Sharon's Story

When I was born my dad was in the Army, so I was born in Fort Bliss Texas. I am the youngest of my parents children. My sister Ginny is married with 3 kids, ages 16, 12, and 9) and she lives in Maryland. Roy is married, living in West Jordan Utah with his wonderful wife. They have 4 children (ages 11, 9, 6 & almost 2). Ben and Matt are twins. Ben has a son who is 6 and lives in Midvale Utah. Matt lives in Orem UT. Shortly after I was born we moved to Germany. I was only 3 when we moved back to the states so I don't remember it. Most of my childhood was spent in Maryland before we moves to Utah when I was 13.

A year after our move my parents divorced and they are both remarried. Both of their spouses are awesome. My mom married Dale in 1994, and he has 3 kids Christy who is married, and lives in South Jordan UT and has 5 kids, ages 17, 13, 4, 1 & 1 (twins!), Mindy who lives in West Valley UT, and Joe who also lives in West Valley UT. My Dad and his wife Sally (also married in 94') have two great kids that they adopted, Kristina and David. Total in all there are 10 children and including my daughter Tammy, 14 grand children.

Tammy, my daughter is 14 (she will be 15 in June of this year-2010). She is the light of my life. Tammy was 6 when Jacob and I got married. We share joint custody of Tammy with her dad. We have a great relationship with him and it makes co-parenting way easier. Tammy lives with us, but gets to see her dad all the time. He only lives a few minutes away so it makes it nice.
(Me in 1998)

I have a lot of hobbies. 8 years ago I started stamping and making cards. I also just recently learned how to digi-scrap. I also love to work with ceramics, quilt, and paint. Two of my favorite hobbies are cake decorating and photography. I was at a craft store a couple of years ago and I saw an ad for cake decorating classes. I ended up loving it so much that I took all 3 courses and have made a lot of cakes for family and friends. But by far, my favorite hobby though is photography. Of the pictures that I post, if I'm not in it, more then likely I took it. *grin*

(me at the White Sands Missile Park in New Mexico where we used to live)

Our house, part 1

We got our family pictures done last week. I will have the disk in a couple of weeks. I can't wait! The proofs I have seen so far are great!! So I will share those when we get them.

For now I wanted to share a little about our house. If you have been reading our blog for awhile then you know we bought our house sight unseen in August. We found it on the internet but we were living in New Mexico at the time because Jacob was still Active Duty Army. We needed a house to move into when we moved to Utah which meant buying one before we moved back. Luckily my mom was willing and able to go look at homes for us. We looked at over 60 homes on the internet, and had my mom and our realtor actually physically go to close to 20 houses. She took major notes and lots of pictures so we could feel as comfortable about our purchase as possible. (Thanks again mom!) This is definately the right home for us and we love it! It has been a labor of love so far, and we have a lot more work to do, but it's home.

Our home is located in West Valley City Utah, which if you aren't familiar with the area is a suburb of Salt Lake City. Our neighborhood is great. Very friendly and safe. Lots of neighbors with kids of all ages. We live within a 1/2 mile of 2 Elementary schools and live around the corner from the Jr. High. The High School is close as well and we have parks within walking distance. It's a great house on a corner lot. That means our backyard is smaller, but the side yards are large.

Our house is 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms. We have 2,024 sq feet which is the perfect size in my opinion. Not too small, but not too big. Here are some pictures of the inside of the house. I will post more later as we complete more projects.

This is our kitchen.

Eventually we will redo it, to give us an oven that is big enough (this one is teeny tiny, you can't even fit a Turkey in it), and also more counter space and more cabinet space. For now, we love it though. It's an eat-in kitchen. Behind me is our dining space with our table and chairs. We have been able to fit as many as 6 people around the table comfortably. Once we redo the kitchen though, we'll have space for more.

This is the nursery. I know you're probably wondering why we have a nursery all set up when we haven't been chosen. We had a bunch of baby items that we had been collecting, and we needed somewhere to put it all. We figured that we might as well put the room together. Right now the crib set, and curtains are done in a jungle theme. I want to get a couple of other sets too. The paint color is a very soft green so it will go with anything really, for either a boy or a girl. I am actually looking for some fabrics in purple and green flowers to do a crib set for is our future precious little one is a girl. My brother and his wife recently gave us a really cute crib set with ladybugs on it that will work well for if our future baby is a girl as well.

