Some Great Adoption Articles...

I was just reading through some adoption articles that were sent to me and thought I would share them...I gleaned two ideas from them. One- there is a miracle in adoption- you end up with the child that is meant for your family. And two-It is truly a blessing not luck!

Enjoy!

Story 1

Story 2

Baby Shower

So the big project of the week was helping put on a baby shower with a couple other gals, for one of our good friends from church. I made this blanket and little hair clips for her baby. (The hair clips are the pink and green loopy flower things-fyi) I have to say I stole the idea for the blanket. My sister in law's sister made her a similar blanket for our little nephew and it was so cute that I copied! (Great idea Megan!)

I love the bright colors of the fabric.

I also made a cake...not one of my favorites. The colors were all wrong but oh well- what can you do?!

The mother-to-be, Heidi and me! Isn't she so cute?!

The shower was lots of fun~ Congratulations to Heidi!

Temple Trip

This last weekend we had the awesome opportunity to go up to the Chicago temple and go through a session with this sweet sister and friend from our ward. She went through a lot to get to this point and it was just so special. I am thankful for such good, wonderful people in our lives and for their examples to me.

I don't know why I have this silly grin on my face...maybe I was just really excited! =o)

I love this quote...

"Sisters, we love you. We pray for you. Be strong and of good courage. You are truly royal spirit daughters of Almighty God. You are princesses, destined to become queens. Your own wondrous story has already begun. Your 'once upon a time' is now."

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

November- NATIONAL ADOPTION AWARENESS MONTH

Since this topic is so close to my heart right now, I thought I would share some thoughts with you about adoption. Obviously we are still in the process and I can't really share any thoughts about what it is like to adopt since we haven't got there yet, but right now in our situation here are some of my thoughts...

I believe the whole process of adoption is a miracle in and of itself. You take someone, who is just like any of us- who made a mistake- and turns it into a tremendous blessing for some lucky family. I can't say enough of the amazing selfless women and men who choose to place their babies with forever families. How hard it would be yet such a wonderful gift. Its awesome that you can take a baby not biologically born to you yet have him/her and keep him/her as your own- and the best part- love him/her as your own. Chase and I strongly believe that is so possible. I had the unique experience of serving in orphanages in Ecuador some years ago and it was a life changing experience because I learned how one could love someone so much even though there was no relation or should I say blood relation. I came to love those babies and children that I worked with each day so much. It broke my heart to leave them. I had never felt my heart hurt like that before. So I know its possible to love a child not born to you with your whole heart.

Going through the difficulty of not being able to have children and the dreaded word of "infertility" has been rough. Soo rough. We so look forward to loving our miracle adoptive baby soon.

Here are some ideas about how you can celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month. Share in the miracle of adoption!

Birthday!

We celebrated my 26th birthday this last weekend. Man I am getting old =o) It was a great day. Chase spoiled me as usual. He is such a wonderful husband. He started the day with making me a yummy breakfast in bed and then with presents and later with a movie and dinner. He also made me an awesome ice cream cake! I am soo lucky! I feel so blessed to be alive and for all the wonderful people in my life. I am so thankful to my parents for having me.

I got some books I have been wanting! Yay!

Also you will be surprised to know that Chase made me this skirt for my birthday. He did an awesome job! For some background- quite awhile ago when I started sewing more and I am sure I was complaining about how hard it was Chase made the comment that he could totally sew a skirt and that it wouldn't be that hard. So the challenge was on and he came through! I think it is the engineer in him that makes him so good! That is my excuse anyhow =o)

Here is my wonderful hubby making the cake all by himself.

Me with the cake!

Thank you love for the wonderful day!

Thank you =O)

Hey thanks everyone who shared their thoughts about accepting/ or not accepting when people offer us something. It was very educational to me!

Follow Up...

Well so maybe I should explain more...So when my friend and I were having this discussion (mentioned in the previous post) she told me that in Korea the culture is that you always offer guests a drink or food no matter if it is the maintenance guy or an invited friend because it is polite. And then on the other side of it, you accept out of politeness.

I find that I often say "No thank you" no matter what it is when people offer and I wondered why I do that...

I was trying to explain to her why maybe the maintenance guy wouldn't take her up on the soda can she offered him. We talked about a few reasons. 1. He didn't want to take something from her out of politeness- i.e. put her out in anyway 2. Maybe he didn't want it 3. I guess there is always some suspicion? Who knows. I think in other cultures it is the most polite thing to accept. Maybe I should be better about that =)

Sorry for all the rambling- just thought I would get your thoughts on the matter!

Random Question

So lately I have been having a lot of conversations with a friend of mine (who is from Korea) and the other day we were talking about the differences between our cultures etc. So I have a question that came up from our most recent discussion.

When someone offers us something (for free), whether it be food or a beverage or something else, why do we often turn it down and say "No thank you?"

What are your thoughts?

Family Fun!

On Sunday after a fabulous Stake Conference, we headed down to Indy to spend some time with family. My mother in law was in town and so we got to spend some time with her and the rest of the clan. It was great to be with family. The kids put on their costumes so we could all see what they were for the Halloween weekend festivities and of course Chase and I had to show off our costumes as well!

Superhero!

Our little princesses!

Cute buddies.

Us and our nieces and nephews. So fun!

With Momma Julie & S!

Since we were all with family they threw an early little birthday party for me...here I am blowing out the candles.

I had some good help!

As always it was so fun to spend time as a family. What wonderful blessings they all are!

"I'm a back" AND "It's a me a Mario"

One of the firsts for me was making a Halloween costume this year. I usually just find odds and ends that I have and throw them together to make a costume but this year Chase wanted us to be something particular and it didn't quite work out that we could just throw things together for it! So a lot of our "free" time the latter part of the month was devoted to making these...

The beginning stages!

We both made our own costumes. You would be surprised to know that Chase is quite the tailor! His turned out with even more detail than mine. I went the easiest route possible! Not to say that we didn't run into a few problems, because we sure did. I will not claim to be a good seamstress!

Finishing up our costumes...

Can you guess who we are? Obviously we are big fans of the Mario Wii game!

Chase in his finished costume! He even grew a mustache for this special occasion.

Just in case you are still wondering who we are- I will tell you...

Chase= Luigi

Joni= Mario

We finished just in time for a fun little Halloween Party! So fun!