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I cannot believe that it is already December! The days have been flying by at our house. We have been having a wonderful time adjusting to life with a new little one:) I have unfortunately not been able to write in my blog as much as I would like to…but now that life seems to be normalizing I am hoping to begin again soon!
Praying that the Lord would bless you and your families during this season!
After what felt like a VERY long season of sabbatical from my blog I finally feel released to get back at it and start blogging again!
It has been a busy and challenging past 6 months of my life, I have been stretched physically, emotionally and spiritually. My life has basically been flipped upside down. I have grown and learned a lot and I look forward to sharing many of these life lessons!
So this post is going to be short and sweet…and speaking of sweet here is the newest and VERY sweet addition to our family!!
Eliyah Grace Wilson
Looking forward to posting again very soon!!
Love him~
Here are a few of my favorite pictures and memories of my little guy!! I love Him and I love the Lord for giving to him to me and allowing me to priviledge of watching him grow up right before my very eyes!! May His life to a testimony to the greatness and goodness of our God!! Happy 6th Birthday Judah!!
We named him Judah which mean “Praise”. His life truly is a demonstration of praise to our Father!!
The day he was born – April 15, 2007, 8lbs 1oz of perfection!
6 month old snuggles:)
Attacking his 1st birthday cake!
18 months old
Judah turns 2!!
My little man, 2 1/2yrs
3 year old monkey!!!
First day of homeschool – 4 years old
My 5 year old little stud:)
My handsome 6 year old!! Love him!
May you enjoy each day and every moment, drink them in slowly because before you know it, they’ll be all grown up and you will have wonderful memories and a lasting legacy of the faithfulness of God:)!
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Our family wanted to extended our blessings to everyone out there this season. May you experience even deeper levels of connection as a family. May you make fun memories over the holidays as you enjoy each other. We pray God’s best for you in the coming new year!!
Blessings,
Jim, Emma, Judah, Mercy and Atirah Wilson
I am so excited to finally be writing a blog! It seems like ages since I have been able to have enough time to gather my thoughts and express them through the keyboard on this computer. Life with 3 little ones can, at times, be a blurr. Someone is always needing mommy and I have felt the need to take some time away from the blog in order to refocus and realign myself with the purpose behind it. I am currently working on switching over this wordpress blog to a website called Passion for Family. Let me explain:)
Our Children – the fruit of our labour!
The Lord has been really impressing on my heart the importance of having vision and purpose for everything I do. Initially, I had started this blog to honor mothers as they pursue the important calling of motherhood/homemaking. Over the past year I have felt God nudging me to make it more about family. I felt like he has been showing me that the family is the fabric of society. Because there is such a breakdown of family in our culture we are loosing touch with God’s orignial intent for the family unit. As a result we are seeing a breakdown in society. I desire to help bring clarity and refreashing to families through these words.
Our Family – the greatest gift on earth!
Through much prayer, I have decided to change the name of the blog to PASSION FOR FAMILY. This is my heart for the site. PASSION is defined as the object of an intense desire, affection or enthusiasm, a powerful or compelling emotion, strong affection or enthusiams towards a concept. I AM PASSIONATE about families!! I feel like there is so much that has been stolen from the family and I believe that it is God’s heart to see families healed and restored!
After being married for the past 8 years and having 3 children I now realize that the family is the training ground of everything in life. As I raise and nurture my children in our family I am instilling in them all of the skills that they will need for their lives as adults. I desire to bless and encourage families across the world. Whether you are single or married, dreaming of having a family or already have a large family, whether you homeschool or not, whether you work or stay home, this blog is desired to enrouage you.
My husband and I are going to blog as much a possible to share wisdom and insight from what we have learned through our experience and from others. We do not have it all together, we are on a journey and we are learning lots along the way. We want to build community and learn with eachother. I will continue to blog recipes, homemaking tips and fun activities for children but the main thrust will be encouragement for parents. Our heart is that you will gain a greater understanding into God’s orginial plan and purpose for the family unit. May you seek to honor, love and encourage your family members; (mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, cousins) SO THAT you too will cultivate a PASSION FOR FAMILY!
Our family was blessed these past few weeks with a wonderful vacation in Florida. It is something that we do every year, Lord willing, and I am amazed as how the God refreshes us during this time.
I believe that there are so many important things that come when we take time apart from our routine. You certainly do not have to go to Florida to experience the Lord’s refreshing but I do believe that there is value in stepping out of our normal routine if only for a couple days and getting a new perspective on things. God wants to take us to new places, to have new perspectives, ultimately to give us an ariel view of our lives so that we can see the bigger picture.
