November Roundup

our back yard cherry tree

Wow! This month has flown by. I just realized I have only published one post this month and December begins in a couple of hours. Here's a quick rundown of what we've been up to this month: 

Sam went to work peeling and sanding the logs he harvested for his parents banister. 

Cohen started using the toilet - very infrequently, but it's still a major celebration at your house!

Sam taught Cohen the art of tortilla making and Cohen became a master of glue while making our first displayed Christmas decoration (it's on the fridge behind him)

For the 3rd year in a row, we participated in the annual Adoption Walk With Me 5K to raise awareness of the positive outcomes of adoption in our community. BTW, Katrina is doing great on her mission. She's in a new area that she loves. We miss her TONS and can't wait to spend some time with her family who will be in town next month. 

Sam tried to use the shop-vac as a leaf blower. It didn't work very well, but Cohen had a blast playing with it. 

We discovered the joy of indoor camping. Cohen calls marshmallows "farfallows".

The newest member of our extended family was born last month. He was born 8 minutes after Megan's sister arrived at the hospital! Cohen calls him Baby Will and we can't get enough of him. 

Grandma (Megan's mom), Cohen and William on Thanksgiving.

We decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Cohen's tree ended up looking very similar to the way he decorated it last year. At least this year he hasn't tried eating any of the ornaments.

One night when Cohen was supposed to be in bed he got into the gift wrapping box and had a lot of fun with the ribbon.

And last of all, some stuff I've been thinking about A LOT lately, but I'm not quite sure what to say about it ...

We've only been approved to adopt again for a few months. Why does it feel like SO MUCH longer?! I obviously have yet to master the art of patience!

This month we've had contact with a couple of different women trying to find families for their children. This time is such a roller coster of emotions. Trying to be realistic while staying hopeful, faithful and grateful can be a struggle at times. Discouragement and doubt keep trying to rear their ugly heads. And trying to make sure we're doing all we can to help our next child find his/her way to our family vs. having faith that the Lord will bring us together can be a tough balancing act. 

However, as frustrated and powerless as I sometimes feel, I always think of those planning to  place their child for adoption and the task they have of trying to find the right family. Now THEY have the hard part in all of this. I cannot imagine the pressure that must accompany making such an important decision. I'm glad we can be a part of a few of their journeys. I truly feel blessed for the opportunity to do whatever we can to help them with their decision. We clearly experienced through Cohen's adoption that Heavenly Father has a way of working things out. I just have to be patient. 

Nap-time Project

I LOVE being a stay-at-home mom. It is definitely the best job I've ever had. It was dream job for years and it has lived up to all my expectations. I love being able to have time to take Cohen to the park and the library. I love participating in the little games Cohen makes up throughout the day. I love being available to help out family and friends who need a little extra help. And it truly don't even mind the house cleaning and cooking that comes with the job. One of my favorite times of the day is nap time. I love reading stories to Cohen (even if it's the same book three times in a row), singing him lullabies and snuggling with him. And I also love the couple of hours I get to do whatever it is I have a hard time doing while he's awake--like blogging, reading, and sometime I even get to take a nap myself. This week I was able to finally get around to finishing up a home improvement project; painting the front door. We've pretty much remodeled our entire house: paint, flooring (tile, wood, carpet), bathrooms, kitchen, yard, etc., but we still have a few project to tackle. Our front door has always been an eyesore, but we didn't do anything about it because we couldn't make up our minds as to whether or not to replace it. I finally decided to just paint it. If we decide to replace it later, at least it will be more inviting in the meantime.

Much better!!!

Here a few pumpkins from my friend's and our garden. I adore this time of year!

Beads

My sister Allison and her kiddies are in town for a few weeks. We've been busy going to the pool, throwing a surprise baby shower for our sister Emily who is pregnant with a boy after having three girls, going shopping, having slumber parties, and helping Alli with one of her latest projects. For the last several years she's volunteered with an organization called Mothers Without Borders. She goes to Africa to work with orphaned youth, organizes fundraisers in her hometown, and recently was the brainchild of a genius idea to help the youth she works with raise money for themselves. Through a lot of trial and error, she figured out a way for the youth to make beads that is similar to the way they make bricks for their buildings (a couple of years ago she made bricks with them that were used to build a school.) 

