School and Emma's Birthday!

More changes continue to come our way as I am finally back in school again and hopefully for the last time (well, at least for my bachelor's)!! I am getting my degree in Psychology and eventually I want to go on and get my masters degree in Marriage and Family Counseling. That will probably be down the road when our kids are in high school! I started taking classes September 2nd going to the University of Phoenix ground campus. I decided the online classes weren't for me. Jesse is also going to the UOP ground campus. It is fun going to school together. I feel like we are newlyweds all over again.haha Jesse has about 1 year left for his bachelors and my plan is to double up on my classes and finish in a year as well. It is nice living so close to Malin and Sarah as we are able to swap babysitting. Sarah watches our kids when I go to school and I watch their kids when she teaches piano. It works out perfect.

I have been begging Jesse the last few months to get orange trees for our backyard. As soon as September came around, we finally went to the Leaf and Feather farm down here in Maricopa and picked out a Naval and an Arizona Sweet orange tree. We planted them right away but it was not easy work. It took us all afternoon just to dig 2 holes in the ground. It was like trying to dig through rocks. I am so excited to finally have the trees and can't wait until they start producing.

We celebrated Jesse's 26th birthday on September 16th. He stayed home from work that day but we both had homework and class that night so we couldn't do much to celebrate. I want Jesse to know that I am so grateful to him and love him so much! He is such a wonderful husband and father. Jesse is always so willing to help me whenever I need him and he always has such a positive attitude. I am so grateful for the love he has for the gospel and his desire to serve. He is so outgoing and always wants to invite people to our home to develop new friendships. His latest desire was to get a volleyball net for our backyard so we can invite family and friends to come play. We did end up finding one on craigslist, of course, and now that the weather is so beautiful, we can actually start playing. Last Friday, as soon as Jesse came home from work we ended up calling some couples in the ward to come over and play volleyball. I thought we had a pretty good turnout for being so last minute. After it got too dark, we all went inside and got some games going. We had a lot of fun and hope to keep it going. I think Jesse's dream is coming true.haha We love our husband and father!!

Two weeks later, on September 27 (her birthday is really the 30th), we celebrated Emma's 2nd birthday!! Emma is growing up so fast. She is quite a girl! Emma is always wearing her princess dress up clothes and changes outfits at least ten times a day. Her latest thing is that she has to do everything herself. She used to bring all of her clothes to me to put them on, but now she tries to put them on herself. However, 90% of the time she has them on backwards or inside out or some other way and when I try to help her, she adamantly says, "I DO IT!" OK, whatever precious wants.haha It was fun having lots of family over to celebrate her birthday. Thank you everyone for making the drive and thanks to Dayna for saving my Crayon cake. I thought it turned out pretty good for piecing it all together. Emma loves her cousins and talks about them all the time. It was so funny watching Emma open her presents as the cousins were swarming around her all trying to see what she got.

After the party, all the women went to the Relief Society Broadcast while the dad's stayed and watched the kids. It was so nice to go with my mother and mother-in-law as well as some of my sisters. The talks were all so excellent and I came away feeling so uplifted and motivated to do good. I love that feeling! We came home from the broadcast and got 2 games of Acquire going with Nelson & Kelsey, Malin & Sarah, Sarah's parents, and Jesse & me. Guys on one game, girls on the other. I am ashamed to say I lost but I'm sure there will be more games to come.

Elias is now 8 months old, he has 8 teeth, and he is crawling all over the place. I can't believe how fast he is going through each stage. It seemed like it took Emma forever to scoot across the floor. Elias pulls himself up and tries to climb over everything. He is such a cute kid and is constantly smiling. We love both our kids so much!!

Family Pictures

Here are some family pictures taken on July 19, 2008. It was quite the experience! The whole time we were trying to take pictures, Emma would not cooperate. She was trying to run away the whole time. Finally we gave up and settled with what we had. As soon as we were sitting down with the lady to pick out our pictures, Emma goes in the photography room, sits down right in the center where we tried to get her to for the longest time, looks up at the camera and says, "Cheese." What a character!!

A Brand New Home!!

