We can't believe it!

WE'RE PUBLISHED!! We are officially published and able to be 'picked' by birth parents for adoption. Thank you everyone who helped us along the way and continue to support and love us! PLEASE share with everyone you know so we can get it out there for viewing. It's crazy to think of how fast everything has happened for us. I know that the Lord has been on our side getting us through this. We met Dale at the LDS Family Services office on January 14th and now we are published by February 19th! WOW! We are so blessed!

Birthday Weekend

Matthew and I had a really fun weekend! His parents came up for a visit and we always have a good time together. It was nice to let loose with family and stop stressing about all the adoption 'stuff.' So Brooke and Dale showed up on Friday night and we had fun catching up and talking for a while before I thought I would pass out where I was standing so we all went to bed. On Saturday Matthew went to work from 8 to 12 and Brooke, Dale, and I ran some errands. They needed their oil changed and I had a little bit of grocery shopping to do. Then we all had lunch, went bowling (it's a Rexburg visit tradition) and came back home and played Phase 10. Brooke and I love that game. Matthew is alright with it and Dale barely tolerates it but we have fun! And I got probably my all time high score of a whopping 143 in our last bowling game. They will probably be recruiting me any day now into the big leagues. Then later that night we went out to eat for my birthday and then came home and watched the original Batman movies - Matthew was ecstatic - I fell asleep. Happy 24 to me! On Sunday we all went to church together and the Relief Society had a beautiful lesson on families which naturally made me cry my eyes out and then we went home. Thankfully my mother-in-law does not judge and did a little crying with me. I love her so much! After the lesson a really great friend came and talked to me and it was just what I needed. She summed up everything that I have been feeling but have felt too guilty or afraid to say out loud. I know that it only makes me human to want something when I want it or be upset when things don't go according to my 'plan,' even if that plan is what we believe the Lord would want for us. However, I know that Heavenly Father has a better plan for me, and so I will follow Him. After church we had a delicious lunch/dinner and they had to get on the road back home. Their visits always go by way too fast, but we had a good time and will be seeing them next weekend for Matthew's grandmothers funeral in St. George. It will be a sad occasion, but I am really looking forward to seeing all of Matthew's siblings together again. It has been a long time since they have all been together so I know Matthew is really looking forward to that.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention (pause for suspense)......WE PASSED! Thankfully, we are happy to announce that we are completely DONE with everything. Now the wait begins! This is the hard part for me. I like to be busy and I am very hands on. So for Dale to tell us we have done everything that we can and now we wait is like pins and needles! But, we got it done in record time (woohoo) and we have a really great feeling about the way that everything has gone so far. When he came for the home study I told him that I had a feeling that we would not be waiting that long, but I bet that everyone says that. He told us that if we have a feeling like that, it could be a prompting and to listen to our Heavenly Father. I cannot begin to express my gratitude for LDS Adoption. They have blessed our lives already in so many ways and it is such a comfort to me for our case worker to be able to pray with and for us and to be able to talk about our Heavenly Father together. I don't think many people realize how spiritual of an experience this has been for Matthew and I. It has made us stronger and drawn us closer as a couple. And I know that has come in part from an amazing church organization meant to build eternal families. I also want to thank all of our friends and family who have been ridiculously supportive. Thank you - honestly. It really is a comfort for us to know you are there.

Our home study was actually really easy and so I stressed for nothing. But, if you know me...that's how I am.  My good friend Adrian summed me up pretty well on one of our reference letters - she says that I eat stress for breakfast. I laughed so hard when I read that I almost didn't want to turn it in. I told Dale we wanted twins and he agreed that I am pretty motivated and have a serious case of type A personality that we probably would be able to handle twins. Who knows what is coming for us, and we really don't care. All we know is some little sweet spirit is this much closer to heading our way! We love you little one!

Home study

Well! Tomorrow is the day! We are getting our fingerprints and background checks completed at 9am and then our case worker, Dale is coming at 2pm for the official home study. Saying that I am nervous would be an understatement. When I called him to schedule the appointment he told me not to stress about and it's not meant to be a 'white glove' kind of thing. But...clearly he does not know me THAT well yet. I am cleaning like crazy just to make sure there is no reason for anything to go wrong. We get new batteries for all the smoke detectors, cleaned off the hot water heater, vacuumed out the dryer filters, checked and pulled out our fire extinguisher, put up all the medicine, locked up the guns, and what seems like a million other small things. Hopefully I'm not missing anything. I'm actually nervous that Dale is going to tell us to slow down. We already have a nursery half way set up, around 400 diapers waiting for a cute baby bum to wrap, bottles in the cupboard, and some clothes in the closet. I know we are getting everything ready and all the paperwork done in record time (which I love), but it's not like we don't understand that there is a wait in our future. We know all that, but I am ready now and I think if I get things done on my end, blessings will come our way. There could be someone out there right now looking for us, and I want to be ready for them. And there might now be yet, but when they do start looking for us, we will be ready! I just know you are out there little one and I want you to know that I already love you so much! I found this beautiful image online that I just love. It will definitely be printed and hung up in the nursery!

