Celebrating Pioneer Day!

Our Family Pioneer Day Party is quickly becoming a fun tradition! The last couple of years we have gotten together with family and friends to celebrate our Utah Pioneers. Great company, great food, great fireworks and so much more. We are grateful for our ancestors and we are so grateful to be surrounded by so many loving people!  What a blessing they all are in our lives.

Swimming with daddy was FUN!

Adrienne was helping with food, but she didn't miss a chance to surprise Hayden by throwing him in the pool! HA!

Adrienne's sisters (Ashlin and Alisyn), Adrienne's Grandma, Adrienne's cousin's Jessica and Dana and significant others (Alex and Mike)... Adrienne's sisters are the goofiest of all!

Kyle's mom "Grandma", Adrienne's mom "Nana", Kyle, Kyle's sister (Brooke), Cousin Sammy and dear friends Emily and Daniel!

Adrienne's dad "Papa", Adrienne's Grandma, Adrienne's Cousin (Bran, Jess, Aubrey and Sidney), Adrienne's Aunt's (Becky and Carolee) Kyle's dad "Grandpa" and Kyle's Grandma "Bessa"!

Some of the kiddos Jaylen, Kyra, Hayden and Tayah!

The favorite activity of the day was jumping off the diving board while doing tricks! Hayden and Tiana  were jumping for at least an hour straight!

Warming up in the hot tub with cousin Ashy! This is Hayden's CHEESY smile! HA!

 CREAMIES with buddy Kaliyah!

Adrienne's traditional cousins picture with Grandma (from left to right) Dana, Jessica, Grandma, Alisyn, Adrienne, Ashlin and Jess. We're only missing Lauren and Meghan for the girls pic!

SMOKE BOMBS!

Kyle's sister (Stefanie, Corbin, Ashy and Sammy) enjoying the fireworks! 

Adrienne's dear friend Emily! Em still loves Adrienne even though both years she has had to sacrifice her shirts to the side effects of fire from the fireworks show!

SPARKLERS... pure heaven!

We had a wonderful time with many of the people that we love dearly! We are blessed!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Kyle, Adrienne & Hayden

After much thought and prayer... we are going to give this our all!

After taking a break from the adoption world for a bit, we have decided to give this one more shot! We have been published on the adoption website again and we look forward to meeting our new birth family that we are meant to have in our lives. We look forward to building that relationship with them and then watching it grow. We look forward to welcoming our very loved and long awaited child into our home. We know that our newest little family member is out there waiting for us and WE ARE READY... WE ARE EXCITED!

This adoption journey has been a difficult one for us ALL over this past year. But we have grown from it and we are stronger than ever. We have been made a stronger family because of it. Our newest little angel is going to be our true miracle.

Like I said in my past post... the sunshine always comes out after the storm. This is our journey and it is beautiful!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Adrienne

Kyle's birthday!

We just celebrated Kyle's birthday! We LOVE birthday's around here... especially Hayden! Here are some of our favorite pics...

 Hayden loves to sit on dad's lap and read the birthday cards. It helps when the cards make noise too! HA!

Hayden blew out the candles before daddy could even make his wish... little stinker!

Kyle and his sister Stefanie celebrate their birthdays together every year with the family because their birthdays are 8 days a part from each other. It's a fun tradition!

The kids are such wonderful helpers! 70 equals their two ages added together! HA!

Most of Kyle's side of the family doing the traditional birthday picture from left to right. Uncle Matt, Aunt Amanda, Cousin Sammy, (Kyle's Grandma) Bessa, Me, (Kyle's Dad) Grandpa, Hayden, Kyle, (Kyle's Mom) Grandma, Aunt Stefanie, Cousin Ashy, Uncle Corbin and Aunt Brooke. 

We sure love daddy around here and we're so glad that you were born!!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Hayden & Mommy 

Much needed vacation!

After hearing the devastating news, Kyle and I realized that our vacation plans were definitely a blessing in disguise. But the drive there was nothing but torture.

