Thanksgiving in Searcy

This was our year to spend Thanksgiving in Searcy with the Wilson clan. Due to some conflicts we celebrated Thanksgiving on Monday and had such a fun time. The kids had a great time playing with their cousin Emery and getting to sleep at Grammy and Pops house!

Playing with Emery

Sweet girl -- she LOVES Emery!

Harrison wasn't too sure about sharing his toys!

This is the after dinner look.

Enjoying some after dinner ice cream -- like a true Wilson!

Yummy!

Lovin' some of Grammy's cake.

Uncle Matt getting kisses from Emery.

Harrison "helping" Pops work.

We all had a great time & came home stuffed! I enjoyed getting to help Grammy in the kitchen, cooking the meal together. It was soooo yummy. Madeleine and Harrison got to spend some quality playtime with Uncle Cameron -- they love that! We're looking forward to next year!

Ten Things I'm Thankful for This Year....

1. I have two beautiful, healthy children.
2. I have a great husband that works so hard for our family. I love him so much!
3. I am able to stay home with my kids. Even on my worst day at home, there's no place else I'd rather be.
4. I have such wonderful parents. They have lived out the truest example of a Christian life. They now some of my best friends and my greatest encouragers.
5. I have a sister extraordinaire! Even with more miles between us, I know I can pick up the phone and she'll be there to listen and support me. It's true that no one ever loves you like you sister.
6. I have great in-laws. We have a wonderful relationship and I love them very much. I realize this is pretty rare.
7. I have a beautiful home where we're making many wonderful memories.
8. We're settling into our new life in NWA & we love it up here! I'm thankful this transition has been incredible smooth for everyone.
9. I'm thankful for my friends -- old and new.
10. I'm thankful for the promise of a fun Christmas season. I've been looking forward to this all year long!

Happy Turkey Day!

Harrison is 23 Months!

I can't believe that in a little under 4 weeks we'll be celebrating Harrison's second birthday! Where has my little baby gone???? He's definitely showing some signs of a true two year old as we get closer to the big day!

* Harrison is now fighting back when Madeleine takes his toys/bosses him around. He will fuss back at her (it's about time!). They're having to learn to compromise a lot more these days.

*He has learned to count! He can count to three on his own and to ten with just a little help.

*He is still quite a momma's boy, which I love. He is constantly giving hugs and kisses to all of us. He loves to come running to me and throws his arms around my neck and squeezes so hard! I love it!!!

*He is a champion sleeper -- in his bed! When I say naptime, he'll run to his room, get a book and climb in the chair and wait for me. When we're through, he'll get another book, put it in the crib and wait for me to lift him in. Then he'll read his book and roll over and go to sleep. Wonderful!!!

*He's is really getting into boyish toys. He loves cars and will "drive" them all over my walls. He also loves farm things and animals. He also likes to color and I'm constantly finding stickers all over my house!

*He has discovered Dora. This little guy would watch Dora 24/7 if I'd allow it. His favorite is Swiper and he'll wave his hands and try and say "swiper no swiping." When he sees swiper on the TV he yell's "uh-oh" over and over.

*He is sooooo fascinated with Christmas. Every time he sees a christmas tree he will scream. He went wild over our neighbor's lights when he saw the for the first time. He's doing really great about staying away from the tree, so far. He has two favorite ornaments -- a house and a cat. The cat ornament is in the back of the tree and I'm often hearing a "meow, meow" behind the tree. He just stands and points at it and meows.

*He's learning how to build with the legos. He gets so proud of himself when he puts 2 pieces together. He'll clap for himself and yell "yay."

*We're working on having an inside voice because most of the time Harrison has one volume -- LOUD!

*He is still into everything! I have to work hard to stay one step ahead of him. He's becoming such a climber and his new favorite thing to do is climb into his feeding chair and buckle himself in......only problem is that he can't unbuckle yet so he just screams until I come get him out.

*He's such a ham! When we start laughing at something he's doing, he'll continue to do it only with more exagerated movements, just for a laugh. He can be extremely animated and makes the cutest faces -- especially with those dimples! He love the camera, most of the time, and will say "cheese" whenever I get it out!

I can't imagine what we'd have done if this little boy hadn't been part of our lives! He's just pure joy!

Thanksgiving Feast

Today was our Thanksgiving Feast at preschool. It was so cute & fun! Madeleine's class had a blast preparing the sweet potatos for everyone & they even tasted pretty good. :) Harrison refused to wear his cute little Indian outfit that we'd made, so he's not in any pictures. He also refused (at first) to eat anything other than a cookie. But, mom won that battle and after eating some turkey and green beans he was given the coveted cookie! Oh, I see the stubborn 2's in the very near future....

