Thursday, September 20, 2012
Easter this year was fun, as I recall. Of course, Easter was five months or so ago so it's a stretch of my memory! Maybe we'll let the pictures do the talking for this post, mmmmmkay? A Spring Snowstorm:
Easter--Always an "Eggscellent" Time!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLL!!!!
The last time I blogged, it was March, 2012.
Now it is September, 2012.
ARRRRGHHHH!!! This means I have some serious catching up to do, and I cannot decide whether to burst into tears at the sheer overwhelming-ness of the task or to simply get excited, because I really do love to blog so I guess I have a lot to look forward to. The last few months have been amazing and they need to be documented or I deserve a swift kick to the bottom. So let's start where we left off. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you . . .
APRIL, 2012. (Please clap for me. All of this effort deserves a round of applause! I vow to NEVER get this far behind again--sigh.)
This past April, I officially became a SOCCER MOM! That's right--our little Bethany took to the field. Move over, Mia Hamm. (Is that how you spell "Hamm? I should Google that. Nah, too lazy and too much to write.)ANYWAY, what a fun adventure this turned out to be! Here are the top five things I loved about U6 soccer:
1) I loved how cute Bethany was in her soccer dress. I mean shirt. Which happened to look like a dress on her tiny frame:
2) I loved that the entire team moved as a big herd up and down the field. No one played positions at all--they all just grouped around the ball and ran back and forth, up and down. They were like llamas or sheep, all sticking together--only moving lots faster than llamas or sheep. So cute!
3) I loved the name of Bethany's team. They were "The Winning Cheetah Jaguars" or "WCJ" for short. You gotta admit, that name is original! And it took an extra few seconds for the team cheer every game. The other teams were like, "Go Thunder!" or something akin to that. But our team was "Go Winning Cheetah Jaguars!" A mouthful, to be sure!
1) I loved how cute Bethany was in her soccer dress. I mean shirt. Which happened to look like a dress on her tiny frame:
2) I loved that the entire team moved as a big herd up and down the field. No one played positions at all--they all just grouped around the ball and ran back and forth, up and down. They were like llamas or sheep, all sticking together--only moving lots faster than llamas or sheep. So cute!
3) I loved the name of Bethany's team. They were "The Winning Cheetah Jaguars" or "WCJ" for short. You gotta admit, that name is original! And it took an extra few seconds for the team cheer every game. The other teams were like, "Go Thunder!" or something akin to that. But our team was "Go Winning Cheetah Jaguars!" A mouthful, to be sure!
4)
4) I loved her coaches, Kristy and Kelly. They're in our ward and they've been our friends for years. They were the perfect coaches for Bethany, who was always a little hesitant and shy about really getting into the game. They worked so well with her--encouraging her, teasing her--they handled her absolutely the right way. And Bethany blossomed under their guidance. 5) I loved being out in the warm spring sunshine, lounging on the field while I cheered my baby on. And giving her water when she needed it.
Everybody Walk the Dinosaur!
Monday, April 9, 2012
Last Christmas, Bethany's cousin Ruby gave our little paleontologist the perfect gift--tickets to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. And we finally redeemed them on a lovely Saturday in March. (I've forgotten the exact date, but does it really matter in the eternal scheme of things? The point is, we had a blast!) We convinced cousins Ruby and Macy to come along--with their dad of course--and my parents joined us, too. We had a dino-mite time!
These guys moved, looked, and sounded like REAL dinosaurs! The girls were fascinated and scared and we could hardly tear them away:
Then we admired all of the sparkly jewels!
I think this stone is bigger than Bethie's head! 
And we "oooohed" and "ahhhhhed" over some pretty impressive fossils:
"T-Rex! I'm a tyrannosaurus, I'm the biggest carnivore in the Cretaceous forest!" (I know way too many Dinosaur Train songs for my own good.)
Bethany was so impressed, her eyes glowed red. Seriously, these indoor pictures are terrible. I kept turning the flash on, then off, then on, then off--either way was the pits. Let's just say there were lots of cool fossils indoors, but I won't insult your eyesight by showing you my crummy pictures. Let's take it outside.