Where do you go to get rid of the sorrow that wants to live in your chest? I can only describe the feeling as a piece that was once there and is now missing.  For me, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was suffocating on the drive to California and that no matter how deep I tried to breathe in, I couldn't get enough air.  Part of the sorrow was made worse by the fact that I couldn't let out a lot of my frustration because Hayden was in the back seat when we found out the birth mother had changed her mind. I don't hide my feelings from Hayden, but we have also protected him throughout this process by not letting him meet the birth mom's and not telling him when the babies were coming, etc... I'm so glad that we have protected him from almost all of this because he would be DEVASTATED if we had to tell him the reason he wasn't going to get his little brother. But unfortunately, we had so much faith in this past (failed) adoption, that we told Hayden that his baby brother was probably going to be here after we got home from California.  HUGE mistake in hindsight... but it felt so right and so natural to give him that little glimmer of hope. I'm glad I used the word PROBABLY when I told him that. He still prays that we will get his baby brother every single night, but we've talked about how it will happen when it's supposed to happen. When the Lord is ready for it to happen. It's not a concept easily accepted by a 5 year old, but he is happy and knows that it WILL HAPPEN and that's all that matters.

I started to feel more at peace as I wrote the previous entry in our hotel room in good old Winnemuca, NV.  I just needed to let it all out. I haven't been able to sleep much. My future is now completely different and I don't know where we'll go from here. Only time will tell. All I know is that I WILL get through this with the help of the Lord and my amazing husband and son!

Bodega Bay was truly a blessing in disguise. It was just supposed to be one last hurrah before the baby came, but it turned out to be so much more after the heart break.  Just the three of us in a quiet town by the sea. We spent hours and hours at the beach- building rivers in the sand, swimming, flying kites and catching tadpoles. We spent hours and hours in the beach house- swimming in the "warm tub"(cooled down hot tub), finding golf balls by the house, making up games with said golf balls and swimming some more. We were unplugged and the only thing that mattered, was us. It was truly refreshing.

I KNOW how blessed I am to have my amazing family. I have a strong, aware, protective, smart, caring, sensitive, fun, spiritual, funny, good looking and loving husband who will be by my side forever. I couldn't ask for more. But I already have more. Hayden is a funny, gregarious, dramatic, excited, mischievous, stubborn, sensitive, caring, protective, joyful, silly, spiritual and loving son. I am surrounded by love and am so very grateful that I have the two of them. After all that has happened- through all of the heart ache- I look at them and know that I am blessed beyond measure.

We are doing fine. We WILL survive this. We WILL find and welcome our newest family member into our loving home. And, we WILL keep living life to the fullest! There is so much to find joy in and we are silly and JOYFUL people! HA!

Breakfast in Winnemuca with my two favorite guys ever!

Hayden LOVING the waves... the water was freezing, but we couldn't get him out. 

My man is always by my side and always knows how to keep me smiling. Lucky to be with the love of my life forever!

Enjoying the sand and building some rivers!

Watching the boats sail into the harbor.

Searching for golf balls!

Waiting for LIFT OFF! We kept the kite in the air for a couple of hours. :)

He thought this was the funniest thing ever!!

I love my little, sandy man!

Catching tadpoles and water skeeters with my little man while dad played a round of golf. Hayden caught "Bluey the tadpole" and released him "to be with his family" the next day. 

 Dad surprised Hayden and picked him up to go on a ride in the golf cart. Pretty "AWESOME"!

I absolutely adore it when Hayden wants to climb into my lap to finish eating when he's too tired. It's the only snuggle time I get from him and I'll take it whenever I can get it!

Pajama party turned into snoozing party soon after we started Toy Story 3!

 Last but not least, we love this little shop. It's a little kids wonderland!!

As you can see, this trip was just what we needed and we enjoyed every second of it. All of us. We HAVE each other, we LOVE each other and we will CHERISH our moments together... forever! I am blessed!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Adrienne 

Groundhog Day...

I really love the movie Groundhog Day, but I certainly don't like feeling like my life has decided to repeat itself... especially in the cycle of a very horrible experience. Like I've said before, writing things down is like therapy to me, so here I go!

