Flowers

I was feeling a little down on Saturday, so I decided to buy myself some flowers. These beauties were at Costco so I decided to bring them home to cheer myself up.My mom did the cutting and arranging since she is visiting us for the week. She's so much better at it than I am. :)

I thought this shot was pretty. :) The flowers definitely helped my mood and they are still cheering me up. :)

Adoption

My life has been a little consumed by adoption. I have been reading about in books and online, reading people's personal experiences and the overall process. I have been learning a lot and wanted to share some of things I have learned. I have learned that as of now, less than 2% of unplanned pregnancies end in adoption. I find that statistic very sad. So, my message to you all is to promote adoption. Adoption is such a wonderful thing and has blessed the lives of many and we are hoping to join those ranks soon. I was in church on Sunday while a different ward was meeting, and saw a young woman. She wasn't a member (it was noticeable by the fact that she was wearing pants, swore, and used the Lord's name in Vain, and ran through the church). She must have been 17 or so, and was hanging out with her friends that were members. There was a little boy running around and then I heard him call her mom. This little boy was at least 4. Her son kept running up to her and she would push him away and he fell down several times and almost hit his head on the floor. It broke my heart so much that I had to get up and leave the hall that I was sitting in. Now, why would I mention this? This woman, who obviously was in her early teens when she first got pregnant, decided to not abort her baby, which is so amazing and I am very proud of that decision she made. But she decided to keep and raise her baby. While I have never been in that position, I know that it would be incredibly hard to give up a baby. But, I know that her life, and her sons, would have benefited SOOOOO much by taking part in adoption. Here are some other statistics... (courtesy of It's about Love) :)

BENEFITS OF BEING RAISED BY A MOTHER AND FATHER
􀁹 “Recent studies document the importance of fathers in the lives of their
children. Children develop best when they have warm, intimate,
continuous, and enduring relationships with both their fathers and their
mothers.”
􀁹 Children growing up with a father and mother are less likely to drop out of
school, to divorce or separate, and/or to depend on welfare. They are also
less likely to become pregnant out-of-wedlock and engage in delinquent
behavior.
EFFECTS OF SINGLE PARENTING ON MOTHER AND CHILD
􀁹 “Data shows that women who have nonmarital births have lower
educational attainment and lower incomes, are less likely to work full time,
and more likely to receive welfare.”
􀁹 Children who are raised by a single parent are “five times as likely to be
poor, twice as likely to drop out of school and two to three times more
likely as adults to commit crimes”.
􀁹 Single mothers experience “disproportionately higher rates of physical and
psychiatric illness” than married mothers. Single mothers also report less
social involvement and fewer contacts with friends.
POSITIVE EFFECTS OF ADOPTION
􀁹 Children placed in adoptive homes have better scores in school and engage
in less delinquent behavior than children raised by a single parent.
􀁹 Children in adoptive families have better health status and higher quality
home environment than all other children.
􀁹 Mothers who place their child for adoption are “more likely to finish school
and less likely to live in poverty”.
􀁹 Mothers who choose adoption are more likely to marry than those who
parent their baby.

If any of you are looking for more information, I have included some of my favorite adoption sites on the side of my blog. Enjoy! :)

A Poem and some news...

I found this on another person's blog and it really touched my heart. :)

Today I Kissed an Angel

Today I Kissed an Angel
I knew it from the start
the first time my angel smiled at me
I gave away my heart

Today I kissed an angel
This angel child of mine
Though not of my creation
My child by God's design

Today I kissed an angel
My heart is dancing wild
A family, by a miracle
Blessed by this angel child

Author Unknown

For other news, Robby and I are going to be doing a garage sale to help make money for adoption. We were hoping that if anyone has any clothes, stuff, etc. that you were planning on taking to DI anyway, you would donate to us for our garage sale. We don't have a specific date for it but it will probably be some time towards the end of this month. Any help would be greatly appreciated! :) Even if it's just sitting with me while the garage sale is going on so I won't be lonely, or helping us take the left overs to DI afterwards. :) If you live far away, tell your friends that we are hoping to adopt. Any connections could get us closer to our little miracle. We love you all!

Adoption Profile

We are trying to start our adoption profile and I was going through pictures and discovered some engagement pictures. So I thought I would post a few and let everyone vote on their favorites. :)

Number 1. Which also happened to be the one we included in our announcement.

