Olivia meets Great-Grandma

We had a great time visiting with Great-Grandma on Wednesday. She was in heaven admiring her newest great-grand baby. All the attendants at the facility who came to the door to check on Grandma were introduced to Olivia. As we visited, Grandma figured out that once the babies on the way in the family are born, she will have as many great-grand babies as grandchildren. "Look what Grandpa and I started!" she said.

On our way out, Grandma insisted we show Olivia off to her friends that sit with her at dinner. She was so proud. (Although, I was trying to be cautious of those who tried to reach out and touch her. Babies are irresistible though.)

Sibling Love

Now I need to catch everyone up on the last week of our lives. I will start by showing you how adored Olivia is by her big brother and big sister. Robby tell us he is Olivia's "Big, big brother" because he is a big brother times 2.

Our New Little Olivia's Story

(If you just want to see pictures scroll down)

Everything began Sunday evening. We had gone to church and Robby got home with the kids about 3pm. I stayed for choir till about 4pm. When I got home Robby was napping and so I had dinner and laid down to rest a little myself. Robby and I got to talking and the phone rang about 5pm. I almost didn’t answer it because I figured I could call whoever it was back later. Well, I’m glad I picked up because it was Larry our LDSFS caseworker. At first it didn’t even strike me as strange that he was calling on a Sunday. I had trained myself long ago to not get excited when someone from LDSFS calls because it is quite likely not anything exciting. So he says to me, “You’ll be glad that we caught you at home! There has been a little baby girl born in Utah and the birth parents are interested in choosing you! They would like a conference call as soon as possible.”

Okay, talk about shock, excitement, and emotion all rolled into one moment! As soon as we got off the phone we called the caseworker in Utah. It just so happened that this caseworker was the same caseworker who worked with us when we were placed with Jenna. That was another wonderful surprise! She quickly arranged a call with us and the birthparents who were still at the hospital.

We had a wonderful 45 minute conversation with them. They told us that they chose us because we felt so familiar to them when they saw our website. They were both very easy to talk to and we enjoyed getting to know them. So many things were discussed. Thinking back I remember enjoying hearing their laughter when the discussion was light-hearted, and I was touched by the emotions they shared when we talked about why they were choosing adoption. They were both very in tune to the Spirit as they made their choice, and we felt honored that they wanted us to be Olivia’s parents.

After our call ended at about 6:30pm or 7pm we (or more primarily I) became frazzled trying to pack everything that we might need for a week in Utah while also calling to tell the family and anyone else we needed to notify. We discussed flying and decided against it since it would be WAY expensive for 4 tickets at such short notice. I must admit while packing I felt like I was in a dream and couldn’t get all my thoughts to flow in one comprehensive pattern. By 8:30pm that night we were on the road to the Salt Lake area of Utah. We stopped for the night at midnight in Flagstaff and got up early the next morning to drive from about 7am till 5pm and arrive at the LDSFS agency for placement. The trip at times seemed slow and at times seemed crazy because we were worried for a little about road conditions and about picking up a car seat for baby Olivia. Many thanks go to Andra, Robby’s mom, and my mom for being our information source on the road by checking the internet when we need them to. (Things would have been a lot more hectic without you!)

We arrived just after 5pm and got settled before meeting Olivia’s wonderful birthparents and birth grandparents (on her birthmom’s side). The spirit was so strong in the room. We could see and feel the emotion that Olivia’s birth family felt. There was a sense of peace though as we met together and talked about our lives and their hopes and dreams for little Olivia. When the time felt right, Olivia’s birth family took a private moment to have a final moment with her before placement, and then they handed her to us and we embraced sharing our feelings of gratitude and extreme love for each other. I can’t even think about it without crying. My tears are for joy for Olivia’s arrival in our family and also in grief as I think about the incredible sacrifice that they made for her. Words cannot express our gratitude.

I am sure you are interested in seeing pictures so here they are with thanks to Uncle Tommy for saving us by bring his camera cord so we could download the pictures from our camera (It’s hard to remember everything when you are packing in such haste. :)

Our first moments with Olivia

Our first family picture with baby Olivia

Uncle Tommy says "Hello!" to little Olivia

Sleepy little babe

Showing off her cute little body

Olivia says hello to everyone...

We've adopted a baby girl!

Olivia!

Yes, that's right! We have a new addition to the family as of today! Incredible isn't it?! We didn't even know about her yesterday afternoon and today we are proud adoptive parents. All I can say is that it is a miracle! We can't express in words the love and gratitude that we feel for her wonderful birthparents who we had the honor of meeting. We were also incredibly touched by Olivia's birthgrandparents. Today was more amazing than I can describe. We feel so blessed, but at the same time we want Olivia's parents to know that we are in awe of their amazing courage and you are in our prayers. Adoption is a miracle!


Okay, so you probably want some stats... Olivia was born on January 11th at 11pm, and she weighed 5lbs. 15oz. and was 18 1/2 inches. She is a petite little girl, so she fits in our family since I'm petite as well! We are overjoyed!


Well, it's late and I have a long night ahead, so I will post the rest tommorrow!

Christmas Fun!

I love Christmas Day! I wish that it lasted more than one day! Here are some of our Christmas day highlights...

Here are our stocking. I know, there are 7 stocking and only 4 people in our family. We had to have two extra for Grandma and Grandpa and then we have a special stocking for Baby Jesus. One of our traditions is to write down a "gift" (or rather a goal) that you are going to give baby Jesus over the next year. Now you see why we have 7. But of course, I have always felt the more the merrier!

And here are our two Christmas sweeties! Chap got up at 6am and was kind enough not to wake us until 7am. (What a good boy!)

