P.S.

I am making our blog private (again) and Brian told me if I do there's no going back! I know it's a pain but hey, I still read blogs who are private! I keep thinking I'd rather be safe than sorry and I want to protect my family the best I can. So leave your email if you haven't before :)

or email me: brian(dot)lexie@gmail(dot)com and I'll be happy to send you an invite!

So happy...

...to have this boy to kiss and cuddle.

Christmas Re-cap!

We went to Bronner's (the world's largest Christmas store!) on the 23rd and picked out our annual ornaments. Sophie chose a beagle dog, Nora chose a sunflower - which she broke yesterday, Miles chose a train and we chose a train for Wesley. We went with the Seedall's and had a great time going to Bronner's for our last Christmas in Michigan!

On Christmas Eve we hung out with these fine people:

The Stevens family and the Seedall family.
The kids decorated cookies for Santa and left out some carrots for the reindeer, too! And a Snickers bar because Santa at Bronner's requested one.

Santa came!

All three kids wanted Pillow Pets this year. They were pretty happy! As soon as Nora took hers out of the box she said, "And look - it can turn in to a full size pillow!" I swear they didn't see the infomercial that many times. Maybe she could be hired to be on their commercials?
Miles got a little wind-up toy that he loves. His nursery teacher at church has a whole bunch and they are pretty much why he loves nursery!

We started the puzzle tradition this year! Brian's family always got a puzzle to do together on Christmas. We started with a 300 piece and had a lot of fun doing it together.

We had a wonderful Christmas together. On Christmas Day we went with some friends to a nursing home and did a little Christmas "program". We had such fun being together as a family. Of course we missed all our family members who are so far away but were grateful for our friends here to spend the Holidays with.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

I have mixed feelings on mailing out Christmas cards anymore. I kind of figure anyone I would be mailing them to probably reads this blog anyway so it seems unnecessary to send an update on our family... but we got a lot in the mail this year and I loved every one of them! So we ended up sending out just a few and if you didn't get one it's because I wasn't going to mail any! And a few are still waiting to go in the mail. I am thinking of doing New Year cards from now on. Wouldn't that be a great week after Christmas project? Anyway, here's the short update we sent out on our family this year. Merry Christmas to all our family and friends. We are truly blessed!

Dear Family & Friends,

Hello and Merry Christmas from the mitten state! We are enjoying our last year here in Michigan and keeping busy with Brian working to graduate this Spring! Sophie is in 2^nd grade and loves school, her friends, reading, drawing and crafting. Nora is in full day kindergarten and loves being outside, drawing, coloring and is also starting to read and loving it! Both girls are great helpers and love to take care of their little brothers. Miles still loves cars, trains and anything with wheels! He also loves doing puzzles, play-doh, playing pirates and computer games. Wesley is now 3 months old and such a sweet baby. He is such a fun addition to our family and we are loving getting to know him. We are especially grateful for the Christmas season and remembrance of our Savior Jesus Christ. May His spirit fill your hearts with love this Christmas season, and always.

Love, the Phillips Family

Brian, Lexie, Sophie, Nora, Miles & Wesley

Merry Christmas Eve!

Winter Break

The kids are on winter break and so far it's been a lot of fun to have the girls around every day! We've mostly just been relaxing and being together. Here's a few pictures of what we've been up to:

Sophie loves helping with Wesley.

Nora dressed up like this and told me she was Bugs Bunny and kept saying "What's up Doc?"

Nora loves holding Wesley, too.

Oops! I was downstairs with the other 3 kids and came up to see Miles doing this. I'm pretty sure the pitcher wasn't that full...

Miles likes little brother and always says "Weswee, Wesser, We-es!" in a cute baby-talk voice.

He's just so darn cute!

Brian surprised us all and stayed home ALL day on Saturday! It was so fun and the kids couldn't get enough of him.

I was cleaning up the kitchen table and found this picture that Nora did for Miles. She is at such a fun stage in her reading/writing. If you can't read it it says this:

Fo (from) Nora
To Miles
LINEMMOCWEN (Lightning McQueen)

Blessed.

Brian blessed Wesley this month. We were going to do it last month but the kids were sick. My mom made his little outfit and luckily it still fit since the boy is growing like a weed! Miles ran in to a pew at church right before the blessing and had a bruise on his forehead for a few days. Nora was throwing a fit because she hadn't got to hold him yet so I missed part of it. But it was a special day nevertheless. So blessed to have him in our family. Babies bring such a sweet spirit with them into this world and it's pure joy to watch them and feel their closeness to our Heavenly Father. I never tire of having a baby around (especially one as sweet as this one.)

Poor baby

Sometimes life with three older siblings can be tough! Wesley fell asleep in the kitchen in the midst of one of those crazy afternoons full of teasing, laughing, crying and bouncing -off- the-walls kind of energy. I love how he fell asleep with his little hand on his face. He must have been thinking, "What did I get myself into?"

Mwahahaha!!!

As I was cleaning up some papers today I found a note Sophie wrote to her teacher.

Dear Mrs. ______,
I think you are a ausome No faboulos teacher!


P.S. I know how you feel when you get anoyd.

Your ausome student,
Sophie

It's had me laughing all afternoon.

Snow and other fun stuff...

We got our first snowfall this week and it is finally feeling like winter around here. Nora was in heaven and couldn't get out in it fast enough. She ran out the door yelling, "This is paradise!" and immediately started licking the snow off the hood of the van and then made a snow angel in the little bit of snow we had. She loooves playing in the snow!

