The last week or so has been pretty snowy here.  I’ve been around snow before, but I haven’t really been around freezing rain.  First, it snowed 1-2 inches, and it was pretty dry snow.  We played outside in it though, of course.  Bekah was here, so she got some great pictures.

Getting ready to throw a snowball

Over the next few days, it proceeded to snow, precipitate freezing rain, snow, more freezing rain, etc etc.  We ended up with 5-6 inches of snow on the ground, coated in a solid layer of ice.  Our yard looks like a skating rink.  I walked out to the mailbox, and broke through the ice every third step or so.  The rest of the time I walked on top of the ice/snow.  Craziness!

Vincent and I had a snowball fight and made a little snowman together.  Our little snowman was tough to put together – that first batch of snow was pretty dry.  After the next round of snow Richard and Vincent put together some pretty decent snowmen (i think there are currently four in various stages of melt/freeze in the backyard).

Vincent was most excited about having a snowball fight.  I’m not exactly sure what precipitated that, but it was fun.  It was a pretty controlled, turn-based snowball fight.  We counted down and threw simultaneously sometimes, and other times just took turns throwing.

Snow in momma's hair

January 8, 2012

January 8, 2012

Vincent is still in his tumble and swim class.  He’s gaining more confidence in the water — we’re really proud of him!  Here’s a picture of him making bubble soup (they stir with dive sticks, blow bubbles into their ‘soup,’ and then pour it all over their heads!).

After Vincent goes to bed, Wesley often gets Daddy play time.  I took this during one of their peek-a-boo sessions:

January 4, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized ]]> http://fingerpuppet.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/brothers/feed/ 0 moonfilament Picture 035a http://fingerpuppet.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/six-week-photos-okay-6-12-weeks/ http://fingerpuppet.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/six-week-photos-okay-6-12-weeks/#comments Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:21:16 +0000 Clarissa http://fingerpuppet.wordpress.com/?p=1790 ]]> These photos were taken 1/2/12 by Bekah.  He’s growing so fast!

Time is *flying* by.

He is:

• 11 lbs, 12 ozs
• 24.5 inches long
• still adorable

Vincent was great at the appointment.  I’m grateful for even-tempered, well-behaved children!

We always celebrate Christmas morning with Richard’s family.  Everyone congregates at their house for stockings, present-opening, cinnamon rolls, and just to hang out and be together.

Wesley and his stocking

One of my favorite Phillips’ traditions is the family stockings.  Everyone gets one the year they enter the family.  Richard’s Aunt Judy makes them by hand, and they always have some common elements as well as 1 or 2 unique designs.  This year she didn’t have much time to make Wesley’s sock, since he was born so late in the year.  She did it though!  His sock has the traditional designs, and his special ones: holly leaves and a hot air balloon.  I love it!  I remember getting mine the year Richard and I got married — It was a big deal for me.

Our family's socks

It was especially fun to see everyone’s stockings all together.   All the sequins are hand sewn, and the stockings are lined so that the threads aren’t exposed.  One day I’d like to learn how to make them, so that I can help pass on the tradition when my sons get married and have children.

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays – I love shopping for other people, and it’s great to have the time to focus on family and just… be together with the people I care the most about.  For me, having the holidays center on family is so important.  We’ve talked about staying home and establishing our own nuclear family traditions for Christmas.  Part of me would really like to do that – growing up, my family had some fun Christmas morning traditions that I’d love to implement with my kids.  I’m not willing to give up the time with family, though!

Vincent breaking into his presents

Vincent also really enjoys being around the extended family, and I’m sure Wesley will too as he gets older.  Also, I’m pretty sure Christmas is more fun for our family’s with the little ones around.  There’s just something magical about the season for kids, and that excitement rubs off on everyone exposed to it.  I’m grateful that we have such great families to celebrate with.

Wesley with one of his presents

Hanging out with my baby during present opening

Richard experimenting with the new keyboard for his tablet

Oh no, that’s just BB modeling a lovely Santa hat (and so cheerfully, I might add!).  As usual, we traveled to Seattle this year for Christmas.  This time, however, we were able to drive!  Vincent always does well in the car.  Other than a few protests at the end of the trip, Wesley also did very well on the drive (in other words, he slept most of the way!).