Ah. Much better. Outside, they had this great sand pit where the kids could go on an archaeological dig. And they REALLY "digged" it. (Pardon the pun.)
EUREKA! (I've always wanted to yell that. Do paleontologists yell that?)
It was really hard to tear the girls away from that sand pile, believe me. But we finally persuaded them--we had to go exploring! We had dinosaurs to find. So we hit the path:
And we saw some pretty impressive dinosaur statues, like this parasauralophus:
Note: I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd ever be able to recognize and name various types of dinosaurs. Who ever said that being a mother wasn't educational?
And this ankylosaurus:
"I'm a hungry, hungry herbivore, plants are what I'm hungry for. Don't eat insects don't eat critters, just gimme some o them dern fern fritters . . ." (Yup, Dinosaur Train again. Don't judge me. It's educational. AND it promotes a positive view of adoption.)
And speaking of education, Bethany took her role as instructor-in-all-things-dinosaur VERY seriously!
After looking at the many statues--which was TOTALLY fun-- we took some time to be a little silly:
And we explored a cave:
And then we hit the VERY COOL playground. Wow, that playground was fun!
Bethany climbed on every dinosaur she could find. Then she promptly named them each "My Beauty," (pronounced like "Beu-tah"--she had a real southern drawl going there)and boy, it was hard to persuade her to leave "Beu-tah" when it was time to go!
(A girl and her pet dinosaur. It's the American way. Before America was invented.) Anyway, we had an absolutely WONDERFUL time. The weather was perfect, the girls loved being together, we were in dinosaur heaven. If any of you mothers haven't taken your kids to the Dinosaur Park--DO IT. It's like Dino-Disneyland. The playground alone is worth the drive. THANK YOU, Tracee, for a wonderful Christmas present!
Field Trip! OR "We Got a Friend at Lee's!"
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
On March 15th, 2012, I got to do one of my favorite things . . .go on a preschool field trip with Bethie. Before we left, I got the added bonus of watching Bethany be the V.I.P. at school. That means she got to hold the flag and lead the Pledge of Alligence (looking really cute, I must say):
Then after the pledge, we piled into cars and went to Lee's Marketplace to see all of the cool "behind the scenes" things. And we did, indeed, find that we had "a friend at Lee's," as their slogan proudly boasts. We had the cutest employee man friend (see photo above) who took us on the GRAND TOUR--and I have to admit, it was fascinating!
First we said hello to the florist, then went right into the bakery. And that's where I discovered that I chose the right career path, because the baker starts working at 1:00 a.m. every morning! (Now that's dedication . . .and just a little insanity.) Here we are in the bakery:
The bakery was pretty dang cool, with an oven almost as big as my entire kitchen. They put racks and racks of cookies in there at a time, which all turn 360 degrees the entire time they're cooking. Very interesting! And get a load of the size of that mixer in the photo above!
Next, we went to the butcher. The kids all loved that, as he showed us how to shrink-wrap meat. (Talk about cool technology!) He also showed us a glove that would have put Michael Jackson to shame--it was a chain-link glove that protected his hands when cutting meat. We all got to feel it . . .very cool.
After seeing the butcher and the baker, we stopped to say "Hello!" to the candlestick maker. (Couldn't resist.) We actually got to go into the freezer, which was very, very, very cold! 
And then into the huge fridge, which was very cold (only ONE very after experiencing the freezer.) But it was impressive all the same.
Then after the tour, we got to sample a doughnut--YUMMY. Doughnuts, I've decided, are the American way.
A big "Thank you!" to Lee's Marketplace for a really fun day! (Gosh, to properly thank them, I should go to their store at least five times a week and completely hand over any and ALL of my monies. Oh wait--that's what I already do. We'll keep the status quo, then. :0) 
Miracle of Miracles!!
The past few weeks have been weeks of rejoicing! On Monday, February 27th, 2012, we were sitting on the floor, organizing Bethany's gospel art picture kit into chronological order (her idea)for Family Home Evening, when I stood up to stretch my legs and walk around a bit. I happened to pass by our computer, and as usual, I jiggled the mouse to see if I had any new emails (a very firmly entrenched habit of mine). Well, I noticed I had an email from a person I didn't know. So I wondered who it was from and started reading.
