Adoption

This is a topic that is very dear to my heart...

My best friend, and aunt Angela will be adopting her daughter in a few short weeks. She has been waiting for 40 years to be a mother. It is something that little girls dream of, they cuddle their baby dolls waiting to become mothers. The reason for my post is to express my gratitude for my new little cousin, Olivia. We went to the store to buy her a little "gift" for her adoption day and we found an angel ornament for the Christmas tree. Addy insisted that we have it engraved with the words, "Olivia, you're our angel". Adelynn and Olivia are about the same age and they are such great friends. We are overly blessed to have Olivia join our family.

As I browsed Facebook tonight I noticed that my dear friend and "old" roommate had posted that she had an update to her adoption blog. So, I was eager to read. Unfortunately, she had this to say: "Over the past couple of months we have came so close to welcoming a baby into our home a couple of times, but for whatever reason it has yet to be our time.  Right now we are healing from a VERY painful failed placement. Our hearts break for anyone who has had this experience.  We had the bags packed.  We had the tickets bought.  We had the baby shower.  We had a name.  We were ready, we had prepared for 3 months, done the paper work told our family and friends. We were ready.  Unfortunately because greed over took this birth-mother things did not work out.  We were and still are broken. A part of us died that day.  We loved him. So while we are picking up the pieces and trying to help our daughter understand. We pray everyday for OUR baby to find us."

                                                         http://prandm.blogspot.com/

 

My heart breaks for this family who is trying to find a sibling for their little girl and a new addition to their family. I can't even imagine the sorrow and the anger that I would have in this situation. I know that because they have been through this experience they WILL find their baby. But, I also know that the best way to inform people is through networking. If you can: share their blog. I have shared their adoption blog alongside my blog for over a year now, but I just wanted to add a post to let you all know that this little family in Idaho is looking for a sweet child to join them. 

My Birthday Month

I Love October! This year, I was spoiled more than ever because my Aunt Angela, her daughter, and my Grandma June came to visit from Utah. We decided that we wanted to have a relaxing girl's trip, so we went to the beach. The weather was perfect, and we had a blast!

                                         Some of the coolest ladies I know

                              Olivia and Addy climbing trees 

                       Grandma June, she is the life of the party!

                       Fried pickles at Amos Mosquito's

                              She loved them!

                     Ange + Jack = Long, lost buddies

  

We had s'mores for dessert and almost burnt the place down.

The adults all had a salad, but Addy ate baked oysters and loved it. She's my seafood eater!!!

                          Ice cream in Beaufort, NC

        We went for a boat ride and saw a real pirate ship.

                 Of course this was our favorite boat!

      

                                            Best friends

                     Love this girl!

                                             Adorable!!

                             She is ready to hit the beach!

                                      Sand mermaids 

                      There were three in the hammock...

                                            And they all fell out!

Ange is finally a Mom, it makes my heart melt every-time I hear Olivia call her "Mom"!

        NC aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores

Look how happy Grandma is in a wheelchair. Now, if I could just get one for me!

                  A baby sea turtle = WE FELL IN LOVE

                      Touching sting-rays

                        She's a turtle

The last day of their visit we were back in Raleigh, we hit up Pullen Park and the Farmer's Market. We headed to Cook-Out for lunch and then said our good-byes at the park near the airport. Corey got to join us, for the last day of their visit.

               Our favorite memory: The Carousel, enough said!!

 

    Olivia's "cooking" with Ginger Ale at the Farmer's Market. ;) 

       Corey and Grandma saying, "Cheers!" with the last hush-puppy.

                               Goofy girl!

             HATE, HATE, HATE goodbyes!

We wore them out, they slept the entire plane ride home!

I'm ALIVE, and I hope you are too!

It has been over two months since I have signed into Blogger. In fact, I didn't even know my password to get onto my account, so I had to hassle with a password change. BUT, I'm back and I'm going to take some time to read all the blog posts from my blogging friends that I've missed these past 2 months.

LIFE GOT CRAZY BUSY, so I will try to update you on each of us and what we have been up to. (Mostly, I want it written down somewhere). Also, Corey has been a total computer HOG these last 2 months while he studied for his national certification exam to become a CRNA. All my pictures are saved to his computer and as a result I've had no access to share my pictures. :(  In fact, Corey took a vacation to Utah and has most the pictures with him right now. But, I'm okay with accepting the fact that this is mostly a journal for myself, so read on if you have nothing else to do...

