ready for christmas!

it was so much easier updating this thing when i only had one computer that all my pics were on! oh, the cons of actually living with your hubbie ;o)

anyway, we have been getting ready for christmas, and thalia is loving the decorations. it's hard to get her to keep her hands off!

we've also put up the advent calendar that yiayia made...gosh, i don't remember...i think the date on the bottom of the calendar is 89 or somethign like that. thalia has had a blast putting the ornaments on...although she hasn't quite got the hang of the word ornament. so last night she said "can we put another christmas on?" took me a few tries to figure out what in the world she was saying.

we've gotten a few gifts that have come wrapped in bubble wrap...which thalia LOVES trying to pop. i love the look on her face!! papou taught her how to jump on the wrap which she also does. surprisingly we haven't had any major wipe outs doing that!

a few weeks ago we took thalia to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Love that show! we had great seats, and we took thalia's "ears" so it wouldn't be too loud. she's been telling everyone about the singing and lasers and "it was really, really, really loud!" :o)

We also had our first snow of the year...which is ridiculously early! We've actually had 2 snows this month already! this was the first one. i of course was taking the snow for granted because i had things i needed to do. thalia on the other hand just wanted to stand in the driveway all day. so i bundled her up and we stood in the driveway. it was a really great reminder of the wonder of a child...and how happy snow still makes me...even if i am a grinch about it sometimes!

we had a lovely thanksgiving with everyone in town. unfortunately, those pictures are on my desktop at home and i am avoiding work at work :o) i'll put those up tomorrow. i'm also going to try to put up pictures from our trips to michigan tomorrow. almost all of those are on the desktop too. there are some sweet, sweet pictures of thalia, me and stella! just wait! (i know, i know...you've been waiting for MONTHS now!)

oh, one more christmas story - the other night we went out to eat at a mexican restaurant. the waiter said "feliz navidad" when he gave us the bill. thalia replied "fee-leaks mommy-dad" chris and i were dying! then yesterday i asked her to say it again and it became "fee-leaks mommy-and-dad" you can't make this stuff up! what a true blessing she is - hopefully there aren't any doubts out there that she won't live up to her name (inspiration of comedy!)

i hope you all have a wonderful week!

much love and less sleep (stupid night terrors AND chris setting off the house alarm!)

c, c, and t

happy birthday kelsey!!

many of you probably remember thalia's dear first friend kelsey. they were in the same class when thalia and i first moved down here. kelsey has since moved to a different school, but amy and i try to get the girls together often. well, a few weeks ago kelsey turned 3, and we got to go to her birthday party. the two munchkins were SO excited to see each other. it was great. in fact, after cake, kelsey kept asking thalia to help her open her gifts! talk about sweet friendship! i don't think my best friend would EVER let me NEAR her gifts ;o) (love you jillian!)
the girls have been sharing silly bands...this is them showing how many they have on their arms while playing with kelsey's new art set.
what a cheeseball i have for a daughter
thalia helping open gifts
ha! i just realized these pics are in reverse order! we were trying to get a pic of the two of them in birthday hats but they weren't cooperating.
thalia eating some Cars birthday cake. kelsey is a girl after my own heart - she couldn't decide between butterflies and Cars, so she had butterfly decorations and a Cars themed cake!
kelsey also wanted thalia to help blow her candle out. adorable!
we had a great time. i am so glad that the girls remember each other and have such fun together. it's really incredible to watch.

while i was typing this post, i noticed i had a draft post in my box. wouldn't you know it - its from our playdate with kelsey and amy at the park over the summer. who knows how it didn't make it to actually be posted, but these are some of my favorite park pictures!

they LOVED this tire swing. they were cackling and squealing. it was great
there are about 15 of these - me trying to get them to stand together for a picture and them blowing me off
this is my favorite. look at her pigtails! this was a really big slide and a tunnel the whole way down. but she climbed up there and went down like she was a big kid. we spent most of our time here.

anyway, we are so blessed by kelsey and amy. more pics to come as they grow older together.

as for a real update - we have been super busy. who knew that being home together could actually make you MORE busy than when you travel! this weekend i'll do a big november update. and who knows...maybe i'll eventually get the pics from october up here!

