Switchfoot, Third Day and Jars of Clay - Music Heaven!

Our friends Kat and Rich invited us to go with them on Thursday night to a concert at Dodge Theater - we had such a great time! Brendon and I love listening to great music... especially REALLY loud rock and roll! We had amazing seats - 14th row from the front and dead center! The best band by far was SWITCHFOOT - they were AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The concert started at 6:00 and we left at 10:30 and it still was not over - how awesome is that! Five hours of incredible music!

We had to get home around 11ish because our babysitter had school the next day... babysitting has to be the sweetest job around! Odd fact, but did you know that what it cost for our babysitter for 1 night is almost half (probably closer to 1/3) of what it costs to have a nanny per week?!?! Hourly babysitting and weekly nanny positions' pay scales are polar opposites! Another thing to add to your family budget if you are thinking of having kids=)

Brendon takes most Friday's off and tries to do something with Daniel so I went and got a Spa Pedicure - ahhhh! I actually won a $50 gift certificate to this salon (I can't say I have never won anything anymore!) so it made the pedicure all the more exhilarating!

Have a great Saturday everyone!

Vera Bradley Bags and Soy Joy Bars

Last night Brendon brought me home a huge treat... a Vera Bradley Super Tote in Raspberry Fizz! http://www.verabradley.com/Site/Store/ProductDetail.aspx?dept=7&sku=10382%3a9

As I had mentioned in a previous blog, I am a part of a Beth Moore Ladies Bible Study on Sunday nights and I bring Daniel with me because all of my babysitters are busy on Sunday nights. The first Bible Study last week, I was rushing out the door and trying to gather some toys for him and then I thought what huge bag is going to hold all of these toys? So I just ran in the pantry and grabbed a big shopping bag. At the Bible Study, a lady I met for the first time asked me about my shopping bag from Cornelia Park http://www.corneliaparkstore.com/shop/index.php/cPath/25_171_174_234 so I told her that someone had given me a gift from there for Christmas and it was the biggest bag I had to hold all of Daniel's toys. She told me that she knew the owner of the store and that she was a territory manager for Vera Bradley and that she had to get me a Vera Bradley Super Tote to tote around all of Daniel's toys so yesterday she dropped it off at the church office and Brendon brought it home to me and I just love this bag!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You must check out the Vera Bradley collection which Oprah recommends as well!

Lastly, have you ever tried a Soy Joy bar? You must! They are made of whole soy and dried fruit and they will totally fill you up when you get that snack craving! And... here is my "thrifty" self coming out=) CVS has them on sale 2/$1 and in our Sunday paper they had two coupons for them... one was Buy 1, Get 1 Free (which would make them $.25/each!) and another coupon for $2 off when you buy 10 (which would make them $.30/each!) and I had some Extra Care Bucks from CVS so I got 12 bars for free!

Daniel is still not feeling too great so we have not really gotten to hang out with anyone over the past couple of days but almost every night, we all go for a walk (when I learn how to post pictures, I will take one of Daniel is his cute car) because the weather is actually cooling down here - only 103 degrees today but trust me.... that is cooling down! So, it has been really nice taking evening strolls through our neighborhood park!

Brendon is at church tonight and I am going to finish making a Photo Book on Shutterfly!

My poor baby is sick=(

Sunday morning we woke up and Daniel had a really bad runny nose and a little cough and today he started weasing - I feel so bad for him. My heart just breaks for him - it is amazing how being a mom totally changes you... I wish I could be sick for him. It is so hard for me to see him not feeling well=( I wish he could tell me how he is feeling or what he would like me to do for him but for now I just have to guess!

Yesterday was my turn to help in the nursery at church for both services and between my wonderful husband, my mom and my brother... they all took turns watching Daniel because we didn't want him in the nursery infecting all the other babies.

Then we stopped at Pei Wei on our way home to pick up lunch and fed Daniel some tofu (which he loves!) then put him down for a nap... what a life a 13 month old has, huh?

