Twice the fun!

I forgot to mention that we had the oppurtunity to have our pictures taken by our very talented friend Jessica Shumway for our adoption profile. She made the shoot fun and had lots of great ideas. You should check her out here !

Plus, the best part was that we got to babysit not once, but TWICE! her adorable twin babies. We got some much needed baby practice in and had tons of fun just snuggling with these cuties.

Some Pictures from our babysitting adventures:

(Heath getting the babes ready for bed.)

(When feeding two, you must get creative. Me with the twinkles.)

Thanks Jess!! It was a win-win for us :)

Holy Update Batman!

It's been way too long. No good excuses-just busy, busy, busy and sick, sick, sick! I will try and back track to all the fun things we've done in the past couple months:

First of all, November was National Adoption Month! As you know, adoption has become a very important part of our lives and it was so fun to see all the exciting things going on around us to put adoption out there and break some of the stigma. We read many lovely blogs from all over the adoption triad: adoptive parents, adoptees, birthmothers, and birthfathers. My favorite place to go is the LDS Adoption Connection website. It's a great place to go so you can read blogs from both sides of adoption. We haven't been placed with our baby yet, but adoption has such a special place in our hearts already. I think the biggest thing we've gained so far is a deep appreciation and love for birth families. They aren't selfish people who want to shove their child off to the side so they can continue to live their crazy lives. No, they are caring, selfless people who have a deep love for their child and break their own hearts so that they can give their child all that they can't at that time. It breaks my heart that our future birth parents (and all birth parents) have to go through this pain, but like the pain of our infertility we have come to know that great things come from "a broken heart and contrite spirit". Great things will come to these wonderful people. Great things indeed.

November 12th was Heath's 28th birthday! We celebrated by restaurant skipping to all of our favorite places that Heath got free Birthday meals to. I surprised him by upgrading his phone to the new iPhone 4S and gave him a copy of Steve Jobs biography-as you can tell Heath is the ultimate Apple fanboy.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we spent at my cousin Heather's house for a cookout. We celebrated my Grandma's Birthday and then took her home with us to stay the night with my parents who were also visiting for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day Heath and I woke up early to get our jeans that were on sale at Old Navy. Then we packed everyone up and headed back to Heather's house for our feast. We had fun playing with Heather's sons and everyone had a great time catching up and hanging out. We are so grateful for our families and having most of them close by so we can make all these fun memories together.

The next day was Black Friday AND our 6th Wedding Anniversary. We celebrated by scoping out all the sales and eating at our traditional Joe's Crab Shack. Heath got us a new washer and dryer for our anniversary- our old one (which wasn't that old) never worked right and made our clothes smelly. The best part was that we sold our old pair the same night which paid for half of it and the rest was covered by work bonuses. I am one happy camper since we plan on doing cloth diapering and I really didn't want smelly laundry anymore! I am very lucky to have Heath in my life and look forward to what this next year has in store for us.

The weekend of December 10th my parents came into town to help us with our Adoption Garage Sale. Many people donated items for our sale and we were able to raise over $1700 for our adoption fund!!! We cannot express enough how grateful we are for so many people wanting to help us out and all the love that has been shown to us as we began our journey to adopt. We love you all!!

My parents got to stay all the way until my 28th Birthday on Tuesday, December 13th! We celebrated with a yummy breakfast and then said goodbye to my parents. Heath got me this beautiful necklace for my birthday. It is hand stamped with "Enjoy the Journey" which is my new favorite phrase for life! I loved it!

We went to DFW for Christmas, but not before I caught some yucky cold virus. Friday, December 23rd we went to our annual CASA Christmas play with Ben and Mer (and their kids). This year my family went too which was a special treat. We can't wait to have our own little one to include in these traditions. Christmas Eve was spent at our annual Breinholt Christmas Eve Bash. It includes Ben and Mer (and family), Jeremy (Heath's brother) and JaeLyn, and Mer's siblings Cody and Bandaid. I was still sick, but we had a blast! We make yummy breakfast food, open presents, do our Christmas devotional (we read the Christmas story from the Bible and act out the parts with our wooden Nativity set) with the Utah Breinholt's via Skype, and just have fun! Christmas Day morning was spent with my family opening presents and then later in the day my mom's family came for lunch and our annual (We have a lot of traditions :)) Chinese gift card exchange. We stayed the rest of the week and I spent it working and still trying to recover from my cold. On Friday I gave in and went to the doctor-2 days before the new year and our new deductible began :) I was diagnosed with an Upper Respiratory Infection, given a steroid shot in the bum, and sent home with two meds.

