ABC+L Phillips Family

You say it's your birthday

2012-02-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

dun dun dun dun dun, it's my birthday too!

That's right, folks. Our Liddy baby turned one today, and what a cute one year old she is. Mama Louise flew down for the occasion, and we spent Saturday buying fun stuff for her birthday/party on Sunday. We set out the "magic wands" and balloons the night before so the birthday girl could wake up to a party. That party started at around 5:30 this morning. I told you we get up early here.

The birthday girl was pretty excited for the wands and balloons.

As was the birthday girl's sister.

This kiddo is one sweet girl with attitude. She's pretty content to crawl around or walk around holding onto furniture and play with anything that looks interesting, but take anything away from her or catch her when she's tired or hungry and yikes! You've got a teenager on your hands. She loves going outside, her sister, her daddy, and her momma. Oh, and still no teeth. That's ok, she's got a cute gummy smile.

Getting spruced up for church. Notice her ballerina slippers that only just now fit her, Nik.

Doting dad alert

After church waiting for her birthday song. She was tired. What a good patient baby though.

Excited big sister Annabelle.

The proud parents of the birthday girl. I tried to get our hats in the picture. You can kind of see mine. By the way, Bri and I spoke in church today. It was our third Sunday there. That must be some sort of a record.

Poor baby gets banana bread for a birthday cake. Hey, I'm learning to bake dairy free, and this was actually pretty good bread. I will definitely use this recipe again.

But I forgot to buy candles. Darn the move and all the things I need to restock in my house, like candles.

Momma Louise has been cooking non-stop since she came. Bri and I are loving it!

She's not so sure she likes the bread.

And she's decided she does not like the bread, but she does like her hat.

Momma Louis' stuffed shells. I would fly her out every month just to have her make us these. Oh, and because we love her and everything.

Gift opening. Notice the torn up wrapping paper and the fleeing Annabelle. Yep, Annabelle just swiped Liddy's present.

That's ok because she likes the wrapping paper. See, content baby.

How we love this Liddy baby and are so grateful she's a part of our family. I love her shrieks and giggles and smiles and funny faces, and she brightens my day. She the best part of getting up at 5:30 every morning.

I asked for it

2012-02-04T19:28:00.001-08:00

and I got it! What was "it" you might ask? What I asked for my bday! Let me preface this by describing what our garage has looked like recently. Cardboard. From floor to 3/4 of the way to the ceiling, wall to wall, cardboard. All I wanted for my birthday was to get a spot in the garage to park my car. After working last night and today and a 2-car trip to the local dump, we pulled that baby in and shut the door!

We then opened the door so we could drive to my birthday dinner. The first place we went was an hour wait. Um, with two little girls in tow who go to bed between 6:30 and 7:00 every night, we opted to go elsewhere. As long as the establishment had steak, I was going to be a happy girl no matter where we went. Second place had no wait (it was 4:45 P.M. after all and it was just crazy that the first place had an hour wait)

A few highlights from the dinner: Having to tell my almost three year old to leave her shirt on, Lydia flirting like crazy with the 8-year-old boy at the other table...and him flirting back, looking over at Annabelle only to find her straw up her nose as she's blowing bubbles in her drink, chocolate thunder from down under for dessert.

Happy Birthday to me!

Next birthday, Liddy's first in a week. Let's see if she will have teeth before then. It's a race.

Busy Busy

2012-02-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

Remember Halloween? Annabelle was a princess, Liddy was a cheerleader. We went to all of 5 houses and thought it a successful Halloween.

Now, in preparation for a move, we tried to spend as much time as possible with family since we would soon be leaving them. Mal and Mike with the lovely Irina even came for a visit before we moved. (Props to my husband for putting his start date for after the siblings had come and gone.) Greg and Nat and fam and Eric and Gini all traveled to us often. I wish I had pictures of their visit. I also wish I had pictures of Christmas. Poor Liddy. Her first Christmas and no pictures. In my defense, we thought the camera power cord was packed away, and the camera was out of batteries. Since the move, we have found and recharged the camera. These were the pictures we got before the camera died.

Annabelle kickin some patootie on the wii princess game. I had to hide it after a while. You can only beat a game so many times.

I think Brian may have secretly liked playing it ; )

Liddy learned to snuggle up to the grandpas before we moved. Smart cookie.

The move was actually pretty ok. The day after we (as in the movers) packed the truck, we headed out. We stopped at BYU for me to say goodbye to my friend/old boss and for Brian to say goodbye to his advisor. We were also taking our time because we were following a storm and didn't want to drive into it. Oh, and because we were moving with a sick Liddy. The throw-up kind. Awesome. After we got on our way, we stopped a few times to eat, play on a playplace, and for Liddy to be sick. We got to our hotel around 10 that night. The next day, we spent a fun morning swimming and going out to eat and then we hit the road again. We got the keys to our rental house that day but stayed in a Residence Inn. I love me my Marriott.

We started moving our stuff in last Friday, and as of today, almost all the boxes are unpacked. We still have some clutter, but for the most part, we're pretty comfortable. (Except for the garage filled , and I mean filled, with cardboard boxes that need to be bundled.) Annabelle and Lydia have faired ok. Liddy is better and Annabelle was pleased as punch to get her princess bed back. She's not pleased as punch that her daddy now has to go to work every day. I know, Annabelle. I miss him too. Brian is doing excelente as well, and I think is happy to be working again. We all now have the schedule of get up early and go to bed early. Sigh, I knew that day would come.

The girlies in the new house. Some are happier than others here.

So we have moved and are renting a 1-story 4-bedroom house. Things I love about the house. It is 1 story. It has 4 bedrooms. It's full of our stuff. I'm pretty stoked. I'm putting up these stats not to sound like a martyr, but to let you know how truly excited and appreciative I am to be living in this house. Time spent in parents' basements: 8 1/2 months (4 months in my parent's at the beginning of our marriage and 4 1/2 just recently with Bri's parents due to well, those of you close to us know). Time spent in a 500 sq ft cinder block apt: 5 yrs 8 months. I've loved my time at the other places and appreciate everyone's hospitality, and...I'm really grateful for our current location. Without further ado, here are some pictures. (Keep in mind, we are in serious need of pictures, splashes of color, etc, but I'm pleased thus far.)

Play area/ front room

Front room/library (I need about 2 more bookcases)/music room

Family Room

Annabelle's Room. You will not be seeing Liddy's room this tour because she is currently asleep.

Guest Room. We have one, so come!

That's about it, folks.

Christmas Dresses

2011-12-24T20:01:00.000-08:00

We wanted some simple and cute pictures of the girls in their Christmas dresses. I always love the process it takes to get a decent photo of kids. Annabelle was wearing a blue dress that day pretending she was Cinderella and did not want to change dresses. I had to tell her that this was Snow White's dress to even get her to consider a costume change. She was not overly thrilled.

She finally cracked a smile. I was jumping around pretending to be a monkey. Oh the things we do...

That's sisterly love right there.

One day Annabelle will let me do her hair, right? Sigh

Liddy was done pretty much after the first few pictures. What a trooper.

I love these girls

We survived!

2011-12-04T21:48:00.001-08:00

I thought you might all like an update with operation binky removal. The first day was, well, words can't describe. The next two were better. The two after that were even better. Nowadays, she'll mention every now and again that her binky is broken and therefore gross. I think we can call operation binky removal a success. Now we need to work on Liddy baby and her attachment to her mom.

Binky Withdrawals

2011-11-16T19:40:00.001-08:00

I'm having a bad case of binky withdrawals. Annabelle now wakes up early and won't snuggle anymore. Binky! I miss you! But I know Annabelle misses you even more.

All right, in all seriousness, it's not a walk in the park, but she's doing a bang up job. Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella have helped a ton to get her through this hard time in her life. (They're miniature doll like things that she loves. She runs around all day with one in each hand.) I'm impressed with how smart kids really are. They get a lot more than we think they do.

What do you do when dad is home full time, waiting on the government?

2011-10-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, Brian's scholarship requires that he work for the government after his schooling. They aren't sure where they're going to put him, so they told him to "sit tight" while they figure things out. So he is a full-time house dad for now, and these are a few ways we've enjoyed having him with us!

1) Take a trip to visit Greg, Nat, Garrett, and Abby. (Sorry, no pictures. I have problems remembering to take it with me.)

2)Visit California...again.

We were trying to think of a place to that wouldn't be too expensive, so California won. It was nice seeing the sisters and their families so soon after the last time. We drove there, and at first, I thought we were crazy. We decided to start a little later in the day so the girls would fall asleep for the night, and we borrowed a portable dvd player. I thought Lydia might be a little hard to travel with, but they both were amazing! We left at 3 in the afternoon, stopped after about 3 hours to eat dinner, and then we snuck over to McDonald's to let Annabelle burn off energy at the playplace. They soon after fell asleep in the car and were out the rest of the drive. Bri and I were a little tired towards the end, but we made it there a-ok. The drive home was almost as nice. There was a part in the Sierras where traffic was stopped for about an hour. That was annoying in and of itself, but it was the Sierras, and those that know me know that the Sierras scare the bajeebies out of me. I think it's the fear that if you sneezed, you could drive right off a cliff. Am I right, or am I right? I may have been a tad scared and cried a little when we were stopped in traffic in the Sierras and a drop off was right to our right. (Note to self: Blog about all my scary Sierra Mountain stories so you know that my fear comes from a real place.)

In California, Brian and I were able to leave the girls for a night and go to Santa Cruz. We have so much fun when we go there. We love to walk along the pier and pick a fun place to eat. We stayed at an amazing hotel, and were able to visit Brian's colleagues at UC Santa Cruz. I could do that trip again any time. Sigh. So fun.

After the Priesthood session of Conference, Brian took Bry and Josh out to eat. They were apparently starving.

We took the girls to San Francisco one day. We really enjoyed it. First, we went to Golden Gate Park to play on the playground. So fun! As you can see, Annabelle makes friends fast and everywhere we go.

I can't figure out what the bird is doing. Can you?