much love and more sleep (now that thalia's night terrors have stopped!),
c, c, and t

trick or treat!

the trick is that this is the longest post ever! the treat is you get lots of pictures of thalia. i think that's fair ;o)

wow! i had way more pictures from last weekend than i remembered!! what a fantastic halloween weekend we had!
thalia and i carved our pumpkins on tuesday night before chris got back from texas. she jumped right in there and started picking out the seeds! i was so surprised. we baked them and she was eating them hand over fist. again - totally surprised. it was fun doing that with her, and then she even posed for me with both of them.
she's actually kind of smiling too! yet another shocker :o)
on friday afternoon, thalia's class at school had a little halloween "party" for their afternoon snacks. i took some time off of work and we took thalia. this is a picture of thalia and om. they have been in the same class for almost the entire time we've been down here. it's been really great watching him grow up with thalia!
we were lucky enough that thalia got an orange frosted cupcake! most of the kids got black (i don't know who thought it would be a good idea to bring a bunch of 2 year olds black frosted cupcakes!!). she basically licked all the frosting off and handed me the cake.
that night, we went to a work party, and had a blast!
now for those of you who haven't heard the story yet - i did NOT plan on us all coordinating for halloween. halloween is usually not my thing, so when jillian was in town the other day, we went shopping to find thalia a cute costume. nothing was really speaking to us...they were all kind of generic. but then, we turned the corner and we saw it. a hamburger! to any other family, this would have been pushed aside for the fairy princess. but not for the phillipses!! chris and martin had actually found a mustard costume at this thrift store back in september. they bought the matching ketchup outfit and took it on their fall "tour." when i saw the hamburger, i knew we were going to be the best dressed family ever!
my friend denise brought her daughter morgan to the party. thalia wore her out! she had these purple fishnet arm socks that thalia loved.
then on saturday, we went to see the carolina railhawks pro soccer team try to win their first ever championship.
i was surprised how well thalia did. we stayed for just about the full game! the railhawks unfortunately didn't win - but we got to eat some great hole in the wall barbecue and support the local team anyway! if you look closely, you can see that thalia's lips are totally purple. turns out she gets the same purple goatee as aunt steffie and aunt nikki when she is cold! we busted out the blankets after we took the picture and she was great.
finally sunday came! yes, thalia has worn her candy corn shirt about every other day since we got it :o)
thalia was so excited to have lollies to pass out to the kids - even though i'm not convinced she really knew what we were doing.
i couldn't help but take a picture of this! she took her pumpkin bowl, went to the pantry, and put ramen in it! only my daughter!!
you'll notice in this picture that chris and i have switched costumes. i could not find my other yellow tshirt to save my life. (couldn't have anything to do with the fact that we hadn't done laundry in over a week!) so chris got to be mustard and i was ketchup.
this was actually chris' first halloween with thalia. usually the band has a show, but since they had just gotten back from texas they decided to take the weekend off. so i sent chris trick or treating with thalia and stayed home to pass out candy. good thing chris had cargo pockets on his shorts! he had to keep dumping out thalia's bag so she could get more candy!
whew! what a weekend! we had a great time as a family though! and wait til you hear what we did this weekend!

much love and more sleep,
c, c, and t

quick catch up

i just sat down to check on today's weather forecast and stumbled across some pictures i am pretty sure i never posted...so here ya go :o) don't worry - all the halloween pics AND the pics from our fall trips are coming soon too. consider this a small victory :o)

as you may remember, chris spent most of september traveling. mahoney played two fall music festivals on consecutive weekends. so thalia and i had plenty of time to ourselves. usually i feel bad when chris comes home to a messy house and nothing fun done. i know, it's a crazy thought. i mean, i'm watching thalia for pete's sake! how much can i do?! ;o) anyway, one weekend i saw an ad in bed bath and beyond's circular for bar stools. we have had our bar for YEARS without any bar stools. and of course, i decided it would be a good idea to build them (all 3 of them) while thalia was still awake. she actually was pretty good at turning the allen wrench. then she lost interest when her movie came on. just this weekend chris made a comment about "how many pieces could there have been?" - implying that i just magically picked the fully assembled chairs out of some ginormous box! i then explained to him how the entire thing came in pieces - i think i counted 10 pieces for each chair.

