Cutest Pictures Ever

Looking through pictures I found some pictures of Big Jer.

This was the first weekend we had him. Might even be the first day, think we got him the night before at about 11 pm.

He LOVE climbing in things. Or just in places he doesn't really fit.

He loves sunglasses, he insists on wearing them anytime we are driving somewhere.

 He has discovered books and loves having books "read" to him. His favorite books are books with animals.

"Grandma Sherri" owns a book he always gets excited about reading, it's about kittens. He absolutely adores "Grandma Sherri".

He loves cats, especially "Aunt Brandy's" cat Cleo.

I will be so sad when he goes to live with his mom. :(

Just a Brief Thought

Strange I would find a link to this on a PCOS forum. But reading through the letter this paragraph just caught my eye and my thoughts. It's beautiful. I just couldn't resist sharing.


We learned an important lesson: our preparation helped us to avoid panic and fear, but the Lord, in His wisdom, allowed us to experience enough discomfort to know that He has all power. He is in charge. We are nothing without Him. We are dependent upon Him for every breath we take. Only He can save us from death and destruction. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is our perfect example. If we follow Him, we will be saved through obedience to the laws and ordinances of His Gospel.
Sister Lisa Laycock, (part of a letter sent to her family following the 8.8 earthquake), Santiago Chile East Mission

It's Been a While

It's been a very long time it seems since I have updated here. Since last time (I think) my aunt moved in with Allen and I! I am pretty excited about that! I just love her. She is so much like my mom, it's kind of like I'm living with my mom. The adjustment hasn't even been too hard. She helps around the house and makes yummy cream cheese lemony cheesecake type pie with cherries on top. Mmmmm. Sooo good.
Big J is still hangin' out with us. He's a lot of fun. It's fun to watch him learn everyday. He is getting so good at talking! He learns...I don't know how many new words everyday. He's an amazing kid. Him and Allen are buddies. He loves the crap out of Allen, and I think Allen is pretty fond of him too. It'll be a sad day when his mom gets settled and takes him permanently. The house will seem so empty. :-( Oh well, we'll just love the crap out him while he's here and enjoy it.
Sure would be nice if we could adopt one of our own and never have to give him/her back.

Let it Snow

Friday when it snowed Big J was so excited about the snow so I bundled him up and took him out to play in the snow. It's a good thing it was a warm snow because his poor little hands wouldn't have handled cold. He kept having me hold his hands to warm them back up...what a cutie.

It didn't take long for him to figure out if he threw a snowball Tank would chase it.

And of course if the dogs eat the snow...it's okay for him too. I think he ate as much as he threw for the dogs. 

Don't worry though, I made sure he didn't eat any yellow snow. lol

Late But Here It Is

I was going through pictures and found a bunch that I felt I needed to post since this is our family journal/scrapbook. The first ones I ran across were from my family Christmas party. 

Loren and Wendy came down from Oregon to visit between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So of course we had to have a Christmas party. It was a lot of fun. We had it down at Mom and Dad's condo (in the Falls to be exact). We had food, games, time to visit, and a music/story program. 

 

Even Mom's sister Tam showed up to say hi and hang out for a bit with us! I thought it was cool.

 

Here's a picture of mom telling all of us to come over and to get our food. I couldn't resist using this picture because I love my mom so much and it depicts her so well...always wanting to take care of family and have them gather closer and she is an optimist through and through so she always has a smile on her face. I hope when I have the blessing of a family of my own I can be just like my mom. Then there is dad always wanting things just perfect and worrying about if there will be enough for everyone and taking care of any loose ends. He is so detail oriented. I love my daddy too.

My nephews are smart and love to problem solve (I think that's why they all like puzzles so much). So stinking cute! My brothers make cute kids ... or their wives anyway. lol

 

 

My oldest nephew just kickin' it. What a stud! Not too long and he's gonna be driving ... Ugh! I feel so old!

 

My sis-in-laws visiting. I love being around these two because when they get together there is constant laughing. They make me laugh and laugh!

Just before the program all the chillins got to decorate cookies. I had to snap a few pictures of these. Love 'em! How bout a little bit of cookie with the sprinkles. Not just this one plate was like that, but everyone of them. I think they had a contest to see who could pile the most on a cookie.

 

No worries though ... there was a clean up crew.

Then it was time for music program. It was kind of a patriotic story someone would read then a song would be sung that went along with the story and mixed in the story was scripture and such. Sounds odd doing patriotic stuff for Christmas ... but really, it worked. It was awesome.

 

Cousin's bonding. Cute turds. But then there were enough programs everyone could have one to read along so big brother got down on the floor to read along with little sister.

