Snow and studying and stuff

I remembered and then forgot and then remembered and then forgot and then remembered...that our library books were due soon and that we needed to go to the library this week.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow morning. I got an email that the temple was closed tomorrow. And then I got a notification that Gwinnett Public Libraries would be closed tomorrow as well...which helped me remember that we needed to go to the library today. 

So we gathered up the books and waited for Daddy to get home from campus so that he could be around to help with the oven (Benjamin had banana bread going), but we ended up taking the banana bread out just as Andrew got home.

I debated waiting until it was time to take Benjamin to swim practice, but while I knew I'd be brave enough to exit the library parking lot turning right during rush hour (the direction needed to go home), there was no way I'd be able to turn left during rush hour (the direction needed to pick Benjamin up). 

So I just left with the kids and we decided Miriam would take Benjamin later. And no one would have to turn left out of the library parking lot during rush hour. 

Andrew closed the garage door for us. 

And that was that. Zoë, Alexander, and Phoebe had a great time choosing books. 

Phoebe wanted to check out all the early readers, and that was fine with me (except that I only let her check out as many as she could carry, which was twelve...not all of them). She's been somewhat disinterested in reading lessons lately. While she can read through the stories without much trouble it takes her ages to get through the word banks. She just doesn't like doing it, drags her feet, makes it last forever. 

Zoë was similar, Andrew reminded me...kind of. 

When I was talking to him about Phoebe's...behaviour...he asked me how many kids managed to make through the whole book. 

"Well, Rachel, as we all know, couldn't get through five lessons," I said (she hated it that much). "That made Miriam determined to get through the whole book...because she's Miriam. Then Benjamin had to go through the whole book—but in a different way—because he's Benjamin. And then...Alexander made it through the whole book, too. He was very proud about finishing in a very Alexander way. But I know there was someone who didn't finish the book because they just didn't want to...but who still got pretty far. Like they learned all the basics and then were like...yeah, no, thank you. Who was that?"

"Uhhh...Zoë?" Andrew said. 

"Right! Zoë!"

How could I forget Zoë? She was the one who got through the basics and then was like...meh. 

And Phoebe seems to be following that path. So, we'll keep reading stories together. And maybe we'll revisit the reading lesson book. And maybe we won't. 

Either way, here is Phoebe with her dozen stories all lined up:

Family calendar

I didn't make Andrew a calendar for Christmas. 

I think it was a combination of...I just didn't have time...and there wasn't a deal available. I thought about having a calendar ready to go so that when a deal became available I would be ready for it, but I also had about a million other things on my plate...so I didn't do that. 

And then last week a calendar deal popped up so I scrambled to quickly put together a calendar for 2026, just pulling some pictures from my camera roll in 2025. 

I gave it to Andrew as a late Christmas/early Valentine's Day gift and he took it to campus with him yesterday to hang up in his office. 

When he opened the package he said, "Let's see what family the calendar is for this year..." which felt a little rude. 

"Hey!" I said. "I know who we are!"

If you recall, last year I neglected to change the default text in the template I used so the front cover proclaimed "The Phillips Family" in bold letters. 

Embarrassing!

Here's Andrew laughing at me the calendar last year:

A Valentine Message from Phoebe

For FHE we prepared a few valentines to send off in the mail later this week. Phoebe made about a million valentines for Rosie's family (I only put a few in the envelope). This message was particularly sweet...

Dear Rosie,

I hope you're having fun having your baby. And even when we're apart you'll still be in my heart!

Ice Storm: After Church and Monday

(Note: My pictures uploaded all jumbled for some reason. Know that anything with grey sky is Sunday and anything with blue sky is Monday.)

After we finished with church, we headed outside to play in the...cold. 

The kids were pretty sad that we didn't get snow. This storm was massive, spreading its wintry havoc across about 30 states. Oaklyn and Ireland got snow up in Tennessee (which later turned to ice). My friend in Pennsylvania told me and Phoebe (on a Zoom call—she's one of the editors for the journal that I'm the editorial assistant for, so we were in a meeting this evening when Phoebe came in to sit on my lap) that she got a full foot of snow!

All we got was ice. Here's Alexander with a ghost leaf:

Too many toes

Phoebe likes to offer an example of every word she reads out of context during her reading lesson. This goes entirely off the script of the reading lesson program we use...but I'm not really one for scripted learning...so that's okay. It's probably my fault she does this anyway because I like to know that she understands what she just read. 