HA! i literally just remembered the funniest part of this whole story. when i was taking all the pieces out of the box, thalia grabbed the instructions. i asked her to read them to me and honest to god, this is what she said "it says 'build me a new chair'" oh my gosh, i was crying i was laughing so hard. anyway, here is thalia on "her" new chair

the following weekend...well, i guess the same day i bought the chairs, i also bought some window treatment things for an idea i had. i was only able to get the chairs done the one weekend, so the following weekend, i braved hanging curtains all by myself. i waited til thalia was taking a nap this time! i basically bought "tie backs" that are supposed to go on the sides of windows to hold curtains open. instead, i put them up top and used them to drape this beautiful fabric that has been floating around my and yiayia's possession for years.

thalia woke up just in time to have yet another shirtless picture taken of her! :o)
anyway, hope you enjoyed those. now it's off to work. hope you have a great week!!

much love and less sleep (i'm still adjusting to having chris home and taking my covers!)
c, c, and t

fun fall weekend

what an incredible weekend we had! while thalia is definitely getting tired of only having me around, and misses her daddy, we made the most of the beautiful weather this weekend! on saturday, we went to the museum of life and science with the copelands. what fun we have with them! the museum had a halloween-themed weekend...though aside from getting a plastic spider ring, we didn't do ANY thing that was special to the weekend. a bunch of kids dressed up in their halloween costumes. i at least had thalia in a halloween t-shirt! we went in a butterfly house, and saw a ginormous cow and other farm animals. we saw a space exhibit and a weather exhibit. then we went outside to see the dinosaurs! they have a fossil dig there, where they have a bunch of tiny shells and coral, and kids (and parents) can dig to find them. of course thalia and i found the first shark tooth! then we went on a train ride through the woods and into a tunnel. whew! and that was all before noon!!
chase showing off his "find" our shark tooth!
thalia, benton and chase playing with balls and chutes
we stopped (finally - mr dan took us on an extended tour of the northgate mall parking lot!) at chick-a-fil for lunch, which is always a treat. yes, i know it's really chick-fil-a...but martha momma said it wrong when they first moved down here and the wrong name has stuck. we even have thalia saying chick-a-fil now! anyway, thalia's kids meal came with a waffle fry the size of her head! all in all, a great day with our friends!
oh, and after a slight mishap got her pants went, i put thalia in this adorable little skirt to run to sam's club. she of course didn't want to take her candy corn shirt off AND found one of yiayia's "bedhands"...so this is how we started off going to sam's: by the time we got there, she had fallen asleep so i managed to take the headband off. hey! the shirt and skirt both had orange and pink on them! ;o)

then today, thalia started using her pull-ups box as a stool. she has actually been moving this really old yellow stool all around upstairs (really old as in it used to be mine!) she'll move it from our bathroom to our bed to by the TV. so now she has been doing it with the pull-ups box. she used it to help "scoop" pancakes this morning and to get a drink of water this afternoon. yes, i let her wear the skirt again today!
also today, we went to pick pumpkins! well, i thought we were going to get to pick them off the vine. instead, we just picked them out of a group. but it was still fun taking thalia...especially since the farm is right down the road. she picked out a little one for her, and a big one for me! we also got some great red potatoes for beef stew later this week. yummmmmy!
did anyone else notice this supermodel "copping a lean" pose in that last picture?! if you are the culprit who taught my daughter that move, please step forward. who does that?! what a total clown!!

anyway, that was our weekend. somehow we survived without aunt stephie, uncle barrett, stella, daddy and gamma. not sure how, but we did it! now it's off to bed and prayers for a great day tomorrow.

much love and less sleep (i always have weird dreams when chris is gone for a long time)
c, c, and t

just for giggles

whew! i tell you what - i forgot how hard it was to have thalia all to myself...and i had gamma here to help! i know i still owe some michigan pics and balloon fiesta pics - i promise to have those up this weekend.