Annabelle and I were trying to climb across this net. We kind of got stuck if you couldn't tell. Picture us laughing really hard as we tried to get off.

Lydia was chillin like a villain.

It was cold, and then it was bright.

Then we headed to Pier 39. Brian says the best calamari is on the pier in Santa Cruz. He says that the best clam chowder is at a joint on Pier 39 in San Francisco. Annabelle and I had chicken and fries. Lydia slept and missed all of the pier.

We love carousels! Ask Annabelle about up and down on the horse. She'll talk about it for the rest of the day.

We saw the sea lions too, but I ran out of will power to take pictures. If you have young children and want a fun but not overwhelming day, I suggest you follow in our footsteps. You'll thank us later.

3) Protect the Castle from dragons

Lydias

and Grandmapas

4)Go to Hogle Zoo when it's not so hot. Annabelle was a little scared of the elephant (fake, not real)

but loved the rhino.

Oh, and ask her about up and down on the giraffe.

She loved the turtles, and when we got home, she put a bucket on her back and played turtle.

5) Fix tough electrical engineering problems with dad. Liddy's a fan.

Oh, and get good at eating

and reading.

6) Hike the Y. Ironic since we actually lived right there for almost 6 years, but we had to move to motivate us to hike it. It was a lot of fun. My legs also took a week and a half to recover. That hike is steep. And down is not easier. And Lydia was heavy in the backpack. But she was heavier in my arms when she wanted to sleep on the way down. And I'm glad it was Brian, not me, who carried Annabelle.

7) Take on your parent's responsibility like putting big girl panties on little sister

And typing on the computer

and getting ready to fly in an airplane (those are her airplane glasses she wears because she wanted to fly on the airplane with daddy.)

and making sure no one is parched.

8) Go watch the bison round-up on Antelope Island. Admittedly, Brian was out of town, and so couldn't be there with us, Jan, Willy, the girls, and I had a blast.

We first saw the bison in the pens because they were rounded up yesterday. We hiked on up there.

and saw

Annabelle thought the buffalo were cute, but she really liked playing hide-and-seek in the sage brush. Jan, you are a saint.

I liked talking to Brian on the phone.

Then we got to eat a buffalo burger. It was a little hard. Imagine eating a hamburger while staring a cow in the eyes. I felt a little like that. But it was actually pretty good, meaning, you really can't tell much of a difference between cow and buffalo.

See, we were smiling after eating it.

After, we were heading to the ranch, when we saw some "cowboys" still trying to round up some loose buffalo. It was a lot of fun to see. Ok, I admit, we were making a little bit of fun. You see, people pay to be part of the round up. That means that not every one knows what they're doing. Those buffalo had them running all over the hillside. I know I'm not a professional cowboy or anything, but something tells me that 11 riders to 8 buffalo means the buffalo should be going in the direction you want a little better. We have an awesome video of the buffalo crossing the road right behind us and a rider giving us the stink eye for being in the way. I'm sorry cowgirl person, but if you weren't so bad at it, the buffalo wouldn't be crossing the road right now.

Lydia and Annabelle (and their mom) really had a fun day with Grandma and Grandpa Phillips. Thanks for such a fun day!

Happy Halloween

Huh, wish I would of thought of this a little earlier

2011-10-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

I really need to get the pictures of Brian's phone more often. Or I guess just ever. That's why we have some blasts from the way past. Here is our picture post in really no order. You'll see what I mean.

Annabelle at work with dad. I think she had to rest from all those genius vibes in the grad office pinging off her.

Liddy Baby

The girls out for a walk. Just in case you didn't catch it...

...that would be a Diet Coke in my 2 year old's hands. (Pretty sure it's empty because she isn't allowed to drink that sludge.)

Annabelle and Dad's first daddy/daughter date. They went to an all you can eat pizza joint, and she flirted with a little boy at a different table almost the entire time.

Granma Phillips (although she can now say Grandpa and had a small stint of saying Grandmapa)

Grandpa Carlson and Annabelle hanging out on a fine Sunday afternoon

Annabelle loved Eden's bike. I think all the kids at Wymount did.

Jeremiah and Annabelle play so well together.

New carpet in the Phillips basement = a lot of hard work (and it looks so nice!)

Annabelle potty training baby

Annabelle and dad on dad's lunch break outside the Clyde. We went there a lot.

Annabelle pudding painting with friends!

It's messy, but at least it's edible.

and easy to clean up.

Annabelle

Liddy Baby's first picture. Don't you just want to throw a blanket on her?

Annabelle loves her balloons.

and her crocs.

(I needed to comment on them all so I can remember which kid it is because I can't tell the difference between Annabelle and Lydia sometimes. The blankets are what give away the child.)

I cry when I move in, I cry when I move out. Get a grip, woman!

2011-09-08T15:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, so technically I didn't cry when we moved from Wymount, but you get the idea. It was sad to leave. The crying when I moved in? Brian and I have a history with this. While missionaries in Toronto (yes, remember, that's where we met) Brian was some sort of a leader (district? zone? the world? not too important to the story) and my companion and I were whitewashing an area and moving into the previous elders' apartment. Brian, with his companion, was showing us were the apartment was and was going to help us move in since we had to empty out the other apartment and move everything to the new apartment. So I followed Brian to the new apartment (side note: Have you ever tried to follow Brian while driving? I seriously had to bite my tongue to keep from swearing, so I muttered mean things under my breath instead.) We show up to the new basement apartment; Brian shows us where to walk in, and...I teared up a little. The place was disgusting. Truly horrific. Seriously, elders are apparently akin to pigs in their cleanliness needs, because the place was a sty. It took us three days of working nonstop to make the place habitable. You think that's overkill, I'm sure, but it wasn't. We had to scrub the floors, which actually turned out to be white, we had to wipe down the walls because there were things on them. Gross things. Ok, you get the idea. We cleaned every nook and cranny because the apartment was icky. So yes, I cried a little when I first saw it. I think it was just that it was a tad depressing thinking that I was going to have to live in that place for any amount of time. I grew to love that apartment and the area. Sure, there were still some quirks (like the time I bumped the wall while showering and it caved in. Apparently, they had a mold problem and one of the sisters that moved there after I left got really sick from it.), but it was ok because it turned into home. That area was great too. It really stretched us, and we even had a baptism there. Good times.

Ok, so that was the first time I cried when Brian showed me an apartment. The second time I cried a little, when Brian showed me our Wymount apartment for the first time. We walked in and I saw: cinder block walls, ridiculously small rooms, a kitchen circa the 1950s, rust in the kitchen (bad), and tacky drawers. And the smell. I'll just leave it at the fact that it smelled. I cried a little while pretending to be excited. I think Brian saw through the facade. I'm sure you know where this is going. Yes, even though it seemed awful at first (because it did), it turned out ok because it turned into home. It was actually more than ok. The cinder block walls, small rooms, kitchen, rust, and drawers faded to the background, the smell disappeared after a little bit, and the 5 years, 8 months, and 11 days we spent there will always be a precious memory that I will treasure. I'm ready to move forward. Forward is good. I am just grateful for the things that I came to love there and the opportunity I had to love them.

Here's my paragraph of reminiscing. I loved living on beautiful BYU campus where everything was always beautiful, being able to walk to work in 7 minutes if I sauntered and 5 if I hurried, being able to visit work after I quit and stay up on the happenings, the ward (Go BYU 37th I mean 3rd ward), callings were only a year, Annabelle's friends, Lydia's friends, a playground in our backyard where we could go down and see our friends every single day no previous planning or play date scheduling necessary, that the cinder blocks were so thick we couldn't hear our neighbors and they couldn't hear us, watching Annabelle grow from a newborn to a feisty two year old, watching Lydia grow from a newborn to a happy baby, medical care was across the street, the hospital was 5 minutes away, walking to the creamery buying a half gallon of ice cream grabbing spoons and eating it as a family outside the creamery, I got to take my laundry to my parent's every week and have a reason to visit with them, being close to family, taking family walks to the temple on Sundays to watch the missionaries being 19 year olds (or 21 year olds), running by the temple for exercise sake, learning to love Nursery, Primary, Relief Society, and ward choir, watching Lydia go from being such a sad baby to being such a content and happy baby after figuring out that she can't have milk, Myth-Buntu, becoming friendly, being so grateful when my sick babies would get better, that Mal would come visit us while she was at BYU, visiting Brian at the Clyde with the girls, the ducks, the huge pantry and storage closet, how much furniture we fit in and still were able to walk around, the different stages and configurations our apartment went through, the piano in Annabelle's bedroom, Brian and my lunch dates at home, Brian picking me up from work, walking in the snow with Brian while pregnant with Annabelle, free cable and internet access, the audible sigh of relief we would all get when we would come home from a trip, watching Annabelle ride around the quad on Eden's bike but not having to pay too much attention because she would just go around and around and around, watching Lydia's face as she would stare up at the leaves, being the couple in the ward who had lived there the longest (it was only a few months, but hey, we earned it), watching Liddy smile and interact with her baby friends, my friends who were so dependable and always there for me and even came over at midnight and stayed until 1 because Annabelle was so physically ill and Brian was at Dugway working and I needed help or watched Annabelle when I was pregnant and had a kidney stone and Brian was at work, friends who understood and with whom I could laugh, sitting in the lobby of the continuing ed building for a half hour while Brian tried to help me put snow boots on my swollen (and I mean swollen) feet, quad 2 pride, Annabelle dancing to the annoying Old Navy Christmas jingle November through December of 2009 (at 8 and 9 months), getting to know three amazing bishops, Liddy finally rolling over, going from two old twin beds pushed together in one room to switching rooms and getting a nice queen-sized bed, the phase when we watched whale watchers on the computer, skookies after the girls were in bed, Brian's grad school career when he was done with classes but not yet working on his dissertation (we saw a lot more of him then) and that he worked so close and that he could come home if I needed him (which I never did call for him to come but at least it was an option, willing babysitters, visiting teachers, my family.

