home sweet home...

we are home and it literally looks like a bomb went off in just about every room...the christmas chaos, good but slightly daunting. i've packed up grown out of children's clothes, to make room for new ones. i need to do the same with toys...maybe i'll wait until we've had our Wilson family christmas exchange of gifts. we are doing that tomorrow. so that'll be great:) we are so excited to be home. ethan has said, about 8 times, "i'm so happy to be home mom" "i'm glad we are here mom" "i'm glad daddy and you are here mom"

so sweet.
welcome home.

happy anniversary...

this was us, our engagement picture. today is our 6 year anniversary!!! happy anniversary, kendall. i cannot think of anyone else i would rather have shared the past events with, no one else i'd rather be with now, and no one i'd rather head into the future with. you work so hard, are so patient and kind and have loved me as long as i've loved you:) we also just celebrated the anniversary of our first date, yesterday, it was 10 years ago. we've known each other for 11 years...and i have loved every minute of it. thank you for being a wonderful person, and for making me a better person by being with you...here's to a million more great years:)love you honey!

(ps...this is also my 200th post!)

Wishing you...

a very Merry Christmas and a hApPy NeW yEAr!

Love,

The Wilsons

the cell phone...

i am realizing how many ways i use my cell phone these days.
not only does it:
-store telephone numbers
but it can store other important info. as well.
not only does it:
-have a calculator
but it has a TIP CALCULATOR...invaluable.
not only does it:
-have an LED light that allows you to see who is calling you in the dark
but that light can also be used as a flashlight when trying to go into the room where your daughter is currently asleep.
not only does it:
-have a special ring you can assign to each person
but you can also have a dance party with your children because of all the sounds it makes.
not only does it:
-act as a watch
but it also has that cool airplane mode thingy
and last but not least:
it makes my children happy because they pretend they are calling handy manny, bob the builder and grandma sharon (kara, kay, papa kyle, lewi and jerry) all in one day!

and it's not even an iPhone, it doesn't have a touch screen, or take pictures...that's a whole different post.
i am very thankful for my phone!

snow...

it's just a fact that it IS going to snow and KEEP snowing here. and it's okay, because i have kendall who will brave the cold and play with ethan outside. i just don't do that sort of thing. i don't like to be cold. and i kept avery inside with me...because i just couldn't imagine taking her out in that.

we made it!

we made it to snowy utah today, safe and sound! we wish you all a merry christmas...i'm not sure how often i'll be able to update while i am here...so party on until we write again!

um...packing.....????

riiiiiight.

we leave for Utah in about 48 hours and i don't have luggage out or anything....*sigh* pray that i don't forget any presents!

separation of liquid and solid....or how my toffee went wrong...

warning: this post is very long and has a lot of pictures!

including (but not limited to):

How did the show go, jen?

Tragic Toffee

and

Cute Children

first: How did the show go, jen?

really great, thanks for asking! i was able to get a good spot under some beautiful trees, it was kind of chilly...but a nice change. it was actually a perfect day to be outside all day, i thoroughly enjoyed it! i made more than i made last time, with fewer people total at the show, i think. but i am extremely happy with how it all turned out! yay!

(one lady had to pay me with all ones for a nursing cover and ethan saw the stack of bills yesterday and picked them up and said,"mom, i'm just going to take these, okay?" um, that would be a NO mister, no!)

me being happy with the results of the show

second: tragic toffee (or how to NOT make toffee)

and let me tell you, it was indeed, really bad! i have never made toffee before so i thought i would try it for our cookie exchange we were having today. (it went so well, everything was DELICIOUS! my spoils pictured here. thanks to audrey for hosting and putting it together!) so i get real butter, and have all my ingredients and i am all ready to go and i even got a candy thermometer...i am going to do this thing right! so i am starting out and my ultimate goal of heating this sugar/butter/liquid mixture is hard crack which is 298 to 310 degrees approximately or something like that and the recipe says to heat until 300 degrees...(which takes like 30 minutes to do....)so i am very vigilant because i am determined to make this work. i had it on low heat, i kept it constantly moving, it did not burn the pan at all....but something went really wrong....

just boiling
coming up to soft ball
toward hard ball and we are still okay
soft crack...something isn't right...looking dicey...

hard crack and GROSS(abort abort...not good, not good!)

and i am here to tell you....all my plans just didn't work. it started out so promising and somewhere along the way...it just turned into YUCK! i don't know what happened! do you?

