Cook for the Cure--Relay for Life Pampered Chef Fundraiser

I love to cook and I love participating in the Relay for Life, so I decided to put the two of them together this year! My sweet friend is a Pampered Chef distributor and her dad is battling Stage 4 melanoma cancer, so we have teamed up and she is helping me host an online Pampered Chef party. She will be donating a portion of the show's sales to my Relay for Life team to help us in our fundraising efforts.

This Pampered Chef fundraiser will help to raise funds two ways:
1. Donation of 15% of the fundraiser's total sales
2. $3 contribution for each show booked from my fundraiser

To order online, click on www.pamperedchef.biz/keri and click "shop online" and enter Natalie Phillips as the host. I would also be happy to bring you a catalog--just let me know. I should have posted this sooner, but we are closing the show tomorrow night, Monday, June 27, so you can order online anytime before then. I would be happy to place your order for you if you aren't comfortable ordering online, just let me know.

You can have your items shipped to your house or they can be shipped to me and I will deliver them to you. We travel to SLC at least a few times every month to visit Greg's parents, so I would be happy to deliver anywhere along the Wasatch Front.

Thank you so much!

Tattle-Tale

Garrett and Abby were playing in her room and I heard her start crying. (She's been whiny all morning, so I wasn't surprised.) Garrett came running in and here is our conversation:

Garrett: Abby's sad.
Me: Why is she sad?
Garrett: Because I just kicked her.

At least he's honest, right?

The Best Dollar We Ever Spent...

...was on this water-squirter thingamajig you can purchase at the Dollar Tree.

It seriously kept Garrett occupied for a good hour (which is a big deal for a 3-year-old). I have this magic formula I use when deciding if I should let the kids do a particular activity. It goes like this: if the amount of time it keeps them occupied is more than the amount of time it takes to clean it up, it's worth it.

For example, if Abby wants to empty out all the Tupperwares from the cabinet and she will play with them for 15 minutes and I can clean them up in less than 5 minutes, she can go for it and I won't stop her. If Garrett takes all the books off the shelf and spends 20 minutes reading them and we can clean them up together in 5 minutes, it's worth it.

A bad example: If Abby can empty out all of the clothes in the laundry basket in 30 seconds and it took me 20 minutes to fold them, she's out of luck and in big trouble if she tries.

You get the point.

(Okay, there's really nothing magic about the formula, but it does work wonders for keeping me sane and allowing me to keep my house and life from dissolving into utter chaos.)

So today, I put the kids in their swimsuits and turned them loose on the deck with a bucket of water and a few toys. It kept them occupied forever (in kid time) and took just a few minutes to clean up. Somebody clue me in as to why I didn't think of this sooner...oh wait, maybe it has something to do with the fact it has been freezing and raining every day around here for the past few months! Today was the first day that actually felt like summer.

Abby-Lou Who

The Abby Celebrity Look-Alike Series continues. So far we've had Andre Kirelenko and Justin Bieber. Today, I present:

Miss Abby-Lou Who. You may be impressed to know she did this one all by herself. (Well, I did put her hair in a little piggy-tail on top of her head, but she quickly got the bow out and yanked on the elastic until she was looking like a movie star.)

Just because I love this little smile...

While Abby was transforming herself into a Dr. Seuss character, Garrett was snoozing away in his carseat. He didn't really like it when I pulled out the camera.

7 Years!

Greg and I celebrated our 7th anniversary on Friday. Hooray for us! The years haven't been perfect, but our life together has been a happy one and I would choose him again...and again...and again. (I love saying cheezy things on this blog because I can just picture Greg cringing and blushing as he reads it. Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart! Hahahaha.)

I tried looking for our wedding album, but it must be buried in a box somewhere and I'm not feeling like taking the pictures out of their frames and scanning them, so you get these lame pictures of pictures I took with my camera. The coloring is awful, but you get the point.

In keeping with the whole "7" theme, I'm going to write 7 lists with 7 items in each one to tell you a little bit about Greg and I and our "love story." Enjoy!