The actual move went amazing. I had been throwing stuff away, taking stuff to DI, and putting things in boxes for the past year. No joke. So the 2 and 3 of September, Nat took the girls so they wouldn't get trampled or die from noxious fumes, and Brian and I finished boxing and started cleaning for the actual move Saturday. Saturday was awesome because we had so much help. Thank you to everyone! It would not have went so well without you! And seriously, you know they're great people if they're willing to move other people's heavy stuff or clean other people's grime.

So now we are waiting to get our packing orders for our final destination. Brian has one more week for his internship and then paid vacation until we get sent. We're contemplating a quick trip to Hawaii (we would have 5 free nights stay there). Should we do it?

August 12, 2011

2011-08-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

Otherwise known as the day Brian graduated with his PhD...and our 6th anniversary...and Jan and Willy's 34th anniversary...and when Lydia turned 6 months. You get the idea, it was a big day. And can I just say, it was the most amazing day. Let me walk you through this, and you'll end up agreeing with me completely. You'll see.

Part I - Pictures
We woke up and got ready to look picture perfect for such a big day. Brian had the genius idea of taking our family pictures and the pictures with the BYU hot spots in the morning before graduation, before the girls got crabby, and before it was blazing hot. Pretty genius idea. No wonder he's a PhD. Jan, Willy, and Mal swooped in and were so good as to take these pictures (and all the following pictures. I didn't use my camera at all. Thanks, guys!)

A twirling princess in her dancing shoes. I know her ruby reds don't match her dress, but again, they're her dancing shoes, and I'd like to see you try to get them off her.

Can you spot the difference between the following two pictures? Annabelle loved all the photographing so much she felt like she needed to be in all the pictures. We tried to hide her. Didn't always work.

A girl on a mission

Mal flew all the way from Virginia for this momentous occasion. We can't thank you enough for doing that. We loved seeing you, and thank you for all your help!

The engineers/nerds of the family.

Brian's proud parents with Brian's proud wife and children

Annabelle adored playing with Mal and her grandparents. When it was time to go to graduation, she hopped right in their car.

Part II - Graduation

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. If you have to attend graduation with kids, go to the graduation of the college of Engineering in August. It was seriously only a little over an hour with only about 80 people who walked, eight of those were PhD candidates. In a word...awesome!

We arrived early so we could get the front row. We came prepared with french fries, chicken nuggets, and room for twirling.

PhD candidates had to sit on the stand. Brian's adviser was next to him. They were not very reverent during the ceremony. They talked and laughed through a lot of it. At least they had fun.

I was able to video when he was hooded, but I'll leave figuring out how to transfer the video from our camcorder to here for another day. I'll just say that this was an amazing moment. We all were bursting with pride, and I know I wasn't the only one to tear up.

Annabelle tried various times during the ceremony to go up and sit with Brian. She was ecstatic when she was finally able to be with him.

Garrett showing his support with his BYU hat

Abby showing her support by just being cute

Thanks for setting Brian straight in the 7th grade, Willy.

Eric and Gini got to carry Annabelle's stuff around. Weren't they lucky?

The Greg and Nat Phillips family trying their hardest to not let on that is was 100 degrees and time for a nap.

Four of the six siblings. We missed you Doctor Mike and Elder Matt!

Part III - Lunch on the Quad and Downtime
To make it easy and fun for the kids, we headed back to our place and had lunch in the quad. The kids played, the adults talked, and fun was had by all.

Thanks to my parents for coming. They were at the graduation too, we just didn't get our pictures with them until we were at the quad. They brought me flowers too. Aren't they beautiful! They're still alive and kinda thriving on my table. I do love flowers.

After lunch, we headed to Brian's parent's house to rest and prepare for the shindig we were throwing that night. The kids played in the water, and everyone else pitched in to help us get ready for the party.

Part IV - The Family Dinner
Aren't the decorations nice? I also made this picture ginormous so you could see who provided the meal for our fun evening. That would be Tucanos, and it was amazing. Oh, and we hired some neighborhood kids to babysit all our kids during the party. Best idea ever! ( I realize that all these words like "amazing" and "genius" and "ecstatic" etc may seem over the top. I assure you, they're not. They really are the best words to describe the events of this day. Just needed to say that.)

Nikki and her family flew in for this event, and Reed and Erin came with Lily and brand spanking new Kasey. I can't tell you how much that meant to Brian and me.

I'm not going to put in a lot of pictures of this...because there are a lot, but we didn't get everyone. You can thank me now. I'm only adding these two because I think Mainie and Lydia look so nice and Meg and Lydia look so cute.

Part V - What, there's a part V?!
Yeppers, there sure was. After everyone except for me ( I was too busy schmoozing. Thanks every one else.) helped clean up, the Jan and Willy Phillips family all headed over to their house. Apparently they had surprises for Brian...and me. Well, I knew about Brian's surprises. Just not mine. I won't go into too much detail because it's a tad personal (what, we're posting on a blog, and we're talking about keeping things personal? Yes, I am.) I just want to tell Jan and Willy and Greg and Nat and Mike and Eric and Gini and Mallory how much we love them and appreciate all the effort they put in to make Brian and me feel so special. It really touched us. We love you all!

While I won't tell you about Brian's family's surprises for us, I will tell you about Brian's surprise for me. Remember, it was our anniversary, and this was Brian's year to plan it. (I plan the odd years, he plans the even.) So, it's pretty late, and Brian tells me he has a surprise for me, so hand over the kids to Nat and get in the car. I get excited (because I love surprises) and I ask what I should bring. He looks at me like I'm a little dense (which I am sometimes), and he tells me to bring stuff for overnight. Whaaaaaat? I hurry and throw some stuff into the car and shout instructions to Nat while Brian prods me out the door. Once in the car, he has me turn on the GPS and hit the directions for what he titled Surprise 1 (there was more than one surpise?!), and it took us to here. Yes, to that specific room. It was so huge, I could to a cartwheel...and I did. It was beautiful, and fun, and the bath was awesome because there were about 5 shower heads, and there was cheesecake, and bubbly (of the apple cider kind), and there were no kids, and I was with my best friend, and there was Three Amigos and Better Off Dead, and I'm going to stop there. It was heaven.

Surprise 2 came the next day. We slept late and woke up at 7:30 (ok, Brian slept late and woke up at 7:30 because he usually wakes up at 4:15. I woke up at my normal time but wanted to sleep late.) I asked him if I needed make-up and he said no, to just hop in the car. We headed to this place as seen on Diners, Drive-inns, and Dives. I've wanted to eat there for a long time, and the food did not disappoint. Normally when we eat out, I love what I order, and I lament for Brian's sake that he didn't get what I did. The tables were reversed this time. His omelet was killer. I was a little miffed that Brian told me not to wear make-up, but I soon came to realize, make-up not necessary. The food was great; we looked like we were wildly out of place. I'll just say, I was probably wearing more clothes than any ten girls in that place put together, and I had actually showered that day. And the day before that. And the day before that. Etc. Again though, killer omelet.

We headed back to "The Inn" and were going to nap, but Nat, Greg, Jan, and Willy were taking the kids to the zoo. Fun! So we drove the 5 minutes to the zoo, and had a blast. Sadly, I did not have my camera, but Nat wrote a great blog post about Brian's graduation and included pictures from the zoo. Note Annabelle's cute hair. I tried to do here hair like that, but she wouldn't let me. Nat works magic.

In the end, it was two of the most amazing days. Thank you to everyone that made it so, and thank you to Brian for sticking it out with me for the last 6 years. Oh, and for going for a PhD. You done good.

Now what? Packing, packing, and more packing. We'll let you know when anything else changes.

To close on a cute note

Liddy Baby

The Little Miss

Yay for Vacations in California

2011-08-10T14:44:00.000-07:00

Annabelle, Lydia, and I headed to California to visit my sisters (who live three houses from each other) and their families. Brian stayed home so he could do testing at work and prepare for his dissertation. I think you'll be able to tell from the pictures, we had a rip roaring time (although we missed Brian a lot).

I didn't see much of Annabelle because she and Jacob and Abby would play together a lot. Or she'd just play with their stuff. By the end, those three ended up acting like siblings (well, two of them already were) and they'd get into some fun little fights. They'd make up fast and end up doing stuff like dancing to Singing in the Rain on the coffee table. I also noted how much Annabelle liked barbies and doll houses. My little girl is growing up. And Lydia, she was always being held by someone.

First day there Annabelle jumped right into the pool. I love this shot because Jacob is splashing her while Abby is pouring water on her head. She did not want to get out, and I had to grab her kicking and screaming when it was time to come in.

A large majority of the time, Liddy was held by this lady (Nik).

Jacob and Abby constantly asked to hold Lydia. We eventually wised up and gave them a number of times a day they could hold her, and if she cried, that turn was over. Abby would use up all her turns at once (we'd sit Lydia on her lap and Liddy would cry then Abby would ask to hold her again so we'd do it all over again). Abby blazed through her turns. Jacob was a little smarter about it.

Abby really got Liddy laughing one day.

Momma Lois flew out for the first week, and we had a relaxing girls day out of lunch and shopping (Liddy was the only kid invited). This place had the post amazing chicken panini sandwich. My mouth waters just thinking about it. Stinks to be the others who all got salads.

Tiffy imparting all her wisdom of girls day out to Liddy.

Mom, Nik, and T

The sisters (and Tiffy trying to smother my daughter)

Baby holding is not just for the girls. The boys were even the ones to ask for me to take pictures.

Josh and Lydia

Bry and Lydia (wearing Bry's hat)

We did some fun things. We went to a water park one day, and on another we went to Half Moon Bay. (Loved how cool it was there.)

Nik and Liddy bonding over hats

Annabelle made me take off her shorts when they got wet.

She eventually ended up like this. I don't know how she didn't get hypothermia. Makes for a cute picture with Carl though.

Annabelle and Bry bonding over chips

Tiffy looking like she's gonna give some one a smack down

Ditto on Nik

Hannah entertaining Lydia. Can you pick out where Liddy is? And yes, she does have leg warmers on her arms to keep her hands warm.

