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To Wait or Not to Wait

by on May 4, 2011 in me, things i love

Our five year anniversary is coming up this month (May 19, if you’d like to send gifts just let me know). We have been debating what to do to celebrate. Because it is a big year, we thought maybe we should go on a vacation and get away somewhere.

We looked into shows in Las Vegas and thought about other places we could go.

Or… We could stay around here and celebrate by going to dinner or something and buy a new mattress.

In the end, after many long debates, we decided to get a new mattress. We found on last Saturday and decided to get it now. We upgraded from a queen to a king and it is WONDERFUL!

The first night we slept in it, Bryan climbed in bed and asked where I was. He reached over and touched my arm and said, “oh, there you are, at arms length away, just where I like you.” I laughed and laughed. We are not cuddly sleepers, we have to have our own space. The king bed does that so well we can both stretch out as much as we like and he still won’t be in my foot or elbow space…both of which are very important for me to have in order to sleep.

Our big problem is that we don’t have any bedding (we just bought a set of sheets and are using various blankets for right now).

I fell in love with this bedding that I saw on Apartment Therapy:

The post said that it is available at Bed, Bath and Beyond in stores but not online. So I looked in the stores here in Utah valley and had no success. I’ve checked online and it is nowhere to be found so now i have to decide if I should wait and hold out for the bedding that I know I love, or should I just go out looking for something else that I can love and buy that for our bedding instead?

Hmmm.

What do you think? I’m kind of picky about things like bedding, so it might be better for me to hold out. Technically, the whole bedding set is going to be my mothers day gift, so I would love to have it before mothers day.

Hmmm.

Comments { 8 }

Easter Fun!

by on May 2, 2011 in james, me, things i love

We had a wonderful Easter Weekend. While much of the weekend focused on James’ birthday, we still managed to squeeze in some Easter fun.

On Friday night, we were able to attend my dad’s concert for the Temple Square Choral. It was a beautiful concert. The songs and the order of the songs were reflective of our Savior’s last week on earth. A few of the songs were completely in Latin, but the Spirit was so strong. I am so happy that my dad is able to live his dream of singing with the Tabernacle Choir and sharing his Testimony through song. One thing that was extra cool, is even though we were pretty far away from the choir in the Tabernacle, we could still clearly hear my dad’s voice through all the other voices (probably just because we knew what we were listening for and we are so familiar with it (Bryan said he couldn’t hear it)).

On Saturday after James birthday party, we went over to my Grandma and Grandpa Walker’s for our annual Easter Party and Egg Hunt. It is always so much fun and there is always so much yummy food. This year we had sloppy joes, potato salad, watermelon, chips, dips and, of course, jelly bean jello salad (no jelly beans in the jello, just jello in the shape of jelly beans with whipped cream).

Much to my dismay, there was some spice in the sloppy joes that I had an allergic reaction to and I ended up needed to take some benedryl, so much of the evening is a little lost to me. But we did go out for a wonderful egg hunt and James was able to get in on the action.

Found it!

Got it!

Look Dad!

Because I was a little bit out of it, I didn’t get pictures of all the cute kids finding their eggs, just my own. But you can check out my aunt Kelly’s blog for more pictures. She’s more on top of it than me.

He only found two eggs before he was done with that game (and then we gave the eggs to someone else, he didn’t even get to enjoy the candy).

The Easter Bunny did join us Sunday morning. When I was little, the Easter Bunny always came on Saturday, and we celebrated with all the candy and things on Saturday, then Sunday the day was solely devoted to the Savior. I loved that. As a child and teenager, it helped me to recognize and remember that the holiday was about so much more than just the candy and pretty dresses. (It was actually later in my life that I realized that the Easter Bunny didn’t visit everyone on Saturday morning instead of Sunday.) Because of how it helped me to see the holiday, Bryan and I talked about it and that is how we decided we would like to continue to celebrate Easter with our kids. Because of the birthday party this year, it didn’t quite happen that way, but next year… the Easter Bunny will join us on the right day.

James did enjoy his Easter basket Sunday (okay, because of the benedryl trip I was on Saturday night, the Easter Bunny didn’t even visit us until after James nap… so it was about 2 pm by time we pulled out the chocolate).

What's this?

Neat!

There's something in here...

hmmm.

James did enjoy his first bunny peep. (The video is a little long. It took a little while for him to decide to open the egg with the peep inside, so even if you don’t watch it, just know that it was adorable. There isn’t much that James does that isn’t adorable to me though…)

It was such a wonderful day and such a wonderful weekend.

