Wilson Family Reunion

Over Memorial Day weekend, we headed for the Smokey Mountains for a reunion with David's mom's family. This included twenty-three adults and children under one roof for four days and three nights!! Here is Kay preparing a meal for all of us our first night in the cabin (we took turns cooking each night).

To keep our sanity, we would all head out of the cabin in the mornings. For our first venture, we decided to hike up to the Laurel Waterfalls. The kids enjoyed any area where they could climb up and down a few rocks.

We also were privileged to see a bear during our walk. The bear was actually walking on the trail until it turned off and went down through the trees. You can see the park ranger in the picture so all were safe!

Our second day we decided to do try out a classic Pigeon Forge outing....putt-putt golf and bumper boats. Our family was the only one to do the golfing but the boys thought it looked fun (at least for the first three holes..ha!). Thankfully, they were free!

One night we headed to a creek and the kids loved playing in the water, finding rocks and of course, throwing rocks in the water.

I think Jonas could have moved to the creek for how much he enjoyed it.

One of many attempts to get a picture of all the kids.

Before we headed out of town, we stopped at a kids ride park. Jonas decided he wanted to do this...

We had a great time in the mountains and enjoyed spending time with family we don't see very often!

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!!

early egg hunting

My mom came to visit before Easter so we decided to give the boys a little practice in Easter egg hunting. They enjoyed the candy inside but I think they enjoyed hunting even more. They would find the eggs and then kept asking us to rehide them. What fun!!

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!

Christmas catch-up

We had a wonderful month of December, counting down the days until Christmas morning. The boys' excitement grew as we made cookies and gave them to some of our community workers, bought presents for our Angel Tree, watched several classic Christmas movies, read great Christmas books, visited the Christmas train display in Cincinnati, spent time with my family in Cincinnati pre-Christmas and time with David's family post-Christmas (and that is our short list)! I wish that I had pictures for all of Christmas activity but Santa waited until Christmas morning to bring my new (well, refurbished) camera. However, I was able to capture some of these memories even post-Christmas!

The boys made these candy Christmas trees at Breakfast with Santa.

Our gingerbread house!

Santa brought the boys a parking garage.

David and his dad displaying their fun t-shirts. The boys got David a Green Lantern t-shirt for Christmas (this was one of his favorite comic characters growing up.)

Santa also brought Asher a football uniform that now has become his everyday uniform. He loves it to say the least!

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

count down to christmas

So this is NOT my advent calendar above but the one that I got the idea from. You can go here to learn how to make your own from Jolly Allsorts blog...if you dare!! :) I would show you a picture of mine but my camera is not working. :( How can this be with the first day of December tomorrow. I may need one of my nearby friends to stop by daily and take pictures of our happenings until I can get mine fixed. OR, maybe I should change our first activity to "go buy a new camera." ha!! Well here is our final list that we hope to attempt this advent season. Would love to hear how you count down to Christmas! Special thanks to Carrie and Rachel for your ideas.

12/1 Read the Nativity story

12/2 Buy present for Angel Tree.

12/3 Watch Christmas movie of choice.

12/4 Go to Breakfast with Santa.

12/5 Make gingerbread house.

12/6 Make Christmas cookies.

12/7 Give cookies to trash men.

12/8 Make jingle bells and sing song.

12/9 Read a special Christmas book.

12/10 Give cookies to firemen.

12/11 Watch Christmas movie of choice.

12/12 Walk through Bethlehem.

12/13 Give cookies to mailman.

12/14 Take dinner to a needy family.

12/15 Donate winter coats.

12/16 Deliver gifts to Contributor vendors

12/17 Give cookies to policemen.

12/18 Clean out toys.

12/19 Learn a Christmas song

12/20 Go see Christmas train display

12/21 Watch Christmas movie of choice

12/22 Make a donation to non-profit of choice

12/23 Write letter to Santa.

12/24 Set out cookies for Santa.

12/25 Make donation to Heifer International.

If you are looking for a unique look at Advent this Christmas season, the Martha O'Bryan Center has created a weekly look into some of their families' lives and sharing their stories. Go here to learn more.

Hoping to post my finalized count down to Christmas activities tomorrow!! Please feel free to share any more ideas you may have for our family.

advent sneak peak

Here is a quick sneak peak of the advent calendar that I have been working on since LAST Christmas. I think it should be ready for December 1 of this year if I can get 5 more red buttons. The ones I went with were not what I had in mind but I gave up on it just to complete this already too long of a project. I still would like to solicit some of your help for this calendar. While I will go with the fun, traditional theme of filling each day with a special chocolate candy for us to enjoy, I also found a cute idea of including an activity for our family to do each day. Here is a sampling of things that I have come up with so far but would love any other ideas!!

-Give cookies to our trash men, mailman and local firemen and police men.
-Take dinner to a family in need.
-Make homemade decorations for the tree.
-Make cut-out sugar cookies and ice.
-Buy presents for an Angel Tree child.
-Make a gingerbread house.

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.

birthday cards

One of the things I look most forward to on my birthday are David's homemade cards. I think he should quit his daytime job and go into card making. Below from left to right are cards from Asher, David and Jonas.

Inside of Asher's card...

Inside of Jonas' card...

Inside of David's card...

He does a great job of capturing the boys' personalities and what they really might say if they were writing the cards.
Love these boys and love my husband!!

farm birthday party

Jonas' second birthday party almost didn't happen. We scheduled it a week after his actual birthday due to David's dad, Ralph, having bilateral knee replacements in the hope that he could attend and even kept the invites to family only. Things got set back for Ralph, sickness invaded our home (including David's mom, David and Asher) and I finished up a week of playing nurse. However, the cake had been made! And, despite Asher having a fever, our family was still willing to risk it for Jonas' sake.
So we bought some balloons that I turned into farm animal heads.

I made a barn cake and with a few of Jonas' favorite barn animals (made of fondant) to go with it.

His favorite was the sheep (or baa baa as he likes to call it).

Both my boys go into their shy mode when the singing of "Happy Birhtday" breaks out.

However, there was no shyness when the cake was passed out to eat.

Asher and Daddy sporting their farm animal visors...and Asher's visor upside down pretty much sums up his entire party experience. Does this boy look sick or what? David and I would take turns sitting in the corner with Asher to keep him away from our guests. (We didn't find out he had strep until the Monday after the party...but I realize we still look like bad parents.)

The Party Guests!




I was so thankful my parents were able to make it down and were a huge help to make this party even happen. We all were pretty worn out and David's mom even came despite not being back to 100% from her sickness. I am thankful for our family's support to help us celebrate Jonas' second birthday and make it such a special evening!!