2011

I thought I would do a month by month review of events and activities in 2011 for our family. 

January

Cruise to Mexico-Our family plus my parents and Aunt and Uncle went on a cruise to Mexico with Carnival Cruise lines. My parents had cruised before but my aunt and uncle and our family had not. I think my parents turned us all into cruise fanatics! 

I was able to take my Gram Ruth to Florida to see her sister for the first time in years. It was the first time Gram had flown on an airplane in over 15 years. 

February

Jalen turned 4! 

We had really bad snow the week of Jalen's birthday and we were snowed in for several days. For Jalen's birthday we took him to Monster Jam because he loves monster trucks. He had a blast and January 2012 we are taking him and Jace to Monster Jam. 

We adopted  a cat. His name is Tommy and he is a Maine Coon. He is a really good cat and we enjoy having him in our family.

March

Jerald turned 32! 

Also my Gram Ruth turned 80 this month and I organized a surprise party for her. The majority of the family showed up and lots of her friends. It was a great party and she was really surprised.

April

Jalen started playing T-ball. I wish I could say he had a great time and loved it but he didn't. It was a great learning experience for us and I will thoroughly check out sports leagues in the future before they play sports again.

May

We took the kids to the Oklahoma Science Museum in Oklahoma City. Jalen LOVES science and he was in heaven there. 

 I stared selling birthday cakes. 

Jalen went to his first friend birthday party at Incredible Pizza. 

June

Jerald's daughter Marittza came for a few weeks. She turned 9 years old while she was here and we had a party for her. She had a blast and loved her Justin Beiber cake I made her. 

Jerald got to go to his first Black Gold days. It is a yearly festival/carnival in Glenpool.

July

Me and the boys went to an awesome birthday party at an indoor water park. 

August

Jerald and I celebrated 6 years of marriage!

Jalen started Pre-K at Glenpool Elementary.

He has a really great teacher, Ms Lemons. Jalen loves school!

September

I turned 30! 

For my birthday Jerald took me on a cruise to the Bahamas! It was just a short 4 day cruise but we had a blast! We cruised Norwegian Cruise lines and we left out of Miami and we to Grand Bahama, where we did a Jeep tour, then Nassau, where we took a tour of the island, and Norwegian's  private island, where I got Jerald to go snorkeling with me. For those of you who know Jerald know that was a huge thing for him. I have the best hubby who made my birthday so special.

October

This was the month of short trips with the kids. First we took them to the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. The boys had fun but I think Jerald had the most fun.

We took the kids on a trip to Oklahoma City. We visited the 45th Infantry Museum, the Railway Museum, the Museum of Osteology and the new Outlet Mall. The boys had a blast and by far the enjoyed the Osteology Museum the most. It was filled with all sorts of skeletons from very small to a full size hump back whale. 

We also took the kids to Hallomarine at the Oklahoma aquarium. Jalen went as Batman and Jace didn't want to dress up this year. The boys had so much fun and came home with tons of candy. 

November

We had our first ever family pictures taken. 

We went to Kansas to celebrate Thanksgiving with Jerald's brother and his family.

December

My parents took us to the Christmas Train. It is at a church's camp grounds and is set up like an old wentern town. The main event is the steam train ride and there is food, rides and music. It was very cold but very fun. 

Jace turned 3! 

He had a Cars birthday party and I went way overboard on his cake.

We had an amazing 2011 and can't wait to see what's in store for 2012!

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Jace is 3!

I can't believe my baby boy is three years old. It just doesn't seem like three years has gone by already. Happy Birthday to my baby, your are the most funny and crazy kid I know. I  love you so much!

Cake, Cake and more Cake!

I have always make the boys birthday cakes. Until recently that is about all I wanted to do, but I guess I have started a little business now. Back in May I had some mom's on Jalen's t-ball team ask if I could do some birthday cakes for them and since then I have had orders almost every weekend.

So here are some of the latest...

