baby watch '09

the watch continues...thalia's little cousin was supposed to make his/her appearance over a week ago, and still we are waiting to meet him/her. the names are picked, the nursery is ready...the stupid glider we ordered for them still hasn't arrived, but we are all eagerly anticipating the new addition to the phillips/church family. maybe BC is waiting for the glider to arrive! stupid target back order!!
the great news is that while we wait, thalia and i get to stay in michigan!! i work on an amazing team and they are letting me work from michigan for the whole week so that we don't miss the birth of BC. i am really grateful for them, and for the technology that allows me to really work from anywhere (even our deck - as i found out yesterday when it was 70 and sunny!)
now for a confession - i was going to wait until i got back to north carolina so i could upload a video, but alas, we are "stuck" in michigan for the week. so you don't have video proof, only my word...thalia starting walking on friday! it was like a lightswitch went on in her head and she realized she didn't have to crawl! she has been tromping all over the house ever since. the even better part about the whole thing is, not only did she wait until we got home to michigan to walk...she walked right over to chris! it was incredible. she just cracks me up. at least we are all entertained while we wait for little BC!
hopefully i will have some big news for you in a few hours. keep your fingers crossed for aunt jen and uncle wj!!

much love and much sleep (thalia slept through the night last night!)
c, c, and t

the cupboard adventure continues...

maybe she thinks there is a hidden passage back there...maybe there really is! ;o)

much love and not so much sleep...we had a rough night
c, c, and t

more birthday pics

thalia is so blessed to have so many people loving her...she got two birthday parties! here are pics from martha mama and uncle ronnie's. i don't know who had more fun...thalia or martha :o)

pizza crust for dinner

showing off her "booger face"

her beautiful birthday candle

enjoying her cake...what i don't have is the video i took on my phone of thalia sharing her cake with martha. thalia would take a bite, then get more and give it to martha. it was hilarious!

all cleaned up with her birthday hat on

thalia likes to play peek-a-boo around things where she can see you on both sides, like this door. she would look at you through the glass, then step to the side and look at you around the door. what a goof!

i hope y'all (yes, i said it) don't get sick of seeing pics of thalia! keep us in your prayers tomorrow. neither thalia nor i have been quite ourselves lately, and my team at work finds out if they have jobs tomorrow. i will get to stay regardless but my role will most likely change, as will the people i work with potentially. it's been a rough couple weeks and i think it has been taking its toll on me, and thus thalia. at least we get to go to michigan on thursday.

thanks for all your love, support, and prayers. we wouldn't be us without you!!

much love and a bit more sleep,

c, c, and t

the year in hippo

thalia at 2 weeks
thalia at 1 year

incredible!!

more birthday blessings

what a weekend turned into what a week! i'm not quite up for going through all of it now, so instead - i'll leave you with some great pictures from thalia's MEGA first birthday party. enjoy!!

soaking in the attention as we all sing "happy birthday" (isn't that a GREAT winnie the pooh cake?! thanks gamma!!)

handing gamma her "1" birthday candle
she was just poking her cake, so yiayia gave her a spoon...and she started scraping off all the frosting and eating it off the spoon! must have gotten her "clean gene" from papou!!

aunt seffi gave her a beautiful tiara for her birthday. she left it on just long enough to snap the picture. you can see that her pooh cake is pretty naked since she scraped all the frosting off with her spoon :o)

about 15 minutes after everyone left, thalia was passed out on the couch - along with grandpa! (note to myself: don't show this picture to people at work because they think that this is a picture of MY mom and dad. must be the blonde hair!!)

hope these brightened your day!

much love and little sleep,

c, c, and t

happy birthday sweet girl!!

one year ago today, i was finally in the mother-baby ward relaxing after 36 hours of labor...and chris was asleep on the floor of our hospital room because the chair was just a chair and not a pull down bed like he was told it would be. luckily at 4am that night, the nurse realized he was down there and brought him in a chair-bed...which apparently was no more comfortable than the floor. but all that was worth it to get our baby girl. happy birthday sweet angel! we are so happy to have you!!

more birthday pictures to come! stay tuned!

much love and not much sleep,

c, c, and t

last weekend

so i still owe you a telling of our adventures last weekend...so here you go:

thalia and i headed home last wednesday for a long weekend. i took a couple vacation days so thalia and i could go visit her great-grandma and great-grandpa up north. so we got home wednesday, had dinner with chris' family, and showed off some of thalia's early "walking" skills. thursday we headed up to west branch and spent the day playing with thalia's great-grandparents. we spent the night up there and friday morning went to big boy for breakfast so great-grandparents could show off their great-granddaughter. then thalia and i headed back towards ann arbor. we stopped by the VA hospital to have lunch with aunt steph. then we went to st. joe's hospital to meet little xavier scott bishop (picture of the bishops' new addition as soon as mr bishop emails them to me!). what a doll he is! he was born 2 weeks early but weighs exactly what thalia did when she was born. holding xavier after carrying thalia up to the 3rd floor of the hospital was ridiculous! to think that just a year ago, thalia was that tiny and fragile and flimsy!! he is a cutie pie though! after that, we went to u-m hospital (have you noticed a key word yet?) to see thalia's grandparents-by-proxy cathy and wes. get this - wes needed a new kidney and he didn't have to look very far to find it because cathy was a perfect match for him. so the day before valentine's day, cathy donated one of her kidneys to her husband! is that not the greatest story?! we didn't end up getting to see grandpa wes but we got to spend some time with grandma cathy and even though she was in a bit of pain and a tad groggy, she was really excited to see thalia.

saturday, believe it or not, we didn't end up going to any hospitals!! instead, we went to aunt jen's baby shower for "BC". the boys all went bowling and jen's nieces had fun playing with thalia. after we got everything cleaned up, chris and i took thalia home and all three of us crashed on the couch. we had already had quite the weekend! the fun wasn't over though - 10 of us went out to dinner for valentine's day while aunt/grandma susie and uncle/grandpa mike watched thalia and sophia. i think i told you in the last post that gamma donna and grandpa mark got the flu and weren't able to watch thalia for us. that's why it pays to have lots of family around!! it was really nice being able to go out with our family and friends and have an adult beverage (or 2!). we were causing quite the scene but none of us minded.

we got home and went to bed. we had planned on going back to u-m to see wes, since he hadn't gotten a chance to see thalia yet. we had also planned on going to church since i hadn't been home since christmas. that plan was short lived when we found out that gamma donna was in the ER because she was so sick! so we went on another area hospital tour on sunday!! i think we spent more time in a hospital than we did any other place all weekend!

even though things were crazy, and i didn't expect to spend so much time in the hospital, it really was great to get to see everyone. being gone for 6 straight weeks was tough - even though chris got to come down here twice...it just isn't the same. no worries for me or anyone else living in the ypsi-arbor-detroit area...with steph's wedding and jen's baby coming soon, thalia and i will be back on our every-other-week visiting schedule. it will be hard doing all the traveling with thalia but it will be well-worth it.

well, there you have it. our weekend adventure! hopefully this weekend will be a bit more uneventful! as a send off, i'll include some pics of thalia opening her early birthday present from yiayia and papou! thank you so much for the beautiful and adorable boots!! and look - thalia likes them AND the box ;o)

much love and a bit more sleep,

c, c, and t