Dear Tiffany,

I know I told you I would post a scrumptious blog tonight full of pictures and videos. So as not to make me a liar when I said I would blog, this post will have to do. Unfortunately, due to our poor Little Miss having a coughing fit which resulted in her losing the contents of her stomach (I'm trying to be delicate here), we are all a tad distraught and need comforting and will have to leave the beefy post until a sunnier day.

Much Love,

Your dear sweet beautiful magnificent adorable hilarious sister

Catherine the Great Carlson Phillips I

Teething Misdiagnosis #132

Ever since she was about 4 months old, any time Annabelle was crabby, I always said she was teething. We took her to her 9 month check up on Wednesday, and I told the doctor she's been crabby and wanting me a lot and then asked how the teeth were coming. They're not. Note to self: whenever this independent child who hardly ever wants to sit on a lap wants to actually sit on a lap, she's not teething, she's sick. (She generally likes to ignore us and play the day away. I'm ok with that.) Yeppers, this is ear infection #2 plus cold preceded by ear infection #1 by only about 3 weeks. Poor girl, but she's back to terrorizing the Christmas Tree like normal, so I think she's feeling better.

So during this blogging haitus we took since October, Little Miss is a changed baby. About a week before she turned 8 months, she finally figured out the crawling thing (and she rejoiced). It took only two days for her to use objects to pull herself to a knee position and only a few more days to pull herself to standing position. About two weeks later, she figured out that it's much more fun to walk herself around the furniture. (The whole dismount has been a work in progress though. She can now get down without face planting it. Definite progress.) Now we're at the phase where she thinks she can stand without holding onto anything. At first it was only thinking she could do it. Now she actually can do it for several seconds. Her poor bum must be mighty sore every time she plops onto it. It's fun to watch her "walk" back and forth from the coffee table to the sofas. As always, she will have some toy in her hand while doing it.

Last note about this little girl. If you've been around her at all (not so much while she's sick) you know that this little girl never (underline that) stops talking! She'll talk to her toys, she'll talk to her books, she'll berate Grandpa Carlson for scaring her while playing and then turn to me and tattle, she'll jabber during church because she's trying to talk to her friends, she'll just sit on her bum staring at the couch while talking to it... I think she gets it from Brian.

Speaking of Brian, you may all want to know how he's doing. He's been working really hard lately to get a paper done to be published, and he'll just keep this hardworking pace so that we can graduate by the necessary deadline (December 2011). Not too shabby to get a PhD. Good job him! (After rereading this paragraph, I notice that I said "so that we can graduate..." Umm, pretty sure I'm not an electrical engineer working on my PhD. I guess I'm living my dreams through Brian.)

As for me, well, I'm just anticipating seeing nephew Ryan before he enters the MTC and anticipating seeing niece Phillips when she enters the world. Sweet little girl, please know that I love you, but I will buy you more presents if you are born before my birthday.

Pictures always make a post, but I need to get my rear in gear for the day (yes, I actually wrote that). So pictures to be posted another day. See ya!

Likes and Dislikes of a 7 1/2 Month Old

Likes and Dislikes of a 7 1/2 Month Old

She loves being mobile. She'll roll and scoot backwards to all corners of the apartment. She also digs her head and feet into the ground and sticks her bum in the air. She doesn't get far with this move, but it's hilarious to watch.

She hates that she can't crawl. She is a sweetheart, yet a sweetheart with attitude. She will rock back and forth on her knees and yell because she can't quite figure out how to coordinate the hands and knees to forward motion.

She loves her solids. Loves rice cereal, oatmeal, green beans, carrots, peaches, and bananas (well, doesn't love bananas but likes).

Hates sweet potatoes (I don't blame her) and apple sauce. To think about it, she's not a huge fan of her formula but that's because she just really loves her oatmeal.

BYU football games. She loves watching all the people.

But she hates sitting in the stands because of the noise. She likes the game underneath the stands.

That's ok, I can see way better there because there's no one blocking my view. (Those students who never sit down!)

Loves the chico stroller.

Hates the jogging stroller. I think that the fact that she can sit and play in her chico stroller but is strapped down in her jogging stroller may play a part in that, but considering the speed at which I run, she needs to be strapped in pretty tight (insert guffaw here).

She sleeps in her crib!

Yay! (I'm kind of ridiculous. She'll sometimes cry out at night, and I can't help it, my body gets out of bed before I realize it, and I'm beside her crib. By that time, she's gone back to sleep on her own.

Not much hate going on here. Well, she did start to hate sleeping in her bassinet. That's probably because her feet touched the bottom while her head touched the top.

California was so much fun! (We got back on Friday night/Saturday morning.) She loved playing with her aunts, uncles, and cousins. (Did I mention that she loves kids a lot so she really had fun with her cousins.) And boy was she spoiled, and she loved that (as was I and did I). (Sad that I only got one picture with one cousin. There were six others there. Lauren and Annabelle sure do look cute though.)

She missed her daddy so much. That's pretty ironic because we all went to California because Brian had a conference. He was really busy though and stayed at a hotel while Annabelley and I stayed with family.

Loves books...and spoons. Plays with them and eats them all day long.

Will yell at you if you take them away from her.

Loves being outside and gets really antsy if we haven't left the house all day.

Also loves electronics (think cell phones and computers - she is her father's daughter).

She will make you pay if you take them away from her. Just ask sister Tiffany. Annabelle would give her the stink eye for hours each time she took away the cell phone.

We love this little girl. Can you tell?

And without further ado, here are more pictures!

These are my sisters. What are they doing, you ask. They often stand in the kitchen like this. They like to think that they receive strength and power from the surrounding appliances. (Or they could be practicing a yoga pose. Whatever.)

Um, I think T will kill me because I put this photo up. I had to. It perfectly portrays the attire and nourishment received for the duration of the California trip. (Yes, that's fudge. We were putting it on our nightly sundaes. We party, we party hard.)

Annabelle loves to visit with Cousin Lily in Bountiful

And loves her Grandma Carlson

Strutting her stuff in her snazzy track suit

After Stake Conference. She had a blast apparently.

She doesn't quite understand the flash on the camera. She can be smiling up a storm, but as soon as the flash goes off, the following occurs.

I have to explain this picture to let you know that my parents rock. Brian and I had gone to the emergency room early on the Sunday morning of Conference. Amazingly enough, I had a companion from my mission who just so happened to stay the night (Holly is awesome!), so when Brian and I were rushing out, I was able to ask her to watch Annabelle. I'm serious when I say that the Lord really does watch out for us. Anyway, I knew that Holly had to leave at around 7:00 A.M. to drive back to Arizona, so I called my parents at 5:00 and asked them if they could watch Annabelle. They hopped in their car and were on their way (note: they live an hour away). I feel really bad about it, because we got home before they got to our apartment. They still were lifesavers because they cooked for us and washed our dishes and played with the Little Miss while Brian and I caught up on our sleep. Annabelle loved every minute of it (as you can tell sitting on Grandpa Carlson's lap).

Annabelle and Grandma Carlson at "the game"

She thought Uncle Eric was a hoot, and she especially liked sticking her figures all over his face and in his mouth.

The little bum

I Can't Believe I'm Old Enough

to have a nephew serve a mission. Congrats to Ry who received his mission call today - Lubbock Texas, here he comes!