Then we headed back to the church in the afternoon because I had a couple of 201 interviews to conduct and these are really cool.... basically, every new member at our church takes a personality profile test and a spiritual gifts assessment test and when we get the results back... we set up interviews with each person to go over their results and recommend some areas for them to get involved in the church that match up with their results. It is also a way for me to get to know the new members that I probably wouldn't get to know that well.

Then I am taking a Beth Moore Bible Study at church... which I love and her Bible Studies have changed my life! I have gone through Daniel, Believing God, When Godly People Do Ungodly Things and now we are doing Breaking Free. I have also seen her live twice which has also been awesome! The weekend of September 5-6, I got to go with 27 women from church to Las Vegas to see her and two other super powerful speakers!

As many of you know, Brendon and I own a printing and marketing company (http://www.brendonwilson.org/) and I am a part of a networking group called BNI (http://www.bni.com/) which is an amazing international group of people looking to build their business through networking... so I was asked last week to become Vice President of our chapter for this year. Today I had to go to Scottsdale for a training on this position so Grandma and Uncle Phillip got to watch Daniel this afternoon and as always just spoiled him rotten!

Please keep Baby Daniel in your prayers that he will feel better soon!

Who Doesn't Like Saturday???

This morning we went to the Extreme Parenting conference - our very first parenting conference! YEAH! It was a lot of stuff that we have heard before but always a good reminder and stuff you can never hear repeated too often.

The speaker was Dr. Trent who co-writes a lot with Gary Smalley and is considered one of the top experts in the areas of family and marriage so it was an honor to see and hear him live.

Daniel got to spend the day with his Grandpa, Grandma and Uncle Phillip who he adores!

If you know me well, you know that cooking is not one of my "Strengths" or something I enjoy doing on a regualar basis! I also don't enjoy fast food at all so coming up with a quick dinner has not been easy UNTIL Fresh and Easy hit the Phoenix Market! I promise you that this place was God telling me how much he loves me! For those of you not familar with Fresh & Easy, it is a London based food market that is small and quaint (which I love!) and has tons of prepared meals that you can pick up and they are prepared by amazing chefs and these dinners are DELICIOUS! They also have flowers, produce, a frozen section, and everything that a regular grocery store would have but different=) You just have to go to experience it!

So tonight I picked up Lasagna (Yummo!), salmon with an Asian BBQ sauce for another dinner this week and pre-made hamburger patties with some fun stuff in them!

Tomorrow is a busy day for the Wilson Family so good night to all!

My First Blog - YEAH!

I have been fighting the whole blog phenomenon for a while now but the more I thought about it, I have decided that "blogging" really is a great idea especially for our friends and family that don't live close by.

I have two of the most amazing men in my life that I will probably spend most of my time talking about - my husband of 4.5 years and my son of 13.5 months! I almost forgot there is a third male in my house as well - Max our 3.5 year old Shih Tzu=)

Last night we hosted a life group at our house and our group is composed of very young people who are engaged or newly married... when they left last night, Brendon and I looked at each other and said, "Do you feel old?"

Tonight I really wanted to rent "Made of Honor" so I went to Walgreen's because they have the REDBOX there where you can rent movies for $.99 but they were out of it, so I went to Blockbuster because they have a special going on now for $.99 as well but it does not apply to New Releases (they are $4.99) so I went to Fry's because they have something similar to the REDBOX and it is also $.99 and they were also out of "Made of Honor" so I rented "Mad Money" instead and I am a little disappointed by it! If you don't know me, and you continue to read this blog... you will probably learn what a CHEAP person I am!

Tomorrow, Brendon and I are going to a parenting conference put on by http://www.strongfamilies.com/ - I will let you know how it goes. Daniel is staying with my mom and dad and they are even going to take him to his swimming lesson tomorrow morning as well!

Good night!