Sewing Mamas

Check out my apron!!! Wonderful Lesley came over last week and taught me how to do everything. I LOVE sewing. It's so much fun creating from scratch and feeling like you accomplished something at the end. Plus, I'm starting to really love cute fabric, which could be a minor problem with the current student budget. :) Caden watching us sew.

Lesley, Ella, Caden, and me with our finished products. Love it.

On to my next project...Christmas Eve PJ's.

21 Questions.

Thank you Andrea.
1.What is your husband's name? Bryan LeRoy Phipps
2. Who eats more? B
3. Who said, "I love you" first? B
4. Who is taller? B
5. Who is smarter? As much as I'd like to put me here, we all now it's Bryan. The man is a genius.
6. Who is more sensitive? That'd be me. You should see the video Bryan got when I was pregnant of me bawling after he cooked his pizza before mine. So inconsiderate.
7. Who does the laundry? Me. And it's getting old real fast having to fold Bryan's stupid dress socks the way he likes them. :) Only kidding.
8. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Me, it's got the night stand for all my junk.
9. Who pays the bills?B
10. Who cooks more? Lately I'd say it's me, but he's a far better cook.
11. Who is more stubborn? Me.
12. Who is the first to admit they are wrong? This is weird after the last question, but it's also me. Guaranteed Bryan is thinking, "Yeah because I am never wrong."
13. Who has more siblings? Bry has 4, I have 3.
14. Who wears the pants in the relationship? We share a leg.
15. What do you like to do together? Bry and I honestly do EVERYTHING together...just last night after we made dinner, I kicked his trash at XBox Worms :)
16. Who eats more sweets? Since my diabetes definitely him, but before that I could eat about 10 oreo's to his one.
17. How did you meet? We met my Junior year of college when he moved in with a bunch of my good guy friends. We were all out having a snowball fight. Bryan came out in his SANDALS...dang California boys...nails me and my best friend in the head and then goes back in side. I'll admit, I immediately liked his sarcastic little attitude.
18. Who asked whom out first? B. Remember the don't hang out talk by Elder Oaks? He used that on me. :)
19. Who kissed who first? Bryan kissed me in a castle during a rain storm. Unforgettable.
20. Who proposed? B
21. His best features and qualities? I love everything about this man. He is loving, humble yet very confident, beyond intelligent, creative, witty, HILARIOUS, determined, handsome, spiritual, and an incredible husband and father.

I tag: Jenn S., Erin, Katie S., Heather D., Lesley, & Tami. Have fun.

More for the Month of Gratitude.

Here we are

On earth together

It's you and I

God has made us fall in love

It's true I've really found

Someone like you

Will it say

The love you feel for me

Will it say

That you will be by my side

To see me through

Until my life is through

Well, in my mind

We can conquer the world

In love you and I

You and I, you and I

You and I is our song. It'd been awhile since I'd heard it, but as soon as I did I remembered why we fell in love with this song to begin with. To us it says that although everyday is not always easy our love is enough; enough to stand side by side through the bright times & the dark times, enough to conquer the world hand in hand. It's funny, on our wedding day we danced to this song and all I had was faith that our love would be enough, now I not only continue to have faith but I know through experience that our love truly will always be enough to get us through anything. Hearing this song, once again, made me grateful for the simple and not so simple trials we have had placed on our path.

(You and I: The early days)

On a lighter note...today I'm grateful for stupid people that make me laugh. Tonight we got to witness a lady who thought she had the ability to part the red sea of traffic on the busiest road in our city. She walks out into 50 mph traffic with her hand out telling people to stop and she nearly got hit 10 times. I'm sure she wasn't crazy; she just couldn't see the huge cross walk 5 feet ahead.

Gratitude For...

It's a month of gratitude and oh, we have so very much to be grateful for.*Gratitude for knowing, as I drove away for my part time job orientation on Saturday, that I would never again have to miss this little smile because I'm lucky enough to be able to work, for the remainder of law school only, at home while he is napping.*Gratitude for my Nikon so I can capture these little moments. Caden's favorite thing in the bath is to suck on a washcloth. He kicks and giggles when I hand it to him.

