2016 Christmas Card

I don't mail out Christmas cards. I don't know all the addresses and I am way too lazy to find out. This blog is now a Christmas card. I will talk about all the stuff we've done this year and how wonderful and charming we are, punctuated with pictures from our December outings: Tubac's Luminaria, and the Sahuarita Winter Light Parade.

Jumbo marshmallows in Tubac!

Paul had a nice chat with Santa and got his wish: "Treats!"

We kicked off the year with some globe trotting, for details review all my travel blog posts about how cool our trip was. I could say that now I can scratch seeing Paris off my bucket list, but I wanted to go back as soon as I got home. I am already imagining a second trip.

I asked Lee what he achieved this year, he said his achievement is not aging. Touche. I was in my first melodrama this Spring, I survived another Arizona summer, and I created a human being, so a pretty productive year.

Paul's big achievements this year include: Quoting his favorite movies at me, his latest is from the Lego Movie: "Honey, where are my paaaaaaaants?" He has learned bits and pieces of a few songs and he sings his life recitative style kind of all the time. No idea where he gets it from. I am most proud that, as a family, we made sure Paul had no accidents for 6 days. Yes, it was a group effort, but Paul is pretty well potty trained and is well on his way to saying good-bye to diapers for good!

If I had a dollar for every comment we got on Paul's cute little hat, it would have covered the cost of all our gifts this year.

Laszlo's greatest achievement thus far, in my estimation, is last night sleeping from 11 PM to 5 AM. The single greatest gift he could give me is to do a repeat tonight and every night until he is ready to sleep even longer.

People seem to feel that 2016 was a crappy year, and yes, losing Professor Snape was a serious blow, the whole election stunk worse than Laszlo's sour milk burps, but we have seen some miracles in our home. We have been blessed to have now two sons to make us laugh and drive us crazy. Focusing on the positive, I have seen what a great year this was and I hope everyone who reads this can re-examine their own lives and see all the wonderful thing they have seen and experienced even through the hard times.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and God bless you all!

Love,

Claire, Lee, Paul, and Laszlo

Mamma's Ghetto Photo Studio

Between Christmas, new baby, and landscaping, it was hard to justify spend hundreds of dollars on professional newborn photos. Especially when I would rather have professional family pictures done when Laszlo is a little older. Like, he smiles and holds up his own head.
So I decided on a DIY approach to newborn pictures and read a few tips on how to get good baby pictures. Here are the results:

One day old, in the hospital.

4 days old, give or take a day.

Brothers! Three weeks old.

3 weeks, 2 days old.

3 weeks, 5 days old

It may be a while till I can get anymore brother pictures, getting Paul to sit for those was like pulling teeth. I manage to snap like 7 photos and half of those were blurry. Next time I will have to use duct tape.

Outdoor Thanksgiving

While most everyone else was toiling over their ovens to create the perfect feast, we lazed about in the sunshine in our backyard. A newly landscaped backyard! In three days, the good fellows of Red Desert Landscape Renovations transformed our yard from plain dirt and weeds into this:

The artificial grass is so soft we had to kick our shoes off immediately after going outside, and Paul refuses to wear shoes in the backyard now. We had a nice little picnic and ran around playing "tickle and chase"--Paul's favorite game--while Laszlo napped on his blanket.

Now we are prepared to plant some shrubberies and flowers and call the yard finished! This year, I am especially thankful to have a backyard for us to play in!

Our Family of Four

With the arrival of George Laszlo Phillips on November 12th, that makes our family a party of four. We are lucky that baby Laszlo has been such an angel and Paul has graciously taken to big brotherhood with minimal acting out. Paul is always concerned about where the baby is, what he's doing, and likes to hold the baby on his lap. Laszlo likes to eat, occasionally open his eyes, and poop in his sleep.

7 lbs 4 oz, 19.5 in, born at 8:55 A.M. 11/12/16

If I look pale in this photo, it is probably because my body was in shock. If you are into harrowing birth stories, give me a ring and I will tell you all about it (but probably a slightly toned down version where I in no way sobbed like a toddler or panicked or anything totally un-macho) I will spare the rest of you and let you go on enjoying your pristine visions of the miracle of life.

This guy is just relieved he didn't have to play doctor
in the front seat of our Prius.

I am not shocked by how tiny my baby is, I am shocked by how big my 3 year old is. I swear he was smaller last week! He suddenly looks bigger and older and in all things more grown up than he did 6 days ago.

