Blogging Break

Response to title = obviously. :)

I just haven't wanted to blog lately, to be honest! I want to enjoy life without feeling the pressure to write about it. So, for now, consider this break to be official! This information applies to all two of you reading this. :)

I don't know if I'll pick back up with blogging or not. I enjoyed it for so long as a way to keep family updated on Eli, especially while he was fighting through all his prematurity-related complications. But now I just don't feel like blogging fits into what I want to be doing right now. I may pick back up sometime soon, but I might just not! So don't hold your breath. :)

And with that.... BREAK!

Sailing, Sailing, the Sailing Life for Me

I can think of a Barney song for every single occassion in my life. Seriously. Is that sad? :)

Anyway, this past week I went on a cruise! My dear friend Sarah and I cruised to the Carribean for our 30th birthdays, a gift from our super-sweet husbands! It was so hard for me to leave Eli, since I've never been away from him for that long, but it ended up being such a perfect little vacation! We boarded armed with books, wine, and plans to read and sleep and relax and talk all we wanted. And that is exactly the kind of vacation we got. We both came back so well-rested, relaxed, and recharged. I loved spending lots of time with the Lord, and I read some amazing books, too. And nothing beats sitting on the beach with a margarita and a good friend!

My favorite moment of the cruise was snorkeling in Cozumel. The water was clear blue, and you could see for miles, it seemed like. The fish and coral were amazing, and it just felt like the most worshipful experience to be in the midst of God's gorgeous creations!

I loved every minute up until the final day "at sea," when the waves were fifteen feet high and the ship was rocking so bad you couldn't walk in a straight line to save your life. :) But other than that not-so-fun afternoon of seasickness, the trip was just perfect. I'm so very thankful for Sarah and the time we had together, and I'm so thankful to our husbands for giving us this experience. Next time we'll let them come with us. :)

*There are lots more pictures on Facebook if you want to see them!

Words About Christmas 2010

We took pictures on Christmas, of course, but I honestly just don't feel like messing with uploading them now! :) So, instead, here is an attempted brief recap of the best Wilson Christmas yet!

-Christmas Eve Day: Eric's dad, stepmom, and younger sister came to visit us. We went out to lunch, exchanged presents, and just had fun talking and laughing together.

-Christmas Eve Afternoon/Evening: I cooked for the evening's dinner while Eli and Eric played. We visited our neighbors, made a cake for Baby Jesus, and opened the drawer on the advent calendar that had the Baby Jesus piece in it. We all got Christmas pajamas, and, after reading the Christmas story, singing happy birthday to Jesus, and eating cake, we tucked a very excited little boy into bed for the night. (He woke up FIVE times during the night because he was so excited!)

-Christmas Eve Later-Evening: Phil and Kelly came over for our annual Christmas Eve fancy steak dinner. The food and drinks were AMAZING, if we do say so ourselves, and we so enjoyed this time with each other! We said goodbye late in the evening with very full bellies and very full hearts! I cleaned the kitchen while Eric put together Eli's big Christmas gift from us- a tractor! We put out the gifts and soaked up the candlelit view of the tree. We fell into bed late but still couldn't sleep because we were just so happy and excited!

-Christmas Morning: Eric and I read the Christmas story together before Eli woke up and spent time reflecting on Jesus' birth. (And I will again highly recommend Walter Wangerin's Preparing for Jesus- an amazing, life-changing book on advent!) Then we paced the hallway outside Eli's room because we couldn't wait for him to wake up! :) I finally couldn't help myself any longer and woke him up at 8:30am. He was so excited to see his tractor! It's a big John Deere pedal tractor that has a front-loader and a wagon and everything is pretty realistic. He loves all his other (small) gifts, too, but the tractor definitely took the cake! We opened our gifts together and ate cinnamon rolls and were so very thankful to be just the three of us in our little warm house. We couldn't have been more happy or thankful!

-Later Christmas Morning: We headed over to my parents' house with everyone else for the big Bergstrom Christmas. It was so much fun, and the kids were all so happy and well-behaved! We had a blast exchanging gifts and watching the kids play, and we ended it all with a big brunch, complete with my mom's traditional raisin bread.

