The Phillips Family

Just a little snatch into what usually goes on around our house these days... We spend as much time as we can outside playing on the days that allow us to.  Aiden has got the hang of his big boy bike and Sam is very jealous of it.  But they both have fun and we get plenty of sunshine for the winter. Sam always picks out the best treats when he's in charge of the basket. There's a spot in our neighborhood that doesn't get a lot of sun so when it snows, barely melts, and then freezes again it forms a giant ice rink in front of several houses.  So one day we all went out there and helped break the ice together as a neighborhood.  That's my friend Stacy below with the pick axe.  This was some serious ice - about 8" in some places!! This is my garden experiment this year - mini greenhouses made from milk jugs.  The seeds will freeze and thaw and freeze and so forth until Spring comes when I can open them up and water them ag...

I love my boys!!  They make me laugh so much.  Hope this makes you laugh, too!  Be sure to turn up the volume so you can hear everything. :)

For Aiden's fourth birthday (on January 5th...ahem) we went to Chuck-E-Cheese's because that's 'where a kid can be a kid' and we figured he just wasn't kid enough...HA.  (In a rare mood today, excuse me...)  Anyways, we went to Chuck-E-Cheese's with his Grandma and Grandpa Phillips, Aunt McKenzie, and baby cousin Jaxon.  We took him here on his second birthday, but I think he had much more fun this time around.  Rex showed him the ropes now that he's tall enough to do more of the games.  Aiden, that is.  Not Rex. We ate cardboard pizza and some soda and cupcakes.  All mandatory birthday stuff.  Aiden got some fun windup cars from his grandma, a hotwheels storage case for all his cars from Aunt McKenzie, and a bike helmet and very annoying bike horn to go with it.  (What I was thinking at the time of purchase, I still wonder...) Aiden hasn't changed much in his birthday cake attack methods.  Still looks the sa...

This year we had Christmas at the Torrie's. Now there's something you need to understand about any vacation at the Torrie's - it's busy and fun! My mom had an itinerary printed out a week in advance with all activities and meals planned for each day we would all be there. And it was a blast. So here's the rev up before the actual Christmas began: Before I dive in to the schedule, you HAVE To see this adorable little children's playhouse my parents built under the stairs.   And now on to Christmas: The first day we went to the Bass Pro Shop to see Santa. Aiden was SO excited to see him. I love that he has finally reached the age where he understands what's going on and feels the Christmas magic, so to say. I think Sam is still a bit detached, but he's getting there. :) Grandma Jeanie played with the boys while we waited in line and they loved every minute of it. After we saw Santa we saw the rest of the store just for kic...

The boys' room has been driving me crazy for the longest time because they didn't have matchy comforters and the walls were bare. It looked like a couple of hobo children moved in. So I finally decided to do something about it - I bought some duvet covers at IKEA that I put over their old comforters and I shopped online for some Toy Story stuff. When everything came, I put it up while the boys were in the bath. Once they got out of the bath, they noticed the change immediately. They were SO excited to have "pictures on the wall!" Aiden kept saying over and over, "It'th bloo-a-ful, Mom! I lub it!" as he would stroke the wall and kiss an occasional T-Rex. They were just so gosh darn cute about it. It made me so happy that they liked it. :) As it turns out, Aiden's been using that phrase quite a bit more since that night. Today while the carpet installers were here for the basement, Aiden kept yelling down to the workers, "It'th bloo-...