Easter Summary Just in Time for the Fourth of July

I figured I better hurry and get our Easter pictures posted considering I spied Fourth of July festive wear in Wal-Mart this morning. I would hate our Easter pictures and Thanksgiving 2009 pictures to be forced to share space on the same post.

We had two Easter celebrations, one on Saturday in the form of dinner out on the town (the kitchen sink was still not connected at that point) and an egg hunt and the other a more traditional Easter celebration on Sunday.

Saturday afternoon Tobe and Isaac went to run some errands when it was decided that Mommy needed flowers for Easter. Isaac firmly stated that my favorite flower was a rose, so roses I got. That boy sure is going to make a good husband one day.

The egg hunt began after dinner. God bless the grandparents because they donated fifty eggs to our little hunt. The kids would have been a bit bored with the measly 18 I had put together.

See our little auburn-haired beauty? My grandmother (a fellow redhead) is convinced E.'s hair is red. I still see quite a bit of brown, except for in the sunlight. We can all dream that it will be red one day...

Post egg-hunt happiness. Isaac found some cash in his eggs, which quickly went into his John Deere piggy bank. He has big plans for all that money he accumulated on Saturday. Hopefully such plans included the words "Roses" "mommy" or at the very least "Sonic Happy Hour."

Looking for more eggs...

Racing towards a spied prize...

Chocolate makes them the bestest of friends.

Easter Morning

Check out the kelly green combo. I will be so sad when the children want to choose their own Easter clothing and they no longer color coordinate.

Isaac did express an opinion about the dapper saddle shoes I had purchased to be his summer church shoes. Apparently they hurt his feet...an opinion that was generated before he actually tried them on his little feet. All dress shoes suddenly became terribly painful, with the exception of his too-small black winter shoes. I decided a battle was not worth it so he wore black shoes with navy linen pants. He did manage to wear argyle socks which made me terribly happy.

After snapping a few pictures and bribing a few smiles with the ever popular Starburst Jellybean (which later caused a huge yellow spot on the shoulder of Evelyn's cardigan sweater), we loaded up our crew and set out for church. As Evelyn walked into the building holding the hands of her Mommy and Nana, a rather "eager" church member raced his black Mercedes through the parking lot. He narrowly missed hitting Tobe's mom and managed to splash water all over E's legs and "pre-ty shoos" (We had some seriously heavy thunderstorms in the early hours of Sunday morning).

Grr.

I am beyond bugged by careless drivers, especially when children are present, particularly my own children dressed up for Easter morning. I wanted to hunt that man down and have a word with him, but decided 1. That was not the Christ-like thing to do and 2. I am not nearly brave enough to invoke such a confrontation.

We held off on Easter baskets until after arriving home from church. We have never really made a huge deal about the Easter Bunny so no one found it suspicious that the baskets were waiting on the fireplace when we walked through the front door. Evelyn danced around joyously shouting "I got princess stickers!" loud enough for our entire block to know the contents of her Easter basket.

Easter is a great holiday because it mixes some childhood whimsy with a lot of serious thought about the foundations of our faith. The children have been especially chatty the days leading up to and preceding Easter about Jesus dying on the cross. Salvation and grace are such hard concepts for adults to understand and the Easter story has proved to be quite complex to the preschool mind. I have heard many retellings of the death and resurrection of Jesus from Isaac, some which end in the traditional sense and others which have a bit of a twist to their ending (Jesus coming to visit our house after exiting the tomb). The children have drawn crosses, constructed crosses, and fought over whether or not a local church's cross display is the actual cross (Isaac says that it is, Evelyn disagrees...mainly to disagree because she does not really understand the whole concept of the conversation).

Overall it was good times.

Made even better by a cute little pair of argyle socks.

Hibernation

Yesterday morning I told Tobe I wished I was a bear so I could hibernate.

Tobe usually attempts to convey some sort of interest/sympathy/understanding in response to my bold claim of the day, even when I make such odd statements (which happen frequently here at casa de phillips).

Hibernation has sounded quite glorious these past few days because I have just felt so very tired. I do not know if it is my allergies, the current phase of the moon, or the fact that my three year old has gotten in a habit of waking me up every night for the past week that is contributing to this fatigue. I do know that during bible study this morning, when the lights were dimmed and Beth Moore came on the large screen I secretly contemplated laying my head down on the table and taking a snooze.

