Life in the Hamptons

I hope everyone has fun plans for the weekend to get out and enjoy this beautiful weather! I am headed to Memphis to help out my sister who had surgery on Wednesday. So in honor of Memphis (and my sister and brother-in-law), I wanted to share their blog Life in the Hamptons with you.

"The Hamptons" in Memphis is what residents of Binghampton have nicknamed their neighborhood, but don't be fooled. It is one of the poorest, neglected neighborhoods in inner city Memphis. It is also, historically, one of the first African American neighborhoods and also happens to be where MLK, Jr. had his last dinner before being assassinated. Liz and JD have been trying to move into the neighborhood for quite sometime and doors have repeatedly been closed. But God had a bigger and better plan, as he always does and has provided JD with a job at a charter school in the community. That job just happened to come with the stipulation that they had to live there. Perfect! So they are in the process of building their house across the street from the school and hopefully by this summer will be living there full time.

I will no longer try to tell you their story. JD can tell it so much better, so just read their blog. I am not kidding when I say I cry every time I read it (you HAVE to read Matario's story). I have also had the privilege of meeting a few of the kids JD works with from past visits and I love to see the role model he has become to a lot of kids who don't have a man consistently in their lives. They inspire me more than they will ever know and I love them so, so dearly.

photo of the wilsons by j. lauren.

Best of 2011

who missed me? no one? cool...so i'm (ahem) a little bit behind on all of this, i know. but i figured i would do the obligatory best of 2011 post to remember the good times, half of which i failed to blog about in the first place. so here goes...(i'll try to keep it short)

JANUARY:

- auburn won the national championship which was one of the greatest things. part of me never thought i'd see that happen.
- jack turned 1! (and he has since turned 2 as well.)

FEBRUARY:

- we visited david's grandma in st pete, florida. this was the same weekend that mark and katelyn told us they were pregnant!
- i turned 27 and did not blog about it. and apparently didn't even take a picture of it. oh well.
- we kept lil boo while his parents looked for a new place to live all the way in memphis :(

MARCH:
- liz, jd, amos and evie moved to memphis, and i plunged into a deep depression
- amos turned 1! and on his actual birthday, he became a permanent part of the wilson family!

APRIL:

- we celebrated easter with my family which was wonderful.
- it was david's turn to get old and he turned 27. sadly, his birthday was the day the tornadoes came through tuscaloosa and birmingham. (the scotch was his birthday gift...he wasn't toasting the tornadoes)

MAY:
- pierce turned 1!

- if anything else happened in may, i don't remember what it was...

JUNE:
- one of my dearest friends carol got married in nashville. it was such a fun wedding and great times with friends

- david and joel successfully smoked their first brisket (it has been the first in a wonderful tradition now. one of our favorite things to do...we love our "family dinners")

- also, we announced that we are adopting!!

JULY:
- we went to memphis for july 4th weekend.

- we took our annual trip to michigan that is probably what we look forward to most each summer. (don't you like my cheesier than cheese michigan insert in the middle, there?)

- we saw josh ritter in concert which was my favorite show i've ever been to, ever.
- caroline turned 4! i can hardly believe it.

- joel and mandy announced that they were having a baby too!

AUGUST:
- i literally have nothing. have no idea what happened.

SEPTEMBER:
- we visited david's parents in Houston!

- we threw mark and katelyn's baby shower in our courtyard, which was so much fun!

- we said goodbye to david's granny re who went to be with Jesus.

OCTOBER:
- i cut my hair!
- we welcomed sweet avory williams into the world!
- we headed back to memphis.

NOVEMBER:
- we had our incredible blessing of an adoption yard sale.
- we got to visit our friends steve and courtney in austin (who also are having a baby!)

- we spent the week of thanksgiving in houston and then we lost the iron bowl :(
- we were approved for our adoption and are now just waiting to be chosen!!

DECEMBER:
- evie girl turned 1!
- we went cruising...

- we moved into my parents house for a few days over christmas to spend time with liz and jd and the kids...so much fun.

whew! that was alot. 2011 was crazy busy (thanks to instagram for capturing most of these memories) but mostly we were reminded time and time again of God's faithfulness to us. we are so excited for 2012 and all it will hold for us and our little family!

