What's Cookin' Good Lookin'?

I am not a great cook and more often than not, I mess something up, so I'm always a little weary in the kitchen. I have lit margarine on fire in the microwave (forgot to take the metal wrapping off) and I have had cookies literally light on fire and have to be taken out of the oven and sprayed with water outside. These were both when I was much younger, but it doesn't inspire much confidence.

So today, I made Vegan Chili. I found a recipe online and decided that all I had to do was open cans, chop a few veggies, add in some spices, and let soak for a few hours.

My efforts were a success! :) I found the recipe online at http://crockpotrecipes101.com/vegetariancrockpotchili.htm. I cooked it in my crock pot for about 5 hours while I was gone at church. The house smelled fabulous afterwards and we have a ton of left overs that I will be packing in our lunches over the next few days. It was filling, pretty healthy, and SO delicious. We made some corn bread to go with it using Jiffy mix with applesauce instead of eggs and Almond Milk for regular milk. The muffins were SO moist and the perfect amount of sweetness from the applesauce.

I have also made my own adaptation of California Pizza Kitchen's Mexican Pizza.

I take some pizza dough, then bake it with a can of black bean chili (vegan of course). After that is done, I cover it with Mexican rice, shredded lettuce (CPK uses iceburg but we use Romaine and it's much better), and then finish off with some Pico and broken tortilla chips. It is SO good. We have made it 3 times in the past couple of weeks and it turns out great every time.

I am glad that I am finally capable of making something edible! :) Both meals are super easy and take less than 30 minutes of preparation. Give them a try and let me know what you think.

Button Button, Who's got a Button?

If you would like to create a button that links to our adoption blog, I'm here to tell you how. ;)

Go to Customize, Layout, Page Elements. Then Add a Gadget. Choose Picture. Copy the link to our blog (http://makingourhappilyeverafter.blogspot.com/) and then add a picture. You can just save the picture I have for my button, or you can choose any picture that you like (preferably one of me and Robby). :) Then you click save and VOILA, a button! I would be SOOOOO grateful if you could do this. The best way for us to be matched is for all of our friends and family to spread the word. We are hoping to have our passalong cards done in the near future so if you haven't already sent me your address, please do so. My email is on the adoption blog if you would like to not have to leave it as a comment. We are SO excited for this journey ahead of us (and we are praying every day that our journey will not be too long). Thanks for all your love and support!

(feel free to use this picture if you would like) <3

Adoption Blog

We have an Adoption Blog! It's not totally done yet, but if you know anyone who is thinking of placing their baby for adoption, please direct them to makingourhappilyeverafter.blogspot.com. Or they can email us at robbyandangeeadopt@gmail.com. We are hoping to bring a baby into our lives very soon and appreciate ANY help you can give us in building our family!

Open Adoption

I found this on one of the blogs I follow. You can find her story here. I get questions all the time about what I think about open adoption and I think this sums it up perfectly. The R House and Joniece (their birthmom) have been such inspirations and have helped form my testimony of adoption. This is straight from Joniece's blog.

"There are so many wonderful things about having an open adoption, I could go on forever. ( And I will in a later post) however this one was soley meant for the purpose of expressing my appreciation to Lindsey and Josh.

Not only are they doing a wonderful Job being parents to G baby, but they show their love for me day in and day out by letting my family and I be a part of his life. It means so much to my family. And it means so much to me.

People ask me if seeing him makes it harder for me, and honestly it doesn't. On the contrary it makes it easier, it only confirms my decision way back when was the right decision. And it brings me peace and joy to get to be as active as I have been in his life.

I wanted to say thank you to josh and Linds. Without you that picture above would have never been possible. Without you and your willingness to have an open adoption my parents wouldn't get to know their bio-grandson, and I wouldn't know the peace I do in my heart and the healing I do in my soul. I love you all. Merry Christmas."

I truly cannot wait to have that in my life. I want to find our birth mother who I can become friends with. We will have such a special bond between us and our baby. I want those extra people there to love our child. I want my children to know that they were/are loved by birth families. I don't want them to wonder or to count on me to tell them that. I want them to know. I want our birth mother to be able to heal and to be able to move on with her life and to grow. I don't want her to wonder if she did the right thing. I want my children to see where they get their eyes, their smile, their love of dancing or books. I love adoption with all my heart and am so excited to continue our journey to adopt. Please feel free to ask me any questions about adoption and I will be more than happy to share my testimony.

A Whole Decade of Me

I cannot believe that this decade is ending. The 00s are coming to and end. To celebrate, I thought I would share some funny facts (about me) that happened over the last decade. I'll try to include pictures where I can. :) I'll try to go in Chronological Order too. Wish me luck!