Here's Madeleine and her friend John Haley making sweet potatos.

Madeleine's class.

Me and my girl. Her class made pilgrim hats and collars to wear. They also did a little Thanksgiving play. Her sad face is because she got a splinter on the playground. :(

Madeleine and daddy.

For those of you interested, here's a video of Madeleine's class doing their little play.

Okay, already!

Thanks to my sister (who got me all set up) I am now on facebook. One more thing to keep up with......

Reinstituting the Nap

Have I mentioned that I've decided that Madeleine NEEDS to take a nap again? She quit taking one at three, but lately she's been so cranky that I've decided that we're bringing it back. She's doing OK with it.....her main motivation is that she gets gum when she wakes up. What can I say, bribery works. The only negative is that she doesn't go to sleep until around 10pm, but she's so much more pleasant! Hurray! I've completely forgotten what it's like to have an hour to get something done in the afternoon, and I'm thankful for each day that they both are napping!

Check out this sweet face.......

Fall Pictures

This weekend while at a birthday party, we discovered a fabulous new park here in NWA -- it's actually named Wilson Park -- and I think it's going to be our new favorite place to play!! So, Tuesday afternoon I hauled the kids (Harrison just getting over another fever virus!) to the park to capture the last of the pretty fall days around here.

Future tree hugger????

Another fall leaf.

Harrison was NOT wanting his picture taken, so I just let him go and focused on Madeleine.

Love this face!

Harrison's CHEESE face.

There's this Gigantic tree that just begs to be climbed!

Yep, this is how I look after only a few hours of sleep thanks to Harrison being sick!

While at the park, Madeleine and I collected a bunch of different leaves and are planning to do some Leaf Rubbings together this week. She's getting so big!! It's such fun to do crafts and fun little activities with her -- always during Harrison's naptime, of course! He's on a "crayon-break" since he's been using the wall as his canvas of choice lately. Thank goodness for the aquadoodle!

On another note, Madeleine is doing great at preschool this year! She can spell A BUNCH of words -- pretty much all the colors and can read/write a good handful of words as well. She wants to know how to spell EVERYTHING. She copies words and we're working on sounding out words as well. She's so proud of herself when she finds a word she knows in the book we're reading! I can't believe how fast she's catching on to this! I still find myself amazed at her -- it's such an incredible feeling to SEE her learning how to read & getting to help her.

We did have our first little teacher conference today, though. She and a boy in her class we caught kissing!!! Yikes! Apparently he was trying to kiss both of the girls in the class! So we've had to talk about how that it's only okay to kiss the people in your family -- not friends. However, it does make me feel that we're doing a pretty good job of keeping her innocence since she didn't think anything of kissing someone else -- she didn't know that was NOT okay. She and Harrison are SUPER-affectionate, as is our whole family, so I think it's just natural for her. But, I didn't think her first kiss would come in preschool. :)

Halloween

We had such a fun time on Halloween this year! Madeleine had the whole routine down and led Harrison the whole way! Harrison kept trying to eat the candy as soon as it was put into his bag -- wrapping and all!! He pretty much pooped out after a few houses, although Madeleine conquered about 1/2 of our neighborhood. Pretty good for a four year old!

This year she was Tinkerbelle and Harrison was a Lion (since he just LOVES to ROOOAAARRR). He wasn't too sure about the costume at first, but then decided he looked pretty cute after seeing himself in the mirror. Madeleine was excited that she got to wear make-up and kept telling me that fairies alway wear lipstick! They got quite a haul, but I think Madeleine's favorite part was handing out our candy to trick or treaters. She'd give them a handful -- so we ran out of candy pretty fast!!

This is how Harrison got home. He's still carrying his bag -- wouldn't let anyone touch his candy!

Pretty fairy

Earlier in the day.... Madeleine was dressing up and Harrison decided he'd get in on the action, too with some high heeled shoes. We really need to get this boy some more boyish-toys!! He's getting pretty good a heeled shoes and tea parties!

Harrison checking to see if there's any candy in there.

Where we've been....

Last week Harrison was hit with both a fever virus and the stomach flu. Yuck! It's definitely put me way behind on my To-Do List!! I think I washed every towel in our house -- twice! Thankfully, he was much better by friday and excited about Halloween.

This is what happens when Harrison's up all night sick.....he fell asleep in the middle of the playroom floor. Madeleine had to get in on the photo shoot, too.