-Christmas Afternoon: We napped and rested and played with new toys! Perfection!

-Christmas Evening: We went to my Uncle and Aunt's house for the big family get-together with all the cousins, etc. It was a blast, as usual.

-The 26th: We spent the day with Eric's mom and stepdad and had another wonderful day celebrating.

It was a fantastic Christmas! After several years of spending Christmas day running from one get-together to another, we determined that we were done with exhausting, stressful Christmases! We wanted a calm, restful day with plenty of time with just the three of us, and we got just that. And by doing it this way we got to spend great quality time with each of the "sets" of family we have, spread out over a few days instead of packed into one day. It was a perfect, special, wonderful holiday that we'll never forget.

Thanks for reading! :)

Merry Christmas!

As a child, it seemed like the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas dragged by. Now, as an adult, as an adult with a child and a "Christmas" to put on for my family, there seems to be not enough time at all between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And while Eli laments the links still left in his paper chain counting down the days until Christmas, I am thankful for each and every one of them left! There is just so much to do!

That said, I am so very excited to finally give the gifts that I have spent weeks purchasing, so excited to see Eli's face when he wakes up on Christmas morning, so excited for him to open that final drawer on the advent calendar and find the Baby Jesus for whom he has so eagerly waited. I'm excited for Christmas Eve dinner with Kelly and Phil, for cinnamon rolls as we open presents in the morning, just the three of us, for visits with precious family.

But most of all this year I am excited for the wonderful work the Lord has done in our hears to prepare us for Christmas. Advent, though practiced "loosely" in years past, has become so real to us this year, and Eric and I both feel like the Lord has truly been preparing our hearts as we wait to celebrate the birth of our King. And Eli has understood so much of it as well, which makes it all the more special to me and Eric.

I hope that you all have a very merry Christmas, filled with the joy of the Lord and the peace that Jesus brought to earth with his birth. Diety stepped into humanity; eternity burst into time; mercy spoke into legalism; peace was offered between holy God and sinful man. Jesus Christ, our Emmanuel was born at Christmas, and, without Him, Christmas is just another meaningless act we perform. Without Him, all of life is meaningless, to be sure. I pray that each of you knows Him and learns of Him more deeply this Christmas. Because, as cliche as it may seem to say, Jesus is the best gift ever given, and the only gift that will last for eternity. All other gifts pale in comparison with the gift of salvation from an eternity separated from God. May we all embrace what Jesus has done for us and fall on our faces in worship as we celebrate the day of His humble birth.

Blessings to all of you, with love!

The Diaper Man

Eli has been showing all the signs that he's ready for potty training. His mother, on the other hand, has been avoiding it like the plague. :) I just can't seem to get myself psyched up for days of accidents on the rugs!

Anyway, I was talking to a friend about how we were going to potty-train our toddlers (she has a daughter Eli's age), and she suggested talking it up for a while and then using a similar tactic to the familiar "pacifier fairy." You know- the fairy comes and takes all the pacifiers away from a child and leaves a surprise in return? Well, this January, the Diaper Man is coming to the Wilson house. :)

It's adorable to hear Eli talk about it...

Me: Who's coming after Christmas?
Eli: Diaper Man!
Me: And what is he going to do?
Eli: Take all the diapers away!
Me: And what do you get?
Eli: Under-woo! (underwear)
Me: And then what happens?
Eli: Go pee-pee and poo-poo in potty!

We have this conversation about ten times a day. :) He's pretty excited about it, and I'm gearing myself up for it, too. The only problem is that he's confused the Diaper Man with everything that happens at Christmas. He knows all about Baby Jesus being born and what we do on Christmas Day, and he's heard a little about Santa (we're trying to downplay him, though), but he's thrown the Diaper Man in the mix, too. We'll pull a link off of the Christmas chain, and I'll comment on how close to Christmas we are. Eli will then say, "Diaper Man coming!" It's amusing. We're trying hard to take emphasis away from the Diaper Man now, though, but he's still lodged in Eli's brain as part of Christmas.

So, this year, we have Baby Jesus, Santa, and the Diaper Man. :)

"Baby Jesus Born!"