And instead of bundling Miles and Wesley up to go outside to play for the 10 minutes they would last - I bring the snow to him! We are both happy this way - and much warmer. The rule I go by when it comes to letting my kids do things like this is: If they play with it longer than it takes to clean it up then it's totally worth it! Miles played with this for about 25 minutes and it took me about one minute to wipe up the water when he was done. Awesome. Not so awesome would be when he "plays" with our board games for about 5 minutes and dumps all the pieces and cards all over the place - and it takes me about 30 minutes to gather and organize them back together again. So not worth it.

And some baby love. Wesley is growing so big and is already fitting nicely into 3-6 month clothes. At his two month check up he weighed in at 12 pounds 12 ounces. He's in the 70 percentile for weight, 90th for height and 50th for head. And we still can't get enough of him he's the sweetest thing.

Here is our living room with our tree... Wesley loves being right there on the couch. Can't see him good enough?

Here's a closer look. So cute. Don't worry, I make sure he doesn't smother himself.

One reason I love parenting...

Last night Sophie and Nora were playing/pestering each other and Sophie kept pretending to kick Nora. I had asked her a few times to stop and she kept doing it. I finally said, "Sophie! Why are you disobeying me?" She stopped what she was doing and with her hands clasped together and her head hanging she said, "Ummmm, temptation got the best of me."

A good lesson

Sophie was in charge of our Family Home Evening lesson last night. Here is what she wrote down with zero help from anyone (I typed it straight from her notebook & wanted it to look just how she'd written it, hence the typos):

There's two ways to go. Follow Lousifer or Satin, or God. God lets you choose to! If you follow Satin you feel satisfied at first but sooner or later you feel tarible! If you repent you are forgeven (which is a relif!) Like the story of Enos he felt bad about his sins and put down his bow and arrow and prayd all day and all night for repentec. This story teaches me to not sin and go serve God don't let Satin catch up! If you end up on the rong path pray for repentence and it will be given to you.
Being a parent is hard work and sometimes I wonder what the heck I'm doing, and how in the world I can help my kids learn the things they need to be happy and to have a desire to live the gospel. It's times like these that reassure me that the things we are trying to teach are sinking in!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

True to tradition we went and cut down our tree the day after Thanksgiving. We went to a fun place called Tannenbaum's (where we've gone the last three years) and had a fun and freezing cold time. This year we decided we'd take the first tree we found that we liked and that was in our budget and be done instead of walking all around searching for the perfect tree. We've learned with kids that the searching part gets old pretty quickly! So within 10 minutes we found our tree and got some hot cocoa and doughnuts and sat by the fire. It is beautiful tree and we had a great time together. We almost lost our tree on the tractor/trailer ride back from the fields. Luckily Brian balanced it on his foot (both of our hands were full) until someone grabbed it for us! Funny.

Here's our tree!

One of Santa's reindeer is always there to visit.

Hot cocoa and doughnuts by the fire - yum!

Wesley slept the whole time.

Nora found this fungus and really wanted to bring it home with us. We convinced her a picture would be better.

Happy Thanksgiving...

from our four little turkeys!

I feel so blessed for these four beautiful, healthy and wonderful kids the Lord has given me to be a mother to. And so thankful for my husband, the gospel, all my family and the good friends I have that bless my life each day! I am amazed and humbled every day at how much I have to be grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving!

The boys

Wesley is two months old now and getting cuter every day!

See?

Miles is a typical little boy and likes getting into mischief - but lately he's upped his game and been doing things like painting with Desitin, squirting out anything he finds that is squirtable (cleaner, nose spray, etc...) throwing anything and everything and just causing trouble in general. :)
At the park today he took a tumble down some wooden stairs and got a bloody nose and major fat lip. Under his lip is all purple and bloody. Poor little guy!

This last picture just makes me smile. Our nightly routine is Brian reads books to the kids while I sit and fold laundry in their room or hold Wesley if he's awake. Tonight he was taking it easy on Miles' bed. Great times.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Brian bought the girls and I tickets to go see the Broadway show Mary Poppins at the Wharton Center. We had a great time together and it was an amazing show! Sophie was so excited because she has loved Mary Poppins since she was two and used to call it "Pa-Pottins" and want to watch it twice a day. I think it's obvious from the pictures just how excited she was! She was grinning the whole time and loved every second of it. Nora liked it as well, but it was really late and she fell asleep just before intermission and again for the last part of the show. Brian and the boys got to stay home and play cars and build a fort together. It was a fun night for all of us!

Sunday

Just another peaceful Sunday afternoon...

The kids made a huge pile of pillows and blankets in their room and were jumping off the dresser onto it. There are about 10 more videos with Sophie directing Nora what she should do. And yes that is Miles completely naked at the end.

Sweet Wesley

We are enjoying an unseasonably warm November (thus far) and are soaking up as much sunshine as possible in preparation for winter. We are adjusting nicely to being a family of six. It might help that Wesley is a dream baby and happy pretty much all the time. He loves his bouncy chair and the swing and laying on the bed staring up at the ceiling fan. He's seriously awesome. And yes, I am so grateful. And lucky.

He is growing like a weed and I can't wait to see how much he weighs at his 2 month check up later this month. Oh, I want him to be chunky!

Classic sleeping baby position

He spent about 20 minutes just grinning up at this frog.
So cute! But don't worry, he doesn't get neglected because he's so good. I make sure I get plenty of those adorable smiles, too! And that double chin? Love it!!

Four

I really wanted a picture of all the kids together outside before it got too cold to take one. I think this is the best one I got:

A pretty cute bunch I daresay!

Sweet and silly miss Sophie

Cutie pie Nora - who loves getting her picture taken by the way!

{insert picture of Miles here... he was much too busy for an individual picture}

and kissable Mr. Chubs