This is a reading, play, corner we have in the nursery. The bookshelf has lots of books on it. Everything from There's a Monster at the end of this book (I love that book!), to Winnie the Pooh. We will be adding more as time goes on. I want to get some adoption books. Ones that help a child understand about adoption. I have seen some that are from a birth mom's point of view and talk about how much she loves her little one, and always will. Another idea I saw was to take photos and letters from our child's birth mom and make those into a story book. We could read it to him or her every night, and they will always know that their birth mommy loves them.

This is our room. It is kiddie corner from the nursery.

This is Tammy's room. Tammy and my mom put this together as a project for the both of them to do. Tammy decided on her favorite colors. It turned out great!

This is a close-up of Tammy's bed. My mom is really talented and is fantastic at making projects. She made Tammy's bedding. Gorgeous isn't it?

I still have to take a picture of the living room. We have been redoing that and are almost done. My mom is recovering a love seat for us (I told you she was talented!) and making some pillows. As soon as we get those I will take pictures and post. I will also get some pictures of our family room. Not to mention my craft area. So more pictures to come!

Why I chose to parent

I recently read a blog post by someone saying that they felt that a teenager who chooses to parent her child is making a selfish decision. Someone else said that it ruins the life of the baby and the teen mom. Here’s the thing, I’m 31, and my daughter is 14. So yes, I was a teenage mother. Let me start by saying Tammy’s father “N” is a great man. It took us years, but we are finally to the point, after all the hurt, mean words, hate (yes, I said hate), after everything, we are friends. We are good friends. That being said, here is my story.

I was 15 when I got pregnant. I was with someone who I thought I loved and who I thought loved me. When we thought I might be pregnant we had a conversation about what we would do if I was. We decided to get married. So even before I knew for sure I was pregnant I/we had decided to parent. Fast forward a few weeks. I found out that this guy who said he loved me and wanted to marry me, had been unfaithful (with someone I couldn't stand no less). That same day I started having some pains in my stomach, and I called the Dr. They asked if I could be pregnant. I said yes, they said I needed to come in immediately because I could be having a miscarriage or it could be an ectopic pregnancy. So my boyfriend called his work, told them he would be a little late and took me to the Dr. I walked in, they had me to go to the lab to take the test. We sat there waiting for the results. He asked if I could forgive him. I said I didn’t know but that I would try. He said he didn’t have an excuse but please, forgive him. I told him that I couldn't marry someone that I couldn't trust. He cried and said he understood. I told him that if he could prove to me that I could trust him, we could get married after the baby was born. He said he would prove it to me. I don’t know what made me say this next part, but I told him that I needed to break up with him for a while. He was crushed. Right after this the nurse came out and called me over telling me that the test was positive and I was pregnant. She took us both back to the Dr. so the Dr. could make sure everything was o.k. Everything was fine, perfectly healthy. The pain was probably just stress. “N” cried the whole time. The Dr. left the room for a minute and “N” said he had to go to work and asked if I could get a ride with my mom or something.

So there I sat in the Dr. office, no boyfriend, a baby on the way. And now, I had to tell my mom. I called her and asked her if she could come get me. When she got there I couldn't look at her. I just blurted out, Mom, I’m pregnant. She was shocked. She hugged me, and I ran to the car. After she got in she asked me what happened and where was “N”. I told her we broke up and I cried and cried. I decided I had made a terrible mistake and I called his work, he wasn’t there, he had called in and said he wasn’t coming, so I went to “N”’s brother’s house because that’s where he was staying at the time. He wasn’t there either. His brother “T” was there and he invited me in to wait. His wife “C” walked in, dropped her bags that she was carrying, dropped to her knees and said, you’re pregnant. I nodded and cried some more. “N” came home shortly after and asked what I was doing there. “T” and “C” told him they knew. He was angry that I had told them, I explained that I hadn’t, they had guessed.