Every Christmas we make donuts from scratch. We usually cut them into triangles like beignets (New Orleans Donuts). This is always great fun! (If you want a bit of history... My grandmother used to make donuts from scratch on Christmas morning. When I was growing up the tradition was adjusted a little and my Dad would go and pick up donuts from the donut shop Christmas Eve to eat on Christmas morning. Well, when Robby and I got married he decided that if we were going to follow tradition we had to do it right and make them from scratch! And so we do.)

Here are some of the chocolate covered ones. Yum! Yum! In our house we have to eat breakfast before we open the gifts under the tree.

Wrapping paper ripping fun!

Oh look, a book!

Robby has been extremely busy with school so he has had very little time to come up with a gift for me. I have really been wanting to go shopping for some new clothes, so he decided to give me money to spend. I was disappointed because I knew what I was getting for Christmas (I really like surprises), so Robby surprised me by folding my money into shirts and dresses. Very creative!

Little Robby and Jenna really loved the quillows that I made them. ("What's a quillow?" you ask. It is a blanket that has a pocket that it can be fold-up and stuffed into. When it's folded it is a pillow, when it is unfolded it is a quilt. Hence, it is called a quillow!)

Cousin Matthew made something special for Robby and Jenna. Thank you Matthew!

Jenna got some dress up clothes and decided that she had to try three of them on... at once!

More fun surprises!

Bonus pic: On the Sunday night before Christmas my parents and our family had a great time visiting the Temple Lights. We had a lot of fun! (I know it is hard to tell from this picture so I will mention that my dad is wearing a Santa hat that has a very thick fuzzy white brim.)

Gingerbread House

When the Christmas season rolled around, Little Robby asked me if we could make a gingerbread house. Since I love making fun memories for the kids we did just that...

Here's our little house.

We assembled this while my parents were visiting and they helped with the building and assisted the kids in the decorating. Jenna put the candies on this side of the roof. That was a perfect Jenna job. Little Robby did a lot of the other decorating.

Arizona snow... for real!!

No really, there was snow! You will just have to read along and find out...

Saturday morning we attended a Santa's breakfast at the recreation center...

We had yummy pancakes, sausages, and milk (chocolate milk for the boys).

Jenna got to visit with Santa and have her picture taken. (I guess Robby is too old for Santa now as he didn't even want to pose for a picture with Jenna and Santa.)

But then the surprise was playing in real snow! Okay, so it wasn't created naturally, but it was as close to snow that falls from the sky as the desert of Arizona can get.

Poor Jenna didn't have any mittens, but thankfully they got cups in their goody bags and the cups made it easier for the kids to shovel up the frigid white stuff.

I love these next two picture. Look carefully because Robby is sticking his tongue out at Chap.

Then Chap retaliates against Robby with a snowball. I was pretty lucky to catch this shot, the snow ball is in the air flying on its way to the target -- Robby!

Jenna has the look of, "What is this stuff?"

That grin says it all! Little Robby loves snow!

Christmas is here again

I wanted to share moment from one of our Christmas traditions with you. Each year on the Monday after Thanksgiving I set up the Christmas decorations and get out the Christmas tree. Then our Family Home Evening activity for that night is decorating the Christmas tree together. The kids really love this. It was especially fun setting up everything this year and seeing Jenna's eyes light up with each new surprise. Her favorite part was helping me set up the Christmas train that circles our tree.

Jenna enjoyed helping to hang the ornaments. (And now she loves to rearrange the ornaments on the tree over and over!)

She was so proud of herself!

Robby was a good big brother and helped her hang the ornaments.

Dad serves as the official "Hook Putter On-er." (Do like my title for him?!) Every year Dad takes this job while the kids and I place the ornaments on the tree. (You can tell he's concentrating on his job.)

I love Christmas time! It's my favorite time of year. The night we decorate the tree is one of my favorites. I get warm fuzzies being gathered with my family, listening to Christmas CDs, and decorating the tree together. What fun!

Karate Advancements

Once again we had karate testing a couple of weeks ago. This time we had the fun of having Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Logan, and cousin Matthew come to watch us do our stuff. Here are the highlight videos.

I am the lowest belt in the older group, so I get to go first at all of the tests. These two videos are of us doing our forms. The forms are choreographed movement that you have to memorize. There is a lot more to testing than the forms, but this is the only thing that we do by ourselves during testing.

And here we are with our new belts! (We had a hard time getting Robby to smile for this one. He was trying to have a Calvin and Hobbes moment where he makes a funny face right as Dad clicked the picture.)

What we did on our day off

So I have some blogging to catch up on! Between the Grand Canyon trip, my parents visiting this past weekend, and Christmas shopping I haven't had the time to sit down and do this. So here it goes...

This is from our day off around Veterans Day. Since we didn't want to sit around the house bored, we decided to take a day at the museum. The kids really enjoyed checking out the new exhibit called "Strange Matter." There were substances like this liquid iron mixture that when it was magnetized would be come more like a solid. Very interesting.

Jenna is finally old enough to enjoy pressing buttons and trying to interact a lot of the exhibits.

I thought this was a cute pic. We were waiting to see the IMAX film, and Robby took Jenna over to show her this aquarium of sea creatures. What a sweet big brother!

Here we are in the IMAX theater before the movie started. I thought Jenna would really get a kick out of it, but some of the images were a little too "larger than life" for her. She got scared with all of the loud sounds and some of the visual effects. So much so, that she crawled into my lap and shut everything out and went to sleep! I couldn't see how she could have possibly slept with the sound!

Later she recovered and enjoyed checking out the xylophone made of different materials so you could hear the differences in sound.

Working together!

And lastly, Robby loves this part of the museum. Here you can make sand barriers and see if you can direct a flow of water. I think he just likes the fact that it is almost like playing in mud!