Tag Archives: home

Family Lines

by on November 29, 2011 in design, Family Fun, james, me, things i love

Here is an up-close view of the family tree in lines. I love how it turned out and how well it matches James room. :)

James' Family Lines

(the names are blurred out just a little bit. in the real print, they are in black and really easy to see. they look great.)

p.s. if you love these family trees (the circle or the lines) and would like one for your family, contact me. I’ve decided to sell them. They’ll make a great Christmas present and if you contact me soon, I’ll be able to get it to you in time for Christmas.

Comments { 1 }

Big Boy Bed. Big Boy Room.

by on November 10, 2011 in james, things i love

Back in January when we found out that we were expecting another baby, one of the things that crossed my mind was where baby #2 was going to sleep. I didn’t want to buy another crib, so I wondered when we could move James into a normal bed and if I would be able to before the baby came.

As the day for Brennan to join us came, we started to make preparations. We got a mattress and put it on the floor in the room that would be his new room once the baby came (we would have to take the crib, chair and dresser apart to move them, so we didn’t want to change the room that would be the nursery).

new bed

NEW BED!

This was in July and James loved it. He thought the bed on the floor was the greatest thing. He would jump, say “BOOM” and fall on the bed.

Then I became worried that he would think it was only a toy and for fun and not a place to sleep. Then he got sick. He threw up one morning all over his crib and I bundled up all the bedding and threw it in the laundry and headed to the doctor’s office (it was his 15 month appointment that morning…I don’t just run to the doctor after just one throw up). On the way home from the doctor he fell asleep and I carried him into the house and was going to put him in bed, to my surprise there weren’t any sheets or blankets in his crib (I was 8 months pregnant, I had completely forgotten that I didn’t remake the bed after throwing the bedding in the laundry) and I decided to put him on his mattress and see how it worked for nap time.

It worked like a charm and we decided to move nap time to the mattress and new bedroom permanently.

Shortly after Brennan was born, I was still afraid to change bedtime to the new bedroom. James was sleeping so well in his crib. We read scriptures, said prayers, snuggled on the chair for a few minutes and put him in his crib and he went right to sleep on his own with no complaining or crying. Messing with such a good thing seemed like such a bad idea.

But it needed to be done and we did it and it is working just as wonderfully as the crib.

My favorite thing about James in the new bed is at night either Bryan or me will lay with him in bed for a little while until he gets sleepy enough to fall asleep on his own. The last little while, James has started to pull his binky out of it mouth, lean over and kiss us on the head and then put the binky back in his mouth and turn over. It is his signal to us that he wants us to leave. It is one of the cutest things ever.

I love my sweet Baby James.

To make the transition even more smooth, I wanted to make sure that he room was special just for him so it was time to decorate (and I was nesting and I took it out on his big boy room). I love how it all turned out. Here are some pictures:

The Bed

The Bed

Above the bed is James’ family tree (not the circle one that I made originally, I wanted to do one with lines that would match his decor more. Up close view in another post). Also are the six canvas pieces that I made to match the bedding. I got the idea on pinterest and really liked how they turned out. The stool helped him get up on the bed (after we put the box springs on the bed, it was too tall for him on his own, but the box springs, and the bed rail keep him in bed after he wakes up).

Canvas and Family tree

bookshelf

Bookshelf and toys

I didn’t want to buy a new dresser and the one we had didn’t match very well, so we hid it in the closet and use the green buckets for diapers, jammies, extra blankets and jackets. He has a teddy bear, his jungle truck, a piggy bank and the Illustrated Stories of the Book of Mormon (he LOVES those books). The frame above the bookshelf is going to be filled with pictures of his aunts, uncles, cousins and us! We also found a beautiful picture of the Savior holding hands with a little blond boy by Greg Olsen, a picture of the temple and a picture of President Monson.

The Temple, the Savior and the Prophet

It turned out a little high on the wall for his little eyes but he still takes notice of it (he pointed at President Monson today and said “bumpa” (how he says grandpa)…opps, we’ll have to work on that).

On the side of the room (where I stood to take the pictures) is just the door and a closet. So nothing interesting to see over there.

