Cousins Cousins Cousins

Every year my family goes to the High School State Basketball Tournament in Austin. The last time I went was when I was pregnant with Kanyon and Jayde.....that was the last time any of the moms went! :) So, since all of our husbands are gone we figure we'd rather all be together in chaos than alone. This year Rachel went to visit a friend, so Mo and her girls came to Longview. Doodle's house was Grand Central Station and she was a most gracious host! We think that this year was by far the least chaotic. Though we'd added 2 kids, it just seemed like the older ones played so good. There were only a couple of times that we felt outnumbered. We had a great weekend and even got most of the kids down for a nap one day and hired some babysitters so the 3 of us could go to Target together. What a treat!!

The big kids sitting down for supper together

Avery kissing Quinn and Caden in the wagon. The weather was PEEERRRRRFECT all weekend.

Avery still likes to think "Baby Quim" is a baby, but he's quickly gaining size on her. It won't be long til she's sitting in his lap!

We ended each night with Popcorn and a Movie

Q was a popcorn thief!!!

see just as klp turns his head, q goes in for the steal!

I had already thought we'd get klp a goal for his birthday, but this weekend sealed the deal. it is ALL he wanted to do!!!

q loves chairs. He will climb up in chairs and sit like a grown up. They seem kinda boring to me, but I guess not to him. If we ever wondered where he was during the weekend, we could usually find him in this chair:

Not sure whose bowl of popcorn this WAS

Maybe it was klp's

It was so fun to be able to let them play outside all weekend. I'm sure thats what kept the insanity at manageable levels.

The swing set was a hit...especially with klp. Look here he is soaking in the awesomeness of swinging!!

Here's the gang minus Tate and Mallory...the littlest ones.

sweet q baby

sweet kan man

Enough swing pictures already!!! I like q in this one. He looks so big sitting up like that.

It was a great weekend!!!

Brothers and The Red Box

This picture cracked me up. They both have kinda goofy looks on their faces.

I think KLP took these while I was gone one day....klp holding remote control, q holding ball. That's par for both of them.

klp seemed to be disgusted with his baby brother.

Here is my pool shark playing at my Aunt and Uncle's house (where he also dominated in Ping Pong as you saw in the videos I posted a couple of days ago). He LOVES rolling the balls into each other. He also yells a lot during the fun.....he just gets carried away!!

Don't know if you can see, but he gets an under bite when he's really concentrating. Its pretty cute.

Here's the Red Box. It holds toys, but this night it held boys. This was a Daddy idea of course (aren't all the good ones from Daddy). The boys had so much fun and got really wound up (and it was bed time...oh well!).

He was mid sentence...probably saying "I OOOO GOOOO!' aka: I want to go!

Here's a little footage of the fun. Q went first....while klp "patiently" waited

Hopefully you can hear the giggles over the loud wheels rolling over the tile

It's not a big box so it was a pretty tight squeeze to get them both in there. It wasn't worth it to q. He wanted out.

Q's Tubes

At about 10 months old, Q got a double ear infection and it pretty much never went away. We would get it cleared with antibiotics then it would come right back. SOOOOO we went in for tubes. He had RSV the week before (yes, that's right he's 2 for 2 with RSV. Been alive for 2 winters, had RSV both times) so we were hoping he would still get to have the surgery. Thankfully this wasn't a bad case (klp had it the week before and we didn't even know thats what it was...) so the surgery was a go. We went in early on a Monday morning and were home by 9:30 am. Modern medicine is amazing. He did great with the whole thing.

The combo of sleepy face and tiny hospital gown just about sent me into cute overload...

his thumb was his trusted friend that day....

though he is slimming up from his Michelin Man physique he still has few rolls left

I know this one is blurry but was so sweet

a little groggy on the ride home. He played great the rest of the day like nothing had ever happened! We are enjoying antibiotic free and pain free life!!

On a side note....klp made this at school one day. haha. I promptly emailed this picture to his father, who I knew would "appreciate" it.

FUN

Prepare for Phillips Pham overload. I have posted several days in a row and I plan on posted several more posts in the days to come. Key word: plan.