Lauren and Carl sharing a daddy-daughter moment (sorry this was a weird action shot)

Jacob feeding the birds even though we told him not to

Josh looking for sea glass and shells for his mom

We changed beaches to this one. It was cool because there were protected seals 300 feet from us.

Carl and Liddy bonded a lot this day. I think she fell asleep on him several times.

The contaminated stream our kids played in

Jacob, Josh, and Hannah waxing eloquent to the sea

Jacob and Josh

Hannah told me to take this picture, but I can't remember what she's holding. Do you, Hannah?

Annabelle had fun. See?

Some one stole my camera and took these of Lydia.

The following are of the girls on the plane. These kiddos were great on the way home. When I got to the airport, I invested in a kids meal for Annabelle. That kept her occupied in the airport. While on the plane, they played, slept, or leaned against me and people watched.

We loved visiting family and miss them, and we were sure excited to see Brian again. Annabelle didn't leave his side the entire weekend after we got home. Then the sickness described in the previous post occurred, and she really wanted her dad. All today she's been walking around looking for Brian. Look out though, because I think Liddy is a momma's girl. Sigh.

"How We Know When Big Events are Coming" also known as "The Big Sleepover"

2011-08-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

This past year, when a major event is looming, sickness tends to strike. Like when Brian went to a conference, and a very pregnant Cathy passed out on her in-law's couch and her most wonderful mother-in-law had to watch Annabelle by default. (Yes, she is a saint. Jan, not Annabelle. The latter has a bit too much stinkerbelle in her to be a saint.) Or when Miss Liddy was born, and Annabelle sported a 103 fever, and Brian had the mysterious illness that brought him to the hospital for tests. Oh, and he broke his toe. Or when Eric and Gini were married, and Annabelle had roseola (unbeknownst to us), and Lydia's stomach lining was still disintegrating (also unbeknownst to us). They screamed the entire reception. Brian and I may or may not have fought for all to see during the reception. I hope those who were able to watch our spectacular show chalked it up to frustration and worry. If you didn't, well, we were frustrated and worried. Just so you know. Or when Brian defended his dissertation in efforts to receive his PhD, and Lydia reached a fever of 105, Annabelle was running around like a maniac with a 103 degree fever, and Cathy was trying to take care of the girls while running some degree of a fever. Oh wait, I haven't told you guys this last story yet? Do read on then.

So, the girls and I had a wonderful vacation in California. (That post to come later.) We got home Thursday, and come Saturday, Lydia was sporting a pretty high fever, so I took her to the pediatrician. Here's the thing, normally I'm big on bed-side manner. If you're a doctor, please work on having a good one. I still remember the ER doc when I had my kidney stone. What kind of a ****** (use your imagination) walks in, looks at a girl writhing on the floor of the hospital room (gross, I know. Didn't really care because I was writhing in pain), and says, "Hahaha, looks like a kidney stone." Do want to get a little closer and laugh about it, buddy? I'd like to introduce you to the Captain and Tennille.

Moving on. This doctor Saturday didn't have an amazing bed-side manner, but I was willing to cut him some slack. He looked exhausted, and he had treated the same sickness kid after kid after kid that day. So Lydia had what all the other kids had. A very nasty virus. Think fever, sores in throat, achy, head-achy, mucous-y, cough-y...you get the drift. The awesome thing about it, highly contagious. Brilliant. So Lydia, then me, then Annabelle all dropped like flies. The huge blessing, Brian didn't get it. Why was that so huge? Well, he had to defend his dissertation on Wednesday. You know, that thing that basically says if you're going to graduate or not. Not stressful at all, right?

So the girls and I muddle through Monday while Brian was at Dugway (Annabelle was literally jumping off the walls. How can such a sick girl have so much energy?!) Tuesday, Brian was supposed to finish up his slides for the defense and practice the presentation. What did he get to do instead? Take care of some sick girls. Jan also came over to help prepare some food for the defense. (Did I mention that the person defending actually brings a spread to this thing?) Tuesday night, Lydia is in ridiculous pain. The genius mom that I am figures it's an ear infection...you know, because when I touch her ear, she cries. Liddy and I don't sleep at all that night, and bright and early, I run her to urgent care. First customers of the day. We find out that she has...an ear infection (on top of everything else), and we get her on medicine. Here's where it gets fun. Brian is supposed to defend at 2, so as soon as Liddy and I get back from the doctor, he runs to school to try and gets things ready. Meanwhile, at home Lydia is getting worse and worse. Poor Annabelle who has a fever of 102 to 103 basically has to fend for herself while I'm trying to care for a hysterical Lydia. (We saw a lot of Alice in Wonderland that day.) Around 11, I give Liddy more tylenol, but she feels like she is just getting hotter and hotter. Each time I take her temperature, it jumps up. She went from 102 to 103 to 104 to over 105. Right when I'm ready to run her over to urgent care (I love that it's right across the street. I'm going to miss that.), her temperature finally drops (vomiting was also involved this day, so add that on top of the fever). I of course start calling doctors to get a plan of action, but no one is answering or calling me back. I text Brian about what's going on, and then I call my sister just so she can assure me that my baby isn't going to be brain dead. Now, I hadn't asked Brian to come home, but the wonderful man shows up and tells me to run across and get some answers from the doctor face to face. He would watch Annabelle. By the time I return home, it's 1, and Brian needs to get get dressed and get to school so he can set up food, the computer, and worry about any last minute things. He still wasn't able to practice his presentation all the way through. I'm supposed to be at the school by 1:30 to help set up the food, but my babies are sick. What do I do? Wonderful Lois (aka, my mom) comes to the rescue. They were coming to hear Brian's defense, but she came up, changed her clothes, and scooted me out the door, so my dad and I showed up at 1:50 to try to get the food put together and presentable while Brian was trying to do everything else.

2:00 P.M.- It starts. The professors on his committee are bantering back and forth and with Brian and every one in the room (about 15 people) are munching on goodies, and then they quiet down so Brian can start his presentation at 2:06. It was good. Mind you, I didn't understand much..and I've read his dissertation (I didn't understand much of that either), but I knew that he was doing a great job. He was eloquent and confident, collected and handsome, and he presented some impressive things. For a man who had only looked over his slides, but had not practiced the presentation and whose world was in chaos even as he spoke, you would never have known. You would have thought that he had been practicing for a week at that he had done nothing earlier that day except get up, eat a leisurely breakfast, and get dressed. I know that Brian is a very smart man, and that definitely played a role in it, but I also think he was blessed. He had his priorities straight. Even though defending a dissertation for a PhD he had worked towards for four years is an important thing, he showed that his family was more important by being there when they needed him. Yeppers, I think he was blessed with something along the lines of the gift of tongues (because again, I know I didn't understand much). There are a few more details to the defense, but I don't want to embarrass Brian, so ask me next time you see me, and I'll brag some more about him.

By the way, he passed! He will walk in graduation next Friday, and officially be called Dr. Phillips in front of all. I am so proud of him! Also Wednesday, my brother and sister-in-law had their baby boy, Kasey Matthew. Lydia's fever broke yesterday (I had taken her to urgent care for a third time though because she kept throwing up after her coughing fits. I'm sure they're going to start locking the doors when they see me coming.), and Annabelle's today. We three girls all ended up with the nastiest of coughs which inspired the title "The Big Sleepover." Last night, we all slept in our room on our queen-sized bed. The humidifier was shooting out humidy stuff, and the fan was humming, while an exhausted Brian and I tried to sleep, but who could lose themselves in dreamland when Lydia was actually happy and trying to eat her toes and Annabelle was serenading us for a half hour with "Let's Go Fly a Kite" (at 2 A.M.)? Eventually we all dropped to sleep, and all but Brian hacked their way through the night. These are the things of which memories are made.

This just in

2011-07-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

Brian turned in his dissertation last week. That means he'll defend in the beginning of August. That means we'll actually have to turn into real adults soon. Scary.

1 Boy 2 Sisters/Why Do I Do These Things?

2011-06-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

1 Boy 2 Sisters

Jared is Annabelle's BFF. When they see each other, they scream the other's name, run to each other, then hug like they haven't seen each other in a year. At church, they go to nursery holding hands. He was even Annabelle's first kiss from a boy. You get the point; they're tight. Jared went on vacation for a week, and it was like the world had ended. Every time we would go to the playground, she'd yell Jared's name. Same story when we went to church on Sunday. Yesterday was their big reunion, and it was grand. Even though yesterday was an off day, (Annabelle didn't get her nap, and she was c.r.a.b.b.y.) she was so excited to see him. It made yesterday a good day. Lydia had a good day too. She got her first kiss from a boy. Can you guess who it was? We'll see how this develops over the next 16 years.

Queen of the playground

Blowing Bubbles

Why Do I Do These Things

I blog stalk (that's not to what the title is referring). I have a friend, and I stalk her sister's blog. This sister wrote about how 2 A.M. is when weird things might happen. She was referring to that time as being when she would give herself bangs (and she mentioned not learning her lesson). My 2 A.M. is actually when both my girls go down for a nap during the day. The sad thing is, I actually think before I do things,...and then I do them anyway! Exhibit A from today.

Here's the thing. My wonderful mother-in-law does hair. She's great at it. And she only lives 45 minutes away. Why couldn't I wait a few more days until I could go see her? The world may never know. These were all things I had told myself before I cut my hair. And I still did it. Sigh. So heads up, husband Brian and mother-in-law Jan. I did a booboo on my hair.

Do you see the theme in these pictures?

P.S. My two older sisters received their first kisses from the same boy. Neither one ended up with him though...because it was our cousin!

4 Months!

2011-06-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

I should be doing my dishes, but they won't run off, so I'm going to blog while I'm actually in the mood. Well my baby is 4 months (as of Sunday), and my, isn't she cute! We took her to the doctor Wednesday, and the baby who was 6 lbs 15 oz at birth and 6 lbs 11 oz at her 2 week appointment was...13 pounds 8 oz at 4 months. That's one whole ounce more than Annabelle was when she was 4 months. I compare only to illustrate that we've worked really hard to get this kiddo to the 50th percentile in weight. I also made the doctor look at her head to make sure it's ok (I'm paranoid that she's going to need a helmet), and he confirmed it. She's got a nice round Carlson head. Great-Grandpa Carlson would have been so proud. She is still the happiest little girl who loves to coo and laugh. She's very adept at blowing raspberries and still sleeps a bajillion hours a day. Oh, and she looooves her big sister (as shown in the following video).

