Family of Four

Just an update on how we are all adjusting to a family of four. Emily is now 2.5 weeks old, and is weighing in at 9 lbs. 9 oz. She is a great little eater and sleeper. She's even good about letting us sleep 4-5 hours straight at night.

Ally is a great big sister. She comes home from school every day and gives her little sister a kiss. "She likes me, mommy" Ally says every time Emily stares at her. When Emily cries, Ally likes to help me soothe her with a calming, reassuring voice: "It's okay Emily. It's okay baby girl." Allyson has started her battle of wills with her daddy. Last night I was laughing hysterically at Reed arguing with Ally while giving her a bath. Then I started crying hysterically when he got upset I was laughing. My hormones are obviously still not balanced.

I spend my days nursing Emily, watching t.v., catching cat naps on the couch, and trying to keep up with the girls' laundry. My new wardrobe consists of nursing bras and pajama pants, so I'm not generating much laundry of my own.

Reed is working from home the rest of the year, so I am very lucky I at least have some adult conversation during the day and someone to watch Emily so I can grab a shower. He has been just as fantastic a dad this time as he was when we brought Ally home from the hospital. He lets me go to bed after the last feeding and gets Emily to go to sleep for her 4-5 hours. He brings her to me in the middle of the night for her feeding, then puts her back to bed. Reed takes such good care of all his girls!

Here are some more pictures for you all to enjoy (if I can figure out how to post):

Emily Frances Phillips

We welcomed the latest Phillips into the world yesterday.

Emily Frances Phillips
23 November 2009, 12:08 PM
9 lbs 0 oz, 21.5 inches

She has bright blonde hair and dark blue (for now) eyes. She's breast feeding well and we hope to take her home by tomorrow. Leslie and I are really tired, but enjoying it. Emily eats on and off for about 2 hours, then sleeps for another 2 or so. I'm sure we'll be posting plenty of pictures later, but here are some from the delivery room.
Leslie during a contraction.
Emily on the warming table.

First picture with mom.

The Family minus Allyson (pictures soon to come).

Hmmmmmm..... I know!

(If you get it, you're rolling on the floor right now.)

40 Weeks Plus 2 Days

Well the due date has come and gone...

Leslie and I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, he basically told us that we need to schedule an induction. If the baby does not come naturally by Monday (23 November) we will go to the hospital at 6:3o AM. We're still hopeful of labor coming natural, but at least we know that Emily will be here by Monday. That's exciting.

Nothing Yet

For anyone wondering, there is no Baby yet. Due date is on the 17th, so it should not be very long.

Ads

I know you can find these elsewhere, but I thought I'd share. Just so its clear, this post is for the shock value, the Phillips Family makes no endorsement of the content of the ads...

Chicken Tortilla Chip Casserole

Experimented with some ingredients in the fridge yesterday and made an extremely tasty meal, you should try it.

• 3-4 Chicken Breasts – Shredded
• One large Onion (white or sweet, not red) – Sliced
• 1 Tbsp Butter
• Cooking Sherry
• ½ cup Roasted Red Pepper – Sliced (sub green chile or jalapeno if spicier is desired)
• 1 can Cream of Mushroom
• 8 oz Sour cream (more or less as desired)
• Cheddar Cheese – Package Shredded (½ cup in Casserole, rest for topping)
• 8 oz White Corn Tortilla Chips – To Thicken (more or less as desired) (Substitute other chips or tortilla if desired)
  

Preheat oven to 375.

Add splash of Sherry to medium covered pot on stove. Add chicken to pot, cook covered until chicken is fully cooked. Shred chicken (I use a food processor, but fork is fine). Return chicken to pot.

While Chicken is cooking:
Add butter and splash of Sherry to medium sauce pan. Heat to medium high. Add Onion. Saute on medium high until onions are limp and turning slightly brown. Mix in Red Pepper and continue saute until peppers are hot. Add Cream of Mushroom and Sour Cream and mix with onion and red pepper. Heat over medium heat (do not scald).

Pour Onion mixture into pot over the shredded chicken and combine. Fold in ½ cup cheddar cheese. Fold in tortilla chips (the chips will break and get smaller as you fold them in, they will get soft as they soak in juices). Pour combination into 9x9 casserole dish, top with cheddar cheese.

Bake at 375 until cheese is browning (as desired) – approximately 10-15 minutes. Allow to stand 10 minutes before serving. Feeds 4-6 depending on portion size.

Anchorage Day 3

Day three saw the return of clouds with the added bonus of rain. Temperatures at sea level peaked in the mid 40's. Luckily I happened to be in position when Mt. McKinley showed up on the horizon. Even from ~200 miles away you can see its bulk. Its the one on the right if you're wondering.

Here is a picture of the storm that rolled in. You probably can't see it, but the mountains in the background have no snow on them. When we arrived only the very tallest peaks had ice and snow. The ones nearest to anchorage were bare to the top.
here is a picture from the next day. As you can see it snowed fairly heavily. The locals said that that snow would not melt until next summer.

Anchorage Day 2

Weather was great again, so drove to Seward, south of Anchorage. It is the Northern most port in North America that does not ice over in the winter. Here I am standing by the fjord.