*Gratitude for wonderful people like Lesley who take the time to show me how to shoot in manual. I'm learning slowly, very slowly.*Gratitude for an incredible husband who works so hard for his family and treats me SO well. He planed a date night to Shoots this week and was brave enough to try the new BoBo platter. (I highly recommend it--you grill your food at your table--it was quite fun!) *Gratitude for learning twice as much because I got to hear the Sunday School lesson twice due to the fact that Bry was teaching and he used me as his trial run.

*Gratitude for our diet coke. We have spent the year trying to give it up but it just isn't happening.
*Gratitude for laundry basket rides that end in big hugs.
*Gratitude for friends who come over even though we feed their child way too much fondue chocolate and keep him up until eleven at night.

*Gratitude for far away friends that still have the ability to make you laugh and mean so much.

*Gratitude for aunts and uncles that give Caden so much love.

*Gratitude for the simply pleasures in life: rice cereal mixed with squash. After every bit he yells "MmMmM," and he gets very impatient when I don't shovel it in fast enough.

*Lastly, gratitude for family and friends who care that we keep them up-dated on our lives. Bryan woke me up the other night and says, "I forgot to tell you that my dad is extremely disappointed in you." "What'd I ever do to him?" "You didn't up-date the blog."

Picture Tag

I got tagged by Katie and Liz and I was so excited because it's picture tag. Take the 4th picture from your 4th folder and tell about it.

This is the birthday cake Bryan made me after we'd been dating for about a month. It was my favorite color, pink, and it was delicious! He was the most thoughtful boyfriend in the world.

So then I looked on our myBook to see what the 4th and 4th pic was and I about died laughing. I'll REALLY regret putting this up later but I'm sure everyone will get a good laugh because I look like such an idiot.

Three words: Hoggatt Family Vacation.

July 2005. After walking around Washington DC for about 12 hours in 500 degree humidity I had had it with the statues and pictures, so this was the beautiful pose I gave my dad. Awh, ridiculous.

I tag: Kristen, Andrea, Lesley, Tami, Sheila, and Stephanie P. ...and anyone else who wants to do this!

happy halloween

Special thank you to Tami our costume designer. You are the best.At our church Halloween party--Dr. House, Dr. Cameron, and the Frog. Bry spent forever "growing" his 5 o'clock shadow. Dr. House sharing his perscription drugs with our child.Us and our good friends, The Pauls. Caden and Reagan are just 5 weeks apart and she's a doll.

More pictures of Halloween to come from Carly of our fabulous Halloween Party last night...

Desperate Housewife

I had never seen this show before the other day when flipping channels a rerun gave me a glimpse into what it is to be a desperate housewife. I'd previously heard that this show was kind of trashy (and maybe some episodes are) but this particular one was hilarious in how accurately they captured the life and personality of each housewife. One of the moms was driving her mini van around full of her little boys bouncing off the walls. She pulls over, kicks them out, and drives away trying to teach them a lesson, but when she comes back 1 minute later they had already disappeared. Ahh, can't wait for those days. They described another wife as the one with a spotless home, who was a gourmet chief, seamstress, gardener, etc.
I couldn't help but feel like I have finally arrived at where I want to be in life. I can relate to a show about housewives, and let me tell you what an incredible feeling that is! I'm a housewife who is desperate to have her car full of crazy little boys, who is desperately learning how to cook, who is desperately attempting to keep her home tidy at all times, who is wanting desperately to become a sewing extraordinaire (Bry got me a sewing machine and classes for our anniversary and I'm pretty excited about it!!), who would desperately love to take incredible pictures of her baby, and sorry but at this point I could care less about the desperate gardening bit (maybe if I cared more our backyard wouldn't look like an African jungle).
It feels good to know I'm part of the club and to know there are so many other women out there that I relate to with all my desperate goals as a wife and mother.
And now I'll leave you with some of the photos we (Megan) got to finish decorating our wall with canvas prints.