I love OSU football (and BYU)

I've been looking for one of these on the Beavers and Cougars websites for weeks! Here we go...4 days and counting until the beginning of football!

YAHOO.

Better than George's

Kaden was really wanting to plant a garden this spring. Why you ask?!...because Curious George did one and got carrots. We thought it was a great idea too, except that our house was for sale. We did the next best thing: planted carrots in a big pot. I took pictures when we started, but they're on our other computer.

Getting ready to pick the carrots

Showing off our success

Washing them off

Getting ready to take that first bite

Kaden was thrilled with our crop, and can't wait to do it again next year. Hopefully we can do a little bit bigger of a garden! Kaden also informed me that they were better than George's...guess that means we were a success!

We're ready

We're only a little over a week away until the start of college football season! We are so ready! We've made trips to the Beaver fan shop (while we were in Oregon) and down to Provo to the BYU bookstore.

We've got our football tickets.

go beavers!

go cougars!

Prayer trading

I've been thinking alot about adoption lately...maybe since we're on the home stretch with finalizing Bosten's adoption....or maybe because we have friends trying to adopt...or maybe because its not that long until we can start the whole rollercoaster ride again

(Bosten has to be one).

I didn't get to go to the National Families Supporting Adoption Conference that was in Utah recently. I was really bummed about it too. What a great resource for people involved in adoption! We had just gotten home from Oregon, Kyle was working, I didn't have a babysitter, blah, blah, blah.

I'm especially bummed since I missed Troy Dunn.

He is a former BYU football player, current LDS bishop (in Florida) who has a show on cable, "The Locater". Its a great show. He was the keynote speaker at the conference. I haven't gotten to read his whole talk yet, but loved this:

"My mom introduced the beautiful concept of adoption in a very simple manner," Brother Dunn said. "She said, 'There is something that is called prayer trading, and we're going to trade prayers with somebody. Somewhere out there is a girl praying for a good family for her baby. We are going to pray for a good tummy with a baby in it, and we are going to answer each others' prayers.' "

I love that.

Next year I'm going to the conference. Anyone want to come?

Heather? Tarrin? Melissa?

Anyone else?

Its a date.

Summer fun...and not so fun

Here's what we've been up to the last couple of weeks.

Grandma came to visit.

The boys think its really funny to make hats out of their shirts.

We went to Lagoon. Kaden has been DYING to go, and we finally went. He loved it and had "one of the best days ever". His favorites were the Oddessy, the Log Plume, and the Water Rapids. So fun.


Watching a movie is WAY better when you can do it in the laundry baskets!

Lindz and Cory are putting a walk out in their basement. There's been a huge pile of dirt in the backyard that was so fun to play in.


On the day they were cutting the foundation, it set the smoke alarms off in the house. They are hardwired in the house, so the whole house was SCREETCHING and it scared the kids to death. Riley and Kaden snuggled under the pillows and plugged their ears. Pretty cute.


And, today was tubes day! Here's Bosten in his cute little jammies looking so tired before his surgery.

He was not a happy little boy when we got to see him. He only wanted his Momma and it took awhile to finally calm down.

He got to have some juice and I finally was able to rock him to sleep...just in time for them to take his vitals again and wake him up! At least we got to go right after that. He drank some juice in the car, snuggled his "moo cow", and held my hand:

Another month

Just wanted to give you a quick update on Bosten. The birth father has 30 days to appeal the judge's decision to throw out/dismiss the case. His whole argument and case was that he signed the registry on time. Good for him. The dummy (Sorry. Actually, that's quite nice compared to what I could say!) didn' t think all of the other stuff mattered?

Stuff like:

a conviction in his criminal case

him taking a plea deal (where he admitted guilt)

admitting guilt during his deposition

serving jail time at the moment

Thankfully the law is very specific in regards to stuff like this. We're feeling very confident that its over...just got to wait to make sure there's no other surprises. Hallelujah. Maybe this can be finalized before his first birthday!

Bosten

I know that you've been wondering about how the court hearing went yesterday. Sorry for not posting sooner...we've been waiting for a phone call that still hasn't come with more details. Anyway, the judge dismissed the case (HALLELUJAH!). But, gave the birth father 30 days to appeal (seriously, how many chances does he get?!) We're not sure how that makes everything play out. We should hear tomorrow for sure. We're also working on some small details the state requires for finalization since we're staying with my sister and brother-in-law. Hopefully we can get everything wrapped up and DONE.

Thank you so much for the prayers, fasting, texts, phone calls, emails, etc. We have felt your love and support and couldn't get through all of the stress without you.

We took Bosten for his 9 month appointment today:

weight: 20.1 lbs (41st percentile)

height: 30 inches (80th percentile)

head circumference: can't remember!

-He's working on getting his 2 top teeth.

-Loves cheese, pears, chicken nuggets, cheerios, Wendy's frosty

-LOVES swimming and baths with Kaden

-Is not sleeping through the night (again). Seems like everytime he has an ear infection it throws him off.

-Speaking of which, he's scheduled for tubes in his ears next Friday.

-Loves playing with Kaden, taking walks in the stroller, playing with toys

As always, we'll keep you posted!

Oregon

We went to Oregon last week for 9 days. It was nice to get away and we did some really fun stuff:

Visited Kyle's brother (and family) in Baker City...along with Kyle's dad who happened to be there visiting. LAME that there's no pictures.

Visited my Grandma in Hermiston. Again, LAME that I didn't take pictures!

Played cowboys with cousins

Got to stay in a motel and swim in their pool.

Stopped at Multnomah Falls

...and ate a sno cone when we were done!

Picked berries

We caught the end of raspberries and hit blueberries just right. They were SO GOOD

Ate at Mo's (TWICE!) and at Burgerville.....mmmm

Hung out with Grandpa Fred and Grandma Patty at their house (at the beach!)

Made smores on the front deck

Flew a kite at the beach



Went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory

Ate ice cream and cheese while we were there..

...and Bosten got a new stuffed friend (a cow)

Which you can see he loved and kept pretty close!

Kyle and Kaden rode the steam train down to Rockaway Beach and back.

Kyle went out in the boat with Grandpa Fred and my uncle to get the crab traps...then we got fresh crab for dinner!

Went to Garabaldi Days (including the parade)

and of course....

WENT TO THE BEACH!

It looks like it was awful weather...it wasn't, it was actually really nice except for when we were on the beach. It was definately sweatshirt weather, but as soon as we got back to the car it was too warm for sweatshirts!