Who's on bass?

What is this? Well I'll tell ya what it is, our new rock band! Can you believe it? Me neither. I used to be in a few rock bands back in the college days. So much fun and totally a long time ago.

After being in my new ward for some time I found out the gospel doctrine teacher (far left on guitar) makes AND plays guitar. The ward financial clerk plays drums and I play bass...hmm. So we've started a band and I HAD to take the camera you know for the blog. If it's not on the blog, it didn't happen.

Here's a little blast from the past. What was the name of this band? I can't remember, but we opened for that Desert Book store Mormon band that came through Fresno forever ago. Most fun concert ever played in hands down. And the only 15 minutes of fame I'll ever get:)

This is what it looks like

Doesn't this picture say it all? Sometimes when we go out with the fam it's like we're part of the traveling circus. But it's so fun we keep doing it. Today's destination was Scandia for a little miniture golf. The kids totally didn't get it, but Justin and I got to play.

Kennedy can definitely swing her hair and sometimes she hits the ball too.

And MacKenzie was workin' those sunglasses the whole time. It was darn cute.

I think it's scan all your pictures week

However these are less embarrassing. This is my sister Khristie (you can see her blog right HERE) and myself. She's Wonder Woman and I'm Diaper girl.

So I watch "Bones" and the other Halloween, can't remember which one, Bones dresses up like Wonder Woman in the VERY realistic costume and I thought of my sister's old bathing suit. Don't you love it?

And this craft table. I remember doing all kinds of things here; puzzels, water color things, eating cream of mushroom soup, painting piggy banks.
I think I ended up breaking this piggy bank.

Embarrassing pictures hiding in that box of photos in the garage.

In my search through some old photos I found some that are DEFINITELY worth throwing away. And then I thought, why throw them away... post them on the blog instead! So here is one of the most embarrassing pictures I found of myself while in the garage today. What do you think? I'll tell ya what I think, "Really?! Did I look in the mirror... ever?" It's a wonder I ever got married.

Kennedy & Austin

These two started their friendship 2 1/2 years ago! They would play every week without fail. Kennedy would've moved in with Austin if we let her. Here they are playing the piano when we lived in Visalia, aren't they so cute!




Look at them now. (With MacKenzie as the 3rd wheel). He came to Disneyland for a few days and we HAD to go visit!



And thanks to Tricia we met Wall-e and went on Monster's Inc. I didn't know that was there.



This is Grayson. I put him down for a few minutes and he lays on the ground and starts sucking up water from a puddle under the water fountain! Gross!! So I had to get a few pics before I picked him up. He does the same thing in the gutter in our front yard. I'm surprised he doesn't have some weird worm-bacteria-disease.



Thanks Tricia inviting us to come meet you at Disneyland! We had so much fun AND we beat all the 5:00 traffic home.

Curl up and dye!

Kennedy got her first hair cut at the salon this morning. She was SO excited as was I! Our conversation about what she would have done to her hair went a little something like this:

K: Can I get it painted like yours?
M: What would you like to paint it?
K: Ummm... purple! And green and red. All different colors.

She must be a Phillips girl! Justin's response to "wild" hair colors was "over my dead body will our children dye their hair purple". So what do we do... get some colored hair clippies from Sally's. What do you think? (Can you see the dark purple strip to the right?)




And you can't get just one! MacKenzie likes pink so we got her a little surprise too. They both love their colors.

No more weeds... for now

Now that we've been here about 6 months we decided it was time to stop embarassing the neighbors. If we were in the middle of nowhere... probably wouldn't do this at all, but when you're the ONLY house on the street with a pathetic looking yard it starts to wear on you. Then I talked to my friend Kiley and realized it wasn't going to be that much to throw some sod down. So here's a somewhat weed pulled front yard before the grass.



And after! It's so green and golf course-y, I love it!



Now I'm ready to put some concrete on the other side... and then a new fence (just the gates you can see) and a garden in a box I found in "High Country Gardens". It's movin along.

Primer Gray Pride

This is by far the best car we've ever purchased! We paid cash for this little eye catcher one year ago and it has been Justin's sweet ride since. During the summer someone (idiot) backed into Justin right in front of a CHP. The Chippy gave Justin his number and said if anything went wrong in the insurance part of things call him and he'd set the record straight. A few weeks later we got a check for $400 MORE than we paid for the car! (The check was to get the bumper and hood fixed) Now let's be honest, primer gray doors and you think we're worried about a little hole and scratches... no, but thanks for the check anyway. Basically we were given $400 to own this car free and clear. Love it... gotta drive it with pride!

