SPRING FEVER HAS HIT!

The weather the past few weeks has been so tricky! One day beautiful sunshine and warm-ish temperatures and the next day blasted snow! I am so ready for some green around here and some warmer weather. This weekend I set out with one major goal in mind- our garden. I know we are still at least a few weeks away from planting but we had lots of work to get done!

This is what our garden looked like until Friday evening. Last year was the first time we attempted a garden in our yard. We already had a spot that got some good sun and the grass wasn't growing well so last year we tilled it and planted peas, carrots, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce. We were doing pretty well, until one week we got busy and didn't weed- the attack of morning glory was un-relenting from that day on. We were also not loving the temporary puppy-proofing fence.

 So, we borrowed a truck from a trusting Grandfather and headed out to "no-where" to get a load of rock. It was only $20 for the truck load so the drive was worth it!

 The night before I went to my favorite orange store to pick out the lumber we needed for the garden boxes. About 25 2x6x8's and three 4x4x8s. The orange store can thank me later for re-stacking their entire bunk of 2x6's! It was slim pickins but I found what I needed after about and hour of digging through the pile.

 Friday I had told a friend I would watch her three cute little guys while she did a project. So I had a break from the outside to play with the boys. This is one of the boys- he has finally warmed up to Jack and was reading him books. I was glad I could grab a picture of this!

 Jack "reading" another book! So cute! We had fun reading, playing with blocks and Mr. Potato head. These boys sure made my day!

 While making the boys some dinner I used up the last of the peanut butter, and since Jack had been such a good boy all day I decided to give him the peanut butter jar- he was in heaven! He could fit most of his head in the jar and did a good job cleaning it out. (Don't worry, once he was done I threw it away)

 After the boys left Friday night I cleared out the weeds and leveled the ground so we could get right to work Saturday morning. It took about an hour and a half to get the rock moved off the giant pile on the patio and into the garden space. Its about 4 in deep, 8 feet wide, and 14 feet long... it was a lot of rock!

 Saturday was super cold and windy and threatened rain more than once. So I was all bundled up in a hoodie and my safety glasses :) I love working with power tools...

 We finally finished assembling the boxes about dark-thirty, I am pretty sure our neighbors think we are nuts to be running the loud circular saw at that hour!

Side view the next morning... they turned out pretty well I think! Now we just need to fill them with dirt and plants and we will be good to go! We are also thinking of staining/painting them to help the wood last a little longer.

So wish us luck as we work to become more self-sufficient and grow our own produce!

Utah Weekend

Well, I just realized that I didn't post any pictures from our quick weekend away to UTAH! It was last weekend so at least I am close right?

We decided a while ago that we wanted to take a quick trip to Utah to hang out with one of my Uncles and his cute little family. We also wanted to go to IKEA! (I had never been and I just couldn't stand not going!) So we set the ball in motion and made our travel plans. Aaron was able to get some time off work and we had a rather enjoyable little trip!

Friday- Driving...driving...driving... I have sympathy for all you people who make that drive more frequently than we do... ugh! Once we arrived in Utah we had dinner plans with some friends and did a little shopping at some stores that are no longer in Idaho. (We were so busy enjoying their company we forgot to take a picture! Oops! That kinda happened a lot this trip)

Somewhere on the road... I wish I could tell you where this was but most of the 600 mile drive looks like this

 Ah- half way there! We made it across the state line!

Our view from the Ikea cafe while eating lunch- I love seeing these GIANT mountains!

My new favorite store! My husband keeps saying he is lucky we don't have one closer to us...

We can't go to Salt Lake without wandering around Temple Square. It was a chilly and overcast day but the temple was BEAUTIFUL! We watched at least four different brides and wedding parties doing pictures while we were there.

 We also went with the cousins to the Art History Museum, another of my favorite places to visit, and Aaron hadn't been before. We had a great time looking at all the exhibits. These two cousins were trying out a bunk that was like one on the ships immigrants took from England to the U.S. They look pretty cozy huh?

 More majestic mountains as we left Salt Lake

 Aaron's Grandparents are in the Tremonton cemetery so we decided we needed a leg stretch break and took some pretty spring flowers up to them. It is a peaceful hillside cemetery.

 So part of our trip was specifically designed to go to Ikea to purchase something to remedy this picture- we have a funky "bump-out" in our living room about 18 in deep and 6 feet wide. We currently had these to mis-matched bookcases to hold books, pictures, and some toys... I wasn't loving the situation... so....

Cleo supervising the building of shelves from inside a box. We have to check boxes before we take them out to the trash because she loves to hide in them! Silly kitty!

Tah-dah! The finished cube bookcases... plenty of space for toys and books and display type things. We are working to find something to place in the small space between them, I just haven't decided what I want there yet.

