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family nativity

i present for your viewing pleasure the wilkinson family nativity.

mary, joseph and the baby Jesus

cute little wise man

hark! the herald angel sung

and the sheep. good thing we want more kids. we were kind of scrapping for parts!

visit from the Dicous - Thanksgiving weekend

we had a lovely visit from some of our favorite people Thanksgiving weekend. the Dicous came to stay at "Hotel Wilkie". we ate. we biked 35 miles. we stayed up late talking. we went to see Donny & Marie (she's Donny's dog's vet!) and even met them. Marie gave Bishop and Aaron a "man hug". they came to church with us and looked like proud parents while they watched me lead the music in sacrament meeting.

thanks for a great weekend - we love you guys!
i only wish sister D had sent me their "over excited" picture. if you think ours was funny you should see theirs! :)

em's first time climbing (Dec 4)

we bought a childrens' rock climbing harness when i was pregnant with emery 3 years ago. we were clearly a little over excited. it's hard to believe, but we actually have a munchkin big enough to fit in it now. emery did so good her first time climbing and her daddy was SOOOOO proud.

and mom and van had fun too. van ate rocks and mom made sure he didn't choke or crawl off a cliff. :)

brave

we interrupt these holiday updates to bring you a brave (spelled out on his forehead to try and distract him at the doctor's office) little boy with a broken arm. got jumbled amongst five 3-year-old girls at the top of the stairs and fell to the bottom. fractured both bones just above the wrist. he's taking it in stride. in 4 weeks he should be good as new.


something about my son tells me this isn't van's last cast.

Holiday Catch up

We're a little behind, so here's some of what we've been up to!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our Wilkinson family in Filmore, UT. We eat in a barn (with 100+ people!), go on a hay ride, eat the best meat you'll ever put in your mouth, dress for the 10 degree weather and just enjoy spending time together. So festive! Emery is a little obsessed with horses right now, so needless to say she LOVED the hay ride and the wild horses. Until she got tired and fell asleep at the end. Which was awesome because she REALLY needed a nap.




We've also been up to the usual Christmas festivities, including decorating the tree and our house (and our heads with pretty Christmas bows), seeing lots of Christmas lights, Christmas crafts, making ornaments and making gingerbread houses with Emery's cute bff Ruthie! Here are some pics of those!




We also had a visit from our favorite Dicous, Aaron and I rode biked together for the 1st time and the kids and I went to the beach with Grandma, Pa, Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. More to come.

Thankful

Since my Aunt Heather thinks that everyone's blog are too quiet and this is basically my way of journaling, I thought I'd just write tonight about what I'm thankful for, it being November and all:

• I'm thankful that Aaron has a good job. Did you know that Las Vegas has the highest unemployment rate in the nation? This is a scary place to live right now. But we are so blessed that Aaron has a great job that makes us enough money that I can stay home with our babies. My dad likes to remind me of that when I whine about him being out of town or working a 12 hour day (like today). He tells me "But at least he has a job". And it's a good one. My dad is so right.
  
• I'm thankful for prayer and fasting. I'm an awful, terrible, no-good faster. I eat about once every 2 hours on normal days so I'm prone to getting really low blood sugar, really fast when I try and fast. Yesterday was one of those days. I really didn't think I was going to make it. But I've discovered the key to fasting - fasting with a purpose. And not just a purpose, but a purpose that matters so much more to you than your own physical pain. A purpose for which you'd sacrifice food for much longer than a day if the Lord would just grant that blessing to the person for whom you are fasting. And then pray. Pray that you'll have the strength to make it. It works. My fast was physically easy yesterday after I got down on my knees and pleaded for His help. It's cool to see a physical blessing come from a spiritual plea. I was very literally physically sustained by the spirit. I wish I could have a fast like that every month. I guess I have time to get there, right?
  
• I'm thankful for friends. My friends saved me two weeks ago from what could have been a very terrible, abnormally emotional (for me - if you know me you know I'm not very emotional), lonely week. But they were here. And they always are.
• I'm thankful to be a mother. I have 2 amazing kids and as much as I want more, if I never got them I'd still be a mother to the 2 most amazing creatures I've ever known. I can't believe we created them. I couldn't ask for more.
• I'm thankful for Target. Shallow, I know. But I really am. $0.74 hand towels for my kids' bathroom make me so happy.
  
• I'm thankful for the innocence of children. They are so purely charitable and mine teach and remind me every day how much I often lack. I talked to Emery for 5 minutes about giving the money in her money jar to sick kids who need it more than she does and she jumped on giving it all to them. Would I give all of my money to them if I could?
• I'm thankful that I found Van doing this today.