On the flip side of life. Matthew and I are doing great and just plugging along through this semester of college. It's going super easy for me since I am only in one class and then working full time outside of school and then part time on campus. Matthew, however, is a different story. He works so hard for us and I am so thankful for him and everything he does for our family. I don't tell him enough, but I will today! He works every hour that he can. He runs to school and then work and then school again everyday. It would be so easy for him to take the 3 hours in between his classes to take a break or just do his homework, but he doesn't. He runs to work and gets as many hours in that he can and goes right back to school. Then he stays up late to finish his studies, crawls into bed and wakes up early the next morning to do it all over again AND he makes me breakfast every morning. Wow, what a guy! I love him! His grandma dies yesterday and it has been hard on the family, but it was her time to go and she was wanting to pass. That made it a lot easier for everyone to bare since we know it is what she wanted. His parents are going to come stay with us for the weekend to get his mom's mind off of the passing and to visit us here in Idaho. I always love when they visit! We have so much fun and play games and eat yummy foods that my MIL spoils us with.

I am working on my documentary project at the local candy shop called Florence's Exquisite Candies. They make everything from scratch and let me just say YUM! It has been so fun to get to know the staff and family and photograph them. Not to mention all the free samples! But, all in all, life is great. We just finished filing our taxes for the year and got so much back that now the adoption is completely covered. It is such a blessing. It seems that everything is falling right into place in order to make it as easy for us as possible. I thank my Heavenly Father for that. I know that He is looking out for us and has our best interests in mind.

We don't have school on Monday (woohoo) for President's day and it will also be my birthday! Lucky me! It's the best! I have almost always had my birthday off of school due to this holiday or it falling on a weekend.I know I'm still young, but I am feeling pretty old this year! Thus is life I guess!

So anyway! Here goes nothing. Wish us luck with the home study and I will update on how everything goes after I have calmed down enough to type.

That's life!

Well, when it rains - it poors. Right! Man that saying it so true, but we are sticking it out. A lot has happened in the past few days that have been hard to handle, but we have brighter futures ahead so we are pulling up our big boy britches and holding tights.

On a happier note, we got a little boy outfit and a little girl outfit and they are hanging ever so cutely in the nursery closet so now we are ready for whatever we get. OR (fingers crossed) we will get twins! Are we crazy for wanting that? Probably.

Great news!

We just wanted to give a quick WOOHOO!!! We officially have our home study appointment for next Thursday. Wish us luck. We are so thrilled. They told us it would take about 2 months and so far it has taken us a week and a half! We still have a few more things to do to get ready. We are replacing all the batteries in our smoke detectors and pulling out the fire extinguisher to be examined. And I will be doing lots of deep cleaning to make the house spotless. This is a great excuse to wrangle Matthew into the cleaning portion of the work too. Thank you, thank you because I HATE cleaning bathrooms! We are getting our background checks and fingerprints that morning and then our home study that afternoon. Happy day before valentine's day to us!

Scary Times

We had quite the experience last night as we drove the 30 minutes to Ririe, ID in a blizzard! I found this beautiful dresser on a garage sale website about a week ago and have been drooling over it ever since. I could not stop thinking about it and how much I wanted it for the baby room to make into a dresser/changing table for my little sunshine. So after waiting in line and probably bugging the heck out of the woman selling it, we were on our way to pick it up! We just got a new crib a few days ago for free so I was willing to pay for the dresser what we saved on the crib. Can we just pause for a moment of congratulations in the fact that I GOT A CRIB FOR FREE....with a mattress I might add. The Lord loves us, I just know it! So we are on the way to get the dresser, its dark, its cold, but I am ear-to-ear happy to be getting this dresser! We are driving along and the snow starts coming down harder and harder. That's fine, it is February in Idaho so what do you expect, plus it had already been snowing literally all day so no big deal right? Except, at that moment both, yes both of Matthew's head lights on the truck go out at the same time. Does that even happen in real life? Yep. So we pull over to the side of the road and analyze. We are in the middle on nowhere...so basically anywhere in Idaho, it is freezing and there is a full on blizzard happening around us, and now we have no head lights. We start panicking and Matthew just keeps saying "are you kidding me right now!" I start feeling the pressure and get really nervous and antsy. I want this dresser okay, but I don't know what to do. Did that really just happen? How do we get home? Can we still get my dream dresser? So we check to see if the brights on the truck will work....they don't. Are you kidding me right now?! Check again, don't work. Check again, don't work. Check again....miracle! They worked. So we are saved! We keep heading for the dresser driving with the brights on. Needless to say we made no friends that night. Everyone was flashing us and there were a few select choice word people who really took it over the top and would flash us repeatedly or flash and wait until we were right about to pass each other and give us another flash right to the face. Have I flashed people with their brights on before? Yes. Will I even again? Probably not. Anyway, so during this whole fiasco I am bawling my eyes out and Matthew is trying to console me from across the truck. After we got going Matthew made the statement that 'the devil' knows we are doing what is right with moving forward with this adoption and getting things prepared for when our baby comes and is working to make it not happen. I completely believe this and I can feel it around me all the time. It is the same feelings I got when I was preparing to enter the temple. So I start crying...like the embarrassing cannot breathe, thank goodness it was dark, hands up to cover my face crying. Matthew keeps saying, "it's going to be alright, we are alright, what is wrong." And all I can make out is "he is so mean." Matthew says "who" and I kind of say "Satan is" through sobs and tears. He laughs at me.....men are so sensitive, and we talk about how even though I, at that moment am coming off as unstable, there is truth to our experience. I am so thankful for the knowledge that I have of the gospel and for the loving, and supportive husband that I am blessed with. We do feel the push of the adversary, but we are pushing back because we love this little baby who is working he or her way into our lives and we cannot wait to meet them! AND, thank goodness, we got the dresser! It looks beautiful in the room with the crib and I am literally restraining myself from buying out the entire Target baby section to fill it with!

Here is the dresser! I love it! I want to put the changing pad on the left side and all the little extras on the right. So, what do you think? Was it worth the experience is cost us?