Mallory's Birthday!

July is a very busy birthday month for the Phillips family, and it all begins with Mallory! We love that Mallory lives close enough to visit Idaho often. She told her parents that she wanted to celebrate her birthday in Idaho this year which makes us feel pretty special.

Speaking of pretty special--Mallory is such a bright little girl. She is dang smart and has really impressed us with her reading abilities. One of her best subjects at school is history--she recently aced a test on ancient greece and egypt and the questions were hard!

Mal is a great big sister. She is very good at playing with Nathan and keeping him entertained. She is excited for her new baby brother and will be helpful with him as well.

Mallory is a little character, she's funny, confident and a social butterfly. She's a performer too, she had a huge role as a fairy in a school play this year and she was a great actress! If you ever get the chance, ask her to tell you a joke. She has mastered the art of telling jokes that don't really make sense, which makes them even funnier. She makes friends so easily and just seems to have that "it" factor. Once, when we were at a playground, Mallory became friends with one of the little boys her age. She came over to where I was sitting and said (very nonchalantly), "That boy is probably in love with me". It was so cute! And probably true. :)

We love you sweet Mallory and we are excited to celebrate your birthday with you this week!

Memorial Day

Mom and I took the day off work and drove down to Salt Lake for Memorial Day. We met up with Heather's family for their annual picnic where we ate good food and played with the kids. Then we went to Nana & Papa's gravesite, which was already covered with flowers when we got there. We put little American flag windmills that Nathan had fun with. It was a nice thing to do on Memorial Day, and we have decided to make it our new family tradition.

Ryan & Heather & Family Visit Idaho!

We had another fun family visit last weekend Ryan, Heather, Marissa, Mallory and Nathan! They drove up from Salt Lake to spend the weekend with Dad before he left for South Africa.

The kids had fun at "Outer Limits" (our local arcade/kids gymnasium), the mall, and the museum. Marissa is really into birds (especially owls), so she thought the displays at the Idaho State Museum of Natural History were really cool. She even told Aunt Natalee that "this was the best museum I've ever been in". Hahaha. I think we'll have to take her to some better museums asap.

Grandma Tutu, Aunt Natalee, Ryan and Marissa spent Saturday morning doing a 3K charity run/walk at ISU. The race was to benefit Autism Research, and we all got t-shirts and water bottles. It was the first time any of us had done something like this. Ryan actually ran the whole thing and finished dang fast. Grandma Tutu and Marissa stayed together for most of the race doing a mix of walking and jogging. Marissa did way more than a 3K, because she would run ahead of Grandma about 100 yards and then run back to check on her over and over. Then, just to slow herself down, Marissa would do kartwheels and backhandsprings as they went along the race.

It was fun and we were proud of ourselves when it was finally over!

We also took the kids to a local science fair at the mall, where the Idaho State physics department was doing all kinds of fun demonstrations to get kids interested in science. Marissa was very interested and she knew a lot of stuff about science.

Meanwhile, I just could not get enough of Pocatello's "finest".

Mallory is very social and made friends with everybody at the play place. At one point she came up to us and told us about a boy she had been playing with, saying, "that boy gave me a hug. I think he's in love with me". Hahaha. She was very nonchalant about it, and then she went right back to playing. It was cute.

Nathan did lots of jumping and climbing and he especially liked to play on the trucks. I was impressed by how well he did with his letters and his numbers. And of course, my favorite is when he gives me lots of high fives!

Thanks for visiting guys! We loved having you!