Being the type of family that scoffs at Hallmark's version of holidays, we chose to celebrate Father's Day on Saturday this year. Yes, despite our schedules and set bedtimes here at casa de phillips, we can be a bit rebellious at times.

Isaac and Evelyn are beyond blessed to have Tobe as a daddy. The moment the garage door sounds at 5:15pm each evening, those two run to the back door to greet him after a long day's work. They are often shouting out requests for what they want him to play and he usually only pauses long enough to set down his laptop and loosen his tie before joining in on their fun.

Good times indeed.

To celebrate him this weekend, the children and I baked a cake. I took a deep breath (or twenty) and allowed my two little sous chefs to help in all areas of preparation. Although they likely consumed way more icing than they spread on our cake and perhaps some of the candy used in the decoration touched a mouth or two before being placed on the cake (sorry,Nana and Papa, who ate this cake as well), they were big helps.

Here are the future employees of Charm City Cakes with Tobe..and their masterpiece...on Saturday. In case you forgot to put on your glasses before reading this post, allow me to explain that this decoration on top of the cake is a necktie. I contemplated writing a silly pun such as "Daddy, you tie us all together" but fortunately I ran out of black icing.

Another shot of the cake...at a very unfortunate angle.

This year the children each painted their own picture frames for Tobe to put up in his office. In all of my rush over the weekend, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Oops. Isaac and Evelyn were thrilled to use Mommy's paints (meaning there was no label on the paint jar that read "Crayola") and really concentrated on making something Tobe would like. They also greatly enjoyed painting in their underwe*r (a necessity when painting with paints not labeled "Crayola" or "washable").

Saturday afternoon, before our Father's Day festivities began, Tobe and I took Isaac to see the movie Up! while Evelyn stayed home and napped under the careful supervision of her Nana. This was Isaac's first movie going experience and he was quite amazed by the extremely large screen, as shown in the picture below.


He enjoyed the movie, yelling out "YES! He's going to save his friend!" at one very climactic scene. It is hard to believe we have a child old enough to accompany us to the theater (for child-appropriate movies only, obviously).

Tobe and I enjoyed the movie (when we were not just loving watching Isaac watch the movie...parents are weird, huh?). I knew the first ten minutes were going to be emotional, but was not exactly prepared for the extreme emotion conveyed. Be warned, dear readers, that you might need a few Kleenex's tucked in your pocket for the beginning of this movie. (*). As always, Pixar created another great film with a solid storyline free of potty-humor or inappropriate sexual innuendos (Did you hear that Dreamworks?).

It was a great weekend, finished out by church on Sunday and a late afternoon swim and picnic at the pool.

Happy Father's Day, Tobe!

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If you are interested in making the chocolate cake I made above, you can find the recipe here. The peanut butter frosting is located on this webpage and the cinnamon ice cream link can be found here (Unfortunately something went terribly wrong with my ice cream maker and our ice cream never froze. This was beyond a disappointment to Evelyn, who only wanted some ice cream. Fortunately organic yogurt saved the day.)

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*Disclaimer about the movie Up: If you have lost a child or experienced a miscarriage, please know there is a pretty sad ten seconds in this movie that really will tug at your heartstrings and could be difficult to watch.

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Fruit of the Spirit Lesson: JOY is coming up later today. Check back!