I always try to keep our blog positive and highlight some of the wonderful parts of our life that I don’t want to forget and feel like I can share to the masses. But I feel like I need to write about one of our struggles. Most people know that we have been trying to adopt for three years. It has been a frustrating and heart wrenching journey that we never thought would take so long. We know that we are supposed to adopt and can’t wait to share our love, family and home with another child. Most days we are able to stay positive in our hope that our waiting won’t last forever and that we will be blessed with adoption but there are other days when that hope wavers and the doubts set in our hearts. I have found myself stuck in a rut of doubt, longing and heartache for the last while. I am sorry to admit that my faith has been shaken and I have found myself questioning so many things. The other night as I was sobbing in bed, pouring my heart out to Lance I literally felt my heart cracking and bitterness rising up to choke me. Lance was holding me and doing his best to comfort me but for once I couldn’t find the peace our love has always given me. I tried to relate what I was feeling to my Heavenly Father in prayer but all I wanted to do was yell and scream and kick him because I felt like he had forgotten me and my family. I heard little footsteps in the hall and looked over to our bedroom door and there was our Myka. I sucked in my tears and called out to her, “Come here Myka.” She came over to the bed and started to climb up next to me and said, “Mommy” and I responded with “What’s wrong baby?” Myka then stated in her sleep as she wrapped her arms and legs around me snuggling in,”I came to help you.” By my side Lance told me that there was my answere and that he had been praying that the Lord would send me a sign to help me in my struggling. I clung to my daughter for the rest of the night as she clung to me and I felt my heart growing stronger and my faith slowly found its foundation again. I knew then that my Heavenly Father and Savior had not forgotten me and my family. I have been so blessed to have the most amazing daughters and a wonderful husband in my life. No our little family hasn’t been blessed through adoption yet but we have each other and our love is both strong and enduring. I know that through my 5 year old daughter my Heavenly Father shored up my faith and made it stronger.  I was reminded that even when I am feeling my lowest, there is a love greater and more powerful than I can even comprehend. Am I still frustrated that we haven’t adopted yet, yes but now that bitterness is not going to crowd out the love and joy I have in my family and in the gospel. I know this was a really personal story and I hope that it doesn’t cloud any ones opinion of me but to me, I received and small miracle and wanted to give thanks and document it so that I never forget. The Lord loves us, he hears us and he does anwere us. I am so grateful for my family and the love that we share. I always say that they are the best parts of me and it's the truth.

Easter 2013

Our Easter this year was a blast! We think that the Easter Bunny had his Guardian friends help him out this year because we all got pretty spoiled. The Easter Bunny must have gotten word that we are planning on doing a lot of fishing this summer because brought us all new fishing poles. He also must have heard that we wanted to do a healthier Easter so he filled the girl's baskets with lots of healthy snacks, markers, paint, chalk and only the really good candy. Plus, Myka and Adri found a lot of golden dollar coins in their eggs along with the candy. The girls were so excited.

It was a lot of fun getting to enjoy our Easter morning and then lazily get ready for church. Adri, Myka and I all wore our housecoats while I got everyone's hair done and we painted finger nails and toe nails. Everything just turned out so nice and our little girls looked like princesses in their new Easter dresses; which they held out in front of them just like real princesses do. They were so adorable. To top it all off we had a great talk as a family on the reason why the Easter Bunny brings us gifts and the real reason why we celebrate Easter. Our Savior Jesus Christ. I am so grateful to our Savior and for everything that he not only did for me but for my family and especially for my daughters. I know that my Savior Jesus Christ lives! I know that he died for us and was resurrected for all of us. I know that through Him I will be able to be a better person and that I will have my precious family for all eternity. I love my Savior; I love the gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And I love my family.

Three Day Celebration!

This year for Myka and Adri's birthday Lance and I decided that they deserved to have the whole weekend just about them. Thursday we went to a family fun center (Outer Limits) and played miniature golf, arcade games, ate pizza and "alien fries" and had the best time! Myka and Adri were more excited that their clothes glowed because of the black lights than they were for actually playing golf but they thought that the arcade games were really cool. I don't know how many tokens we went through but it was worth it. Adri loved this duck game where they got to spray the ducks with water and Myka really liked a fishing game where she got to reel in fish. They still have their little prizes that they got with all of their won tickets. We spent hours laughing, eating and playing. It was a very successful "part one" of our celebrating the best daughters ever.

