newborn pictures

I really hadn't planned on having newborn pictures taken of Harper.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I'd looked into it, but decided that I wasn't going to do it because of all the other expenses we'd had with her adoption and our trip to Oklahoma.  But, once we got home I decided to just go ahead and do them.  I'm so glad we did.

Photographer

six

This cutie turned six a few days before Halloween.

He got to be the VIP in Kindergarten that day, and I took treats in to his class.

He chose Sizzler for dinner.

His cake request was very specific...chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a lot of green sprinkles.

We sure love this kid and are so glad he's in our family!

A few days later we got to have a fun visit with his birth family.  So grateful for open adoption!

random harper pictures

It's so fun having a baby (girl!) in our house!

Army pants still are alive and well.

We can't wait for Mimi and Papa to get home to meet Harper!

Its never too early for a new Beaver Believer!

If you couldn't tell, we adore her.

happy birthday/black island farms

Kyle's birthday was the week after we got home.

He and Bosten went to Red Robin for a lunch date.

We went to Black Island Farms for our yearly fun and to celebrate Kyle's birthday.

We had a great time! The weather was perfect and we stayed way longer than we'd planned on. Then, we rushed home for cake.

harper's story...part 6

We happened to be in Oklahoma the week of the big rivalry game between Oklahoma and Texas. It was crazy (way crazier than any of the rivalries we've been around). We figured we might as well join in the fun.

We went bowling.

We decided to pack up and move to Tulsa (about 3 hours away) so that we'd be there and ready for fingerprints first thing on Monday morning.

We checked out the Tulsa zoo.  It was freezing cold that day, so we didn't stay as long as we might have otherwise...it was still fun, though.

We waited a few days after fingerprints before Oklahoma finally gave us the green light to go home. Utah was pretty quick, and once we got the official go, we headed straight for the airport.

We were delayed getting out of Tulsa, and had enough time to get off the plane and walk to our new gate before boarding in Denver.  Otherwise, it was an uneventful trip.

We were so glad to be home, and everyone was pretty exhausted. Our fun friends had decorated the front of our house. I'm sad I didn't get a picture of it....it was windy during the night, and the next morning it was trashed.

harper's story/vacation...part 5

Thursday we checked out Oklahoma City. 

Our first stop was Pops, on Route 66.

There were a million different choices of soda...we each picked one, and then over the course of the next few days, tried them all.

We got Zombie Brains, Bug Guts, Strawberry, Peach, Root beer and Bacon.  They were all pretty good, except for the Bacon. It was completely nasty and about made the boys throw up.

Next, we went to the National Cowboy Museum.  It was a little boring and a little fun, according to the boys.

We took a water taxi ride on the canal along Bricktown.

We went to a Military Museum. 

You can imagine how much the boys loved it.

It was actually pretty cool.

After dinner at Olive Garden, we called it a day.

We got an email later that night about a couple of issues that had come up with the ICPC paperwork.  Most of it was easily addressed, but they were asking for FBI background checks.

We didn't have those.  Utah requires a background check (which we'd done), but not an FBI fingerprint/background check.  We were on the phone all day on Friday trying to figure out what/how we were going to get it fixed...we talked to the state of Oklahoma and the state of Utah, the Arizona attorney, the Oklahoma attorney, LDSFS, our LDSFS caseworker, etc. It was stressful! 

We took the kids to a movie, but between Kyle and I both we probably saw half of it. The phone kept buzzing and someone would jump up and run out to see what the latest was.  By the end of the day on Friday, we'd figured out that we would do an expedited background check first thing on Monday morning. We had appointments for 9am to get fingerprints done.  Until then, we had to wait...