I felt empty and abandoned. I had almost no support and I knew I was pretty much on my own, especially when the next day at school I saw “N” holding hands with the girl he had cheated with, I knew I was on my own. This girl had convinced him that because I broke up with him, I had cheated on him (which I didn't, but that's neither here nor there). My mom didn’t know what to say to me (after all, what do you say to your daughter when she tells you she’s pregnant). My whole family didn’t know what to say, or what to do (my mom and my whole family were supportive, they just didn't know what to say). My school asked me to go to a teen mom school and leave the regular high school. I told my bishop. He never once did he said anything to me about LDSFS or adoption. The only person who did in fact was “C”. One day she asked me if there was any way that “N”’s claims where true, was there a way this baby wasn’t his. She said that if there was any way the baby wasn’t his and I told her now, she would support me no matter what the DNA tests showed. I had been faithful and yes, the baby was definitely his. She asked me if I had thought about what I would do, did I want to parent, or place the baby for adoption. The ONLY thing I knew about adoption was what you see in the movies, where when you get pregnant, you get sent away, some nun takes your baby and you never see him or her again (silly to think that is what adoption is, I know) So having no one to talk to about adoption and what it was actually all about, I told her I wanted to parent, she said o.k. whatever she needed to do, she would do. Looking back on it, I think a part of me was hopeful that “N” would come back and we would get married and be a happy family. This was not what happened. “N” and I had tried to be friends, that lasted for about a week. Over the next several months I ran into “N” a few times. Each time we fought. Each time I got so upset I almost miscarried. I didn’t start showing until I was 6 and a half months along so all sorts of rumors were going around that I wasn’t actually pregnant. That didn’t help matters any.

Shortly after having Tammy I moved out of my mom’s house. I ended up leaving school because I had to work full-time to pay the bills, put a roof over our heads, and food in our mouths. (I went back a few years later and got my diploma.) When my friends were going to prom, I was changing diapers. When my friends were walking across the stage at graduation, I was planning a 1 yr olds party. When my friends were out dating and getting married, I was hoping and praying there would be someone out there who would actually want to be with me for me, and except Tammy as their own. And not want to be with me because they thought I was "easy" (trust me, I ran into plenty of guys like that, one even admitted that he wanted to "date" me for that reason).

Having said all that, do I think my life was ruined? I know it wasn’t. It changed me in so many ways. Do I think her life was ruined? No. Ask her, she will tell you no. Would her life be different if I had placed her? Yes, absolutely. For one, she would actually be baptized now and would have an eternal family. Not to mention she would not have to go back and forth between her parents all the time (thank goodness we get along, that isn't normal though, most teen parents, don't and the kids see that fighting, it took us years, and I do mean years, to become friend again though.) Every decision we make changes what could have been. Do I think I was selfish for choosing to parent her? No.

I made the decision I felt was best for my daughter and me with the information I had. Having no one to talk to about adoption (remember, I didn't even know LDSFS existed), I chose what I thought was best. There are two things I wish were different. When I had Tammy and chose to parent her, I was “active” in my church, but I wasn’t ACTIVE in church. I went to church every Sunday, but that was it. I didn’t have a testimony of the Gospel. I didn’t care about Temple Marriage. I didn’t care about any of it. I went through the motions. That was it. It wasn’t until years later that I actually gained a testimony. Tammy isn’t baptized in the church. Her dad and I have joint custody of her, and because we have joint custody we both have to give permission for Tammy to be baptized. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that “N” was willing to consent to her being baptized. Tammy is now at that age where she doesn’t know if she wants to be baptized into the church, so she isn’t baptized. She also is not sealed to Jacob and I. In our church we believe that Family's can be together forever, this is commonly known as sealing. Not only is Tammy not sealed to us, she isn’t sealed to anyone. This breaks my heart.

Is single parenting for everyone? No. Is teen marriage for everyone? No. Is Adoption for everyone? No. Each person has to make the decision they feel is best for them and their child. To say teen moms are selfish, or that I’m selfish for choosing to parent is unfair. You don’t know me, you don’t know what my circumstances were at the time I made my decision. To say that a birth mom is taking the easy way out (I've heard this before) is completely and utterly false. I have a lot of birth mom friends. Trust me, it's not easy. If you think it's easy, you obviously don't know a birth mom. It is probably one of the hardest things, anyone on the earth has to do.