*7 Things I Love About Greg:

1. The little lines he gets around his eyes when he smiles (he call them wrinkles--I'll call them "little lines")
   


2. His laugh



3. He is a great dad



4. How cute he looks driving his old brown truck



5. He has a wonderful family



6. He can fix just about anything
   


7. He has a heart the size of Texas and can't bear to see anybody suffer or be in need (This has put me in some interesting situations over the years--like trying to comfort screaming babies on the side of the road while he is fixing somebody's broken down car, or helping a girl escape her abusive boyfriend, or running to Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve to buy presents for people Greg is worried Santa might have forgotten, or taking the kids to visit elderly people....I could go on forever, but he would be really embarrassed, so I'll stop.)

*7 Things Greg Does that Drive me Crazy:

(He already knows these things drive me crazy and does them mostly just to bug me.)

1. When he calls me "mother"


2. When we have company over and he says to me, "Since you're in charge, why don't you call on somebody to pray?"



3. He doesn't wear his seatbelt



4. When he tickles me (I'm so immune to it that it doesn't even bug me anymore, but he keeps trying)



5. The collection of dirty socks he has by his side of the bed



6. When we're lying in bed at night and he rubs the callouses on his feet on my leg (he knows this drives me bonkers!)



7. When he plays around with his phone during Church (he doesn't do this much anymore, but I was hard-pressed to think of one last thing, so I went with it)
   

*7 Favorite Memories From Our Early Days:

1. After we met for the first time, he told his roommates I was "an Elementary Ed major looking for marriage"



2. Greg worked at Papa John's when we first met (he loves when I bring this up) and would bring me home breadsticks almost every night because they are my FAVORITE!



3. Having killer water fights in the Glenwood halls



4. Going for walks around the Provo River Trail and up to the temple



5. Our First Date: We went to Lowe's and bought him a new hammer, "elk hunting" (more like a really nice drive through Provo Canyon), ate at the Dairy Keen in Heber, and watched "Harold and Maude" with his roommates (stupidest movie ever)

6. I made him pull over the car so I could barf on the side of the road during a date

7. Going to the Chris LeDoux concert in Salina and eating at Mom's Cafe

*7 Things I Remember about Getting Engaged:

1. Greg had planned a special date and was going to propose to me on my birthday. He bought a digital camera (they were brand new out at the time) just in case he chickened out. To make a long story short, I came home from that date with a very nice digital camera and an empty ring finger.



2. For the next week or so, I knew he had my ring and it was driving me nuts. We were walking through the Macey's parking lot one day and I "gave him the business" (as he likes to say) and told him he needed to toughen up and just propose to me. (I don't know what he was so worried about. I'm like the world's best wife. hahaha. :)



3. He finally proposed to me late on a Saturday night. He told me he wanted to show me a deer herd he used to love to watch as a teenager and drove us up Butterfield Canyon in SLC. (I honestly didn't see it coming. Anybody who knows Greg would understand that taking me to see a deer herd late at night in the middle of nowhere would be a perfectly normal thing to do.) He parked the car and told me to wait for a second. He ran around to my side, opened the door, got down on his knee, said some really sweet things, and I'm sure you can figure out the rest. (Hint: I said yes!)



4. We stopped at the Exxon station right off Bangerter Highway and I-15 on our way back to Provo. It was the first time I could see my ring in good lighting and I ran in the store and just stared at it while Greg fueled up. I think I said something really stupid to the clerk (like, "We just got engaged and I'm looking at my ring"). Guys who work the graveyard shift at gas stations are generally not the type to get super-excited about engagement rings, so it was pretty awkward.



5. We decided to drive up Sunday morning and surprise my parents with the big news. We didn't get there before they left for Church, so we walked into Sacrament Meeting right before it started and sat down next to them. I still remember walking in the door and sitting next to my mom and holding out my hand. Her eyes got huge and filled with tears--a sweet memory.



