With my last post I think I made it pretty clear that I can get pretty passionate about adoption in general. After posting I watched the first and so far only episode of "Find My Family" on ABC. I thought it was a very touching, heartfelt show. One of the few that is actually such.

Then this morning I come across an article on Yahoo describing controversary over the show. My thoughts are pretty much this as I'm reading it, "WHAT??!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!" I mean come on people how can reuniting families be a bad thing?

http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/abcs-find-my-family-causes-controversy--856

In my own personal opinion and I hope I don't offend anyone, but I honestly think that this whole thing is being fueled by the insecurities of adoptive parents. Granted, I think that there are plenty of adoptive parents out there probably have good cause to be insecure due to what ever the circumstances are or were that surrounded the adoption of their children. But does that give them the right to cause problems or make it harder for the people who do want to reconnect with their birth families and the families that are supportive of that?

Obviously I've never adopted a child so I'll never know what that's like, but I have placed a baby for adoption and I thank the Lord every day that I got as lucky as I did finding the family I found for my baby. And I can tell you right now if I ever thought for one second that I wouldn't be able to see my baby again or know how she was doing it would devistate me. And it's not because I want to take her back or away from the family that she was clearly meant to be with, it's because I love her and always will even if I don't get see her for a long time.

At this very moment I have a cousin who was adopted and is trying desperately to find her birth mother. It's all ready hard enough going through the process, why do people feel the need to make it harder and bring other people down?! I just don't get it. I never will.

November is a special time year with families gathering together to celebrate Thanksgiving. But for me and many people I know it's an extra special time because this is also a time to bring awareness to and encourage people to adopt kids in foster care. I think I would adopt every child in foster care if I could. A child is still a child no matter what they've been through in this life and they all deserve someone to love them.

It's also a time to recognize Birth Mothers, Adoptive parents, and children. In my own family I have cousins and an Aunt who have placed babies for adoption and an Aunt and Uncle who adopted a little girl. These were things I always knew about but never really knew or understood. I think that's how it is in general. I think people know about or have heard of someone at some point being affected by adoption but never really stop and think about what that all entails or what it means.

I try really hard not to get too worked up over the overwhelming lack of knowledge about adoption that plagues our society and even our culture as Latter Day Saints, but it's hard. Poor Clint has endured many rants about this topic. I of course have to share a little rant otherwise Clint might start to feel picked on. ;-) So here's my beef: 1. I don't think our church does enough to bring awareness or support to those affected by this topic. I think they are trying and getting better, but I can tell you right now when I placed my baby for adoption their efforts were not enough. If you live in Salt Lake your set in this department. They have every resource a birth mother or adoptive couple, or even adopted children could ever need, but if you live anywhere else you're left to fend for yourself. Not good! 2. Outside the church (and I really, really, really, try to ignore this stuff) people just flat out don't know and don't understand. Because of that we have teenage girls getting pregnant and doing unspeakable things to these precious children of God. Every so often I catch a blip on the news here or there about babies being left on church doorsteps and hospital doorsteps, and these are the lucky babies. When I hear about other things like babies being dumped in garbage cans, dumpsters, alley ways, ditches, etc. it makes me want to cry for the mother who felt she had no other choice, cry for the baby who had to suffer because of ignorance, and scream because why oh why did that mother not know?!

It's hard for me because I can see both sides of the "birth mother" coin. It's so easy to feel trapped and even easier to feel like no one understands. I can only imagine how hard it must be for those girls who work up the courage to tell their parents what's going on only to have their parents turn their backs on them or force them to do something they don't want to do. I can only imagine the agony of feeling that baby growing inside and feeling like you have no where to turn, no one to talk to, and carrying that secret for all those months. The saddest thing of all is that if people, parents, children, teens etc. just had the resources and the information there would be no need for them to feel so alone, so helpless, so out of control, or for bad things to happen to innocent children. I find it interesting that our nations schools can teach our children about sex and even hand out contraceptives, but to talk about what to do if they do get pregnant is considered wrong and indoctrinating. If we're going to hand out contraceptives to our children shouldn't we go the next step and tell them what to do if they do get pregnant?

Okay I'm done with my rant for now. There is a lot more I could say about all that but for time sake will move along. I've obviously never adopted a child so I can't speak for adoptive parents or children who have been adopted. But I can say that every adoptive parent that I have spoken with can hardly express their feelings of love and gratitude for their children and for the birth mother who helped give them the family they always wanted, dreamed of, hoped for, and needed. And I can say that if I ever had the opportunity to adopt I would. The birth mothers need the adoptive parents as much as they need them.

