A Crib Full of Emotion

We set up our crib last night.  It was a lot of fun.  It's something we have been looking forward to doing for years but never had a reason to do it.  It's nice to finally have a reason.

 But, I do have to admit that I have mixed feelings.  It's really hard to go down the hall and see an empty crib knowing that in reality it could be years before there is a child in it.  At the same time it could be just a day away.  When I look at the crib I get a depressed feeling and a very happy feeling of anticipation and then I just don't really know whether to smile or shut the door before I start to cry.  Who knew a crib could cause so much confusion.

On the bright side we have both felt the Lord telling us we won't have to wait too long.  Here's hoping that the Lord's idea of long fits my own, and that if not Allan and I can have the patience to endure it.

Adoption here we come!

We are officially certified to adopt!

Go check out our adoption profile at www.itsaboutlove.org and search for our first names: Allan and Kami!

Well, I forgot about the blog again last week, so I have a couple of weeks to write about.  I am sure you are all sooo excited. :)  For FHE last week Allan and I pulled out the model I bought him when we got married.  Allan really enjoys building models and we planned on building this model together, but since we were married we haven't had any time to do so.  We were thrilled to finally get to start on it.

 
Models come in different levels of difficulty.  When I bought this I didn't know that, nor did I know what level Allan was on.  He has never built a model this difficult before, and I have simply never built one, so it will be a fun challenge for both of us.

We had Allan's boss, Z, over for dinner on last Wednesday.  I have heard a lot about him and was very excited to finally put a face to the man.  We had a really nice evening.  Z loves to look at his genealogy so we showed him new.familysearch.org and PAF.

Last Saturday we went to the mountain in search of snow.  We thought we found some at one point and prepared to have a snowball fight, make snow angels, and all of the other fun snow things to do.  But when we got to the snow we found it had melted enough that it was mostly ice.  We were able to get a couple of really hard snowballs to throw at each other and then decided to hike in search of more snow, but didn't find any.  We drove back down the mountain and stopped at another trail head that looked like it had some snow.  After hiking for a while we found it!  Woohoo!  Most of it had turned to ice as well but there was a small area close to the trees that was just right.  So, we proceeded to nail each other with snow balls as fast as we could.  I'm pretty sure Allan won, but I did nail him right in the bottom a few times!  (HeeHee)

On Saturday night there was a huge wind storm here.  We listened to the wind howl all night long.  When we went to church the next morning there were tumble weeds covering the entire fence line!  It was so funny looking!  It looked as if the tumble weeds had tried to attack the football field and then all got stuck on the fence instead.  It took the clean up crew half of the day on Monday to get them all off.  Here is a view from our house.

I started babysitting for a family in our ward.  I had their little girl in Sunbeams and now I am watching her and her younger brother on Mondays.  I had a blast on Monday with them.  The little boy, L, usually takes a 2-3 hour nap around the time that I babysit but he was way too excited on Monday to sleep.  He only got about 45 min. and by the time I left his eyes were all red and glassy he was so tired.  Hopefully he took a late nap.  I always feel successful when the kids are sad that their parents came back so soon!  I am looking forward to tomorrow - it should be a fun day.

We watched some of Allan's families home videos for FHE.  It was so much fun to see Allan as a little boy.  Thanks to our awesome brother and sister-in-law for getting the home videos to everyone!

On Friday we went to dinner and bowling with some friends.  It was a ton of fun.  I had my very first steak.  It's definitely not my favorite, but it wasn't too bad.  Allan and I haven't been bowling for a long time.  We usually bowl like we mini golf - in as many different ways as we can.  However, we tried to play correctly this time.  The friends we were with are really good.  The first game they both went up there and bowled a strike.  Allan followed suit and got a strike as well.  Then, I went up and promptly sent my ball into the gutter.  Naturally, I had to take a bow.  Allan did pretty well the first game and I basically never got out of the gutter.  But, the second game we switched places and Allan spent some time in the gutter.  That's how we do things.  Whether it's illness, awards, or bowling we just have to share everything.

Saturday we went shopping to celebrate our adoption certification.  I always love to go and get new clothes.  I got a new coat (I've needed one for a while, the buttons fell off of the old one and they aren't the kind you can sew back on), a skirt, and a shirt, and we got Allan some work gloves that he needed.  We're hoping to get him a small BBQ as well. That will be a lot of fun.

This last week I made a bunch of paper bag animal puppets for primary (got the idea from www.thecrazychorister.blogspot.com).  Each puppet had a way to sing a song or a "favorite" song to sing and would also lead the music.  The kids LOVED it.  I was so glad because I was a little worried that they would think paper bag puppets were lame.

They sang their little hearts out and really enjoyed playing pretend.  I asked the kids when I was done if my "friends" could come back again and one little boy in the 7 year old class said very adamantly ... "No."  Naturally he was the one that was the most involved during the class time.  Next week ... my favorite superhero "Captain Right" - but I usually call him Mr. Right. :)  (This idea is also from the crazy chorister.)

