Our little blessing

It has been quite some time from my last post, we have had many things happen so I will try to break them down without sounding like it is a list.  First we have been real busy with different events like survival / emergency prep for the Stake.  We had been chosen to adopt from a wonderful birth mom who was and is such an angel.  She despite my questions and silly ways still picked us. On August 20, 2011 she delivered us a baby boy.  We were so happy and he is so sweet.  I am a sap for a dad he make a little sound and I jump to hold him.  I almost wish I did not have to ever put him down.  Miriam has stepped up and become the best little stay at home mom I could ever pray for.  The new little man was given the name of Wyatt and we both love him so much we do not know what we did without him.  Our lives have been changed for the better so much but we can even see how much the grandparents have been changed as well.  In fact we have begun to see the grandmothers try to one up each other just to get to spend time with him.  We will be posting pictures on our site at a future time (soon) so that everyone can see our little man.

Simple

So this post is just a simple one, I just enjoyed my lunch today and it was one of the best ones I have had in a long time.  I am sure your thinking what did he have, was it some new and exciting restaurant.....?.....NOT a chance it was a simple PB&J made by my loving wife.  She got up early this morning and made me a PB&J with all my favorites.  White bread, Jiff extra chunky peanut butter and strawberry preserves.  She even gave me the extras that I love 2 kiwi fruits and Ruffles potato chips.  I hope when I have children they will grow up knowing the joys of PB&J.  My mother made me one for lunch just about everyday and even on my mission it was a major staple of my diet.  Bad news peanut butter is a kidney stone in a jar so I cannot have many but one every so often will not kill me.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICHES!!!!!!!!

Long time no post

It has been a long time between my last post and this one so please hang on it is going to be a bumpy ride.  First things first....My co-worker that was thinking about adoption that showed up at my desk with his wife have filled out the paperwork and are back in doing foster care.  They have both shown up at my desk again asking advice about how to make a blog, website and how to advertise their desire for adoption.  So I will continue to work with them as time permits.  Second, item of business the FSA conference is real soon so anyone who has the ability to go should.  Previous years has proven to be such an experience and all who have attend it have come away with such a new outlook on adoption that is worth going of you can.  Miriam and I were going and had request a day off from work but because of some stuff going on around the house we are not going to be able to attend.  Local Colorado FSA members are going to be speaking so showing them support is both a reward and a blessing.  Third we have a saga at our home have you ever had something that you set in a "safe place" because you know that your going to need it and well now that we need it we cannot remember what "safe place" we put the stuff in.  That is going on in our home we have some missing parts to some furniture that has been in storage and we know that we put the hardware in a safe place and now we cannot recall the location of the hardware.   I ordered the replacement parts from the manufacturer today and wow the 7 little screws cost me $30.  In one though I say that is expensive on the other I see this as cheap way to make my wife happy at me.  Forth continuing with the furniture topic we went to IKEA because our friend wanted to go on opening day.  We went and had dinner then attempted to walk.  SO MANY PEOPLE!!!! we could not even make our way around to see things people were in the way everywhere.  So we did not stay long we figured we could always go back later to wonder around.

As with most of my posts I want to post a question.... The question is while we were at church on Sunday we had many people giving their testimonies and all were wonderful but we had two that seemed to stick out in everyone mind.  First one was a man who is a truck driver and was only passing through town.  He missed his wife and was on the road and wanted to express his love for her and his father in Heaven. Very true and simple testimony.  Second was a young woman who is new to the ward, she got up and was telling about how she is 23 and finds herself pregnant with her first child abandon by the father and her family to deal with the child on her own.  Oh what a blessing Miriam and I just happen to be adopting and have knowledge of the adoption process.  This girl does not need to go this alone she needs to talk with Kelly at Family Services.  So we gave her a copy of our pass-a-long cards and Family Services numbers.  Giving her additional info like this could lead to someone who can not have children to her and may even open the door for an adoption.  So was it wrong for us to pass on our information after sacrament meeting??  Should we have left her to find her own way?  This was the delima with talking to anyone right after.

I never saw it that way...

