The Joy Of Love!

In addition to participating in Project Life I have signed up for a FREE online class here. It is called:

I am excited to check my email every day and get a new 'assignment'. I want to improved my photography skills, as well as focus more on those I love! I can't wait to get started! Oh, and my Project Life kits shipped finally! They are supposed to be here Wednesday! The UPS man has no idea the kind of crazy woman is going to greet him when he brings me my two white boxes! And you know I'll be taking a picture because it is tradition when you order Project Life! ; )

A shout out!

To my amazing husband! He works so hard to provide for our family. He puts up with some not so nice people on almost a daily basis. He is a faithful home teacher and serves in the Elder's Quorum Presidency in our ward as well. He is being very patient with me these days, which isn't easy! He drives a beat up older car (he practically lives in it) and let's me drive the new nicer one! I love him and appreciate everything he does for me and for Parker. He got me an early anniversary present yesterday and I am so excited!

I've discovered Project Life by Becky Higgins! I've been reading a lot about it and think it might be the answer to not being 'caught up' all the time with my scrapbooking. You can find out more about it here. You can also do a search on Becky's blog on the right side bar for Project Life. Bryan bought me both the Amber and Turquoise editions for our anniversary! I can't wait for them to come so I can get started! I think I might do a family album and also an album for Parker. We'll see how it goes!

Christmas etc...

So I can't stand looking at the depressing post anymore! Here are some pictures from December and we've been up to! Parker made a couple ornaments at school and he took a picture of his frosty the snowman hanging on the tree. We went to Idaho for a family Christmas party. It was fun for the kids to run around and play at the church. We ate and made gingerbread houses. It was a lot of fun! I made neighbor gifts this year and we also made sugar cookies (not my favorite thing to make and I was reminded why we only make them maybe twice a year!) For Bryan's Christmas present I sent him with my brother Dustin to the Las Vegas Bowl! Dustin is a Boise State fan and of course Bryan was cheering for the Utes. Bryan had a great time, except for the Utes losing part! We spent Christmas Eve and Bryan's Aunt Pam's house with the Allen side of the family. We ate and sang and did our traditional acting out the Nativity song and opening new pajamas! Parker got a TON of hotwheels racetracks for Christmas from us and from his birth family! The living room is frequently taken over by race tracks and cars as Bryan and Parker try to build different tracks. It's so fun to watch them play together!
Dustin, Lindsey and Rylee came for New Years and we had so much fun! We took the kids to the Discovery Gateway because we had a free pass we got from the Adoption Walk. They had fun playing with all the different exhibits! Then Dustin took us to Joe's Crab Shack for lunch. Parker loves going there because there is a huge shark hanging from the ceiling and when you got there for dinner, they play fun music and the kids love to get up and dance with the staff. We spent the rest of the night eating, playing games and the kids watched movies. They had fun throwing popcorn all over Parker's room. Then we rang in the new year with noise makers and party hats!

Parker's Frosty

Parker with my cousin's cute little girl Ashlyn

My neighbor gifts

All wrapped and ready to deliver

Making Christmas sugar cookies

The boys at the bowl game!

Bryan had to get a picture of Swoop for Parker

Our little shepherd!

Opening his hotwheels racetrack!

The boys building a track

Of course he found a shark in the water table at Discovery Gateway

Rylee and Parker with their popcorn mess!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

January Blahs?

I don't know for sure what is going on right now. Maybe it's the January blahs, maybe it's PMS, for sure throw in some infertility blues...maybe I just need an attitude adjustment! It might be a combination of all of them! All I know is I am having a hard time right now! We had Stake Conf this weekend. It was a tough one for me. I was released from my calling as the 1st counselor in the Stake YW Presidency, more on that later. One of the hymns was "Count Your Blessings" "When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings; name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done." Then a friend posted this scripture on fb this morning: "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." (Isa 41:10) So today as I try to catch up on all the things around here I have been slacking on, I will be counting my many blessings (one of whom is sitting on my lap right now) and keeping a prayer in my heart that Heavenly Father will help strengthen and uphold me while I try to muddle though this difficult time. So bare with me as I try to get my act together as I start a new year! (I know I'm a little late, but I am an habitual procrastinator!) I may blog less, maybe more, I don't know. We'll see what happens!