I can't believe it's been almost six months since I have last updated our blog. So much has happened and many changes have taken place. The biggest change for us has been moving to Maricopa and purchasing our first HOME!! We absolutely love it and have had fun fixing it up and adding our own special touches to it. Jesse and I came out here one day with a realtor to look at some homes. Surprisingly, ALL of the homes we looked at were foreclosures. It is so sad. The first home we looked at scared us because it wasn't in very good condition and the realtor said this was actually pretty good condition for a foreclosure. We were afraid all of them were going to be like that. Anyway, as we went from house to house, they kept getting better and better, thankfully. The very last home we looked at was not on our list. Our realtor just picked it out thinking we might like it. The home ended up being right behind Malin and Sarah's home! Out of all places. We immediately fell in love with the home, and the fact that it was SO close to family made it all the better. A few days later we put a bid on the home and a month later we moved in. Our home has 3 bedrooms/3 full bathrooms and a den. It has a pretty good size backyard for Emma and Elias to run around and play. I was so excited about that. With lots of help from family, we were able to paint practically every room and move in. We want to thank all of you that helped! Many hands make light work. Our digital camera has been broken for a while so we don't have many pictures of the home yet, but will be adding them shortly.

As for the kids, it's hard to believe Elias will be 6months old on Tuesday the 29th and Emma will be 2 in September. They are so cute and I am so grateful for the opportunity I get to stay home with them to watch them grow. Emma is definitely a girl. She tries on everyones shoes and loves to dress up. But I think her favorite "outfit" is her swim suit. She cries when we take it off and we have to hide it from her so she won't want to wear it. Emma talks all of the time, but as for understanding what she is saying, that's a different story. She is speaking a complete different language.haha

Elias is our little chunk! Oh he is so cute and juicy. I can just sink into his cheeks.haha He had colic the first 4 months, but has been so much better ever since we have moved. He now sleeps through the nights(woohoo) and takes 1 to 2 hour naps. His smile just melts us.

Jesse and I have been busy continually fixing up our home, painting, pulling weeds, decorating. It seems like our projects are endless but we are grateful for them because it means we have a home (if that makes since). I feel it also brings us closer together as a family. Jesse continues to work hard and go to school full time. Emma loves when her daddy comes home and I definitely love it. Every once in a while Jesse will get off work early and surprise us when he walks in the door. We love those days and he loves to see our surprised faces when he walks in! We have been so blessed as Jesse has a good job with good managers and people to work with. It also helps that Jesse is able to carpool with Malin and another guy in our ward into work. It saves on gas as we now live 30 min. from his work. Well, this has gone on long enough. Life is good!

Elias William Wilcock Has Arrived!!

Woo Hoo! Elias has finally arrived. We have been waiting for this day for quite some time and can't believe it's already come. We are so happy and love our new addition to the family! He has already brought us so much joy, and this is just the beginning!

Elias William Wilcock was born on January 29, 2008 (my birthday) at 11:42p.m. weighing 7lbs. 4oz. And 20 1/4 in. long. So here's the story. On Tuesday, the 29th, Jesse woke me up before he went to work to give me a birthday present. He had printed out a lot of our wedding pictures, which we had failed to do for 2 1/2 years. He also printed out many other pictures for me and put them in an album. What a great surprise! He then headed off to work, so I thought, and I went back to bed. Around 8:30a.m. I see him pull up to our house with flowers & breakfast in his hands. After handing me these things, he had me put on my jacket and follow him outside where he had a BIKE waiting for me. I couldn't believe it! We had joked about getting bikes before but I didn't think he would actually get me one, especially right now. I was so excited and shocked at the same time! It had been a very long time since I had ridden a bike and I forgot how fun they are. Well, Jesse ended up taking the day off and he went with me to my Doctor's appointment. My doctor said I was dialated to a 4 and said she had an opening that night at 7p.m. if I wanted to be induced. To make a long story short, Jesse and I talked it over and decided to take that opening. We spent the rest of the day shopping, cleaning and doing laundry trying to get ready for the baby. We even had time to squeeze in a little bike ride together. I looked so funny riding a bike at 9 months pregnant, but it was so fun. The day went by so fast and we rushed off to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at 7p.m., they started me on pitocen about 8:30, at 10:40 they broke my water and at 11:42p.m. the baby was born! It really was such a fast delivery compared to the Emma's and I feel like my healing process has been a lot better. Emma has also been handling this older sister business pretty well. She just loves holding Elias and giving him kisses! It is so fun to watch her with him. Overall we are doing great and loving life.

