Month: April 2007

Thursday Afternoon is our Scout Afternoon, we have 8 (soon to be 10) rambunctious young boys ages 8 and 9, It is alot of fun to be with them, they’re so passionate for life, and full of energy, but as you can imagine, our hands are full. During this time we are usually trying to make sure our scouts are staying on task, not poking their neighbors with their pencils, trying to glue their hands to their faces, or burning themselves with the hot glue guns, as you can imagine, Truman and Tucker can sometimes get lost in the shuffle. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time, Tuck and Tru are right there gluing their craft sticks together just like the big kids, but every once in a while they can just slip away for a few minutes, and Toph or I will think they are with the other person.
Tucker took one of the above such opportunities to slip away. He decided to practice his cooking skills. We had just finished making trail mix with the scouts, and Tucker gathered the ingredients he liked and took them to the kitchen where he mixed it with other things he could find…
Here are his ingredients for “Tuckers Stew”:
Lots of Water and Milk mixed together well
a few handfuls of Craisins and Raisins
1 handful of Cheerios
1/2 of the Sugar Shaker (approx. 2.5 cups)
Mix them together well, and Voila! a delicious stew.
Toph and I realized what was happening right about the Voila part. When we came in Tucker was ready to sit down for dinner. The young boys got a spoon, and decided to dig in.

Toph and I decided to pass, It didn’t look as appetizing to us.
Ironically Truman loved it, and ate 2 bowls.
Tucker was done after one spoonful.

How do children move so fast?
Sometimes I wonder where they get their speed…I could be a millionaire if I could figure it out…
Well, yesterday Tucker and his friend found the 2 BIG boxes of Legos, and dumped them all over the kitchen and living room. The crazy thing is, I was on the phone for 2:06 minutes. How do they move so fast? I found the Legos under all 3 couches, under all of the couch cushions, under my kitchen table and shelf, Of Course the boys helped me clean them up, and it only took us 20 minutes to find them all… (The pics don’t do the mess justice)


Have I mentioned how much I LOVE LEGOS? 😉

This video is so sweet, it helps me to envision how a little boy thinks, and remember what it is like to be a child, “sitting next to a giant”—What will Tucker and Truman remember, and how will they remember us as parents?

Spring is here, and so are ripe, red, delicious strawberries. Yum, yum. When I saw that they were on a good sale, we ended up with a few flats…so what did we do? We made Jam. Christopher loves freezer jam, and it is pretty easy to do, we did it all in 2 hours last night.
Now we have a freezer full of delicious jam. And Tucker found the a new use for all of those old containers. He spent all morning getting all packed. Awesome.

Click on the Link to see the chemical reaction between Tucker and Easter candy:
Easter Movie
Thanks Easter Bunny…
(To view you need Quicktime video player)

Truman adores Tucker. Whatever Tucker does, Truman follows close behind and repeats it. This morning, Tucker had worked hard to make a rocket out of Legos. I was impressed, and noticed how precisely he had built it. While I was washing breakfast dishes, Tucker came racing around the corner holding his rocket so carefully, and making swooshing rocket flying noises. A few seconds later Truman came around the corner holding 4 mish-mashed legos, and racing to catch his “woket” up with Tucks. They raced all morning, and Trumans rocket kept up amazingly with the advanced technology of Tuckers.
Heres to many more years of playing together and “racing wokets”

Tucker has found a series of books that he loves. It is the Magic Tree House Series. It is the adventures of Jack and Annie, brother and sister who find a magic treehouse in the woods by their house. With in the treehouse there is tons and tons of books. The magic appears when Jack and Annie open a book and say, “I wish we could go here”, they are magically transported to the picture in the book, where adventures await for them.
The books are educational, have a great plot, and are fun to read aloud. Tucker thoroughly enjoys them. We have read almost the whole series, I think we are on #21. Whatever we read about, form Tuckers Free Play during the week. If we have read about a pirate adventure, Tucker is out looking for buried treasured. It is fun, to see him love books so much.
Recently Tucker overheard Toph and I talking about our summer plans, which include building a treehouse for the boys sand/gravel pit. Tucker has thought and talked often since then, and has big plans, like placing leaves and grass on the floor so he can sleep with the bugs. He left this picture on Tophs Pillow (he asked me to write the words). In case you can’t read the words they say: Dear Daddy, this is how I want my tree house, Love Tuck
I just hope Tucker knows that he will not be traveling to far off destinations–Although, he does have a pretty great imagination!