Circus Costumes!

so, last weekend we went to memphis to visit liz and jd and the babies. we got there around 10:00 friday night and liz was making the kids' costumes so we stayed up til 1:30 finishing them. it was so fun and just such a good time to talk to my sister. i love her so much.

anyway, i thought i would share how adorable they were in their costumes. we didn't do any halloween things while we were there, but liz made them try them on so we could see the fruits of our labor (they went out monday night). i think this may have been the greatest thing i've ever seen. amos loved it. evie did not.

the rest of the weekend was amazing and we got to visit their church, which was awesome. i may or may not have cried putting amos down for his nap on sunday knowing we would be gone before he woke up. he had his head on my shoulder and i hugged him and said "i just love you sooooooo much," and he picked up his head, grabbed my face and kissed me. he is the sweetest boy. 

 also this:

Happy Weekend!

we are headed to memphis this weekend and i absolutely can't wait to kiss his and evie's little faces. i am also extremely happy that this hat from last year still fits him.

Happy Labor Day!

over labor day weekend, we went to houston to visit david's parents and see their new house. liz and charlie came with jackson and we had lots of fun hanging out and breaking in the new pool (well, the boys had fun in the pool. i, sadly, never got in.)

but anyway, i haven't been able to get enough of our nieces and nephews lately. they are all at such fun ages. and jackson is nothing if not fun. he's one of the cutest kids i've ever met and can't wait til they move to birmingham. me and jack will be best friends.

Evie Girl

my sister sent me this picture the other night with a text that said "this would be evie waiting by the door where amos is crying in time out." We then sent texts at the exact same time that said:

me: that's totally something you would've done if i was in trouble.
liz: they are going to be bff's like us.

adorable. she will be so tenderhearted...just like her mama.

Then and Now

i'm not sure if you've seen that blog where people take old pictures back to the location where they originally were taken and take new pictures (make sense?). but it's a really cool idea.

a couple of weeks ago, my brother and sis-in-law took my niece to disney world and garrett took this picture from when he was there as a kid. i love it.

p.s. we are back from michigan. pics and a death-defying story to come...

Caroline

my niece is a ham. she's almost 4 and one of the prettiest things you've ever seen. she says the funniest things and i wish i could write them all down for her to laugh at one day. my sister-in-law, alison just emailed us some pictures of her and most of them she was being a total sassy model, but i just loved this one so much because this is totally her personality. she's so completely adorable...or as she would say - adurable.

garrett, start cleaning your gun. 

Happy Easter!

this past weekend, we stayed in town for what seems like the first easter in a while. i love our church a lot so it was great to be there for easter morning. and friday night we hosted a simulcast location of secret church at our house, which was just downright surreal knowing that people all over the country were joining in. 

sunday, we got together with the fam and i got some quality time with some of my besties. we got kids comin out the yin yang these days. they were so fun. and it was good to get some snuggle time with amos and evie since they moved to memphis. evie is not pictured below because she napped a lot. she does that. she's a baby. 

i hope everyone had a great easter!

Happy Birthday, Jack!

our little nephew jackson turned one a couple of weeks ago and david and i went to atlanta to celebrate with our family. he is such a fun baby! always in a great mood and has one of the greatest laughs i've ever heard. i just think he's too precious. it's also always nice to have a reason to get together with david's family. we don't see them nearly as much as we wish we did.

after the party, while playing with some of his toys, uncle david was showing him how to juggle. he thought it was the greatest thing. and then thought he was doing it too. hilarious. just watch.


juggle jack from Rebekah Ytterberg on Vimeo.

Painfully Cute

our friend mandy - who, if you didn't know by now, is a photographer - took this picture of amos earlier this month. i love it so much it hurts a little.