I have only shared a small portion of my story, I don’t feel I need to share the rest. Someday, when we are chosen by a Birth Mom, or when a Birth Mom is considering us, if she has questions and wants to know more, I’ll tell her.

Sorry this was so long, I just felt this needed to be said.

Infertility and why we are choose adoption

I woke up yesterday morning at 4:30 feeling so sick. I'm better today, but yesterday I was miserable. Not sure what was wrong with me, but I feel lots better today so I guess it wasn't anything too serious. Anyhow, on Facebook my status was that I was sick. A bunch of my sweet friends and family all commented that they hoped I was feeling better soon. My sweet friend, we'll call her M, remarked that she hoped it was the Egyptian flu and that I would be a mummy in 9 months. I had never heard it put that way before and remarked that I thought it was a cute way to put it. But that no, I can't get pregnant. I realized that I had never actually gone into detail about why we can't have kids biologically and why we have chosen to adopt. So I thought that should be my post today for National Adoption Month. (I apologize for how long this is. I tried to edit it, but I couldn't without leaving out some of our story, and I felt it was important for whoever wants to or needs to know our story, to "hear" the whole story)

A year after I had Tammy I was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis. I was told that having any more babies would be highly unlikely for me. At the time I didn't think anything of it. I had my 1 yr old and I had no prospects of a relationship, and frankly, I didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone. I lead a mostly normal life. I had days where my pain was so extreme that I couldn't move, but most days I could ignore the pain I had. About 4 years later (Tammy was 5 by this point)I went to the dr. and he wanted to start me on a medical treatment plan that included medication and surgery. I was fine with this, because afterall, he was the dr. The treatment didn't work. In fact it caused me to gain a lot of weight. Almost 100 lbs. that I am still trying to lose. The treatment plan was fairly new at the time so the dr. had no way of knowing how I would react to it.

During the course of treatment I met a wonderful man who would become my husband. I told Jacob while we were dating about my condition and that my chances of having kids were slim to none. He said that he had a feeling before he even met me he wouldn't be able to have kids for some reason or another. The treatment they had put me on included putting my body through menopause, doing surgery, then shocking it back to normal so to speak, and then putting me on a high dose of clomid right before Jacob and I got married. The concept for this part of the treatment was that I would have a month to get used to the clomid and then we would get married and try to get pregnant right away because the dr. felt that it would be the "optimal time" for me to get pregnant.

During our 2nd year of marriage I was told I not only had endometriosis, but I also had Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS. Shortly after that diagnosis I was given a hystoselpangiogram to determine if my tubes were clear or not. The test showed that my right fallopian tube is completely blocked, and the left one if almost completely blocked. Any eggs that may get through that side have to work so hard that they are aren't viable. So my chances at that time of getting pregnant (not to mention staying that way) were zero. That was 6 years ago, they are now both completely blocked, so if they were zero before, they are negative 100 now. ;o) Jacob and I talked about it, prayed about it, discussed it at length and decided that adoption was fine with us. We had both always wanted to adopt. I had a best friend when I was younger who was adopted from Korea not to mention numerous famiy members who had been adopted, including 2 siblings who were adopted as infants. Jacob has wanted to adopt since he read the story of Anne of Green Gables when he was 11 or so and decided that if he married someone who couldn't have kids he wanted to adopt.

Shortly after my PCOS diagnosis Jacob and I decided that he would join the Army. We spent 6 years in the Army. During our time in the Army we lived in Kansas for 5 years and New Mexico for the last year before moving back home to Utah. During our 5 years in Kansas we attempted to adopt. We decided to adopt through the foster care system. We went through the classes, we were approved not only to adopt, but also to be foster parents. We were foster parents for respite care and emergency care which were both temporary foster parents. Or so we thought. During that time we had a sweet 8 yr old boy in our home, we'll call him "I". It was supposed to be for 2 weeks, but we ended up having him for a few months. He came to us with a lot of issues, but together we found ways for him to deal with his issues. He made huge improvements with us and our caseworker was amazed. He was supposed to be adopted by another family but that fell through. We decided to submit our application. Our caseworker was all for it. His caseworker however was not. She didn't beleive that military families should adopt and denied our request to adopt him because of Jacob's possibility of deploying. We were crushed and after a lot of thought and prayers, decided to close our file with them. I still think about "I" all the time and wonder how he is doing. I know he was adopted shortly after our request to adopt him was denied. And from what I was told, he is doing well.

