our first trip

okay so i would love to tell you that this was our first trip to somewhere really cool and exciting. somewhere we'd all been waiting to go and i would love to tell you that it was great. nope, not this time. this time it was our first trip to the emergency room. i'm a bit late in posting this (a little bit of stress and a few colds and well, here we are) but asher fell on a pot in the kitchen. no, i'm not making this up. he was carrying the small saucepan around the kitchen. something he has done hundreds of times. he loves to play with the pots, loves the noise. he needed a diaper change and as i went to pick him up he decided to try to run. not a great idea with a pot in your hand. over he went, onto the pot which was on his pinky finger and off to the e.r. he and daddy went. (i was told to stay home since i was already crying and pete figured if they had to stitch him up i would really lose it...not sure if that's true but there was a definate possibility - i hate getting their shots!!!) so they had to swaddle him and then stick him in a papoose thing to strap him to the table. our little strong man broke out of his papoose while they were stitching him and they had to hold him down. yeesh! so two stitches later he climbs into pete's arms, immediately stops crying and when pete asks him if he's okay goes "yea!" that's our little man. all is healed and well now but i can say this was not the funnest of experiences and quite the mommy guilt (i should have caught him, i should have taken the pot, i should have...). what i have learned though is that no matter how much we watch and are in the room we can not protect them from everthing. i mean who would have thought a pot could result in a cut worthy of two stitches. guess he'll just have a good story to tell when he gets older, and i'm sure he'll be quite proud of the fact that he broke free of the straps and impressed the hospital staff with his strength. in the meantime i'm still a bit leary of the playing in the pots and pans cabinet. =)

the wounded pinky

i wonder...

does mommy guilt every go away? i mean really. even when your rational brain says there's nothing to feel guilty for (and your husband, family and friends all tell you the same thing), why is it that as a mom you somehow feel you should have been able to see into the future, to predict the outcome and somehow then go back and prevent that outcome from occuring? are we wired this way? are we taught this through generations of other mothers? are we all just gluttons for punishment? why do we beat ourselves up for things that are beyond our control and when you get right down to it not our fault? yet, despite these facts we feel we should have controlled the situation and therefore things are indeed our fault.

why we as women (and i say women here because i do not think i am the only one) do we so often struggle with our images of ourselves? most of us have husbands who tell us daily that they love us. we have friends and family that enjoy being with us and seek out our time, our advice, our sheer presence in their lives. yet, despite this we still secretly wonder if those things are really true. we wonder if we really do enough? if we've really measured up? and that's just it....measured up to what? to whose standards do we hold ourselves? is it really society's or our friend's or our family's or is it really our own ridiculously high standards? standards that we somehow set for ourselves that are so high they are barely visible, let alone obtainable.

why there are still times when i feel that being a stay-at-home mom is not enough? when people ask me what i want to do with my life i always reply that i am doing it. i am raising my children. i am home for them. yet, invariably comes the follow-up question of "yes, but what do you want to do with your life?" why does this question make me both defensive (i just told you!) and at the same time wonder if my "ideal job" is not really ideal enough? isn't raising my children the most important job on the planet? teaching them about the world around them, about God, about relationships, about values, about how they are important people who should be valued, loved, respected and cherished at any age, i could go on forever here, isn't that vital to who they will become? i can logically tell you that raising children is hands down the most important "job" so why do i still feel that this is not a high enough goal for my life when i'm questioned about it?

why if i can rationalize myself through so many of this things do i still wonder about them?

do other people wonder these things too?

the lone male presence

so this past weekend we got to host a crazy party. my girl friends from college came to visit for the weekend and brought all the little ones. we had 7 kids 3 and under. wow! it was lots of fun and the kids had a great time playing with each other. here's the hilarious part. with all those kids asher was the only boy. poor little man! he didn't seem to really notice or mind though. katherine got each of the kids new jammies for their big slumber party. all the girls were in purple polka dots and asher got a new pair of cammo ones. here's all of them together:

paige, julia, bella, emily, claire, mia and asher (kind of easy to spot him huh?)

mia made quick friends with julia and the two of them had fun playing together and watching movies. julia could hardly wait for mia to wake up from her nap so they could play some more. mia also made a new friend whom she lovingly calls "the other amy" as we already have a friend amy that lives here in town. everywhere amy went mia wanted to go to. if amy was feeding the twins mia wanted to help. amy was great with her and mia has asked about her everyday since they left. (where's amy - the other amy - and the babies? are they coming to my house soon? can we go to their house and play today?) it's the way we start our day. what can i say amy, you have a fan! =)

mia and her amy

it was a great weekend to catch up, see how much the kids have grown since we got together last and just be together. we are so glad you guys all made the trip. we loved having a busy houseful! here's the other hilarious part: my friend alli and i are both expecting and are due on the exact same day! now what are the odds of that? of course this means that the next time we all get together there will probably be even more little ones. we have gotten ourselves completely outnumbered...and of course we wouldn't have it any other way!

all the mommies and their little ones (and yes, asher has had enough!)