We're back!

Last week I completely forgot that I had a blog.  I don't know where my mind went.  But, to catch up a little, last week went really well.  I survived my 2nd Sunday as Jr. Primary Chorister - with all of the kids there this time!  I introduced using instruments to learn the rhythm of the song, and they absolutely loved it.   This week was a bust though.  They weren't really in the mood to sing, so the teachers and I sung our hearts out while they listened.  Hopefully next week will go better.  I substituted for the Sr. Primary Chorister today, and that was a lot of fun.  I let them use the instruments, and they were big fans.  I do have to say though that I am glad I have the little kids.  They don't worry about being "cool" so they are usually easier to teach and entertain.

Our wheat grinder arrived!  I ground wheat and made bread this week, and it was so good that Allan and I ate almost an entire loaf in one afternoon.  My Mother-in-law makes bread too, and hers always tasted so good, I could never figure out how she made it taste that way.  I was so excited when I tried it and it tasted just like hers.  I guess that the fresh ground wheat must be the key ingredient.  Allan is really enjoying it and has told me at least three times every day how good he thinks it is.  I'm glad the wheat bread has gone over so well.  (Allan: Me too. It tastes wonderful!)

Allan has been busy this week helping a friend.  The friend and his wife recently moved to another state and he was trying to get their rental properties ready to rent so that he could go and join his wife who is expecting their first child.  We thought it was a good cause so Allan went over there almost every night this week to help.  He dug some trenches and put in some cement forms for some concrete the friend poured on Friday.  He was pretty sore from the work, but he really enjoyed it.

We have been buying things here and there to prepare for a baby.  A few months ago we bought a crib and changing table, and this month we bought the mattress, changing table pad, and sheets.  We're slowly accumulating baby things in the hopes that when we do finally receive a baby we won't be caught too off guard.  We've had a lot of fun getting baby stuff, and the Walmart free site-to-store shipping has come in really handy.  It's too bad we can't just get a baby there too...although you never know...

I've also been preparing for a baby by researching adoptive breastfeeding.  I didn't think it was possible but apparently it is.  It's amazing what the human body and the medical profession can do.  Maybe I won't have to miss out on as many baby things as I thought.

One of our brothers got us some really good movies for Christmas that we have been enjoying.  I don't know how he knew that A Little Princess is one of my favorite movies ever; I think he was inspired. 

That's about it for us though.  It's been a pretty uneventful couple of weeks which has been nice after the holiday frenzy.  Thanks for everyone's prayers and support.  We love you!

The Christmas Season

The last couple of weeks have been a blast for Allan and I.  We officially finished our adoption profile and are now waiting to be certified.  It should be any day now.  It is a relief to be done with the profile.  It's amazing how difficult it can be to just choose a few pictures.  Knowing that there will be birth families out there that will look at our profile...or not...just by the picture, is very intimidating.  But ... we're done.  (Huge sigh of relief)  We have begun to hand out pass-along cards as well...but just know, if you have one our profile isn't online yet.  We'll let everyone know when it is.

For Christmas we took a trip up to Utah to see Allan's family (and got to see half of mine as well!).  We really had a lot of fun with everyone, and everyone was actually there.  It started out a bit rough - Allan got food poisoning from the food he ate at the airport, and I came down with Allan's cold two days before we left - but by the third day we were feeling well again and had some good family time.  We really enjoyed playing with our nieces, playing the Wii's Just Dance and a bunch of other games with our siblings, and eating all of the yummy food Allan's Mom made.  Allan got to play basketball with all 6 of his brothers and his Dad.  It's pretty rare that all of them are available at once so that was a really special treat, and Allan was so thrilled.  We even got a tiny bit of baby time with the newest nephew in the family, after the cold went away.

We had a lot of fun with my family as well, eating more yummy food and playing the traditional game of Canasta - in which I thoroughly kicked everyone's trash!  (I really did too!)  One of our nephews bought for Allan and I this year and we loved his gift!  My sister made a cute bag and our nephew (who is 5) filled it with ... feather boa's and parachute army men!  BEST GIFT EVER!  His mom told us that she asked him what he wanted to get us, and he said very firmly, "Boas".  She tried several times to suggest something else for us, but he wasn't having any of it.  As soon as they got to the store he went right over to the feather boas and picked out one for me and one for Allan.  Then he went and got the army men so that it would be a bit more manly for Allan.  He also drew us a picture of a Christmas tree and some boa constrictors to go with our boas.  Here we are in our awesome boas.  Don't we look fabulous!

 Allan and I wanted to get a wheat grinder, so for Christmas all of our parents donated money to the cause.:)  Our WonderMill will be here any day now!  Woohoo!  I make all of our bread, and I am so excited to have fresh wheat flour! 