Catching Up!!

These are a few pictures my Uncle Wick & Aunt Lynn took of our family!

Wow, has time flown by! I can't believe the last time I updated our blog was Halloween. Everything has happened so fast. Well, Halloween was fun, Thanksgiving was great & Christmas was even better. I guess that sums it up, thanks for checking out our blog!j/k I'll back up to Thanksgiving. We had such a great time spending Thanksgiving together with my(Esther's) family up here in the Mesa. I'm not going to lie, I was a little disappointed we weren't going to Ajo for Thanksgiving as I was looking forward to getting away from the city. However, Colleen's brother-in-law and family were so generous to let us use their beautiful home with a HUGE backyard for our family get together as they were out of town. We had so much fun playing tennis, eating, playing football, eating, relaxing and of course eating. It was fun to be all together and have Grandma Lewis and Aunt Duraye join us as well. The day after Thanksgiving, Colleen, Dayna, Janae, Julianne & I all got up at 4:30a.m. to go shopping!! That was probably the first and last time I will ever do that but it was lots of fun. A few hours later, we all went to the temple together as a family. I love going with family, it always brings us so much closer together. I truly have so much to be grateful for.

Christmas

For Christmas, we went up to Show Low to be with Jesse's family. I think one of the highlights of this trip was going down to the Cibicue branch, where Mom & Dad Wilcock serve, for our Sunday meetings. Most of the family was there and each one of us shared our testimonies of Jesus Christ. It was such a neat experience and the spirit was so strong. It was also neat to hear the story of Christ's birth with all the Smith family gathered in the barn at Grandpa Smith's home. I have never done that before and it really put it into perspective for me the humble circumstances that our Savior was born into. Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year and it was fun to spend it with the Wilcocks.

(Left)

Emma & Aunt Jenn

get caught eating food

inside the pantry!!haha

New Years!

For New Year's, we went down to Ajo with all of the family. We played lots of games, especially Acquire. I don't think anyone ever gets sick of that game in our family. The guys went out to the "beautiful, green" Ajo golf course and played golf while the girls went to the church with all the kids and learned part of a dance from Janae and Julianne. I didn't want to miss out on all the fun so of course I joined them. I looked so funny trying to dance with my big pregnant belly. The biggest highlight of that trip was the announcements of Colleen & Dayna both expecting! We are so excited for them. Also, early New Year's Eve morning, we opened up our family gifts to each other (I love it when Christmas is extended). All the kids got mom and dad Lewis a blanket with pictures on it from when mom and dad were babies up to now with their entire family. Dayna was so nice to put in so much time and effort to making the blanket. She did such a beautiful job.

It is now January 22nd and things have calmed down a little as we are waiting the arrival of our second child that will be born any day! We are so excited and anxious to get this baby here. Hopefully the next time I post, we will have put pictures of our new little boy on!!

Emma's Birthday & Corn Maze etc.

Emma already turned 1 years old on September 30th. I can't believe how big she's getting! Time just flies by way too fast. It was so fun to get together with the Wilcock family & Colleen & Seth & their cute family for Emma's birthday. It was so nice of them to make the effort to come even though Emma won't remember it.haha Emma was so fun to watch as she didn't quite know what to do with the cake we set in front of her. She, being the petite girl she is, just stuck her little pointer finger in & kept doing that until her Aunt Jenn finally shoved her whole hand in the cake. After that, there was cake & mostly frosting everywhere. What a funny girl! It was such a nice day, we decided to go to Kiwanis park which is just minutes from our home. It's so nice to be able to do things outside now that it has cooled down.

The following week we traveled down to Ajo making a stop in Gila Bend to see Julianne's Volleyball game. It was so fun to watch her play. She had some great blocks & hits. We then traveled the rest of the way to Ajo & enjoyed a fun, relaxing & uplifting conference weekend down there. It's always fun to be with family & the talks were so good! We had such a great time. Thanks to mom & dad Lewis for having us.

