It's A Boy!!!

WE'RE GETTING A BABY!!!

A wonderful and beautiful girl named Veronica asked to meet with us tonight. We had a great lunch with her and her mom last Saturday and were feeling really good about her. We went to dinner tonight with Adam's parents, who are visiting, and Veronica and her parents met us there.

Veronica handed us this envelope and said, "Here are pictures of your new son!"

Inside we found this

and these

There were a lot of smiles, lots of reaffirmation ("Are you sure??", "100% positive." Really?", "I haven't felt such a strong feeling in my life."), lots of hugs, and a few special pictures.

Veronica's parents are in the middle, Adam's parents on the right, Veronica in front.

She is so great! We're excited to get to know her better over the next few months. We are very blessed and grateful for this priceless gift she is giving us. OUR BABY BOY IS DUE SEPTEMBER 20, 2011! I get to go to the next doctor's appointment in two weeks! I can't wait!

We want to thank everyone for the countless prayers in our behalf! The Lord sometimes has very confusing plans for us, but we are very grateful for the changes that will be coming!

Annual Family Visit

Every year my parents and my sister Tosha's family come to visit over spring break. My dad was in a play this spring, so he didn't make it, but we still had a great time! My brother Larry and his family were able to come down too. They stayed with some friends in Mesa, but we still got to see them a few times. Thanks everyone for coming to visit! You're all welcome to come back!

There was a little bit of excitement on the way here. My sister had their van fully loaded and they were ready to leave IF Wednesday afternoon. They didn't leave until almost 7pm, and didn't even come all together!

They were topping off the car fluids when they noticed oil in the radiator, or something like that. Long story short, a gasket had broken, car wouldn't make it and was going to cost a couple grand to fix, and take some time. A rental car was going to cost almost a thousand dollars. There were 3 sad adults and 4 very sad kids.

THE SOLUTION: My mom, sister, and 3 older kids drove down late that night in my mom's car. Shawn (brother-in-law) and the baby flew out the next day. Much more complicated, but so glad they still came!

Highlights include: Museum of Natural History, Out of Africa Wildlife Park, Phoenix Children's Museum, My 25 birthday party with a bunch of wonderful family, miniature golfing, swimming (90 degree weather in March), splash parks, picnics, shopping, games, football, movies, and lots of yummy food! Whew. It was a lot in 10 days, but we had a blast =] 

Museum of Natural History: Final price for 4 adults and 3 kids, $6.00. Have I mentioned our free Culture Passes? They're awesome, and so is this museum. The adults and kids had a great time. Here we are panning for "gold". You even get to take it home!

Out of Africa: 1 1/2 hour drive, freezing cold and windy weather, 5 adults, 4 kids, a couple of coupons, final price...much more than $6.00, but still very fun!

They have a couple of shows with tigers and bears, where the employees play with the animals and show off their hunting skills. It was really cool to watch. Bottom Right: the employees would jump into the water to get out of the way.

We left Phoenix a steamy 85 degrees. Camp Verde had to have been no warmer than 55 degrees, with a cold wind. No pants, no jackets, no sense. Luckily I had a bag of DI clothes in the trunk. Yes, those are sweat pants and shorts on our arms. Don't judge us...We made due with what we could!  

The lionesses were by far the highlight of the day! After sitting around and ignoring us for 5 minutes, one lion decided our nephews weren't too bad. They would run in front of her habitat, and she would chase them along the fence! Back and forth they went for several minutes. If they stopped, she would crouch down as if to pounce. They loved it!

 

The second lion the boys caught the attention of was not as friendly. She didn't like them being near her one bit and kept roaring at them, really mean like. When she started digging at the bottom of the fence to get out and eat them, the adults felt it was time to go elsewhere!

Note: If you were stupid, you could stick your fingers through the fence and touch the animals, or lose a finger. That's how close you get to them! They even let you feed a lion and tiger, and pet giraffes, camels, and snakes!

The Children's Museum. It was my birthday that day, so me, Adam and my mom went to lunch instead of the museum. I think we made the better choice!

All the kidos at our house for a birthday bash.

Some evening downtime.

Miniature golfing at Castles and Coaster. They have 4 different courses, they they are really fun.

While the boys rushed through the course, we took our sweet time, and many photo oportunities.

Sad little boy, but I love this picture. He looks like the Incredible Hulk!

I adore all of my nieces and nephews, but this little guy was my very best friend this trip! He's in that hilarious 2 year old stage, where everything they do or say cracks you up. The boys (young and old) got him saying "I got ladies!",  "Oh yeah, Ladies", and my personal favorite :(  "Hairy bum, Katelin", which he still runs around the house saying!

Thanks family for visiting! We'll see you next year! Next week Adam's parents come to visit, and we can't wait!



The Selection Process

Our adoption profile has been up for a little over a month now, and we have had 3 (and a halfish) contacts which we think is really good (even though our profile has been viewed over 230 times).

The first contact we received was from a girl named Sara, who lives here in Arizona. We emailed back and forth every day for about a week, and then asked our caseworker what to do next. She suggested we could meet Sara for lunch, and maybe bring a caseworker along. We met Sara at Olive Garden for lunch about 3 weeks ago. She was really great. We still make contact about once a week, but she is still in contact with other couples as well. She's due with a baby boy in July and has until then to make a decision.

