The Phillips Family

So I had a rough night last night and wasn't feeling so hot today, so I left a message with one of my piano moms to say that I was canceling today's lesson. She must not have gotten the message because at 4:15 my 8-year-old student promptly walks into my home...ahem, I mean... walks into UTTER CHAOS. As I said, I wasn't feeling well so I made absolutely no effort to tidy up the place all day. (Imagine a toppled ironing board in the middle of the living room with toast crusts sprinkled here and there, followed by rambunctious toddlers covered in ketchup destroying everything in sight.) In my panic at this impromptu lesson, I call my teenage neighbor to help tame the children and tidy up. As I'm waiting for her to come, I restrain Sam in my lap and try to get Aiden distracted with something other than the piano. He eventually found a long piece of rope he was playing with earlier and begs me to hold one end while he played with the other. A few minutes later I look ...

OK, seriously can you get any cuter than this??? Talk about one adorable little garden gnome. I can't believe that Sam kept the hat and beard on for as long as he did. Aiden, on the other hand, refused to wear his Thomas the Train costume which HE picked out. We tried bribing, forcing, coaxing, you name it... but Aiden was deathly afraid of putting on that costume. (I don't blame him - Thomas the Train is just creepy with his shifty eyes and his inflated desire to please Sir Tuppinhat. I mean really, what kind of subliminal messages are they getting out to children these days??) Ahem, but anyways, we missed our ward's Trunk or Treat since Rex was flying in that night so we went to Rex's parents' ward Chili Cook-off instead. We settled with Aiden wearing last year's Woody the Cowboy costume since we could force him into it and he couldn't take it off. (What terrible parents we are! "You WILL enjoy Halloween, son, or else!") I think he caug...

After the boys and I spent a week with my parents in Oklahoma, Rex flew back and we went on a CRUISE. That's right. I said a CRUISE!! And the best part is, with all of Rex's traveling he accumulated enough Marriot points to get the entire 7-night cruise FREE. The only thing we had to pay for were the excursions and fun stuff. The next best part is that my wonderful parents took care of Aiden and Sam while we were gone. So this cruise counted as our 5-year-anniversary getaway AND our second honeymoon. It was pretty awesome. Here's how it broke down: DAY 1: Waved goodbye to sunny Orlando Explored the ship Began our free 24/7 ice cream cone addition Found our favorite lounging place Chilled and relaxed DAY 2 (At Sea): Slept in 'till 11:00 (I LOVE how dark the rooms are!!) Played mini golf on deck Went to a cooking demo Changed into our suits and went down the water slides on deck. Did you catch that last part?? Talk about AWESOME ship! Cuddled in our favorite chai...

I have been M.I.A. for the whole month of October, and for good reason too. It has been a blissfully, busy month and there is much to show for it. So be prepared for some mega posts. But first things first. Some family news: Here's the lucky guy (Mason) and the lucky girl. Aww, my lil' sista's all growed up and gettin' married!! And news Number 2: So we had TWO new additions to our Manda-Torrie Good time this year. More the merrier!! And yes, we did have a fabulous Manda-Torrie Good Time ( have I said that enough yet??) at the Tulsa State Fair, as is family tradition now. We ate ourselves silly, of course, and had some fun times at a dog show and watching Mark and Mason ride the Sky Bungee thing. The kiddos were quite pleasant while the sugar rush was still rushing. Aiden and Austin LOVED the light-up swords Gramps bought them and held onto them the entire day. After all the fun died down and everybody left their separate ways, the boys and I stayed a w...

Last week we had a really fun night that involved marshmallows and a homemade catapult that Rex put together out of scrap wood from the basement. After having so much fun but realizing that we should probably put Aiden to bed, I told him that as soon as the marshmallows were gone it was bedtime. We just weren't eating them fast enough with the occasional catapulted ones, so I taught Aiden how to toss marshmallows into his mouth. I had to laugh because I remember trying to toss marshmallows into my mouth the same way Aiden did in this video. Sam can say three words - of what I can decipher - pretty well. They are "IIIIIIiii!!" which is "Hi" and "mamamumumama ma" which I'm pretty sure is 'Mom' and his all-time favorite: "BOO!" He likes getting a reaction out of me each time he "scares" me. :) He says it over and over to all of his flap books, whenever he thinks we haven't noticed him enter the room, to scare Aide...