Hopefully this will remind the sisters when they're older and fight over clothes that they really did and do love each other. (Like when I used to wear your clothes, T, and then stuff them under my bed so you "wouldn't know." Hehe, sorry.)

And just in case you need some proof that she's adorable, here are some photos.

In other news, Brian is kicking patootie on his dissertation, so we found ourselves in a rare position. He went from writing 24-6 (Sunday is a day of rest) to actually being able to slow down a bit. His internship also doesn't start until Monday, so last week was perfect for his brother Dr. Mike to visit from back east because we actually were able to take off a few days and visit with him. A couple highlights: True Grit and Willy's Prime Rib!

Annabelle wasn't really in a bad mood. She just wanted to get to....(see next picture)

a mouthful of Reese's Pieces. (Sorry, Liddy, no picture with Mike because you were sleeping like an angel.)

Three of the five brothers. I can't believe Eric missed this to go on a honeymoon and Matt missed it to serve a mission! And where was the sister Mallory during all this? In stinking Virginia. I am still having a hard time with her being a grown up chemical engineer with a grown up job. (And no, Brian's eyes don't usually look like that. He was crossing them to bug me.)

I guess Matt was there in a sense. (Cute daddy/daughter of Greg and Abby, eh?)

Even though Mike left, we still partied because Willy's Marine buddy Jack came to visit. I'm awful at pulling out my camera, so there aren't many pictures, but we had a great time visiting, and Jack cooked us a spectacular dinner! (And Nat, I'm sorry! Remember when I said I had pictures of Abby on the "race car?" Hehe, oops)

Poor Brian. His little girl doesn't like to ride in his go-kart. It's alright though because Abby kept him busy making him drive her around. That girl is fearless!

Brian needed a nap after watching True Grit (again) until 2:00 A.M. and Lydia is always up for a snuggle.

It was a great week! Thanks, Mike and Jack. Come again soon! And thanks Jan, Willy, Greg, and Nat for your hospitality. We love you guys!

Last but not least. A few months ago, I took my girls to my parent's during the day. We got home pretty late, and when I asked Brian if he missed us, his reply was, "weeellllll......." He went on to explain that he got a ton of work done without us there, and he wouldn't be heartbroken if we went to my parent's once a week from there on out. I chose not to be offended. Seriously though, the girls and I love our once-a-week excursion to Grandma and Grandpa Carlson's. Take a look at the following pictures to see why.

This swing is relatively new. (Good find, dad! Only 5 bucks!) I couldn't get Annabelle out of it. This was the only time she wasn't smiling while in it. Baby loved it too. I had to bribe her with fries to get her out, and she left grudgingly.

My mom mentioned how it would be fun to get a playhouse for the grandkids. My dad took that as a challenge. This is it so far. My parents say it still needs shingles, paint, floor laminate, and shutters, but I think it's awesome as it is. I would have loved this as a little girl (sigh).

I think Annabelle would live in it if she could.

Thanks heavens it's big enough for adults because she wants me in with her at times. (Like I mind? It's nice and cool....I admit it, I want to play too!)

What does Lydia do all day? When she's not being snuggled by Grandma, she gets to be snuggled by mom.

The emergence of Miss Liddy

Sigh, I love going home and having my mom and dad baby me and my babies.

Just in case you thought I didn't exist

2011-05-28T21:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture to prove that I really do.

Sad that this is the only picture of Lydia and me (and Pooh and me for that matter). Although, remember the post about when I complained about not being in any pictures with Annabelle? Maybe I'll count myself lucky.

So

2011-05-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

week three of P90X and I still look like the stay puffed marshmallow man...but at least I'm a nicer person after I work out. I'm pretty sure that makes my entire family ecstatic. Exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy, happy people don't just kill their husbands. They just don't.

Also, I'd like to write a fifth grade paper about bananas.

Why I Like Bananas

By Catherine the Great

I like bananas because they taste good, especially when they have a few brown spots on them. Bananas are versatile. They taste great on their own, in cereal, and in fruit smoothies. I make fruit smoothies everyday with bananas in them so I make sure I eat enough fruit. I also like that bananas can be used even after they are old and mushy. They are really tasty when you make banana nut bread like I did today, with the help of one of my best friends. Her name is Annabelle. For all those reasons, I really love bananas.

Ok, I'm probably not giving fifth graders enough credit. That was probably a second grade paper. (Minus the use of the word versatile?) I really do like bananas though.

This post is endorsed by the following people:

and

Can you tell by this post that I'm procrastinating doing actual work?

This is what I get to look at when she's in the carrier

2011-05-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Aren't I lucky?!

Cookies!

2011-05-15T12:49:00.001-07:00

3 Months

2011-05-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

and we're finally a happy bunch (except for when Annabelle jumped in a fountain and ran away from me so I eventually had to go in after her. Grrrrr! Any suggestions on how to get her to stop running away from us would be appreciated). So, here's the past 3 months in as small of a nutshell as I can manage. First though, it took these tries...

to get to this. Annabelle really wanted a picture with Lydia. It's cute though, right?

Lydia -

is 3 months today (or yesterday since I started yesterday and finished today). It was a little bit of a rough go there for a bit. So guess what, she actually doesn't have acid reflux and probably never did. Brace yourselves for the story. It's a long one. So, we changed doctors (insurance reason) I took Miss Lyds in because she would not eat. Seriously, every time I tried to feed her, she would cry and cry. That was a tad alarming, so I took her in on a Tuesday and got a test back on a Thursday saying she couldn't break down the lactose and wasn't absorbing any nutrients. In a very nice way and not this blunt, the doctor told me she was starving, the mucous and blood in her stool (yes, tmi) was from her stomach which hurt her horribly, and she needed to eat asap so go get some special formula. Remember I'm a Carlson and tend to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat. That news alarmed me, and we went into emergency mode. There may have been frantic phone calls to find someone to watch the girls so I could run to the store. I may have cussed out Womens Conference women who meandered in front of my car (both walking and driving)... and my window was down, and I may have fed Lydia with a dropper through her binky because she wouldn't take the bottle (do you blame her, formula is nasty). Here we are several weeks down the road though, and her stomach is healing, and she is one happy baby. I knew she was a sweet kiddo but she just always seemed to be in pain and crying. Now without the pain, we see really how happy and sweet she is. She loves to talk and sing, and she is one expert sleeper. Seriously, you put on some white noise, bundle her, put her in her bassinet, and she'll put herself to sleep. What a champ! Beware, I'm gonna get a little (lot) mushy. The other day, Bri and I took the girls to Rock Canyon Park. Annabelle and Brian were playing on the playground, and I was feeding Lydia. The view was gorgeous. You could see the temple, the mountains, the lake, and a million other amazing sights stretching out in both directions, and yet, I couldn't help just staring at my beautiful baby girl. I'm grateful that the fix was something as simple as formula (that will cost as much as her college education), and I'm grateful for her.

Annabelle -

How has Annabelle faired during this whole adventure? Like the spunky little girl she is. She is a busy and funny toddler who is really fun to be around...for the most part. She does have her tantrumy moments. Nothing too bad, unless bubbles or dresses are involved. She loves bubbles and dresses. Take bubbles away from her, and she'll throw a 20 minute tantrum, with kicking, hitting, and screaming involved. Try carrying that tantrum storm along with a newborn up 3 flights of stairs! She also has a meltdown when we either a) try to put pants or leggings under a dress (I guess that's a fashion faux pas) or b) try to take off said dress. This girl is a fashionista. She also is a master mimic (so watch what you say around her; I learned that the hard way). She loves counting and the ABC's and singing and dancing. She's great at I Am a Child of God, Everybody Wants to Be a Cat, and countless other songs. She is so much fun to have, and we love her so much. I love paling around with her, and she's a great buddy. (She's also my favorite cooking partner.)

Brian -

is hard at work on his dissertation. He's amazing, folks. He gets up early, heads to the library, types all day, then heads home for a little wrestling match with Annabelle. He's also going to be starting his internship again this summer. He does so much to take care of our family, and we love him for it! Oh, and he also just had a birthday on Sunday. Here's the thing, when Mother's Day and a birthday lands on the same day, the birthday trumps the Mother's Day. Birthdays are a big deal. Unfortunately, it was on a Sunday, so we couldn't celebrate to the full extent, so we've been spreading it out. Lots of treats and excursions. More excursions and treats to come.

Cathy - is trying to get back into the stuff she loves. What do I love? Trying to work out so I can fit back into my clothes. It's been a little more difficult losing weight after this one, but have no fear, P90X is here! I look pretty pathetic, but don't you worry, I'll be able to do at least 1 push-up at the end of 3 months. Annabelle is a great help too. Today was yoga, and those of you who really know me and my work-out self know how much I looove yoga (insert oozing sarcasm here). (I can't handle the serenity part. I need movement and kick butt feeling like you're dying, not slow, calm, hold in place. I'm Wayne's daughter for heaven's sake!) Back to Annabelle, she was nice enough to place her rubber duckies (yes, there were two of them) on my buttocks every time I was in down dog until I had to order her to stop. (Don't picture it, it's not pretty.) She then decided it would be fun to lay on her back under me when I was in down dog to "talk." She was banished to play in her room soon after. I miss jogging (I can't honestly call in running) but with two little girls at home and only a single stroller, thems the breaks. Good times though.

She's tickling her feet

So, in there words of Raymond, "Well, there you go!"

P.S. I just looked down and Lydia put herself to sleep in her bassinet with the tv blaring and Annabelle playing around. That's my girl.

They're Sleeping!

