We don’t get to watch a ton of TV around these parts, but when we do, the kids’ FAVORITE show is Paw Patrol. (It’s actually quite cute…and they don’t talk ugly to each other or whine…and the boy’s name is Ryder!!)
We had never heard of it until we had Wryder and someone at the clinic asked us if we named him after the Ryder on Paw Patrol. We looked it up, Wrex and I checked it out and the rest is history!
I’m a sucker for a good, homemade costume so for $28, all five of us were, indeed, the Paw Patrol! Wrex sewed the vests (come on, you know I can’t sew!!) and I made all the ears and hat details and collars… They looked ADORABLE!
Skye…who tried so hard to eat that badgeChaseRockyMarshallThe whole crew!And with their tongues out!
We carbo-loaded with some spooky spaghetti! (I dyed the noodles with icing dye!)…
Spooooky
We went trick-or-treating downtown on Friday and then we met our sweet neighbors in town and took Wrex out for his first time trick-or-treating EVER (the kids’, too). They had a ball!
Double fisting it!
We came home, ate some candy (duh!), a few other fun snacks and had our annual camp in!
Boo-berriesBooger ballsWitch’s brooms (cheese sticks and pretzels)A little something to offset all the sweets…
The kids got to go to the pumpkin patch earlier in the week with the Christian school group in Grant. They had a BALL there, too!
Gosh, she’s gorgeous!
With all of that partying, everyone was a little under the weather and VERY tired come Sunday. No thanks to the time change, mind you…
We’re still adapting around here. The 6:10 bedtime we’ll have tonight will be fun…the 6:40 (most likely) wake up call from upstairs in the morning? Not so much…
We traveled to Nebraska yesterday to visit Wrex’s paternal grandparents, or Grandad and Lalice if you ask the kids.
So excited!
We met Grandma at Perkins for brunch then headed on behind her to see Grandad. He hasn’t felt too spiffy the last month or two and that’s sure hard to see but it was good to be with family.
Wryder Douglas is named after Willard Douglas (Grandad) and William Douglas (Papa) AND he’s the elder WD’s first great grandson…in other words, he can do no wrong. 🙂
WD and WDSpecial bondI love this oneSweetiesSnuggling Aunt Deb
We grabbed some Burger King to eat on the way home and the kids had to get a crown (so cute!) and make silly faces and do silly things – you know, kid stuff!
Silly facesWhere’d they go??
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We got a new kitty last week, appropriately named Kitty. She’s a sweet little thing and the kids adore her. She’s gotten a little attention since she’s been here…
Kitty tucked in bed
Sawyer used a dollar she got in the mail and bought Kitty a toy, which she loves!
Yes, that’s a shirt…
Kitty has even made nice with Booey…
How sweet…
And the cat scratch/bed/stand? Well, I should’ve known WD would use it more than the cat….
Boys will be boys
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We’ve worn lots of cute clothes this week…
Cuties
and painted pumpkins…
and made some Halloween pretties…
Sawyer and her bat
and dressed up in all sorts of costumes to practice trick-or-treating…
Oh. My.
They are ready!
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Sawyer’s reading is getting better everyday and she read to Sayble the other day…it was the sweetest.
Swoon
I love how much they love their little sister…
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Now, I’m just finishing up our Halloween costumes. They wanted to be the PAW Patrol this year so I’ve been getting my hot glue on…
I can’t WAIT to get everything done and them on them!!! And, of course, I’ll post pics. 🙂
My little family has had me grinning all day today. They’re pretty funny…or I’m tired…you can decide. 🙂
This morning, I had Wryder set the table for breakfast and he put the plates on like this…
Putting a plate THROUGH the slats in a chair is WAY more fun.
I serve everyone, sit down to eat and find he had given me this fork…
The serving fork. It’s huge. Made me feel good about myself. *ahem*
I started to send these pictures to Wrex and when I picked up my phone, this is what I saw…
It’s started already. Lord, help us.
Sayble woke up a little while later and I opened her jammies up to find this…
Daddy got creative at 6:00 this morning. 🙂
We went to town to run a few errands and grab some Subway. On the way home, I wanted to run the car through the car wash, much to the disdain of Wryder.
Poor kid is TERRIFIED of the car wash and cried and hid his eyes for a good 11 minutes. Wait, maybe that’s not funny…just a little ridiculous.
Oh, and a little throwback Thursday humor….
We were watching a little of the Bronco game, a cheerleader came on the screen and the following conversation ensued…
Sawyer (incredulously): WHO is THAT?
Wrex (while giving me the eye to turn the channel): Oh, just a cheerleader.
Sawyer: (equally incredulously in reference to her burgeoning boobage): WHY does she have her shirt like that?
