Living up to the blog name. :D

I know, I'm a really bad blogger these days. Life has been crazy and wonderful. Ha! We live up to our blog name! LOL Hubby is really busy with school and work and this weekend is doing one of his final drill weekends with the reserves. He has 2 after this and then he will be able to concentrate on school and work. He also figured out that he will be graduating with his Bachelor's next Spring. YAY! Of course he will go into the Master's program after that, and then the PhD program after that, but still (he is going to be a college professor). Tamara is in track and is enjoying her last couple of months as a Sophomore and is ready for her Jr. year to begin. I'm not so much ready for that. She is less then 2 months away from turning 16 and will be getting her driver's license soon after that. Emily is teething right now so we don't get much sleep around here. She just learned how to crawl a few days ago and is trying so hard to pull herself up on things. She's getting really close. Her first tooth is so close to popping through. I can feel it, so I'm thinking in the next day or two it should be up. I'm just staying busy with everything that everyone else has going on. Anyhow, I promise I will do a real post soon, I have several people who are working on guest blogs, and I have a few planned for the week after next which is National Infertility week. Anyhow, for your viewing pleasure, I present, crawling Emily!

What we do to pass time......

So last week hubby was at the store pricing shingles for the roof. We didn't need to replace the roof yet. We were told we had about 2-3 years when we had the house inspected before buying it, before we needed to replace the roof. But in 2-3 years we will have a child prepping for college and a toddler getting ready for pre-school, and possibly another newborn. So we figured while we had the money and time, we would go ahead and do it. Well hubby found some great ones at the big orange box on sale. 30 years, architectural design, slate in color. Gorgeous!

He had them delivered (roof top of course, cause it was free, and having to lug these heavy shingles up ourselves would just have been silly), got a couple of his brothers and a member of our church to come help and 3 days later, they were done! Well, the first day, his brother Joe came for 4-5 hours, the second day it was just Jacob, and the third day is when Joe came again, John came and the member from our church came. Seriously, the help was soooo appreciated. And I love LOVE how it looks now. As Tammy commented, our house actually looks newer, just by reshingling the roof. :D Next project for the outside of the house, repainting. :D

Above: Before (taken May 5, 2010)

And now, for the big reveal (that is, if you aren't on my Facebook and haven't already seen it)

The after (taken June 25, 2010)

We also bought a new dishwasher. The old one was leaking so we decided to buy a new one. We spent a little more than I would have liked, but we opted to get the one we would want when we redo our kitchen next year. Figured it would save money rather than having to get a new one now for a couple hundred and then spend more later to get what we actually want. Plus, it was on sale so we're happy.

Today is July 1st. I never thought July would come. July is the month Baby Emily is due. It seems surreal honestly. We have waited so long for this, and now it is almost here. We have had a couple of baby showers for family. My mom did one for her side, Jacob's sister-in-law did one for Jacob's side of the family and there is still 1 more before the baby comes. Our birth mom K and my stepmom, are throwing us one next week. My friend Annette offered to throw us one after the baby comes. She is in the middle of a move right now so when we talked, we decided after Emily comes would be better. We will probably do an open house as well but we haven't decided that yet. Since we are also doing an open house when the adoption is finalized and we are able to bless her and go to the temple, we may wait on that.

Later today we have a dr. appt. that we are going to. Hubby is coming with so that he can hear Emily's heartbeat in person for the first time. This is also the appt. where they do the tests to make sure all is good for a regular delivery, and I think they will start checking K as well to see if she is starting to dialate. K is 36 weeks today which means we have 28 days left till her due date. 4 weeks (give or take depending on if the baby comes early or late of course). Or as my friend Brittany would say, 4 Saturday's (it always seems less when you count in Saturday's). YAY!!!

Tobi the cat

We got a new member of our family today. We actually met her 2 weeks ago, but had to wait to bring her home until today. Meet, Tobi:

She and Sirius actually get along really well.

(Look in the upper right hand corner, you will see Tobi sniffing Sirius. Too cute!)




The lady at the pet adoption place told us it would probably take a few days for her to warm up to us, and to not introduce the dog and cat for a few days. Well, within an hour of having her home she wanted to explore the house. So we decided before letting her out of Tammy's room we would see how she and the dog got along, knowing that there were plenty of places for her to hide in there if she needed to. Well, let's just say, within minutes both animals were laying on Tammy's bed perfectly content. They really like each other and have even nuzzled up to each other. Tobi seems right at home too. She loves it here and within minutes of getting here was purring up a storm. She is a loud purrer too. I can hear her from across the room. She likes to nuzzle your nose with her nose, and loves to play! She is a great addition to our family.