We are extremely glad to have only had to spend one night in the hospital this time around. It meant only one night of nurse-interrupted sleep, less hospital food, and we were able to spend Paul's birthday at home. We played with his gifts, ate cupcakes, and now Paul thinks there is a never ending supply of presents coming his way. With his birthday so near Christmas he isn't wrong.

We really love our little Laszlo! It seems that the dearest desire of his heart is to be held as much as possible, which we are happy to oblige.

Halloween 2016

I love Halloween and I am thrilled that Paul has picked up on spirit of the holiday. I can't count the number of times we watched "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" this month, and he loves "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Paul was super excited about getting pumpkins and painting them:

For those of you who have never lived through a hot Halloween, you need to understand that if we carve a pumpkin on October 31st, it is molding by November 1st. They just don't last here in 80-90 degree weather. That is why this year we decided to try painting them instead. Then we can have them for a couple weeks instead of a couple hours. It was a definite success!

I took Paul to a few houses trick-or-treating. he actually wanted to go back home after about 10 houses, which was the right amount of walking for this waddling mama.
Here is our annual family group costume photo: Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Christopher Robin:

The gray blob is a stuffed animal Eeyore, by the way.

And, for those of you who love adorable things, I let the camera roll and accidentally caught this:

I think Paul is a musician at heart because he knows that once you get to "G" it is time to start over again with "A".

Autumn Update

Of all the things pregnancy could rob me of the energy for, I wouldn't think typing up a blog would be one of them. But here is my long delayed and exceedingly lazy post of various activities we've been up to this fall.

To be clear, Fall in Arizona is basically Summer everywhere else. Seasons here go as following: January-March are Spring, April-May are Summer, June-August are Hell, September-November is Summer again, December is Fall.

For Labor Day we opted to head into the mountains and go on a little hike. Once we got up to 8,000 ft it was in the low 70's and very pleasant.

Paul pretty much wanted to stop on every log or stump take a picture. At least he was willing to smile!

Paul took one look at the chair lift running and desperately wanted to go on the "big swings." We decided to get tickets as long as Paul agreed to sit very still and let Daddy hold onto him.

We also found a spot on the little creek where Paul could wade in and get his feet freezing and wet.

Paul walked about 2 miles on his own, I've been trying to build up his stamina so far that is as much walking as his little legs can handle.

This month Grandma Karen came for a visit. We took her to Buckalew Farms to pick pumpkins and sweat our way through a few fun activities:

Rubber Ducky racing...

Petting and feeding farm animals.

Corn Maze

Paul went down this little zip line with Daddy's help.

Paul is so excited to have pumpkins.

 Taking Grandma to the airport was not Paul's favorite part of the visit, we took some of the sting off by taking him the Rainforest Cafe.

We got to sit by the Elephants, Paul's favorite!

The Ten Facebook Commandments

I. Thou shalt not start arguments with total strangers on a friend's post or link.

II. Thou shalt not compare your wardrobe, house, meal, or children to someone elses highly edited and filtered profile pic.

III. Thou shalt not attack a friend's political, social, or religious beliefs on their own wall or post, for behold, it is the height of rudeness.

IV. Thou shalt respect the privacy of your friends and family members in only sharing about them that which seemeth good in their eyes.

V. Thou shalt honor thy mother, father, husband, wife, and children by not speaking about them disrespectfully on this public platform that your family reunions may be long and not filled with hurtful arguments.

VI. Thou shalt stop insisting that I don't believe in God, respect the troops, or love my mother if I don't share that post. Yes I do. Let's just move on.

VII. Thou shalt not armchair parent, quarterback, or otherwise pass judgment from a place of comfort decisions others have made in a place of stress.

VIII. Thou shalt not post an excess of photos or status updates each and every day.

IX. Thou shalt not friend that middle aged divorcee from Oklahoma whom you don't know and with whom you have no mutual friends.

X. Thou shalt not let something as stupid as facebook be a tool for destroying any of the important relationships in your life.

AMEN.

Arizona: Pros and Cons

I've now lived in this state for 3 years. As I've only previously lived in one other state (Utah) I guess I don't have much to compare it to, but I've come up with a list of pros and cons for you in the event you were considering moving here.

