boring update

hey all,

not much to report but i know some of you need to read something :o) i will lead off with the fact that it is currently 76 degrees in NC :oP sorry 'boutcha michigan! how's that snow?!

the weather is about the only bright thing going on. thalia is pretty sick. she has a terrible cough and was up most of the night. i guess the good thing is that she has had to cough all week and last night was the first night it kept us up. she is also hvaing a rough time teething. she has been crawling around with her monkey's paw in her mouth all weekend just chewing on it. i have been giving her her frozen teething rings and her juice cup. she likes to chew on the spout and hopefully the juice will help loosen her cough (yeah right).

i had a pretty rough week at work. just a lot of drama and working with outside people that do not share the same intensity or work ethic. the good news is that i have gotten to know a couple of the people i work with really well this week. so even though this week stunk, i am still really happy with my decision to come down here.

that's about all that's going on here. i went to the mall earlier and thalia was not having it. she kept taking her socks and shoes off and flipping around in her stroller...ugh! but we came back and she took a nap and we had some lunch. this afternoon i am going to the dollar store to make shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. its something that my church in michigan does, and as it turns out, the church i found down here does it too! i am excited to do that but we will see how much i get done with thalia crawling around trying to put all the toys in her mouth!

here's a picture for the road.

hope you all are staying warm and having a great weekend! only one more week and i get to spend the week in michigan and then off to san diego. we can't wait!!

much love and no sleep,

c, c, and t

pics from the weekend, etc

you guys get so feisty when i don't include pictures! here are a couple (terrible) pics from bluffton. aunt nikki promised to send the ones she took too.

here are some other cute pics, as a peace offering for my lack of updates last week. maybe you should only look at one at a time so that if i get busy again, you can look at a new pic each day :o)

look at my proper little princess. i was just trying to take a pic of her cute new shoes!
lately she keeps putting her ducky in her mouth and crawling around. i think it feels good to chew on with her tooth coming in.
thalia had to get bundled up the other day when it got down to the mid-30s in the morning on our way to school. isn't she the cutest?!
we are definitely at the point where thalia is between sizes. her six month pjs don't fit but as you can see, this 9 month number is a bit baggy!

two more:

one of thalia's bathrobes came with slippers. she doesn't quite know what to do with them.

this is thalia's new hat courtesy of yiayia. it's her "marley" hat because the top looks like dreadlocks. my mom has made her some fantastic hats! all the teachers at school comment on them. great job yiayia!!

much love and the hope for more sleep,

c, c, and t

truly blessed

oh man, am i in trouble! over a week with no updates!! i am surprised i haven't been getting any nasty emails!! i apologize...work is crazy busy and we were in indiana for the weekend so i didn't even look at a computer. i promise to try harder this week.
let me tell you how blessed and lucky my family is...this past weekend, thalia and i flew home to meet up with aunt nikki and uncle toby and drive down to indiana to see his parents with chris, aunt steph and uncle barrett. yes, it was crazy and i am still exhausted, but it was beyond worth it! toby's family is so wonderful and has embraced the mimikos/phillips/wimer clan with open arms. i swear toby's family loves thalia as much as my own! that little girl is one loved munchkin! even toby's grandma couldn't get enough of her! i feel so blessed to have so many people love my daughter across the country. It makes me happy to know that she is going to grow up with such a great support system...maybe that will lessen the damage done by her mom dragging her across the country to see everyone :o) but truly, we had a fantastic time hanging out in bluffton with all the reeds, affolders, and shulls. and "uncle" luke too! i am still surprised that everyone survived having all three mimikos girls in one place for an entire weekend!
thalia is such a trooper, letting me drag her around all the time. although i am pretty sure she likes the attention she gets everywhere we go. she is such a little ham. we have had some major breakthroughs the past few days though. most importantly, thalia has her first tooth! i am not even going to try to get a picture for you, unless she is asleep. that girl is such a goober! every time i try to get her to open her mouth, she sticks her tongue out! if you have seen one picture of thalia you shouldn't be surprised. i think she may be getting a top tooth too. i thought i saw something yesterday but when i tried to get my finger in there to see she squirmed away. i'll keep you posted.
thalia has also been standing up by herself lately. she will pull herself up to standing by the couch and then let go for a minute. it is so cute, but crazy! i mean, she is so tiny and to see her stand by herself, even if just for a few seconds, is just nuts! she'll probably be walking by the time we go to hawaii. although she will only be 10 months, so maybe not. we'll have to wait and see.
on a very happy note, thalia has been sleeping a little bit better the past few nights. she is still waking up to eat, which stinks. but it is every 3 or 4 hours and i am back in the habit of "sleep-nursing" when i don't really wake up fully. and i haven't had to wake up to put her pacifier back in since last week either. i know she should probably be over some of this at 8 months but the poor girl is still adjusting to traveling back and forth every other week. i think she is holding up remarkably well, and probably better than i am!
things are still going better than i thought they were going to. it is always tough playing the waiting game with chris' music. but chris and i have been communicating pretty well lately, which was not always our strong point. it is hard though having to defend my decision. let me say this...i am not delusional; i know that what i am doing is crazy and most people can't fathom being away from their husbands or wives. but this is an opportunity that God gave us and we couldn't pass it up. and yes it is hard, and yes we all miss each other. but thalia says good night to her daddy every night (along with everyone else in our families) and she smiles every time we talk about him. and whatever happens with my job or chris' music, our faith and love are strong enough to get us through to the other side. i know everything will be better than okay. and please don't minimize the role that you all play in our survival with your love, support, and prayers. we are eternally grateful for the families and friends we have, and like i said earlier, we are truly blessed by all of you.
alright, enough sob story (diane reed - wipe your eyes) we love you all and hope that we get to see some of you with the holidays coming up!