So, that was our quick weekend away. We had a great time playing with the cousins, shopping, and visiting Temple Square. Thanks to my Uncle and Aunt for sharing their weekend with us! Hopefully we can hit the road a little more often this year!

We are APPROVED!!!

So here is a portion of the letter we are sharing with family and friends...

We are happy to announce that we are expecting, well sort of, we have been approved to adopt a child! We are pursuing the adoption of a child through LDS Family Services. We are excited to continue our journey to parenthood through adoption.  We know the road of adoption isn’t easy and we hope you will support us in our journey. We invite you to visit our adoption profile at itsaboutlove.org  (click view adopting family profiles and continue as a guest then search for our names). Or click here to be whisked away to our profile.

 We look forward to the day when loving birth parents will choose us to be parents for their child, we hope you will share in our joy when this happens. We know you will have a lot of questions as well and we will be happy to share with you. However, we may not give family members or friends all the information we have about our birth family or our child’s background. We are not trying to offend, we are just respecting their privacy. We have deep respect for birth families. Making an adoption plan is such a great act of love! We always talk about birth parents in a positive and loving manner. We hope you will do the same. We are so grateful for adoption and the sacrifices that will be made so that our family can grow. We want our child to be proud of their adoption and know that they are loved by a birth family and an eternal family. Thank you for letting us share our experiences with you. We know that any child who comes into our home will be blessed to have such a loving extended family and friends.  We also ask that you thoughtfully pass our information along to anyone you feel might be able to help us on our journey to parenthood. We have ordered some “pass-along’ cards with all of our pertinent adoption info on them. We invite you to share them with family, friends, or even strangers. We have LOTS of them so if you are interested in carrying some with you send me and e-mail with your address and I will get you a stack J

THANK YOU!

First, let me start by saying a huge thank you for being who you are!

I know there is a God, He truly loves each of us despite the circumstances we may find ourselves in and I know he helps guide us on the paths we take. 

Thank you for taking the time to read a little more about us, whether you stick with us or move onto another family thank you for taking your decision seriously and thinking about the future for your child. We hope that you will contact us and we can be the forever family for your little one.

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”  

I hope you can see how you and your child will fit into our dreams. We are looking forward to this journey to parenthood and are excited to see where it leads us.

Some of our thoughts on adoption, open adoption, and parenting...

Adoption and Open Adoption- Knowing that we are supposed to be parents has been one of the most comforting answers to prayer. I specifically remember discussing adoption when we were dating, at that point in life we were thinking it would be something we could do once our biological children were a bit older, now we know this is how we will start our family. Both of us come from close families, and we couldn’t imagine anything different. We hope that our birth mother will be comfortable with an open adoption because we would love to share with her, and her family if they choose. There will never be a time when your child doesn’t know who you are, that they are adopted and that they are loved by both of their families.  

Family- Family is something that is very important to us. We aren’t Italian but if you imagine a “stereotypical” close knit giant Italian family it might help you understand our family a little better. There sure are a lot of us! On Kira’s side alone there are 12 Uncles, 10 Aunts, and lots of cousins in every age group- so there are always people around to play with. We hope our child will get to know their birth family as well as our family. We both have fond memories of family outings and adventures and hope to continue some of our family traditions with our own children and we are excited to create new family traditions together. We are fortunate to have many friends and neighbors who are like “family” to us. We are blessed to have other families in our ward who have also adopted their children. We have built quite the network of strong people to help buoy us up on rainy days and we have been able to help each other through our trials.

Parenting- I am going to be completely honest and upfront right now- we are not going to be perfect parents. But we will try every day to be better. Each child is different and requires different parenting skills, resources and knowledge. I know there will be times when it will be tough and we will take each day as it comes and do our best to help each other learn and grow.

A little about us and why we are here...

We hope as you poke through our blog and our adoption profile you can get to know a little about us- but there just isn’t time or space to put everything into words, so we invite you to e-mail us with any questions or thoughts or anything- We would LOVE to hear from you! J

The past few years we have been plagued by the “unknown”. Over and over we have heard “we don’t know why you have lost two babies, you are young and healthy” and “we don’t know why you are struggling to get pregnant, you are young and healthy”… the “unknowns” go on and on. There are things we do know, through the power of prayer. We know we are supposed to be parents, I know I am going to be a mom. I know our loving Heavenly Father has a plan for us and a path we are to follow. I have felt great comfort knowing that someday I will get to hold my child in my arms. We have been comforted through prayer and through the tender mercies- the things that happen to impact me- just when I need them.  

One of these tender mercies came recently through my sister in the form of a little quote she found.

“Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arches across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home. It is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, church, and neighbors… Love unlike faith, is a gift of God.” – Gordon B. Hinckley 

Family is very important to Aaron and I and we hope our child will have the opportunity to know their birth family as well as our family. We both have fond memories of family outings and adventures and hope to continue some family traditions with our own children.