A few months after moving to New Mexico we were sitting in church one day and I heard a lady talk about how they adopted their son. It was like a ton of bricks hitting me telling me that we needed to start our application process NOW. So the next day I called our church's agency and the rest is history. 3 months later we were approved for adoption. We have been waiting since April to find our Birth Parents.

People ask me all the time if it's hard not being able to have more kids. My answer I think confuses them when I say no. I can't explain it, but I'm at peace with it. It was devasting not being able to adopt "I". But being his parents for the time he was with us, taught us that you don't have to have a biological link to love a child as your own. We are excited to find our Birth Parents and to not only add to our family with the addition of a little one, but to add to our family with the addition of our Birth Mom and Dad and their families.

This is the Place

A few weeks ago we went to Jacob family reunion at This Is The Place park in Salt Lake City. We had hoped to go for at least several hours, but like my post said yesterday, installing the new front door took way longer then it should have. So instead we were only there for about an hour. Most everyone had left by then, but we still saw most of Jacob's immediate family. Which was nice since his brother Paul is joining the Navy and will be leaving for training in a month, so our time with his whole immediate family is limited.

Here are just a few pictures from that day:

Jacob's older sister Janele and her hubby and kiddos took a train ride around the park. Jacob went with them. They had fun!

Neice Melissa was just enjoying all the attention.

Neice Valerie got tired and caught a ride in the stroller. I love her smile!

one of our favorite things to do when we get together is chat and talk, and of course everyone takes pictures of the chatting and talking.

And of course we love being silly. Jacob thought the his sister Ruth needed the windblown look for her photo.

Unfortunately two of the people that had already left were Jacob's grandma and his Aunt Patty. They live in California so we were anxious to see them. Fortunately they were staying at Jacob's uncles house so we were able to go over there and see them after leaving the park.

Jacob with Grandma and Aunt Patty.

Despite the setback with the door, it was a fun day. It's so good to be near family again!

A Teenage Mother

I was asked a question the other day that even though I have been asked it before, I never really thought much of it until now. I was asked, since I was a teenage mom, and now I am hoping to adopt, why didn't I place my daughter for adoption. Before now it was a question I just brushed off. But now, I feel it's important to answer. And the answer is, it's the choice I felt was best for my daughter and I.

Let me back up, when I was 16 I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Tamara (or Tammy as we call her) has been my life and my light ever since. At the time I was inactive in church. I didn't know anything about adoption other then what you saw in the movies where a mother would place her baby and then she would never see her baby again. I had no clue that open adoption even existed. I just knew I didn't want to place my baby girl for adoption and then never have any contact with her. So I chose to keep her. It is a decision I have never regretted. Could I have placed her for adoption? That is also question I get asked often. Quite honestly, it's not a question I feel I can answer in a yes or no kind of way. Looking back on it, I'm not sure I was strong enough. Looking back on it, I can't imagine my life without her. Having her, keeping her, raising her, shaped my life in a way I could never have imagined. Tammy's dad Nick left when I was 2 and a half months pregnant. I went through my pregnancy feeling very much alone. I had a few friends who stuck by me, but most of them beleived my ex when he said that the baby wasn't his. There were a few friends who knew she was, because they knew me, and knew I was telling the truth. It was a hard time. And that's putting it mildly. I did have 1 sweet, wonderful friend who helped me. She in fact is Nick's sister-in-law. Married to Nick's oldest brother. Caroline helped me, supported me, and was just there for me. She even missed almost an entire season of ER just so she could take me to Lamaze classes. Caroline also was a teen mom, having given birth to her daughter at 16. So I had support of someone else who had lived what I was I was about to be living.