Saturday the 31st (New Year's Eve) we began what we thought would be a short project for my mom- replacing the kitchen faucet. The faucet was rusted on so bad that we had to replace the sink, and since we were already doing that we also replaced the garbage disposal too. And by we I totally mean Heath. He's my handy man! The project took much longer than we thought and we were oh, about 3 hours late meeting our friends Joey and Kira at our house in Austin. We still feel really bad about that- sorry guys!! Joey and Kira come every year for New Years and we have so much fun with them.

Last week we received the letter that we were approved a to adopt through LDS Family Services!! It was such an exciting day and we can't wait to see what the new year holds for us. We can't wait to meet our birth family and find our baby through the miracle of adoption. Our agency works a little differently. Our birth mom will find us either through our profile on the website www.itsaboutlove.org or through networking with friends, family, and even strangers. So if you feel impressed to share our story- do it! It could be the spirit speaking to you and it could turn out to be the connection to our future birth family. Thank you for your continued prayers, thoughts, and acts of love. We are so grateful for all the support we have been given on building our family. Much love and best wishes in the new year!

P.S. Feel free to grab our button on the right side of our blog. When posted on your blog and clicked it will take others straight to our adoption blog!

Adoption Conference/Pumpkin Carving

In true Halloween fashion this post has a scary twist, it is written by Heath! I hope I don't drive away our reader.

This weekend we had the great opportunity to go to an adoption conference and hear from several speakers about the many parts of adoption and how we can be better prepared for the process. It was a fantastic meeting and the speakers were great. Adrienne had talked to most of them online already so for her it was nice to put faces with stories. Anyway they were all helpful in the information they gave but it was obvious that they had prayerfully prepared to speak to us. Heavenly Father had guided them to the words we needed to hear and prepared us to hear them. We heard from a couple of families who had been through the adoption process who gave tips on how to be proactive and not passive in finding our baby. A couple of case workers talked about the details of the process and one gave a very wonderful talk about dealing with infertility. It really broke through the shyness barrier and helped everyone voice their emotions. Finally a birthmother spoke about the process from her point of view and told the story of how adoption changed her life. It was truly inspiring to hear her testimony of adoption and we all left hoping to be a part of a story like hers. In the end we all left with a smile on our faces and the spirit in our hearts.

On the following day we spent the afternoon with Ben, Mer, Syd, Malla, and Ty. We had so much fun playing till our bodies could play no more. The girls on the other hand were running on pure sugar (it being Halloween and all) so when we ran out of gas they just ran around and around-literally. We carved a pumpkin and by we I mean everyone handed me the pumpkin and said go ahead and blow our minds. It's hard to be creative with that kind of pressure. I do my best stuff when nobody is expecting it. Anyway, we all liked the idea of the mouth and eyes from the cat on Alice in Wonderland. So, a quick Google search brought up a suitable image that was then carved into the pumpkin. In the end I don't think it looked much like a cat, even with the ears, but it did look scary. After all the fun we had long drive home again. What a good weekend.

Sydney is hollowing out the pumpkin while I'm making the template.

Look at those chubby cheeks. Just love little Tyson.

What a fun day.

Sydney didn't want us to leave.

October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month!

Last weekend we had the opportunity to attend the 2011 Buddy Walk for the Down Syndrome Association of Central Texas. It was a special day because we got to be members of Team Cruisin' for Carter.

Our team "Cruisin' for Carter" doing the 1 mile walk!

Us with Carter!

Carter is my cousin Heather's son and we are lucky to live close to them and enjoy giving Heather and her husband a break once in awhile so we can babysit Carter and his brother Zane. We always have a good time with the boys. Mostly because Carter loves to entertain. He loves shows like the circus or Sea World and you can usually find him putting on a show for us afterwards. He loves to hang out with Heath. They love to play instruments and Heath is always chosen to read him his books before bed time. Back to the Buddy Walk! Here is a description from the DSCAT website (www.dsact.com): "

The Buddy Walk ® was established in 1995 by the National Down Syndrome Society to celebrate Down Syndrome Awareness Month in October and to promote acceptance and inclusion of people with Down syndrome."

It also raises money to help fund these great opportunities:

o New Parent Outreach;

o Recreational Classes (art, dance, music, swimming);

o Age-Specific Social Activities;

o Monthly Speaker Series;

o Bi-Monthly Educational Newsletter;

o Promoting and Encouraging Inclusion; and

o Special Education Advocacy And Training.