I'm finally catching up, this past weekend Jesse, Emma & I went up to Snowflake to go through the corn maze & pumpkin patch that Kelsey's family put together. A lot of my family were also able to attend, so we got to have another reunion. We just can't stay away from each other.haha It was so nice of the Willis family to let us ride horses when they were so busy getting things ready. Friday night we attended the Show Low vs. Snowflake football game where Show Low creamed Snowflake. I knew I married right (Jesse's from Show Low for those of you that don't know).haha Friday night Jesse's mom watched Emma for us while we stayed in Snowflake for the night. It was such a nice getaway as Jesse has been so busy with work & school. Saturday Jesse's mom brought Emma to meet us at the corn maze. It was fun to see Rachel, Jason, Jace & Kasey there too. We made it through the maze, picked out our pumpkin & headed off to Show Low. We had a great weekend just relaxing at mom & dad Wilcocks home.

Now we're finally home for a while & catching up on misc. things. I have finally decided to go back to school & today is my first day online. We'll see how things go.

Labor Day Weekend & Babysitting in Ajo

For Labor Day Weekend, we really didn't want to go anywhere because I was in charge of teaching the Young Women's lesson on Sunday and we didn't want to deal with traffic. We started the weekend going to my cousin Parker's football game out in Fountain Hills. We met up with Nelson & Kelsey, my dad & Jacob, Uncle Wick & later.........much later, Dayna & Glen. It was so fun to go to a High School football game again. It's always nice when you know someone on the team too. Chino Valley did such a good job, they kicked Fountain Hills trash.haha After the game we didn't want to say goodbye to the family yet, so we went to Wendy's for a late night snack. Then Saturday, we had cheap tickets to the ASU football game. It had been a long time since I had been to an ASU game & that was Jesse's first time. It was so much fun, especially since ASU won. Sunday is always a great day. We just love our ward! It was nice to finally get my lesson over with. I only have to teach the lesson 3 times a year in front of all the young women but I stress out so much over it. I have to start planning a month in advance or I just don't feel like I am prepared. Jesse is always so good and patient to help me out. I love his insights & thoughts. Anyway, it went well & I don't have to worry about it for another 3 months.haha OK, so Sunday night we had Janna, Jesse's sister & her husband Adam over for dinner. Afterwards, we played games and tried to plan out what we wanted to do for Labor Day, after talking a while, we came up with the BRILLIANT idea to go to Rocky Point. So we headed down to Ajo, spent the night and early the next morning we went to Rocky Point. It was definitely hot & muggy down there but the water was perfect! we had so much fun playing, shopping & getting our hair braided. We finally started heading out around 3:30 hoping to get back to Ajo to have a BBQ and swim some more. When we got to Sanoyta, about 2 miles from the border, we hit traffic. To make a long, boring story short, it took us 5 hours to finally get to the border & head on our way. We finally made it back to Ajo by 10:30p.m. What a day!! We decided never to do that again. We made it home safe & that's all that matters.



Wednesday, we had an etiquette dinner for the young men/young women. The leaders got to sit in on the meal while other members of the ward served us. It was really set up very nice, with cloth napkins, goblets, etc. It was fun for Jesse & I to get dressed up to attend. This was a great activity for the youth & leaders but definitely a lot of work.



Thursday morning, I headed down to Ajo to go be with Julianne & Jacob. I was so excited when I got there that as soon as I got out of the car I accidentally locked the keys & Emma in there.aaaahhh!! I quickly rushed in to get Julianne. She grabbed a wire hanger for me & we tried to unlock the car for about 5 min. By this time, Emma started crying. I started panicking but then said a prayer to myself. While Julianne ran in to go call Kord Kleinfelter, who owns a NAPA store in Ajo, I began playing peek-a-boo with Emma to calm her down. She even began laughing. She is such a good baby. Kord came over about 5 min. later & quickly got the car unlocked. He was so nice about everything. We were definitely grateful to him.



The rest of the week was lots of fun as we played sardines, laser tag, climbed a little mountain, etc. Bishop Moore was also so nice to let Jesse & Jacob borrow their 4-wheeler on Saturday. We love going to Ajo! It is always a nice relaxing getaway! The only downfall of the week was hearing of Sunny Butterfield's passing away. It was very sudden & took us all by surprise, even though she's been sick for quite some time. I was able to stay a couple extra days to see my parents & attend the funeral which was very nice. All-in-all, life is great!



Sorry, this entry might be a little long and boring.