I didn't think I would ever be a mom so young. I'm not sure anyone does. But I was. Now, 14 years later, I have never once regretted my decision to raise Tammy. Nick entered Tammy's life when she was 2. It was really hard to see him when I would take Tammy for visits. It wasn't until just a couple of years ago that we got passed the hurt and started to be friends. We tollerated each other before that, but never really were friends. But we are now and parenting Tammy is so much easier that way. Was it easy being a teenmom? Not on your life. It was exceptionally hard. It was hard for me, it was hard for my family to see me struggle financially, emotionally, physically. I had to quit school (although I did go back a few years later) in order to pay the bills that I now found myself face with. I would often times go weeks with almost no sleep, just trying to do this on my own. Would I go back and change it? No, I'm glad I struggled the way I did, it made me stronger.

However, that being said, as hard as it was for me, I know it was so much harder on my girl. She was shuffled back and forth between her dad and I. Even though we tried to get along, it was rough on her. She often cried wondering why she didn't have my last name, why she couldn't live with both her dad and I. Wondering why we didn't have the money to buy her new toys. It broke my heart. I wanted more for her. It broke my heart I couldn't give her what she deserved. Now, 14 years later, I look back on it, and I do wonder if I made the right decision, but at the same time, I couldn't imagine life being any other way. As a teen mom though, I understand some of the feelings our birthmom may be having, though definately not all, no where near all the feelings she is having. But I do know what it's like to wonder, Wondering if she can provide for her little one. Wondering if she can give him or her everything they need and want. I've been there. I've wondered, I've prayed that it would all be good enough.

So could I have placed Tammy for adoption? Again, not a question I can answer. Because I have spent the last 14 years with her, I can say, no, I wouldn't have. If there was open adoption at the time could I have place her? I can't answer that either. However, I beleive it's because I have this history of being a teenage mom that open adoption is so important to me know. I just know that if I had made the decision to place Tammy for adoption I wouldn't have wanted to do so unless I knew she would be o.k. I can't even imagine the sacrifice that our future birth mom will make when she places her sweet baby in our arms to love and care for. How much strength it will take on her part, to trust us to love and care for her little one. I want her to know that we will love her baby so very much. We will love him or her, just the same as if he or she had been born from us. And I want her to know that her baby is being taken care of and loved. I want to be able to know who our baby's birth families are. For them to know who we are. Letters and pictures and contact in general will be so vital to all of us, not just us all as adoptive parents and birth parents, but to our baby as well. It will be important for him or her to know that it is because of love that such a sacrifice was made.

If you have any other questions that you don't feel I have answered, our would like more of an answer to, please, just ask. I'll be happy to answer any and all questions you may have.

Dear Birth Families

Dear Birth Families,
We have been sitting here for days trying to figure out how to best tell you what is in our hearts. We want you to know how blessed we feel that you would consider us in this difficult decision. We can’t imagine how hard this is for you. We want you to know that we will do everything in our power to raise this baby to know who they truly are. We want them to grow up knowing, without a doubt how much you love them and we will do our best every day to help them to know that.

We are hoping for a semi-open or an open adoption, but we understand how hard this decision must be for you and we will respect you and support you if you feel you can't have contact with us and will wait until you are ready.

Just to tell you a little about us, we have been married since August 2001 and knowing that because of infertility having biological children probably would not be possible, we have always hoped to adopt. Adoption is a big part of our family. Jacob's grandfather was adopted as a child, and his cousin is adopting soon as well. Sharon's cousin is a birthmom to a beautiful little boy, she has Aunt's and Uncles who have adopted. Sharon also has a brother and sister who were adopted as infants. Adoption is very near and dear to our family and we feel it is a gift in our lives.

Jacob was raised in a loving LDS home with a mom and dad and 5 other siblings! He served a mission in the Arkansas Little Rock mission. He spent 6 years in the US Army and is now in the Army Reserves. He currently works at a salt plant and has enrolled as a Jr. at the University of Utah. He will start in Janurary and will finish his Bachelor's degree. He plans to be a college professor. Jacob enjoys running, bike riding, woodworking, yard work, and spending time with the family among other things.