much love, more sleep, and lots of sappy insights,
c, c, and t

what a weekend!

whew! what a weekend we phillips girls had!! we did a lot, but we got some rest in too. nice change of pace.

thalia had a pretty uneventful first halloween, except when her mom kept trying to take pictures of her in her halloween bibs! what a turkey! the girl is a ham every other time. oh well. i think she is still cute!

she would not look at the camera!!

this one says "baby's first halloween" and has three dressed up bears on it

this one has a witch on it and you can't see it in the picture but the witch's feet dangle down and thalia kept putting them in her mouth. it was funny.

now on to what you are all wondering...enough with the bibs! what was thalia for halloween!! well, all i can say is, her last name is phillips...

would you believe chris actually picked this out at old navy LAST halloween and i think he has been counting down the days until she could wear it!! i think she looks adorable and silly and as you can see, she was loving it!

on saturday, thalia and i got bundled up for a "walk to cure juvenille diabetes." while i have no personal connection to juvenille diabetes, i am always up for supporting medical research, especially for kids. plus it gave thalia and i something to do and gave me a good excuse to get some good walking in. i definitely think my hormones have yet to re-regulate after being pregnant because i was so emotional waiting for the walk to start! there were all these huge groups of people with matching shirts walking for kids they knew with juvenille diabetes. some of them had cute team names like anna's angels and luke's lifesavers. sorry to be a sap, but it is so sad that so many people are affected by this. i was definitely glad to contribute my little part. here is thalia getting ready for our adventure:

i know i am biased, but is she not the most beautiful little girl you have ever seen?!

so after our 2.5 mile walk, i had the brilliant idea to meet our cousins elizabeth and sophia at the biggest mall in north carolina to WALK AROUND!!! needless to say i was pooped by the end of the day. but elizabeth and i had a great time hanging out and talking about the babies and life in general. the girls had fun it seemed, though they pretty much just got a free tour of the mall. they did share a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. thalia did really well with it. i tore it into small pieces and she moved it around her mouth a bit. she has a classic face whenever she gets a first bite of something, even stuff she has every day. it's pretty funny.

in case you didn't know, babies don't understand daylight savings time or its end. i did try to prepare for this by going to bed early last night but the texas/texas tech game was so good!! lo and behold at 615 this morning my daughter was wide awake. my body on the other hand can read the clock and was not so bushy tailed. but we played quietly and she took a nap around 9. i laid back down for a while but then the single-mom brain kicked in and i decided i should take a quick shower before she woke up. now she went to bed just before 7 so after extreme home makeover, it is bedtime for me. the good news is that i have to be up around 6 tomorrow am anyway.
ALSO this weekend, thalia got to try out her sippy cup. gamma (aka grandma donna) had given her a sippy cup with some juice when thalia stayed in michigan but i kept forgetting to get "baby" juice. then today i stopped at kroger and wouldn't you know, IT'S THE SAME DARN JUICE!!! my goodness. so i put some juice in her cup and diluted it with some water. i'll have to get a picture of her tomorrow (the camera was in the car). she did the same funny face she always does and really couldn't figure out what she thought about the whole thing. she cracks me up.

i think that is it. hey, i gave you fair warning that we had a crazy weekend. oh, and i think we finally found a church we like. good size, nice people, great worship. i am excited to go back in a couple weeks.

okay, that's it for real. sorry to keep you so long. i hope you enjoyed the pictures. more to come as always. thanks for your prayers and love and support. we couldn't survive like this without it.

much love and hopefully a little more sleep,

c, c, and t