2011-03-21T15:16:00.000-07:00

What do you do when two little girls are napping and mom was able to sleep in because of dad; therefore, she does not need a nap as well? Blog of course! (Don't worry, I already did the dishes and picked up the house. I mean, I live in a 500 square foot apartment; it's not hard.) (Hmm, that just brought up the point that it's not hard but my house is always a mess...I'm not gonna go there.) Anyways, here's what Miss Lyds is up to. She's been a pretty (meaning very) sad little girl. We hold here upright for at least 30 minutes after she eats which helps with the acid reflux, but this little girl was still having intestinal problems. Dr prescribed something to help with cramping and voila! She's turned from this

to this

She is still a sensitive soul and colicky, but no more crying for three hours straight. Yay! The side effect of the medicine? She's also this

for about 20 hours a day. Poor baby.

Onto other news, can you tell these little girls have their daddy wrapped around their fingers?

Sisters and Miss Lydia

2011-03-09T20:04:00.000-08:00

I'm so glad I have two little girls because that means that they're sisters. (I know, I'm Captain Obvious.) Here's the thing, sisters rock. Let's rewind two years to March 3. That's the day Little Miss Annabelle was born. That's also the day I called my sister Tiffany while in hysterics. (I promise there was a good reason for the hysterics, and it wasn't post-partum.) She buys a plane ticket, packs, and is in Utah all in about 10 hours. Talk about coming to the rescue! I firmly believe that Annabelle made it through that first week because of her auntie. Now let's return to the present day and Miss Lydia. I firmly believe this kiddo made it through her first week of life because of her auntie Nikki. Here's why. We bring the little girlie home Sunday night/Monday morning (around midnight). Tuesday, Annabelle is sick. Wednesday, Annabelle is really sick and Brian is not fairing so well himself (unrelated illnesses). Oh, and he broke his toe. Thursday, Annabelle is really really sick so we have to go to the doctor and she gets put on steroids. Meanwhile, Brian goes to the doctor/hospital to get multiple tests done to see what is the matter (we still don't know) all this while hobbling around on his broken toe. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and my poor family is still sick. Thankfully, they're better now, but notice how I didn't mention Lydia except once. That's because sister Nikki practically raised the newborn while I cared for the rest of my family. So yes, sisters rock. They're just a phone call (and a plane ride) away. I'm excited for Annabelle and Lydia.

Now, let's talk about the baby. She's adorable! Seriously, it's not that I'm biased. She really is so pretty. We love her. Here's why I almost cried at her two-week appointment though. So she was 6 lbs 15 oz when born. At her two-week appointment, she was 6 lbs 11 oz. Um, I sure felt like a failure of a mother. One week later, I take her in to get weighed...8 lbs! In the words of Vector, "Oh Yea!" This poor girlie is working on some acid reflux and gas issues which makes her a sad baby girl and that in turn makes us sad for her. Sigh. She really is a sweetheart though, and are grateful she's a part of our family. In the words of Annabelle who will randomly exclaim this while bunching up her fists on each side of her face (I have no idea where she learned this) "She's so cute!"

Proud Papa

She's Two!

2011-03-03T21:22:00.000-08:00

We tried to make today special for Annabelle (especially since we've been so house bound). My mom had come down to stay for a few days, so while she stayed inside with Baby Lydia, Annabelle and I got to celebrate the day by doing what she loves best...puddle jumping. It even rained on us a little, and she thought that was the greatest. Fast forward a few hours to a skipped nap for Annabelle, Lydia, and me, and we were all a little cranky(meaning a lot cranky), but things livened up again when Lois brought the party to our house. There were presents and a tiara and a cake and ice cream and family. Annabelle truly had a ball. Thanks for all who participated and made her day special. I can't believe it's been two years. We love our Little Miss Annabelle! (P.S. She really does wear clothes. This time she's just in a diaper because of the cake.)

Life with Miss Lids

2011-02-15T07:02:00.000-08:00

So, we were having my sister fly in from California to help out around the house for the week following Miss Lydia's arrival. My doctor said since it was my second child, we could schedule an elective induction for the day after she got here to maximize her efforts. We set the date for Friday, 2/11/11 (pretty cool date, huh?).

Well, we got a call from the hospital at noon on Friday and were told "We're very busy, but if you come now, we can get you in..." We jumped in the car and got to UVRMC within 5 minutes. We got checked in and they started my first bag of penicillin and a slow amount of pitocin. At the time I checked in, I was only at a 2. My doctor wanted me to have at least 2 bags of penicillin because I had GBS. It took 5 hours to finish the second bag (they only give 1 every 4 hours and each bag takes an hour) and I had only made it to a 3. After that, they turned up the pitocin. I still wasn't in any pain so we just chillaxed and watched the contractions on the monitor.

My doctor stopped by after her office closed and broke my water to speed things up a bit. She said that it should only be a couple hours after that and that I'd probably feel the contractions get more intense now without the water there to pad everything. Sure enough, the contractions got pretty bad. The pitocin was going full strength and I called for the anesthesiologist! We got the epidural in at about 6:30 PM and the nurse said that she got off at 10 PM and would expect us to have the baby by 9 PM. She checked me and I was still at a blasted 3.

The time ticked on, Brian's parents came down fully expecting to meet their next granddaughter and brought Brian some Cafe Rio while we waited. The nurses checked me again about 8:30 and I was still at only a 3! This was agonizing to all involved (nurses, Brian, and me).

We got comfy and just decided to wait. To make matters worse, the nurse said that her other patient who was at a 3 the same time as me had just made it to a 9 so our nurse was going to be a little absent for the next little bit. Jealousy swept over Brian and I. Still at a blasted 3.

At 11:00 PM the nurses had changed and the new nurse checked me and congratulated me on finally reaching a 4. She said the other patient was posterior, which caused her to stall at a 9, and so she was going to be slightly absentee as she helped the other patient. We hoped that the other patient's misfortune wasn't due to the jealous vibes we were passing down the hall.

Then, at 11:20 PM, I started to feel some pressure. My doctor told me to call the nurse if that happened, and I was a little incredulous. It had taken us almost 12 hours to go from a 2 to a 4, so there's no reason to get the nurse involved after she just checked me 20 minutes previous. The pressure was pretty persistent, so I called the nurse. In she came (you could tell she had been interrupted, but made it back quickly) and she checked again, and said "welp, you're done, we're calling the doctor right now!" Joy of joys, wonder of wonders.

While the doctor was on her way, our nurse turned the pitocin completely off (didn't want to have the baby in the next 10 minutes, I guess). The doctor showed up at 11:45 PM, prepped everything. The contractions had all but stopped, but we were able to get about 4 in a half hour and Miss Lydia was born at 12:20 AM on 2/12/11. She weighed 6 lbs, 15 oz. 19 in long. Little tyke.

Like her big sister, she only cried when she's absolutely starving or when she's cold. Very well behaved girl. Also like her big sister, she has a very full/pouty upper lip. Unlike her big sister, the rest of her face is different. It's rounder, less of a chin, lighter colored hair.

Annabelle has been a wonderful big sister. She truly believes that all of Lydia's problems can be solved by sticking a binkie in her mouth, so when Lydia cries, Annabelle grabs a binkie and shoves first, asking questions later. Okay, she doesn't ask questions. She just shoves and then goes back to watching her TV or playing with her toys. But if Lydia had any doubts about Annabelle's love, they were quickly answered by the amount of kisses Annabelle gives her little sister.

Sisters

2011-02-13T11:27:00.000-08:00

Video Overload for the Aunties

2011-02-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

and for the Little Miss. She loves looking at videos of herself, so I figured I might as well put them on the computer so we don't have to crowd around the camera.

I love that I'm so dense that it took me the entire video to understand she was saying the word smile.

Just wanted you to know if you ever get a text from me saying sdlgkj, this is why.

Excuse my dumb conversation, but I just had to show a grown man playing in a princess tent with his daughter.

Little Miss Dancing Queen. She's going to support us through old age with her genius gift of dancing. Please excuse the nakedness. It's right before bath time.

I'm glad she likes babies. Here's to trying to get her new baby sister to sit in the splits like her baby doll.

There you go, folks. A tutorial on the parts of your face brought to you by the cutest little girl ever.

She learned about frogs from Elmo's World. She's also not wearing pants because she is about to take a bath.

This is one of her favorite videos. She loves the baby in this (little does she know it's of herself).

Perfect Timing

2011-02-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

So yesterday Brian caught Annabelle leaning 3/4 of her body outside her crib. Awesome. We figured it's big girl bed time, and what better time to get her used to sleeping in a new bed than about the time she's going to become a big sister. (That was sarcasm, folks.) Well, this is night one, and so far she thinks her bed is the cats me-wow (100 points to who can name that movie). As soon as it was put together, she jumped in. Please note the pink sheets. I was going to just use the ones we had, but we have no girlie colors. Brian made sure we bought new sheets. She's been singing in her bed for the last hour and I'm pretty sure she's asleep now (I just checked and she is), so night number one is a success so far. Here's seeing how the rest of the night plus the next 18 years go.

Other things that Annabelle loves:

The Yankees, odd outfits, and a closet full of toys

Her princess pop-up tent

Her binkie

Her binkie while in the princess tent

Her blanket

Her blanket and binkie while in the princess tent

Her dad in the princess tent (that is an awesome sight to behold). I told him to tell her no. Can you tell which parent she'll go to when she wants something, and she knows the other one will say no?

Glaring (still)

Her friends

Singing and talking to her friends

Showing her friends how to smile at the camera

Watching tv with her friends on her comfortable wipes refills

Her crocks (a little bit of a fashion faux pax wearing them with jammies?)