My own personal feelings about my situation are feelings of gratitude for a Heavenly Father who carried me through, a Bishop who never left my side and worked tirelessly with me, a birth father who cared enough to be there for me and for his baby, for parents who loved me and supported me no matter how hard it was for them, for adoptive parents who, to this day, go above and beyond for me and for their kids, and for my sweet Lindsey who gave me my life and who will always be in my heart.

I'm pretty sure Midnight madness with my Relief Society is my favorite night with them. I love seeing how talented all these ladies are! Plus the fact that they are able to impart such great crafting wisdom upon me makes me feel giddy. This year I made this:



And this:



I'd never done a tie blanket before and this was really fun. I made one for Garrett (above), one for Kailey which of course has the Disney princess' on it, and one for the new baby girl to come. Kailey and Garrett both love their blankets so hopefully the new baby will enjoy her's too.

The photo star was a lot of fun to. I think what took the most time (for me) was just trying to decide which pictures to use for what angle. I got lucky though because I all most didn't have enough horizontal pictures. I think it turned out really cute!

While I've been busy crafting, picking colors for the girls room, and getting ready for Halloween I've been busy baking this bun in the oven! :-) Here I am at 26 weeks:



Sorry that's such a big picture! For some reason it's not sizing the way it should. So far all is well with this pregnancy. I get to do the 1 hour glucose test at my next appointment. I've always passed it but this time I'm a little worried. Hopefully I'll pass this time.

As for Halloween Kailey is going to be TinkerBell this year. She actually gets to dress up four days in row because her tumbling class had a party, her preschool class had a party, we have our ward party and then Halloween. Kailey is in heaven but I think I'm all ready getting a little burnt out. Plus now she has a candy loot and it's not even the big night yet! Trying to moderate sugar intake is getting increasingly difficult so I'm thinking next year we'll just pick one event (aside from Halloween) to dress up for.

In other news we're heading out to Wichita next week. My older sister, Stephanie, is getting married. It should be pretty low key but we are also planning on having our Thanksgiving dinner while we're there. I think it will be a lot fun. It's just for the weekend so it will be a quick trip but it will be nice to see everyone before Christmas at least.

These are a few of my favorite things (especially on a Friday night)!


Favorite chocolate:


Drink


take out dinner


Movie (okay top three)


-----------------------or------------------------



---------------------or----------------------



what I've been craving, since I am pregnant



I like to keep it low key. It doesn't take much to make me happy. Good food and good company and I'm set!

Me and Clint's five year anniversary is this Friday. I seriously considered typing out our story and even started too but ultimately decided that it was taking too much time. And really a large portion of our story really has nothing to do with "us" at all. Then I thought maybe a picture montage of some sort would be fun, then I realized we actually have very few pictures together aside from our engagement and wedding photos. Which is ultimately what led me to the title of this post. The time we've spent together has gone by so fast we've hardly had time to even document it! To prove my point here is a bit of time line.

October 2003: First date
April 2004: Second (group) date
May 2004: Clint's 30th birthday (which according to my mother was day she knew we were going to get married)
June: Clint takes a job at Boeing Everett
July: We get engaged
August: I fly to Seattle for the first time to be with him/ date/ get to know each other better
September: My 21st birthday/ pack/ finish planning wedding etc.
October: Drive to Utah and get married on the 9th in Salt Lake Temple
December: First Christmas spent with my parents in Wichita
January 2005: Start looking for a house
February: Buy our first dog a yellow lab named Colby (worst idea, to date, that we've ever had)
March: Move into our first house
May: Get pregnant with first baby after only being married 7 months
June: Find out I'm pregnant
February 2006: Baby girl, Kailey Marianne is born
November: Thanksgiving in Wichita
December: Christmas in Canada
January 2007: Start trying for baby number 2
December 2007: Start bathroom remodel, finally conceive baby number 2
January 2008: Find out I'm pregnant
September 2008: Baby boy, Garrett Elijah is born
May 2009: Unknowingly conceive baby number three, Due date February 3rd
September: Kailey starts preschool
October: Five year anniversary

As all these major events occur we obviously have less and less time. I remember thinking after I had Kailey, "Gosh what did I do with all my time?" and again the same thought occurred to me after I had Garrett and I'm sure with the arrival of this newest addition the same thought will occur to me again. With Kailey I had oodles of time to take as much video and pictures as I could or would ever have wanted. Garrett's first birthday just passed and in the last year I think I may have only picked up my video camera or Nikon for that matter a hand full of times.