Month of Celebration! (Warning it's a long one again!)

November is a month of celebration at our house! We have National Adoption Month, Parker, both my grandpas, Tracy and Bryan's birthdays and of course Thanksgiving! It was one busy month! But we love it! We started off by attending the 5th annual Adoption Walk With Me event. We haven't been able to go before because we've always had something conflict with it the last four years! Finally it worked out this year and my brother Dustin, his wife Lindsey and our niece Rylee were able to come down from Idaho to join us! It was so much fun! Lindsey made us AWESOME t-shirts, they had raffles, balloons, hot chocolate and bagels! We had a great time and love celebrating adoption every chance we get!

Rylee and Parker walking for adoption

Parker giving adoption the thumbs up!

Parker needed a little break from all that walking!

Parker turned 4 this year! I know I can't believe it either! He wanted everything shark for his birthday! He opened presents from his birth family, we had a party for his friends, went to Boondocks on his birthday for another adoption event and then we had family over for cake and ice cream the day after his birthday. We celebrated for 4 days! It was awesome! We are so grateful that he is part of our family!

He got shark and ocean dvds from his birth father

Aunt Roberta reading the boys the book she gave Parker

Playing 'shark tag' at Parker's birthday party

Opening presents

Shark fin cupcakes!

Fishing pond

All that partying wore him out!

I always take a pic of Parker first thing in the morning on his birthday

So excited about his big boy bike!

We waited in line forever to ride these cars at Boondocks. It was freezing but he loved every lap around the track!

Riding the big boy bike!

The shark cake

We went to Idaho this year for Thanksgiving. Parker was so excited to spend a few days with his cousins! We stayed with my brother Jack and his wife Alison. I started the day going shopping with Jack and Al. Then we had a nice dinner and then Alison finally let us look at the black Friday ads! That night we joined my cousins for our traditional Thanksgiving bowling night. Parker LOVES bowling! It was fun to watch him bowl with his cousins! Then, Lindsey and I made our shopping plan and Heather and Jack decided they wanted to come too! We went to Toys R Us and the line to get in was ridiculous! So we headed to Walmart. Everyone helped me get a few things that I wanted. Then Jack and Heather went home. Lindsey and I waited for Target to open. We stayed up all night! I did that last year too, and I don't know if I can keep doing it! It was fun and I got most of my Christmas shopping done! I don't even know how many stores we went to, but I was able to take a nap for a little while after we were done. That night Mom, Heather, Lindsey and I went to Perkins for a treat. We talked and laughed (Linds and I were still so tired we were extra giggly!) It was a lot of fun!

Thanksgiving bowling with the cousins

I don't have any pictures from Bryan's birthday, lame I know! He opened his presents that morning and he wasn't picture ready! He got a new U of U t-shirt (you can never have enough) and he got the TV series 'Firefly' on Bluray. He's been wanting it for a while now and it really wasn't a huge surprise to him, but he was still really excited to finally have it! He worked that day, so that was about all we did. I still owe him a date night to Braza Grill for his birthday dinner! Parker and I ran some errands that day and ended up at Kneaders for a little treat. He wanted to take some pictures together and then he told me, "Mom, we can put those on our blog!" So, here you go!

Always with the licking of the frosting first

Get Comfortable...

You may want to take a potty break, get a snack/drink and get comfortable, this is going to be a lengthy post! Here goes! Against our better judgment, we signed Parker up for soccer. He spent most of the games running around chasing his friends, not the ball. He also learned a trick from his friend Cole. They would pull their shirts up over their faces and run around. He just recently started his campaign to sign up again, but so far he hasn't convinced us to fork out the $40!