Several months ago, we went through a failed adoption. We got to the point in the relationship where it was time for placement and then the birthmother changed her mind after she gave birth and decided to keep the baby.  Well after that, Kyle and I picked ourselves back up, we jumped right back into the adoption process again and got published back on the website at the end of March.

Less than a week after we were put back on the adoption website, we were contacted by a girl who was interested in us and wanted to get to know us more. Well, come to find out, she had really liked our profile when she found us on the website in January, but was disappointed that we had been taken off line because of the adoption process that we had previously gone through. When that adoption failed she was so happy to find us back online and contacted us shortly after we were published again at the very beginning of April. We were so excited to be in contact with her.

We got to know each other through emails over the next month and then decided it was time for our first face to face meeting with her and her caseworker. We met for the first time in mid May and the meeting went really well. We met with the birth mom, birth grandmother (birth mom's mother) and birth father and an agency caseworker. Of course, we fell in love with the whole birth family instantly. They were all amazing, down to earth people that you could just sit and talk to for hours. We talked openly about our desires to be parents and they all talked openly about their desires of what they would want for this child's future. Turns out, we were in that future and we were so excited!

Over the next couple of months, we went out with the birth mom several times to get to know her better and the birth father joined us one time as well. We grew to love these birth parents and became quite close. We pictured a future with the both of them... and the child in it.

By early July, we felt so comfortable with the birth parents and their decision, that I knew in my heart that this was probably going to be our miracle. That our little family of three was going to soon be a family of four! We were excited!

I wrote this post in our family blog:
MONDAY, JULY 9, 2012
A prayer in our hearts...

As many of you know, we've been published again on our adoption website and waiting for another new little miracle to join our family. We were actually contacted by a new birth mom a few months back and we've been talking about the possibility of adopting this sweet little baby boy soon. It feels surreal right now after all of the heart ache that we just went through only a few short months ago, but we are feeling more ready and stronger than ever to begin this journey and welcome our newest family member into our home. We are cautiously optimistic that this will be our time. That this new baby about ready to be born is being sent straight to us from the arms of our loving Heavenly Father.

I keep telling Kyle that I just feel nothing but peace this time around. All throughout the failed adoption experience a few months ago, I was filled with anxiety over every little thing that came our way. But I feel the Lord by my side through out this newest adoption process and the peace has helped me immensely. I KNOW with out a doubt that I can and will be able to do this. I have the Lord and Kyle by my side and I've allowed myself to feel some excitement for our upcoming possibility!  It doesn't mean that it's going to be any easier, but I know that I can do it and that I will survive it BECAUSE I have the Lord and Kyle on my side. What a reassuring feeling of hope!

Hopefully this time next month we will have our newest little family member!!! What a true miracle that will be. I am trying to prepare right now by being cautiously optimistic and by focusing most of my time and efforts on my family and others who might need me. What a difference a few months can make... in some ways, I have become a better person because of that failed adoption. That DOES NOT mean I ever want to go through that again. I am just grateful for what I learned and how much more I appreciate life and the people in it, after going through that hard ship. I'm glad it's over, but I'm also glad that it changed me for the better.

I am ready for our new baby. I am excited... cautiously excited! We are all ready for him to join our family and we know that the Lord has been and will be with us every single step of the way! Come what may!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Adrienne

I was ready for our future. We were ALL ready for our future. We had planned a vacation out to Bodega Bay (one of our favorite family vacation spots) and as we were planning it, we heard word from our birth mother that we had one last meeting to iron details out with our case workers before she went into the hospital to give birth. She also told me that day that she was going to be induced on July 25th. We were so excited to know and be prepared for a specific date. We got a little nervous because we had just planned and paid for this vacation as well and wouldn't be getting home until three days before the birth... but we were OVER THE MOON EXCITED for our new future ahead of us! I even told Hayden that we would probably be welcoming a new baby brother into our home after our vacation. Of course, he then went around telling everyone that we were getting our new baby after our trip!  (Hayden has been so excited about his "new baby brother".  He asks Heavenly Father every single night to please send him to our family. It truly is the sweetest little prayer ever!)  Kyle and I settled on a name for little man and started organizing the baby stuff to be a little more prepared for our newest arrival.

