Valentine's Day

hearts are full

Last night, Kent and I had another opportunity to go to another birth-mom panel. The first one we went to was incredible, but only one mom was able to come. Last night we listened to three amazing, courageous and loving birth-moms. They ranged in how long ago they placed their little angels from 4 months to almost 4 years. They each had very tender stories to share. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the audience. I had to try to control myself; I seriously almost went into the ugly cry! Actually, I am pretty sure I did go into the ugly cry (y’all know what I am talking about) but luckily I was able to control the big gasp of air that usually follows one of those cries. Needless to say, it was such a moving night. INCREDIBLE. I don’t know how else to explain it. Every time I have the chance to hear these stories, I am just always astonished of the courage and pure selfless acts of love it takes for these ladies to make. My heart is just so full of love for these birth-mothers. I pray that our future birth-mom is well, healthy and brave!

Colorado for Christmas

We were able to go to Colorado for Christmas and New Years to spend time with Janelle's family! It was so fun and relaxing! Santa came to Grandma and Papi's house, we went to Colorado Springs for 2 days, shopped, played games, talked, watched movies, died laughing, and loved! It is always a blast and I am now having withdrawals!



on the lookout for Santa in the sky

Santa just walked in! SURPRISE

Home Alone impression

never serious!

Life over the Holidays!

Life has been super fun and filled with so many family and friends! We are so blessed and are loving every minute of life. Luckily Mason is able to keep up. Actually, he is always 10 steps ahead!! He is growing, changing, and learning so much everyday. For Thanksgiving, we were able to stay in Utah and spend it with Kent's family!! For Christmas, we are flying to Colorado to be with my family!! I seriously am on count down. I am so grateful for the flexibilty of both of our jobs that we will be able to spend over a week there!! Here are some much overdue photos over the past few months!

Link to Profile

I noticed that I am a ding dong and don't have a link to our adoption profile...might be a tad important :)
You can check it out here!

Accepted!!

AHHH!! This is just all so exciting and can't even believe it is all really happening. We were actually officially accepted 3 weeks ago today. I was at Girls Camp with no service. I wasn't able to talk with our case worker but was able to find one bar of service to hear half of her voicemail and that was all. I don't know what was worse. Hearing that little bit and not being able to do anything about it or maybe I should had just waited until I got home. HAHA. Probably the way it happened was best. Well I got back from camp on Friday and then we left for Colorado for 2 weeks!! It was a long, fabulous trip but it also meant another 2 weeks with no progress after we were just accepted! How annoying. So I got back on last Saturday, kicked my butt into gear to finish up some last finishing touches on our profile, and then today got the most amazing news that our profile was published. I have been waiting for this!!! We shared the news with all of our friends and family. We are looking forward to the day we get to meet more of our family!!!

Graduated!!

Saturday was our last class!! YAY!! It was so bittersweet. We had such a great time getting to know everyone is our class and getting closer to our adoption. We hit it off with one couple and had dinner before our last class and carpooled up to Logan. They are way fun and am sure this is just a start of another friendship.
I wanted to talk about our third class that was last Saturday. It was the "panel" class. We had one (out of three) of the birth moms show up to talk to us and share her story. I was bummed that only one showed up. I LOVED hearing her side and all the love and time and prayer and everything she put into her decision to place her baby for adoption. It is such an incredible process on all sides of it. This birth mom talked about how her process of healing has worked and how she feels that adoption was the best choice for herself and her boy. Next they had two couples come that have adopted before. One talked about openness, and the other on interracial adoption. They had wonderful stories to tell and great advice. One thing that I learned is that I am really going to have to hold on to the reigns. I have a tendency to jump right in. All parties at the meeting said it is best to start into the relationship slow and to gain each others trust and slowly open the door to a more open relationship. I want a relationship with the birth mom to be fully trusted and for the child to know exactly where they came from. I want our child to not have any questions about who they are. We have started to pray for our future child and for the birth mom. This has been such a great way to help Mason understand adoption more and to really start to bond with the idea.