Wrex (begging with his voice for no more questions to be asked): Oh, maybe she got hot.
A little while later, Sawyer was fiddlin’ with the buttons on Wrex’s shirt and then said, “Look, mom! Daddy’s a cheerleader!”
Sawyer turned FIVE a few weeks ago and she wanted to have a county fair birthday party…so we did! 🙂
She’s not very big into sweets but she really wanted to try cotton candy at the rodeo on July 4th. Turns out, she’s a fan! She REALLY wanted cotton candy at the party so that was the theme of our invitation.
Come one, come all…
When I think of the county fair, I immediately think of show animals and I knew Wrex had a few boxes of rosettes in the garage from his show days that I wanted to use. When I decorate for parties, I’m all about using and re-purposing things we already have so this was an easy way to add some purple pizzazz without spending any money.
For the backdrop, I had the idea to make paper rosettes with Sawyer’s name on them. I just happened to find the purple and white paper fans at Oriental Trading for $0.50 a piece and then cut scrapbook paper to make the ribbon tails. We printed letters for her name and added them to sparkly foam and voila! My favorite part of the party…
Wrex and his dad made these ‘lemonade stands” for me out of old pallets we had in the shop. We added a little paint and our rosette bunting and I absolutely loved how they looked…
Crazy can!
Ring toss!
We had a glitter tattoo booth, too! I made livestock and ribbon templates, bought some glitter tattoo glue and some glitter and fancied the kids up…I just didn’t get any pictures of any of that. Boo.
We HAD to have a cake walk – Sawyer’s favorite part of the party (besides her uncles, friends and cotton candy).
Walk it out…
Wrex found some scrap carpet at Menards and I painted the numbers and made some tiny cakes and the cake walk was born.
Sawyer’s other favorite birthday game is pin the tail on the donkey. We decided to pin the ribbon on the pig – totally fun to watch the kids fumble through this one! I found some farm animal clip art I liked and had them blown up and printed at Staples as an engineer print ($3!!) and we used the pig for the game and the other animals as decor…
The kids got prizes at every game station, so we made little bags so they could keep up with their treasures…
I got lucky and found a roll of purple and white gingham table covering that totally jazzed up our tablescapes. For centerpieces, I bought some purple buckets at the dollar store and planted some wheat seed the neighbors gave us. We watered and waited and two weeks later we plopped some purple animals in them and called it cute!
Uncle Waco ran the cotton candy machine, automatically making him the most popular guy at the party…but he probably would’ve been anyways…
Besides cotton candy, we had BBQ sandwiches, corn dogs, curly fries, corn on the cob, popcorn and pickles!
We opened some presents and just had an all around good time!
The birthday girl got sang to but opted out of eating her cupcake. 😉
At the end of the day, we thanked our guests with goldfish! Wrex thought real ones would be a cool, affordable parting gift but we opted for making goldfish soap so we didn’t upset any parents. 😉
We bought some plastic goldfish and some clear, glycerin soap. We melted the soap down, poured it into bags, added a cute little fishy and tied it up with a ribbon. These little guys were adorable, if I do say so myself.
All-in-all, it was my favorite party I’ve thrown. Maybe it was because I know the birthday girl had such a good time and felt so loved…that’s the point, right?
with her (our) sweet friend, Andrea…
Next up is Grandma Rusk’s 80th. It’s gonna be a ball!
Dusk is when I fell in love with our little place on the prairie and dusk here still takes my breath away. My flowers this year have been troopers and have over-performed despite the sub-par care they’ve received.
As we were out doing chores tonight, I just couldn’t help but make sure and snap a few pictures so I can look back come winter and remind myself that spring will come…
My hubby has toiled and toiled and whipped our grass into shape. When we first moved in, there was just a bunch of dirt and a LOT of weeds. We sodded the front yard last year and my hardworking hubby re-seeded the property this spring and has watered and sprayed and babied our poor yard. It’s been worth it.
I plugged my phone into my computer to charge last night and I realized I have a lot of pictures that haven’t made it anywhere, so I thought I’d post some of my favorites! We’ve had such a great summer…can you believe it’s August?!
We took a little trip up to the sandhills of Nebraska to see the elder Phipps’…always a good time and good food!
The kids with their great-grands!Grandad putting Sayble to sleepGoing for a spin on the golf cart
We had supper with some friends and the kids got to check out the volunteer fire department!
Checkin’ out the fire truck in WagesWryder lost his pants and I’m not completely sure what Sawyer is doing. Hilarious picture though…
The Stukas family came for a visit and we had more fun than we knew what to do with!