Instead of playing peek-a-boo, Truman Plays,
“Where Me Go?”
I love this phase, when Children are learning to speak.

What a Weekend!
We were so busy, and usually so much busy-ness is hard on the boys, but they had a FABULOUS weekend! (Probably because it was so full of wonderful things!)
Here is a short travelogue:
The weekend kicked off on Friday morning, when we had a neighborhood Easter egg hunt at Discovery Park. What could be better than finding eggs at a Park?
Then we were off to “Famous Daves Steakhouse” in Layton to Celebrate Grandma Phillips Birthday. We had delicious dinner of ribs, brisket, corn bread, BBQ chicken, corn…it was fun to all go out and be together, let the kids play and to honor my mother-in-law.

We drove up to Logan from there. Where we fell asleep quickly, anticipating the next day…
Saturday Morning, started off with Dying Eggs at the Phillips House, then we got ready and went to “Baby Animal Day”. It was the perfect place for our city slicker boys. As we were walking around with the Phillips Clan, I heard the conversation of Christopher with his siblings, saying… “at one time or another we probably had all of these animals at our house…”
“Yea, we didn’t need to go to baby animal day, we had our own baby animal day, everyday!” What a chuckle!
Truman was so enthralled with the animals, he kept trying to feed them grass and hay, and was so excited to be at a farm.

Tucker on the other hand, was more interested in the tractor rides, and dying easter eggs, he just wanted to quickly pet the animals, then was ready to move on to the next thing.

After baby animal day we went up to the River, (Christopher’s parents property) and the boys had a great time up there.

The kids always end up spending a majority of the time in the sandbox or playing in the water.

It was a relaxing day, and Tucker made a stepping stone to put next to his tree, (Truman will make his next time).

We enjoyed the Easter Egg Hunt. It was fun to watch all of the kids, they are getting older now, and can do it by themselves.

In fact Sophie and Tucker were racing each other to get the most eggs, and kept tripping into each other and spilling their baskets, then gathering their eggs up again.

And of course no Phillips Easter gathering would be complete without the rolling (or throwing) of the eggs. We went up the big hill, and threw our hardboiled eggs down.

By this point the boys were exhausted, but having so much fun they didn’t want to leave, but it was time for our drive back to Utah County.
When they woke up, they were back home in their beds, and the Easter Bunny had visited our home.
We enjoyed our Easter Morning as a family, and then off to Church. Where we loved watching all of the children filled with Sugar try to sit reverently and listen.
After Church, we went to my parents. The Hunsakers, Candace, Amy and Eric were all there, and we enjoy a delicious dinner, and then dyed easter eggs together.


Truman and Tucker got a Disney Sticker Book that they have LOVED, and wanted to play with continually. We finished the night off with a Tetris Nintendo Tournament.

I think Eric was the champion, although I am not quite sure —

I was dying easter Eggs with Truman, who kept pulling them out, and saying, “Done Yet?”
The boys are exhausted today, but I know they had a grand time. We were surrounded by the people we love all weekend long, and the boys had so many fun things to do, they didn’t want it to end. I don’t blame them, I could l have enjoyed this weekend a little longer too!

I had an older brother. I am a second child. I know how Tricky they can be, (yea, that is right Ryan, I still remember those tricks you played on me) Take a look at this chain of events…
Picture one, Truman is trying to open up some “choc-yet”, and is distracted

Picture two, Truman is still working on that foil, and Tucker spies something he wants in little brothers basket (a pink tart easter candy):

Picture three: Truman finally gets that chocolate, and Tucker is enjoying his candy as well…
Picture four: Truman realizes, and complains, with his mouth full of chocolate, that his pink candy is missing…and I think Tucker doesn’t feel too bad about it…

PS- I didn’t realize what was going on, I was just trying to get both of them to look at the camera. Obviously I was not successful…