Enjoy the Journey

Jake's New Day-Time Crew

Once I go back to work, my sister will be watching Jake 3 days a week. Fortunately, she has 2 of the cutest girls in the world...in addition, she watches 2 more cute kiddos 2 days of the week. Jake is going to soon have some very good buddies!

Jake's Hospital Stay

Because we didn't get Jake until he was 3 days old, we would have had no pictures of him in the hospital...but thanks to my sister's visit to the hospital when Jake was 2 days old, we have some! Zoey was absolutely smitten with him (even before she knew he would be her cousin!)...

The Day of Our Delivery...July 23, 2011

Although Jake was born on July 20th, the day he was "delivered" to us was the 23rd. It is hard to believe that this day started out so differently than we ever would have expected. We had a 24th of July (Utah Pioneer Day Holiday) breakfast party planned at my G&G's home in Bountiful that morning. My grandma makes yummy pancakes and my aunt Monica makes yummy breakfast casserole. It is a time to get together as a family, celebrate the July birthdays, and let the kiddos swim in the backyard. It started out normal...and as I am sitting there enjoying my pancake, my sister leans over to me and says, "'E' just text me and told me to call her ASAP"...my heart sank...could it be?! I didn't dare let myself hope. I couldn't stand it, about 5 minutes later I got up and went into the house to see what the text was about. As I entered the house I kept hearing my sister over and over say, "Are you sure? Is this your choice? Are you sure?" Upon hanging up the phone, my sister said the words that I had hoped to hear the past 7 months. She told me, "she doesn't want him and she wants you to have him". I still wasn't sure, and had been let down so many times previous to this by her, that I couldn't dare hope. Jenny confirmed my hopes and said, no really, this is it. We both hugged and sobbed as we rejoiced in the amazing blessing this would be to our families.

If I can slightly detour from the course of this blog post for just a moment and speak on somewhat of a personal level...my sister and broter-in-law had a beautiful baby girl 6 years ago (Zoey). When Zoey was approximately 2, they started the "let's have another baby" discussions. After about 3 years of trying, and testing on both of their parts, there were no 'physical' answers as to the reason why they were not able to get pregnant again. They decided after much prayer and fasting, they would look into adoption. In a few short months (we realize adoption normally can take much, much longer), they were blessed with their beautiful little girl, Layney. After a few months, and we had heard from Layney's birth-mother that she was pregnant again, I had the most amazing thoughts that the reason for my sister not being able to get pregnant was because she needed to adopt and build a relationship with this birth-mother, so that our family would be possible. Of course, we do not know the reason for all things, but we'd like to think that our Heavenly Father definitely had his hand in the mix of helping these babies get to where they needed to be.

Ok, so back to July 23rd... once my sister got off the phone with the birth-mom, we made several attempts to reach an attorney - on a Saturday and on a holiday weekend! We were blessed to have Alan's (my cousin who is on a mission in Guatemala) girlfriend at the breakfast party...she suddenly realized she knew an adoption attorney that was in her ward. We were able to get his home number and reach him on a Saturday. He helped us know all that we needed to know for that day and that we would get everything legal with the courts on Tuesday (after the holiday weekend). We ran home and dropped of our girls (2 dogs)...we got together some paper work and we were off to pick up our new son. Within a few short hours we had our beautiful baby home.

Here are some pictures of our delivery day...

Jake's 1st Bath at Home

Jake got a bath the night we got him home. I was quite nervous to bathe him, so I asked my sister to stay and help. Jenny helped buy some of our necessities the day we got him home and this cute tub was one of them! Since the 1st bath we have decided it is much easier to bathe him on the counter-top. I felt like such a horrible mother during his 1st bath - he cried and cried and I kept getting more upset because I was making him more upset. But since then, he is a charm to bathe. He actually kind of likes it (i think!). He no longer cries (for the most part). I love this cute boy.

A few more cute "after the bath" pics from the past couple weeks...

Layney Turns oNe!!

On July 28th, our cute little niece Layney turned 1. She is a blessing to our family. Jenny planned a fun birthday party for her, our family, and some friends. The kids had a blast playing on this huge blow-up water slide. It was also exciting to have all of Layney & Jake's birth-siblings there for the party. Here are a few pictures from the fun night!

Swimming Fun!