On Friday, the girl's actual birthday, Lance took the day off from work so the whole day was just about them. We had a lazy morning, went out and about in the afternoon, and had Adri and Myka's birthday party in the evening. The girls got to direct the whole day, what they wanted to wear, what they wanted to eat, and what they wanted to do. It was such a blast! Their big birthday surprise was their big girl bikes. Myka loved the purple one and Adri loved the light blue one, so Lance and I felt that we were successful gifters. Finally, on Saturday we all went over to the church so that Myka and Adri could test out their new bikes in the gym. Thank heavens for training wheels! No, they really did great and had so much fun but Myka figured out how to twist her body and skid her back tire to change directions and Adri liked to test the limits of her balance by leaning just a bit to far to the side. All in all, we had another great day celebrating our beautiful daughters and the gifts that they are to us. We love you Adri and Myka!

It's Christmas!

Christmas!!

Whew!  Christmas: we ate too much, the girls got too many presents, we slept in until 9:00 a.m., visited with family and had the best time! Well that sums it up but I'll give a few more details. Lance and I were really prepared for Christmas this year and had everything bought a few weeks before crunch time. Myka and Adri wrote their letters to Santa for the first time. I wish that I thought to take pictures! Myka wrote a combination of lines and the few letters that she knows in neat rows on her page then she brew pictures all around the edges and at the bottom. Adri wrote her lines and added her pictures to the bottom. They were so cute! Myka insisted that she wanted My Little Pony's for Christmas and Adri just wanted dinosaurs. We were so happy to wake up and find that Santa had gotten their letters and granted their wishes and then some. But before that, we had Christmas Eve dinner with Charity and Matt and their family. It's becoming a tradition since we have done it for the last few years. I thought that we were going to have to roll us out the door. Dinner was wonderful, needless to say, but the best part was that Myka and Adri had their first candle light dinner. They thought that it was pretty awesome. Then home we went for our own little Christmas tradition. New pajamas for Adri and Myka and our bedtime stories of "I Believe in Santa" and "Twas the Night Before Christmas." And it only took a quick 'call' to Bernard (Santa's head elf) and lots of snuggles and kisses to get the girls to stay tucked up in bed for the rest of the night. The rest is history. This year instead of traveling to our parents houses, Lance and I decided that we would just give them calls to wish them Merry Christmas and stay home so that the girls could play with all of their new toys and rule the day. It was wonderful and we still got to see my parents and little sisters because they traveled to see us! We were so blessed to be able to, once again, spoil our daughters for Christmas and also to have such a wonderful family. We love our Savior and hope and pray that we are teaching our girls that even though presents are great, it's the gifts that our Savior Jesus Christ has given us that are the most important part of Christmas. I think that they get it. We hope that you all had a magical Christmas!

Getting older.

 For those of you who don't know mine and Lance's birthdays are only a day apart. The only thing that we wanted for our birthdays this year was to relax and be together with our girls.I was totally surprised when Lance, Myka and Adri gave me beautiful flowers that the girls picked out themselves. Then when Lance was at work me and the girls made him a cake. Myka and Adri were so excited for their daddy to blow out the candles! Lance and I both feel that we are very blessed to have such

 wonderful daughters. We may feel like we are getting older; Lance has a few more gray hairs   

and I have a few more pounds than I want but we are blessed to be
a family and to have each other. By the way Myka took the picture of me and Lance, she did a great job. Happy Birthday to us!

Myka and Adri's Dance Recital

Look at these two cuties! They had so much fun at their Dance recital on Dec. 7th. Since they are the only two kids in their class Lance and I got to put together their costumes ourselves. We think we did a pretty good job considering that they were dancing to "Hey Mickey" and doing a sporty routine. Adri and Myka have really enjoy dance class and I have learned a lot. I don't know anything about dancing unless it's in our living room, so the girls like to show off their new moves to me and Lance. We were so proud of Myka and Adri for going out on stage by themselves and doing a pretty good job on their routine. Everyone loved them but more importantly they had a lot of fun and worked really hard. So proud of our girls.

Here's the deal.

So I haven't been very good at keeping the blog updated for the last couple of months and it's starting to make me feel really bad. There has been so many fun things going on that I really want to share but we've been really busy having all of that fun and when I do have a few minutes of down time I haven't wanted to get on the computer. Part of the reason was that I needed to take a break from checking the email several times a day to see if we had any news on the adoption front. I've been having a bit of a hard time lately, sometimes I wonder if we are ever going to be chosen to adopt. It gets hard and when I feel like I can't stand it anymore I totally absorb myself with my family. So, I am sorry that once again I am going to be playing catch up with our blog. I can only say, be prepared for a lot of new posts.