Here are some FUN things we've been up to lately:

Q has fun admiring his full belly. I have fun watching him do this. And watching him stand up. Its like his feet are nailed down because he's so scared to take a step. I think we have a full blown "fraidy cat" on our hands.

A couple of weeks ago during his hippotherapy, klp spotted this stuffed bear and wanted to hold it. He hugged it and said "ahhhh" the whole time. He had lots of FUN with it. His therapists managed to work it all into his therapy so everyone was happy!

Q doesn't have quite as much fun as klp does at Windridge. He wants to get in the arena with the dirt and horses. But alas, he must stand at the gate and watch (and gnaw on the bar).

A big huge bit of fun me and klp had was getting to go visit Kasey and Nathan. klp had his Scottish Rite appointment early on a Monday morning so we went over Sunday night and got to visit and hang out with the Popes! It was so fun to get to hang out with Kase and her new hubby. They were terrific hosts and we had...not just fun...a BLAST! It was the first time I didn't have to drag q to Dallas. My mom came and stayed the day in Longview with him so he could stay home and play. It was much easier with only one!!

Kasey and Nathan were up and gone early in the morning for work, so klp colored them a picture before we left. He still chooses a pen over a crayon. Funny boy.

We have fun reading to Kanyon and he LOVES it. He says "boooo" and picks out a book. He tends to find a favorite and stick with it. This one was a favorite for a long time. Now we're on to The Napping House. It is SO FUN for me to finally get to read these books to my kid! Most of these I've had since I was teaching and loved reading them to my students, but its even more fun to read them to my son!!

Kanyon's Ping Pong Skilz

We go over to my aunt Mary Lynn and Unlce Steve's house pretty often and we always have a good time. Upstairs in their game room they have lost of fun things to do (they have 3 boys that are grown up and gone from home now). Kanyon loves the pool table. He rolls the balls into each other to knock them into the holes. He's quite the pool shark. But I think his new favorite is the ping pong table. We were over there a while ago and had given the boys a bath and were ready to leave when we started this fun.

These videos crack me up. He gets so excited he has a full body reaction!! By the time we got the camera out, he was pretty tired. He was standing holding himself up (mostly with his arms on the table) so that's a lot of work. Not to mention the hundreds of swings since he starts swinging before I've even thrown the ball! He really did good hitting them....until we got out the camera....isn't that how it goes!! Enjoy!

I realize he probably wouldn't quite cut it in China....or Japan whichever has all the ping pong prodigies , but we think its pretty fun!!!

Happy Place

This

is

Kanyon's

HAPPY PLACE!

Quinn

likes

it

too!!

Yeah for the Phillips Phamily Happy Place!!!!

Yesterday

Last night as I was putting Kanyon to bed, it occurred to me that maybe this was the day I did this for the first time:

Once I put him to bed, I went back and checked in my journal and sure enough, April 3 was the day I held the Grand Kanyon for the first time!

Imagine a tennis ball and that was his head. He weighed well under 2 lbs. Probably several ounces less than his birth weight of 1 lb. 9 oz. I will never forget his miniature hand on my chest.

He was nestled down in my shirt (the same shirt you will see in a lot of NICU pics....we left it there so that I always had a button down shirt to hold him)and rested comfortably there for a long time.

He still throws his head back like this and his nose is still my favorite part of him!

To say that he was tiny doesn't do justice to his unfathomable size. His back was so small and I remember holding his entire body in the palm of one hand but feeling like I needed to use 2 hands since thats what you do when you hold a baby! :)

I'll include part of my journal entry from that day:

"...we had a big afternoon. I GOT TO HOLD HIM! I was nervous going in, but Jim the nurse was very confident. Once I got him I felt great! He layed on my chest and was so warm and cuddly. That was probably the greatest moment of my life! Mom and Susan [kory's mom] being there was so great. Kory was so sweet-so happy for me and wanting so bad for Kanyon to be as near as he could. We finally took some "family" pictures. After it was all over everyone was so happy! Its like that moment healed all of us. We all hope it did as much good for Kanyon as it did for us 4!"