Number 2. I like this one because we look like we are dancing.

Number 3. I love to swing and I think this one is fun, even though my smile is a little cheesy, but we are all a little cheesy right?

Number 4. A variation of number 1 but gives a little bit more. I like the duckies in the background too. :)

And, number 5. I HATED the gratuitous ring shot when we were engaged but now I kind of like it. It says, "we're married and love to show off my sparkly"


So just let me know your favorite. :) The winning pic will probably be the main picture on our adoption profile, if not a very featured one. :)

"God is so good. He is taking care of me."

I get a lot of weird people calling in everyday to my job at University of Phoenix. I'm in a call center so I get people of all kinds, happy, sad, angry, fuming, you get the idea. Today a lady called in and wanted to order a new diploma. She goes in to her life story that she is terminally ill with cancer and doesn't expect to live long and wanted the diploma for her grandchildren to remember her by. When I went to charge her card, the financial system could not pull up her record, so I was able to send it to her free of charge. When I told her that, her immediate response was "God is so good. He is taking care of me." It touched my heart so much. This woman had so much faith even though she was slowly dying of a painful disease. I don't know what religion she was, what kind of background she had, or anything further than that, but she knows, and I know that God is taking care of us. It's such a comforting thought. Even though we have our trials and think He may have forgotten us, He hasn't. He's always with us and thinking of us. We are all His children. I cannot even begin to express the love I have for Him, knowing that He is taking care of me.

Finally feeling like myself

It honestly took about 3 weeks but I'm finally starting to feel normal again. After we found out, I honestly felt a lot like Bella in New Moon. Days were passing without me even noticing. If I didn't have to go to work, I would've been at home in my bed, which is what I did as soon as I got home. After a couple weeks, I finally started to have the fog lifted from my head and my heart. We prayed hard and pondered and planned. I LOVE to plan so that helped a lot! After planning fertility treatments for so long, it was strange to be putting that away and concentrate on something else. Once I did that, there really was no other option than adoption. I honestly can say I am SO excited to adopt. I have been looking at websites, blogs, books, anything I can about adoption. I'm so impressed by adoptive parents and the strength they have to wait for their precious miracle and the some times difficult hoops to jump through to become a parent. I am INSANELY impressed by Birth moms. To not be able to have children has been the hardest thing I have gone through in my life thus far, and I can't even begin to imagine what those wonderful women go through and how much love they have for their children to place them with another family. It's going to be a long process from here but I honestly would not trade it for anything. Robby and I are 100 million times closer. We love each other more, we lean on each other more. When I'm sad, he does everything to cheer me up. When he's sad, I cheer him up. I know that this is what was supposed to happen. Even though some times I wish that one day I would magically become pregnant and 9 easy and fantastic months later, poof a baby is here, I know that's not the way it's going to happen for us. I always thought it was weird when people would say they were happy for their trials but I honestly feel that way. I would probably even go as far to say that this isn't really a trial, but a growing opportunity. I am closer to my husband and especially my Savior. Without Him, I would never have gotten through the past 4 weeks. I'm so grateful that He took my burden on Him and made mine lighter. He has gotten me through this and I know that soon, we will be blessed with our little angel.

Robby's Birthday

Robby is officially..... 26 years old!!!! We celebrated his birthday in Yuma a week early and had such a blast! Then a week later, on his birthday, I threw him a Surprise party! I've never thrown a surprise party for one reason, I can't keep a secret! I had been planning it for 2 weeks and am SHOCKED beyond belief that I kept it from him. I almost spoiled it by reading emails while he was in a 20 foot radius of me but luckily he didn't think the party was going to happen. BWAHAHA! It was fun surprising him and he really enjoyed having some of his friends from the ward and friends from back in the day all together to celebrate his big day! Here are some pictures from celebrating the big 2-6 in Yuma.Robby and Jakers. What a happy baby!
Blowing out the 26 candles. QUICK, turn off the smoke alarm!
The beautiful cake I made. The candles make the number 26 if you squint and tilt your head to the right.
I love this guy SOOOOOOOO much! Happy birthday babe!