Sometimes she'll sound out a word incorrectly...so I'll ask if it's even a word. Often it isn't. (And if she's reading a word in context, I will ask if the word she just said makes sense there).

Like "smill." 

Smill...like what? What does that mean?

Ice storm: before and during church

We woke up to a world glazed over with a thin layer of ice (not the half inch we were predicted to get, which is probably for the best). Our power went out a time or two in the morning (and about a dozen more times throughout the day), but only momentarily. We were quite lucky on that front. 

Some of us had a hard time sleeping last night because they were so excited about the storm, and so perplexed about the weird noises frozen rain makes (yet somehow she is sleeping through all the ice crashing onto the roof this evening—make it make sense!). When Phoebe woke up she wanted to explore the ice. 

She found that it was interesting.

And tasty. 

Panda snacks, Saturday jobs, and Austenland

"Look what someone left in the snack box for me!" Phoebe ran into my room overflowing with excitement.

The ladybug is a paid actor

Miriam and I were talking to Rachel on the phone not too long ago and I mentioned having just so many ladybugs in my bedroom. Like, we've never had this problem before.

Her friend Corbin was there and he was like, "Because it's winter in the south..." (he's from Florida). 

And I was like, "Yeah! But we've never had them like this before!"

I mean, the odd ladybug, sure....but there's been about a billion of them this year. 

Anyway, I was sitting on the chair in my bedroom, reading a paper, when some movement caught my eye. I looked down at the letter board that was on my armrest (never know when you might want to practice your letter formation) and there was a ladybug crawling on the letter L:

Girl in the the Cat Hat

I took the kids for a walk this afternoon—when it was 54°F (12°C) outside—to get some wiggles out before the big storm hits us. We've been digging around to find some winter gear (which we haven't really used yet this season) and Phoebe requested that I help her find a "cute" hat to wear, perhaps something with an animal on it, like a cat or a dog. 

And I was like, "I have just the thing!"

I dug around and produced a purple cat hat—and a pair of matching purple gloves with paws on them—that has been in the family for years.

"Where did you get these?!" Phoebe squealed. "Did someone make them for me?"

"Well, Naanii sent them..."

"For me?!"

"Well, for Miriam when she was a little girl..."

"I am so glad she sent these for Miriam so long ago that they fit me now instead of her!" Phoebe gushed.

She's basically the luckiest girl on the planet and insisted on wearing them on our walk, along with her heavy coat. She was melting by the time we were approaching the house. But this gear is sure to come in hand a little later on this weekend.

Nightingales on Planet Eeng

Yesterday I was on campus all day, which meant that Phoebe didn't really get to see me. She did wake up before I left (and cried about it) and then lived her whole little day just fine without me and Andrew put her to bed. 

This morning Phoebe came into our room at 6:00 in the morning (after Andrew being up with her earlier in the night) and woke me up by kissing me on the lips...which was unsettling. (I'm not sure how Sleeping Beauty reacted so calmly.)

Then she thanked me for wearing fuzzy pyjamas because I remind her of Titus (Darla’s dog, who died last year). 

Then she said she heard a bird outside of her window and wondered whether it was a nightingale. 

I told her we don’t have those here.

She asked me if they were real (because you never know).

I told her they were.

She asked if they had them in the Middle East, so I looked up their range, and it looks like they do have them in parts of the Middle East, like Jordan and Syria and Turkey, but…mostly they're in Europe—places like England and France and… It also in this little band of land across Africa, it seems, but not in Egypt. They just fly right over Egypt.

She interrupted my explanation of the nightingale's range map to say:

“Can we move to that planet that you mentioned that has the nightingales?"

"Planet..."

"What was it—Eeng? Planet Eeng?”

Eng...land. England.

Human again! I feel human again!

This "cold" that I got at the beginning of the year, and which I thought would be a little three-day cold (or whatever) turned out to be more like a three-week cold. But I'm pleased to announce that—at long last—I'm feeling much better. 

I have three classes on Tuesday, but one of them is online...so I only have two classes that I need to be present in. The only problem is...they are this far apart (1.3 to 1.4 miles—last week I walked the path on the right, but today I walked the 28 minute path instead):

Let there be...squats

Sometimes I wake up sore the day after primary, usually after I have the brilliant idea to play "sit-stand" during a song. This is where the kids have to stand up or sit down when they sing/hear a given word/phrase, so if they were seated and we sang the word they would have to stand and if they were standing and heard the word they would have to sit.

I remember playing this game during the song "Sing a Song" when I was in primary. 

The words go like this:

Sing, sing, sing;

I like to sing.