Comments { 3 }

One Year Older…

by on April 27, 2011 in james, things i love

I can’t believe that it has been a whole year since my little man joined us in this world and changed my life forever. Can you believe how much he’s grown?

Baby and Mommy

Baby and Mommy

James is 1

James is 1!

Sometimes it boggles my mind. But I’m sure all mom’s feel that way.

I had big plans for the party, but was sick most of the week before so I accepted the fact that my little guy wouldn’t actually remember if all the food followed the “Monster” theme, if there were games, if I made cute invitations or anything. (Man the blogging world really gives you guilt sometimes if you let it…I absolutely loved this monster party and wanted to do cute things like that and Friday night I was feeling horrible that it wasn’t going to turn out as the dream party I had in my head. But after a good night’s sleep, we moved on.)

For food, we had yummy chicken salad croissants, chips, dips and fruit. We also had cake balls (with little eyeballs to make them monster balls), whoopie pies, ice cream and cake.

I was so proud of how the cake turned out. Since I had wanted it to be a monster theme, really the only things that ended up following the theme were the cake balls, the cake and a gift bag I found at Target. But the cake was awesome!

Monster Cake

The Monster Cake

(Kind of like Mike from Moster’s Inc, but blue) I had the vision in my head and was just so glad that it turned out. My cakes don’t always turn out looking like they are supposed to. But this one did. Melanie and I finished it just in time. (how sad that I left the cake as the last thing that I did. ha ha) Thanks Mel!

James absolutely loved opening the presents.

what's in the bag?

It looks exciting!

More fun things in bags?!

This bag is as big as me!

Can I play with them now?

It was so fun to watch him get so excited about each of the presents and want to play with each of them as we opened them. It worked out really well that everyone put the presents in bags. He loves to pull things out of bags and containers and boxes. It was all too cute to watch. He received lots of fun books, shoes and clothes, bathroom basketball sets, a big ball for outside, golf clubs and a bathtub bubble maker. Thank you everyone!

After all the bags were empty, we had Uncle Kevin and Aunt Aubrey bring in their gift. We were sure it was going to be a hit.

A ball pit!

The Phelps' grand kids loved it

Maddy sharing the balls

James tasting the balls

It was very exciting

After presents it was finally time for the all important cake. James didn’t really enjoy it.

He's not sure...

This was as far into the cake as he got.

And he HATED having the frosting on his hands. As soon as it got onto his hands, he would rub it on his stomach. So we tried cutting him a piece.

But he decided he only wanted the whoopie pie.

Yummy!

Happy Happy Birthday to my little man!

A big thanks to Kevin and Aubrey for the wonderful pictures!

Comments { 6 }

Just One More Year

by on March 18, 2011 in things i love

It is crazy to me to think that just a year ago we said good bye to my little brother.

Joseph and Mom

Joseph and Mom

And crazy to think that all this time he’s been in PERU! Weird.

Peru logoAnd has seen awesome places like this:

Peru Postcard[Peru images from here] [because Peru has a new logo and I think its neat]

But most importantly, that he’s been serving the wonderful people of Peru and learning and growing so much!

Elder McCracken and Elvis

Elder McCracken and Elvis

Peru2

Elder McCracken and Some Members in Puno

I’m so proud of my little brother and am so excited to see him again, in just one short year!

Comments { 1 }

Change of Plans

by on February 23, 2011 in me, things i love

I had big plans for the next upcoming months…

I was going to dye my hair
a pretty chocolate brown, just for a change

For Christmas, Bryan bought me a Groupon for laser hair removal
so I was going to use it on my legs and never have to shave my legs again

This summer I was going to take a trip to California and visit Six Flags
the last time we went to an amusement park, I was prego with James and couldn’t ride the roller coasters

Bryan and I discussed going to Hawaii in September
there is an SEO conference and it would have been a great excuse to visit a tropical location

I was going to get lots of extra sleep at night
James is finally sleeping longer and longer at night

I was going to start a nice workout routine
getting rid of the nice little baby fat that has found a home on my stomach would have been good

I was going to have our family pictures taken
and not have a fat face

But my plans have changed and I can’t do any of those things now…

Because … I’m pregnant (anyone else watch 16 & Pregnant?)

and couldn’t be happier about it

We are so excited! And yes, this baby was a little bit of a surprise, but a wonderful surprise. I’m due in the middle of September (due dates seem so unexact, so I’m just going to go with a general time when the baby can come) and James and his new sibling will only be 17 months apart.