6. After Church, we drove to Wellsville to tell my Grandma Ila. She was lying in her hospital bed in the bedroom at my Aunt Paula's house. I held out my hand and ran to her. She hugged me and then looked at my ring and said, "That's just how I like them." (I don't know what she meant by that, but I still remember her saying it.)



7. We left Wellsville and headed down to SLC to break the news to Greg's family. It was Eric's Eagle Scout Court of Honor that night and we decided not to steal his thunder and wait until after to tell his family. It was agony sitting through the ceremony with my ring in my pocket, but I did it. After we had cleaned up and everybody had gone home, Greg walked down the stairs and left me standing in the kitchen with his family. As he was leaving, he called out, "Nat has something to show you." I took out my ring and they all started laughing. Eric said, "That's a nice Wal-Mart ring. Funny, guys." It took a good 20 minutes to convince them it was a real diamond and we really were getting married.

*7 Things I Remember About Our Wedding Day:

1. We got married on a Thursday (which made my brother Brian really mad--he is not a fan of weekday weddings). It was nice for us, because there was only one other wedding that day and it was later in the afternoon. I had the bride's room all to myself and all of the temple worker ladies sat around and fussed over me.
   


2. They took me to Greg and we sat in a sealing room around the corner as all of our guests filed into our Sealing Room. We could hear them all walking by and whispering. I remember walking into the room and seeing everybody there. It was such a sweet feeling of pure joy to be in the temple with so many of the people we love the very most. We were sealed by my neighbor and Stake Patriarch, Lyle Cooley. He actually passed away this morning and I have been thinking about him all day and the wonderful advice he gave us.



3. Our first kiss over the altar was super awkward. I will never forget that! We're definitely not the PDA-type and it was very apparent!
   


4. Our wedding dinner was at the Copper Mill Restaurant and we had told them a few days in advance that 117 guests would be attending. (I remember that number because we were married on June 17.) We had exactly 117 people there and they told us it was the first time they could ever remember that the exact number of guests had come. It was funny, because some people attended who said they weren't and some didn't come who said they were, but it all worked out.



5. Our reception was perfect (in my opinion)! I loved everything about it--the food, the flowers, my dress (I LOVED my dress), the boys in their tuxes, the decorations, our wedding cake was AMAZING, I loved our wedding video--it was all just great!



6. Greg had worked out a master plan with his brothers to hide our car, so they pulled up just in time, we hopped in, and away we went!

7. I remember feeling really bad as we drove away thinking about how much work it was going to be to get everything cleaned up. It didn't seem fair for us to just leave, but that's the beauty of being the bride and groom, I suppose.

*7 Favorite Memories From Our Wedding Night:

1. Just kidding. Hahahahahaha--hope I made you blush. :) I will share one favorite memory from the next day. We had a reception in SLC the next day and after it was over, Greg's baby brother, Matt (he was like ten or eleven at the time), asked Greg if we were going to live at their house with the rest of the family and if I was just going to move into Greg's old room with him. Greg explained to him that we had our own apartment and he probably wouldn't live at home ever again. Poor Matt was heartbroken and just started sobbing. Greg tried to comfort him by saying, "It's okay, buddy. I'll still be your big brother and we can still do fun things together and I'll come to all your baseball games." Matt perked right up and responded with, "Really? I have a game tomorrow morning at 8:00. Will you come?" So guess what we did the next morning? Like we had a choice--yep, the honeymooners attended the Little League game. It was slightly awkward, but Matt was oblivious and was just thrilled we were there.
   

*Our Life as "An Old Married Couple":

1. Our first summer was the best! Greg was working for his cousin's construction company and could set his own schedule and I was waiting for my teaching contract to begin in the fall, so we basically had no commitments. We were living on love and just needed enough $$$ to cover our basic expenses, so life was great. We stayed up late every night, slept in every morning, then Greg would go to work for a few hours, I would bring him lunch, and then come home and make dinner and wait for him so we could start the routine over again. Those were the days!