(So Brian stayed home from church with Annabelle because she had a cold. Apparently this is what they do when I'm not there. )

My boots and Dora the Explorer

Setting shoe trends

I guess setting fashion trends in general

Her tutu and ballet slippers. Wears 'em everyday.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-02-04T21:15:00.000-08:00

I might have been throwing myself a mini pity party for the last little bit. Here's the thing, birthdays are a big deal in my book. It's the day that everyone celebrates you, so you might as well make it a big deal, right? I love celebrating Brian's and Annabelle's birthdays, so naturally, I also like celebrating my own. Well this year is a pretty big number for me. Oh yes, the big 3-0. I'm ready for it, yea even psyched. I wanted to party big time, and normally that would have happened, except for one thing...today is Friday and I'm due to have a baby on Wednesday. Sigh, going out to eat doesn't really work because food is a little wasted on me. Heartburn city, baby...plus I'm just not in a partying state. Brian and I made a plan that when my sister comes into town to help with the baby, we're going to leave the girls with her, and then we can go out and party hardy. So there, I was going to be grown up about it and not pout. Very mature, eh? Well here's why I love my husband and why today was an awesome birthday despite the fact that we were going to put it off.

My mom had come to stay for a few days. Not only had she treated us to dinner, but she also cleaned my house in preparation for the baby. Awesome birthday present. Unfortunately, she had to take off this morning, but some friends stopped by, and they were here when the delivery guy knocked on my door and delivered these beautiful flowers. They smell as pretty as they look. Well done, Brian! I love them!

All right, I won't go into too many more details. Know that I have amazing friends and family who made this such a fun day. I played, was wished happy birthday, ate homemade cheesecake, ate cupcakes from the Sweet Tooth Fairy, received some awesome presents, and had an awesome dinner that I did not have to cook. This is how we ended the night. Rocking out to some guitar hero. Notice Annabelle's sweet outfit. (Aunt T gave her the ballerina tutu and shoes and Laken gave her a bracelet. She was ready, and believe me, she takes her guitar hero seriously.)

Excuse my hugeness. Again, I'm due in less than a week, people.

Alright, here's one last look at the beautiful flowers. You're welcome.

Christmas Time/Pedicure Time

2010-12-22T16:05:00.000-08:00

Cathy was out for pedicures with the girls, and here's what the grandkids did while the moms were out playing.

Now I'm going to take over to explain why the girls were out for pedicures. Brian asked me back in November if he thought a pedicure would be a good birthday present for his mom. My response was, "um, yea!" What I didn't know was that he was tacking on two more pedicures for Christmas presents for Nat and me. Fast forward to the Phillips Christmas celebration (celebrated on the 21st because of Mallory being home) and you would find the Phillips girls celebrating a girls day out. Picture 5 beautiful ladies getting the most amazing pedicures at the Sanctuary Day Spa, then out to lunch at Biaggis, and Kodiak Cakes for dessert. Oh yea, and no kids. We've decided that this should be instituted as a yearly tradition. Yeppers, that Brian is a keeper.

Of course I couldn't go an entire post without commenting on our adorable children. Annabelle just loves playing with her cousins Garrett and Abby, and we're excited to to see them again soon!

How I know our Little Miss is a Phillips

2010-12-08T08:54:00.000-08:00

She talks in her sleep. A lot.

In other news, this little girl downed 2 whole slices of pizza the other night. Both Brian and I had a bet saying she wouldn't do it. We lost...big time.

Last night it tore at my heartstrings to hear her asking for help in her sleep. She ended with saying "uh oh" (her third favorite phrase). Wouldn't you love to know what these kids dream about?

"Hey, no!"

2010-12-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

and "Help!" are Annabelle's two favorite phrases. I like when she asks for help because the alternative is screaming in frustration (and it's very cute to hear ("help" not the screaming)), but the "hey, no"... let me illustrate with a story. As she was taking a bath tonight, she lined up her assortment of duck, dolphin, and turtle friends along the tub's edge, and one by one she would look at them, shake her finger at them, and tell them, "hey, no!" then plunge them into the water. Obviously she hears this phrase a lot, and not only does she say it to her animal friends, but she likes to say it to me. Touche, little girl. And yes, that is a strip of bacon that she is thoroughly enjoying.

One day of pigtails is all I got out of her. She'll do clips, but not pigtails anymore.

And her pride and joy? Her pink boots. She likes to put them on and stomp around the house.

In other news, Brian is in his last class ever, and he only has two more class periods to get through. What will he ever do with his time after this? (Besides research, a dissertation, and welcoming a new little girl to the family) Go, Brian!

Virginia Videos

2010-10-07T05:53:00.001-07:00

As noted in Mal's blog, we have some video of Brian and Mal's trip!

First off, we started our device for shooting video and talking pictures in Nebraska. Sorry Wyoming-ites, but your state did not warrant too much (any) film space.

As you can see, we skipped over a few states. We started with footage of Nebraska, and were fully invested on getting footage of Iowa, but it was late, and we were tired, so Iowa didn't make the cut.

Our GPS had us get off the freeway after we had crossed the mighty Mississipp' and drive on a frontage road in Illinois, so we shot that, because it was quaint.

We stopped at Giordano's because there's a location in Minook, IL which is right off I-80 and it was lunchtime. But even if it weren't lunchtime, we would have stopped, and even if it were in Wisconsin, we would have detoured from I-80. It's Giordano's.

We then drove on "New 30" through the south-south side of Chicago, through Indiana, and then into Ohio. There's footage of Indiana, but Ohio and Illinois were pretty much the same.

The third day we drove through the rest of Ohio, Pennsylvania, into Maryland, and then we turned on the camera for the Paw-tuh-mac river crossing and entrance into Virginia. Lots of trees, lots of whitetails, lots of fun.

Grand finale: here's a video of Mal's apartment:

She's in a very posh area of Manassas, VA named "Georgetown South". Google it.

Okay, just kidding, that's actually a projects area that we tried to steer clear of, she's actually in a pretty posh area of Manassas full of luxury homes and luxury apartments. Seems to be a safe area.

So we need help

2010-10-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

What's a good girl name? Cause around February 9, we're going to have to name one.

August through September

2010-09-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

After Brian finished his internship, that's when the fun really began. We went to California, Bear Lake, and Cache Valley. Here's a picture post since I haven't put any up some in forever. (A huge post of videos to come later. I'm experiencing some technical difficulties.)

The Little Miss with Great-Grandma Carlson sitting in the coolest swing ever.

This is my cousin's little girl. That would make Annabelle and Belle....second cousins? First cousins once removed? Who knows. (yes yes, I realize the names are similar. Forget about it)

So, the day we flew back from California, we had made a stop at the Phillips house. While there, Brian's mom got a call saying that Brian's brother was going in for emergency surgery. Lucky we were already packed. We jumped in the car and drove his mom to Cache Valley. While not a fun reason for a trip, Annabelle and her cousins got to spend some fun time together (and Greg is doing a-ok now).

Annabelle and Abby (This is the best picture I got of them together.)

Annabelle and Garrett

Abby is one cute gal!

Fun story, so Brian bought a go-kart when he was 12 (he actually had to get backers because he did not actually have the money). This so-called go-kart never actually worked. Anyways, when he was about 18, he had enough money to buy out his backers, but the go-kart still did not live up to its potential...like going. Fast forward a decade from the buy-out and sixteen years from the beginning, Brian and my dad spent a fun filled day working on the thing and the below picture is the result. Garrett calls it his race car. We think the thing can go up to about 30 mph. Brian's new dream: when he graduates, he wants to build another one so we can race. (I admit, I'm prodding him along because, well, doesn't that sound like fun?!)

Apparently one needs to be styling when eating breakfast. Oh, that girl.

Annabelle and I each got to bring a friend to the farm at Thanksgiving Point. This is the best picture I got of them together.

She loves animals. Unfortunately, her mother doesn't share the same sentiments. I'm trying not to squash her love, but all I could think was "ewww, where's the hand sanitizer?" after she touched everything. Don't worry, I thought it, but didn't do anything about it until we were all done.

She especially loved the pigs.

This little girl loves to tickle. Example A

And she loves to just hang with dad. Please note that she is on my side of the bed, but when she is using it, I'm not allowed to lay down.

Three friends watching a show.

We watched one of her friends a little bit ago. Annabelle tends to be a bit exuberant and sometimes frightens Jared. The couch was his safe zone, and he ended up watching football with Brian for a while. It's all good, they made up after a bit, and he even let her give him a kiss. Did I mention that to you, Kelsey?

Yep, that's my family.

Drats...spoiled again

2010-08-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Annabelle has flown more times in her almost 17 months of life than Brian did before we were married? This is one little world traveler.

So we went to California for the week. Brian had a conference and also wanted to visit UC Santa Cruz (Brian's lab works with their lab). The Little Miss and I decided to tag along..kind of. We stayed with my sisters (there are two of them, and there are only two houses separating them, um yea cool...by the by, there's a house for rent right next to one of the sisters. Do you think one street could handle three sisters? I have my doubts). As Brian was spending his days working and ordering 20 oz steaks (true story) the title of this blog is what was happening to Annabelle and me. Not only did the sisters spoil us, but Annabelle's cousins were her best friends while we there. Please note that there are 6 cousins there ranging between the ages of 4 and 14, Annabelle was definitely the young kid on the block and very much catered to. She soon learned that if she grunted even a little, 6 cousins would all run and try to give her whatever she wanted. She quickly got used to that lifestyle.

With 6 cousins, 2 aunts, and 2 uncles fulfilling Annabelle's every whim, I was able to take off and join Brian for several days of fun in the sun. Brian and I spent a day in Santa Cruz walking the beach and eating on the warf. We mosied back to the hotel where we were joined by one sister and her family along with Annabelle to swim and go out to dinner (the other sister was sick, we weren't intentionally leaving her out). The next day (sans Annabelle again) we checked out the Winchester Mystery House (look it up, way cool), ate out, and headed to a movie. Three nights and two days of just us was a pre-anniversary present. Happy five years to us! And thanks to the sisters for watching Annabelle for our present. Of course Annabelle didn't really care that we had taken off. Once again, she was spoiled and loved. She had the time of her life. (I really think she thought T's house was her new home. She acted like it was.)

In conclusion, if you are a server and a table ordered a plate of steak and potatoes and the other plate pasta with chicken, don't just give the steak to the guy because 10 times out of 10, that baby is mine!