The month of July and August was filled with deep cleaning, de-junking, and dusting our new rental home. We also painted 4 rooms the day after we moved in. It was crazy!! We still have a few projects left to get the home looking the way we would like, but we are happy to have so much space. We feel deeply blessed to have moved to such a wonderful neighborhood with many children close by and living in a cul-de-sac and having a fenced back-yard are heaven to ME! This home will be the perfect place for us to live these next 3 years while we raise our family and pay off college loans. :)

Corey graduated on August 17, 2013 from Raleigh School of Nurse Anesthesia! Talk about HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY!!! I was beginning to think the day would never come. It was a wonderful day that we spent with his classmates and his family. Corey's parent's and brother, Kayden, came from Vernal, Utah for the graduation. They stayed with us for over 10 days. The kids had so much fun with their grandparents and we took a 2 day trip to D.C. It was so much fun to go back to D.C. and see all the sights with the family!

                                                 Graduation night with Corey's Mom

                            It's okay to be this excited on your graduation day!!!


After Corey's family returned home he still had 5 days of clinical hours to make-up, so he completed those and then spent the next month hiding in our room pouring over anesthesia info. Some of the things he had to study were so foreign to me. Corey and I were both a nervous wreck all of September, as he prepared for the Certification Exam. It was intense. He took his test on September, 23rd and PASSED! WHAT A RELIEF!! IT IS ALL OVER.

In fact, the night he passed his test, he said, "It feels so weird not to have anything hanging over my head". We had forgotten what it was like to live normal lives, without the stress that comes along with anesthesia school. We are still trying to figure out what to do with ourselves. :)

Corey has to wait for his certificate and license to take affect before he can start work, so he decided to go to Utah and meet his twin nieces, hunt, hang out in the cold, see the mountains, and visit his Grandpa and Grandma. His visit couldn't have happened at a better time, because his Grandpa is under-going chemo for cancer. What a blessing that Corey was able to visit his grandparents! They are seriously the coolest people ever!!!

Now for an update on little Miss Adelynn! She started Kindergarten on September 3rd and Ms. Downey is her teacher. She had an assessment day (August 26th) prior to starting school and that was really her first day of school, in my eyes. I spent all morning crying. I had no idea I would feel that way, I mostly was feeling jealous that she was starting school. I was having flashbacks of my teaching days and was missing my students and how much fun school can be. I hated that I wasn't the one planning the lessons and activities for the day. :( Addy is doing well in school and she loves to read and sound words out.

Daddy finished school, just in time for Addy to start!!

 



1st day jitters

Some of her new favorite things to do are:
     -Steal my phone and play temple run, how she plays that game is beyond me!

     -Riding her bike (without training wheels) - Video to come soon. She learned in about 30 minutes!

      - Climbing the neighbors trees, climbing the walls, climbing the banisters. I can't wait to have $ to put her in gymnastics class!

     - A fashion expert, especially when it comes to her shoes. She is quite the fashionista!

Riding his bike in the cul-de-sac with his buddy

 

Goofy Boy!

As for Mr. Jack-Jack, he has grown up SOOOO much! I hate to see my baby getting so big. But, he still cuddles with me all the time and tells me that he loves me, so I'm good with that. He is still in speech therapy and he talks a TON now, it is just a matter of trying to figure out what he is saying. We are having him tested through the school system to see if he will qualify for more speech therapy. Hopefully he will be able to get more help!

Jack has been using the potty since he was 1, but once we moved to the house I bought him some underwear and he TOOK OFF! I have never seen a child potty train so easily. He even wakes up at night to pee, which is almost un-heard of for a 2 1/2 year old. I have become super jealous of men through this whole process, because they can pee anywhere. Jack has too much fun with it!

A few of Jack's favorite things:

    -Jake and the Neverland Pirates, he has a book about them and loves the show.

    -Balloons, I don't think he could have enough.

    - Digging in the dirt outside, mixing it with water, and making mud. Pretty much anything with water he LOVES! Including bath time, when he dumps all the bath water on the floor.

     - He is going through a stage where he is in LOVE with the neighbor girl, Charlotte. The only problem is that she is 10. He says her name like this, "Char-whut" and he takes her flowers, balloons, cookies, etc. At night when I tell him that I love him, he says, "No, Char-whut". It is adorable, but I have to constantly monitor that he isn't running across the street yelling her name.