2. We lived in Spanish Fork for a year and then moved to Mapleton to a really nice basement apartment. It was beautiful and we felt like we were living the high life. Those were good years, too. I was teaching middle school English and Greg was working for a homebuilder in SLC. His days were long and the commute wasn't great, but we both liked our jobs and loved the DINK (Double Income No Kids) stage of life. We had lots of fun and made some really great friends during this stage of the game.



3. Greg got offered a job in Logan in 2007 and he moved in with my parents at the end of January while I stayed behind to finish up my teaching contract. (I liked to tell people that we had separated and he had moved in with my parents. You can imagine the reactions we got...) Those months of being apart were difficult, but we survived!



4. We moved in to my aunt and uncle's basement apartment in June of that year. We were supposed to only live there for a few months, but ended up staying almost 3 years. They were SO good to us and we will be forever grateful. Shortly after we moved in, we found out we were expecting Garrett and started preparing for the parenthood phase of life.



5. The next few years were some of the more challenging of our marriage. We loved being parents, but it was a big adjustment for us. I quit my job, so we were down to one income. Greg didn't love his job, we were trying to get into a house but nothing was working out, we were just kind of in an in-between phase of life and didn't really know how to handle it. I found out I was pregnant with Abby (a bit of a surprise, but a good one) and had a bit of a difficult pregnancy. We started building our house and it became really easy for us to just do our separate things. Building the house and taking care of the kids definitely became the focus of our lives and we kind of forgot to make time for each other and for us. We were fine, but not as happy as we once had been.



6. We had only been in our house for a few months and Abby was just a baby when Greg got sick. While it was a nightmare at the time, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise and we will be forever grateful for it. Somewhere in the midst of the madness, we recognized we needed to adjust our priorities a bit and get our lives and marriage back on track.

7. And now, 7 years later, life is good. We are settling in to being parents and cherish the opportunity to have a young family. Greg started his own construction company and loves being his own boss. It's lots of work, but he's happy doing it. I love staying home with Garrett and Abby--they are so fun right now and although I occasionally miss teaching, I know I made the right choice for me and I'm happy with it. Greg and I are recognizing the importance of keeping our marriage strong and are trying harder to make "us" a priority. We have come to understand the best money we can spend is to hire a babysitter so we can go out and just enjoy being together. Life is never perfect, but we have learned you can be as happy as you choose to be, so we're making more of an effort to fill our lives with good things and recognize the blessings when they come.

This is getting a bit sappy, so I'll end with a classic Greg/Nat story. We went out to dinner Friday night to celebrate. The kids were in bed when we got home (nice work, Grandma!), so I popped in our wedding video and made Greg watch it with me. (This is a yearly tradition. I make him watch it with me every year on our anniversary.) Of course it's a bit corny, but I love watching it and I was thinking the whole time, "Oh man, I so wish we could get married again. It was just so fun and such a perfect day." After it was over, Greg turned to me and said, "That whole day really sucked. I'm so glad we never have to do that again."

And there you have it. That pretty much sums up our relationship in a nutshell. :)

Have I Mentioned How Much I LOVE Summer?

Well, I do! For obvious reasons, I loved summers as a kid/tween/teen, I LOVED my summer breaks when I was in college, I lived for my summer breaks when I was a teacher, and I am loving this summer as a mom.

My first summer as a mom was okay. It was fun, but Garrett was just a tiny baby and I was still adjusting to all the new mom business, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. The next summer, I was pregnant with Abby and S-I-C-K. I barfed pretty much every time I stood up, so I spent most of the summer lying on the couch while Garrett explored our little apartment. I think we played outside once or twice and I am sad to admit we didn't even go swimming once that summer. Sad, I know. And then there was last summer...between Greg being sick/almost dying/not being able to get out bed until September and me falling down the stairs and breaking my leg, let's just say the summer of 2010 wasn't our best one ever.

Enter Summer 2011. Oh, how we love you! Mother Nature has been messing with us a bit, but it's all good. I can honestly say I'm grateful the past two summers were crappy, because it has made me appreciate every ounce of sunshine we get. (And the fact I can play outside with my kiddos without either barfing or feeling the agony of putting weight on a broken bone is just fabulous--and I mean that sincerely.)