And a random Jellyfish.
I sampled four of the five meats in this sign. Reindeer was amazing, fresh Crab Legs were awesome, Buffalo (actually Bison) was very good, Caribou was pretty good. Didn't have a chance to try the Musk Ox, but no big deal for me. I also tried a Moose burger. Moose was a little different, very lean, personally I would rather have the reindeer or bison. Alaska also had great fish. The fresh Halibut was really good, though I can't tell the difference between it and flounder. The Salmon was actually out of season, so all of it was frozen, but it was still good.

Anchorage Day 1

The trip down to Anchorage was a bit disappointing. I tried to drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage, a trip that would have taken me by Denali National Park and Mount McKinley (highest point in North America). Unfortunately the rental car companies in Fairbanks would not allow me to pick up there and drop off in Anchorage. The day of the flight the fog and clouds shrouded the mountains and there was nothing to see out the windows.

The first full day in Anchorage was a bit different however. The weather decided to cooperate and I was able to take a drive into the mountains. It is pretty impressive to see 15,000 foot mountains spring out of Fjords carved by glaciers 20,000 years ago.

There were glacial rivers everywhere. They cut deep valleys with steep cliffs. The water was a beautiful green in the rivers. By the time it hit the fjords it was an earthy brown.
The glacial lakes were amazing. The water was crystal clear and calm, reflecting the mountains like a mirror.

Fairbanks Day 2

Fairbanks is still treating me good. Still cloudy, so no good long distance shots, but still some pretty awesome things to share. Below is a picture of me standing beside the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Its pretty inspiring to stand next to a point that nearly 700 BILLION gallons of crude oil has passed. Maybe that does not impress many, but 700,000,000,000 has a lot of zeros.

Below is only a small section of the nearly 800 mile long, 4 feet in diameter pipeline (that's ~400 million gallons moving through the pipeline at any given time).

Even neater, below is a picture of the "Lady of the Lake", a B-29 from World War II that somehow ended up in a small pond near Eielson Air Force Base.

Geetings From Alaska

The Fairbanks area is amazingly beautiful. It was foggy this morning, so no great pictures yet. I did stop at North Pole, Alaska on the way back from work. I know Leslie would have killed me if I had not stopped and visited Santa's House.

Of course, they have two 50 foot high Santas:

And Reindeer:

And Handicapped Sleigh Drivers:

Goofball

Incase anyone had their doubts, Allyson is a ham in front of the camera now. Here's some proof:

Oh, and yes those are Mrs. Potatohead Glasses.

Trip to the Zoo

Aunt Laura invited us to go the Columbia Zoo on Saturday. We had a ball and Allyson was very well behaved. Seeing all the animals that she had only experienced in pictures was a real treat for her. I think her favorites were the Owls and Gorillas.

Hail

We had a pretty good storm pass over the house the other day. Quarter to golf ball sized hail fell for a good ten minutes. Reed tried to get on the porch to take a picture, but the wind was driving the hail sideways and he was getting pelted and had to come back in. Below is the best picture we could get. Its from the beginning of the storm, it only got worse from there. Luckily, no damage.

Easter

OK, I know its been a while, but I though I would post some Easter Pictures of Allyson. We were at her Papa's house (my Grandfather) and we hid eggs all over the yard. It took her a minute to figure it out, but eventually she saw the pretty colored balls siting in hiding places and couldn't hold back from filling her basket.

We told her they were eggs and she would look around, see an egg, and start running to the egg yelling, "More Egg!"

After she found all the eggs, we had her open one of the plastic eggs, where she found a piece of chocolate. You can imagine her excitement. She dropped that egg and picked up a boiled egg and ripped it in half. She was pretty disappointed to find just a yolk (see the last picture).

It was a fun time for all, and the whole family had a good time cheering her on.

Oh, and I know I would get in trouble if I didn't note her Bug Shoes.

Enjoying 70 Degree Weather in February!!

This past weekend was absolutely beautiful here in Charleston. It was a very pleasent ~70 degrees and we got in the backyard and finally got to play. Here are a couple of pictures of Allyson that you may enjoy.

ESPN

The world wide leader in sports has created a new team.
http://sports.espn.go.com/videogames/simulation/ncf?id=3796710
Hey maybe the Bulldogs could have done better.

Leslie's Going to Live?

Leslie has strep again, that's twice now in less than a month. One more time and its surgery time.

Chick-Fil-A Bowl Blues

OK, This about sums up the bowl game:

LSU 38: GT 3

LSU came ready to play, GT didn't. That's about it.

But I do have to say I have lost a lot of respect for Les Miles (LSU Coach). I know he is trying to win games, but in the fourth quarter with less than 9 minutes to play and winning by 35 points, why the hell would you fake a punt? That's just rubbing dirt in a wound. Its not like taking several long shots at the end zone wasn't bad enough, no you had to go and call a trick play with the other team needing 5 touchdowns in 9 minutes. Not only had Tech not scored since early in the first quarter, but the defense was utterly exhausted. What were you trying to prove?

I'll give you credit, you coached the hell out of the game. That on sides kick in the first half was a gutsy call that broke Georgia Tech's back. LSU's offense crammed the ball down Tech's throat and the defense played very well against an offense they had no experience against. So I guess just beating the team was not good enough, no Les, you were out to embarrass them. That's just low.