Just before her visit to Utah she was in Zambia where she taught the kids how to make the beads. Then she brought them here to have my mom (a seasoned jewelry maker) help her figure out how to make beautiful jewelry out of them. The jewelry will then be sold to raise money for the kids. Each set (necklace and earrings) sold will pay for half of one year of their education. Each child made enough beads to make two sets, so when both sell, they've earned enough money to pay for their own education. The idea is to empower the kids and give them hope for their future. 

Each child who made beads had their own bag to store them in. We had to make sure not to mix any of them up because each necklace will come with the story of the child who made the beads. As we worked on them, Alli told us their stories--stories of tragedy, brutality, healing and hope.  These kids are my heroes.

Before we could string the beads onto necklaces and earrings we had to open up some of the bead holes that were too small (thank you Sam for giving us free reign of your tools and helping us figure out how to do this) and apply a glaze:

Who thought you'd need a power drill to make jewelry?  (btw, this power drill was a wedding present I gave to Sam--we sure have gotten a lot of use out of it!) 

glazing the beads--being very careful not to plug up the holes again

The finished product. I can't wait to see what they'll look like as part of a necklace.

Alli also told us about a couple of really cool things that happened while we were there. First, a mission for our church opened up in the area, and second, she found out laws have made it "easier" for Americans to adopt orphaned youth from Zambia. It's still kind of complicated, but it is possible. However, Alli has mixed feelings about it. She sees how well the children she's worked with have thrived in their new Mother's Without Borders home, and how they've formed strong bonds to the other children there. Alli has developed a great love for those kids, and a very strong bonds with several of them, but she doesn't want to take them away from their "family" in Zambia. It's a very complicated situation.

I'm grateful I was able to help out a little with this project. I'd really like to meet the kids who made the beads someday. Time to start saving my pennies!

While we worked on the beads, Cohen was hard at work on his cousins giant jaw breaker. Thanks for sharing, Ethan!

Granny Turns 90

My grandma turned 90 last month. We had a small party for her on her birthday but waited to throw the big bash until this month when out-of-towners could attend. My first memory is of being with this sweet and feisty lady--I was about 18 months old when my family bought her house. After moving in she took me to the neighbor's to introduce me to their daughter who was my age. I remember holding her hand, holding my doll in the other hand, and walking up the stairs to their porch. I was excited to meet my new friend, but a little nervous, and glad to have Granny there for support. I'm so glad she's still around. I hope Cohen remembers her. 

So what did we get for the woman who has everything?  We decided to go homemade. She's always loved hummingbirds and I like to make fancy boxes so this is what we came up with. Sam folded the origami hummingbird, I painted it, made the flower and painted the box. I'm pretty sure she doesn't have one of these already.

Love you Granny. Here's to another 90!

The Hunt

Getting ready for our family Easter egg hunt. 

Before the hunt Sam snapped a few pictures of our handy work:

THE Golden Egg

The hunters with their loot.  I think Cohen's on about jelly bean #137.

jelly bean #892

Happy Easter!




Amen.

Pancakes & Conference

Last weekend we were the hosts of one of Megan's family's traditions: pancakes and conference.

Twice a year our church holds General Conference. The meetings are aired world-wide and we usually watch via television from home. 

For the Sunday morning session we always gather together to enjoy delicious whole wheat pancakes while we watch our prophet and other church leaders give instruction and share inspirational messages. 

THE pancakes--Yummy!

The kiddos (and Sam) playing conference bingo.

three cute kids--and yes, that's snow outside. 

It's always hard to choose, but one of my favorite talks was about the Atonement. I loved what he said about there being no pain or sorrow that can't be healed through Christ's Atonement. I have such a strong belief of this. I don't know how I could have accepted Katrina's gift, the opportunity she gave me to be Cohen's mom, had I not believed this. I'm so grateful I've been able to experience the healing power of the atonement in my own life, but it's even sweeter to see it at work in someone else's.