We made a quick trip to St. George and the kids enjoyed playing in the water on Main Street.

Everything was going great until Miss Abby dove right out of Greg's arms and cracked her head open. Imagine us standing in the middle of the water park with blood pouring down Abby's face and all of the other parents and kids pointing and gasping. It was awesome.

Thankfully, Greg's brother Mike just happened to be visiting from North Carolina and was with us. When he's not campaigning for the coveted Favorite Uncle Award, he moonlights as a resident surgeon at the UNC-Chapel Hill Hospital. We turned the little princess over into his very capable hands and she was better than new in just a few minutes. (It really helps to travel with your own personal physician. I highly recommend it. And while we're at it, I'll brag about him for a minute. While he was with us, Mike got a message that he was going to be receiving a couple of different awards for his surgical work and for getting the highest score on a test. He was humble and tried to downplay it, but we could tell it was a big deal. Way to go, Uncle/Dr. Mike!)

We journeyed back to Salt Lake and had some fun in the sun with Annabelle and Lydia.

Greg and Cathy were pretty excited about getting their picture taken. (Disclaimer: I warned them I was going to post the picture I took of them and this is the best they could give me.)

Jack Adams, Willy's best friend from his Marine days, was also visiting from Ohio. He's a gem of a guy and we loved the chance to visit with him and hear glory stories of our two favorite Marines.

That Brian is so hot right now....

Abby loves to play peek-a-boo and will hide behind anything she gets in her hands.

Then we had to say good-bye to Mike. :(

Abby couldn't get away from him fast enough...

...but the rest of us were awfully sad to see him go.

Anybody who has ever stood in between Greg and Mike for a picture may understand why Brian is smiling the way he is...they put one arm around your shoulders all chummy-like and smile like a couple of first-class saints, all the while using their free arms to torture you where the camera can't see. Mean, mean, mean!

Garrett loved having Mike visit and keeps telling us how much he misses him.

A nice view of Abby's war wounds.

Mike flew out Friday afternoon and the rest of the clan headed up to our house to spend the night and Saturday at our house. Brian got out his racecar/go-cart and the kids (and adults) had a blast driving it around the neighborhood. Abby was especially fond of it and thought she should be riding it at all times. I didn't get any pictures, but Cathy took some and promised she would blog about it, so the pressure is on. Do it, Cath!!! :)

Everybody went home Saturday night and we enjoyed a lovely Sunday evening with my family. My parents got these Jeeps at Christmas time, but waited until the weather was decent to bust them out. The kids had a blast riding them up and down the driveway.

The Dream Team worked ferociously on putting the boy Jeep together. There's a Barbie Jeep for the girls and a Hot Wheels Jeep for the boy(s). For once, Garrett is lucky to have only girl cousins. He has 4 to 1 odds of getting his own Jeep. (One day, the girls will wise up and realize the Jeeps are the same, but in the mean time, he gets his own while the 3 girls fight over the pink one. Sometimes it pays to be outnumbered.)

Not the best picture ever taken of us, but I'm happy to announce Greg and I will be celebrating our 7th anniversary this Friday! HOORAY for us! Considering that 50% of couples don't make it past the first five years, we're feeling like a couple of all-stars.

Garrett got the hose out and was having a grand time spraying everybody with it. It was all fun and games until Daddy ended up with it and the little guy got a taste of his own medicine. My mom said, "He'll be bawling in 30 seconds."


I actually think it was only about 5 seconds before the tears started flowing. Poor kid.

He perked up in no time and didn't waste any time getting Gracie wet.

If you look closely, you will see a little bunny rabbit by the side of the shed. We showed it to Garrett and he took off running and yelled, "I'm going to get that rabbit."

It quickly ran away and Garrett spent the next little bit searching for it and calling, "Come out, little bunny." We never found it, but are hoping for a few more bunny sightings this summer.

Stay tuned...more summer fun to come!