This is just a quick post to share a recipe I stumbled upon on pinterest. This cake was delish! In fact I made it twice in one weekend (one cake I took to a dinner party)! The recipe is from Adventure’s in Cooking, click here for the recipe.
I did not take process pictures but I will try to remember the next time I cook something yummy. I did however take a picture of the second cake…
A few days after Christmas we had my siblings and parents join us to celebrate Christmas, New Years and my brother’s 23rd birthday. We have a lot of fun when we get together and I am a very lucky girl that they have made the trip north many times in the past year!
My brother was unique as usual!
Our second “Christmas” dinner…
We have a family tradition to have “crackers” for Christmas and I have continued this fun tradition! The kooky little prizes, lame jokes and funny hats always give us a laugh!
We had our own little party for New Years Eve that even included a homemade photo booth!
Happy New Year! Welcome 2012!
We Wilson’s stayed at home for Christmas but we still spent Christmas morning with my parents and siblings (who live 500 miles away) via Skype. I love technology!!! We even got a family picture on Christmas morning using a tripod, wireless remote and Grammy & Grandpop entertaining the kids on the computer. Seems excessive I know but I’m a sucker for pictures…
Here is a picture of the tree after “Santa” came Christmas Eve. “Santa” went a little crazy this year!
One of the favorite gifts was also one of the coolest (at least I think so!) I bought the pirate themed tepee from a talented lady on Etsy. Click on the picture below of my son joyfully playing in his new oasis and it will take you to her shop.
Daddy got a Perplexus Epic for Christmas and he finds it both addictive and frustrating:)
I also purchased some cute printables for Christmas. The kids loved them but we all had fun with them! Sometimes it’s the little things that make BIG fun!
The food ideas below came from Pinterest. My favorite was the santa strawberries, mmm whip cream and strawberries served up with a side of cuteness!
Up until 2 days before Christmas we had NO snow but like magic snow appeared on Christmas Eve! I love a white Christmas…
Miracles happen. They are not always big and many people take them for granted but they happen just the same. Every day with my children is a miracle that I am so very thankful for. This sounds sappy and almost cliche but if you know our story you might understand this statement a little more. After the death of my first born, my life was full of darkness.
These two little boys have brought blazing light back to my life!
Christmas is about Christ in this house, but we do indulge in pretending there is a Santa. Gasp. We don’t overdo it. We read more books about the birth of Jesus and what christmas is really about than Santa Claus. I think imagination is an important part of childhood and don’t think and harm is being done.
We did the Polar Express for the first time this year. The whole family dressed in pajamas and made the hour drive to take the train ride. We sipped on Cocoa, ate cookies, sang carols and saw santa. What’s not to love!?
Lucas’s favorite parts of the trip were the fancy tickets and looking out the window.
Jonah’s favorite part was Santa and the hot cocoa.
Though all of theses favorites paled in comparison to the bells that Santa gave out! We heard jingling bells all the way home…
Of all the holiday decor the little people nativity set is the family fave! The boys spend hours a day playing with this set. It warms my heart when I hear Jonah reciting his version of Jesus’s birth!
We give Thanks for all of our blessings great or small.
The homemade decor for the mantel.
The yummy pumpkin, turkey shaped pancakes I made for the boys to kick of our day of thanks. I topped them off with mini chocolate morsel eyes, and for that the boys were truly thankful!
My little babes in their turkey shirts I got off of etsy.
I will veer off subject for just a minute to tell you that I am a BIG fan of Etsy and Pinterest! I purchase many items from etsy artisans and I gather inspiration from both sites. No I am not being paid for this endorsement it is just a fact 🙂
We had a light dusting of snow for Thanksgiving and it made everything all the more festive.
My Aunt and her family joined us for our feast. It such a nice visit! Below is a picture of the cousins playing Star Wars. Little Jonah is very quick to announce that someone is the “dark side” (Thank you Daddy) and what family visit is complete with out a light saber battle!
