Two of three from Jared!!!

side note from Devin: These are all the pictures Jared took, I promise. The pictures are our trek family- minus me. Still so bummed I couldn't go. Oh well. LM is so, so incredibly worth it. Anyway~ enjoy.

The Trek

A few weeks ago I, Jared, got to go on trek. I had known about this since the beginning of the year. Devin and I had been asked to lead one of the groups as a Ma and Pa. But about 10 days to trek and little man showed up in our lives and Devin had to stay home and I went without her. Devin made sure everything was together and sent me on my way.

Since Devin was unable to come with me I was assigned 2 other people to be in our group Bro.Richards and Sis. Jensen. Sis Jensen is in the Mormon tabernacle choir so she really loves music. I want to talk about the music on trek for a little while. The kids sang many songs while on trek. Most of them are the camp songs that cause me to want to take a baseball bat to the mouth of the person singing the song. For example there is a song about working in a button factory that goes on and on and on forever with only minor changes. Devin is sad that I hate her "do do doo doo" song about sharks. The kids singing the songs where behind us and my boys where yelling back at them to chill out. I just had to change the mood, so I started to sing “Stickshifts and Safetybelts” by Cake.

I will say that while singing the song I thought of how far away my Devin was. I know I do not sing well but my kids where excited to hear something not nearly as annoying. Later in the evening we had devotional with our kids and we started with a song. Sis. Jensen gave a note and I started singing at the random place I go to when I sing. She immediately stopped and said we need to start on the same note. I just looked at her and said that was well beyond my capability. We started again and I am sure I was waaaaaaaaaaay off pitch. I do want to say that no matter how poorly you sing a song if you sing it with a sincere heart your inner voice will be heard by God. Unfortunately my group had to listen to my vocal
singing.

On the first day we ran into several problems. For example we went down the wrong way multiple times. The back tracking ended up making us go an extra 2-3 miles. One time we went about a mile and came to a creek crossing the trail we where supposed to be on was only 30 feet away. But the leaders made us turn around and go back and around and cross the river at another location that was equally difficult. Several of the leaders just crossed and waited for us to come back around. By the end of the day the boys and girls where exhausted and just wanted to call it quits. We came to a river crossing around the end of the day but it was raining and the water was high and fast so we went over the bridge. Boy do I love bridges.

The second day the girls had a women’s pull. I want to state in advance that I do not like these type of activities. First of all there is normally a false story given about the Mormon battalion and taking the men away from the hand carts. This NEVER happened. The Mormon battalion happened nearly a decade earlier and no men where pulled off the hand carts for anything other than death or disease. As a matter of fact the handcart pioneers did not want to be on the handcarts they rattled your bones till you wanted to walk. We took one of our girls and she only sat on it for about 4 minutes before she gave up. I will say that our leaders did not give the Mormon battalion story and talked about how the girls can do hard things without the boys. They took the boys ahead and talked to them about stepping up and fulfilling their priesthood responsibilities. I have a problem with abandoning the women but they wanted to do the woman’s pull so I walked beside them and they did very good. They went up one of the steepest slopes of the trek and went down the 2nd hardest slope of the trek. One of the girls, not in our group got thrown 6 feet while going down.

The final day was a grind till the end many of the kids had lost their good nature with one another and it was starting to show. We had a difficult group, because Devin has medical training several kids who in our group had mental and physical disabilities. Everyone was trying to chip in and do their part but several times the kids stepped on each others toes. Bro. Richards went and helped another group who where struggling. They had a girl who was in a cart, not a handcart, that could not walk. Her mother had been pushing her for the first two days and just was struggling. Our kids pushed through and made it to the end.

Back when we where asked to go on trek. I told the people I thought trek was stupid and I made fun of people who go on trek. I had a good time on trek and I would go again if asked. I want to say that after going on trek, I now know with out a shadow of a doubt that pulling handcarts is absolutely retarded.

One of three from Jared!!!

Yes, you read that title right! I FINALLY got Jared to write three different blog post. I will be spacing them out though. hehe I love you Jared!!! Enjoy everyone!

Earlier this year I got a new toy. I had lots of money that had to be spent on Amazon (Devin side note: he got a bonus from work) and there was not anything that Devin and I really wanted. So I started to look for crazy things. After searching for a very ling time I found what I wanted and after much pleading and wining to Devin, she let me get it. I am now the proud owner of a Snow Cone machine. For those of you who do not know there are 2 main kinds of snow cone machine’s.

Type 1 shaves off a thin layer of snow from a block of ice and is controlled by a professional who can create a light and fluffy SNOW cone.

Type 2 takes ice and chops it up in to small chunks. For some reason this is called a snow cone but there is no snow about it.

I got Type 1. When I was growing up I worked in a stand and made many snow cones. Here in Utah most of the stands claim to have a Type 1 snow cone but are actually Type 2. This has caused me much grieving because I really love good snow cones. After making many flavors and using water bottles as a pouring device I also convinced Devin to let me buy bottles and pour spouts. I now have a semi professional setup for shaving cones. When I open up my garage and start shaving many of the neighbors come to get some.

I will say that Snow cones are a very social activity. People just come and stay and hang out and talk. sometimes till 11:00 at night. I have had lots of fun with the machine the scouts come over for cones after scouts and I even went to girls camp and shaved cones for the girls there. I love snow cones and it really is fun sharing them with the neighborhood.