While I was snapping photos I took one of this lamp Sam made recently. His dad rescued a really old train light and he knew Sam could turn it into something useful. It turned out to be pretty darn cool, too.

v-day

Check out these YUMMY treats Sam made for me on Valentine's! This brought me back to our first Valentine's Day together. We had been dating for a few months--he made me a bunch of these and I wrote him a cheesy/funny poem on a card I made for him. The strawberries are gone of course (luckily he makes me more every year), but Sam still has that card.

Once in awhile I get in a crafty mood. I'm a little low on Valentine's Day decorations, so I thought I'd make a centerpiece for the kitchen table. I friend of mine from high school has this awesome crafting blog/website where I remembered seeing this cute paper craft around Christmastime. I decided to make a Valentine's version, but wanted to make a few alterations. I do this a lot whenever it comes to anything that requires following directions, especially when I craft and cook.  Usually everything turns out just the way I want it. That was not the case this time. My changes to the banner piece (making it double sided, and hanging on ribbon at the base of the topiaries) resulted in a lot of frustration and WAY too much wasted time. However, my sweet husband and a lot of hot glue saved the day.  Here's the (almost) final product.

I still have to finish the bases but I'm giving it a rest for now.

Happy Valentine's Day to my two guys! I am head over hills for you both. I am the luckiest girl in the world!!!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Christmas Morning

This book is Cohen's favorite. We checked it out from the library several times and figured it was time for him to have his own copy.

As much as he loved the book, I think he likes this even better.

Sam's dad made this awesome jewelry tree for me. Sam and I made the earrings for Katrina.

Here's Cohen (he's a little tired if you can't tell) with a few of his cousins on Christmas morning participating in a family Christmas tradition--dress up like characters from the Nativity story and then listen to Grandpa read the story from the Bible. 

A couple days later ...

Katrina and her family came to visit. There's rumors Katrina might go on a mission! We hope she can go, but what will we do without her??!

When I was little, every December 1st my mom would put up my favorite Christmas decoration--a wooden Nativity that she had especially for us kids to play with. I've looked for years for something similar but have yet to find anything. On Christmas Eve my sister gave our family a darling nativity set that is perfect for kids to play with. Even though Christmas is over, I put it in Cohen's room next to the tree he decorated. I love it!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

'Twas the Week Before Christmas

This week has been crazy busy and a lot of fun!



Tuesday we took a group of cub scouts to see the lights at Temple Square. (I'm the Bear Den Leader and Sam's the Cub Master. We were just called to these positions about two months ago and have really enjoyed being able to work together.) The lights were beautiful and it was quite an adventure having four rowdy nine-year-old boys along for the trip.




On Wednesday we continued our tradition of baking treats and giving them to friends and family. I came home form work and Sam had already made all the cookies. I just got to do the fun part of decorating them!




On Thursday we went sub-for-Santa shopping with my sisters and then we all came back to our house to wrap up all the loot.




My sister's birthday was yesterday and I made her this box. We usually have a girl's night out for each other's birthdays, but we decided to go to lunch instead. Later that evening we went to our friend's Christmas Party.

Today we're headed down south to spend some time with Sam's family.

Sam's the Man

He cooks AND bakes.

One Sunday he felt like bread and we were out.

So he made TWO different kinds. I just did the dishes.

Here’s a cake he made me for my birthday. How cute is that?!

Iron Chef Sam at the first Annual Corn Festival at the Navajo Village Heritage Center.

He made traditional Navajo dishes and introduced his new creation,

The Navajo Cheese Steak. Yum!

He's very creative.

Our neighbors cut down a giant tree in their yard, so he took a chunk of the trunk to make a powwow drum.

Last summer we went to Lake Powell and he made an awesome sand castle.

At Pioneer Trek he made a makeshift shower so I could wash my hair …

The rest of the ward ended up using it, too.

Everything’s much better with clean hair!

He knows how to make me laugh.

At least one Hotel in Mexico has a trampoline and we were lucky enough to stay there.
Sam performed a hilarious cheerleading-meets-Cirque de Soleil routine
while diners at the nearby restaurant looked on.

Sam SERIOUSLY prefers this picture over the one we use at the top of this blog.
We have it in our house and it makes me laugh every time I see it.

I LOVE this guy!