Evie Charlotte

on tuesday afternoon we welcomed little evie charlotte into the world. we [most of us present in the waiting room] could hardly believe it was a girl. i had thoroughly believed this entire time it was a boy - to the extent for the rest of the night i called her "him."


liz has a blog in theory, but never writes on it, so the story goes something like this. she wound up having to be induced due to high blood pressure on tuesday. her whole plan was to go into labor naturally and have an unmedicated delivery. well, the going into labor plan wasn't going to work, but she still went without an epidural for about 9 hours. there were multiple factors: the pictocin, a jerk doctor who broke her concentration, etc. - but she wound up getting the epidural and that turned out to be a huge blessing.

once she had the epidural and got comfortable, the baby's heart rate dipped so they repositioned her and it came back up. they put her on oxygen and she was just about to fall asleep when it happened again. mom went out to get ask them to get the nurse but by the time she had walked out of the room the baby's heart rate had gone down to 64. so i met her at the door and told her that and mom basically made the nurses hop to it. they still didn't seem to be in a huge hurry (but come to find out, there is an alarm that is supposed to go off that just didn't). mom and i left the room as they were inverting her bed to get her blood volume back up. [i might have had a minor break-down in the hallway at this point].

she was rushed off for an emergency c-section. a few minutes later we see dr. derosier sprinting by in full operation uniform...not what you really want to see. but by 4:37, evie was out and liz was fine and everyone was healthy and crying. [it was a blessing she got the epidural when she did, because they would have had to completely knock her out otherwise.

she was 6 lbs, 20" - almost the exact same size amos was when he was born! and she has a head full of blond hair, which was also a surprise, because we just knew it would be dark like jd's!

look at all that hair!

he has no idea what has just happened to him...

wilson family portrait: from a family of 2 to a family of 4 all in one year!

this year our family has exploded! we got jackson in january, amos is march, pierce in may - i don't know where i was on that one. that poor little fella never got a post...sad! - and now little evie.

Happy Veteran's Day, Daddy!

i love you!

Caroline + Amos

last week was my granny's 88th birthday. so me, liz and amos, garrett, alison, caroline and pierce went down to hang out with her for a little while. anyway, caroline wanted to hold amos. which led to this picture that i still find hilarious.

- he is as big as she is.

- he wants to sit up so badly but she is making him lay down like a "baby."

- she is smiling SO big. i love it.

Summer Update

just got back from a fabulous vacation with the ytterberg side of the family. our annual pilgrimage to michigan was so much fun. pictures coming soon...

also, a few months ago - out of boredom, i suppose - i netflixed Twilight to watch while david was out of town. i'm hooked. i'm on the 3rd book and trying to get through it before going to see it in the theater with my friend, laura. if kristen stewart can do anything for society, maybe she will make it cool to be pale again. honestly, i don't know what is scarier: vampires or over-tanned teenaged girls.

lastly, my sister sent me this picture today of amos giving the most perfect peace sign. tell me that's not the greatest thing you've ever seen...you can't. love my little nephew. (is he 4 months or 14?)

Our Memorial Weekend

could i be any worse at uploading pictures? (and, yes, that is a nod to chandler bing). well, i finally uploaded the pictures we took when david's family came over to visit on memorial day. we walked down to mountain brook village for a nice brunch at another broken egg, took some pictures at one of the lookouts, and finished it all up with some coffee at o'henry's. such a fun day!

i love his big blue eyes!!

they are a pretty family

if you are new: liz (david's sister), david (holding liz and charlie's son jackson), chuck (david's dad), and nancy (david's mom)

i think he's pretty handsome. holding a baby suits him, don't you think?

Amos's Baby Shower

last night [this post was started a few weeks ago], our sweet friends mandy and joel came over for dinner and mandy dropped off the pictures she snapped at liz and amos's baby shower. they are so great! i was so excited. i had so much fun making these decorations! i'm so glad we have such great pictures of the day.

it was such a fun day! so many wonderful people came out to bless the wilsons and the arrival of their sweet baby boy. sadly, the stomach bug was going around so amos didn't come until the tail end of the shower to be able to lower the chances of catching it. but it was still such a fantastic day!
also, a huge thanks to morgan who opened up her beautiful salon - morgan ashley - for the day!

this picture is for vanessa

i absolutely LOVE this picture of morgan (dear friend and salon owner) with her son, shepard.

our sister-in-law, alison (who there was 8 months pregnant with our newest nephew, pierce), liz, granny (our mom's mother), momma, and me

sadly, there were so many hostesses and they were coming and going that we didn't get a hostess picture :(