What's Been Going On

Where to start?

Zoo:
A bunch of us went to the zoo last weekend. It was a good time! Here I am with Justice, Clayton & Lydia inside the hippo.

The Guy Who Looks Naked:
Mark and I have been laughing at some guy that we see every time I drive him to school. I think he must have a car pool that picks him up for work in front of his house around 8:00 every morning. He's always wearing these khaki / tan overalls. The first day that we saw him, he was wearing a matching shirt too. From down the street, he looks naked. Mark and I look for him, and laugh at him every day.

I Think I Hear OSHA Calling:
It's been a bad week for safety around my house. Clayton learned how to open the baby gate that keeps him from going up and down the stairs. He's getting better at going down the stairs, but he still makes me nervous. I've taken to scooting a couch in front of the stairs. Also I caught Justice standing on his toy box and leaning head and shoulders out of his 2nd story bedroom window. I'm hoping that I just forgot to pop out those safety tabs (those things that only let the window open a couple of inches), and NOT that he figured out how to push the tabs in to open the window all the way. I don't think I want to handle both of those developments in one week.

The Lizard:
Ross found a lizard in our basement. It really freaked him out. After about 1/2 hour of chasing it around the basement, I managed to catch it in a tin can, because I am mighty. I wasn't even scared of it (well after a tiiiiny second). Then I set it free outside. Mark & Jonni thought it was pretty cool.

The Park:
Jonni (my niece) came over, and we went to the park. The weather was perfect! The kids played in the dirt, played in a stream, built a bridge, climbed on a train, and just had an all around good time.
Random Gratuitous Shots of My Kids:

Clayton

Justice

Mark

Lydia

Ross

Finally, What could be better than Cousins and Ice Cream?!

Justice's Latest Game

Ross and Mark swear that they didn't teach this to their younger brother, and to be honest, Justice is the only one I've caught doing it. He moves our gate (that we haven't managed to put in yet) underneath my bedroom window and has a ball climbing in and out of the window.

Plingle!

We just got back from a trip to Santa Claus Indiana with Bruce's family. Like a dork, I didn't take a single picture. We had a great time playing all day at Holiday World for two days straight. (Completely exhausting, but fun!) As we always do on our vacations, Bruce's dad and I got up early and ran together. He somehow managed to find every single huge hill in Santa Claus Indiana and turn it into a torturous -in a good way- 6.5 - 7 mile run. I like running with Terry. You couldn't ask for a better FIL!

We ended up the trip by side tracking to Kentucky to drop in on our friend Dana rather unexpectedly. That was great!

Today it was back to school. That's always a time of mixed feelings for me. I always feel a bit sad because it's a marker that my kids are growing up on me, and because I never seem to have made the summer what I wanted to. However, getting back into a routine always feels so good! It's nice to have a break from it, but I always feel like the biggest slacker, loser by the end of summer! Now I have to get up, make breakfast; the kids do their chores before school; we do our scripture reading at breakfast together; I do my housework, practice my piano, make dinner... etc. I just love the feeling of structure. Is that weird?

Tonight when I was trying to get the kids to settle down for some scripture/prayers/story time, Justice and Clayton were taking turns jumping on Mark and Ross. I had told them to knock it off about a million times. Justice just wouldn't stop though. "Justice, settle down!" I said.

He just gave me this look like "What? I'm not doing anything wrong." Totally innocent while he was still in the act of jumping up and down on Mark's back. You'd have had to be there I guess, but it was totally cracking me up.

Climbers

Here we go again!

The Partners in Crime

Justice says to me, "Look where I put your cats, Mom!" Note the cat figurine on top of the green beans just inches from the ceiling.

Here's Clayton trying to climb on top of a milk jug, on top of an end table. He's also doing his funny growl thing.

The Big Race 2009

Here's a picture with all of the Team Godzilla's (who I bike with) that showed up to race. I'm all the way in the back right corner, standing next to Hagrid.
There were also quite a few from Team Alton (the group that I run with), but we didn't get a picture.Here, just to be fair, here's Team Alton at a different race.

The world is upside down! I beat Bruce, Todd and John at the triathlon. My time was 1:21:30, Bruce's time was 1:21:32, and Todd's time was 1:21:43. I don't know what John did. I beat my own best time by over 2 minutes, and though I've placed at that race before, my time was only fast enough for 5th in my division. DARN! There were a LOT of people there today! It's all about who turns up to race. Oh well! I do have to admit that neither Bruce, John nor Todd had their best year. Still, a win is a win. Yay me!

Trent put in an awesome race! He finished in 1:13:33 which took 2nd in his division. He also beat Terry (my MEGA-SVELTE FIL) who won his division with a 1:15:02. Both of them set new personal records. They stagger the start times in this race, starting a new person in the pool every 30 seconds. Trent started around 5 minutes before me, so when we were on the bikes, it worked out that he was precisely one lap ahead of me. We were neck and neck the whole time that we were both biking. He's a MUCH faster runner than I am though. I stood no chance after he dropped off the bike.

Bruce started swimming 30 seconds after I did. He had a phenomenal swim, and passed me within our first lap in the pool. He also out biked me, but not by a lot. During our first running lap, I spotted him ahead of me. I gradually ran him down though. I was just fast enough to make up my 30 second head start and beat him by 2 more seconds. HA HA!! I'm still a little bummed that I didn't place. Oh well. There were close to 500 racers this year. Maybe next year.

... like a weed ...

It's been 6 months since I started taking pictures of the kids by the growth chart, so I decided to put what I have together. I haven't been taking the pictures everyday as I had originally planned. But, I have been trying to average about 2 a week. Here's what I have so far:

M3

The kids and I made a really ugly paper mache monster. We planted it on our friends' front porch, rang the doorbell and ran. We left a note for them to give it anonymously to another family on their next Family Night. (I just hope that whoever they send it to next doesn't read this, or they'll know that the Phillips' sent it.) My hope is that our ugly friend M3 (Monday Mormon Monster) makes it into many of our friends' homes. If he shows up on your door, give him our love and play along.

Regeneration

My kids used to watch this all the time. We also recommend "Echolocation," "Hey Little Sister," and "Symbiotic Harmony," all of which can be found on the bottom after "Regeneration" is over.

A Couple of Pics

This picture is pretty self-explanatory

Check out this letter that Ross got from his principal (click on it to read it):