Sayble and ShoshanahLook at those smiles!Uno!Reading with Tanner. Wryder loved having a brother around!
Daddy brought home some new barn kitties. Wryder is officially in love. Poor cats.
This boy LOVES his kitty!And his new backpack!Good gravy he’s cute…Kitty, don’t leave
Wrex made this arrow for me for a wedding gift. I loved how it turned out so he’s cranked out a few more since!
Follow the arrow to the hottie!Barnwood stain
I bought groceries one night ALL BY MYSELF. It was a little quiet but quite nice. The kids were incredibly tired and thus distraught when I left. I had to document the fact that they were crying because I was leaving. That never happens…either thing – me leaving or them crying because I do. 🙂
🙁
Sawyer has gotten her craft on lately.
Sawyer selfie 🙂We busted out the puff paint! Flashback 1991!
She’s also been drawing a lot. Here’s a picture of a fish…
Oh. My. Word.
And just a couple of my faves…
CooooookkkkiiiieeeeeeMid yawn looks like what the heck?!
So, let’s just get straight to the point…I’m WAAAAAAAAY behind on posting pics of our {spectacular} summer so far. Here’s a tiny recap of what we’ve been up to!
The kids got to go to the Denver Aquarium with Uncle Warner…
I love this pic…
Sawyer’s in there!There’s WryderI think it’s safe to say Wryder liked the mermaids. *ahem*
We checked out the Kearney Children’s Museum with some friends…We checked out the Sutherland Rodeo on July 4th…We’ve played in the water…a lot!We’ve played hide and seek…I loved Wryder’s hiding place. Sister couldn’t find him and he was more than content with that!We’ve enjoyed daddy being home for a week or two…We’ve had pop surprises and yummy desserts…We’ve gone on adventures, decked out in our finest, no less!We had missionaries come for lunch, whom the kids did NOT want to leave!We’ve taken our chickens out for strolls…Totally kidding. Just seeing if you were still with me. Isn’t that picture hilarious!?
All-in-all, we’ve been having a blast together! The next big thing (besides local county fairs and more summer fun) is gearing up for someone’s 5th birthday. How in the world did that get here so quick?!
The little lady asked for a county fair party so we’re hoping people are too county-faired out to come – she’s SOOOOO excited!
I hope your summer is going just as well. It’s a hot one here today and we’re headed out to throw some water balloons! YAY!
This time of year, most sale barns in this area take a week or so off for wheat harvest and such so daddy gets 10 or so days of built in vacation time. Are we blessed or what?!
Since we went to Texas last month, we’re opting for more of a stay-cation – with a few day trips thrown in for good measure. We’ve already been to Nebraska to see the grandparents and Oklahoma cousins. We got to go to Cody Park and feed animals and ride the rides…we stopped in at the Children’s Museum in Kearney with good friends and today we had really great company come to the house for lunch! The kids were stoked to have visitors and we loved every minute with them! (More on that later).
Last night, daddy took us to supper and we stopped at the fireworks stand on the way home. Tonight, Wrexy lit some up and the kids had a BLAST!
They stood on the edge of the yard, holding hands waiting for the bang and the flash of lights. Their little eyes were wide with excitement and anticipation. Wryder jumped nearly every time but then would squeal with glee and run around asking daddy for more.
I love their excitement and zeal over all kinds of things…from fireworks to new swimsuits to meeting real live missionaries to eating Mexican food to watching a DVD in the car to seeing new baby chicks to spotting the moon in the sky before it’s even dark…the world around them is new and exciting and ready for them to explore…..AND? As their parents, we get the pleasure of taking that journey with them.
Friends of wee ones, we are living in the best days of our lives, I am convinced! Wrex and I were married for 5 years before we started having babies and those 5 years were really sweet. We did that {horrible, awful, ridiculous, no good} long distance dating thing for 3 years before we were married so it was so nice to have some “us” time. It allowed us to really solidify our marriage and prepare ourselves for raising children.
As good as that time was, we love this time of our lives even more. To be able to see and feel and interact with the product of our love is such a treasure. Oh yes, there are some hours and days that may feel long but oh – the joy far outweighs the work and the blood, sweat and tears that go into this parenting thing.
There’s a chance that you’ll never be this loved, this exciting, this worthy of emulation in their eyes ever again. Revel in it.
Friends, I encourage you to soak up those kiddos of yours this summer…
Say yes a little more often…
Go swimming more than you want to and get in that swimsuit and jump in with them…
Eat at McDonalds (or Mickey Don-dalds) even if you just drink a Dr. Pepper…
Blow bubbles and jump on trampolines and go on nature walks…
Look for ways to show them grace…
Get messy and muddy and eat popsicles to beat the band…
Take lots of pictures and capture those smiles and squeals and ingrain them in your mind’s eye for days to come…
These are the best days of our lives. Soak them up.