It just amazes me that this much time has gone all ready! It seriously feels like just yesterday that we got married and I moved to Washington. I know that's rather cliche but it really does. I don't feel any older or wiser or like I've just spent the last six years of my life having kids.

Since it is our anniversary and I do want to share something I will share our wedding story. With Clint being from Canada and all his family living in Canada it was quite the thing to orchestrate. We decided to get married in the Salt Lake Temple because that's where all my extended family was and my grandparents on both sides were sick at the time. We did consider the Seattle Temple for traveling consideration of Clint's family but because my grandparent were not able to travel the SL Temple won.

When I got to Utah, Conference weekend, I had a lot of loose ends that needed attention so that whole week was spent tying those up and solidifying plans. Clint flew in from Seattle on the Wednesday and we went straight from the airport to the county clerks office to get the marriage certificate.

Then we had to go to the reception center to secure our plans.

Thursday I took out my endowments and that night we had a "Couples" wedding shower (Hi 'Lyssa).

Friday we were sealed in the temple. Because Clint is a convert and the only one in his family we had a ring ceremony at the reception center for his family.

The wedding day itself was crazy! After the sealing, before the pictures, Clint tells me that his pants and one of his groomsman's pants had been switched! Which was actually really funny because his groomsman was quite a bit shorter than Clint. You can't see the obvious mix up in the picture but I'm sure you can guess which groomsman's pants Clint ended up with.


A few picture outside the temple:

Clint's family

My family

My sisters/bridesmaids


Once we were done with pictures at the temple we headed to the wedding luncheon. I'm pretty there are no pictures of this portion of the wedding but that's all right with me. Everyone (even to this day) assures me that it went off without a hitch. I however have a differ recollection of this part of the day. First we (my Mom, Clint and I) were late getting there. I mean really late! All of the guests who had been invited were there waiting on me, the bride, to show up to my own luncheon. In my mind this was a disaster in and of itself. Second, we all get settled in our (somewhat) appointed seats and the servers start to bring out the food. I had ordered a steak. That's right I ordered a steak...on my wedding day! I was hungry! The steak they brought me was so overcooked I could barely cut it! So I pushed it aside in utter disgust and disappointment and say, "Well that sucks!" and it did! Everyone within earshot turned and looked. Clint was mortified! Third, once the lunch was over and we were supposed to head to the reception center I had to figure out what to do about a garment situation I had run into which was that I didn't have any. I had just taken my endowments out the day before and hadn't had time to get to the distribution center to get any that would fit. So in order to save time and from us (my Mom, Clint and I) from being late to the ring ceremony I had my Aunt go get some for me and bring them to the reception. So what I want to know is how anyone can view this portion of the day a success?

The ring ceremony was very nice. My Grandpa Wilson, who was also one of the witness' at the sealing, performed the ceremony for us. All of my extended family and friends and all (most) of Clint's family was there. After the ceremony we stood in the receiving line.

Then we cut the cake:


Then we had our first dance:

Then I danced with my dad:


Of course all the other traditional things like tossing the bouquet and guarder and dancing and stuffing our faces with cake ensued. Also like all newlyweds we wondered if the reception would ever end so that we could get to the hotel! But it did and this is where we stayed:
http://www.anniversaryinn.com/



It was fabulous! Except for the part where I stumbled over the trunk roots at the bottom of the bed, that was just downright embarrassing! Or the fact that my duffel bag, carrying every article of clothing I owned, broke and we had to race to Wal-Mart to get me a new suitcase RIGHT before we were supposed to be at the airport. It was crazy and we laughed the whole way to Boston which is where we honeymooned.

Now, amazingly, here we are five years, 2 kids and one on the way, later! I feel so blessed and so grateful for being able to have married my best friend and to have had the Lord bless us with such wonderful, beautiful children. It hasn't always been easy but that's what makes this our life and I love that!

Happy Anniversary Clint! I love you with all my heart and soul! Thank you for being my Night in Shining Armor!

-Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Person asked a young Engineer fresh out of Texas A&M, "And what starting salary were you looking for?" The Engineer said, "In the neighbourhood of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package." The interviewer said, "Well, what would you say to a package of 5 weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, a company matching retirement fund for 50% of your salary, and a company car leased every 2 years -- say, a red Corvette?" The Engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?" And the interviewer replied, "Yeah, but you started it."