Tammy actually named her. My only requirement when she picked the name was that it had to be a Harry Potter name. So she chose Tobi. Tobius Snape is the muggle father of Professor Severus Snape. Since the kitty is a girl we couldn't name her Tobius, so we went with Tobi. We also considering other names like Calli (short for Callidora who was a relative of Sirius Black and married a realitive of Neville Longbottom). We also considered Minni (short for Minerva McGonagall, who was of course a professor who transfigured into a cat), Tali (short for Natalie McDonald who is the only actual person to be in the books -she was a 9 yr old fan of JK Rowlings who passed away from cancer. So JK Rowlings honored her by writting her into the books) and Tonks who is one of our favorite characters from the books and movies. We considered other names as well, but ultimately, Tammy chose Tobi.

I think it fits her well. ;o)

Formspring~ Everyone's doing it. ;o)

A lot of the blogs I read have added this feature called formspring. I'm finding that I'm running out of things to blog about, so I thougt I would add this feature too. Maybe it will give me ideas.

If you look over on the right hand side of my blog you will see a formspring question block. You can ask me anything. I will answer, you may not like the answer, but I'll answer. ;o) It can be about our lives, what types of music, movies, books, etc. we like. It can be about adoption, my life as a teen mom, our faith. Anything. Just ask.

You can use your name, or remain anonymous. I look forward to chatting with you!

Parent Profiles and Monarch Photography

Thursday Jacob and I attended our first FSA class at our adoption agency. FSA stands for Families Supporting Adoption and is made up of all sorts of people who have been touched by adoption in one form or another, whether it be adoptive families (or in our case hopeful family), birth families and adoptees. Our local chapter is the West Valley Chapter and they host mini-classes on various subjects.

This mini-class was on "Other Adoption Options". Several families in the FSA spoke to us about their past adoption experiences. One couple talked about Foster Adoption, another about a private adoption agency, two couples talked about adoption through private attorneys. Parent Profiles was also talked about, a lot.... After a lot of consideration Jacob and I have decided to sign up for Parent Profiles. Can't hurt right? I know we open ourselves up for scammers if we do that, but at the same time, we just feel like we need to do all we can to help our future childs birth family find us. (We've already been scammed just through our blog and an adoption website I belong to, but that's another post.) So we're going for it. Our profile will hopefully be up and running in a week or two.

Oh, and we are getting family pictures done on Tuesday. I can't wait! Our last family pictures were done by a friend of mine almost 2 years ago. That friend lives in Kansas still and we are in Utah, so having her do them again was impossible. My nephews mom Ashley is a photographer, and is fantastic! Her eye for detail is stunning! Seriously, check her out! Her company is called Monarch Photography. If you are needing photos for any reason, or just because, give her a call. Ashley specializes in weddings but can do really any photography. Seriously, she is fantastic! And I'm not just saying that because she's my nephews mom, seriously, she is fantastic!

Overhaul

Very soon our website will have a new overhaul. I am going to be adding lots and lots of pictures and it will be redesigned by Kelly from Modern Blitz Designs. She and her hubby are also hoping to adopt and her design company is a way to help raise funds. So since I have been looking for someone to do redesign our blog, Kelly was the perfect choice. When I told Jacob that I was thinking of having our blog redesigned he was unsure until I told him that I wanted to do this so it made our blog more easily navigated for anyone wanting to learn more about us, and I also told him about Kelly. He immediately thought it was a great idea and in his words, helping out another hopeful couple is an added bonus.

So, don't be surprised if you see in the next couple of weeks a lot of pictures and things and then an overhaul. *grin*

back in the game!

One of my many hobbies that I absolutely love is stamping, card making to be exact. I recently joined a stamp club with my mom. Last night was our first meeting and it was really fun. It got my creative juices flowing again which is awesome because it has been way too long since I have spent any time crafting. We created 3 cards. I won't post them because they are going to people who read my blog.

I hope to get some more creating done in the next few days. Tomorrow I need to make a cake. We have been invited to dinner on Sunday at the house of some new friends from church. When I asked if I could bring anything I was told dessert. So, I figured this would be the perfect chance to make a cake. *grin* Not only that, but I get to try out some of the new cake stuff I got for Christmas. I'll be sure to post a picture of the finished product. It's been a long time since I decorated a cake. *big grin*

Winter Wonderland!

