3 months

We love this girl to bits.  We are so grateful she is part of our family and have been talking quite a bit about our upcoming finalization and temple trip.  We're all pretty excited.

At 3 months, McKinley has discovered how fascinating her hands are, and loves to suck on that fist.  She gives huge smiles freely to strangers and is starting to show signs of being tickelish.  She likes the book "Peek a Who" and grins ear to ear on the last page when she see's her self in the mirror.  When I change her diaper on the changing table she loves to look at her baby footprints that are framed and hanging over the table.  McKinley is a GREAT sleeper (only gets up once a night if at all).

Sisters at the cabin this week

Serious bubble talent.  Can you smile and blow bubbles at the same time?

Gracie helped me to get McKinley to smile while I snapped photos.  Thank goodness for a funny sister who knows how to blow bubbles back to her baby sister!

Smiles

The first one was on facebook, but I thought I would also post this one.  We can't get enough of this grin.

Christmas

Christmas was laid back at our house in 2010. 

Christmas jammies and Christmas Booty

Ryan and McKinley visiting.  McKinley snoozed through the early morning presents.

The kids and I got some super hero undies for Ryan.  I'm sure these will make him super fast at church basketball.

We stayed in our pjs ALL DAY (well, Ryan added his new flash underoos at some point) and required any visitors to do the same.  PJs- that is.

McKinley and our Kayla

Fun day.  And wonderful having time together to relax.

We had a big ham dinner with our new family members.  It was a great time.  We feel so blessed.

How Life Changes

We are so far behind on updating.  We have been doing all we can to just enjoy this time with little McKinley.   One thing I have realized in 8 years as a mom, is that my babies grow WAY too fast.  I really want to enjoy every part of little McKinley.  I have tried to relax and am learning to let things go so I can enjoy hours of snuggling.

So this won't be narrated much.  Just of pictures of the latest.

SMOOCH.  She has such kissable cheeks.

Sisters

Bubble Bath drawn by Dad





I call this one Christmas Love.  McKinley with her birth mom on Christmas day.

Christmas

All bundled for Christmas in the Family Cabins a few days before the big day.  McKinley was a trooper.

First Family Snapshot

Final day of Adoption Month

And what a sweet way to spend it.  The final day of this month, we were blessed to have our courageous birth mom place little McKinley with our family!

McKinley holding her birth momma's hand after she was dressed in her I {heart} my birth mother onesie.

It's been an emotional journey and we are sad for the hurt that our birth mom is feeling.

But the experience has taught and changed us so much.

I thought I knew the love of a mother. 

When you see a mother place the dreams for her child before the wants of her hearts it's pretty incredible.

And life-changing.

And then my Dad started laughing tonight about how our sleep patterns were going to change.

And I honestly was excited about getting up in the middle of the night.

This is what we have hoped for and Ryan wondered if it would realistically ever happen.

Everywhere in nature we are taught the lessons of patience and waiting. We want things a long time before we get them, and the fact that we want them a long time makes them all the more precious when they come.

~Joseph F. Smith

Life is pretty precious.

The most beautiful miracle

She's here.  And she's perfect.

Just as I was getting to hold her for the first time, the kids were oohing and aahhing over her.  Then Tanner pipes up with, "I think we should have TWO babies."

 And as much as we love this tiny little girl, we love her birth parents just as much.

We are so thankful for this little miracle.

Mommychat regarding adoption

We found out today that our birth mom will be induced this week!  We are thrilled and excited, but also worried for the pain our birth mom will experience and nervous for the delivery with her health concerns.  I don't know if I even know how I feel now that I say that...

I will tell you that when I told the kids the news that our birth mom shared with us, their eyes grew wide and they started jumping up and down and chanting, "I'm gonna have a sister.  I'm gonna have a sister in a couple of days.  I'm gonna have a sister."  They can hardly stand themselves.

So I decided to link up to a blog I follow, whose author is an adoptive mommy.  Her name is Lindsey Redfern, and her blog is the r house.  She did an interview for an internet channel and split up her first sons' adoption story into three parts.  Since we will most likely be experiencing placement this week I will suggest listening to her story on portion 2.  Of course you can go to her blog to see the links for the entire story.