We have been flat out having fun this summer! Daddy’s sales have been short and we’ve been enjoying the days of our youth…
Here’s a little of what we’ve been up to!
We’ve done a little swimming…
and a little playing at the Children’s Museum…
We rode some rides at Cody Park…
and rode a dinosaur!
We’ve hung out with the neighbors…
and mowed around the house…
and snuggled cute sisters…and had lunch with cute dates…Tomorrow, we’re headed to see the Oklahoma cousins for a few days and then head back home to start our “summer vacation” when we get daddy to ourselves for two weeks! YAY!
Several years ago, I did a study on covenant. To say it changed my life and the way I understood the Lord and His word is a COMPLETE understatement. It. was. AMAZING and completely fascinating. (It’s honestly, one of my favorite things to talk about EVER so if you have questions, let’s chat!)
Back in Biblical times, people would “cut a covenant” as a way of making a binding, holy, irrevocable contract. To cut a covenant, they would perform a covenant ceremony which you can read about (in the most succinct version I could find) here.
The closest thing we have in our day is marriage and the wedding ceremony. When we choose to marry our mate, we are choosing to create a blood covenant with them…an irrevocable, holy and binding agreement. We now share such a close relationship with each other that all we have or possess in this life is available to each upon demand.
Everything that is good that I have, you now have. You will benefit from my organization and my efficiency…my cooking and cleaning abilities…my heart for the widow and the orphan…my bold loyalty to those that I love and my fierce protectiveness of my family.
Everything that is good that you have, I now have. I will benefit from your patience and grace…your spirit of servant leadership…your easy exhortations and your adventurous nature.
Everything that is not so good – every weakness and every hardship – that I have, you now have. You and I will have to work through my spirit of abandonment and my ability to withdraw for fear of being hurt…my constant state of worry…my temper that can flare and my inability to understand (or work) anything that requires an engineer’s mind – yes, even the stinkin’ waterhose.
Everything that is not so good – every weakness and every hardship that you have, I now have. You and I will have to work through your inability to keep track of time and the way you can never effectively end a casual conversation so we (or whoever you’re talking to) can move on to something different….your wanton workaholic tendencies…your inability to put things away or keep the garage clean.
Every tool or ability I possess, you now possess. You are now an administrative whiz! You can juggle a plethora of tasks simultaneously and write, give and critique the spoken word with pleasure and authority. You can poof hair and change diapers and decorate on a dime.
Every tool or ability you possess, I now possess. I can now fix anything and everything…no really, anything and everything. I am proficient in plumbing, electricity, carpentry, welding. I can break horses and fit a steer and use the grill. I have incredible marksmanship and am as strong as an ox!
When we walk down the street, people should wonder if they’re seeing you or me. There should be no division in our beliefs or thoughts or ideas or desires or possessions or the way we view the world. We should be a solid unit of ONE because of the Lord’s ability to supernaturally commingle our lives. I’m identified as you and you are identified as me.
I am now a Phipps. I carry your name as a sign that I am in a covenant relationship with you. I no longer operate under my own authority, but yours. I take into account your opinion and your desires and I make every decision as this new unit of one. I am now you, and you are now me. I take on your personality and character and reputation and essence and authority. I care for you just as I care for myself because of our unity.
Comanche, Texas 2015
Ten years ago today we stood in this very spot, under that old pecan tree, and declared our undying love and commitment to each other. You have less hair, I have more body mass and together, we have three outlandishly beautiful children to show for it.
As much as I’d like to say that I did, I didn’t truly understand the weight and the beautiful severity of the vows I took on that day 10 years ago. I’m still learning what it truly means to be a wife and covenant partner. I’m still learning to die to myself and to live for the Lord and for our marriage and for our children – who, by the way, are the most perfect product of our love I could ever imagine.
But I’m getting it…and I’m vowing to make the next 10 years even better than the first…is that even possible?!
I am so thankful that you chose me. Our dating days weren’t perfect and our story could’ve ended in several different ways on several different days…praise HIM that this was the “ending” He had in mind and that we were obedient to that.
In all my days or wildest dreams, I couldn’t have dreamt up a better husband or partner or lover or teammate. You are the best man I know. I still can’t believe I get to wake up next to you every morning…
Loving you has been the easiest, most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Thanks for making my life, Wrex Phipps. Being your wife and the mother of your kids is an honor and a privilege; my soul is satisfied.
With all of that partying, everyone was a little under the weather and VERY tired come Sunday. No thanks to the time change, mind you…