I like to sing a song;

Sing, sing, sing!

So you can see that in this song you'd have to either sit/stand a total of 8 times. Since you begin sitting, you stand on the first sing, then sit on the second sing, then stand on the third sing...and so on. 

Yesterday I decided to play this game with a new song that we're learning, called "The Creation," a lovely song written by my lovely and talented mother. The kids have really taken to it. I've had multiple families ask me where to find a copy of it so they can help their kids sing it at home (because their kids are already singing it at home; I should probably just send an email).

We had only gone through the first few verses, but yesterday I was determined to run through them all. There are seven verses...because...of the seven events of the creation story. 

The first verse goes:

On the first day, God said, "Let there be light.
We need the world to have both day and night.
Let there be light; let there be light."

That pattern repeats through the first six verses, with God saying, "Let there be..." 

Squirrel! In the attic! (Again!)

A few years ago we got some squirrels in our attic—flying squirrels, we were told. They chewed into the attic through the window frame of the kids' bedroom in the back. Pesky things.

We had a pest control company come out and inspect the attic. They set out some "excluders" (a one-way trap door that allows the squirrels to exit but not return) and then put some mesh paneling around all the possible entrances (that they could figure) into the attic. 

We had our handyman come out and fix up some siding, replace the frame around the kids' window, etc., and so forth. 

It was expensive...and a bit of a headache. 

We managed to keep them at bay for a while, but do you know what a determined squirrel can do in a short amount of time? A whole lot of damage, that's what!

All that is to say that I heard a squirrel in the attic the other day. I told Andrew about it and he called pest control right away. Because we already know what they can do in a short amount of time. 

So, they came out and installed an excluder on the gable vent above our bedroom, but the silly squirrel would not use that as an exit and instead went on a rampage through the attic trying to find an alternative exit. We could hear it scrambling all over creation. 

It finally decided the gable vent over the garage was a promising exit and promptly chewed through not one but two slats of our vent...and still wasn't able to get out because of the mesh installed previously (which you can see an angry squirrel had tried digging away previously—that's precisely how they got into the gable above the bedroom...by clawing away at the wood and squeezing under the mesh):

aaht-aat-aab-fila

I am actually not sure which of my children painted this, but I found it on the credenza and thought it was adorable:

Plein air dollhouse

Phoebe's most recent obsession is this poor innocent baby figurine. It came in a set of people that Grandma bought to go with the dollhouse when we moved from Egypt back to Utah...and straight into my in-law's house. (You can see some pictures of Rachel playing with the dollhouse stuff here; after Karen's death, the "original" dollhouse and many of the people and accessories went to Emily while we tried to only take the newer stuff that my girls had grown up playing with...though I'm sure things got jumbled a bit). 

Anyway, this poor innocent baby figurine is approximately 15 years old. In that time it has lost all of its limbs. But she found it in our box of dollhouse stuff and decided that it is the most precious baby to ever have existed because...she's like that. 

Remember when she found and adopted Garbage Baby?

Now we have to know where this tiny figurine is at all times because it's in its VIP Era

For MOM

Phoebe is excited about the idea of making valentines for everyone she knows (so hopefully we'll get some valentines in the mail soon). I suggested to her that she should write her name on each one she makes. She did not take my suggestion (although she does know how to spell her name—which is really pretty tricky when your name is Phoebe because.../f/).

Instead she brought me this drawing:

See how it says MOM at the top. 

This is the first time she's spontaneously written my name down (that I'm aware of)!

Resolutions

I recently had a discussion about resolutions with a friend, who said she doesn't make any (or encourage her children to make any) because if she wants to do something...she does...but that she doesn't feel the need to "be more" simply because it's a new year. Or something like that. 

On the one hand, I agree that it's important to feel valued for who you are in any given moment. But on the other hand, I think it's nice to have scheduled moments to contemplate who you are, where you are, what you want to be. 

At church, the sacrament is an example of a "temporal landmark," a time dedicated for contemplating my life—to consider whether I've misstepped or misspoke or misbehaved—and a time to begin anew—to recommit to living life a certain (higher) way. 

Not because I'm not "enough" as I am, but because I have such potential to...do and be...better.

The dawning of a new year offers a similar (but different) temporal landmark. And while I think goals can absolutely be started at any time, our brains really like these moments of "newness." We like the turning of the calendar page, the beginning of a new week, of a new year. We like anniversaries and birthdays and first days and...we just like landmark events. Setting goals in conjunction with a temporal landmark is shown to improve success/progress.

