Preston's Birthday Party

We had a blast! Preston's loves to unwrap presents. I thought about wrapping each gift individually, but instead I opted to combine some items and wrapped a total of four presents for him to unwrap. When we first got there I had him open the monster bowling so he and his cousins could play with it.

Mostly he liked the ball and kicking the things over, but I know he will figure it out and enjoy it in the years to come.

Everyone knows that besides presents the other best part of a birthday is the cake. Preston couldn't wait to try it out. He ate a few of the elephants toenails.
It was really good and made sure to tell us all YUM. Grandma wouldn't let the rest of us eat off of the cake so we had to settle for M&M's. I love those baby blue eyes! Oh, and the blue frosting on the chin is so cute. I could just eat him up. Seriously, that is Grandma Jones' frosting, it is so good!
Then we went down to his great grandpa's for cake. Preston loved blowing the candles out and I think we did that three times.

After cake, we gave him our last three presents. He opened them so fast, I don't think he even noticed what was in them!

This picture was my favorite one. He has started putting his hands on his hips. It is so cute!
Apparently cake wasn't quite enough. We finished the night off with some Smarties.

Sidebar Buttons

Someone asked me where I got my buttons in the sidebar. The first one "It's hard to wait around for something you know may never happen, bit it's even harder when you know it's everything you want," I stole from another blog, but now I can't remember from who. I loved it and was going through a hard time with our lack of children so I copied it and posted it as a jpeg. I feel guilty, but it rang so true and I haven't been able to force myself to delete it. So since I stole it, I give anyone permission to steal it from me.
The 2nd one is actually a tile plaque that I bought back in October. I bought two hoping to give one to our birth mother at placement. I took a picture of it and posted it to remind me that Miracles can happen everyday. Feel free to use it on your blog!
"Sometimes God calms the storm and sometimes He lets the storm rage and He calms the child." I saw that in a magazine. It was a picture of a lighthouse with a storm in the background. I loved the saying and had to have it. I want to have it made into a big sign for my house, but I can't decide how I want it to look. For the background I used a program called Scrapblog that you can use free on the Internet.
I love my Family Circus Cartoon! When we took our adoption classes last spring they gave us a disk that had several articles. It was part of it. I hope my kids will say cute things like that someday.
The quote by Dr. Seuss I found on a friends Parent Profiles. I loved it and decided since it was Dr. Seuss it wasn't really steeling when I posted it. I used Scrapblog to create it too. I don't like how it looks, but I keep forgetting to try something different.
The picture collages of Josh and I where made with Picasa. When we did our first LDSFS online profile there is only 4 places to put pictures. Some high tech people can do slide shows, but I liked this idea better. Since our new profiles have a 24 picture picture album I didn't need to use these again, but I left them here just to give a quick look at who we are.
The pictures of my kittens I made with Scrapblog. That program is really fun to work in. I also made a gift certificate when for a guy at work that wanted to buy Scentsy stuff for his wife, but didn't know what to choose. So I had him pay for the package he wanted and made up a certificate. I think it turned out nice.
My reading blinkie I got off of The Cutest Blog on the Block. That is also where I get my backgrounds. It seems to be a very popular thing to do; most blogs I follow use it too.
Then I have just inserted other quotes and poems that I love and want to see often.
On my counters you can click on them and I think they will take you to where you can make your own counter. I really like the three I have (2 on the side and one at the bottom) so I use them all. I especially love the design of the counter at the bottom.
I haven't figured out yet how to make an actual button that thinks to our profiles, but I want to. If I figure it out, I'll let everyone know!
Thanks for the questions, keep them coming.

My husband is so romantic!

Last night we decided to read in bed before going to sleep. Sometimes when I read in bed I like to lay in a different position than the one I sleep in. So I kicked my feet up on my pillows and read with my head at the foot of the bed. I woke up early in the morning to make a bathroom trip and when I got back to bed I laid down the correct way, but when I went to cuddle Josh, I met his feet. Apparently I feel asleep while reading and Josh couldn't get me to wake up. So he grabbed his pillows and flipped so he was facing the same direction. All I could think in my sleepy haze is that I have the most romantic husband ever!

I just learned something new on Blogger

I am so excited! And it was so easy. Now when I want to reference back to a previous post I can just add a hyperlink. I'm not completely sure what it means, but the easy definition is that if you click on the link I embedded in the word, then it will take you to a previous post. So if I make reference to my winter pictures, then you just click on those words and it should take you there. Or remember that great poem I found? Or the day I seemed to be Happier than normal? I can even do a link so that you can see every post that is related to my kittens or Adoption. Well, you probably get the point.

An Adoption Blog

I just found this blog that has a list of blogs of others looking to adopt. If you are looking to adopt you can email them and they will add your blog to the list. I just emailed my blog to them and encourage anyone else looking to adopt to do the same. Click HERE to visit the blog.

Birth Mother Story

Everyone needs to hear this story! It is amazing! Click HERE to listen to it

I wish I could help the world (well I should could start small with friends and family I guess) understand just how amazing birth mothers are. They are the most caring, most loving, most self-less people you will ever meet. I never tire of hearing their amazing, heart wrenching, tear jerking stories. I hope that someday I can love their child half as much as they did.

