here are some pictures of the night.

Filed under: My crazy life on December 15th, 2009 | 4 Comments »

I thought I would try my hand at a tutorial… it seems all the rage!  So here was a project Sophie and I did, and it wasn’t too hard, and I love the results.  I might be missing a few pictures, I decided to do this part way through.  Anyways.  Here goes:

Supplies Needed:

You need:

A whole wrapping paper tube (not just the partial one shown here), sturdy cardstock (I used the insert from another wrapping paper roll), red and green acrylic paints, foam brush, ribbon, glitter, double sided tape and a hot glue gun.  I also used a 1.5 inch hole punch, but you could just free hand your circles.

First thing, mark off 1.5 inch sections of your wrapping paper tube.  Then cut out as many as you want (I used 13 of them, but just arranged them until I liked the size).  If you used an exacto knife the pieces would be neater… but if you are like me, and you leave stuff out, the exacto knife is not a friend of the 2 year old who is eagerly waiting her turn to help.

Next cut out the holly leaves and the berries from the wrapping paper insert (or the heavy cardstock).  I used 16 holly leaves and 8 berries.  The coolest part of using the insert from wrapping paper to create the leaves and berries is that they curl up, and I kind of liked that effect on my final project…

Next paint the tubes green (this is the 2 year old friendly part… put down some serious newspaper or garbage bag to protect your furniture…).  While you have the green paint out, paint the holly leaves too.  While those dry pull out the red paint and the glitter.  Paint the berries red, then dip them in the glitter… messy with a 2 year old, but if your 2 year old is princess obsessed this is the cool part…. and know that the glitter goes everywhere, I am warning you now.

After the rings are dry, arrange them on your table or floor.  Then take your double sided tape and attach the pieces together to form the base of your wreath.

Then arrange the leaves how you like on the top of the wreath.  I have 8 sections of 2 leaves and 1 berry.  I meant to do 3 berries, but it was a little much when I laid it all out.  They won’t all stay in place, but don’t worry too much, just get a good idea of how they need to be spaced.  Then hot glue the leaves in place on the top side of the wreath.

After you have glued the leaves and berries on, flip the wreath over, and secure the pieces with more hot glue… they are attached to very little surface area, so get the glue everywhere you can.  It isn’t pretty, but who is going to look at the back?

Then attach 2 ends of a 8-10 inch piece of ribbon… I just picked a length that looked good on my front door…

This is what it will look like afterwards… 

And here is the 2 year old with her creation…

And because this is my first tutorial, let me know if there is anything different I can do… I don’t know how many I will make, but I think I will work on putting up more projects in the future.

Filed under: Tutorials on December 15th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

We had a fantastic trip to Oahu this last week, it was fun and so nice to have the 4 of us hang out.  I know it seems crazy to take a 2 month old on a 5 hour plane flight, but when the lady in line to board behind me asked how many times before this Violet had flown… I told her I was crazy… just not that crazy.

When we arrived in Hawaii we hurried to our friends the Osteen’s house, changed and headed over to a fabulously kid friendly beach, Ko Olina.  We went at least 3 times and Sophie loved it, she could walk out without worrying… the current wasn’t that strong, the sand was perfect and the waves were teeny tiny.  I think I will just post pictures of related things, as we did several things more than once.  Here are some pics of us chillin’ at Ko Olina (mainly Sophie, as Jeff and I are opposed to being photographed in swimwear!):

Sophie spent hours running back and forth from the sand to the water “building” sand castles, and really, just destroying the ones I made with buckets of water… her favorite beach game ever.  We spent some time trying to get a good Christmas card picture, and I think I got some good ones, here are a few samples, just not the ones I used.  Then Sophie tried out my camera… not a bad picture, but in all honesty I don’t think a DSLR is 2 year old appropriate.  That last picture is a vision of what Violet did the majority of the beach trips.  At least she was in a gorgeous place!

We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center a couple times.  The first time for a luau and the night Fire Show.  It was cool, Sophie loved it, she kept asking for more dancing everytime it stopped.  We had a really good time, and I told Sophie that Grandma used to work there, and Sophie thought that was pretty cool.

Sophie loved the tattoo station, she also loved her passport, they had little stations at every island to collect stamps.  She loved it.  The middle picture is us on the canoe ride, both kids were a little cranky.  The last picture is after the torential rain, it was crazy, it drizzled a little, then is poured for 2 seconds, stopped and then just came down with a vengence.  Poor girls, it was wet.

