Conference Weekend

We started off the weekend with a trip to Saturday's Waffle! Our good friend from Sugar House started a new business selling gourmet waffles and they happened to be in Ogden, so we invited Kevin and Vicki to come with us. They are amazingly good. They taste like doughnut waffles. After that was Hazel's soccer game. This time she was up against a team that had one really good player but Hazel played amazing defense and stuck with the ball and worked so hard until she finally scored two goals. It's exhilarating as a parent to watch your kid work so hard for something and then GET IT! We're probably the loudest family on the field. Plus we have Gram who raised four athletic boys, so she gets into it to say the least.

The fans.

Go Ballerinas!

Right before the last leg of the game, Hazel chucked her tutu. Makes me kinda proud.

Oh this girl. She didn't want to get in the car, and then she got static hair again.

After the game we headed up to Gram and Papa Kevin's for conference! And we actually got to hear most of the talks this time because we had lots of activities prepared for the girls.

David's 29th birthday is on Monday, so I surprised him with a date up at the lodge at Snow Basin. We got to ride in the covered gondola when it was pitch black outside. It was beautiful.

Sunday conference. Can't really think of a caption for this picture...

We have a tradition of making conference books where the girls can fill the pages with pictures from the Friend or draw their own, etc. Hazel decided to draw a picture on each page of good deeds. Then she put a big "check mark" on the top, signifying that it was GOOD to do those things. So cute.

These were the bingo cards that the girls helped me make on Friday.

 

Another tradition that they girls won't let me forget was started by my sister-in law, Stacy. Whenever the girls see one of the twelve Apostles and circle his picture, they get a fun snack/treat.

We taught them about the story of King Benjamin and how the people sat in their tents to hear him speak. So here they are in their ladybug tent, listening to our latter-day prophet!

And Willow got her first bath. Eloise loved it.

First week of October

October 2nd: After our sensory activity, Allie went home and I took the girls to the Treehouse. It was the first time we've had Hazel with us since she started school and ALL THREE got to go on stage for the play. It was Ellie's first time in the spot light. They were fun to watch up there together. Charlotte kept adjusting Ellie's ears.

That evening around dinner time, the girls were not being helpful and I was getting frustrated, so I took a time-out upstairs in my room. Charlotte came up to rub out my "grumpy lines," something I taught them to do to remind me not to give them all the stink-eye all the time, but this time I had beat her to it and had a happy face by time she came up. Time out for moms actually works. Go me. We had popsicles in the backyard with the chickens that night. Good night.

I love love love listening to these debates. It's so interesting to hear such different perspectives. Romney is amazing.

We Phipps like to take advantage of any opportunity to celebrate. I made a nice dinner (always a huge feat for me) and decorated the table for the debate.

I got all dressed up today for no reason, so I found a substitute to go to David's church meeting for him and we went on a date. Then the movie we wanted to see at the dollar theater wasn't working and we came home early to children who weren't in bed yet. Boo.

Not sure how this happened, but how cute are they?

Friday, Oct 5th: Hazel didn't have school today so we spend all morning preparing games and activities for Conference weekend. Hope it pays off. These are the days that I don't even look down at what I'm wearing...

For example,  I have no idea how long this piece of tape was on my leg.

 Lottie however was quite the trend-setter that day.

Love those violins.

My dirty cute little girl with red marker on her nose and cheeks.

Halloween Sensory game

October 2nd: Charlotte and I did a watermelon craft activity for the letter W this morning and then I told the girls that I had a special "surprise" activity for that afternoon. Allie came home with us today and I had them all sit at the table and put blindfolds on. I told them that I had sent David to a "secret" store where they sold scary Halloween things. I told them that he had brought home some of those scary things and I wanted them to guess what they were, without looking...Immediately Allie took off her blindfold and said, "I'm not doing this!"

I promised her that it wasn't anything too scary...

We had goblin fingers, bat brains, guts, spider legs, rat teeth--you name it.

This is my favorite picture ever. Here's Charlotte sneaking a taste of a rat tail. 

Without even knowing what it is.

I love Halloween.

October weekend

September 29th:

Soccer Saturdays! I can't believe we're actually at this point of life where our kids are playing games on Saturday. Today Hazel had two games and it was the first time Kevin and Vicki haven't been with us, since they are in Disneyland! I love that they make the effort to come down from the valley and sit with us on their camping chairs for an hour or so in the hot sun...that's love. And Hazel outdid herself today. In the first game, she scored two goals...for the other team.

At the beginning of the second games, she mentioned her two goals and we corrected her, thinking she understood that those didn't really count. We soon realized that she passionately believed that a goal is a goal, so we decided to drop it and encourage the right kind of goal during the second game. And she went ahead and scored three more goals...for the right team! Five goals total! We were so excited. Unfortunately, due to bad behavior the night before, she lost her reward of ice cream after the game. But David decided that because she tried so hard to score those goals, that they could make homemade ice cream together for Sunday (it has to freeze overnight). She was happy with that compromise. So were her sisters.

October 1st:
For activity time today with Eloise, we painted Halloween pictures I drew with black paint and did "hand stamps" where she painted her tiny hand and stamped it on the paper. She loves to paint. Hazel played at Allie's after school and we had reading time together when she came home. We had a great family night outside about respecting differences.

Charlotte always thinks of her sister. I don't know if it's selflessness or just second-child sydrome, but whenever she gets a treat, like a candy corn I gave her today, she will either ask for a second one to give Hazel, or save a piece of it herself. Today she planned on giving the entire candy corn to Haze, but on the ride to pick Hazel up from school, she couldn't help but nibble away at it until the green tip was all that was left (it was a Halloween candy corn). Kills me.

Cute baby is sitting up with some help. So handsome.