Feel free to donate to your local chapter! It's a great cause and I have seen the programs personally bless a loved one of mine.

We had a great weekend!

His plan for me

One of the best parts of being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is having the knowledge that Heavenly Father has a plan for me. Sometimes that knowledge is clouded by doubt or fear, but it is always there. Even in my darkest hours of infertility I felt the confirmation from the Holy Ghost that Heavenly Father knew my pain and had a plan for me. But I definitely had my moments of doubt. And by moments I mean years. I spent the last 4 years doubting if I would ever be a mother, doubting my worthiness to be a mother, doubting that my prayers were being heard. Doubting that I would ever climb out of the hole of pity, anger, bitterness, sadness, and jealousy I had dug. The important part of that last sentence was "I". I dug that hole and only I could reach out and help myself out of it. I joined the church when I was 17. In the 10 years since my baptism I have had many stumbling blocks put in my way, but I have always overcome them. When infertility was thrown in front of me I was knocked down, but I didn't give up. I was proactive. We went to the doctor, we got tests, we tried procedures, we tried all sorts of things we learned from friends and family and strangers online, we tried diet changes, we tried vitamins. We tried everything. And each time one of those didn't work it was like getting knocked to the ground again. Before we chose adoption (and after we had one last test done) I found myself knocked to my knees again. But this time I did something differently. I changed my prayers. I poured out my heart to Heavenly Father. I told Him all I ever wanted was to one day be a mother. That I was willing to let this (pregnancy) go so that I could meet Him half way and align my plan with His plan. Remember that pit of despair I had dug? Suddenly it wasn't so deep. Suddenly I could grasp the edge and pull myself out. What a great feeling!

After shaking off those 4 years of sadness my eyes were open to all that I had missed. All the blessings, all the answered prayers, all the direction that Heavenly Father had given Heath and I in our lives as we endured this trial. I was able to see that we were heading right where we were meant to be all along and suddenly infertility wasn't a trial anymore. It was a blessing.

I'm not saying it isn't still hard. I had to grieve the loss of a childhood dream-bearing children. It was hard, but it is better now. I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who knows our pain and helps lighten our burdens.

Howdy Folks! Welcome to the State Fair!

Last weekend we headed to DFW for the annual Texas/OU football game at The State Fair of Texas. I have been going to this game since I was a little girl, and it has been fun to include Heath in the tradition after our marriage. We can't wait for the day when we can dress up our little girl or boy in Longhorn garb and head out the fair. The game was one of the most disappointing I've ever seen. Heath and I actually left a quarter early because it was going so poorly. We decided we'd rather enjoy the fair then watch the beating we were getting. Despite the outcome of the game we had a great time. My dad and brother were there and we all just enjoyed spending time with each other. We ate fried food concoctions, played carnival games, and visited the petting zoo.

Since deciding on adoption these moments have been even more special. Now we look at these events and get giddy with the possibility of sharing these times with our own little one. We can't wait to share our lives with a child.

I also got some great news last week. In July, I took a credentialing exam to become a Certified Coding Specialist (CCS). It's a 4 hour test and not easy at all, and I'm proud to announce that I got the good news that I passed the exam! I celebrated by eating and playing to my heart's content at the State Fair :)

Here are some pictures to document the day:

The great thing about losing bad is that everyone leaves you have plenty of bench space to enjoy :)

Inside the stadium. It was packed full of Texas/OU fans!

Us in front of a Texas Longhorn. Beautiful animals :)

Uncle Mattie feeding the baby goats. This little one ate his whole cup.

Us at the game. You can tell this is at the beginning of the game because we are still smiling. We lost bad :(

My favorite thing to do each year is the Petting Zoo. The smile on my face says how much I love animals of all kinds!

Uncle Mattie with all of our treasures after playing games on the Midway. We have a tradition of winning a basketball each year, and both of us did again this year! Longhorn ones of course :)

"Our Nursery"

Heath and I have been getting excited about transforming what we call the "Longhorn Room" into our nursery. We want to be prepared since you never know with adoption how soon your child may come to you. We like the idea of a gender neutral room because again we have no idea which sex we would be blessed with. We've been to a ton of baby stores and looked online and this is what we've come up with so far:

This is the crib we love:

And this is bedding set/theme we like for the room:

We are thinking about painting the walls either light green or yellow. Blog readers, which color do you like best? We'll probably put up vinyl decals on the wall too or paint a tree with the owls and baby's name on the wall.

We're so excited to begin this new adventure and love that we can call that extra room upstairs "our nursery" instead of "future nursery".