2 plus 1

so we have been keeping a little secret. our two little ones are going to be joined by a third little miracle! we found out after thanksgiving but kept our little secret until we could surprise our immediate families with news at christmas. we're due august 1st but since both our other little ones were c-section we'll get to pick this baby's birthday and will probably deliver sometime at the end of july. we are so excited to be adding another little one to our family. mia is already such a great big sister and asher loves to hug, kiss and carry all of mia's baby dolls. he'll make a great big brother. =) we'll keep you posted on all the latest baby updates and look forward to introducing you to our newest little one late this summer!

dancing diva

so here's our little ballerina before her first dance class last week. she got all her dance stuff for christmas and was so excited to go to class. she loves her little skirt and is still working on the concept that her dance shoes are only for class. =) she gets to do 1/2 hour of tap and then 1/2 hour of ballet. it's so cute to watch 2-3 year olds following their teacher and trying to learn the steps. adorable! she heads to her next class tomorrow. hooray, hooray!

photo shoot

we had a photography student we know come in to take pictures of the kids between thanksgiving and christmas. kind of for asher's one year pictures and kind of just for us. we have always been happy with our portrait studio pictures. though they capture a hint of the joy, personality and life of our little ones they don't capture all of it. we wanted something a little more artistic and a little more "them". we were amazed at the pictures that we got back. they are phenomenal and she even put them in a slideshow to music for us. alicia was wonderful with the kids and the pictures are just as wonderful. i can't put them all on here but here are a few of our favorites.....

happy new year

very simply from our family to yours, we hope you have a wonderful new year full of God's blessings and love! happy 2008!

christmas celebrations

we had a really nice christmas. as i mentioned a little in the previous post we spent christmas eve with pete's family. poor uncle jimmy had to work until 6 that night so the rest of the family was very sweet and came to our house. that way when asher needed to crash he could do so in his own bed. we had a great time. there two hilarious highlights. 1. when mia opened her dress up clothes from grandma and grandpa. besides the fancy dress, jewelry and crown were a pair of sparkle purple high heel dress-up shoes. she instantly had to put those on and try to walk. it was hilarious! she did finally get the hang of it (and if i can get the hang of posting video i'll try to put a little of it on here later.) of course her cousin liam had to have his turn in the too. and he leads us to our second highlight....the snowglobe. i got a penguin snowglobe and once liam saw it the rest of his evening was a moot point. he sat in my lap and either shook it or wanted me to shake it for the rest of the evening. he laid it on the ground and studied it from all angles. you could see him trying to figure out how to make it work.

mia with uncle dave

asher gets a new bears scarf from auntie K (just like daddy's)

christmas morning we spent as a family at our house. it was great to spend some time just our little family. we opened gifts from santa, then had breakfast and opened gifts from each other. mia got a kids camera and she was loving it. still trying to figure it all out but takes it everywhere with her. asher was not so into gifts. he was happy to just sit and cuddle with mama or dada. mia did most of his unwrapping. =)

then it was off to my parents house for lunch and a third round of gifts. i think it was honestly the longest it has ever taken us to open gifts. we opened for a while then took a break for lunch. then we went to open a few more but the kids needed naps so we continued the pause until after nap time. then with snacks in tow we sat down to finish our unwrapping. the first thing mia opened was a vacuum from uncle eric. her day was over. we tried to get her to come back to open more and were told she was busy vacuuming. she would begrudgingly put the vacuum down every once in awhile to indulge us and open something else but would invariably return to her beloved vacuum. it was hilarious! asher's favorite things was probably his car set with a twisting ramp and elevator. he had lots of fun sending cars (and anything else he could think of) down the ramp.

then saturday we headed to grammie's house (my mom's mom). we had christmas with her family. again we were so spoiled by everyone. asher was too tired by the time we got to gifts so this was how he and pete spent the gift opening session....

mia simply spent most of her time with grammie. the two of them have the most unique little bond. since day 1 she has been in love with her grammie (and the feeling is mutual). there has never been hesitation or shyness. mia simply walks into and around grammmie's house like she owns the place...and grammie happily lets her. =)

mia with grammie and her new singing puppy from grammie

it was a wonderful christmas and we hope you all had a blessed time celebrating the birth of Christ. merry christmas!

..I-S-T-M-A-S

since i started our christmas letter days i figured i should finish them for you all. here's the quick run down of our other days...

I- we ended up eating italian, incredible turkey/cheese roll-ups and ice water (not too good with the I's yet). then we made interesting and inventive gifts for our families. since christmas is over i can now tell you that the kids each made a magnet for grandparents and aunts and uncles. mia colored and stickered her pictures and we used asher's fingerprints to create a little wilson family on his. then we glued the pictures to magnets and voila a little handmade gifts from the munchkins. it's really important to us to teach our kids that christmas is about giving and celebrating that God gave us Jesus. creating gifts for others is one way we try to do that.

S - we ate sandwiches and salty chips then sang songs and wore our santa hats. we also read santa stories.










T - we had tacos and tostito chips for dinner. after dinner we took toys to the homeless shelter in the area. it's a shelter for women and children. again, we want to show the kids that christmas is about the birth of Christ and giving his love to other people, especially those who are not as fortunate as we are.

M - we had mushroom burgers. it's this yummy vegetarian recipe we found that we love. the kids even like it ... most of the time. tonight was music and a movie night. just a relaxing evening before the festivities began christmas eve.

A - we had an amazing dinner with pete's family on a day that was all about Jesus. mia wanted to bake Him a cake (it's his birthday afterall) and she decided that cupcakes were better. not really with the "a" theme so they became adorable cupcakes and the meal simply became amazing because it was (and because none of it started with "a"). we went to church to adore our savior and then came home to an amazing amount of gifts.










here are the kids opening gifts with daddy and uncle jimmy.

mia in her new fancy dress, shoes, crown, jewelry and princess wand. look out world!

S - we were going to start our morning off with scrambled eggs but when it came down to it none of us really wanted them. so, no realy "s" food. we got presents from santa and then slipped and slid our way over to my parents house for more christmas celebrating.