Since we got home I survived my first Sunday as Jr. Primary Chorister.  It went pretty well, but only about half of the kids were there, so we'll see how next week goes.  I also still had a froggy voice left over from my cold, so singing was a little interesting.  Every time my voice would "croak" a few certain kids would look at me with this look of concerned amazement.  Hopefully my voice will be back to normal next week, or I might scar them for life.  I just have to say that I am so grateful for Sugardoodle.net; that website (and all of the wonderful people who post on it) is a lifesaver!

Hope all your Christmas's were just as merry and that you have a great New Year!

Woe is me....

Allan and I are no longer teaching Sunbeams (the 3 year old class).  He was released from being a primary worker and I am going to be the Jr. Primary Chorister (teaching the 3-7 year old children church songs).  We are so bummed to not be teaching those cute kids anymore but I am excited (and a bit worried) about my new calling.  We told our kids about it, and that they would be moving up to an older class, and they looked at us with their best frownie faces and said "We'll miss you.  We love you guys.  And you'll miss us too."  That's why we love primary so much.  Poor Allan is planning how he can escape the adult classes and sneak back in to primary with the children.  We'll see if he ever succeeds.  We had the children act out the Nativity today in class.  We only have one little girl so she was Mary and she couldn't have been more thrilled.  I have never seen her more reverent than she was today.  We acted it out 3 times and she sat completely still, snuggling our "baby Jesus", through the entire class!   I was on my way to the library after sacrament meeting when one of our little boys saw me.  He got a big smile on his face, pointed at me and said "Dad, my girl!  My girl!"  His dad didn't see me though and was very confused about who his 3 yr old son's "girl" was.

We got our adoption pass-along cards on Monday!  Hooray!  We made and delivered a bunch of cookies with our pass-along cards to start to get the word out that we are hoping to adopt.  Everyone here has been very supportive.  We even gave a few to the Missionaries to hand out (as per their request).  When Allan gave them the cards they told him, "You'll have a baby with in two months."  We hope he's right!

The post office lost Allan's Christmas present.  Ugh.  We both ordered gifts for each other from Barnes and Noble on the same day.  When my gift for Allan didn't come we got a little worried and tracked it online only to find that it had supposedly been delivered by the post office on the 8th.  After talking to the Post Office a few times it was clear that they had received it and it had been put in their delivery truck, but after that they had no idea where it might be.  I had a couple of small gifts for Allan but that was his main Christmas gift (and the most expensive thing we bought) so I was really annoyed.  The delivery man came out and looked around but couldn't find any trace of it and they were thinking they would just have to reimburse us.  However, on the 15th our neighbor brought it over to us.  The key to the locker had been put in their box by mistake. I am so grateful that they brought it when they did because we celebrated Christmas together this weekend.  Thankfully everything worked out, and Allan had more than just a couple polo shirts under the tree.

I told one of our Sunbeams today that Santa already came to our house.  He looked at me with wide eyes, and I could tell he was wondering how he could get Santa to come early to his house too.  We had a good early Christmas. Allan got me a couple of books and a movie that I wanted, and some shirts.  I got him some polos, a laser level, and the game Settlers of Catan (the missing package).  Here we are with our loot.

We had a fun time playing the game later that evening.  We also went to the Temple.  What better way to celebrate Christ's birth than attend the Temple the day we celebrated Christmas.  That doesn't happen very often.  Other than that we delivered cookies to our Sunbeams and a few other families.  It was a really good day.  We hope everyone's Christmas is just as wonderful!

Stop Bugging Me!

For some reason whatever apartment we live in we always have bug problems, and both Allan and I hate bugs!  Usually it's spiders but we did have some problems with squirrels in our first apartment.  When we first moved here we had a problem with scorpions.  That has since been cleared up, but now we are having a problem with wasps.  They are in our bathroom fans.  Every day between 1:00 and 2:00pm I start hearing a loud buzzing coming from one or both of the bathrooms.  It lasts for a couple of hours and ends with the wasp getting stuck in the grill and dieing.  Then Allan comes home and vacuums it out.  It's a rather unfortunate daily routine we are going through right now.  This Wednesday was the worst though.  I was working on some Christmas gifts in the living room when I heard an extremely loud buzzing coming from our guest bathroom.  I went and closed the door to wait for Allan to come home.  This is what we found later:

All of the little yellow spots are parts of wasps, mostly the wings.  Our landlord put a bug bomb in the vent and we think the wasps all flew down to try and get away, only to get stuck in the vent grill.  There is supposed to be someone coming tomorrow to clean it up.  Hopefully it will happen.  I was hoping that would be the last of the wasps but Allan heard some today.  I just hope that when the maintenance man comes and takes off the grill I don't get a swarm of live wasps in my house!

