Abbie's Baptism Dress

I thought it would be a good idea to get a few professional pictures taken of Abbie in her baptism dress.  I knew that the day of her baptism I would be concentrating on so many other things that I wouldn't get many great shots of her.  I think they turned out well.  Don't worry grandma's and grandpa's I will be sending some your way.

After shopping at many stores and trying on several dresses this is the one she fell in love with. 

Love the toothless grin.

Aliza's 2nd Birthday

Last Saturday was Aliza's official birthday.  I still can't believe that my baby turned two years old.  One of our kids favorite things to do is go out for breakfast.  I'm always surprised at how much bacon they can each eat when we do go out.  I don't make bacon at home very much, so they really LOVE it when they can have it.  My parents and sister were with us to celebrate.

You can't really see the candles because they are white like the whipped topping, but we did sing and blow out the candles in her alien pancake breakfast.

Afterwards we met at our house to open some presents.  Penny gave her a cabbage patch doll that she loves, and grandma and grandpa gave her enough sand toys to last a long time.  They also included lots of sand to fill up our sand box for the year.  Thanks everyone for making Aliza's birthday celebrations great!

Aliza and the Wii Fit.

What's ironic is that she is a better skier

 than most of the family.  Go Aliza!!!

The not so family night.

Last night I had the great idea to take the girls bowling.  Every morning and night they do "Miracle Music"  which is a program that is kind of cheesy but works.  I turn on this music in the morning and it plays wake up music.  Then a few minutes later it says "wake up, it's time to make your bed" and then it plays fun energetic music to make their bed to.  The idea is that they have to make their bed before the music is over and they earn a point.  We proceed to do an act of kindness (clean one room in the house), get dressed, comb hair, eat, brush teeth, and so on until it is time for school.  Then we add up their points and when then reach 100 points they get a fun date with mom or dad that we have already set as their goal.  So back to the bowling.  The past few weeks we decided that having the family go bowling would be a fun reward for all their hard work.  Micah is out of school this week for Spring break, so I had the idea to go bowling.  I really didn't want to fight the crowds on a Friday or Saturday, so I loaded up the girls to head to the bowling alley (which is about 30-40 minutes away).  When we got there we got us a lane, and snacks and waited for dad.  We waited, and waited, and waited until I couldn't hold them back anymore.  So there I am with three little kids and a packed bowling alley trying to help each of them bowl.  As the time passed I was trying so hard to have a good attitude as it took everything in me to keep Aliza from running down the lane herself thinking she could be the bowling ball.  We had people on all sides of us that were probably thinking that I was crazy.  They were all pretty nice considering my girls were all over the place. Soon a man next to us started thinking we were best friends, and I was getting really uncomfortable.  He kept telling me "I would never bring three kids bowling by myself, I don't think I could even handle two."   Little did he know that I wouldn't bring three little kids bowling either.  Maybe when they are a lot older.  Now Micah was over an hour late and we were on our last few turns bowling.  He finally came in--and just what I thought had happened--he forgot and drove all the way home in rush hour traffic just to turn around and come back.  I can laugh now, but it was a crazy night.  I really need a cell phone.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This year we were very surprised to find that a leprechaun had left us some fun surprises.  Our little girls woke up with a new pair of green shoes next to their beds.  We started our day with our tradition of green pancakes, and headed off to school for some more fun.

Thanks to our great teachers the girls had fun day of leprechaun tricks and parties.

Micah will regret that he intentionally made this face for the picture.  We had a complete green dinner except for the meat loaf (I thought that would be a little too gross to eat.)

YUM!!!!!!

Nothing is better than slurping green jello. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Aliza's Early Birthday Bash

We were able to celebrate Aliza's 2nd birthday with the Phillips side of the family last Saturday.  It was one week before her real birthday, but the only day we could squeeze it in this month.  We decided to take everyone to Thanksgiving Point Farm Country because of Aliza's fascination with animals lately.  We had a great time with the animals, and appreciate everyone coming to celebrate with us.

Aliza was acting kind of shy when we sang happy birthday to her.  I don't think she quite understood it was HER birthday.  The past few days she has been singing happy birthday to herself and then pretending to blow out the candles at the end.  She will be all practiced up for her real birthday this Saturday.

Presents, presents, who doesn't like to open presents?  Of course she had some help from her sisters and cousins.

All of the spring babies are so adorable.  It is so fun to see how much they have grown at each visit to the farm.

I was insistent that Micah needed a turn dodging the poop this time around :)

We ended our visit with all of us on the wagon ride.  These are some of Aliza's adorable cousins.