As I was running one morning in Florida, the Lord was speaking to me about giving me eyes to see what He is doing in the earth and how to be part of His plan. I was feeling so “stuck” in my own little world of being a mom, keeping our home in order, and feeling isolated and disconnected at times. As I began to focus on Him and His word I began to see how my role fits into His master plan. Each of us have a part to play.
Imagine that God is the director of an incredible play, each of us are given a role in which we must perform. According to our gifts and talents he appoints us as different characters in the play. Each of us are given the platform at some point in His play to do what He casted us for. Life is the practice and rehearsal for this play. Each day we recite our lines, plan our costumes and rehearse our part. The final day will come when there will be no more dress rehearsals, no more practicing, we will be on stage doing the very thing we were created to do.
Are you ready? Have you practiced as much as possible? Do you know your lines?
Are you using the giftings that God has given you to be the best you can be?
Perhaps you don’t even know your part in the play…maybe you have never auditioned? It’s time. I encourage all of you to take seriously that which God has placed before you. Don’t ever let up, give up or shut up. See everyday as a rehearsal for what is to come. Let’s make our director proud!
God reminded me of a verse I’d like to share Jeremiah 29:10b,11 Msg “I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for”. Isn’t that AMAZING!!? Let’s trust Him to lead us everyday and allow His plans for us to become a reality!
May you be blessed as you see life from a new perspective, may you embrace your role in the master play! God help us to be faithful with what you have given us!
My kids love books! I am always looking for good literature for children. They enjoy sitting and listening while I read to them. Reading to our children is SO important, it teaches them many important life skills; how to sit, be still, how to listen and respond, how to focus, exercise concentration, patience and self-control. Reading and cultivating a love for books is a gift to any child.
We were given the book “The Treasure Tree” as a gift. (Thanks Grampie:) It is such a wonderful story that I wanted to recommend it to all my readers. I don’t want to give too much away but this book is a wholesome story about friendship and adventure. It teaches children about the importance of team work and the role that different personalities play in solving problems.
At the end of the book they have a checklist to help parents understand their children’s personalities. Being a therapist/counselor, I am already intrugied with personality, so it was nice to confirm my children’s personalities and begin the process of training them appreciate their giftings. It’s funny because we now realize that each member of our family are one of the 4 different personalities; I’m the Lion, Jim is the Retriever, Judah is the Beaver and Mercy is the Otter. (We haven’t figured baby Atirah our yet:) It has been fun to talk to the kids about their God-given personalities and how we can compliment and help eachother in life.
I highly recommend getting your hands on this book, you can order it on http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/175-0670130-0616841?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Treasure+Tree. Dr Gary Smalley co-authored the book and also has many other personality books for adults and couples which shed a lot of light on relationships. Many of his books have been beneficial in our family and our marriage relationship.
Hope you enjoy the Treasure Tree as much as we have. It has truly been a treasure to our family!
Naples sunset
As I sit here and reflect on this past year I am deeply grateful to the Lord for all he has done in our hearts and lives! 2011 has been a year of establishment and growth for our family. We have been challenged and changed because of the many blessings and trials we have encountered on this journey. The Lord has grated us the strength we needed during the hard time and given us peace to rest and enjoy the simple and beautiful moments along the way.
Here are some of the amazing memories that 2011 has left us with:
~ Moved into our new home!
Unpacking our entrance the day we moved in:)
~ Spent our first winter unpacking and getting settled, many renovations, and many long nights working on our new home!
~ Took a two week vacation in Naples, FL, visited Disney World and had a wonderful restful time as a family
Enjoying Florida!
~ Celebrated many Jewish feasts and festivals as a family and with our local church
~ Started a blog – A Simply Beautiful Life!
He loved snack as much as he loved playing soccar!
~ Judah started playing soccar which was a fun family event to go and cheer the little guy on:)
~ This summer we picked strawberries and enjoyed weekly vegetable shares from a local farm, it was delicious and fresh!
Heading out on the tractor to pick some berries!!
~ Enjoyed many family bonfires in our new backyard, we love having bush behind our home, it has provided us with many new adventures, such a blessing to us!
~ Welcomed our baby girl – Atirah Kaiya Prayse into the world on July 28th – what a gift she has been to our family!!!
Our little blessing from God
~ Jim was able to take a month off in the summer at the arrival of our baby and we spend some amazing time together
~ Built a deck on the back of our house and landscaped the yard
Helping daddy build the deck
~ Travelled to Ottawa to attend a nation wide day of prayer and fasting
~ Spent many afternoons swimming in Lake Nipissing
Ottawa Ontario
~ Enjoyed many walks while exploring treed trails near our home with the kids
~ Started homeschooling our son Judah
Playing in the pumpkins
~ Enjoyed a beautiful fall season here in Northern Ontario. We had fun in the pumpkin patch at Thanksgiving, reflecting on the many things we have to be thankful for!