Sharon was raised LDS as well. Her parents divorced when she was 13 and are each remarried. She has a good relationship with all her parents. Including full blooded siblings, step siblings and two adopted siblings, Sharon has 9 siblings in all! Sharon was a mom at a young age. She had her daughter Tammy when she was 16. As a teen mom she feels a very deep love for you as birth parents and how difficult this decision you are making is. Sharon loves to decorate cakes, do just about everything having to do with papercrafting and scrapbooking, she quilts, and does ceramics. Her favorite hobby though is photography.

Tammy is our daughter. Even though she was 6 when Jacob and Sharon got married, Jacob and Tammy have such a strong bond. We have even had people who have been shocked when they find out that Jacob and Tammy aren’t biologically related. Tammy is a typical 14 year old girl. She loves hanging out with her friends and listening to music. She is also interested in Drama and Choir. We are blessed to have a great relationship with Tammy’s dad Nick and we share joint custody of her with him.

We both have very close knit families and love to see them as often as we can. The grandmas have all already called dibs on being the stand-by babysitters when we need one! Total on both sides of the family there are 27 nieces and nephews, all ranging in age from 15 years to newborn. So there are lots and lots of playmates for your little one. We also have a dog who is the best, most mild tempered dog you could ever meet. He is so good and patient with children.

As a family we enjoy going on walks and exploring new places. We love playing games, watching movies and just being together. To learn more about us, be sure to check out our blog at jacobandsharon.blogspot.com

Thank you again for considering us. We pray for you every night, for your peace and comfort, for your health, and your knowledge of the Lord’s love for you, and of our love for you. We can’t wait to meet you and for you to become part of our family.
With Love,
Jacob, Sharon & Tammy

All About Tammy

O.k So she likes to be called Tamara. After all, she is almost 14! She's too grown up for a name like Tammy. But she will always be Tammy to me. She said her first word when she was 3 months old and was talking in complete sentences before she was a year and a half. She took her first steps just a few days before turning 1 but still didn't start really walking until she was 14 months old. She could walk, she just decided she could get there faster by crawling. When she turned 14 months old she stood in the middle of the room one day and looked around and then just started running. I couldn't beleive it. She ran around the room once and then stood there and looked around and realized that running was easy, and cool, and it's gets you to where you are going quickly! She has been on the go ever since. Tammy was a tomboy when she was younger. She didn't really like frilly dresses but would wear them. Easter Sunday just before turning two we went to her Grandma Jeanine's house (her dad's mom) and she did an Easter egg hunt. She wore a pretty floral print dress and a matching hat. She looked so cute. Her dad took her outside to play and 20 minutes later I went to find her so we could go home. I found her sitting on the ground in her pretty dress playing in the dirt. That's my girl! I found her several times jumpin off things and climbing in trees.

Tammy is now a typical teenager. She is 13 now and will turn 14 in June. She loves hanging out with her friends and listening to music. She also loves playing on the computer. She enjoys Drama and Choir at school and loves doing crafts and making things. She is so loving and is always thinking of how her actions and decisions will effect those around her. I have always said that she is wise beyond her years. Tammy also has quite a talent for writting poetry. She wants to learn to play the Guitar (but is settling on playing Guitar Hero until we can get her into lessons) and wants to learn the Piano when Jacob and I move back to Utah. My mom has my childhood piano at her house, it was given to me years ago and when we move back I finally get to have it. Tammy is so excited to learn to play.

We share custody of Tammy with her dad Nick. Nick has 5 other children, Tammy is the oldest. She is a great big sister and is looking forward to us adopting.

Tammy is about to appear in her Jr. High School's production of Grease. She is in the chorus and is also the understudy for Frenchie. Her drama teacher beleives that the understudies should get stage time as well so the play will go 3 nights and Tammy will be in the chorus for 2 of the nights and will be Frenchie on the other night. She is really excited. Jacob and I are excited to see her and plan to be there all 3 nights. A bunch of family is coming as well and you can bet there will be pictures to share!