Well, this past Saturday was our final meeting with the birth mom and her mother. The birth father couldn't make it because he works in a different city and so it was just the four of us and both of our caseworkers at the meeting. Kyle and I felt like the meeting went very well.  The birth family was all smiles after everything was discussed and so we thought they were happy with the meeting too. It's a hard thing to discuss visits with the birth mom after placement. We felt good about agreeing to a few visits up until the child was two. We promised that we would stay in contact with pictures, emails, letters, texts, etc... We all said that we'd keep our relationship open and that we would all just have to see how the child is doing and do whatever is best for the child at that time. We know that that is such an important part of the healing process for the birth mother and each on of us involved and we had no problems with visits. We didn't want to promise anything else after the child was two because we didn't want to make a promise that we couldn't keep.  We just don't know what will be going on two years from now.

There's so many variables when it comes to what happens over a span of two years. What if we move out of state? There's no way of knowing where we will be and where the birth mother will be, even six months from now, let alone two years from now. We don't even know how the child will be in two years. What if the child starts having problems coping with adoption at some point in the future? As an adopted child I know how much you just want to feel normal sometimes and feel like everyone else around you.  Children don't want to feel DIFFERENT and it can be hard at times.

The number one most important thing that I can do for my children is to bring a sense of normalcy into their lives.  Adoption is the most special and wonderful blessing that has been such an amazing part of my life. I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for my two amazing parents that loved me and definitely helped in shaping me into the person that I am today. My birthmother gave me that and I will be eternally grateful to her for that! But adoption doesn't define me as a person and it doesn't define Hayden as a person either. Also, with adoption comes A LOT of questions from other people who don't really understand it because they haven't really lived any of it. They've just "seen someone who was adopted" or "heard of someone who was adopted".

Whenever people find out that I'm adopted, I get ALL KINDS of questions... good ones and yes, sometimes insensitive ones. As an adult I'm more than happy to answer those questions, like "how I feel about being adopted" or "do I want a relationship with my birthparents", etc... But growing up as an adopted child it can sometimes feel like a very confusing and sometimes scary thing to often be asked those questions. Kyle and I will ALWAYS be open with our kids about adoption and their birth stories. They will always have access to their birth family's information. But if our kids are confused or feeling different, you'd better believe that I will do everything in my power to make sure that they know that they are SPECIAL and LOVED, just as my parents always did for all of us kids when we were growing up!  

On that little random side note, we don't have any clue what our next child will be feeling like in two, three, four, etc... years and we don't want to make a promise that we can't keep when it comes to visits. Everything we do for our children will always be with their best interest in mind. If they NEED visits we will give them that. If they NEED space to cope with questions or fears, we will give them that. Everything I do as a mother is always with my child's best interest in mind. So, we promised the birth mother that we would never loose contact, but that we couldn't promise visits past the age of two because we don't know where any of us (Kyle, me and the birthparents) will be or how the child will be doing by then.  I don't ever make a promise that I can't keep.  

We felt good about our meeting. We felt that the birth mom and her mother felt good about the meeting. We told her what we were planning on naming the baby and she liked that. She had a birth plan and a placement plan. We would come and meet the child at placement. We would do the placement in the hospital after the birth mom and her family spent their hospital stay with the baby and then got discharged. We knew that she needed the time with the child and we felt good about the plan. We all agreed upon it and everyone said what they needed to say.  We all left the meeting with smiles on our faces. We all left the meeting happy and with the same plan in mind.  We were all prepared for the 25th of July, the placement and growing relationship that would happen after placement. 

We then went for take out with the birth mom and her mother and then went back to their home to eat. We spent a couple of hours with them that day and we felt happy and ready for the future. We were prepared to welcome our newest little miracle in two weeks and we couldn't have been happier!