Another Picture...and a funny story

Josh's mom took this picture on the day after my birthday when we went over for birthday cake. Clearly I was dressed casually and wasn't expecting pictures, but I think it turned out nice so I have added it to our profiles.
When she asked me the day before what kind of cake I wanted I told her Cranberry Cake. It's one of my favorites. But something about it makes it difficult to make. Josh made it years ago for me. I was so proud of him, because it was a total surprise and he didn't call me once for directions. So when I got home he was a little frustrated because it was still soggy in the center and he had cooked it for the time the recipe said and then more. All I could do was laugh. He had cooked it in a bread pan. We tried to transfer it to a cake pan, but it still didn't turn out. But I love him for trying.
When my mother in-law made it, she had to bake two. When she pulled the first one out of the oven she noticed that she forgot to add the cranberries. Those are the best part! So she hurried and put another one together. I was a good sport and tried some of both, but it is definitely better with cranberries.

Announcing our new online profile

We are finally online with ParentProfiles.com. To view our profile just visit the link I've included here and also on the side panel. But don't visit too many times. This site has a counter to let us know how many people have looked at it. So if I see 100 page views I may get all excited thinking we have tons of birthmom's looking at us, but in reality it can just be people looking for ideas. I know I am guilty of that! But it helps to see what others have done.
Here is the link! http://www.parentprofiles.com/profiles/db23565.html

You Think You Know a Person....

I learned the funniest thing about my husband yesterday. I've heard this story several times, but I guess I never knew the full truth. Here is what I did know.
While my husband was growing up he got mad at his parents one day and declared that he was obviously just a hired hand and since he was, he was going to sleep in the bunk house (i.e. saddle shed). Apparently he only lasted a few hours in there.
What child doesn't have these moments? I can remember having tantrums like this. I can remember telling my mom I knew she had me just so I could watch her other kids that she wanted to have and clean house. I was probably 9 when this happened.
Anyway, we were sitting at the dinner table at Josh's parents last night and they somehow started talking about his "hired hand" status. After we shared the laugh that always follows the telling of this story, his sister asked what started it and then she remembered "Wasn't it because mom wouldn't let you go out that night?"
Go out that night? What 9 year old wants to go out at night? So I turned to him and asked just how old he was when this happened. He wouldn't answer me, so his family filled me in.
This happened when he was 16 or 17! I still can't stop laughing! Isn't my hubby just the funniest ever?

First shooting session

I've decided to try my hand at professional photography (the camera was expensive, I need to put it to good use!). So to get some practice I volunteered to do my nephew's pictures. His mother and I had already decided to try this a few different days because 2 years old can be difficult when you want them to do something they don't want to do. I think that was a good idea. If we can get a few good pictures each time it well be well worth it.
Here is a sampling of my favorite pictures from today.
We had a hard time getting him to look at the camera, hold still, and smile at the same time. But they still turned out nice.



Then we decided to enlist some help from his favorite kitty Friendly. Friendly beats up all the other cats on the farm, but he is great with Preston. He just sits there patiently while Preston plays with him. I've never seen such a calm cat with a young toddler before.

These next two pictures are my favorites. The best smiles we got today were because of Friendly. The first smile came when his mom walked in the room with the cat.

The other great picture was just as Friendly jumped out of the wagon. For once I had PERFECT timing.

Playing with Friendly when we've had enough of the picture taking.

At one point we decided to get some pictures in a little rocking chair so we moved the wagon into the bathroom across the hall. It broke his heart.

These last few pictures I took while we were taking a break from taking pictures.

This picture would have been so cute if I hadn't turned my camera off before hand. I walked in to check on Preston and saw two heads peeking out from beneath the bed. His and another cats. By the time I got my camera on and zoomed in correctly the cat was gone and Preston was getting up to chase her.

How warm is your house?

We don't really use a thermometer to see how warm our house is. Instead we use what we have come to call the "bear rug."

This is what Zipper looks like on the couch when the house is cold or an okay temperature, but really that's another way of him saying "not warm enough."

This is what Zipper looks like when the house is nice and cozy.

Notice how he is all spread out like a bear rug?

Yep, we try to keep it warm for our kittens.

Where is the other 2 kittens while Zipper is warming himself on the couch?

Well Missy never goes far from the fireplace.

She lays there when there is a fire to keep her warm.

And she lays there when there isn't a fire burning to remind us that we need to build a fire.
And Pyro? She sleeps where ever she pleases.
Even place she knows we don't like her to be.

A new picture of me

I had Josh take a picture of me this morning while playing the piano. He was so excited to use my new camera! Now I can replace one of the pictures on our online profiles that I don't like. Plus, I knew my grandma would be mad at me if I didn't post a picture of me playing the piano.

This is the picture I put on the profiles.

Oh, and a quick update. Parent Profiles recieved the paperwork we were required to send in. Now they are just waiting for the paperwork that has to come from our caseworker. I believe those were mailed in on Wednesday. I hope we will be online with them next week.

I'm not sure what this does...

It came with the bigger zoom. I think it has to do with lighting or shading, or something like that. I did just look in my owner's manual and I can't find anything on it. I really need to watch the DVD's that came with my camera...
So I tried it out. This first picture I didn't have it on.
When I went to put the thing on my lens I realized it would only fit the bigger lens and I had used the smaller lens. That is is why the zoom is greater on this second picture. That and I didn't stand in the same place because I had to dig out the second lens. I don't know if I can tell a difference, I'll have to keep playing with it.