Jacob’s Story

Unlike my wife I had a rather boring childhood. I was born in Provo, Utah and grew up in Provo and a small town 20 miles to the south called Salem. I have an older brother named John and sister named Janele. I also have two younger brothers name Joseph and Paul with a younger sister named Ruth between them. As I was growing up I was the kid that never fit in at school and it was not until high school that I found my niche with theatrical lighting and special effects. I did look into making a career of it but found that the work could be sporadic and decided that I wanted something more secure. Growing up I started working at a young age with my first job being a paperboy at 10 and then working for the high school theatrical department. I have always worked for someone else and have no desire to run my own business. One thing I have learned about myself is that I like to operate semi-independent but I don’t want to be the one that has to figure everything out.

At the age of nineteen I served a mission in the Arkansas, Little Rock Mission from 1996-1998. It was some of the best times of my life. I didn’t see a lot of baptisms while I was on my mission but I did grow by leaps and bounds. After my mission I decided to go to college and it was going well until my mom got a job, all the kids were out of the house, and I lost my Pell Grant. I ended up dropping out of college because of the funds and it was shortly after this that I meet my wife Sharon.

Sharon and I have an interesting story in that when she first saw me while I was sleeping on my brother John’s couch she knew that I was the man she would marry. I woke up shortly afterwards and saw her for the first time and thought that she was gorgeous. She also said that she was not going to get married until she was 93 and I decided to prove her wrong. Well I was able to succeed in that and we were married before she turned 23.

After getting married I ended up working several different jobs and Sharon had to quit hers because of problems it caused her back. I decided that I needed to get back to college and get more education. This then lead to joining the U.S. Army where I have been serving for over five years. In the Army I have been to both Iraq and Afghanistan and have learned what it takes to get along with different people. There just isn’t a choice when you live with someone else that is not of your choosing.

After leaving the Army later this year, 2009, I plan on going to college and finishing my bachelor’s degree and then working on getting my masters. After I have my masters I plan to be a colleger professor.

How we met

Jacob and I met in November of 2000. The day after Thanksgiving in fact. I arrived at my friend Dawn's house because Dawn and I were taking our girls (my daughter Tammy, and her two daughters Racheal and Nicole) to a movie. I walked into the apartment and I saw someone laying on her couch. Turns out it was Dawn's brother-in-law. He had worked the night before and only had 8 hours between the night shift and when he had to be to work that day. So instead of driving the hour home, getting very little sleep and driving the hour back he slept on his brother's couch since his brother only lived 15-20 minutes away from work. When I walked in something told me that I was looking at the man I would marry. I thought Nah! Couldn't be! I'm having a good time being single and for the first time in a long time I am completely happy with where I am in life. Of course when you think that it's usually when the Lord steps in as says surprise! Here's a curve ball!

Shortly after I arrived Jacob woke up and got dressed for work. He came out and we started talking...errr...... flirting. I made a comment that I had made several times to other people that I wasn't dating anyone seriously and I wouldn't get married until I was 93! (Why this came up I don't remember) Jacob wondered why I would say that. He thought I was pretty (o.k. so he told me later he thought I was hot, but I digress) and he wanted to get to know me better, not to mention, he wanted to prove me wrong. He left for work soon after and I asked Dawn who he was. She explained that he was her husband John's brother. I asked her to set us up, she said that it's funny I should ask that because she got a feeling that she needed to do just that. Two days later Jacob was giving Dawn and the girls a ride to a family function because John had to work. Jacob asked who that girl was that was at her house the other day. She told him that I was a friend but before she could say much else he asked her to set us up! Our first date was a week or so later. We went miniature golfing and to dinner at JB's. We doubled with John and Dawn as we often would in dates to come. You see, not only was I friends with them and Jacob related to them, but I also lived in the same apartment building. (although that isn't how we became friends, we met years before at work, but that's another story).

Jacob and I dated for 20 days before we got engaged. Now, yes, that is a quick engagement, however, in those 20 days we spent 18 of those together. So if you look at it that way it wasn't that quick. We were engaged on Christmas Day of 2000 and married in the Provo Temple in Provo Utah on August 3rd of 2001. While we have our ups and downs like all married couples neither of us could ever imagine life without each other.