~ Took the youth from the Harbour to an event in Hamilton Ontario called Acquire the Fire
We had SO much fun with all the leaves on our new property
~ Enjoyed the beautiful weather of fall and had a wondering time of Advent, preparing our hearts for the promised Messiah.
~ Had an amazing Christmas with friends and family. Enjoyed the first year of the gold, frankincense and myrrh gifts with our children.
Opening his frankincense gift on Christmas morning
~Brought in the new year with our wonderful friends The Weenings and their 4 children, we had a blast! (There were 7 kids, 6 years and under and it was incredible!)
Moving forward into 2012 we are hopeful and full of vision and purpose for the upcoming year. Jim and I have been able to sit and talk together about the upcoming year and we look forward to a year of intimacy and stillness before the Lord. We feel that we need to learn to seek the face of God, NOT for what he can give us or do for us but just simply to love Him and bless His heart.
Atirah in her favorite seat
“Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you” Matt 6:32-34. We believe that as we do this we will hear His voice and he will show us the will and desires of His heart for us. We are excited to spend time in prayer, worship and fasting.
We have had some time to refocus and revisit our finances, our goals, savings, insurance, givings and our time schedule for this upcoming year. It has been really amazing to look back and see how God and blessed us and then reassess our goals in these areas. We want to be WISE in every aspect of our lives. I am hopeful that we will walk in the center of His will for our lives and that new things are on the horizon for our family.
Left to right: Violet, Florey, Anabelle, Mercy, Judah, Atirah, and Sterling didnt make the picture:)
I feel as though I have grown a lot in the realm of motherhood. I have learned that I am NOT in control and that I need to ease up more to enjoy the simplicity of my children in this stage. I am looking forward to sharing more of my life, the good, the bad and the ugly, with all my blog friends in this upcoming year.
Pure Joy!
I believe that the Lord is going to speak and encourage us all in 2012. I believe the best is yet to come!
May you experience joy and peace today as you rest in His love!!
I remember in our early days of marriage we would spend ALL our time doing pretty much whatever we wanted to do. Date nights, movies, candlelite dinners, weekend getaways, we backpacked through Europe for 6 weeks, travelled to the States on several occassions as I was finishing up my degree, we were spontaneous and free! Then the Lord brought us into the season on being parents……
After we had our first child life wasn’t that different, our son was kind of like an accessory that we took with us wherever we went. But then we had another and another, and now with 3 children the dynamics of our home have drastically changed! The dynamics of our relationship have changed as well and I have learned alot over the past 4 1/2 years with having children.
I have realized that not only am I called to serve my children but even more importantly I am called to serve my husband. To love him and nurture him as well. As a mommy I can get overwhelmed and consumed with the immediate and urgent needs of my kids and sometimes overlook my poor hubby:( He is so gracious and kind, not demanding of his own needs but continuing to give and serve our family. He is an amazing provider. He works harder than any man I know.
We, as wives, need to recognize that, just like our children, our husbands have emotionaly and physical needs that we need to tend to. We need to make our husbands a priority. It is pretty easy to continue to take care of our kids and households and neglect our husbands. However when we do this, they suffer, we suffer and eventually our kids will suffer. I believe that if we do not make time for each other we can put a wedge in our relationship and eventually we can grow apart. How sad would it be to get to the end of our lives and realize that we grew apart in the midst of a life that we both wanted? I am challenged to remember that the Lord is first priority in my life, second is my husband and third are my children.
Do you know your husbands love language? When we did premarital counseling before our wedding we read a book together called the 5 Love Languages (www.5lovelanguages.com), it helped us to overstand how we give and receive love, I challenge you to read it together! It has taught me how to express my love to my husband in a way that he can understand and receive.
Jim and I have been challenged to make our relationship a priority. We have learned that the only way we can do this is to plan for it! We have intentionally put things in place to make sure that this happens. Here is a list of a couple things we do to safeguard our relationship and invest our time wisely.
1. We have a date night twice a month, no kids allowed, just the two of us. (Minimum of 2 hours away – sometimes I bring the baby because she is still nursing but she usually sleeps)
2. We put our kids to bed at 8:30pm every night so that we have a couple hours to talk and spend together before we go to bed. We try to read together or talk about our days. (If you don’t have kids you might think establishing a bed time is not necessary, let me tell you from experience, IT IS!)
3. We have chosen to spend one night a week playing a board game together, rather than watching the TV, interacting on some type of social media, or reponding to emails.It helps us to engage, laugh and connect on a lighter level. (Remember TV can be a time stealer, you can both sit in front of the TV for hours and not even talk to each other!)