Speedin' Thru

Justin calls me the other day to inform me a famous someone has been pulled over a few times by his buddies in the office... Adam Levine lead from Maroon 5! Come on, I need some free concert tickets or something! How fun would that be to pull someone famous over?



As I searched for this pic in google images, I noticed he looks like a mix of Justin's brothers. Jacob with Jordan's hair? What do you think?

Happy Birthday Justin!

I love Justin so much... that I went through some boxes in the garage frantically searching for pictures that might be entertaining on a birthday slideshow. I found a few and I think my most fav is the one of him and Auntie Laura at the prom (or formal?). Laura ended up marrying his brother Jacob, but when the picture came out of the box Kennedy commented, "hey that's not Jacob that's Daddy! Oh I think that's when Daddy and Laura got married." Ha! It was fun looking. Enjoy, and don't forget to wish him a Happy Birthday!

The MRI Results!

I had my doctor check up today and we went over my MRI results. Any guesses as to the outcome? Well I'll just tell you now... I have NO ACL! What?! So my examination from him (where I literally feel as though I'll be sent home on crutches) shows all my ligaments firm and solid, but the MRI shows nothing... Absolutely nothing when it should show my ACL nice and strong. I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be able to walk without that and here I am trotting around (ok let's be honest, I gimp around favoring the right knee a lot). I'm a walking miracle with "something still going on under that knee cap". I know he was being funny and nice when the doc replied, "you know different people just react differently to injuries." I think the translation is "what's with your psycho knee 'long toes'?"

Therapy (physical therapy people, come on) 3x a week for a month and he'll decide what to do then. What a weird case I am. You know I would like my knee fixed, but every time I go I'm on the verge of having a panic attack. I'd rather give birth than let him "examine" my knee and the thought of surgery... I almost fainted twice! Am I just the biggest wimp?

Great Buys @ Costco

Tax season has forced me finally purchase some new ink for my printer. This year federal e-filling was free, but state was $20... I'd rather mail that return since California's too bankrupt to send any money. And yes I heard you can file CA online for free through the state's tax page, but when I tried doing that (not only did I throw things at the computer because it's WAY more complicated than Turbotax) but when I got to the part where we received early retirement money from Justin's past job the screen says, "if you've received a 1099 you can not file your state taxes for free through this site." Thanks a lot. 30 minutes of my life I will never get back! Thus I was back to Turbotax and mailing it out in the first place. Which took me to Costco where instead of just 2 ink cartridges... for the same price I got a new machine than prints/scans/copies/faxes AND 2 new ink cartridges for basically the same price. Awesome! Looky at my very first scanned pic! I've been wanting to scan this one for-ev-er. Doesn't Michael look like Daryl, Benjamin looks like Dad and Heather... you look like your mom/Grandma to me. What do you think?

To: Sierra (my niece)

We saw something and thought of you. Happy late birthday!

Par-ty!

The birthday party. It began the night before when the Garcia girls agreed to bake the cup cakes. You see, when asked what kind of birthday cake she wanted Kennedy replied, "I want Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Frosty the snowman, Bambi, Dumbo and Mickey cake." Ummm, okay. So I asked my sister Rebecca (click here) what she would do and she told me to print out all the characters, put them on toothpicks and stick them in cup cakes... genius! Except, I didn't realize you could control the size so I've got some 8" Cinderella's and 6" Dumbo's. The kids loved them! (If you click on the picture below it blows up so you can see our plate of goodies better.)



MacKenzie helped be the taste tester.



We had a bunch of little kids, mostly boys, running around. They had a blast. The festivities began inside with the doll house. I couldn't believe how much fun all the little boys had playing with dolls:)



And then we moved outside to the playhouse and dirt. There was absolutely nothing more entertaining at the party than the dirt aside from...



... that big pile of dirt!




Outside of my kids there were about 15 little boys and 4 little girls. Good thing we're not at the slumber party age:) Anyway it was fun! And for next time I think we've learned that presents... didn't even care about the presents until everyone left. Maybe we'll just have a present-less party in the dirt next time:)