Before the PCC we stopped by the Laie Temple, we showed the Osteens around a little, but the temple was closed for renovations, so it wasn’t a very long walk.  Hopefully they will go when there is the open house… it should be pretty fabulous.  Sophie keeps talking about getting married in the temple to her prince… she told her friend Lleyton about 20 times… he didn’t care one bit… the difference between a 2 year old girl and a 2 year old boy, I guess.

We took a hike up to Manoa Falls.  We took 2 2 year olds, a 9 month old and a 2 month old… it was pretty crazy of us, but a lot of fun.  The 2 year olds made it almost all the way up by themselves, minus the super muddy, slippery spots.  Laura and I carried the babies in carriers.  It was a lot of fun.  This was nearer the end of the trip, so Sophie and Lleyton had become friends.  It was nice.

We did a couple other little things throughout the week… we visited the Waikiki Aquarium, which was small, but Sophie LOVED it… she was totally into it the entire time.  We also went to the international market for a little shopping and awesome hot dogs.  Seriously… these hotdogs were surrounded by bun, except for one end… perfect eating for a person carrying a baby in the front carrier… no drips!  We also went to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling.  Violet finally put on her swimsuit and got to put her feet in the ocean, saw some fish right off the shore, and Jeff carried an absurd number of towels the whole walk down to the shore from the parking lot!  Jeff also tried out surfing (he hasn’t surfed since high school.  He got up a couple times, but they were the times I was opening juice boxes or changing diapers, so I apologize to him for not getting a picture… but that is what happens when you leave me to baby sit on the shore!  We also stopped at North Shore to see the waves, pretty cool, not as big as they could get, but still impressive.

From L-R: Sophie at the aquarium, Sophie and Lleyton at the Koi pond, Vi chilling on the beach, Vi after finally getting in her swimsuit at Hanauma Bay, Jeff the pack mule, Dave and Jeff paddling out, North Shore.

Finally, on our honeymoon Jeff and I stayed at this hotel, and took a picture (that has disappeared off the computer) in front of these surfboards… here we are, 6 1/2 years later… we love our family!

Filed under: Violet, My crazy life, Sophie on December 9th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Because we go out of town Friday (a trip to Hawaii to see friends and have a good sunny time, I have been told it is 85 degrees) I wanted to post a few of the things that have been going on this last week.

First, a bunch of girlfriends got together to see the new Twilight movie.  Yes, we know we are nerds, and no, I didn’t cheer everytime Edward or Jacob took his shirt off (I have some dignity, people).  But to show you our true nerdiness, here is a picture of April J, Tara and I outside the theater being stared at by passerbys… in our shirts designed by the talented April P:

In case you don’t want to look too close, those shirts say “My other husband is a vampire” and on the bums, “Bitten and Smitten” ( I know, we may as well be teenyboppers… but again… no screaming, woo-hooing or fainting, as I said, there is some dignity in me!).  Either way, we had a great time, bonfire before hand, good company, crazy laughing while we made a guy run into a pillar because he was staring at us and not watching where he was going… fun times, love those girls.

Sophie and I had a good time making a gingerbread house (she called it making candy and cookies… I guess that is an apt description).  She has been cracking me up lately.  She keeps saying the silliest things.  The other day she did something and then said “That was a stupid thing to do.”  Don’t know where she learned that… but I have a feeling someone here said it… we just don’t remember it.  She also has been saying a lot of “I do not” and “I cannot” to things, even when she can… it is pretty funny.  She is still being super helpful with Violet, though she is sitting next to her sister now saying, “Wake up, time to eat… you’re hungry.”  She still won’t wear pants unless forced, and is getting pretty picky about which dress she wears.  I am hoping this will end soon, but I have a sinking feeling that that won’t happen.

Violet is now officially 2 months old.  She is getting so much happier, and smiling all the time.  She also is cooing and “talking” a lot.  You can see in that last picture, she loves playing with her tongue, it darts in and out constantly… super cute.  She also has this ridiculously large smile.  Jeff thinks it looks so crazy, but as my Dad put it, she has a natural ability to smile larger than most people.  It will be kind of sad when that goes away, and yet, amazing that it can happen when she is little and she won’t remember it.  She is really a sweetheart and Sophie, Jeff and I can’t get enough of her.  We sure are loving having her.

Hopefully while I am gone I can get us a great Christmas Card picture of the girls on the beach… why?  Because I can!  Hope you all enjoy your snow and rain… later!

Filed under: Violet, My crazy life, Sophie on November 25th, 2009 | No Comments »