Thanksgiving

We decided to put up our Christmas decorations early this year and started the weekend before Thanksgiving. It took us nearly a week to get everything put out though with the boys getting into everything! :-)

Sean was super excited as we decorated the tree. You can tell which ornaments he put on the tree because they are all clustered in one spot. There are 5-6 ornaments on each branch. It's pretty cute. For some reason, Sean calls ornaments "labels". I don't know where he learned that, but he says it just like that's what they are "labels"!

Sean kept telling Ryan all about Christmas and how much fun it was going to be for him. It was really precious. We are excited because we know that Ryan is going to really enjoy Christmas this year!

We had a low key Thanksgiving this year at home with Derek's dad, step mom, grandma, and our good friend Christie and her 2 girls. The weather was surprisingly warm (it was a blizzard last year) so the boys played outside most of the day.

We are so very thankful to God for all of the blessings he has provided the past year. We've had some tough times lately and He has always provided. Maybe not in the way we want, but in the way He knows is best for our family.

The night before Thanksgiving we learned about a tragic accident that happened on a men's outing with our Arizona church family - Northwest Valley Baptist Church. Derek and I were members of the church since before we were married. We were the first couple to be married in the church. The men were in Northern Arizona on rugged terrain when one of the vehicles fell off the road more than 120 feet to the ground. All 4 men were killed. One of the church's pastors and his 15 year old son were killed. He was married with 6 children. We did not really know the other 2 men who died. The pastor who died was such a Godly man. He was the church's Administrative pastor and the school principal. He always showed care and concern for everyone, it didn't matter who you were; he always had time for you. He helped Derek get a job one summer while we were in college. We went through 2 parenting classes with him and attended his Sunday School class for many years. He helped my sister and her kids so much at the school. I could go on and on. There are many great memories! This news made for a somewhat sad Thanksgiving day, but we are thankful for the time God gave us with these wonderful people and the impact they had on our lives. What a blessing that he is rejoicing with the Lord now, but he will be greatly missed! Here is an article about the accident: http://www.kpho.com/news/21734356/detail.html

Derek and I braved the Black Friday sales and waited for about half and hour at Target at 4:30 in the cold! We got some pretty good deals and got most of the items on our list. Some of those people are just crazy though! I talked to several people who had been out since 10:00 PM on Thanksgiving day.

We are looking forward to celebrating our family Christmas traditions this year! I can already tell that Ryan is really going to enjoy Christmas! Sean's ritual in the morning is to get up and examine the Christmas tree. I put some candy canes on it the other night and asked Derek how long he thought it would take for Sean to notice and Derek's response was "right away". Well, he was correct. Sean noticed it first thing when he looked at the tree and spent the morning asking how those candy canes got there even though I told him that I put them on the tree. He insists they are magical!

I'll try and be better about taking pictures of the boys!

Meet the Newest Member of the Wilson Family!

Don't be fooled by the title of this blog - we just got a puppy! :-) We recently got a new puppy Samoyed who we named "Timber". We've had him for about a month and he is 15 weeks old. We had a hard time coming up with a name, but ultimately decided on Timber because Derek and I graduated from Northern Arizona University and our college mascot was the Lumberjack. We also just thought it sounded like a Colorado dog's name!We decided that we wanted to get a bigger dog this time so the boys could play with him more. He will probably be about 50 pounds.

We discovered quickly that Timber loves the snow. When it snows, we can hardly get him inside. He loves to lay in the snow, roll in it, and just eat it! Samoyeds are cold weather dogs, so Colorado is perfect for him.

To be completely honest, after the first weekend with Timber we wanted to take him back. We completely forgot how much work a new puppy is, especially when you already have 2 toddlers! We are crate training him and he's doing really with with his crate. He sleeps in his crate and for the first couple of weeks we were having to take him potty once in the middle of the night, but now he sleeps through the night.

Potty training is another story. Just when we think he's trained, he has an accident. We started puppy training last week so hopefully it helps. Poor little guy is pretty much contained in the kitchen right now until we can trust him not to potty on the carpet. We don't know what to do with him right now! Our trainer has offered to take Timber once a week for a while to work one on one with him. He also has a Samoyed who is 8 years old.

He has a pretty mellow personality, but is still a puppy and likes to chew and gets hyper especially in the morning. His favorite thing to do is pull off your socks! He always seems to go after Ryan when I am holding him and just takes off with the sock. When Ryan is eating in his high chair, Timber usually takes his socks in no time!

All we can say is that this is tough work and look forward to the days when we can really enjoy him! There are many days when we wonder what we were thinking when we decided to get a puppy. It does help that he's one of the cutest pups I've ever seen.

We took him to the vet today and he gained 9 pounds in the past 4 weeks! He's growing so fast!

Here are some pics from when we first got him, but he's nearly doubled in size now. The top picture is from this weekend and the others are from the day we brought him home.

Halloween

The Wilson family is back! I'm such a bad blogger, but I can't find time for much these days. Between taking care of the boys (all three of them!) and a new puppy (post to soon follow), working, and my new jewelry business, I don't have time for anything else! That's why you'll find me updating multiple posts at once!

Okay, back to October when I last posted. Sean was super excited about Halloween this year and he couldn't decide if he wanted to be a Star Wars Clone Trooper or a GI Joe. He ended up being a GI Joe. He got to wear his costume to school and put on a parade for the parents. He was so cute!

The night before Halloween we attended a fall festival at a nearby church and the boys had a great time. Sean played games and won lots of candy. He played in a bouncy house and we ended the night on a hayride. Both boys enjoyed singing songs, especially "Old MacDonald" which is Ryan's favorite!

At the fall festival, Ryan had his first piece of candy. I hated to do it, but I needed to keep him occupied while we waited in the long lines to play games. Anyway, now he always ask for "andy" - that's what he calls it!

On Halloween night, Sean and his best friend Grace went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Sean wasn't going to stop until his pumpkin was full of candy! They were so cute together. They would run from house to house and say "the light is on and we can knock on the door!".

Ryan and his friend Mary Ashlynn (Grace's sister) went trick or treating too at a couple of houses. At first they were unsure, but once they realized that they got candy we couldn't stop them! They didn't understand that once the person put candy in their bucket, it was time to move on so they just stood there waiting for more candy!

If you're wondering why Sean is wearing 3 different costumes, it's because we found the Hulk and Captain America costumes after Halloween on clearance. They make great dress-up clothes! Hope you enjoy the pictures!