 

Afterwards we sat and talked about favorite Christmas memories. Of course kids get bored with just talk but Grandma wouldn't let them play the piano. If you ask me though, they look pretty content getting loved on by Grandma.

I love my family.

More Fun

Sunday we loaded up and went to Springdale (I think) to go to an elk farm that Keith and Karena had found sometime ago. They were a little disappointed because there weren't as many animals due to economic reasons.

One of the bull elk didn't not like Keith. This one to be exact.

He would ... not charge the fence but lower his antlers and push on it. Any and everyone else could pet him and he was okay with that. This is a picture of Allen petting the elk that did not like Keith. Poor Keith was insulted. lol As soon as Keith got any closer though he would drop his antlers and challenge him.

They had a few bison there. I didn't think they would let people get too close but once they heard the paper bag that the food was in they were all over coming to the fence to get some food. The funny thing is they kind of eat like a cow, ya know reach out with their tongue. This was not expected though, they stick their tongue out, through the fence, then wait for you to drop the food on their tongue. Pretty comical to watch. Oh, and their tongues were so pointy.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of the mountain that this elk farm was nestled up against. It was just so pretty and the way the clouds would sweep across it... It was just so pretty. I wish I knew how to take pictures that would do it justice.

 

On our way out one of the other bull elks wanted some yummy food out of the bag and to get some lovin' from Allen. It was so funny this elk came up to the fence basically begging. So of course the men obliged. Allen reached through the fence and scratched him behind the ear, like you would a dog. This elk responded the same way a dog would. He turned his head a bit and leaned into it, and look how his eyes kind of closed. Just like a dog. Such beautiful animals.

After the elk farm we went to find a park to eat lunch at and we were thinking about going down through Zions but we didn't have enough time. But we did have time to take a few pics. Here's one of Allen and me.

I think it would look a lot better if I would've been behind the camera taking the picture instead. But the mountain is pretty and Allen looks good anyway.

The picture of the day though ... in my opinion was our nephew beating Allen up.

Maybe it's just me but I see a look in his eye like, "Yeah, that's right, I'm a bad "A". And if I'm not mistaken he's telling me, "I'm #1" with the other hand. Not even a year old and he's already coppin' attitude. What a cutie.

It was so nice to get away from home for a couple days and just relax. No having to worry about dogs even, thanks to my Aunt who is so awesome and stayed at our house to take care of them.

Weekend Fun

Over the weekend Allen and I went down to Cedar City to visit his little brother and family. We had so much fun! We were going to leave Sat morning but then he got work off so we decided to leave Fri night.
The weather was fine and roads were clear until about 45 min down the road. Then there was snow ... lots of snow. The road disappeared beneath a blanket of white. Then we look up ahead and there is a line of cars and semis completely stopped. Crap! When we get there we realize they are all stopped because the road was slick and the semis couldn't keep going, they had spun out.
Thank heaven for small miracles, just as we were getting to the tail end of the line a plow was turning around to go up our side. We got to follow right on his tail past the line of cars and trucks. I don't know how far we traveled in white blindness. So glad someone thought up the road markers and rumble strips, that was the only way we knew we were still on the road.
Anywho, obviously we made it safely and without accident. Keith met us at the Parawan entrance. He had just gotten off work. It worked out really well because we had never been to their new house. When we got there we just crashed, it was 2:00 am after all.
Saturday we went tubing up at Brian Head. At first I was a little nervous. I hate heights and this hill was big. Not real steep but big. Tall and long. Best kind of hill for tubing. Allen's nephew was skeered to death though. It took over half an hour and one of the workers riding down with him to convince him to go.
The tubes they had had a cover on them and on the cover was a handle. The handle was used to hook us too the line to pull us up the hill and to pull the tube behind you. When you went down the hill you threw it into the center of the tube.
Here's a picture of Allen going down the hill. They were all taken on the flat at the bottom because that's the only place I could stand to take them. You can tell he was at the bottom because he was dragging his feet to slow down.

This is the hill at the bottom they had there to stop you from taking a real long ride down to the road. If you didn't get slowed down enough at the bottom and you hit the tubes at the top of the hill your tubing was over and your pass taken. This isn't even the whole hill. It was a pretty good ride just on the stopping hill going up and back down then to a stop.

Here's a pic of Al's nephew. I just had to throw it in because look at his face! You can see the "woohoo" mixed with a little "holy crap". The second time he went down the worker said tricked him. He told him he was going to ride down with him but ... he didn't. It was so funny because when he got to the bottom and stopped he turned around and the worker was gone. He asked, "Where did he go?"

