Adoption!!

TWO exclamation marks on that title because we have TWO adoptions to discuss!! Let me tell you about the first one first.

Little S, who has just been a part of our family for a long time, has had quite the roller coaster. So many stories in this little one's life, and she is only 3. One important milestone of this drama include the termination of her bio parents' rights. The trial only lasted a few hours, and it ended dramatically with an outburst (though not from the bio parents! They were a tad childish during the hearing, but who wouldn't be with so much at stake? And in the end, after the judge had made her ruling, they were pulled together. Not happy, obviously, but mature. I am sure they fell apart later, but in the moment, they really really surpassed my expectations. This wasn't the first time I could site a moment of composure either. There were glimmers throughout the last almost 2 years that S has been

Camping

Kai and his friend, just giggling in a hammock in the mountains.

We are tent campers. It just doesn't feel like camping without a tent for me. I am sure I will change my mind as I get older, but for now, our enormous tent works for us. It can fit a queen, a twin, and two child cots with room to spare. Love it!

Dressed and a quick breakfast so we can get to the fun stuff.

Pioneer Day - 24th Of July

This is Jason posting. So in Utah we have an additional holiday called Pioneer Day. Like Independence Day, it is an additional day to celebrate the past as well as set off fireworks.  Nothing better than remembering our ancestors, barbecuing some great food with great friends, and blowing stuff up. We had three families over, 18 people in all, to celebrate and just enjoy each others company.  It was a blast... literally.  

Happy Birthday... and Happy Father's Day, Jason!!

Jason is old! Yay! ... I mean ... happy birthday, Jason! :)

Happy birthday, Kai!

Kai turned 4 and he was SOOOO excited.

It's Like Riding a Bike

So recently Ash decided to teach Kai how to ride a bike.  He was determined to learn without training wheels so Ash set up this little bike we have without the wheels and took him outside.  She got him going and he pretty much just started riding the bike like he used to know how to do it. It was pretty amazing.  I took a video today of him out riding for his fourth time.  Seriously...  Only the fourth time he had gone out to ride and this is what he is doing.

Memorial Day Weekend

Saturday, we met my brother and his family at the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. It is the best children's museum I've ever been to. When Seth saw his cousin, they held hands throughout the museum. It was so stinking cute. Not to say the other kids don't get along, but Seth and this particular cousin just connect.

Yard Work Galore

So Ashley invited her 13 year old nephew over to help with some yard work.  What a great idea.  He spent a good amount of time weeding and mowing the front and back lawn on Friday while I worked and then we spent 8 hours on Saturday weeding between the garden boxes, weeding the area behind our fence (in the wetlands), cutting down a huge weed/bush, laying several layers of weed barrier, and then finally moving several wheel barrows worth of rocks from behind the fence to between the garden boxes.  What a tremendous amount of work!  I am posting some "after" pictures of everything.  I wish you could see how much of a change there was in the before and after.

Let me tell you, that 13 year old worked hard and between the two of us we got significantly more done that I could have done in probably 3 weekends by myself.  It was tremendous and I'm glad he allowed us to pay him well for his work.  It was a long, super hot and sweaty day and I for one can barely move between being sun burnt and sore.  It was totally worth it though after seeing the results.  Thank you for everything you did...  It was amazing!

Mother's Day

Seth made me the sweetest little calendar for Mother's Day. He colored the sky gray and said, "The sky is dark because it is raining hearts for Mother's Day!" I loved it! Every page of that calendar just exudes love and time spent in earnest concentration.

This boy melts my heart. You wouldn't believe how empathetic he is. (For instance, he has a girl in his class that was born with half a heart. This obviously causes a few physical challenges. He has taken her under his wing, and when I told him he wouldn't be in the same class as her next year, he started crying! He doesn't want to lose his friend.)

A boys' day together also means...

A GIRLS' DAY TOGETHER!

When the boys all left to go to the Payson Temple openhouse, that left S and I at home together. The first thing we did was nap in a big bed. She loves being cuddled, so we fell asleep quickly. About an hour later, I woke up to S pretending to sleep. She was trying so hard to be good, but she was wide awake. I sneaked over as quietly as possible and turned on Cinderella, her favorite Disney movie. I then sneaked ever-so-quietly and got back in bed. S was so adorable, pretending to be asleep but obviously awake and watching. She eventually watched without reservation, and before long, she was yelling at the TV.

"Watch out for the kitty!"
"Be nice to 'Rella!"
"They dancing!"
"Yay! You did it!"

This girl is so full of life. We ate dark chocolate covered raisins as we cheered on 'Rella, and we danced, and we played games. I loved our girl day, and I love our girl. :)

*Sorry for the lack of pictures, but we can't post her face yet, and there is no point to any pictures without her in them for this post.

Boys Only Trip to the Temple

Hey this is Jason.  So the boys and I got to have a special day today.  I took a half day off from work and we were able to go down to the new Payson LDS Temple.  Just me and the boys and it was a fun time.  If you don't know, LDS temples are special places in our religion where members of the LDS church who are living in accordance with the teachings of the church may go to perform special ordinances.  These are essentially very sacred promises made with the Lord.  After a temple is built and before it is dedicated as a Holy place, it is opened to the general public to walk through and see the inside. The boys loved it.

April? What's April?

So... April was crazy. Like, out of this world crazy. The last day of April Jason and I looked at each other and literally said things like, "Wait... what? How did it get to be the last day of April?!?" Let me explain (with some cute pictures thrown in for good measure!)

COURT
We had the permanency hearing for S's case through foster care. It was scheduled for a Wednesday. There was family from our side and from S's side who had driven in from out of state to be here for the court hearing because it is the biggest hearing in the foster care process (at least in this case for us).

Grandma and S talking about what's important: jewelry!
I am so glad she and grandpa came into town to support all of us.

Guys' game night

This is Jason.  So for the past several months, I have been hosting a guys only game night at our house.  We get 6-12 guys together and play board games until midnight or 1 am.  It's a super fun time and has been a blast to host.  It's always interesting to see what games everyone wants to play.  We don't get into anything as hardcore as Dungeons and Dragons, and we don't play anything as light as Apples to Apples.  We play good solid strategy games or bluffing games or really whatever we want.  It's a great evening to stuff yourself full of junk food and laugh a lot with some friends.  Good times right?

A must-read

I have two seconds to post this while I sit here watching Kai splash in the bath, but this blog post is so well written that I had to share. Please read it. It just might help explain how crazy we are. :)

http://thefosterlife.com/2015/03/06/you-should-just-stop-fostering/

Now I'm going to go splash in a bathtub with a darling 4 year old.

I'm back!

Two months. So this will be a picture update of the minor events between Christmas and now. And then I will update on the bigger events. :) These are totally out of order. Lol!

We went to the dinosaur museum! The kids love this place, and it's super educational. (As a sidenote, I've started saying the word "super" way too much. It's a habit I'm trying to drop. I've come up with "uber" and "very" as good replacements.)