I resisted the impromtu nap, mainly because I became wrapped up in both the Good Word and in wondering where Beth purchased the darling pair of jeans she was wearing.

The underlying message in all this whining is that I have nothing to write about today simply because my brain is a bit dead at the moment.

Sure I have Easter pictures to share and details on why I just googled, "Why does my toddler have big fits at the supper table each night"....but, again, those will have to wait.

In the meantime, enjoy this link:

http://video.yahoo.com/network/100000089?v=4816051&l=100022574

Alison sent it to me because she knows my biggest wish is for one day to be in a public place when a spontaneous dance breaks out.

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a marvelous Easter celebrating the empty tomb and enjoying time with friends and family. I have much to report about our holiday weekend from Evelyn getting splashed by a car in the church parking lot this morning to the 68 eggs hidden on our front lawn to the cross-shaped candy consumed by our children to the time spent with our little family of four today.

But..I also have Easter chocolate calling my name from the kitchen (home to my new countertops and sink...more on that to come) so such stories will have to wait until tomorrow.

Blessings!

Good Friday Linkage

Here are a couple of great links to enjoy this holiday weekend:

*We are big on family rituals and Simple Mom has a great post about such things today. Seems her family enjoys a homemade pizza every Friday might just like my little family.

*Tobe laughed so hard over this sleeping bag he almost cried. I think he might be secretly pondering if he could pull off wearing this backpack to work. I love getting to see a glimpse of the little boy he used to be every once in a while in my husband.

*An Easter thought from Beth Moore. I just love her and really admire her ways with a teasing comb (and her love for Jesus, of course).

*Pepperoni pasta is definitely going to make an appearance on an upcoming menu here at casa de phillips.

***

Every year I go on some sort of parental quest, thinking simply because I live in the state of the bluebonnet I need the quintessential bluebonnet picture of my child.

We have attempted such pictures in front of an Albertsons, teetering on the edge of a freeway. We have stepped in a fire ant bed attempting these pictures. We have driven for hours looking for an appropriate field of flowers with a nine month old Isaac in tow attempting these pictures. We have gone when the weather is hot, when it is cold...and yesterday, we went during a dust storm.

Seriously, the 30 minutes of the day that I dressed the children, loaded them up into the station wagon, drove to the bluebonnet field, unloaded everyone, bribed them with Sonic slushes, and attempted to snap pictures....a dust storm struck.

They were troupers (behold the magic of a Slush) and attempted to smile while focusing on not blowing away in the wind.

My "dream" bluebonnet picture still remains a dream. Perhaps one day...

Until then, enjoy these pictures.

This one pretty much captures the hurricane-force winds that blew through our area.

This one pretty much captures Evelyn's attitude the past few days.

Bless her heart.

When Projects Go Wrong

As we approach Easter Sunday, I thought we should celebrate the resurrection of our Savior by making Rice Krispie-shaped easter eggs.

I kid, I kid.

We all know rice krispie treats were not at the empty tomb.

Anyway, I thought a little Easter fun this morning would be great and considering my kids love marshmallows, love Rice Krispies, and love group projects we would have a swell ol time.

Wrong.

Things were going great...after I explained what a Rice Krispy treat actually is because both children looked confused when I introduced the project....as we set off on this culinary adventure. We counted marshmallows, poured cups of cereal,and watched Mommy slave over a hot pot of buttor and white goo.

See what happy campers I had?Then it was time to actually form the sticky mixture into egg shaped treats. I made the mistake of saying, "It's kind-of like warm play-doh." This was the statement that completely derailed our project time.

Isaac stated he would just rather play play-doh and Evelyn piped in that she wanted to play play-doh. All interest in the rice krispy treats was gone. In fact, no one even wanted to sample the gooey mess.

Since it was only 8:45am (notice children are still pajama-clad in the above picture), I decided not to press the issue. Truth be known, I detest rice krispy treats so I was not too excited about this little easter project my ownself. I told the kids once they cleaned up their areas, they were free to pull out the play-doh (such a great toy...such a horrible mess. That is another post all in itself). I smooshed the gooey mess into a cake pan and cleaned up my own area, making a mental note that rice krispy treats are not a preferred activity here at casa de phillips.

The highlight of the morning? When Mommy allowed the children to use the camera.