He loves his room and understands that it is HIS room. I love going in to get him in the morning and finding him snuggled up in his bed, just waiting for me. I love snuggling with him and watching his eyes open and close as he fights going to sleep. And although I know that I’m going to miss him being my baby, right now I love doing these things for him to help him grow up a little tiny bit.

 

Comments { 6 }

Helping?

by on November 7, 2011 in Family Fun, james, movie monday, things i love

James likes to help. I’m not sure how helpful it actually is, but he loves it.

video taken Nov. 5.

Comments { 1 }

It’s Finished!

by on May 16, 2011 in things i love

On Mother’s Day we officially have lived in our house for a whole year! I can’t believe it has been that long. It seems like we just moved in and I still find myself calling this house our new house. Now it is really really official though, because we finally finished the yard.

The house we built in 2007, but none of the previous owners finished the yard. With James walking around and me getting larger and larger by the day, we needed an outdoor area to play that wasn’t the park down the hill. So we went to the home show at the South Towne Expo Center and got lots and lots of business cards and started interviewing and getting bids.

It was kind of exciting to see what people thought would be good with our yard. We didn’t know what we wanted so we let the landscapers give us their thoughts. After hearing some ideas, we decided we didn’t want anything too crazy. Neither of us have green thumbs so as little maintenance we could get would be best.

It was totally finished on May 6, 2011 and I love it. It looks beautiful, but is still pretty simple. (I think I would have been excited if it were just all grass.)

Here’s some before shots (taken by the lovely Aubrey Phelps on the day we moved in last year):

And here’s the final product:

We choose some nice plants that will flower and add color a little later in the season, and some pretty flowers that will come back each year as well.

In the backyard we completely fenced in the yard and just did a lot of grass with 3 trees for shade and privacy. And in the next week or two we are going to have a company come out and put stairs off our deck into the backyard. It’s going to be wonderful! The deck is only a couple of feet off the ground, but for some silly reason, the builder didn’t put stairs to get from the deck to the yard. So it’s pretty close to perfect now, but as soon as that is done it will be extra perfect.

I’m so excited for warm days playing outside, eating otterpops. Hooray! Bring on the summer.

Comments { 6 }

Scary Movies

by on May 5, 2011 in day by day, me, things i don't love, think back

I’m not a big scary movie person. I never have been.

When I was little my older brother and younger sister watched Gremlins and it scared me so much. I spent most of the movie behind the couch, hiding. I think since then, I’ve never really enjoyed scary movies.

I’ve seen a couple here and there, but things just hang in my mind for too long and without a doubt, if I see a scary movie, I’ll have nightmares about it. And it always seems that whenever I watch a scary movie, something frightening happens in my life to go along with it and make the whole situation worse.

Example:

In college, my friend Ashlie and I were invited to join my cousin Ashley and her friends for a movie night in Smith Park. When we got there, the sun had set and the park was dark. We sat on blankets and pillows and watched Poltergeist. Now, it would not have been my first choice of movie, but we were already there and stayed for the whole thing. After the movie, Ashlie and I went home and got ready for bed. As we were chatting, we flipped off the light and climbed into bed. Seconds later, the light turned back on…by itself. I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but I am sure it included screaming like babies and running from the room. That was probably just me though.

We discovered that there was a short in the light switch. As a makeshift solution until the apartment complex could fix it, we used tape to hold the switch all the way down so we could get some sleep. Although after the movie and our mysteriously turning on light, I don’t think that I slept very much.

That taught me to watch a scary movie in the park.

Another example didn’t happen to me, but I was an eye-witness.

My family was still living in Orem and my older brother decided he wanted to watch The Blair Witch Project. He spent the evening with his friends watching the movie. After it was over he came home and was telling my parents about how much the movie frightened him and how freaked out he was. I was sitting on their bed listening, but not paying too much attention because even him telling them about the movie scared me. After we were all done chatting, my parents told us to go down and go to bed. I followed Rob into the hall, but stopped to get something. He had already made it down the first flight of stairs and was getting ready to flip on the dining room light, so I stood at the top of the stairs and waited for the light. Just as he flipped the switch, the light bulbs flashed and burned out.

I have never seen my brother jump so high in his life.