here are some hypotheses....my candy thermometer is cheap and therefore, not that reliable. maybe i need higher quality butter. perhaps my recipe wasn't that great (but it was betty crocker people!) maybe i need to take a class in candy making....any or all of these could be and probably are true. this does not discourage me though. i am going to become a great toffee maker....just not today:)

nasty first toffee try

third: cute children

there are many cute children in the world, and everyone thinks their kids are cute and i am no exception. i think my kids are cute. here are some pictures because i think my kids are cute. thanks for indulging me.

hmmmm...

in our house, i hear this a lot..."i don't want to take a nap mommy, i just want to have quiet time..." riiiiiiight, like little man is actually going to sit there for an hour, being quiet. i tell him, every single time he says this, "you know, quiet time is just as long as a nap, at least an hour, so you might as well go to sleep anyway..." we go back and forth for a while. and then he eventually falls asleep.

keep that in mind.

kendall is home today...he is basically done with his work at school, which is loads of fun. i said to him, "why don't you take a nap?" i think he shot back, "why don't YOU take a nap?" funny. then we were talking and he said, "okay, see ya" and i went and looked for him about 15 minutes later....and where is he?????

taking a nap.

wonder where ethan gets it? i don't wonder anymore:)

saturday the 6th

TOMORROW IS THE HOLIDAY SHOW i am involved in! come one come all! check out the website (all sewn up) to see the type of things i'll be bringing! get an idea of what you'd like to buy;)

922 N. Gilbert, Mesa

we picked a winner...

ethan and avery helped me pick a winner this morning for the giveaway and i think, I THINK...they had a lot of fun. and got to make a big mess...what is more fun than that right?

thanks again to all those who participated who read this blog...i felt all that love and loved it! thank you thank you!

good heavens!

i am participating in the giveaway day with sew mama sew and good gracious!!!!! that list is SO LONG! but i clicked and looked at every one! amazing. this is an amazing amount of people giving! so cool to be participating HERE

now i think i need to rest my clicker finger...man....that's a long list!

Tag Lovies Giveaway

at All Sewn Up....don't comment here...comment there it's so cute!

the ants go marching....

ethan and kendall and avery were playing outside the other day when, apparently ethan was playing too close to an ant home...not a hill, it was just a hole in the ground really. but kendall got him to the door and i heard him crying really loudly so i took avery and he rushed into the bathroom with ethan to put him in the tub. he was wearing sandals and long pants and short sleeves...he had welts all over his feet, on his fingers and they were starting to swell some. his arms were red/rashy looking. he had ants crawling up the leg of his pants. not good folks. they were super tiny ants, but these blisters were huge and bright white with red around the edges. the pictures were taken the day after...so they are all red now. even in between his toes...is there no justice? poor kid. pretty itchy. we have him on benadryl and some hydrocortisone cream for the itch. it doesn't seem to bother him TOO much. but it was pretty traumatic for him. we went and bought some ant killer today in case we have introduced some new "friends" to our house...we'll see.

GIVE-AWAY DAY!

DECEMBER 3

Sew Mama Sew has a master list of people that she knows of that are participating in the give-away day on the 3rd of december. i am going to be participating on my blog All Sewn Up check it out!

happy thanksgiving...

love to you all. we are so blessed!
--from the wilsons

Party at...

Walmart...apparently today when i decided to go to get groceries, half of my ward did as well...

Jaime was around by the dairy followed by Yolanda (so glad you are feeling better!) i saw another chick from the ward as i headed back up to produce and while i was going to pay, saw a FOURTH girl with her two kidlings coming in...what the???? craziness. you'd think it's thanksgiving or something.:)


so excited because i SOLD MY FIRST SLING FROM THE WEBSITE!!! i was actually confused when i saw the email in my inbox...like, WHAT? i don't remember paying anyone anything....and then i realized, they were paying me...priceless! that makes my day:) thank you girl from vancouver WA. audrey, she got the black and white number that you now own, but without the snazzy yellow pocket! myself...i love yellow but to each her own, and well wishes:)

Another Show...

i am doing another show on the 6th of december, at the same location 922 N. gilbert..if you got lost and couldn't come before, i can give you better directions! it was a lot of fun last time, come down if you'd like to:)

Twilight Movie...