One last thing.  I have a livestrong type bracelet that I got at our FSA Conference a couple of weeks ago.  (I had one in May, but I think Gracie acquired it.)  It is something that I have decided I might wear forever.  It says Birth mothers Never Forget.  Or you could read it as "Never Forget Birth Mothers".  I think it's a powerful reminder and our birth mom will be in the front of our minds all this week and many years to come.  How could we forget her loving care and choice to place her baby in our family?  In a week of Thanksgiving, we truly feel we have SO much to be grateful for.  And this is what our baby girl will wear home from the hospital when the day comes.

National Adoption Awareness Month

With National Adoption month comes the challenge to spread awareness of the blessing that is adoption.  I wish I could blog everyday this month, but in reality, I am preparing for a beautiful baby in my home and I have given myself a long list of to do's before she comes.  I decided a weekly post would be a good start and maybe next year I can post more often.

Our weekend was full of education on our favorite topic.  We learned so many things and had a great time with birth moms and other adoptive couples.

I was given the job of photographing the event.  Here are some of my favorites:

Ryan loves to take serious pictures

A sweet 7 week old baby boy with both of his mommies

I also got to work on the Heart Gallery.  These are beautiful photographs of children currently in foster care and wishing for a family.

I get a lot of questions about what kind of adoption we will have: open or closed.  We are excited to have an open adoption where our baby girl will be able to have a relationship with her Birth Mom.  We truly are excited for our daughter to know where she came from and be able to ask questions of her birth mom that we might have never thought to ask.  Is it possible for a child to have too many people loving it?  I hope we will be posting pictures like the one above with a sweet baby girl and her Birth AND Adoptive Mom.  Only a few weeks left before baby's arrival!

National Adoption Day is November 20th.  Mark it on your calendar and take a minute to watch this beautiful video from a presenter I got to hear over the weekend.

Veggies for sale

 
 A few weekends ago, our housing community held a garage sale.  Our kids were really wanting to earn some money and Braden starting going through all of his things assigning prices so he could buy some new lego sets!  Usually I would be ok with that if it weren't brand new things that I know he loves...so we told the kids that they could sell some of the bounty from the garden.  Afterall we have used our kids to help with weed control and watering this summer, so we figured they could help pick and then make some money for their efforts.       

Ryan helped the kids with some signs and I suggested some inticing prices so the kids could get lots of traffic.  Carrots 10 cents a piece, cucumbers 50 cents a piece, and zucchini $3.  (They were mammoth in size.)

Braden brought the play cash register and sat at the picnic table as the cashier.  Ryan and Tanner helped to bag produce.  Gracie held the signs and yelled "Fresh veggies from the garden" with Tanner.

In two hours time, they sold out of their produce and made around $27 + change!  They were stoked with their earnings that they split evenly.

Weekend getaway

When Ryan's dad told us he was going to be married in Utah this summer, Ryan and I figured it would be a perfect opportunity for a romantic getaway. We booked a room in the Hines Mansion in Provo, where we stayed in the same room that we occupied the night of our wedding! The Library has a secret door that reveals a bathroom and a private exit! There's also a spiral staircase in the room that leads to a private jetted tub on the second floor.

We did lots of this on our weekend away. See Ryan enjoying the bed and breakfast?

We went to Raging Waters where we went on these CRAZY slides. It was so scarey, I only did it once and screamed the entire time.

Just in case they don't look very scarey to you, here's the description straight from the park:

Calling all thrillseekers...Get ready to break the speed limit! Dare to take a vertical plunge from the top of a 70 foot high tower then travel more than 30 mph down a 244 foot long, head-first slide to the bottom. Can you make it over the "hump"?

And honestly, you ride a little tobaggan-like sled down the slide! When you drop down the SEVEN STORIES high slide head first, your stomach and legs separate from the slide so you feel like your doing a handstand. NO JOKE! And Ryan went on the crazy U slide. TWICE!

Seriously, I got out of the pool afterwards and couldn't stop shaking while I watched Ryan go down his INSANE slide again.

We also went up to the canyon where Ryan proposed almost ten years ago. While we got lost and lost our time to find the exact spot, it was still fun to drive through the canyons and relive those memories.

Our final day of the getaway was the wedding of John and Linda. They were married August 21, 2010 in the Ogden Botanical Gardens. Look how happy they are...