easter sunday

After an Easter family service at church, we headed to David's parents' house for Easter. Kay (David's mom) made us a delicious lunch that we all enjoyed after the kid's hunted for eggs. Here are kids with Nana and Pops.

Cousins Elijah, Meadow and Skylar with Nana and Pops

Kay made these sweet little (edible) bird nests for the kids' table setting.

Our family on Easter Sunday.

Asher stubbed his toe right before the egg hunt. So he sat on David's lap, while the other kids hunted.



Ralph picked up a Bunny cake (from Baskin Robins) for us all to enjoy. Jonas is still talking about "bunny cake." It was a definite hit with the kids. The adults enjoyed it as well. :)



Hope your family had a special Easter as well!!

valentine's day celebrated

We had a busy Valentine's Day, going around town and delivering our Valentine's. Because we were so busy making Valentine's for others, I didn't have time to make the boys a special treat. So, I told them we would get cupcakes. We tried to go just before lunch time and the line was out to the street and you couldn't park anywhere on the street. On our second attempt, we thought the line wasn't bad until of course we unloaded and approached the line to see it was wrapping around the porch. Needless to say, we had a long wait....40 minutes!! But, the boys and I could smell the cupcakes and there was no turning back. We all waiting very patiently and hoped that they wouldn't run out by the time we got up to order.

As you can see, they were worth the wait! Jonas was cracking us up making the most hilarious faces while he ate his cupcake.

Asher savored his.


Cards from the boys with the warning from David that they picked them out so it may not say exactly what they mean.

For instance....

And Jonas has expensive taste, picking a card with the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song when opened. Jonas carried his card (again, for ME) around all day and just kept opening and closing it!

pre-valentine preparation

The boys were busy last week finishing up their Valentine's for family and friends. They poured out their creativity on paper with paints and used various painting tools-blocks, small and large brushes, sponge brushes. They added cut-out hearts to their paintings for some Valentine flair!! Asher is especially enjoying trying to write his own name.

vanlentine's crafts

We have broken out the Valentine's Day decorations at our house. You may remember this heart felt garland from last year. I found this cute wreath below and am wondering if I am up to the challenge.

You can make your own felt heart wreath shown above by following this tutorial.
Do you have any craft ideas for Valentine's Day?

better late than never...

May your holiday season be filled with peace, joy and family!
Merry Christmas from The Wilsons!
David, Sarah, Asher and Jonas

happy thanksgiving!

take one

take two

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!! May you take time today to remember all the things you are thankful for and would love to hear what those things are from you.

trunk-or-treat

For Halloween, we went to our church's trunk-or-treat. This is the way to do it if you want to maximize your candy volume while minimizing your distance traveled. It is even better when you have two little ones who are still a bit shy and who don't have the patience to go very far.


Our nephew and neices...

"Calling all units, calling all units..." Fire Chief Jonas


Costumes down to a minimum`````

The boys enjoying their candy on the way home.

Now we can put the costumes away and get ready for Turkey Day!!

trick-or-treating at david's work

One of our favorite Halloween traditions is trick-or-treating at David's work. All of the secretaries set out candy for the kids to trick-or-treat. It's a very calm environment as you can imagine. Do any of you have fun traditions for Halloween?

halloween in hope gardens

We had our neighborhood Halloween party on the same day as our music class dress up day. Since I had learned earlier that day that Jonas' monkey costume was not going to work, we pulled a quick wardrobe change and pulled the fireman costume from our dress up clothes. He was much happier (at least long enough to get pictures and enjoy a few minutes of the party).
Thanks to my friend Rebecca for the chef's hat, I was able to pull my baker costume together in five minutes! (David showed up late to the party as a "business man." ha!)

The party host family...Rebecca (the Cracker Barrel worker), Alex (the mechanic), Gavin (the firefighter WITH his fire engine) and sweet Zack (the race car driver)

And of course, "the baker" had to show up with some yummy treats! I made vegan chocolate cakes so that my vegan friends could enjoy them as well.

And what's a Halloween party without bobbing for apples?!

Sweet London who was quickly calmed by the sweet witch! :)

Our friend Jessi brought three very delicious butters that I could not stop eating! (Thank goodness I am not vegan. :))

Another fun time in the Hope Gardens neighborhood!!

Homemade Valentine's

I was trying to come up with something crafty for the boys to make for Valentine's gifts for the grandparents (my mom and stepdad came into town Valentine's weekend and babysat so we could have a date night!!). So, we decided to do more painting on canvas with Valentine's colors. Asher painted the top two (with a brush and his fingers) and Jonas did the bottom two. Now, I am wishing I would have had them make me one!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Valentine's Day!! My friend, Carrie, made a cute heart garland made of felt and so I decided to try one myself. The results are above. It was so easy! I am back to sewing again...I think the last time I sewed was in high school or even earlier.
I also made these hearts to hang from our lights. Another, quick and cheap project...wax paper and red crayon shavings! Anyone else have any good Valentine's decoration ideas?

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Over the river and through the woods to Nana's house we go!" Asher always requests we sing the "over the river" song when we go to my mom's (Nana) house or to David's parents house (Nana). It's great that we cross a river (or a small creek) on the way to both of their houses. So, this is what we sang on our drive down to David's parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner tonight and what a feast we had. The table was set and gave a warm welcome to all with such creativity. Boxes filled with chocolate kisses and what Pops and Nana were thankful for in each of us. Even Scrabble tiles found their way to our table to say "Happy Thanksgiving."

Of course no Thanksgiving meal is complete without the variety of pies to choose from (or not choose from and just have a sample of all, if you are like me...and Pops!) We had chocolate cream pie, pumpkin pie and apple raspberry pie (my first stab at a fruit pie).

Elijah, Asher and Meadow gave us a small window to play a hand of cards while they watched a movie. (You may notice Asher is wearing his sweatpants since we are not quite accident-free in the potty training just yet. :))

Nana trying to get Jonas to dance.

Angie trying to gather up the family to get Skylar home...who was ready for bed. The turkey drug had finally kicked in. :)

Random picture of Kay and me. I told David I wanted to make sure I was in one of the pictures so that when we look back on this Thanksgiving I'll know that I was there. Ha!

So thankful for this past week of sweet time with family in Ohio and family in Tennessee and for this holiday that gives us an oppurtunity to share our thankfulness!

Now let's get out the Christmas decorations!!

Early Thanksgiving

This past weekend we headed to Ohio for an early Thanksgiving with my family. We decided to take the boys to the Newport Aquarium on Friday evening and they loved it. We went at a great time and it felt as if we were the only ones in there. Can you believe we were able to capture this picture just as the whale was jumping out of the water?
I really liked how this aquarium captured the attention of both Asher and Jonas. Asher at one point said, "I don't like the big fish, just the little ones." Jonas didn't have to tell us what he liked. He would just scream and point to the big fish with all the excitement a one year old can exude.

Saturday evening we got together with my aunts, uncles and cousins on my mom's side. All but one of my cousin and her family were there. The kids all had a great time. My aunt Candy does a great job of bringing plenty of games for the kids to get involved in together.

My mom (Nana) enjoying her grandbabies (Jonas and my sister's baby, Anthony).

Looking forward to us all getting together again very soon(hopefully at Christmas).
(Oh, and this trip was the reason I missed blogging on Friday and Saturday. My mom's computer is SUPER SLOW so I was not about to give up time with my family to blog....hope the blogging world is forgiving.)