Here are the photos:

Isaac's picture of Mommy with the abandoned bowl of mush

(the humidty has done horrors to my hair today)

Isaac's picture of Evelyn

(she actually posed the cup on her face...don't see Baby Gap contacting us for any modeling gigs anytime soon)


Evelyn's picture of Isaac
(note the cute little thumb in the top corner)

As for the rice krispy treats, no one has yet to be interested in them. They currently sit on a paper plate in the middle of my kitchen table.

Tomorrow we are having new kitchen countertops installed. Think I can get a 10% discount if I offer up some yummy cereal treats to the crew?

(Want to attempt this project with your own kids? Check it out here)

Miracles in Casa de Phillips

Two miracles happened over here at casa de phillips today.

Miracle Number One: The children sat still and actually smiled for the camera...together.

Today was the Easter Egg hunt at Isaac's school, which meant mommy needed to snap a few pictures before we darted out the door in our weekly attempt to be first in drop-off line (we weren't, due to some person obviously unaware that a green light means "go". Rather we sat stuck at a stoplight while a friend whizzed past us, beating us to preschool. Next week, my friend.). Isaac's school has a "no-parent at parties" rule, so I always try to get a few pictures of him before such big events. His teachers take pictures at the actual parties (and make a scrapbook at the end of the year), but I like to have my own photos as well.

Because aren't my children's lives going to be a little less meaningful if they don't have a picture representation of every. single. event. they have ever attended? :)

The stars must have aligned just right because both kids sat together on the fireplace (standard phillips family location for all indoor photos), managed to smile, and no one "accidentally" let their hands venture into someone else's space.

There was never any simultaneous looking in the same direction, but I figure something major such as the end of global warming would have to occur before Isaac and Evelyn manage to both look and smile at the camera on cue.

The egg hunt was a success and Isaac carted home even more plastic eggs to add to our growing collection (can you recycle plastic eggs?). He was especially excited over the two quarters he found in one egg and never noticed that his candy stash was a KitKat short after naptime.

Doesn't he just look old? A new favorite thing of our boy is to inform Evelyn (or me on some days) that certain things are "just for three and 1/2 year olds", therefore not appropriate for the likes of his little sister. Handy. Such things that fall into this category are:

1. The eating of chocolate

2.The playing of Hi Ho Cherry-o

3.Holding the desired toy of the moment.

Things that do not fall into this category include:

1. Sisters being asked to do something for big brothers, such as retrieving shoes or cleaning up messes.

Highly convenient.

Miracle Number Two: This little girl gave up her bottle tonight.

In case you forgot, Evelyn has still been taking a half bottle of milk at night (see number 3 here). I knew she needed to give it up...about 11 months ago...but really had been fearful of the tantrums that might result from bidding her beloved bottle farewell.

Evelyn is known for the ability to throw a good tantrum and I am known for being able to handle them most of the time...with the exception of having to deal with a screaming, snotty, overtired baby at the end of an already long day. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous about what might happen when the bottle was given up.

We have been prepping for weeks that E. is starting to become a big girl and big girl's do not drink from bottles. We talked about how her friend Baby Madeline might like a bottle and it was soon going to be time to send E.'s bottles to Madeline.

Today while in the store, Evelyn noticed me eyeing the sippy cups. She said, "Give bottle to Baby Madeline. El-len get princess cup?"

I believe I heard angels sing over the muzak Tom Thumb was currently piping into their store at that moment.

I said, "Yes, baby girl, we are sending your bottles to sweet Baby Madeline today. Pick out a new Princess cup."

And that was it.

Tonight at bedtime there was no crying from the girl who typically cannot wait long enough to get her PJs on before grabbing her bottle. She talked about sending them to Baby Madeline a few more times, took a few sips from her sippy cup before tossing it in the sink (although we did allow bottles well past the age of one....we never have sent the kids to bed with milk), and went to sleep.

End of story.

...well, except for the fact that I now feel a little bit sad about seeing the bottle go away. I have washed bottles every night for almost four years. Sigh.

(By the way...we are not actually mailing our dingy old bottles to precious Madeline. Don't think she even takes them anyway. Alison...thanks for letting Madeline be our weapon of defense in Operation: Bottle!)

**I am having such issue with blogger and paragraph spacing. Either the spacing is out of control or there is simply no spacing at all. Sorry, readers, for this headache of a post!

The Secret Life of This Mom

Last night I laid on the couch in a bit of a feverish mess, flipping channels, when I came across the encore broadcast of yesterday's Oprah.



