Family Pictures

My friend, Whitney, took our family pictures this weekend. 

(Thanks again, Whitney! And thank you, Katie,  for the girls' matching shirts! )

I love these pictures, and have loved editing them. 

For me, family pictures are treasures. They mean so much to me.

These are some of my favorites (more to come!).

I especially love pictures of the girls. They change so much, so quickly. And I confess that I added the sun flare on this picture of  Sami. It's just too fun with photoshop.  

Jonathan isn't really this much taller than me. I told him I didn't want to be taller so he is standing on a dirt pile.

Pictures For Daddy

This past week it rained, and then the temperature really dropped. In the morning, the girls wanted to go outside and I told them to bundle up because it was cold out. It was 52 degrees. Which, in our defense, is cold for us desert dwellers. It just cracked me up that they were dressed up for snow and ice. I texted Jonathan at the hospital and told him about our girls being dressed for the artic, and he responded that I should take pictures, because it is so funny. Our girls don't know what weather is. ☺

And then Jonathan gave the girls some Halloween candy that turned their tongues black. He thought it was so funny that he lined them up and had me take a picture with their tongues out. It's this kind of thing that makes Dads so great. I would have just told them to go brush their teeth.  

And on a personal note, I got my Young Women Recognition Award this week! When I was a Young Women, I finished my Personal Progress right before I left YW. Back then, you got 4 necklaces, one for each age and a big necklace when you finished all the Personal Progress. I got all 4 necklaces in one Sunday because I put off the program. Then my mom became  YW President in our ward and that all changed. She strongly encouraged me to work on Personal Progress.  And I am so glad I got my award as a Young Women.

And I have been a YW leader for a long time (5 years: 2 years in MO, and 3 years here in AZ). The whole time I have been a leader, I have been encouraged to do the YW Personal Progress Program. But it's easy not to do it. I was busy with work, and then acquiring babies, then raising babies, etc. And since I felt like I put my heart as well as my time into my calling, I didn't feel about not doing it. But I got to a spot in my life where I realized that I could do the program and I really wanted to do the program. Now, let me say, I did the modified program for the leaders. And I think it's awesome that the Church recognizes that as leaders, we do 10 hour projects ALL the time so they modify the program for us.   

I have been working on my Personal Progress just about every day for the past three months, and it felt so good to be done and get my necklace! I felt like I had really accomplished something big in my life. I do have a testimony of Personal Progress and I am going to strongly encourage my girls to do the program too. Even better, I'll do it with them and get another necklace to add to my collection ☺!

Adoption Ramblings

November is National Adoption Awareness Month. 

I love adoption.

Yesterday Jonathan and I went to the Southwest Region Adoption Conference. 

It was amazing.

I had a feeling we should go when I saw the class line-up. And miracle of miracles, Jonathan had the day off. My sweet mother-in-law babysat the girls so we could go. It was such a blessing to be there with my husband and know that the kids were having so much fun with their Grandma at home. 

Now, let me just say, that we are not in the adoption process right now. If I am still not pregnant when Jonathan is done with residency, we may start again. It's just that we never got to go to something like this conference when we were going through the process with Sami. And people told us it was awesome. It did not disappoint.

We took classes on raising a blended family (meaning adopted kids and biological kids), how to talk to your kids about the birds and the bees, how to help an adopted child develop a sense of identity, and classes about adopting trans-racially. It was so informative and I thought a lot about Sami, our experience, and her birth family.  

I also learned that foster parents are my ultimate heros. That our birthmom is really, really amazing. And that we were really blessed with our birth family and our experience. Things that I often taken for granted should not be taken for granted.

We came home and the girls were so excited to see us and that always makes my heart happy. That night for book time, Sami brought me the "How I Was Adopted Book," which I thought was interesting. So we read the story and talked about her adoption. I am pretty sure that Janie thinks she is adopted too. Sami's birth family are so thoughtful, they always remember Janie too. So I am sure they will claim her too until she comes to terms with the fact that she was, in fact, not adopted. Because adoption is pretty cool in our house.