Boston Red Sox cake

Iron Ma

Cars

Dinosaurs

Cookie cake for Jalen's teacher

Cake for Jalen

Cake for Marittza

Max and Ruby

Grayson's 1st Birthday

Grayson's smash cake

Spiderman cupcakes for Jarrett

The big SURPRISE!

So tomorrow is my Gram Ruth's 80th Birthday surprise party. Weeks ago I thought this day would never get here but here we are. I am SO VERY EXCITED! My Gram and I are very close and as she says when I was younger, if she was going somewhere so was I and if I didn't get to go I WAS NOT HAPPY! So being able to pull of this surprise for her is HUGE for me. It has been stressful to say the least. Getting everyone invited and figuring out who all was coming and if we were going to have food or not, was a BIG deal. (especially when my father and I don't see eye to eye all the time) Oh and cleaning off her porch and making her cake(3 tiers which I have not done before) and flooding my bathroom and losing the cat (he's home now). But so far it has all worked out and hopefully by 4pm tomorrow Gram will be very surprised by all the people at her house to celebrate with her. So if you ever get around to reading my blog Gram, I love you and hope you had a good 80th Birthday!

First cake for 1st birthday

So many of you know that I make cakes for the boys' birthdays but for the most part that is it. I normally don't make cakes for any one else because it makes me so nervous. But, how can I say no to making a 1st birthday cake for my best friends son. Besides, I was there when he was born so it just seemed right that I make his cake. The only thing was though, it had to travel 4 hours to get to Tisha's. So I made the cake Thursday. Decorated it Friday and then handed it off to Tisha's father in law and he took it to the party on Saturday. I am happy to say it made it there in one piece and Tish loved it.

Top view

Smash cake

Side view

Reunion of Sisters

If you know me at all you know that I am a very spontaneous person. I am also very strong willed and usually tend to get what I want or get things done to make it happen. So when I found out that sadly my Great Uncle Warren had passed away I knew that I was going to do everything in my power to get my Gram Ruth to Florida for the memorial and to see her sister, Norma, who she hadn't seen in over 10 years. So that is just what I did. It was a crazy whirlwind of a trip but we made it and had a lot of fun visiting with family. Thank you so much to my Aunt Sue, my parents and Jerald for watching the kids so I could go.

Gayle(my aunt), Norma(my aunt), and Ruth(my grandma)

 Here are a few pictures of us visiting Aunt Norma in the nursing home.

 Aunt Norma loves whopper jr's, onion rings and coke. So we had to bring it to her even though Jimmy had just brought her the same thing the day before.

Aunt Norma had this cute little wave that she did to us all the time.

Jimmy had this picture of Uncle Warren made for the memorial and then he put it in Aunt Norma's room. She loved it.

Of course we couldn't go to Florida with out seeing the Ocean!

Besides seeing Aunt Norma the highlight of my trip was riding a motorcycle for the first time! It was AWESOME!

4 Years Ago Today...

Jalen Daniel Phillips was born. 

 2/3/2007

 2/3/2008

 2/3/2009

 not exactly 2/3/2010 but close enough

 2/3/2011(snowed in)

Boy how times flies.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JALEN!!!

Jace's Party

So I know this is really late but here are a few pics from Jace's second birthday party. We also had his two year check up recently and this Big Boy weighs 36lbs and is 37inches tall. I don't think the height is correct though cause he was squirming.

The Birthday BOY!!

The Cake! And yes I did make it. It wasn't supposed to be all green and black but that how it turned out.

Opening presents. He was so funny because he wanted to get all the paper off before looking at the gift. He also LOVED the balloons we blew up. I think next year I will skip the cake and just blow up balloons.

Playing his drums.I bought this for him from Jalen because he is always drumming on anything and everything. He does really good on them and they aren't really loud.

Jace and his cake.

Being silly. The things we do to make kids laugh. Jace thought it was hilarious that they would put the trains and tractor on their heads. 

Jace had a really great birthday. 

Thanks to everyone who made it special!