One last update on Jack is that he has what they call a "trigger-thumb". He has seen an orthopedic hand surgeon and will be getting surgery within the next month. It is a minor surgery, so nothing to worry about, but we thought we should get it taken care of so he can be a ball-player some day!

As for me, I have been busy babysitting for friends, cleaning house, unpacking, and taking care of my kiddos. I am still super involved with planning girl's camp for the Raleigh Stake. We have already had 3 meetings for NEXT year's camp. I love my calling and I feel so lucky to work with the young women!

The most recent development in my life is that I have decided to eat gluten free. It's a LONG story, with a bunch of tests involved. I don't have celiac (thank goodness), but I have some sort of auto-immune problem and we are hoping that eating gluten-free will help my symptoms. So, I'm on day 3 of going gluten free and I'll have to let you know what happens in 2-4 weeks with my health!! I LOVE that potatoes, cheese, and popcorn are gluten free; I will survive!!

Wedding, Girl's Camp, and Missing my Kiddos!

I have never been so emotionally and physically tired as I was the week of June 28th-July 5th. It was packed full of fun, but along with it came a lack of sleep, jet-lag, too much rain and complete exhaustion. My brother (the 26 year old, who has desperately been trying to find a wife, finally got married). I love you Layne! ;) He seriously found the best girl out there, she is adorable, caring, and loves him so much. They are stinking cute together, like one of those couples that makes you want to gag because they are so perfect for each other. Okay, anyway...I flew to Utah on the evening of June 27th and helped my parents set-up for the wedding luncheon. Then, we found a tiny hotel room and squished 6 grown adults into a room with 2 double beds, it was hilarious and the poor groom slept on the floor and woke everyone up at 4:00 a.m. because he couldn't sleep, he was too nervous. Wow, I love my family! I will be eternally grateful that I could be at the temple with my siblings and extended family on Layne's wedding day. It meant so much to see all my aunts and uncles supporting him and it felt so good to be WITH my family.

 My brother, the night before the wedding!

 I ate an entire quart of black licorice ice cream, SOOOOO good!

 She's a doll!

 These are my babies (sisters)! 

 All of us girls!

 The Lavon J Koyle Family with their Dad watching over them. 

 The other newlyweds, from January.

 BFF's 

 The honeymoon basket we put together. ;)

 Adorable couple

 The twins! 

 The best man, gave a speech that didn't disappoint. 

 Kyndal 

 Katelyn 

And, they lived happily ever after...

The day after the wedding I had to fly back to North Carolina so that I could be with my kids for a few hours before I had to leave to go to girl's camp. 

By the way, I owe a HUGE thank you to Corey, Casey, and the 4 stellar women who took care of my kids while I was gone to girl's camp! They were all awesome at keeping my kid's alive and happy!  XOXO!

So, I packed for girl's camp and was on my way. I was the camp director for the Raleigh 2nd and 3rd wards, along with the YCL (Youth Camp Leader) group leader. Basically, I had plenty to keep me busy and on my toes. Chasing down girls and making sure they were where they were suppose to be was my least favorite part. And, my favorite part was hanging out painting my nails and listening to my YCLs sing! I can't even tell you how many of them have angel voices!!! One of my fondest memories from camp will be that it rained almost the entire time, I carried around my umbrella the entire time and fell into the mud only once. Some of the girl's had all their bedding get wet, so the leaders drove to Wal-Mart and bought them new sleeping bags (now that is roughing it). :) But, in all honesty, I didn't know it could rain that much in North Carolina in July! I was also very proud of myself for trying out the climbing wall, and making it all the way to the top. By the last day of camp, the only thing that kept me functioning was fumes. I was so tired,  I felt it in my bones, and I came home and slept for almost two days. :)

 Getting ready to climb the wall with Rosa! 

 Abby with her Dad (the coolest Bishop ever)

 We are crafty

This girl loves herself some Bojangles! 

Group picture: I can't express the love I have for each of these girls! 

I made it home, in one piece, and with crazy looking braids in my hair. 

(I walked into the convenience store to grab 2 drinks and got hit on while I was in line waiting to buy the drinks...I should do my hair like this more often). :) 

I missed my kids so much that I spent time taking them to parks, swimming and being a really great Mom the next week. Now, that has worn off and I'm back to being a boring Mom who is packing up the apartment and trying to get ready to move.