This is typical for Parker and his friends at soccer

He might not really pay attention to what is happening in the game, but at least he's having fun!

This is one of his new favorite poses! Where does he come up with these things?

Here he is after his last game with his trophy!

Parker and I had about a month long discussion about what he wanted to be for Halloween this year. Apparently, gone are the days when I can just pick a costume for him and he will wear it without putting up too much of a fight. He started out wanting to be a shark, (he is just a little obsessed) then a crab, frog, octopus (and I'm sure more animals that I can't remember) batman, and finally we settled on the three of us dressing up as Alvin, Simon and Theodore a.k.a. The Chipmunks. He wanted to be Theodore, so one day we were heading to Walmart and I told him we were going to look for a green sweatshirt for his Theodore costume. He then informed me that he didn't want to be The Chipmunks anymore! He wanted to be a transformer! I couldn't figure out where he had come up with that one since he's never seen a transformer cartoon or movie. I had seen a Bumble Bee costume at Walmart, so this is how the conversation went: Mom-"Do you want to be Bumble Bee? Parker-"No, what's that other guy's name?" Mom-"Do you mean Optimus Prime?" Parker-"Yeah, I want to be Optimus Prime." So, we looked at the costumes and I couldn't believe they had an Optimus Prime costume, in his size, and it was only $12! They only catch was that it had a mask. I showed it to him and asked him if he would wear it. He immediately put it on and wore it the entire time we were in Walmart and in the car on the way home. We went to our ward Halloween Party, trunk or treat and then had our friends, the Moellers, over for a Halloween/Utah football party! We had a great time eating, passing out candy and listening to the kids play. I think we even watched a little football in there somewhere!

He won a cupcake at the cake walk!

Parker's friends Jacob and Tate at our house after trunk or treat

My masterpiece: Football Cheese Ball!

Our little Optimus Prime all dressed up!

We took advantage of some really nice weather at the beginning of Nov and went to the zoo. Bryan was able to come with us and we had a fun day together! Bryan and Parker we fascinated by the rattle snake that was drinking out of its water dish. I couldn't stand to look at it! Needless to say, snakes are not my favorite thing at the zoo! I did however enjoy watching this giraffe lick the door frame with its freakishly long tongue!

Watching the creepy rattle snake!

Riding the carousel is a must every time we go to the zoo!


Our long-tongued giraffe friend

What a Slacker!

So I have been horrible at blogging lately! I'm sure I could come up with a list of excuses, but why bother. Here's what we've been up to! We went to visit Parker's birthfather in early Sept. We took him a belated birthday present and they spent most of the time playing with the tissue paper! It was really fun to watch. AND November is National Adoption Month! Remember to spread the word about adoption! AND pray for us to find our next baby!




We also took our annual trip to Bear Lake over Labor Day weekend. After doing this several years in a row, I'm not sure I want to keep this tradition going. I love going to Bear Lake, but it seems the weather does not want to cooperate that weekend and we always end up leaving early! Despite the cooler temps, the kids still had fun playing on the beach and in the water.




One of Parker's favorite things lately: making 'forts' in the living room. This usually means he gets out every pillow and blanket he can find plus other odds and ends from his room. Sometimes his basketball bean bag or his desk. He also likes to get out his camp chair or his folding chairs from his room to sit in to watch a movie or his favorite tv show. I've decided to phase out nap time. It makes me very sad to do it, because I so look forward to a little break and some peace and quiet everyday. It also is just one of many reminders these days that he is getting older. He goes to bed a lot better if he hasn't had a nap that day. So, to make bedtime a little more tolerable, I had to give up nap time! Some afternoons he is just too tired to stay awake and I find him sleeping in the chair, on the couch or the floor. He also loves cuddling in the chair with Daddy!





Conference Sunday we went for a drive up the canyon to look at the leaves. We ended up at Silver Lake and saw some amazing fall colors. I love fall! It is my favorite! I wish it wasn't so short lived here in Utah! It was a nice way to spend the day together as a family!