So the other day I had someone at work ask me if I was still trying to adopt, I explained that yes we are working on the adoption process and that it keeps going slow and steady.  He then tells me a real sad story of how he and his wife have not been able to have children and that they looked into several options but never felt that any of then felt right.  He went on to say that one day he stopped by the reception desk at my work and noticed one of our pass - a - long cards and picked it up and put it in his pocket (and forgot about it.)  Later that week his wife was working on the laundry and found the card in his shirt and looked it over.  After looking it over she decided to get on the computer and look up our website and blog then linked out to the it's about love site.  She was shocked that anyone would put out cards and build web pages for adoption.  But later told her husband (my coworker) that it felt right.  So later that evening they logged in to the web again together and began to explore other couples blogs and profiles.  At one point with tears running down both of their faces looked at each other and at the same time said "this is right" and "this is what we need to do".  So the next Monday (yesterday) my coworker sent me an email asking if he could come and talk with me about this.  I was so excited to see that the cards were doing what they could to get the word out.  This morning my coworker and his wife (who does not work with us) showed up at my desk and we had about a hour and twenty minute discussion about adoption, and how it works, and what they need to do to get started.  They made notes and said that they would need my help with a blog and webpage and contact information so that they could get started.  We went over all that and made a plan to talk again next week after they have had time to get the ball rolling.  Wow, again to feel like we helped someone else on the path to a family felt so great.  This was an eye opener for me because I felt that when we started down the path we had help because of the FSA group but for many others they do not know how to even get started and if their is anyone else like them out in the world.  Because of this I am going to try to get some detailed information together about how to get started and post on our blog/site and see if we may want to put it out on the FSA blog as well so that as couples explore the world of adoption they have more information at hand to help them be a success.

This brings me to this posts question:
What types of things would be helpful for people who are new to the idea of adoption and might help then on their way down this long and sometimes painful process?

False Impressions

So I have been under a false impression (only within my own head and trying to make myself believe it) that when we have adopted that our lives will slow down.  Well I have given up on trying to make this happen, I know that even with as busy as we are now it will only be 5 times more crazy after having children.  But I can say it will be worth every minute.

So a few updates and then some new stuff, we did go and do the blessing and just a few minutes before the meeting started I offered to my brother and father one last chance to let grandpa do it.  Both declined in fact my brother even started with "your going to chicken out" talk and so I did it.  I must say how special it was to both be picked and to do the blessing.  It went off perfectly and we had no issues.  Okay maybe a few first the young man that was asked to hold the Mic insisted on pushing it up under the baby's dress so everything was a little muffled and ruffled by that.  And the grandpa and the Bishop both were bouncing her up and down I was worried that they were going to toss her out of the circle.  The little one was a champ she just continued to make little noises and handled it with out problems.

This week has been a fast moving week we have had plenty of things going on but one of the highlights were that we went to see our nieces talent show.  She did so good, her singing was great and she put her heart into it.  (They grow up so fast)  Several other students did very good, they had one girl who did a hula-hoop dance and it was crazy good, and a young man played the guitar and it was some of the best playing that I have experienced in a while.

Miriam also had the book fair going on this week at the school and that is always a crazy time but the late night (last night) went real good and it seemed that the weather only caused some slow times but it seemed to go over without a hitch.

We have a birthday party on Saturday, the Relief Society breakfast, 5K for Adoption and Ham Radio stuff going all on Saturday so at some point something will give...

This posts question is how do single parents do it, with school, work, and church activities I would not be able to handle it all by myself, so how do they do it?

Blessings?

My brother and his wife finally were able to bring home their baby from the hospital after being born much to early.  She is so very cute and we just love holding her.  My mother is in grandma heaven and my father is still my father.  This brings me to the question:

My brother and his wife have asked me to give this little angel a name and a blessing this Sunday.  I am so excited, and worried.  I know that he has asked me and I am always excited to do this but I almost want him to know that even with it being a great honer for me it would be even that much more to our father.  Grandpa in many respects be the one doing this for them, showing them the power of the priesthood in the home and what benefits it can bring to faithful families in Zion.  So I am very conflicted over this, without making him feel bad or putting pressure on them I feel that it may be even that much better for him to do this for him.  So what do I do? How do I express my feeling of so much joy that they asked me and yet I think this is a job for grandpa?  Feel free to share your thoughts on this....

Weekend of Fun

This weekend was crazy fun!  First on Friday I had to go get a root canal done on one of my teeth.  (not much fun)  But Saturday was recovered by the Colorado FSA conference.  We went for the full day, they had many good seminars and classes to attend and learn from.  They had several panel discussions that were from both the adoptive couple side and from the birth mothers sides, and they even had one of people who were adopted. Every single discussion seemed to pull at our hearts.  We had such a great time seeing others who are a part of the FSA world, people who have adopted already, some like us that are waiting, and other that are just getting in to the adoption world.  We had a personal visitor show up at the conference and it was great that she could come to the conference.