yesterday was a big day! Twilight was released and a bunch of friends and i went to see it at 6:45pm. we stood in line from about 4 (i got there at 4:15 or so) with all the other twilight crazies and it was pretty cool. i got a shirt made (see picture):) and i had some rub-on tattoos from my New Moon book which Melissa, Tiffany and i quickly applied:) the movie was good, i thought the actors were a bit awkward at times, especially before they were "friends" after that the kid who plays edward lightened up a little. but bella, come on, crack a smily honey! she's cute but a little deadpan. all in all, not bad, i'm interested for the next one when they have, presumably a larger budget, because those quileute boys better be AMAZING! if you know what i mean....

busy day...

i can feel that this is going to be a rambling post...bear with me. i'll probably throw some pictures of the kids in, just to spice it up:)

so today was like the busiest day ever. and i loved it. i really like having some structure to my day and feeling like i can "check things off" my invisible list that i have, that i had to basically give up or modify once i had children. i no longer had a daily list...it was more of a what can i get done this week list. because with a tiny baby, really any stage of kid, it's a little bit hard to get done everything you could get done by yourself. we know this. so today was a day where i had a lot to do, and it ALL absolutely HAD to be done TODAY! and it got done. and none of the children are the worse for wear. so good.

so i made this bag last night and it basically rocks...if i say so myself. it is SOOOO cute. too bad i gave it away before i could take a picture of it. i am planning to at least make one for me. it's dark blue denim that has white stripes and the inside is a light, bright green with a while pattern on it and it only has one strap, going from front to back (or back to front...work that one out huh?) and on the front i put a felt flower that was probably 4-5 inches across and it was FUSCHIA! and it was roomy, with boxed corners. cute! i'll make another so you can see it:)

so avery does this "hmm mmmm" thing, when she wants to say yes, she doesn't say "yes" she says "hmm mmm" you know like "uh huh" just with her mouth closed. it's pretty cute.

ethan got to watch kung fu panda tonight at a church function while i socialized with some lovely ladies, he is in love with that movie.

what else??? pictures of the kids...



have i mentioned how much i love tortilla chips...it's a lot. they are pretty much my favorite chip.

are you guys making presents for christmas at all? if so, what? i need ideas!!!!

NEW STUFF...

hey, there are some new things at all sewn up: new and lovely fabrics for slings and nursing covers, brand new beautiful burp cloths and the oh-so-fun tag lovies (not new but still cute cute cute!) take a look if you are interested or just want to see the new fabrics:) thanks!

how did it go?

thank you to all who came out to the holiday show and supported me!!! it was so wonderful to see some of you there and know that i am loved. it was a fun time and there were a lot of great products at the show. a good experience for me, i gave out a lot of business cards and i even sold a few things! i am very happy with how it went.

HOLIDAY SHOW!!!!!!!

922 N. Gilbert Saturday 15th, 10am to 4pm

there will be a santa there from 12p-2p and free food, hot chocolate, a bouncy house for kids...christmas music and lots of vendors!!! come on down!!!!

dentist...

so ethan had a dentist appointment today to get a filling...and we told him about it this morning and he went bonkers! the anticipation was definitely worse than the actual thing. he was still crying a little when we got there and the other moms were looking at me like, "hey the dentist is hard enough, can you get that kid to stop?" afraid their children were going to chime in as well. so he settled down, mostly due to the movie that was playing and then they call him back and we go to a little Nemo inspired room, very cute with a futon-like bed for little people. they then tell me they are going to bring him some "juice." i'm saying it was "juice" but they didn't tell me that, until they brought it back and he raced to drink it because we were timing him. then they said they'd give him about 20-30 minutes for that to take effect...oh right...there were drugs in that "juice." and were there ever! i took him to the bathroom to pee and then it took about 10 minutes until he was tripping all over his feet in that small room and i made him sit down because i was afraid he would trip over avery and hurt her or himself. he said, "mom, i'm falling down, why am i tripping on my feet?" he was very affectionate, but he usually is, but he was also very floppy. at one point he actually said (i am not making this up), "i love you mom, and i love avery and i love the dentist!" at least he knows where he can go to get the good stuff:) and he did great, he fell asleep to the tune of laughing gas during the procedure and woke up well and ate well after that, no throwing up. yay team! then avery had a doctor's appointment this afternoon and then ethan gets his stitches out tomorrow. whew!

would you stop posting about Saver's?