Running my first 5K is a big deal to me. (Remember the asthma post?) I've never really been able to run and now I can! Woohoo! Our ward has an aerobics class for all the ladies while the kids play in the back of the gym, and I've been going to that for the past year. So as an aerobics class we trained to do the 5K together. (My aswesome instructor is the lady in the white hat 4 girls in from the right.) Yahoo!! I made it!!! I'm all purple-faced, but I did it in 34 minutes. Not bad considering the first time I tried took 1 hour and 8 minutes. And Rex was such a sport and pushed the boys for me. Usually I'd be pushing them while running, but I wanted to see if I could do it any faster without them. Rex was kind enough to humor me. What a sweet man. And here's my wonderful trio approaching the finish line! Rex said the boys were cranky the whole time, but who's to blame them! It was cold and misty, we woke them up at 6, and they wanted a REAL breakfas...

Yes, I do believe that Rex is the King of Dads. I sure love this man. And so do his boys! Last week when Rex came home from his many travels, we went to Chili's for dinner. Aiden was sitting next to him and would cuddle up to him every so often and give him luvins. It was so darling.

I had a good time spying on the boys yesterday afternoon. They are just so adorable. I caught them sitting on the ledge in our backyard throwing rocks at the fence. Zooming in, you can catch their personalities as they're about to throw the rocks... Sam taste-tests each rock before it goes overboard and Aiden selects the perfect rock with his tongs he grabbed from the kitchen drawer. And into the pit they go!! I don't know how long they were out there doing this before I caught them, but it had to be about 20 minutes or so.

It's amazing how putting in new batteries in an old toy makes it brand-new all over again. :)

This post is about me. ME. (How often does that happen??) Anyways, for most of my life I've been very health-conscious and have tried to be athletic, but failed miserably. I can't aim. I can't throw a frisbee without killing random squirrels. And I get easily winded, no matter how long I've been exercising. Even though I HATE running, I've always been slightly jealous of those people who can run for miles. It always seemed like that would be the ultimate sense of accomplishment. Our Stake is putting on a 5K run in mid-September. It's something I want to do, so when a friend of mine offered to go run the route for practice, I took her up on it. I about died. After just 10 minutes I felt nauseous and felt like I was going to pass out. We kept going, though, and ended up finishing the 5K in 1 hour and 8 minutes. (Oh, and did I mention that my friend is 4 months pregnant?? I thought the odds would be in my favor...) She hadn't even broken a sweat and...

Rex and I have a strange relationship. Here's a conversation we had one night: REX: (working... of course) I need to have this wriTTen by tomorrow. (pause) REX: Like how I pronounced my T's? EDDA: It sounded pretty nerdy actually. REX: I think it makes me sound intelligent. EDDA: Or more nerdy. REX: Well by pronouncing my T's, it will inspire other people to do the same so they can sound smarter as well. EDDA: Don't you think that's a little haughty? (pause) REX: I think YOU'RE a little hottie. (Our pillow talk is much worse)

This is going to be a very random post since I haven't updated in forever. Here's some snippets of what's been going on in our home lately... Aiden loves umbrellas. He walked around the whole house with his umbrella on this particular day. He even watched TV with it securely over his head. He can't say "umbrella" yet, but he knows it has to do with rain, which he says rather well. So he refers to umbrellas, thunder, lightening and, of course, rain as "rain!" What a nut. Aiden also loves snowmen all year long. He's getting very good at making "dough"men and snakes with his play-do. (which there's an AWESOME never-dry-out-and-even-smells-good recipe for homemade dough here .) And now onto my latest decoration changes... We finally have family pictures in our house... that include Sam!! Now if anyone robs us, they'll know who they're stealing from at least. So two things in this picture (this is for you, Mom!) ...