So at our house we talk about goals at the beginning of every year (and then have check-ins throughout the year), not to shame but to encourage. Doing so at the beginning of the year helps us be more mindful of those goals throughout the year. 

Alexander started a hat at some point last year. I don't know when. It was months ago. He'd knit a few rows and then put the project down for...weeks...and then knit a few rows...and then put the project down for a few weeks. It would lay forgotten on his dresser or on the staircase of his bed or behind the couch...

One of his resolutions was to finish his hat, and he approached that project with fresh determination, knitting row after row after row until...

Work

I haven't been into my office since November. I had a few packages waiting for me when I arrived on Tuesday morning...

I worked in the receiving department at BYU's library during my undergrad, so opening up all these boxes and processing the books brought back some fond memories. Getting to do some physical work (flattening boxes, for example) was kind of a nice break from all of the more academic thinking/reading/writing I do when I am on campus. 

I probably won't have a haul like this for a while since packages usually trickle in. But it was kind of fun to get to tackle this wall of boxes!

Braces

My first few weeks of braces went great-ish. But there was a point where things just got quite uncomfortable and my aligners felt agonizingly tight and my teeth weren't quite tracking.

I remember the person who helped me force the first set of new aligners into my mouth (1) asking me if it was always this difficult to put them in and (2) telling me that things weren't quite lining up with one particularly troublesome tooth, but that "it'll be grabbed."

But it wasn't just grabbed. 

And it was uncomfortable and awful. 

And I've had a few adjustment periods since then, where they rescan my teeth and reorder a sequence of trays to get back on track. So, it's fine. But, like...also frustrating...because I started out with 20 sets of trays over a year ago...and now I have like 15 left to go...still.

Anyway, I laid them all out yesterday and noticed (too late) that when they should have given me trays five through whatever...they gave me tray nine through whatever...essentially skipping eight weeks (two months) of the treatment plan and setting me back at least that long, if not longer.

So that is a little frustrating...and explains that terribleness this summer.

Pumpkin and raccoons

I forgot to mention!

The older kids went to a game night this evening, leaving Alex and Phoebe home with their boring parents. 

It was raining when Benjamin came home from swimming, which Phoebe was so excited about. She wanted to go outside to stomp in the puddles, but we had to have dinner first. And then the big kids left. 

And then she begged Alex to go outside to play in the rain with her, but he felt—given the darkness and possibility of foxes and other nocturnal predators (we get coyotes and bears around here, too, so...fair)—that they should probably have an adult with them. 

So I took them for an evening stroll...in the rain...

Phoebe wore her reflective vest (for safety; she's rather safety-conscious) and we brought a flashlight and...they thought it was the best thing ever.

And then we saw a creature lumbering across the road in front of us.

"Was that a cat?!" Alexander asked. "I've never seen a cat move like that! And it was so fat!"

"I'm pretty sure that was a raccoon," I said.

"A FOX AND A RATCOON IN ONE DAY!!" Phoebe squealed.

It. Was. A. Good. Day.

So, yes, she says "ratcoon" instead of "raccoon."

And this is probably a good place to mention that she says "punktin" instead of "pumpkin."

And when she says "masks," it's more like "maksksksksksks." She just doesn't know when to stop. 

A walk, a fox, a fallen loaf...

We went for a walk this afternoon, as is our habit. I really needed to be getting ready to head to the dentist, but I wanted to squeeze in one more faux-spring walk before we're hit with a wet and rainy cold front. 

These little daffodils are in for a shock! I'm glad the ones in our yard haven't yet made an appearance.

New year, new header (finally)

It has been a hot minute since I updated the look of this blog. Aesthetics kind of fell by the wayside while I was busy with other things...but we squeezed in some family pictures on Sunday...so I figured I would throw something together before my semester began and things got...wild again.

Here's a (probably non-comprehensive) look at the blog through the years, courtesy of the The WayBack Machine...

For several years we had some rendition or other of "Heissatopia in Egypt":

Tooth-hurty

I just went to tell Andrew that I was calling it a night and going to bed. In return he asked me what time my dentist appointment was at tomorrow.

My teeth are fine. It's just a(nother) Invisalign appointment (I will be in braces forever, I fear). 

"It's at the funniest time!" I said. 

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah—1:00!"

And then we both laughed much harder than perhaps we should have because the punchline here is actually that Rachel legitimately can never remember what the "funny" time is, so she has—on several occasions—claimed to have a dentist appointment at the funniest time, when her appointment has been at, like, noon, or 4:30, or 9:15. 