I just had to post pictures of our snow fall! Last year when we were in New Mexico (very southern New Mexico, almost to the Texas border) we were praying for snow. Somehow it just doesn't feel like Christmas to me without snow. The most we ever got was a light (and I do mean light) dusting of snow the day after Christmas. It really looked like someone had sprinkled powdered sugar on our lawn.
This is the sadness that was our snowfall last year when we lived in New Mexico. (Incidentally, some of my friends who live there tell me that this year they have already gotten 7 inches in some areas.

This is our snow fall today. Note that it's still snowing. So ya, hubby was out later shoveling again. ;o) We really need to get a snowblower or something. Note the fire hydrant on the corner is over halfway covered. Love it!! It's crazy, but I love it! It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!

A new door meant, late to the reunion.

We have been busy little bees getting our house in order. It still hasn't sunk in being out of the Army and being back home in Utah. Being home owners still hasn't hit us. The other day the toilet wouldn't stop running and my first thought was, gotta call housing and have them come fix it. Then I realized, wait, we are housing, we are the owners. You see, where we lived, we weren't allowed to fix things, even some of the smallest things we had to call maintenance to come and fix it because those were "the rules". So it's been weird to be able to fix things ourselves.

We haven't had a lot of extra time lately, but we did go to Jacob's family reunion a few weeks ago. We needed to install a new front door that day and Jacob wanted to install it before we went to the reunion so that we could enjoy being there and not have to leave early to get home to install the door.

My beloved hummingbird door had cracks all over the stained glass part so we had no chose but to replace it. We replaced our kitchen door too, but that was the next weekend.

Anyhow, we though the door replacing would take 4 hours or so at the most, should have just been pop in out, pop the new one in. So there is a little more to it then that, but it shouldn't have taken the 7+ hours it took. The area for the door frame wasn't right, and the threshold was all weird, so Jacob ended up having to build a whole new threshold and area for the frame so the new door and frame would fit. (Luckily the kitchen door took 3 hours from start to finish, which is awesome!)

Tomorrow I'll post pics of from the little bit of time we were at the reunion, along with our visit with Jacob's grandma. :-)

Quick Update

I know, I have been really bad at updating lately. We have been getting the house unpacked and doing some construction projects. We are almost done. It's taking a lot longer then I had hoped, but it's getting there. Jacob started his new job a couple of weeks ago. Wednesday we are going into the agency to talk with them some more about getting our file moved to the office here. Hopefully we will be able to schedule a time for our ammended home study. They just need to come and make sure the new house is safe. That is part of what we have been working on. Our house had 2 smoke detectors, neither worked. So we are putting in more smoke detectors. Ones that actually work! And we also put in a carbon monoxide detector as well. Anyhow, things are coming along. I will post pictures soon!

We made it!

Just wanted to post really quick that we made it to Utah safely. Thursday we cleared our military quarters in New Mexico and spent that evening with some friends of ours. We left their house after a very good nights sleep (I have to find our what kind of mattress they have in their guest room because I have never slept so well) at 6 a.m. and after a thankfully uneventful drive, we made it to Jacob's parents house in Salem at just before 8 p.m. We stayed up until Jacob's parents got home from the temple and then stayed up talking to them and catching up until almost 2a.m. We woke up to a yummy breakfast that Jacob's mom made us and then left their house at 9:15 to make the rest of the drive to our new home. It was only an hour drive, so, much shorter then that day before. ;-) Most of my family came, and a good part of Jacob's family came to help us unload our Uhaul and with their help we were done in just over an hour. It was so great to see everyone again and it's a little surreal to be back home. I'm sure it will sink in soon that yes, we are actually home, and that this is actually our house.

We have met some of our neighbors over the last few days and I think we are going to love this neighborhood. Church yesterday was really nice. We only went to Sacrament, but still, it had a very welcoming feeling to the congregation. Funny story, I was sittingin church and I look over to my left. I see this woman that looks like an old friend from high school who I haven't seen since she graduated in 1994, so 15 years. After the meeting ended I start to get up, she looks over at me and waves. Sure enough, it's her! We got to chatting. She actually doesn't go to church in that building, her sister does, she was just visiting. But what a small world we live in. I had just been on Facebook that morning commenting on how cute her new baby is, when just an hour later I see her at church. Too funny.

Anyhow, today is Labor day and we have no plans other then tackling some of the many boxes we need to unpack. Hopefully it won't take us too long. We'll see. We love our new house though! I'll post pictures as we get the rooms all put together.