2000-
Rang in the New Year for Y2K at the Stake Dance
Finished my season of Winter Cheer where I cheered for the Boys Basketball team (we won state if I remember correctly)
Played the Witch in "Into the Woods" (a musical)
Graduated Junior High (lol)
Started High School
Did Freshman Cheer
Played the Sousaphone in the Marching Band
Sang in the Choir
Almost tore my knee at tumbling

2001-
Marched in the Rose Bowl Parade (8.5 miles with a 40 pound hunk of metal)
(not the right year but you get the picture)

Competed in the State Cheerleading Competition (we won 2nd place)
Got 4 stitches above my left eye (ran into a pole at the Cheer Competition minutes before performing-great story)
Got my wisdom teeth out
Got braces on
Started Coaching Gymnastics
Went on my first date to Golfland

(competition in flagstaff for band-worst uniforms EVER)

Went on my second date to Golfland (with a different boy)
Got my first kiss (2 weeks after I turned 16)
Went to my first high school dance (Homecoming)
Continued to play the Sousaphone in the Marching Band and sing in Choir

2002-
Made Regional Choir as a Soprano
Hiked the Grand Canyon with 60 girls - it rained, all night
Had a very uneventful closing to my Sophomore year (I really cannot think of anything)


(me and my friend Paige)

Decided to put my tuba away during marching band and joined Colorguard


(all of colorguard-don't you wish you had to wear teal eyeshadow and velvet outfits?)
Played Tuba in the concert band where I didn't have to carry it around all the time
Sang in the 2 top choirs at my school
Dumped by a "boyfriend" for the first time and cried about it

2003-
Got my braces off!!! (HURRAY!)
Went to Chicago to compete with the Choir
Was in Winterguard (a colorguard only competition i.e. flags, rifles, sabres, twirling them around and throwing them in the air and catching them - most of the time)
Went to Prom with one of my guy friends at my next door neighbors house (Best prom EVER!)
Made All State Choir

(winter formal)
Started my last year of High school
Still in band and choir

2004-
Competed in Gilbert Junior Miss and made finals
Made Regional Band as 2nd chair tuba
Made All State Choir as 7th Chair Soprano
Completed my Young Women recognition
Played the tuba in the Orchestra (the best musical group in high school)
Went to Prom with my "boyfriend"
Graduated High School

(me and my best friend Kristin on graduation night)

Made the Cheerleading team at Mesa Community College
Went to my first semester of College
Moved out of the house and into an apartment with roommates

(me, Paige, and Kristin going to our first Single's dance, yikes)

Tore my shoulder cheerleading
Twisted my ankle cheerleading
Realized I was too old to be doing that to my body
Failed all but 1 class my first semester of college (I rocked Italian!)
Met a boy
Fell in love
Had my last "first kiss"

2005-
Had my first proposal (I said "YES!")
Tried on wedding dresses
Bought a house
Got Married (yes, we bought the house first lol)

(our wedding day outside the Mesa Temple aka, the happiest day of my life)
Became a Nursery teacher
My first nephew was born
Went to the Disneyland Challenge (and won 2nd place)
Continued to teach gymnastics
Took a couple of college courses and got a 98% in Calculus

2006-
Went back to college to study Child development (aced all of my classes, thank you!)
Bought our first car (a brand new Corolla that we still have)
Decided that our family needed to grow
A nephew was born on Robby's side (on my birthday)
Still coaching gymnastics

2007-
Still trying to grow our family
Became a manager at the gymnastics studio and ran my own location
Took another semester of Italian (love the language but cannot speak it to save my life)
Took a few more classes in College
Taught Sunbeams and CTR 5
Bought annual passes to Disneyland and went a BUNCH!

(me and Baby Connor on our Birthdays)


(Robby's favorite ride)

2008-
Still trying to grow the family
Went to Girl's camp as a leader for the first time
Had 4 nephews all born within a month

(3 out of 4 nephews born that year, Erik, David, and Aaron)

Started working at University of Phoenix

2009-
Still trying to grow the family
Decided to pursue adoption
Researched adoption like CrAzY!
Went to Girl's camp again and hiked a crazy hard hike!
Got promoted at work to a Senior Rep
Went to another Disneyland Challenge and won 1st place!!!
Was Tinkerbell for Halloween
(Kristin, Joanna's sister in law, Joanna, and Me-Dallin in the background)

CERTIFIED TO ADOPT!!!



(so in love)

It's been a LONG decade. I can't believe how far I have come and how much I have grown. From a measley 14 year old who knew nothing about the world or life, to a 24 year old woman who still hardly knows anything about the world or life. Lol. I am learning and I have grown so much. I'm so grateful that for the better half of this decade, I have been with the love of my life. I am so grateful for Robby. He is my best friend. I thank my lucky stars every day that I found him. I don't know how I got so lucky. I was not making the best choices when it came to boys at that time and was a pretty shallow person (not gonna lie). But I found him and just knew he was supposed to be mine forever. And somehow, I ended up getting the best guy in the world! :)

Here's to another great decade. Filled with joy, love, BABIES, birth families, more nephews (and maybe a niece or 2), and happiness. CHEERS!

HURRAY!

We went to get the mail today and among all the Christmas cards, we had something from our agency. I immediately open it, thinking that it would be a letter saying that our paperwork was submitted or something else on the status. I rip it open and BAM!

WE ARE CERTIFIED!