 

Oh, I didn't mention my crash. Keith tells me it was "spectacular". I don't think Karena got to see it. Allen's disappointed because he didn't get to see it. I'm disappointed because nobody has a picture of it. It must have been good because here it is almost a week later and it still hurts to breathe deep. I think I might have cracked a rib. Right after I couldn't hardly talk or breathe ... it hurt so freaking bad! I haven't slept worth crap since then because I can't assume my "relax to go to sleep" position on my stomach at night. Oh, how I wish I had a picture.

Here we all are in front of the hill. You can't really see it because it's all just white. At the top it has a pretty good drop off to get your speed up, then it levels out for a bit then another hill, the second one isn't as steep but it was a little longer. Then it levels off for quite a bit then up the stopping hill.

 

It was so much fun! Thanks K&K for inviting us down!

Woohoo! Finally Finished!

If you know me at all you know that I don't do "crafty" stuff very often. But when I get an itch ... I just gotta. Needless to say a few weeks ago I had an itch to do some of that crafty homemakey type stuff and this is what came of it.

 

I think it turned out pretty well for not following the pattern really. I had every intention of doing exactly what the instructions said, but in different colors. Then as I started I decided to change this and to change that. This cute little baby afghan turned into a much bigger project than planned.

It was supposed to be small for a baby ... it's more the size for a child. Oh well. It turned out pretty good for a very beginner crocheter. Now with all the left over yarn I'm thinking about doing another (smaller) one. 

I think I may be kind of a freak though. Everything I have made, crafty wise, in the last year has been for babies. I have a cedar chest almost full of baby quilts and now one afghan ... thinking soon to be two.

I guess I'm letting my wishful thinking/hoping get carried away with my inner homemaker.

Our New Caseworker

Yesterday it hit me how frustrated I am with the whole waiting to be able to adopt. I hadn't really thought about it until visiting with our new caseworker. She asked us how long we have been approved and how many caseworkers we have had. She apologized a million times that we've had so many, it was pretty comical.
I really like her, she had a confident aura about her. It probably has to do with the fact that she is done with school and is settled in life. All of our other caseworkers have been pretty young and in school still or a newlywed or whatever. Just not settled, not quite where they want to be in life. But Stephanie, I think, is going to be great. I really hope she is our caseworker when we are finally chosen...if we ever get chosen. *sigh*
I know there are families that wait way longer than 1 1/2 yrs but for me longer than a couple weeks is a long time to be waiting for anything. lol I don't think it would seem so bad if we hadn't had our hopes up about getting a baby in June or July then...then the mom decided to choose abortion instead of adoption. I still don't and will never understand why, but I guess that's why we are all here to be tested and tried. I know I've failed quite a few trials (a lot of them having to do with patients, lol) in my life most of which only I and the Lord are aware of so who am I to judge her? My heart still aches for her because I don't think there is anyway that she doesn't regret it every day and want to turn back the hands of time to take it back, have it undone so she can choose differently.
Oh, and come to find out yesterday during our visit, our blog hasn't been linked to our profile! Grrr! The only reason I started blogging was to give them a place that they could come to get to know us better. No worries though, we've got that straightened out. Now it is completely obvious where to find our blog. Maybe that will help speed up the process...or it might slow it down if we (or really I since I do the blogging) are psycho or weird and we don't even know it. I don't know, I guess there is just no tellin'. lol

The New Year

It's been such a long time...the end of last year really took the wind outa my sails. Guess that's why I haven't posted for so long.
Anywho...the good news is it's the new year now. It seems that the new year is the easiest place to start fresh on things. I've never understood this because every morning we wake up to a new day so why not start fresh then...hmmm.
Anyway, starting fresh this year (still haven't done it completely yet) is going to include but is not limited to: 1. getting healthier, not necessarily losing weight, although I'm sure that will be a by-product of getting healthier 2. being a support and strength to Allen by showing and telling him how I feel about him and let him know how much respect I have for him 3. get better organized, I don't know what happened there, I used to be so organized but now...well, it's another story 4. shrink the gap between the Lord's will and my own. These so often, especially lately, are so far apart I lose track of the Lord's will. It seems to disappear over the horizon. This is not good because his will is unchanging and steadfast so that means only one thing...yup, you got it, it's me moving farther from Him. So we are changing that this year. 5. Get knocked up. I know I don't have any control over this one but the way I see it, if I take care of the other 4 things this one might take care of itself, or someone who can control it will let it happen.
I guess we'll see. Hopefully I'll not be absent so long again.
Hope you all had a happy and joyous Christmas, and I wish you a happy new year! Little late I know...sorry.