This pregnancy has been so different than my pregnancy with James. I’m sick, but not even close to as sick… the only time I’ve really had a problem with being sick is while James had some diaper problems — changing his diaper was a race to see if I could finish his diaper before running at full speed into the bathroom. Such good times.  ha ha!

Its a great reason to change plans. And now my plans include convincing someone to bring me some brownies. Anyone?

Comments { 24 }

Stuck

by on February 7, 2011 in james, movie monday, things i love

When I was little, I remember reading about raccoon traps (I think it was in Where the Red Fern Grows or some other book, I can’t quite remember). These were traps that were a container of some kind and the hunter placed a small shiny object in the bottom of the container. The raccoon would be attracted to the object and easily slip it’s hand into the container. Once it had the object in it’s hand, it would try to pull it’s hand out of the container, only to discover it couldn’t pull it’s hand back out because it was balled into a fist and no longer fit through the opening of the container. To escape, the raccoon just had to let go of the object, but rarely did and was almost always caught by the hunter.

We bought new treat containers for James that had a similar result on James that raccoon traps had on raccoons.



(this is a test to see if uploading videos, without first uploading to YouTube, works.)

Comments { 2 }

Too Many Dogs!

by on January 17, 2011 in james, movie monday, things i love

Comments { 4 }

Good-bye 2010 : Hello 2011

by on January 6, 2011 in james, me, things i love, think back

2010 was a really great year for us, the Phelps family. We made a lot of huge changes and had some wonderfully memorable moments.

At the beginning of the year, I was pregnant, and huge and uncomfortable.

Finding a comfortable way to sit at work for eight hours a day really brought out the creativity in me… In the picture above, please note, there are two different chairs in my cubical (I had two others in the empty cubical next to me that I swapped with too), there is a can of Easy Cheese on the floor next to me (no wonder I gained so much weight), I am sitting on the floor, propped up by a padded stool, my shoes are on the floor next to the Easy Cheese, and yes, that is a life vest (who doesn’t have life vests in their cubicles at work?).

We traveled to California to get family pictures taken before Joseph left.

The happy McFamily clan…

My favorite little brother, joined the ranks of missionaries in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He left to go serve and teach the people in Cusco, Peru on March 19.

Our Sweet Baby James joined our family in April. Becoming the 3rd member of our Phelps family; the 12th to the Sue and Sherm Phelps family (we added 11th a few months before, with cute Maddy and 13th three months later with Aubrey); the 11th to the Ed and Kenna McCracken Family; and the 81st to the Kent and LouJean Walker family.

He also completed five generations…

Bottom from Left to Right: James Edward Phelps, Afton Bullock, Katie Phelps. Top from Left to Right: Kent S. Walker, Kenna L. McCraken. This is my mom’s dad, and his mom.

Then when James was two weeks old, we packed up and moved.

We actually closed on the house three days before James was born while I was on bed rest (the people were so nice and came and let us sign all the documents at our house, so I could stay in bed, well, close to the bed), received the keys the day before James was born (and I wanted to go walk through our house with our own set of keys and kind of broke the bed rest… James decided to come later that night. I wonder if I pushed myself into labor?)

Moving with a 2-week-old really wasn’t that bad. I didn’t really have to do anything. ha ha ha!

We were called to be nursery workers in our new ward.

I quit my job of three years at Henry Schein Practice Solutions and said good-bye to my cubical friend, BJ for the last time.

He was our department dummy. Now I stay home and play with James all day. In Aug. I also began babysitting my friend, Ian’s, little girl, Leyla.

Bryan quit his job at OrangeSoda and started a new job at MonaVie.

We sadly said good-bye to Teddy.

After moving to a house without grass and no fence, Teddy started having a lot of accidents and running away a lot. We realized he deserved something better and we found it for him. A cute family from Payson had one Shiz-tsu and wanted another one to be their 11-year-old son’s dog. They wanted a dog that their son could play with and sleep with and call his own. They had a big fenced yard with lots of grass and had a doggie door so Teddy could come and go as he pleased. I cried and cried. I still miss him sometimes. But I know he’s much happier with a yard and grass.

James was a tiger for Halloween.

And one time when we went to show off his cute costume, I forgot the jacket. The second time he wore it, he had a blow-out all over it. So he didn’t really do a lot of Halloween celebrating in it, but he sure looked cute.

James loved Thanksgiving because of all the mashed potatoes and small pieces of ham he got.

We celebrated our first Christmas as a family and it was wonderful.

2010 was a really great year.

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