The topic was "The Secret Lives of Moms". The show centered around various mommy authors and bloggers discussing the trials and tribulations of motherhood. This was no "I sneak three vicodin during the 10am snack time" expose, but rather confessions of "At first I thought having a child was the biggest mistake I ever made." or "I had to use a diaper my own self on an extended car trip."



It was cute, interesting, and a tad bit whiny. The gals who authored these books along with Cheryl Hines who currently stars in "In the Motherhood" (used to love those webisodes...have only caught one on actual television), were the on-stage guests. It was a bit frustrating to watch the two perky blonde authors talk from their expertly manicured California homes about how tough life is as a mom, hear Oprah wonder aloud why every mother does not have "help" (as in a nanny), and watch Cheryl Hines prepare for her daughter's reptile-themed birthday party complete with petting zoo. Not a lot of similar experiences like that are going on in my neighborhood, so it was a bit difficult to relate.

I suppose a mom discussing the battles of dealing with a chronically-ill child or of a woman talking about the crisis her family had endured during these economic times would have railroaded the "I cried all the way to the car dealership on the day I had to buy a mini-van" discussions, but I did feel like some major issues of motherhood were left ignored.



The question/eternal debate of "Can women do it all?" was briefly touched on, everyone seeming a bit fearful to tread such a murky water. In the end, it was agreed that being a mom is the great selfless act of womanhood and the episode concluded with everyone giving themselves a bit ol pat on the back for wearing the title of "Mommy."



I am still pondering my thoughts about the opinions expressed during this 47 minute show. I wanted to "Amen" some things (I believe someone mentioned how mommyhood was the never-ending job with no sick leave) and sigh about others (Is motherhood really such a selfless act? Didn't most of us have kids because we wanted a baby? Sure, it is pretty darn taxing at times but is parenthood not something a great deal of people consciously choose to do?) The show did reverberate how women are their own worst enemies at times, attacking each other for the slightest of difference in opinion on raising a child, from how you feed the baby to how you discipline the teenager.

I am trying to give other mothers the grace I hope they would extend to me, from friends who appear to have it all together to the mommy who made a thinly veiled snide comment about something I said last week in a group setting to another mommy who appeared ready to fight me after my child accused her child of stealing his chicken nugget.

(For the record...her kid totally stole the nugget. However, she was a bit gruffer than I and the friend who was with me is eight months pregnant. I didn't think we would come out on the winning side of such a battle so I attempted to smooth things over quickly without asking for the 57 cents the lady owed me for the swiped nugget.)

I know that personally there are days I have my mommy stuff together, whipping up some educational crafts, prompting some intellectual conversations in the car, and then serving everyone a completely organic meal at suppertime. Then there are days when I am thankful I at least read the kids a book (likely a short one...but still a book) before naps and am about 72% sure they ate their vitamins at breakfast that day.

Balance in life is hard.

Balance in life while attempting to parent someone is extremely hard.

Anyone else catch this show and have a thought to share?

Anyone willing to hunt that mommy down whose child stole a chicken nugget from Isaac and demand my money?

Sick Day Wanted

Does someone have the number where I can call in sick today for my role as Mommy?

It appears that the hospital never passed such a phone number along when handing over either of our newborn babies. I have checked all their discharge papers. It's not there.

Today, as I have explained countless times to my sweet children, "Mommy's voice is sick."

Translated that means I have very little voice left, partially due to a cold I have been fighting and partially due to the fact that last night I sang, yelled, and sang some more for three+ hours.

See the picture below: This picture was taken around our children's normal bedtime. I am assuming the kids were in bed last night at that particular time, however I was not there to help with such an event (once again...yeah for four very involved grandparents!!!). Instead, I was about to head in to see The Boss with my cute husband. We love us some Bruce (especially Tobe) and this was our sixth time to see him together in concert (one of those times we were on the fourth row and I was pregnant with Isaac. Good times.).

It was another excellent show and I have the lack of voice to prove it.

The children had a great time at the grandparents and were all smiles when I arrived this morning to scoop them up. On the way home I explained that my voice was on the sick side and I needed to limit my talking.

This statement obviously translated in their little minds as "Please, ask Mommy a million questions on the twenty minute ride home."