4. We have 15 minute talk time. Either before or after dinner we tell our kids that mommy and daddy need uninterrupted talk time and we spend this time catching up on our daily events, its nice to have eachothers undivided attention, it ends up feeling longer than 15 minutes:)
Marriages are the foundation of our families. If the foundation crumbles the whole house will fall. I encourage you to build a strong foundation and continue to build it as your household grows. A house is only as strong as its foundation! Take the time, it’s well worth your investment!
May we ALL honor the Lord with our marriages today!!
I had the opportunity to hear about a fun, family-focused way of giving gifts to our children this year. My friend Jenn shared a link with me on facebook and after reading it, my husband and I were confident that this was the approach on gift-giving that we were going to take with our family this year, and now I want to share it with all of you.
From previous blogs you have likely understood that I am not really into the whole materialistic idea that often accompanies Christmas is our Western world. The greed and hoarding that comes with this season is NOT something that I want to impart to my children. In fact, I want the opposite to be true; I want us to realize that giving is the greatest joy of this season and that God gave His son to us and commands us to give to others with the same spirit of generosity!
I received the following ideas from www.kyria.com and would encourage you to check out the website if you are interested as they have more detail on the site. I have shortened it down and explained it below.
The three wisemen brought Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Each of these gifts had significance and each had a specific meaning to the life of Christ. In the same way, we as a family will be giving gifts of “gold”, “frankincense” and “myrrh” to one another this Christmas.
1. Gold– in the times when Jesus was born gold was even more valuable than it is today. It was a gift that was given to a king or someone of kingly authority. Jesus received these gifts from the wise men, because He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. The “gold” present given should be something of great importance to suggest how valuable your child is to your family. Gold gifts often end up being our most expensive/valuable presents. For example, a gold gift might be the bicycle a child has been dreaming about, a doll house, an ipod, or a piece of jewelry that seems appropriate. I am going to wrap our gold gifts in gold wrapping paper.
2. Frankincense – another gift that was given to Jesus was the gift of frankincense. Frankincense is known for its antiseptic, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory properties. No wonder people in ancient times begged for it. It was probably one of the ancient world’s first “cure-all” medicines, healing everything from infections to headaches. It was a sacred substance. God commanded the Israelites to place frankincense in front of the Tent of Meeting to scent the place where he had promised to meet with them. Years after that temple was destroyed, God sent his own Son, Jesus, to be a symbolic “Tent of Meeting” for all people. The wise men brought frankincense as a gift for Mary’s baby. Jesus had become our Emmanuel: God with us. Your child’s “frankincense” gift should correspond with the way he “meets” with God. It should be somewhat of a spiritually challenging gift. For example, a new study Bible, teaching series, a devotional book, a journal, or worship CD. I got our children a BOZ the Bear DVD and a Hillsond worship DVD. I am going to wrap the frankincense presents with bright white shiny paper with white bows to represent the sacred white incense that Jesus received.
3. Myrrh – rather than being white, myrrh is a dark, earthy color and has a rich aroma. In ancient times myrrh was used for anointing oils, perfumes, and embalming liquids. Today you can still find myrrh added to some soaps, oils, and lotions. Interestingly enough, the wisemen gave the gift of myrrh to Jesus, it might have seemed strange that they gave embalming liquid as a baby gift but at the time they did not know that He would die on the cross for our sins and rise 3 days later!!! How amazing! As a family we are going to remember the amazing sacrifice that Christ made for us. “Myrrh” gifts for our chidlren are presents that “anoint” their bodies. For example, you might give scented bath soaps, perfume or cologne, lotion, or shampoo. For younger children, choose colorful bath bubbles or playful tub soaps. To stretch your options a little farther, consider buying combs, hair products, comfy towels, or even make-up if it’s age appropriate. The wrapping for this gift can be with earth-toned paper to represent myrrh’s rich dark color. I am going to use a blue wrapping paper simply because that is what I have.
Rememeber simplicity is what it is all about. Don’t feel the need to go out and buy all sorts of colourful papers, that is NOT the point, you can use what you have to keep it simple and beautiful at the same time. I am hoping one year once my kids get a little older to make our own wrapping paper to save on the costs. I also wanted to one year cut all of our leftover paper into smaller pieces and connect them to make collage paper for our gifts:)
We have experienced Christmases in the past where the kids are just SO overwhelmed with so many presents that they don’t really know what to do or who to thank for what. It is chaotic and I feel like they are not even able to appreciate the gifts they have recieved. Hopefully this year will be different and they will be surprised and thankful for their 3 gifts also realizing their importance and significance in their lives.
May you and your family experience the JOY of giving this Christmas!
Passion for Family 