Adoption special

Seriously LOVED this. So great in helping understand adoption, birth and adoptive couples perspective... using the right terminology. We just hope we can have the type of relationship Caitlin and Tyler do with their adoptive parents. You have got to watch it!!

http://www.mtv.com/videos/16-and-pregnant-adoption-special/1667203/playlist.jhtml#series=2211&seriesId=29240&channelId=1

Yes, we're still alive

I can't believe how much crazier life gets with a newborn around!!! LOVE it though. Like I said, wouldn't trade it for the world. This last weekend we had the opportunity to go see Jared's sister up north. SO FUN! I will post about that later. I just wanted to write a quick post, let you all know we are still alive.

ALSO! There is a bit of an update on Little Man. Due to mis-communication, not knowing all the full detail type thing... LM's bio family cannot realistically take custody of him. They work full time, things like that. SO! What does that mean exactly?? Means, his bio mom asked that he remain in our custody until she's granted custody again!! WAHOO! Looks like he'll be with us for a bit longer. :oD

Thanks for all the love, support, and prayers!!! Love to all!!!

Buddy boy!

This post will mainly be about Buddy, but there's a bit of an update on Little Man. We found out today that … so his grandma will have her home study done tomorrow. BUT there's a few things that need to be worked out with his day care (his grandma works full time during the day). Until these things are worked out, he'll stay with us! So it looks like we have another week or two with him!!! We're so excited! Going to be fabulous having him in our home for a little bit longer. At the same time, I'm worried because we'll get that much more attached. Oh well! The extra time is so worth it!

Anyway~ on to Buddy.

He's such a great dog. Hasn't been paying attention to the baby. He's been doing a lot of playing, like this...

and like this...

... and this

Here's a little video to show you how fast he can be.

Don't you love how he runs away at the end? lol That's my Buddy dog!

This is Rip.

He's our neighbors dog. He's like 150 lbs, so 3-4x Buddy's size. They have so much fun together though.

Judges ruling

We are back from court and have the final ruling from the judge. LM will be placed into the custody of his grandmother. The caseworker has to do a walk through of the home and then LM will go to Grandma. Most likely by the end of this week he will go to her.

I don't know that it's quite hit me. I've been processing, preparing, and all that good stuff. I just don't know that it'll hit until LM is gone. We'll see how it goes.

I can't express how much gratitude I have for all of you!!! You are all amazing! Love you all!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you a million times over for all you all do.

BIG day

Today... in just three hours to be exact... is a big, "tell all" time for us. We go to court to see if LM's bio mom will get custody of him again. We are all thinking she will, but you never know. Thanks so much for all the love, support, and prayers. Have I mentioned lately how blessed we are to have all of you as family and friends? Couldn't do this without you all. I will post again after we get home.

Oh, and as a side note... I tried to get Jared to blog about trek. He's fighting me on it. Maybe if you all bugged him?? hehe... but shhh I didn't say that. lol To bad he reads this and will know it's me. Hopefully soon he will blog though.

Love to all!!!!

Happy belated birthday to my Jared!

I am like the worse wife ever! Or so it feels like. I feel like I didn't do nearly enough for Jared's birthday. It is July 5! He says he had a great day, so that makes me happy. Still wish I could have done more. So here's what we did do to celebrate. That day I went and got his presents.

I had gotten him jeans

socks

books

and a camera tripod

After presents we dropped Little Man off at our friends house (thanks so much again Heather and Blaine!!!) and we went to dinner at Goodwood BBQ!

So yum!! Made Jared happy too because he had been craving a good steak and that's exactly what he got. If you guys know Jared, you know how critical he can be of food. Yeah, he still talks about how good that steak was.

We then walked around the mall, picked up a couple things at the grocery store, picked up LM, and called it a night.

The next day I FINALLY got around to finishing Jared's birthday cake. He likes German chocolate cake with a coconut type frosting.

It takes like really good caramel to him. Once again, if you know Jared you know how crazy he is about caramel. NOTHING is better then caramel in his opinion. We got the scouts to sing to him...

here's a short video of it. Please ignore my bad singing. I was trying to get the scouts to sing loud.

So, yeah... not to bad, but I was hoping to do better. Maybe next year. Happy birthday again Jared!!! Love to all!!!

Another quick update

We are all alive and well! Life is definitely taking adjusting too, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm trying to convince Jared to update on how trek was. We'll see how that all goes. lol He's been crazy busy at work, scouts, and his normal stuff. He's been such an incredible dad to Little Man! Of course, I always knew he'd be an amazing dad one day. Jared hit a big milestone yesterday! I should have done a special post for him, but .... honestly I don't know where time went yesterday. Anyway~ it was his birthday!!! I've got pictures to put up, but I'll do a post on it later. I hope he had the best birthday EVER! and that it was a special day. He says it was but sometimes I think he said it just to get me to hush ... hehe you'd think he'd realize how much of a chirp-er I am by now. :o)

I have been lovin' the house mom job!!! My favorite job ever! Definitely keeps me on my toes. Some days I just feel like there needs to be more then 24 hours. I wouldn't trade it for the world though. There's not really anything specific either. My days now consist of feeding and changing LM, cleaning, doing whatever task needs to be done... like taking LM to appointments, shopping for Jared's birthday/other stuff, ... I recently helped people move, and baby-sit. Nothing totally exciting.

LM is growin' like a weed. We got him weighed, measured today.

He's: 7 lbs, 4 oz... 51 %

just over 20 in.... 90%

I don't know his head measurement but it's in the 75%

So we've got a tall, skinny one on our hands. He's eating, sleepin', and his potty business well. I think the biggest news with LM is that he may be leaving us next week. I can't go into to much detail online, but it depending on a court ruling on Monday. Our prayers, and we ask your prayers be the same, is that the judge will rule whatever is the best decision for LM. We will be going to the hearing, so we'll know right away how it turns out. We'll definitely keep you all posted.

So there's my somewhat quick update. Hope all is well with all of you! Love to all!!