My head is swimming with things I could blog about. House stuff. Adoption stuff. Mom stuff. Just about any and all stuff. But the biggest and most overwhelming thought right now is,

Good gracious they are a good looking couple!

Ready or not, there she goes!

She walked right past us, down the hall, and into the classroom. I blinked, and when I didn't see her anymore my heart started to race and then I heard, "she's in here!" Apparently, she heard the other kids and then helped herself to the toys after waving "hi" in some poor sniffling little girl's face. Two months early, my kid took herself to nursery. Three hour church is much more fun now with toys, snacks, and don't forget kids her size. If I thought I was distracted before, trying to keep her entertained during Sunday School, it was nothing compared to today.

I resisted the urge to check on her every five minutes. Husband only caved three times. Three different times he got up and went to peek in the window.

She did great.
We did not.

It's true what they say, you blink and they're gone.

Another Letter

Sometimes you need a nudge in the right direction. Other times you need a cattle prod. I got my swift kick in the butt this morning. So, I sat down to write this- another letter.

Dear Birth mommy/daddy,

We pride ourselves on being honest, so I honestly have to tell you that this is one of the hardest letters we've ever written. What we really want to say is, “pick us!” “pick us!” “pick us!” I don't see that going over very well, though. The beauty of the situation is that no matter what we say, we truly believe that there is a force and a love greater than we can begin to comprehend when it comes to adoption. We know that the decisions you face are gigantic and hold long lasting consequences. There are also tremendous blessings that come through the same process. We can vouch that it has blessed our lives. Hands down probably the greatest blessing we've ever been given has been the blessing of raising our daughter, Kensley. We are excited at the thought of parenting another little boy or girl. We feel like our kids are the lucky ones. Because of adoption, they get even more people to love them. It is important for us to raise our children with the knowledge that they were adopted because they were loved. We love them, but also that the decision to place is a choice made in love and that is something to admire and feel special about.

We would like to tell you about our family. There's John, Yannette, our sixteen-month old daughter Kensley, our dog Jedi, our dog Ani, and cat Chevy. We have been married for almost six years. The first year we brought home the cat, the third our first puppy, the fourth our second puppy, and then not quite two years ago we brought home our daughter Kensley. She might have been the most recent addition, but all our worlds revolve around her. If giving our children a safe loving home where they are doted upon, showered with hugs and kisses, given love and attention is spoiled, then yes- our daughter is spoiled. And it will remain our goal to spoil all our children! Our home is pretty casual in nature and we like to think “the more the merrier”. Our best times are just hanging out with family and friends around good food and maybe a movie, but mainly just good food.

We are both the oldest of three sisters. John was raised in Utah with his sister by his mom and then when he was nine she married Tom, his dad, and had two more little girls. They then moved to California to build a new life! Yannette was raised in Mexico until the age of six with three little sisters all very close in age and then at 12 her parents divorced. When her mom married her Dad, they also moved to California to build a new life! We have decided to make California our home and look forward to raising our family here.

Yannette has a hard time sitting still so she is always working on some knitting, crocheting, or quilting project. She has even been spotted knitting in the car and in the movie theater. John loves to read and fly RC helicopters. He is into learning as much as he can about everything. His job as an electrical engineer is a perfect fit. Yannette is a mom and a nurse. And in that order. Being parents is our number one priority, but we are also blessed to have the opportunity and the flexibility in both our schedules that allows for Yannette to work part time. She works one day a week and John works four. We take the tag-team approach to parenting. It is important to us both that John be as actively involved as possible. We love nothing more than just hanging out together doing just about anything.

Kensley is an active little girl with a lot of energy and lots of words. Her most recent phrase is, “I know.” It sounds weird to describe a fifteen-month old as having a sense of humor, but this kid does. She crack us both up. Not to mention she's just plain adorable. “Outside!” is another favorite word. This is good because we spend a lot of time out there. Going for bike rides, the park, hiking, camping, kayaking, a barbecue- you name it. If it's outside, we're there. Being able to be outside almost year round is one of our favorite things about California. With Kensley talking so much now and constantly picking up new phrases, our ability to speak Spanish may come in handy sooner than we thought. Yannette was raised bilingually and John learned while serving an LDS mission in Mexico. This is just one of the things about each other that just seemed to click when we met.

Should we get to meet you, we would give you a hug and tell you how grateful we are for you. Thank you for your example of love and sacrifice. If we don' get that chance, just know that we still think those things! If you have any questions for us, or would like to get to know us better we are never more than a phone call or e-mail away. We sign all of our letters to our daughter's birth mom with the phrase, “thanks for being you!” and want you to know the same thing.

Thanks for being you!

John, Yannette, and Kensley

Hi!

Required Reading

Please check out this post.

You'll be sorry you missed out if you don't listen to me. It's kind of like the telephone game in blogland, but well worth the effort.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

My vote for the most played out phrase of the decade goes to, "going green". As in "go green" or "I'm going green".

What does that mean anyway? Where does one go to get green? Become green. How do you get green? I don't even get "it".

To me it means spending green on things that are green. That, like, totally makes sense. Cuz the the fibers and everything are, like, totally organic!

Thanks Flickr.

Yes! If you use my logic, you too can somehow justify knitting as "going green". Because somehow if it's you label it "green" it's got to be good, better even, than just plain not green. At any rate, it's all coming in the mail hopefully this week. Maybe the box will be green.

Good old Kermit would have a cow (the second most played out phrase). He'd tell me that "it's not easy being green". Well, I'm not probably not on the list of Kermit's very favorite people anyway.

Come on. Even you have to admit that's pretty green. How much more organic do you get than knit frog guts?

Knitting in Biology 101

Do we even have to address the movie reference? If you didn't know without blinking where it came from, we may have to reconsider our friendship. You will have to come to terms with fact that I have The Princess Bride memorized. That should be easy to deal with compared to knitting amphibians.

Pictures clockwise
Inga hat
Fiona's top
Hemlock Ring Blanket
Little Bubbles
Mitered Square hanging towel
Cabled Wrap
Fetching

Booyah!

I got this dress (originally $120.00) for seven dollars. Granted, I can't wear it for seven months, but still...

And you thought the Mayor lacked patience.