Here comes the hard part... we are driving out to Bodega Bay as I write this. Many hours ago we got blindsided by the devastating news. The birth mother has changed her mind and wants another adoptive couple who can have a more open relationship with her.  We were totally shocked because she had told us that the visits, the letters, the pictures and building a relationship after placement (like we had talked about in our last meeting) were exactly what she was hoping for.  Obviously, we weren't what she was looking for, but I wish she would have let us know earlier. Instead of going out with us many times, building a relationship and keeping us around until the very end and then just blindsiding us with an email saying that we're not open enough for her.

Groundhog day sucks... it hurts just as bad as last time. We just lost our future with this girl that we love. We lost our special relationship with her. We lost the baby we thought was going to be ours. We lost the future we thought we had. It all came out of nowhere and that's what hurt the most. Of course we still love this girl and the loss of the relationship with her hurts just as bad as the loss of the child we thought we were going to have. A double loss that we weren't even prepared for... totally blindsided.

Kyle and I will be fine. We have each other and we are stronger than ever. Our plans have altered a little bit, but we will make it through. We have THE MOST AMAZING son that anyone could ever ask for. How lucky are we? After having my moment to cry, I just looked at my two boys and knew how blessed I was to have them in my heart and life AND eternity forever.  We will all survive this. Hayden was pretty sad when we told him that plans had changed, but he kept saying that "we just have two babies that are probably going to come"! HA, we'll take it! If he can keep the faith, then so can I!!

The best thing that Kyle and I can do now is to MOVE FORWARD. It has somehow become our life motto and we will continue on our journey through adoption, with faith that our newest family member is just around the corner. We are sad to go through this heartache again, but we are ready to start again and we have faith that this WILL HAPPEN for us.

I took this picture about an hour after we got the bad news today. 

The sun always comes out after the storm... it was a good reminder to me that this heartache will pass and I will have my new future with our newest little one in it. My family DOES have a bright future and I am sure going to enjoy every single minute that I can have with them. I AM BLESSED!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Adrienne 

Good times!

We have some pretty fun neighbors! We decided to make the kids in our cul-de-sac a "kids car wash" the other day. So, some of the ladies headed to the home improvement store and picked up some PVC pipes to seal the deal! The kids were so happy with the final product!!

I love this pic because it looks like the guys were just sitting there watching the ladies do the whole thing, when in reality they helped a ton... HA!

The kids absolutely LOVED the "car wash" and spent most of the day playing in it. 

We love summer around here! We hope that yours is as fabulous as ours.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Adrienne & Hayden

Lagoon Day!

We are seriously loving our season passes this summer. We can go later during the day, when it's not too hot and most of the crowds have left. Hayden is enjoying going on the bigger rides, which makes mommy and daddy even happier now that they can skip most of the kiddie rides too! HA! Did we mention that we LOVE amusement park rides in this family? Well... we do!

Hope you're having a wonderful summer!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Kyle, Adrienne & Hayden

Happy 4th!

Happy Independence Day! We had such a fun celebration with many of our family members. We missed the ones who couldn't make it, but we all had a blast!!

Pool party with Ashy and Sammy. We finally had a chance to pull out the new pool and try it out. They all loved it!

The grill master himself... yummy... good work babe!

Corbin, Stef, Bessa and Grandma

The kids table!

More guests... Matt, Brooke, Nana and Papa

Cute Bessa swinging on the swings!

Aunt Amanda and Uncle Matt helping Hayden draw some fireworks. He loves to keep his helmet on no matter what he's doing, HA!

Cute little Ashy!

The kids getting ready for our fireworks show with all of the neighbors!

SPARKLERS!!!

They all LOVED the color bombs

Some of the crowd from our fam!

He still doesn't like the sound of the loud fireworks, but he loves to watch them.

Enjoying the show with some of his favorite buddies!

Circling the fireworks on bikes!

Grandma bought the awesome glowstick glasses... hours of entertainment for everyone!

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I think this is my favorite pic of the night! HA!

He loves his Nana and Papa!

Watching the fun fireworks. Hayden isn't quite sure about the loud sounds though... sweet boy!

We stayed in the car to watch the REAL fireworks because Hayden said he was too scared of the sound. We had a great view... what a night!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July. We are so grateful for our freedom and we are SO grateful for the men and women who fight daily to defend our freedom. God Bless America!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Kyle & Adrienne