And he squealed like a little girl. Thinking back about it, I still laugh.

So I think I’ll stick with comedies and romance for my movies of choice.

Comments { 2 }

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.

Comments { 0 }

The Halls are Decked

by on December 15, 2010 in james, things i love, wordless wednesday

Comments { 1 }

What’s Goin’ On

by on October 19, 2010 in me, ten things

Here are 10 things that have happened lately.

  1. Bryan got a new job – He no longer works for OrangeSoda. I was a little sad to see him leave OrangeSoda, it was a fun company and he enjoyed what he did. He now works for Monavie (they sell juice … I promise we won’t try to sell you any. He’s working with their websites). He was really excited about the change and enjoys his new job. Sometimes change is good.
  2. I got a new phone! Bryan’s new job gave him some money for a new phone so he upgraded his iPhone 3G to an iPhone 4, so he thought it would be good to upgrade my iPhone 3GS to an iPhone 4. Now we can do video calls with each other. It’s pretty entertaining.
  3. I celebrated my birthday… for a whole weekend. My birthday was on Sunday this year, so Friday we went to dinner with Bryan’s family (half of the family anyway. It was last minute so some of the family had plans). Then on Saturday we met my family and Rachel in Salt Lake for lunch and LOTS of shopping at Gateway. For my birthday Bryan decided it would be fun to get me lots of new clothes that better compliment my post-pregnancy body (I never realized how tight my shirts were until I was finished being pregnant and now have a little tummy. Not terribly flattering).
  4. Rachel got me a Pillow Pet for my birthday! It’s pretty awesome.
  5. I got a letter from Joseph. I miss my little brother, but I know he’s working so hard and being a great missionary. The people of Peru are pretty blessed to have someone so awesome with them. I’m glad to hear that he is able to speak Spanish well enough that he can express his personality. He’s a funny kid.

    Grandpa and James

  6. My Grandma Walker broke her leg. I got a phone call Friday before last from my mom letting me know that my grandma had fallen and shattered her femer. We went to the hospital to be with her and I saw the xray, there were a lot of little pieces of bone. They did surgery on it and put a plate in there to hold it all together. The doctor said the surgery went really well. So that’s good. She’ll have to stay in a nursing facility for a little while so they can help her do physical therapy and strengthen the leg. We’ve gone over and visited a lot. James likes to go on rides with my grandpa in the wheelchair.
  7. I left Baby James with someone other than my mom, Bryan’s mom or my mom’s friend (an adult) for the first time. I went to lunch with my aunts one day and left James with my cousins to babysit. Jackson and Keagan are 16 and 15 so I knew they would be fine and I knew we wouldn’t be gone very long, but I have to admit, it was a little bit weird. I didn’t freak out, it was just weird.
  8. James keeps getting faster and faster and better at crawling. He doesn’t always bury his head in the carpet to get from one place to ther other. He’s actually starting to lift up his head and use his arms. It’s a change to have to keep my eyes on him so much more often. Before he was mobile, I could do the dishes or read my google reader and look up and he’d be laying on the floor in the same place I put him playing with his toys. Now if I look away for too long, he’s made his way across the whole room. Luckily, we have the stairs already blocked off so Teddy can’t go anywhere, now I just have to get something to keep his little fingers from touching the fireplace when it’s on… he likes to make his way toward the fire, I think he likes the colors.
  9. James has decided that sleeping through the night is a bad idea. When it started to get colder at night, the amount of time James would sleep got shorter and shorter. I thought his jammies weren’t warm enough, so we bought him so warm jammies, but he still wakes up two or three times screaming. He flips to his tummy and runs out of room to flip back over to his side (he can only roll from his tummy to his back one way right now. He can flip either way to go from his back to his tummy, but isn’t as talented from his tummy to his back). It makes me tired.
  10. To begin my 27th year, I stubbed my toe. It was not pretty. I somehow stubbed it and made it bleed and it wouldn’t stop for so long. I couldn’t even figure out where it was bleeding from. It was strange. Then it was so swollen that I couldn’t get my shoe on for the rest of the day. I stayed home and watched Beauty and Beast. Turned out to be a good day.
Comments { 3 }
← Older posts