i would if it wasn't so flipping amazing! yesterday, veteran's day, saver's had a 50% off sale. that's right people, 50% off. of prices that are already like $2.99 or something. so we popped in there in the morning, before meeting kendall for lunch. and the parking lot was FULL and the lines from the registers were amazing. i've never seen that many people in there before. but, alas we couldn't stay, so we met kendall and then went back later in the day. and it was pretty picked over in some places but i got a pair of old navy pants (grey really cute), a pair of mossimo corduroy pants and a pair of NY and Company goucho pants for $9. all of them for $9. that's $3 EACH! that's just criminal. so AWESOME!

and now i'm done.

now this is funny....

wouldn't it be great to set fire to the whole thing?

Cancer Walking...

here are some pictures from our cancer walk. it was really cool to be there and see so many people supporting this cause! it was a river of people! and the lines for the port-a-potties were long as well!

there were survivors there and a few "almost" survivors, not done with treatment yet and there were all sorts of people walking for brave women they knew. very inspiring. i was glad i had the opportunity to go. apparently the secret to getting ethan to sit in the stroller for a while is give him an IPOD to listen to...who knew huh?

CANCER WALK

don't forget, i'm doing a cancer walk on saturday and if you want to donate, THERE'S STILL TIME! you can donate through the button on the right or you can give it to me personally if you are in AZ...but please do, if you feel so inclined. and i don't think i mentioned this before but my in-laws company, who i am walking with, is matching all of the donations! yay! so thank you if you already have and if you haven't...do if you wanna!

more halloween pictures??????

no but it was kind of scary...today ethan had his cyst over his right eye removed at Phoenix Children's Surgical Center. He did really well, a few tears going to the Center and a few more coming out of his drug induced sleep. he was just disoriented and scared when they had to take out his IV (which was actually in his leg). he has had the cyst since he was born (and before;) and we decided to get it out because the doctor said it can thin the bone underneath and cause a break or if he were to fall on it, it would break and give him an infection etc. so we got it removed. kendall and i were both able to go because we have THE BEST SISTER IN LAW EVER! Elise volunteered herself to watch avery, which was so sweet! thanks so much elise! and avery had a blast, so we are all well. i was nervous about the whole procedure but i was also nervous about him coming out of the anaesthesia because he is prone to throwing up, but he has done really well so far. another part i thought would be hard is he had to be fasting to go. so he ate dinner last night at 6:30 and said he wasn't hungry later so he didn't eat until after the surgery and you know what? he didn't mention being hungry one time! good job ethan! the great news, cosmetically speaking is that most of the incision is in his eyebrown line so that should not draw too much attention...or we'd have to start calling him harry potter:)

before: sorry it's fuzzy...


after: yay for popsicles!

HOLIDAY SHOW!

If you are in Arizona or going to be in Arizona on Nov. 15th (and possibly Dec. 6th) PLEASE COME TO MY HOLIDAY SHOW! there will be a santa claus there, hot chocolate, music and me selling stuff...but it would just be fun to see you too:) tell all your friends...there are a lot of really cool vendors that are going to be there. plus i'll be there...that's reason enough, right?:)

yo ho yo ho....

a pirate family for us...we had a great time at our ward trunk or treat...i think our trunk turned out good:) ethan had a great time helping me paint our treasure chest! i thought kendall made an exceptionally good pirate...a little a la jack sparrow. and a good time was had by all.

amazing amounts of ribbon...

i just added new tag lovie blankets to the "selling stuff blog" i just liked this picture...so much ribbon, so little time

wow...

The Thirteenth Tale.


I just got done reading this book (that's right, book clubbers...stake a claim on it) and it was so twisty and wonderful. i just loved it. It was one of those time when i couldn't do much else but read (too bad, because i do have a holiday show on November 15 see My Craft Cottage for details...) and i loved every second of it. i might read it again...to catch what i didn't the first time...after everyone else has read it of course. so someone else read it so i can talk about it with you!!!! so good.

the great pumpkin...

we carved a pumpkin! yay! ethan helped by scooping yuckiness out of the inside



and telling daddy what shape to make the pumpkin's features and where to put them. a good time was had by all. avery sat in her chair and watched and wanted to eat the yuckiness out of the pumpkin...oh well:)


so they both got suckers to top it off! fun! yay halloween!



(and i looked somewhat akin to wretched that day so why we decide to take a picture THEN...i don't know!)