-Walking up to a department store's fabric counter, the pretty girl said, "I would like to buy this material for a new dress. How much does it cost?" "Only one kiss per yard," replied the male clerk with a smirk. "That's fine," said the girl. "I'll take ten yards." With expectation and anticipation written all over his face, the clerk quickly measured out the cloth, wrapped it up, then teasingly held it out.

The girl snapped up the package, pointed to the old geezer standing beside her, and smiled, "Grandpa will pay the bill."




-A resident in a posh hotel breakfast room called over the head waiter one morning and read from the menu. "I'd like one under-cooked egg so that it's runny, and one over-cooked egg so that it's tough and hard to eat. I'd also like grilled bacon which is a bit on the cold side, burnt toast, butter straight from the freezer so that it's impossible to spread, and a pot of very weak, lukewarm coffee." "That's a complicated order sir," said the bewildered waiter. "It might be quite difficult." The guest replied sarcastically, "It can't be that difficult because that's exactly what you brought me yesterday!"




-"What time does the library open?" the man on the phone asked.
"Nine A.M." came the reply. "And what's the idea of calling me at home in the middle of the night to ask a question like that?"
"Not until nine A.M.?" the man asked in a disappointed voice.
"No, not till nine A.M.!" the librarian said. "Why do you want to get in before nine A.M.?"
"Who said I wanted to get in?" the man sighed sadly. "I want to get out."




-A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Amal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan". Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his mum. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Amal. Her husband responds, "But they are twins. If you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal."




-Little Johnny came downstairs bellowing lustily. His mother asked, "What's the matter now?" "Dad was hanging pictures, and just hit his thumb with a hammer," said Johnny through his tears. "That's not so serious," soothed his mother. "I know you're upset, but a big boy like you shouldn't cry at something like that. Why didn't you just laugh?" "I did!" sobbed Johnny.




http://www.101funjokes.com/

For the last couple of weeks, since I found out this baby is going to be a girl, I've been agonizing over the room situation, where to put everyone and everything, how I was going to decorate, etc. I tend to stress over this stuff really easily which makes the decision process that much harder for me. But I think I have finally made up my mind as to how I want all this work.

I want to have a femenin but sophisticated girls room. Kailey is not a baby anymore and while she may not understand my decorating choice I believe she will learn to love it. I decided to go with a "cherry blossom" theme. This is a theme that can take on many different styles, Asian, baby, urban, etc. There is a lot on the net for this and sifting through all of it has taken a long time. There just are not that many pictures (I'm very visual) of rooms decorated in a the style that I had pictured in my mind (femenin/sophisticated). It was hard finding what I wanted and I started to become discouraged until TODAY! I found exactly what I was looking for and with the help of my lovely "artsy fartsy" sister was able to clearly visualize and decide how I want the room to look.

First I'm going to start by painting three of the walls a beige color (the longest and two shortest) and use the fourth wall as an accent wall by painting it brown. Then I'm going to apply these babies:


I found these here:
http://dalidecals.com/

The three walls will be a similar color to what is shown in the second picture and the accent wall will be as close a brown as I can get to the trunk of the tree. On the accent wall I will use two of the branches (one mirroring the other) over the crib with a shelf positioned between them with pictures on it. It will look like the shelf is on the branches or the branches are coming from behind the shelf, what ever will look best. The branches (in the second photo) will be a beige color (like the other three walls) and the flowers will be a pale pink (the second color of flower on the big tree, which I'll add but isn't shown).

The bedding (which I still have to find) will obviously coordinate with the colors of the blossoms on the tree. My crib isn't wight but I guess if it looks really goofy then I can always paint it wight. Right? I still need to decide on drapes but you get the idea.

I'm so excited now that I've finally figured all this out. Kailey will move in first and will have about 6-8 weeks of the room all to herself while the baby is still sleeping in my room. It may be longer but I doubt it. I think it will all really depend on Garrett and how quickly I can get him transitioned into the toddler bed. Which makes me nervous because he'll only be 16 month when this baby is born and get's kicked out of the crib. I would have liked to have kept him in it until he was two, but that's just not an option this time around. Hopefully it'll be okay.

I still need to do a boys room but that will have to wait until next year or maybe even later. I do know what I want to do for that though so it should be a lot easier to get it all together once I'm ready to do it.

Oh and the website I found the decals at has some seriously cool stuff! I'd check out just for kicks!

Sighhh... Now to get to it!