I can't believe it. We were thinking that it would be another month at least. Robby and I bounced around a bit, I may have cried a little. We are so thrilled. This means that we can now bring a baby home at any time... Just got to find our birthmom. :) So we are working hard on our profile and hope to have it up and running soon. We're still struggling at writing the letter to the Birthmom/birth parents. I just don't know what to say to the woman who will provide us with the greatest gift possible. How do you start a letter to the most magnificent person in the world? Hopefully I'll figure it out soon. I know that many prayers were answered for this to happen so quickly and I am truly grateful for this experience.

Funny little thing, our anniversary of our first date was on the 17th so Robby bought me a necklace. It says I (heart) adoption. The day before was our official certified date. I truly love adoption and all the wonderful things that it has brought in to my life.

Could it really be?

It's been 5 years. I answered a phone call that changed my life.

5 years since we sat up all night watching movies like John Q, Cutting Edge, Minority Report, Beauty and the Beast, and Lord of the Rings 2 and ate orange rolls on the love sack.

5 years since we shared our first kiss (though it was technically on the 18th).

5 years of ups and downs.

5 years of never doubting my love for him and his love for me. :)

Happy 5 years from our very first date.

Exactly 4 and a half years of being married.

From now to Eternity... I love you Robby!

No Good, very bad week

This last week was not the best. First of all, I had to work. Now, I am SOOOOO grateful that Robby and I both have jobs. But I miss teaching Gymnastics most days and wish I was a stay-at-home mom every day. Work is even worse when people decide not to show up, as several people did on Monday last week. So that started my week off sour. Then, walking into work, I fell and hurt both knees. I bruise so easily. I run into something absent mindedly and will have no idea and a bruise will show up. Unless I really hurt myself. Now this fall was on brick blocks and rocks. I scraped one knee (though did not rip through my pants thankfully) and bruised both knees. The bruises right now are about the size of a half dollar. They have yet to really show up but I can feel them every time I move, or put on a pair of jeans. Then, we found out that our adoption paperwork was not going through as fast as we thought due to miscommunication. So we still have to wait another 1-2 months.

But because I have the best husband ever, he bought me flowers, (vegan) ice cream, brownies and cheesecake. He did 3 loads of dishes (and promises to continue to do dishes as his chore, bless him). He snuggled up with me and watched Sense and Sensibility. He bought me the Taylor Swift cd on iTunes. And he every day told me that I was the most beautiful woman in the world. He made my week so much better and made me forget about all the silly bad things that happen. I'm so glad that he's with me for Eternity. I can't believe that at 19, I stumbled upon the best thing that would happen to me in my life. I am the luckiest girl in the world.

One last fun thing to end off the week, I made Pumpkin muffins. I used a bread mix and then instead of eggs, I used 1/4 cup applesauce per egg. It made it so moist and delicious! We went through all 24 mini muffins in 1 day. Yum. Give it a try.

Thanksgiving

We had so much fun over the Thanksgiving Holiday. We got to go to Utah to spend time with my family. Other than the cold, we had so much fun. Here are a few pictures of our adventure.

Robby and his Davey. These two are little pals and inseparable. Robby loves all of his nephews but I think Davey loves him back the most. :)

Sweet little Aaron. He LOVES camera flashes so he was just giving me smile after smile. He should so be a baby model. He's just the darlingest little thing.

This is the best picture of the 3 of them together. After this, Erik started pushing David in the head. While funny, not very post worthy. :) It's funny to think that these boys are only 10 days apart.

The night before Thanksgiving, we had a pizza night. We LOVED our veggie pizza and Robby and I ate the whole thing (quickly). My dad made a Brick Oven to make pizza in his backyard. He even made the Turkey in it for Thanksgiving. He spent a long time on that thing and it's so fun to see him reap the benefits. (and tasty for us too!)

My brother John and baby Aaron. We just LOVE his curly hair. It's so funny how much Aaron looks like John when he was a baby.

Our table setting at Thanksgiving. We had so much fun putting all this together. It looked like a very fancy dinner before we all sat down. We had a great time with my cousins who were able to come (those who didn't missed out on a great time!)

Me and Davey boy. He is such a cutie pie. Poor guy was sick almost the whole time we were there so he was a little bit of a momma's boy and between trying to steal him from Robby, this is the only good picture I have of me and him.

My dad and the twins. Erik walked over with the book and David was quick to sit down too. Then we all ran to get a camera to capture the sweet moment. (gotta love the reading glasses. He's such a grandpa now! lol)

CHEESE! Erik was being so funny. We were giving him Grapefruit juice and watching his expression. We would all laugh so he started smiling and making us laugh more. He reminds me a lot of Jimmy. Always ready to make anyone laugh.

Me and the boys reading "Snuggle Puppy" by Sandra Boyton. Her books are so much fun and are usually songs. We love snuggling up with those boys and reading.

We had such a fun time but it was SO hard to leave. We wish we didn't live so far away from the rest of our family. Well, more we wish the rest of the family didn't keep moving away from us. Hopefully soon, everyone will come back to AZ to stay!

Pictures!

Sorry I don't have the actual pictures yet, but you can look at them here. She did an amazing job and we are so excited! :) I'll post more when I have them.