We all know that the best time to go to the dentist is at 2:30 though, right? Right?

Yours, mine, and ours!

We are slowly getting over this cold. 

Poor Phoebe has been so miserable that we haven't been very strict about making her get back into her own bed when she wakes up in the night. In fact, we've been getting so unstrict about it that we thought it might be easier if she just sleeps with me and Andrew sleeps elsewhere.

He hasn't gotten sick and there was the potential that he'd need to be out of town next week (though, as it turns out...he doesn't), so we didn't really want him to catch this sickness. True that Andrew and I continued to sleep in the same quarters while I've been sick, but I'm a bit better at keeping my germs to myself than Phoebe is. So when Phoebe was begging to squeeze her snotty, sneezy self between us for the night, Andrew suggested that he leave the two of us sickies—me and Phoebe—to snuggle and sleep in the big bed while he headed to the couch for the night. 

That way she wouldn't end up sneezing directly in his face (a sure-fire way to get sick). 

She agreed that was a lovely idea. 

So he grabbed his pillow, put Phoebe's own pillow in its place, and headed to the couch, leaving the two of us to fall asleep. 

He was out like a light within 30 seconds, I'm sure. (He's blessed with such skills). 

I was busy trying to fall asleep when suddenly (from my perspective) Phoebe started sobbing—big tears were dripping off her face, getting all mixed in with her snot. It was quite disgusting.

"What could possibly be wrong?" I asked (you know, aside from being sick, which she obviously was...but, like, I was too—and the best thing for that was a good night's rest).

"I just wish that we didn't send Daddy away!" she wailed. 

Sweetwater Creek

"Where is my carrier?" Phoebe asked when we pulled up at Sweetwater Creek State Park, hot on the heels of Grandpa and Darla (which was pretty amazing timing, considering we'd come from opposite directions). 

"You're too big for the carrier," I said. "I gave it away to a different baby."

"You mean I have to walk?!" 

Phoebe was aghast, but she soon found her stride. With the trail stretched out before her, she declared herself the leader and started marching down the path in front of everybody.

Syllable, syllabus, crescendo, credenza

I'm in the process of organizing all my course readings for next semester (it's a doozy of a semester—I'm going to read until my eyeballs fall out). Alexander came up beside me and began reading over my shoulder.

"Is that how you spell syllable?!" he asked in shock.

"Syllabus," I said. "A document that tells what the course is going to cover."

"Oh," he shrugged and ran off. 

*****

He has so many little confusions and I keep meaning to keep a list of them to share and keep forgetting to do so. Perhaps in the future I will be better. For now I will tell you that we were looking for Alif Baa the other day, a text book for learning the Arabic alphabet, which we had misplaced. Alexander was the one to find it.

"It's right here on the crescendo!" he called from the dining room.

Credenza.

He consistently mixes up those words. 

He's cute.

NYE on the Town Green, etc.

Just kidding! I did take Phoebe to the park another time this winter break! Phew!

My friend Christine invited me and another family to meet at the park so our boys could play. And so our teenage girls could hang out. And so our tween girls could play. Mostly I think she had the boys in mind, though.

But then I realized there was no one for Phoebe to play with (Alexander would have played with Zoë and Kate), so I invited my friend with twins her age. And then Christine told me that she'd invited her sister (who has two little girls around Phoebe's age) as well. And then we decided we should just send out a message to the entire ward (these were all church friends). 

I think two other families ended up coming. It was a real party!

We packed picnic lunches, the kids played at the playground, and many of the kids also walked over to Barnes and Noble to hang out for a bit.

Here's Benjamin (in orange) with his friends, looking like an album cover:

It was a chilly day, but we eventually got smart and set up around the gas fire pit in the middle of the Town Green.

Cousins (once removed)

The kids were so excited to go visit Rosie and Austin and their kids! Due to some over-scheduling on Rachel's part (she's an in-demand kind of girl!) we could only stay for one night (Sunday, December 28 to Monday, December 29), but it was so fun! 

They have a great playroom upstairs. The kids love to get out all the toys at once. 

Big girl swings and walking through culverts

Striking a balance between mom-of-teens and mom-of-toddlers is...hard.

My mother warned me it would be. And it is, though admittedly I think she had it harder than me in that department. Consider, for example, this colour-coded list of children (red), grandchildren (blue), and great-grandchildren (purple) my mom recently included in a post she wrote:

Christmas, Christmas! Read all about it!

Here are my two little up-early cuties waiting for their grown up siblings to get up so we can do Christmas (note the hairbrush on the desk):