Spidey Sense...Mom Style

2010-07-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

I'd heard other mothers tell the tale of being dead asleep in the middle of the night on the other side of the house and yet would bolt upright at the sound of a child being sick. I can verify this statement as true (well, the Little Miss' room is right next to ours, but the rest is true). Sadly, after I first had the stomach flu and then Brian, the Little Miss naturally came down with it. Poor little girl was miserable! Every symptom you could think going along with the flu, and she had it. Now, a few shout outs to those that helped: Brian (of course) was a life saver, throw-up bowl holder/cleaner extraordinaire as well as master of the laundry. Unfortunately, he had to go to work and spend the night there for a couple days the day after Annabelle got sick. Who stepped up to the plate when the Little Miss seemed to get worse? My wonderful visiting teacher. Folks, I called her at midnight just because I needed someone to talk me out of taking Annabelle to the emergency room. I knew she didn't need to go, but it was a crazy night all alone with a sick girl. Thanks, Trudy! And thanks for the otter pop! To round out the thanks, Mallory! See, the day after the night I called Trudy (does that make sense?) the house was, shall I say, a mess? I'm trying to be delicate here, just think of my carpet needing a realllly good cleaning along with a lot of laundry needing to be done (towels, clothes, sheets, etc), and Annabelle would hardly let herself off my lap for a minute. Wonderful Mallory didn't hesitate for a second. She came right over and whipped the house into shape (she even did my dishes, what a saint).

So again, thanks to everyone for your help, and as an update, the Little Miss got better and now she's teething...again. That's a whole different kind of fun. We're going swimming today with friends to see if we'll both be a little less crabby. Wish us luck!

I love Springville!

2010-05-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

So Brian's sister moved from Provo to Springville. Yes yes, I know it's only 15 minutes away, but I thought that Mal would be lost to us. No more slummin in Provo, she'd want to spend all of her time in the swanky condo in which she lives. Ummm, I love Springville now because we actually see more of her than ever. Yay! Considering that she stills works on campus and has classes, when she's hungry or tired she can't just pop over to that swanky condo. I'm ok with that, especially because she teaches Annabelle so many valuable lessons, like brushing her teeth.

And yes, she ended up putting the toothbrush in her mouth. That's why the video ended early, I had to save the toothbrush (to no avail).

Not exactly what I meant

2010-05-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

So awhile back, I randomly decided to complain to Brian that there were no pictures of the Little Miss and me. I mean, we might as well take the wrinkle free (eh hem) pictures now, right? So wonderful Brian jumped right on it, although not quite in the way I was meaning.

Well, at least we have a base comparison. Any other photos compared to this will look great.

Smile for the camera

2010-05-24T12:06:00.001-07:00

Our Spiritual Giant

2010-05-24T12:03:00.001-07:00

Leading us in family prayer

Bed Head

2010-05-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

These pictures were taken in the morning, so the bed head makes sense, but not matter how much I combed throughout the day, her hair pretty much stayed like this.

Now, thanks to the quick hands of Grandma Phillips, the Little Miss looks so grown up!

Annabelley's Birthday!

2010-03-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

Little Miss Annabelle's first birthday was March 3rd, and since the Phillips side of the family couldn't celebrate on the actual day, this lucky little girl got two whole parties. One on March 1st and the other on the 3rd. She got a lot of presents, but one of her favorites was getting to see this guy:

Garrett being a party animal.

Grandma Phillips chattin it up with the birthday girl.

So, I'm basically the best mom in the whole world. I made Annabelle's cake with my own two hands. Pretty amazing work, I know.

Aunt Mal passing on her wisdom about opening presents. We've been watching home videos of the Phillips family, and Mal is an expert on excitement and graciousness when receiving presents. Let's see if it'll rub off.

Excitement

and graciousness

Good thing Garrett was around to help unwrap, or we might have been there all night.

And I'm pretty sure Garrett and Annabelle both loved the My Little Pony

Be prepared for the next photos. Do you remember looking at your own photos of your first birthday as you were smiling and your face was plastered with cake?

Well, Annabelle, you're going to love these pictures. This is the look I like to call, "what the devil, mom"

Not one piece went in her mouth. I tried, I promise.

Here it is in motion

She may not have loved the cake, but I'm not surprised. She was sitting next to a scale.

Loving Grandpa Phillips

Hmmm, that's cute cousin Abby laying on the couch, but who is that caped crusader?

It's a naked Annabelle saying a sweet hello.

March 3rd

Grandma and Grandpa Carlson came to celebrate along with our home teachers and their families.

Annabelle with her favorite toy, the balloon.

Annabelle after she lost her favorite toy, the balloon.

So she found a new favorite toy.

Grandma Carlson after she broke our iron and tried to fix it. Happy birthday, Annabelle!

I add this picture merely to demonstrate the cuddly nature of our daughter.

She's cute and she knows it.

Hanging out under the table with one of her best buds.

Mom, I especially like the one where you're making animal noises. Very cute, especially the horse. Oh, and also, the noise book is light sensitive. It doesn't need to be lying down.

Classic video. I'd like to make a note on her eating habits. At this time, she was still shunning all food that was not oatmeal. We've made real progress since then. She now loves Mac and Cheese, Somoas, Hot Dogs, String Cheese, Roast Beef, Tortillas, and basically anything else unhealthy she can get her hands on. I do try to feed her fruits and veggies, I promise.

Honestly, we all had a blast for Annabelle's birthday, especially the birthday girl. Thanks all for making it wonderful, and thanks to Annabelle for giving us a reason to celebrate. We love you, Little Miss!

One last stare-down from the master.

2010-03-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

Sid the Science Kid

Welcome to our mornings. There are those kids out there who watch morning shows, and the parents just grin and bear it, but in our family, pretty sure Annabelle's dad likes this show just as much as she does. It's pretty cute to see them sitting together watching the experiment of the day and just itching to try it for themselves.

Scientist in the house!

This is the video I meant to post

2010-03-05T10:35:00.001-08:00

of Annabelle and her friend.

Catching up with Annabelle

2010-02-26T09:46:00.001-08:00

So I've had this unfinished post saved for forever and never finished it (here comes the excuse) because our laptop was broken. Please remember that we have a perfectly good computer in our room, but then I'd have to bring the Little Miss in with me (because let's be honest, I don't blog after she goes to bed, that's skookie eating and Biggest Loser watching time) and she gets into everything in our bedroom. I spoke with T again tonight (see a few posts previous to view my apology to her about not blogging) and now I am guilted into it. (Btw, I'm currently using the broken laptop and normally the letters g and h don't work. Miraculously they are working, thus it is fated I finish this post.) Long Cathy monologue over. Without further ado,

Miss Annabelle

The last football game she attended. The games after this one were too cold!

Halloween! (Yes, it's been that long)

She loves this friend, such cronies

And they played under this table for about 20 minutes just laughing at each other.

We had a ward Christmas party to go to and Brian was already there helping set up. I was getting a dessert ready, and she was just so tired. First and last time she's fallen asleep in her highchair (so far).

I promise she didn't start crying.

Dad's little helper

Sporting her Christmas Dress

The ornaments moved progressively higher the longer the tree was up

Christmas Eve opening presents at our house

Christmas with the Phillips family

Daddy's Little Girl

And yes, she is watching "The Alamo" and is loving it

She has now taken over 2 1/2 shelves in our front room

Yeppers, she usually does wake up this happy (when she's not sick)

Favorite movie, Baby Einstein "Meet the Orchestra". Favorite seat in the house to watch it, dad's lap.

First Horse ride

One of her favorite toys, the cushion

She was invited to her first birthday party where she ate the decorations and face planted it into my cake

How to pull one over on an Osmond

2010-02-24T05:57:00.000-08:00

Wait until she gets on camera for her charity of choice and make sure you're a Phillips in an eating contest (the pancakes are a mere formality at this point). I'm going to be honest, watching a Phillips eat is almost poetry in motion. If there's anything I've learned while enjoying dinners with my in-laws it's

new terminology such as "short stop" and
if anyone asks you for a bite of your sandwich, choke up on that baby for portion control

Now without further ado, Matthew Brett Phillips will show you how to eat and manipulate Marie Osmond all at the same time. (He's the one who wins, obviously!)

Dear Tiffany,

2010-01-27T19:08:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-17T20:47:00.001-07:00

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

Annabelle's Singing Debut

2009-08-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, she doesn't actually sing in this first video. She started to "sing" after I stopped taping her (of course). So here's the story. She loves musicals. She really does, and her favorite is "The Sound of Music." Everytime Julie Andrews sings, "the hills are alive, with the sound of music," Annabelle gets a huge grin on her face, and she eventually starts yelling at the top of her lungs. With this video, she gets a little distracted with Brian's watch (I'm usually the one holding her while we watch the movie) but you can see how much she likes it. And she always watches the entire song.

Here she actually is singing. She generally has yelled herself hoarse by now because she's already yelled along to The Sound of Music and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria.

This just goes to show how big she's getting. She is going to be 6 months on Thursday. To prove it, here are pictures of her first taste of rice cereal.

She was so ready for it. (Although she got TO'd because I watered it down so much with formula. She seemed to look at me like, "Mom, if I wanted formula, I'd drink it out of my bottle; now feed me!" I made a better batch the next day.)

Note: I love whoever it was that told me to buy a suction bowl. Priceless!

So we're having a problem with her rolling onto her stomach and not being able to roll onto her back again. The problem is that she gets mad when she's been on her stomach long enough. With that said, she is a pretty spectacular roller.

And jumper

Yes, I posted a lot of videos. Where else am I supposed to document her life?

Now a quick blurb on Brian and me. We had a fun date night a few weeks ago. We got the idea that we should make pupusas. For those of you who have never had them, they're a great dish from El Salvador that consists (basically) of stuffed tortillas with toppings. You can put whatever you want in them. We like Chicharron and cheese. Here's the thing. On our mission, every hermana from El Salvador taught the missionaries how to do it. Unfortunately, the missionaries are a little slow because Brian and I sure had an interesting time of it. The end result,

They actually were really good (thanks to the chef).