To my GREAT surprise, it was from a birth mother who had been working with Sandy at our Logan LDS Family Services. (To protect her identity, I won't use her name.)She was trying to find the right family for her baby boy. I just sunk down into the chair in front of the computer and said, "Oh my gosh! We just heard from a birth mother!" James was startled, "WHAT??" and rushed over the computer. So we read her email aloud, together. After nearly every paragraph, we had to stop to gape at each other--everything she said was so perfect and felt so right. We couldn't believe it. By the time we finished reading the letter, we both had tears in our eyes. We both felt an incredible rush of "rightness" about her, about the baby, about the birth father--about the whole thing. It was an email straight from Heaven and, after reading it several times, we spent the next couple of hours responding. Best Family Home Evening ever.
And then the next morning, we woke up and wondered if we had dreamed the whole thing. So we had to read everything all over again. And then pinch ourselves.
We corresponded (by email) with this wonderful lady over the next 10 days or so, and then on March 9th, we got to meet her at LDS Family Services. We were so nervous and excited! After hearing in one of her emails that she had been craving fruit--especially strawberries--we put together this strawberry-themed basket as an "It's great to meet you!" gift:
We even scrapbooked a card to match--all three of us doing our part. We were actually pretty proud of the results--we've never made a card before but we patterned this one after one designed by a friend of mine:
As the clock ticked down to 3:00 (our meeting time) we got even more nervous and excited. (I actually was so nervous I walked around with hand towels under my arms to keep myself dry and powder fresh, which Bethany thought hysterically funny. But hey, it worked.) Then, just before three, James came to pick me up. We dropped Bethany off at a friend's house, then headed to LDSFS.
As we sat in the lobby and waited to go back to Sandy's office (and looking very conspicuous with our strawberry basket), an absolutely beautiful young woman walked into the agency. She immediately knew us from our pictures and we all hugged and started talking, right there in the lobby. When Sandy came to get us, she was surprised to see we were already there and talking to each other! We all went into her office and talked for an hour or so--it was a wonderful meeting. In fact, we were so enjoying talking with her that we completely forgot to take any pictures. (I'm still kicking myself for that one!)After the meeting, we walked her to her car and then we all left. We were on Cloud Nine, because this meeting was when our birth mother told us she had chosen us "for sure." We were told to get ready for a baby boy!
We were going to wait to announce our news to family and friends, but we were DYING to tell somebody! And we needed to celebrate! So we picked up Bethany and went to eat out at Costa Vida. At this point, I remembered that I had forgotten to take pictures so I started snapping away. Here are James and Bethany at our "celebration" dinner out!
After the dinner, we still felt like shouting our news to the world, so we considered our options. We didn't have much time, because we had somewhere we needed to go that night, so we couldn't climb the tallest mountain and shout into a megaphone. So we settled on surprising my parents with some balloons. Bethany just walked right into their house with balloons. It was a great reaction!
That's all we had time for before we had to rush to (ironically!) an LDS Family Services workshop. Bethany came with us, as there was a child care class during our meeting. Then after our meeting, she started telling everyone who would listen that she was getting a baby brother! She's so excited . . .we all are!
Since that day, we've been able to meet with our wonderful birth mother AND our wonderful birth father. Last week, our birth mom came to Sunday dinner with her sister and her husband--we had such a great time and we did remember to take pictures! Then this past Sunday, our birth mother brought our wonderful birth father (again, no names to protect identity) to our home for dessert. We had a great time with them and my face hurt from so much laughing!
We are just feeling incredibly blessed. This situation feels so different--so much better--than what we experienced last fall. This just feels so right. We've already started working on the nursery and preparing in other ways, as this little guy is due on May 9th! We ask our family and friends to please pray for our birth mother and our birth father, that they'll have comfort and peace and strength. We already love each of them so much! And we'll keep you posted . . .:0)
