My poor me moment

In the adoption process I have made it a goal to not focus on infertility being the reason for us adopting. Although I know that it is the road that lead us to adoption I feel like adoption is not our second choice it is just another step towards starting out family. With this mind set infertility does not just disappear. I am sometimes reminded that I can't make a baby come (biological or through adoption) when I want it to come. I have no say  in the situation. All I know is that we have faith that if we are proactive about it our family will grow soon!

This weekend I had a moment that I was not proud of. Another goal of mine is to stay positive and not get jealous of others when I hear their good news of pregnancy and adoption. I feel like everything happens for a reason and I should not make a special moment for them about me and my trials. I should not need special treatment. This weekend  someone that I love announced their pregnancy in front of a large group in a really fun way. I was shocked and instantly started crying. I grabbed my husband and hurried away so that I could pull myself together before anyone noticed. In that moment I had thoughts like.... Why does it happen so fast for some people, this isn't fair, we have to try so hard and have gone through so much, why me. Kyle was great at letting me get those feelings out and being on my side while I had my pity party. As soon as I stopped crying I was totally embarrassed that I had done that. I just did what I promised myself I wouldn't. I made an awesome moment for someone else completely about me. As we went back to the party it was obvious that a few people knew I had been upset and I know they were trying to make me feel better. I appreciate their love and understanding. As we were leaving I talked to the momma to be and told her that I was sorry and that I am so excited for her family and her little one. She is so great so of course she was very nice to me about it and I hope she knows that I really am happy for her.

I guess this moment proved to me that I am not immune to feelings of infertility and longing for a baby. I have been saying (and it is true) that adoption has given me so much hope for our future and I have such a good feeling about it. I love that we can be proactive in finding a child. I just need to focus on what we CAN do instead of what is happening for other people.

Zoo Keeper

This summer Kyle has been working part time at the Willow Park Zoo. I love that his position title is zoo keeper! It is a very small zoo with mostly birds located in a park close to our house.  He has had a lot of fun and has learned some fun things. He even gets to pick up the huge python!

Adoption interviews... CHECK!

Today we met with our case worker for our individual and couple interviews. I was a little nervous, but it was very chill. Sara is great and she made us feel very comfortable. Usually at this point the case worker lets you know what you need to differently, but she said that she was very impressed with everything and no changes are needed! PHEW! So now there are a few minor things to finish online and then next week she is coming to do our home visit. After the home study visit she will compile all of our information from forms and from online and create what they call the home study. Once she is done she turns that in to her boss to be approved. This could take a month or less. It is beyond exciting that we will be approved so soon and especially now that we are finished with our part. Sara mentioned that it was awesome how fast we have gotten things done... haha guess I was stressing about that for nothing.
When we were done we took a silly picture because we were so excited!

Adoption update!

So it has been a while since I have given an update about our status. Well let's just start by saying that this summer has been crazy busy, mostly because of all the awesome plans we have had, but non the less super busy. I feel like we have every moment of the day planned out and not enough of those moments have been working on our paperwork. I have been kind of on a roller coaster of emotions this week mostly about feeling really bad about not being finished with our paperwork yet. I feel like I wouldn't want my future child to think we just took our time getting approved. And what if we missed our opportunity, maybe we felt urgency because there was a situation that we needed to hurry for. Also on the flip side we are actually very close to approval now. We just turned in all of our documents (finally... it took forever to get our stinkin birth certificates). We had a surprise new eight pages full of questions to fill out that we are finishing tonight as well as polishing up our profile to be perfect. We are meeting with our case worker Sara on Thursday to complete our interviews and hopefully she will tell us we are ready for the home study.
It is crazy to think that we are potentially going to be approved within the next few weeks. That means that at anytime we could get a call about a baby.... Yeah just got goosebumps! I feel like I am pretty prepared for whatever time frame this process will take, but I can't help but be anxious.
So now you all know how it is going! When we finally get approved we will be sending out pass along cards with our info so you all can spread the word for us :).  

The 4th was awesome this year!! We were a little bummed that we couldn't spend it with our family for the traditional 4th breakfast, but our day was so much fun!

We spent the afternoon at Bear lake just chilin on the beach.

Here we are after breaking for lunch.

When we got home we had a BBQ with our best friends Dara and Brian and their kids. The food was delish and we had a great time! Thanks for inviting us guys!

 

We ended the night with a fireworks show. We brought a few little fountains and Brian got a big aerial. Poor Aylan was so afraid of the fireworks.

We are so grateful for America and the freedoms that we have because of it. 

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

(Kyle enjoying delicious dutch oven peach-berry cobbler)

It has become a tradition that we go camping the week of Kyle's birthday. We invite everyone and whoever can come comes. This year he chose a campground up left hand fork canyon. 

Kyle getting ready to fish on the first morning. As you can tell he is super excited.

 Fixing a breakfast fit for a Birthday Man.

 My Dad enjoying the relaxation. We were so glad that my family came, we had a lot of fun with them!

 The campground was so beautiful. It reminded us of the Sacred Grove.

 Our site was right next to the river so we enjoyed cooling off.

 Mother looking lovely!

 We played jenga for the first time in years and I caught this picture of it tumbling.

 Having fun with my sister

I had to go for a run for my training and I took Toby. He was so tired after haha.

 Dan joined us for a day to hike and fish. We are so glad he came!

We really had a great time. We had fun and relaxed a lot which was so needed. We both felt like we could have stayed for another week (although there is nothing like a good shower after camping!).

Butler Family reunion.

So some people cringe when they think about family reunions, but we are not those people. We LOVE our family and have fun when we get together with everyone. The Butler (Kyle's mom's side of the family) family reunion is HUGE, it includes so many generations. We always have a cousin or aunt/uncle there that we know so it is nice to visit with them.

 The best part of this reunion is the races. They have races for every age group and everyone gets a prize for participating.

This year we hung out with Laura and Scott. They are Kyle's cousins and we love being able to see them since we don't get to see them often.

We missed a lot of family that wasn't able to make it. Laura and I were talking about doing a smaller reunion with just the aunt/uncles and cousins of our generation next year.