This is Shad the newest member of the Phillips family with his mom Mikaela.  We were so glad to see him, and hear that newborn baby cry. So sweet!

You know you have had a great time when everyone goes home exhausted.  I was laughing at this picture because all I wanted was a picture of our family but everyone was hungry and tired. Abbie was the only one willing to smile for the camera.  Next time I will remember to take pictures at the beginning of the party.  We had a great time, and we can't wait to celebrate more in a couple of days.

Abbie's Baptism

 
Today was a wonderful day.  Abbie was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  We are so grateful that she was able to be baptized by her father, and for all of our friends and family that joined us.  We honestly went into the day not knowing how it would go. The night before Micah and I were attending a progressive dinner for our ward and our girls were at the neighbors home with a babysitter.  At the end of the dinner we all met up at the church for dessert and a slide show.  As we sat down to watch the slide show one of the girls babysitting came running in to inform us that Abbie was throwing up (on the neighbor's couch--sorry Hackett's).  When we brought her home she was really sick.  Not that I wished it upon anyone else in our family, but why did it have to be Abbie?  She was really upset because she has been looking forward to her baptism for such a long time.  It was really sweet when she said to Micah "this weekend is just not turning out the way I had planned."  We asked our neighbor to come over to help give her a blessing (the same neighbor that she just puked all over his couch) and thought maybe after a good nights rest she would feel better.  I was up all night with her throwing up, but about 5:00 she finally got into a deep sleep and slept well for a few hours. When she woke up she didn't feel great, but well enough to go through with the baptism. I just kept thinking "what are we going to do."  We had enough food to feed a small army, and family coming from out of town.  It turned out to be such a beautiful day, and our stake did such a great job of organizing all the baptisms they had that day (23 to be exact).  The spirit was so strong, and Micah did such a great job.  Abbie looked beautiful and was thrilled to have made it through feeling alright.  Just as we thought we were in the clear, the last person in our ward was confirmed and Aliza puked all over her cousin Taylor (sorry Taylor).  We grabbed everyone and got her home where she slept for most of the day.  Our family was still kind enough to come over to our home with sick kids to celebrate.  It turned out to be a great day overall. We are really hopeful that no one else gets sick.  We will definitely not forget the day of Abbie's baptism.  

Another lost tooth

Abbie lost another tooth yesterday.  After lunch she was holding her lunch box handle in her mouth (I'm not sure why) and her friend Ethan walked by and yanked it out of her mouth. Needless to say her tooth came out too.  This tooth was not ready to come out so it bled a lot.  I'm really surprised that she didn't call me from school.  Usually if it involves blood she is really concerned.  She was really excited to be able to show off her missing teeth at her baptism tomorrow.

Silly Aliza

Aliza really  wants to be like her big sisters. In fact, I think she thinks she is as big as her sisters. Over the past few days I took a few pictures of her just being Aliza. She makes me laugh most of the day with her silly actions and words. After her sisters had gone to school I was getting dressed and started wondering where she was. She came out of the bathroom with a huge smile on her face and several head bands in her hair. Of course she kept saying "pretty" and we couldn't remove them for most of the day.

She has turned into quite the little helper around the house. As I was cleaning the other day she of course wanted to help. I was really surprised that she really was helping. She was following me around cleaning up toys and dusting with a rag. She has always loved to vacuum so I let her loose under the sink. She loves to get into the dishwashing detergent and scoop it from there to the dishwasher. As you can imagine we end up with soap everywhere. She did a great job cleaning it up herself.  We really did get dressed after our cleaning.  I promise.

Aliza is really into putting on everyones shoes. We have shoes dragged out all over the house because of her passion for shoes. On this particular day she was insistent that we bring this bike in the house.  She can't reach the peddles yet, so she just sits on it. She really thought she was on a bike ride.

I had to get a shot of her choice of shoes. Who doesn't like flip flops that are five sizes too big with socks. Looks very uncomfortable.

And of course whenever she gets her diaper changed she has to go "potty." It's part of the routine now, and she won't let you forget it. If I were really ambitious I would start potty training, but she isn't even two yet. She really did surprise us when she did go in the potty once. I'm sure it was just a freak accident.  I really hate potty training so I'm procrastinating.  Is that bad?

I really wanted to get a clip of her singing in the car. I just haven't had the camera with me at the right moments this week. Our family (well, the girls) have been listening a lot to the Mamma Mia soundtrack. The music is just fun and upbeat. Aliza has really caught on to some of the songs and sings the words she knows really loud in the car. She will sing kind of a mumble and then yell out the words she knows. It's really funny. I'll get a clip sometime soon.  It's sure fun having our little Aliza around.