Posing with Rachel

On Christmas Eve, we got together with my family to exchange presents and eat yummy food.  Since Rachel wasn’t able to join us, we web-cammed her in, so she could participate to some degree.

For some reason we didn’t take many pictures this year.  I’m sure that the changed ratio of  kids:parents influenced that to some degree!  We typically switch locations between Bekah’s place and Jon’s; this year Bekah and Ryan hosted us.  I’m grateful for portable family traditions.  Despite the distance, the three girls still get matching pajama pants each year.  We still make sure we have 7 layer dip and bacon-wrapped water chestnuts (and cheese ball/salmon dip if Bek or Jon are in charge – I’m not particularly tied to either, so I often forget!).  No matter where we are, it feels like Christmas with just a few simple traditions.

Wesley snoozed as much as he participated

Vincent continues to maintain his star status during Christmas, although soon Wesley will be competing for attention I’m sure (first he needs to figure out how to move his hands a little more accurately).

Wesley stayed happy for most of the evening, and Vincent showcased his good manners.  I’m grateful that he listens well and has a cheerful disposition most of the time.  He’s a fun kid to be around.

I really enjoy Christmas – the time with family, the good food, traditions – everything about it.  It’s such a great time of year.  It’s even more fun with kids, I’ve discovered.  Watching Vincent open presents, and getting excited about new toys — it’s awesome.  This year may have been the best yet with him.  He’s old enough to really get the whole gift giving aspect — which clearly emerged during the wrapping phase right before Christmas:

While I was wrapping presents before Christmas, Vincent got very excited about the whole process.  After asking for scraps of wrapping paper and (many) pieces of tape, he disappeared into his room.  Reappearing with a carefully packaged present, he handed it to me and said, “momma it’s for you, and it’s NOT for christmas so you can open it RIGHT NOW.”  He continued to wrap his toys up for me for the next hour or so.

Eventually, he wanted to wrap some of the gifts I was wrapping for me to open — and I told him that those things were for other people to open.  He thought carefully about that and disappeared again (after asking for more paper and (many) more pieces of tape).  He reappeared with another present that he said was for “someone else.”  When I asked who (expecting him to say Daddy), he thought about it and answered “Auntie Bekah.” And he wanted to bring it to Seattle so she could open it.

Vincent playing with his new transformer

Hmm.  How far should I let this go?  I knew that he had likely put more of his own toys inside the present.  I told him, “Okay sweetie.  We can bring it to Auntie Bekah, but remember this is a present.  So if you are going to give it to her to open, that means she gets to keep what is inside the present.”  He looked at me for a loooooong minute.  “Okay.  But this present is for Auntie Bekah AND for me.” Pretty happy with his solution to this problem, he plopped his present to Auntie Bekah (and himself!!) onto the pile of presents.  And so they opened it together on Christmas Eve (and his missing kitty and Woody doll made the drive back home with us safe in Vincent’s backpack).

I love watching my child(ren!) grow and develop/strengthen aspects of their personalities.  For me, Christmas is an especially poignant time to step back from work/school/life happenings and just soak up family time and love.

Fun Words

Vincent continues to say “abloon” for ballon, and “willn’t” for won’t.  I almost always repeat his statement back to him with the corrected word, but I don’t have the heart to correct him more actively than that.  I love to hear his ‘baby’ words, especially as he is growing up so fast.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

We put up the Christmas tree a few weeks ago, and I lamented to Vincent that I was tired of our tree skirt and would like to buy a new one.  Pondering that for a moment, he looked up at me and suggested, “Maybe next year we can get a tree pants instead.”

After I bit into a mint truffle Hershey Kiss, I showed him the green inside and told him it had mint inside.  Glancing at the kiss waiting next to his dinner plate, he explained to me that his kiss “would have roast beef inside.”

School Experiences

We didn’t get a call home about this, but I was amused to hear from one of the other Preschool moms that Vincent was reprimanded at school the other day.  Normally I wouldn’t be amused by this, of course; however, he got in trouble for kissing.  That’s right.  My three year old wouldn’t stop kissing his friend (who is a girl).  I don’t think he was being romantic or anything of the sort – we just happened to raise an affectionate child who likes to smooch.  Luckily, his teacher is reasonable, and redirected him to hugging, hand-holding, and arm-wrapping.  Getting in trouble because my child likes to love?  I’m okay with that.

Until he’s a teenager, of course.