This is what Eli says when we ask him what happens at Christmas. I have loved this Christmas season as I watch my toddler begin to understand what it all means. We have tried to be really purposeful with what we talk about and read, what we play with and sing about this month. We really want him to soak up the meaning of this season, to remember the truths that are illuminated through holiday traditions. Because, while he is too young yet to comprehend the meaning of the Son of God taking on human flesh to bring God's miraculous mercy to sinful man, he is definitely not too young to know that Jesus loves him, and that Christmas is when we joyfully celebrate His birthday.

We have an Advent calendar with 25 tiny drawers. I filled it this year with Scripture, family activities, service projects, and the characters from a tiny manger scene. Eli truly delights in opening a drawer every night. He gets excited when Eric reads to us the day's Scripture passage ("Daddy read Bible!") and loves to set up the little manger scene. Today he was playing with it, setting Mary inside the little stable, and he said, "Mary wait Baby Jesus." My heart just leapt, hearing my precious son articulate his understanding of what Advent is all about. Truly, we are waiting for Baby Jesus. We are preparing our hearts for the coming of the King- the humble, infant King born in the lowliest of places, breaking through time and space to bring the holiness and mercy of God to earth.

Eric and I have been reading Walter Wangerin's Preparing for Jesus, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Every day of Advent there is a devotion, a passage of Scripture to read, and a prayer. It has been so amazing to experience God's work in our hearts to deepen our understanding of what it means to wait for our King. We are so excited for Christmas morning, when we'll open the 25th drawer of the Advent calendar and find the tiny Baby Jesus, He for whom we so eagerly wait. Because, as cliche as it sounds to say it, the only reason we have to celebrate this season at all is that Baby Jesus was born.

Obligatory Thanksgiving Weekend Post

Alright, here goes...

On Thursday morning Dallas woke up to rapidly dropping temperatures, high wind, and rain. We were registered for the 8-mile Turkey Trot, but we decided that morning not to run it, since Eli would have been miserable in the jogger while we ran. We want it to be a fun family Thanksgiving tradition, and Eli certainly wouldn't have had fun. So, sadly, we didn't run this year. We had already done several 8-mile runs in the previous weeks, though, so we still feel proud of ourselves for working up to that distance!

We ate french toast and got ready to go to Uncle Albert and Aunt Kathy's house in Justin. A perk of not running was that we got to actually look nice when we showed up versus showing up sweaty and nasty from the long run. :)



As always, being at the White's house was so much fun. It's the classic Thanksgiving there- lots of family, kids running around, tons of food, so much love and laughter and joy... it was just perfect. They even had a bounce house set up out back for all the kids. They all spent hours out there in the freezing cold while the adults all stayed inside drinking cider. :)



We went back to my parents' house for dinner with my sisters and their families, all of my cousins and their significant others, and my aunt and uncle. It was another big, wonderful meal with much-loved family, and we finished the night with crazy games, as usual. Eric and I completed the night with late-night turkey sandwiches, wine, and the Family Stone, as per our tradition.

On Friday we drove to Oklahoma to be with Eric's mom and stepdad for yet another Thanksgiving meal. It was fun to be with that whole side of the family, and Eli did so well on the long car trip. We are so thankful for wonderful families to be with during the holidays!

On Saturday morning we went to the Christmas tree farm to cut down trees with the Heinzs, another Christmas tradition. We stopped for donuts and watched the kids devour breakfast, and then it was on to the farm. Eli had been talking about this for the entire week... "BIG tractor pull us in hay wagon!" It was, as usual, such a fun time with some of our favorite people in the whole world, and the weather was perfect. It was the perfect way to kick off the Christmas season!







On Saturday my mom had the kids over for cookie decorating, though it was hard for the boys to focus because my dad had the train set up and running. :)



On Sunday we went to church, and then we dragged our exhausted-by-the-long-weekend selves back here for some much-needed time at home! Eric worked on putting lights outside, Eli took a long nap, and I spent time cooking and baking. And then we topped the day off with hot chocolate and tree decorating.





And with that, the Christmas season begins! I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgiving weekends as well!