The countdown has begun to our official first day of homeschool and I am trying to be as prepared as possible from the start. Today I ordered a set of colored chalk pens from Amazon and I can’t wait for the UPS man to bring them to my door! Now it may sound silly that I am so excited about chalk…but I.AM.SO.EXCITED! Colored chalk that is contained in a pen means unlimited mess free creativity! Let’s just hope they actually work:-)
I am a professional photographer but there has been a sad number of pictures of my youngest two on my walls…until now! I love gallery wrap canvas and I think they go well with our living room decor. Please excuse the cell phone picture:)
My husband’s 31st birthday is this week. He get’s 2 parties this year. One party was this past weekend with my family and he’ll have another little celebration on his actual birthday this coming weekend with my inlaws. Mike has a small obsession with apple products and so I couldn’t think of a more appropriate party theme 🙂 Here are a few pictures from our soiree last weekend.
This home is wild and full of love…we are the Wilsons! I am the mother of 3, wife to an amazing man, photographer and now I am also a homeschooler. Our life story is complicated and peppered with great love and great loss. This blog will contain bits and pieces of our continued journey through the loss of a child, adoption, homeschooling and life in general.
My husband and I met while in high school, cliche I know but we feel we were truly lucky to have found each other so early in life. We will be celebrating our 10th anniversary this year and look forward to aging together. Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, girl has baby and they live happily ever after. Life is not quite that simple and rarely goes according to our plan. Our first son (Caleb) was born with profound challenges and passed away at 4 1/2 from medical complications. Caleb was and is one of the greatest joys in our life. His strength and love was amazing to behold and is our inspiration to this day. We started our journey to special needs adoption when Caleb turned 2. We felt we had more love and care to give to a child who did not have a family to call their own. Sadly there are a plethora of such children and we wish we could adopt them all, but that is obviously unrealistic 🙂 It took us 4 years to get the referral for our son Jonah but he was worth the wait! Jonah was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and this disability will affect him for the rest of his life. For those of you who do not know about FAS, let me tell you that the condition is completely preventable which is the saddest part of all. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is the result of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. It is unknown how much alcohol is “safe” if any and so the only way to prevent FAS is to NOT DRINK ALCOHOL while pregnant! Jonah is learning new skills every day and it is unknown how his disability will shape his life. As with Caleb our motto is “Hope and strive for the best but plan for the worst.” This means never say your child can not achieve something, do all you can to help them thrive but make sure you are able to accept the realities. A few months after we got Jonah’s referral we found out we were expecting a baby. We were blessed twice in one year! Lucas was born a happy healthy baby 7 months after Jonah came into our home. Our boys love each other so much it takes my breath away. It makes me sad that Jonah and Lucas did not get to share that bond with Caleb but they will know him through us.
Our decision to homeschool was not made lightly. To be honest I wasn’t sure if I could make that sacrifice. Due to Jonah’s disability he has a short attention span, poor organization skills and does not handle transitions well. We tried public and private preschools and finally decided he really needed to be home-schooled. The public school system in our area was not meeting Jonah’s needs, in fact he didn’t seem to be learning anything. Once we moved him to an all day private Catholic Preschool he was thriving in the classroom but the transition to home after the school day and on the weekends was a nightmare. He would scream for hours for no apparent reason. We learned from his teacher that there were a handful of younger children in his classroom that were throwing tantrums and Jonah was mimicking their behavior. He seems to gravitate towards the children who misbehave and takes their behaviors to new extremes. After some research we found this is common for children with FAS. The behavior he is imitating now gives me a headache but is relatively harmless, I am concerned about what will happen when what he is imitating is not so benign. Every child learns differently and with homeschooling we will be able to cater to each child’s needs. This is a brand new world for us and I am sure there will be good and bad days but I think this is what is best for our family.
Thank you for reading and God bless!
♥ Sarah
Wild Wilson Love 