We went to a children's theatrical performance this weekend.  They did 101 Dalmations.  We were very impressed with all of the kids.  They ranged from 4-10 years old and they knew all of their lines and did all of the choreography perfectly.  Afterward we went to the local Frozen Yogurt place.  When we went to sit down we saw one of the little dalmations there.  Allan told her we had just seen her play and she said "I was the one that threw my hat off at the end.  I was cute when I did that huh!"  We got a big kick out of that.  We hadn't noticed her throwing her hat but we sure thought she was cute right then.   

We went to our ward Christmas party this weekend as well.  At the end of the party all of the kids got to go and see Santa.   In church today all of the kids in our class told me about their experiences with Santa - if they sat on his lap, told him what they wanted for Christmas, got a candy cane, etc.  I asked one of the boys if Santa was going to come to his house and give him presents.  He said, "no, I saw him at church."  Apparently that was enough for him.

Allan was too sick to go to church this week so I had the sunbeams all to myself.  I was really worried that all of them would be there - that would have made for a rough day - but only three came today.  I don't think I've every been so happy that someone missed church!  The kids that came were, thankfully, really good for me.  They were very reverent and they listened very quietly to the lesson while I taught it.  The Lord answered my prayers.  When we were doing the talking stick one of the boys said that he needed to tell me one more thing.  So, after the other childs turn I asked him what he'd wanted to tell me and he looked at me and said "I love you!" and gave me a big hug.  What a great day in primary!

Christmas Preparations

This week Allan and I got pictures taken for our adoption pass-along cards!  There is a sister in our ward that is a photographer, and she took the pictures and designed the cards for free.  That was a really great blessing.  The pictures turned out great.  She did a really good job.  We are going over to look at the cards today.  We'll be bringing the final product with us to hand out during Christmas so get ready!  We had a lot of fun taking the pictures, but it felt a lot like we were taking our engagements all over again.  We're hoping that the next time we take pictures we'll have a child - it will be a lot more fun, and interesting, that way.

We also did a lot of shopping this week.  By the end of the week poor Allan was so sick of Walmart that he actually did get sick!  We did most of our shopping online on cyber Monday, and I have to give a shout out to a certain sister-in-law who chatted with me while I shopped.  Thanks for keeping me entertained, I may have gone completely crazy with out you!  We were successful though and got all of our Christmas shopping done in that one day!  Hooray!  Just a few more hand-made gifts to go, and we're done!  We got some really great deals too:).

We set up our Christmas tree and managed to fit all of mine and Allan's ornaments on it.  I have at least two ornaments for every year I've been alive and Allan has a few as well.  Our poor tree is pretty small but so far it's made it every year.




This year some of the lights didn't work so we had to make an emergency stop at Walmart late Friday night (after we'd already been there that day), I think that's the one the got Allan.  He just couldn't take the shopping anymore.

Our little town holds a parade of lights the first Saturday of December every year and, of course, we went.  It was quite chilly (still nothing compared to where we've lived before), and we finally had to break out our winter gear.  It was a lot of fun though, and the people were really creative.  There were several semi trailers decked out in holiday decorations.  My favorite was Candy Land themed; we didn't get a picture though because the batteries died.  There was also a John Deere Tractor decorated as Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer

 

the writing on the window says "Santa's favorite deere", very creative. All of the horses were covered in lights and the fire department from two different towns came.  One was "pulling" their fire truck as reindeer, and the other fire truck was carrying Santa Claus.  Here are a few pictures of the parade:


Me, freezing.


Allan, catching cold.


A good example of what the floats looked like.

We had a blast with the Sunbeams this week.  They were more reverent than they've been in a long time!  I was the first one there this time, and when the first little boy walked in and saw me his eyes lit up, he gave me a huge smile and trotted over to sit next to me and tell me all about his week.  Such a cutie!  It made me feel very loved.  Allan had quite the experience with two of the boys while taking them to the bathroom. This is where I take over for a minute. One of the little boys has a tough time coming to Primary, but is doing better. Last week he had walked over to the door, but I had almost convinced him to stop crying when someone randomly opened the door right as his Dad was walking by. That ended his stay in Primary for awhile. So this week when I left the room with this boy and another boy, I went through the door only to turn and see both of his parents coming our way. All 3 of us froze and stared at each other, but luckily their little boy was still looking the other way. I quickly shoved the 2 little boys into the hallway that led to the ladies' bathroom, hoping that he wouldn't see his parents. As they quickly turned and walked the other way, both little boys looked up and started teaching me all about how we were supposed to be going to the other bathroom, not the girls' bathroom (The other little boy was the one that wanted to go in the girls' bathroom a few weeks ago. He had learned his lesson well, and was now very confused.) All I could think of to say was, "I know, we are going to the boys' bathroom, we just have to stand here for a minute." It's a good thing that four year-olds are so trusting.

Merry Christmas!