The second contact was from a girl who didn't even write her name in the email, just an Idaho phone number. She is due with a baby girl in August. We emailed her back and didn't hear anything, so a few days later I tried calling her (a little awkward since I didn't even know who to ask for). Once I told her why I was calling, she said she had picked a family the day before!

Last week I was looking up our profile and the system couldn't find it. I called our caseworker and she said someone in Michigan had put a "soft hold" on our profile. That means that someone was seriously considering us and didn't want anyone else to pick us until they made a decision. It would have been very exciting if that person had actually contacted us! Whoever it was removed the hold a few days later.

The 3rd contact came today from a girl named Veronica. She is due in September and doesn't know the gender yet. She said we were the first family she looked at, but then our profile disappered before she contacted us, so she made sure to send an email when she saw we were back up. I emailed her back tonight, so we'll see where this goes!

It's exciting to have a couple of people interested, but we're keeping a bit of an emotional distance. Either of these contacts could be the one, or neither of them could be. We know we'll end up with the baby we are supposed to though! For now it's still great to get to know other people and find out what matters to these mothers who are giving someone such a priceless gift!

Making Some Progress

I wish I could say that about all of the projects on my list, but this one is just as good! Our adoption profile got posted just a few weeks ago on the LDS adoption website, right next to 965 other couples. Since we were told it takes awhile for anything to happen, we haven't been expecting anything.

Friday night Adam and I went on a super fun date by ourselves. Adam's company paid for us to go out to dinner, and then we snuck into a hotel pool and hot tub :) It was like being in high school all over again! It was an outdoor pool and we had it all to ourselves, possibly because it's only March and Arizonans are wimps in the 80 degree temperatures.

Anyway...we got home that night and like always I checked my email. To our great surprise there was an email from a girl saying she was looking for a family to place her baby boy with and our profile caught her eye! She is in contact with several other couples, and chances are nothing will come of it, but it's great knowing that we can be found and learning a little more about how the process all works. Right now we've just sent a few emails back and forth, trying to get to know each other a little bit.

I've wondered what it would be like getting that first email. It was so exciting, but also a little heartbreaking knowing that she will be having to make such a difficult decision. She sounds like such an amazing girl (I think she's about my age) and I can't even imagine what she is going through. It really puts it into perspective to think about what someone will be sacrificing for us to one day have a child. It's a very humbling experience.  I'll keep you up to date on the journey we've just started, the thing called the "Rollercoaster" of adoption.

"The Naughty Bird" and Other Short Stories

The Naughty Bird

There once was a bird

Who needed to turd.

So he sat in a tree

Waiting very silently.

Then he pooped on my head.

The End.

The Naughty Dog



       The king and queen were sleeping soundly when the royal pup started to make a very loud licking noise. Since the royal pup shared a bed with the royal couple, it woke up the queen. The queen thought the pup was cleaning himself and kicked him to get him to stop. When the licking continued, she began to get very annoyed with the pup. She reached out to swat him, but instead stuck her hand into a warm,wet pile of vomit. She then got to change the bedding and take the pup for a walk at 4:00 in the morning before returning to bed. She didn't feel very royal anymore, especially when she met the naughty bird later that day.  The end.

The Naughty Paperwork

     Once upon a time there was a nice, and not at all poop or vomit covered, couple. They decided to have a child. When normal means didn't work, they decided to try adopting. They rushed to finish all of their paperwork. It took them a whole month! They thought that was a long time, but it was much faster than most.

Having their application finished was a nice feeling. Then they waited 5 whole months for that paperwork to get processed. Finally, one sunny day at the end of February they got a phone call. Their application had been approved! Now they would keep waiting, but this time on a baby and not paperwork.  The end (but really just the beginning).

Weather Alert!

You think it's cold there?? Phoenix couldn't even let our kids out for recess today! It was all the way down to 43 degrees for the high today :) 

Remember those days of recess being huddled next to the building, while the snow blew straight into your face? I do, and yet I took Jax for a 5 minute walk today and cursed him the whole time for refusing to go to the bathroom in the backyard like a normal dog. The wind is blowing (one out of 15 windy days a year), and it really does feel cold. It's days like this that I'm grateful I live down here. It's going to be back up to 70 by Saturday so that we can enjoy the Phoenix Open (pro golf) outdoors. Who wants to come visit?


Adoption Note: Still waiting for our paperwork to be pushed through. No new news.

Christmas Catch Up

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas thanks to our awesome parents! My parents gave us a new vacuum which has been a blessing considering I often come home to this (and Adam did some cooking last week). Surprisingly Jax still has some toys with stuffing in them. This picture is nothing.

Adam's parents gave us several gifts that we loved, but I'm very excited to try this out!

I haven't known where to start, but we're planning a sewing project for our ward young women this month. My mother-in-law had the sales women give me a how-to class on using my new machine. I learned what each stitch does and what it's used for. Did you know there's a preferred stitch for stretchy fabric?? Now I just need to learn how to shop for fabric...

I wish I had pictures of our Christmas, but I let others take all the pictures. We went sledding with my fam, played lots of games- including a rousing game of Minute-to-Win-it (so much fun), Adam went snowboarding a couple of times, and just loved being around the family. It was hard to come home, but Adam was ready for some down time! We spent the whole first weekend back watching movies. I don't even think we left the house! I was begging Adam to go somewhere, which was quite a switch.

We can't wait for the flood of family visits, so get packing!