There were an assortment of questions in the normal range of inquiries that could be ignored or answered with a simple "Hmm." or "Yes." then there were the deeper ones such as "Why did Jesus come out of the tomb?" that I felt a bit guilty about leaving unanswered. By the time nap time rolled around this afternoon, my voice was completely gone. Isaac had to "read" our bedtime story because I simply was not able while Evelyn sang the songs.

Now, while they sleep these final precious minutes, I am attempting to figure out how Mommy calls in sick to work...

Breakfast with the Bunny 2009

This morning we woke the kids up bright and early, dressed them in some snappy clothes, and set off to dine with two furry animals wearing odd hats and an overload of polka dots.

It was our fair city's annual "Breakfast with the Easter Bunny".

Because it is late and because after a full day today we have an even FULLER day tomorrow, bear with me as this will simply be a picture and caption quote.

Isaac and Evelyn love them some Easter Bunny.

The craft table was an obvious hit with the phillips' kiddos

Isaac was very intent on his coloring, working on the same page for a looooooooooong time.

Such concentration

Showing the Easter Bunny the fruits of his labor...pretty good for a kid who is not four years old yet.

Evelyn likes to take a non-traditional approach to carrying the easter basket

Isaac with his eggs after the hunt

Checking out their loot
Post-egg hunt hair

After breakfast, we headed out to a field of bluebonnets

Sweet Evelyn
Attempting to torture their parents by never looking in the same direction at one time

Here are some links to breakfasts of Easter-past:

2008

2007

It's Link-tastic!

Here are a few links to enjoy on this very windy Thursday afternoon:

*Want to do some crafts in the month of April? Here is a list of a "craft-a-day" for this fine Spring month.

*Conquer menu planning just once a month with this simple plan.

*Mommyhood: It is complex, wonderful, frustrating, enlightening, grey-hair producing, and laughter abounding all at one time. If you have not read this famous essay by Anna Quindlen on motherhood, check it out.

*April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day. Many of you know that I used to teach a group of children with autism spectrum disorders. I believe autism to be a disease of epidemic proportions (1 out of every 94 boys). Check out this site and make yourself a bit more aware of this issue. Beth Moore's blog has a post written by a guest author about her family's experience with autism.

***

Yesterday Evelyn and I trekked up to our local mega-hotel to take pictures for her second birthday party invites. I was struck with a divine revelation late yesterday afternoon on what her party theme should be and I am giddy with preparations. Let me be honest in saying I truly dread the day my kids ask for me to just drop them and a few friends off at the mall to celebrate their birthdays because kid party planning is terribly fun.

I have managed to delete 150 pictures from our outing yesterday, still leaving behind well over 100 photos. The editing process has been slow. Here are a just a few pictures that obviously will not grace the invitation, but are worth a good laugh:

E. telling the trains farewell. Notice the single tear coming out of her sweet eye. Parting with trains is terribly hard for Miss E.

Perhaps this should be the picture on the invitation, because this is pretty much the Evelyn we see when she is not sleeping. "Motormouth" might be an appropriate adjective to describe her.

This sweet boy (who was at school during the above photo sessions) thought his mommy had lost her mind this morning when she began pulling things from his closet and making him try them on. We are sorting out his summer wardrobe at the moment and had to determine if anything from last summer was salvageable.

Are Goats the New April Fool's Day Joke?

Before I dive into this post, let me remind the readers of www.savethephillipsfamily.blogspot.com that casa de phillips is currently located in the suburbs.

That important piece of information is the very reason I was quite surprised this morning when I turned into our neighborhood to discover a man herding goats through an empty lot (empty...but owned). I happened to have the camera in my purse (E. and I were heading out to take pictures for her upcoming birthday invite...still editing the 247 pics that I took this morning) so I strategically attempted to snap pictures of this phenomenon while driving.

If this man happens to be a relative of yours, please tell him I apologize for putting his likeness on my blog without his permission. Also, please ask him why he herds goats in the city.

Goats, people. In my neighborhood. Grazing on grass.

***

Aren't these two little munchins sweet, sharing some sibling love?

A relatively new favorite pastime for these two is to hug fiercely or run around holding hands until someone becomes injured.

Great times.

Yesterday an all-out war was declared over a large map puzzle of the world. There were tears, cries of injustice, and some pretty angry kids. Both were sent to their rooms for an extended amount of time until the drama subsided.

They better watch that preschool behavior of theirs...I apparently know a goat Herder who is likely looking for some summer employees.