Andrew Jackson Phillips

We joke that Andrew was our million dollar guinea pig....but, he was a good pet. He was looking really sick last week with obvious weight loss and hair loss, so I took him into the vet. The Veterinarian came to the conclusion that since we have gone through several doses of antibiotics in the past year with Andrew that he must have some kind of internal bacterial/fungal infection that his body just can't fight off. He passed away on 1/15/11.

He was a cute little guy that loved the girls to talk to him, and I will miss his cute little squeak when he wanted to be fed. Abbie took it better than we thought she would, but Avery is our sensitive one who has had a few little crying spurts throughout the weekend. Abbie of course, being the activity planner that she is, planned a cute little funeral for him in our back yard. We were told at the vet that it was illegal to bury your dead animals in your yard which I found interesting.

So, we found a nice little rock to use as a headstone, but the vet will bury him somewhere nice by Lake Mead. Abbie placed the headstone in our yard so we will always remember him. We had a nice little service where we each had to talk about what we liked about Andrew which was nice for the girls to have closure.

You may have heard of funeral potatoes, but we apparently have funeral cookies at our house. Abbie made these cookies with a flag on them that read:

Andrew Jackson Phillips

We will always remember

You and love you forever

The girls have started a money jar to start saving for a new pet. I think I'm going to enjoy not feeding or caring for one for awhile...but, we'll see how long I can hold them off.

About a week ago I was in my bedroom folding laundry when I heard a little voice saying "I'm a little bit scared, I'm a little bit scared" very quietly. I turned around to find Aliza IN a laundry basket trying to slide down the stairs. She was holding onto the railing on one side ready for take off. Yes, mom did run over to rescue before any damage was done. She doesn't get the nick name "Busy-Lizzie" for no reason I suppose.

Aside from her being the most adventurous of all our kids, she is such a great little buddy to have with me everyday. After the other girls go to school she follows me around the house doing our daily chores. Her favorite chore is helping me rinse off the dishes to put in the dish washer. As you can see from the picture above we usually end up with water everywhere, but that's okay. She even loves to scrub the bathrooms with me....anyone want to take bets how many years I have until she discovers that it's not a fun job to clean a bathroom? It's just killing me to think that she will be in school full time in just a year and a half. That will be a sad day for me.

We now have the dreaded one o'clock church time. Last week I was trying to have a positive attitude about it and realized that it really isn't all that bad. Micah doesn't have to be at the church until ten o'clock rather than six o'clock in the morning, and we can spend some time just doing this before getting ready for the day. With us not having any family get togethers on Sunday evenings we have enjoyed playing games and spending time together before and after church. Maybe it will be okay after all (or at least I'll tell myself that until next year).

New Years Eve

New Years Eve at our house was pretty simple and low key this year. We didn't have anything special going on, so we had our own little family celebration. We started with warming up the hot tub for a little swimming.

Then ate a wonderful steak dinner with grilled squash and baked sweet potatoes. We never have steak, so this was a treat. Micah even looked up a rub for the steak that was really yummy.

Then this is what happened right after we ate......

As you can tell Avery and Aliza were not getting along. The video (audio) was caught by accident as they struggled over the camera. You can hear Avery saying "you're going to break it" and then Aliza chimes in with "I'm giving it to mom." And then, just as Avery predicted, it ended up broken. Needless to say we weren't thrilled with this development, and as a side note we should mention that this is not the first time these two have struggled over something only to have it end up broken. So, apparently our new year will have to mean a new camera as well. So the rest of the post is without photos to document our wild party.

After dinner we lit sparklers which were great and then Abbie headed off to a little party one of her friends in the ward had invited her to. She had a great time and everyone was tucked into bed before the clock even struck midnight. We also couldn't wait for Micah's parents to arrive for a visit the next day. On New Years Day we did head out to Lake Las Vegas (no pictures) for a fun adventure eating yummy gelato and Abbie and Avery trying ice skating for the first time (no pictures :( ). They had such a great time on the ice that Abbie is begging for an ice skating party for her birthday next month. We'll have to wait and see about that one. We definitely can't have a fun party like that without a camera. Happy New Year!