Pro: January
While the rest of the world is putting away their Christmas decorations and thinking, "man, I freaking hate snow, slush, and ice and coldness in general. When is Spring?" Arizonians are walking around in the sunshine and 60 degree weather thinking, "Ah, winter. Isn't winter just the best? If only I didn't have to shovel my driveway...Oh, wait. I DON'T!" Then we laugh maniacally and go have a picnic at the park.
White Christmas's are lovely and I miss them and other seasonal changes, but not in January. I never will miss Logan, UT in January.

Con: July
No barefoot summers for us, unless you are really into 3rd degree burns on the bottom of your feet. Walks and hikes are more or less out of the question and the car is nearly as bad as no amount of air conditioning seems to be able to diminish the heat radiating off the dashboard. You can go swimming...but even the pool water feels a little too warm. Monsoon rains provide the only relief and they just don't come often enough to keep temperatures out of the triple digits. When they do come, they bring humidity so, no, it's not a dry heat. All you can do is huddle in your freezer and dream of the weather cooling down at the end of summer (which is in October.)

January 2015, just for reference. Note the shorts.

Pro: Fewer allergens
I've heard that Utah is home to most of the plants that people are allergic to. If that is true, then it might explain why I can't go visit my old stomping grounds without generous doses of medication to keep the itchy, drippy, sniffy, coughies at bay. Living in Arizona, I frequently go days between needing any medication and my symptoms are more mild irritations than debilitating illnesses.

Con: No grass, few trees
When we found a park near us that actually had nice, green grass we were so excited. It is not the norm. At all. The kind of grass you generally get here is greenish weeds that grow on dirt as hard as concrete. Not really the kind of ground you want for, well, anything. You don't roll in the grass, I'd hate to play football--American or otherwise--on that kind of rock solid turf. And the kind of big leafy trees that provide great shade and shed leaves in the winter are quite rare here. Most of the trees that grow here are small, kind of spindly, and have itty bitty leaves that provide little shade. I mean, it's enough that people park under them at parking lots before they'd park close to the door, but they just aren't the same. Certainly not tree house caliber.

Pro: Cactus
Cacti is pretty cool. It makes for a unique landscape, their blossoms are quite pretty, and I now know several different kinds of cactus plus random trivia about the life and growth of cactus. Ask me about Saguaro sometime. I am a treasure trove of botanical knowledge.

Con: Cactus
Have you ever gotten stuck by a cactus spine? It freaking HURTS and they are hard to get out. Paul knows better than to go around touching them, but they are so common you really can get speared on accident because a little cholla branch fell off and blew away...right into your foot (true story.)

Cholla with pink flower in foreground,
Prickly pear in background.

Pro: Low cost of living
Compared to basically everywhere, Arizona has cheap housing, reasonably cheap food, cheaper gas. All these things make it hard to think about moving. Know that if I wanted to buy a house like mine but in Utah, I would spend twice as much. Gas is consistently 20 cents cheaper per gallon here. Not only that, living in Utah with a more expensive home would likely also mean a pay cut for Lee. Lower cost of living and higher income make this pro a major pro.

Con: There is a reason for that
It is cheap to live on land that nobody wants. The heat, the pests, the general isolation, and the lack of anything nice about the city of Tucson means that, yeah, you can afford to live here. That is just because most people don't want to. If you live far enough out of town to avoid the ugly, trashiness of Tucson and live in a nice area you also have to drive 30 minutes to go to a movie, 45 minutes to get to a hospital, an hour to get to the best sushi restaurant in town.

Pro: Lots of wildlife
Living in Southern Arizona I have come across wild animals on hikes, in my neighborhood, even my backyard. Off the top of my head I can remember meeting Coyotes, Javalinas, dozens of Roadrunners, a Great Horned Owl, various Hawks, Falcons, and Vultures, hundreds of lizards, a Gila Monster, Cotton tail rabbits...the list goes on. It makes my morning walks--when they're in season--far more interesting than a typical walk around the block.

Gila Woodpecker at Saguaro National Park

Con: It isn't all good wildlife
People routinely get rattlesnakes on their property here. There are something like 27 species of rattlesnake that live here, not to mention tarantulas, scorpions, black widows, termites, and cockroaches. We have yet to have any rattlers in our yard, though we've had a snake, and I've not found a single scorpion...knock on wood. I hear with termites, however, it's not a question of if but when you will get them in your home.

So there you have it! A break down on Arizona living. These are of course based on my own biases, tastes, and experiences, I'll leave it to you to judge for yourself whether Arizona is a great place to live or a Hellhole. Unless you are talking about July. Take it from me, Arizona in July is basically Hell's Dutch Oven.