in the meantime, here is a little something to hold you over. i think this was before we went to michigan - chris was at the studio and thalia would NOT go to sleep. she had just figured out how to flip her light on and off, so every time i shut her bedroom door, she would wait a few minutes and flip the light on. this went on at least 4 times. i think this is the last time i went in her room. i expected her to be standing by her bookshelf like she was the other 4 times. instead, this is how i found her:

much love and more sleep,

c, c, and t

we're back :o)

Yes, it's true. I am back and ready for more blogging. I know I mentioned a little bit about this in my last post, but what a tough patch of life I've been wading through lately! September was even worse than August. But the good news is that I have turned a corner and am ready to take on life again with a smile :oD

Just a few quick updates on what we've been up to over the last 7 weeks:

first volunteer experience

a few weeks ago, chris and i took thalia with us to a food bank in raleigh to help pack and deliver food bags for needy people. thalia did a great job helping fill the bags, then carried the bread when we ended up delivering the food door to door! she loved it, and brought a smile to most of the people's faces we saw that day.

first big girl underpants

yep - we are working on potty training. it has been a really interesting experience. we are getting to the point where she knows she is not supposed to go in her pull-ups or underpants, but still refuses to go on the potty. i need to figure out a way to get her past that. she runs hot and cold on wearing her underpants. i think now she knows that when she wears them she might have an accident and it really tears her up. it's so sad! who knew potty training would be so emotional!

first hair cut

after two and a half years, we finally gave thalia her first hair cut. yiayia did it, because i didn't trust that thalia would sit still for me! yiayia of course did a great job, and thalia's hair looks so much better. she loves telling everyone that she got a hair cut. it's really cute.

first harvest

thalia has been helping me "harvest" the garden she planted. she loves picking the tomatoes, but doesn't like to eat them.

more regular updatesto come, including our trips to albuquerque and michigan!

much love and more sleep,

c, c, and t

And 29 hours later...

I have a new NIECE!!! Stella Grace Wimer was born on Thursday, August 26 (my birthday!!) at 10:52am by c-section! Poor Aunt Stephie followed in my footsteps with having a terrible labor! Shockingly, Stephie went into labor unexpectedly on Wednesday morning. We weren't planning on leaving until Wed night, so Chris hadn't packed or anything. I was at the chiropractor and missed Stephie's phone call. So while I was on my way to work, I had to call Chris and tell him to get out of bed and get packed ASAP! We finally got on the road around 1030 and the way stephie was progressing, we totally thought we were going to miss the birth! Yiayia and gigi hopped on a plane, chris and i were FLYING through the mountains...it was quite the experience. luckily (for us) we made it to the hospital in record time, and stephie had just had her water broken. we spent the night at the hospital...ask chris about where he slept some time...and when we woke up in the morning, aunt nikki had surprised everyone by catching a red eye flight!! so all of us girls got to be at the hospital for baby tini! long story short, after 29 hours, the baby hadn't really come down and she had only dilated to an 8. on top of that, tini's heartrate would drop periodically. so the doctors decided enough was enough, and called for a c-section. to EVERYone's surprise, stephie and barrett had a little girl! they came home on saturday and are adjusting to nursing, and pooping, and not sleeping :o) here are some pictures from the hospital and home.

yiayia made a little baby coozie cocoon for stella!

this is my favorite pic i think. i also think she looks a lot like barrett

papou wasn't there for the birth but he got to the hospital later in the afternoon.

aunt nikki looking fabulous after a red eye flight

the birthday girls! stephie took a GREAT picture of us with a happy birthday sign i stole from work - more on that to come. wait til you see what my friends at work did to me!
how precious is this picture?! poor thalia is a bit confused and sometimes calls stella her baby sister. :o)

yiayia and her grandbabies

tini stella sleeping

we are having a blast getting to know the newest member of our family, and helping stephie get acclimated to being a new mommy. so far, she is doing fantastic! more pics and stories to come for sure...especially some from the rest of our trip to michigan.

much love and little sleep (we've been rockstars this trip!)

c, c, and t