Robby is officially..... 26 years old!!!! We celebrated his birthday in Yuma a week early and had such a blast! Then a week later, on his birthday, I threw him a Surprise party! I've never thrown a surprise party for one reason, I can't keep a secret! I had been planning it for 2 weeks and am SHOCKED beyond belief that I kept it from him. I almost spoiled it by reading emails while he was in a 20 foot radius of me but luckily he didn't think the party was going to happen. BWAHAHA! It was fun surprising him and he really enjoyed having some of his friends from the ward and friends from back in the day all together to celebrate his big day! Here are some pictures from celebrating the big 2-6 in Yuma.

St. Pattys Day

So Robby and I decided to go out to eat tonight. We didn't realize it would be crowded until we got there and realized it was St. Patricks Day and people would be out drinking. We were sitting and waiting for our food to arrive... and then we hear this strange awful noise... BAGPIPES! Our local firemen play the bagpipes and decided to play at all the restaurants in Maricopa (which is not too many). So we were graced with their presence for about 15 minutes. I'm not the biggest fan of bagpipes but it made the day feel a little more Irish. :)


Sorry it's not the clearest picture but what can you expect from a phone? On the right would be the giant bass drum that was playing in my ear...

Today was our follow up appointment at the fertility doctor. We had taken a few tests and the doctor was going over the results. My blood work shows that there is something wrong with my ovaries (I've known that for several years) but thankfully I found out I am not diabetic (and I'm doubting now that I'm even pre diabetic like I've been told before). Not to go into all the gory details, we have a very very very small chance of getting pregnant on our own. And that's not including my problems. So right now our only option is In Vitro Fertilization. For those of you not in infertility land, that's where they take some of my eggs out, take some of hubby's swimmers and put them together in a little petri dish. And that's how babies are made. None of that Birds and Bees stuff here. The cost for this procedure is (not including the medicines and ultrasounds) is a little less than $10,000. So with everything included it will come out to anywhere between $10-15,000. That's per cycle. Did I mention insurance pays absolutely nothing? The chances of it working, about 30% (they could be higher since we are healthy and young but we also got diagnosed as infertile so you never know). The odds are not really in our favor. So now that we know the results we have a few options. Option 1, we live childless. Ok so that's not really an option here. Option 2, we go through in vitro fertilization, hope and pray that it works and fork out a ton of money that could be used for option 3. Option 3, we adopt. We are still debating between 2 and 3 and weighing the pros and cons. I've wanted to adopt for such a long time but now that it's one of only 2 options, it's a little hard to accept. I know there are so many children out there that need loving parents and homes to be in. And I know I would love them like they were my own and they would become my own, but I always thought it was going to be a choice we made, not something we were forced into. I'm going to start doing some more research into adoption and find out more. Luckily, my work started a new adoption program and they actually pay for up to $5000 of the adoption. So I'm leaning a little more towards that option. So, all prayers right now would be greatly appreciated. We're both still really emotional about this and need extra help to get through this hard time. But here is a picture of words that can be put on a onesie and this is exactly how I feel about adoption.

Valentine

I know it's late but better late than never!
Me and my Valentine. We look so skinny!
Hubby eating his favorite food, Sonic Ice Cream!
Robby on his birthday being silly before he blows out the candles.
Here's my sweet Valentine along with my other 2 favorite boys.

We're not big into Valentine's day so we stayed home most of the day and went out to eat in Maricopa (there's not much of a selection out here) but it was nice. We watched The Pretender (a great TV series if you're looking for another one). He bought me flowers a few days before (with the help of me picking them out) and he also bought me See's chocolate gift cards so we could go pick out chocolate. :) Yesterday, we went shopping and bought a brand new Carpet Cleaner Vacuum. I know it's not a very romantic Valentine's day but I loved it! And today, we celebrate the day he proposed. 4 years ago today, he sent me on a scavenger hunt to all the important milestones in our relationship (where we met, our first kiss, the first time we said "I love you", where he made the decision to ask me out, and then he sent me to a little hiking place in Phoenix and was at the top with a cd playing our song (Shania Twain, You've got a Way With Me) that we would dance to, and he got down on one knee (with tears in his eyes) and asked me to spend eternity with him. Of course I started crying and said yes. We kissed and then 4 months later to the day, we were married. I am more in love with him than I ever thought possible. He is perfect for me. I can't wait to spend the rest of my existence with him! :)