Family Party 2010

Kayla, Eric, Cayleb, & J.T. playing horse shoes

The Boys playing in the field

Carter, Holli and Mason

Heather and Justice

Carter and Mason

Zach and Jessi

Larin and Holli roasting marshmallows

Jessika and Makenna

Kacy and Whitney

Morgan enjoying a smore

Eric, Cayleb and J.T. throwing the balls

at Mom and Wendy sitting on the deck

Mom and Wendy dodging balls

Larin, Troy, Heather and Jessi

Kabree giving Whitney a love

Mattie

playing ladder ball

J.T. and Eric

Zach and Kabree

One of the things I look forward to the most every year is my families party. Now that my siblings have kids having kids and going to college it's not that often that we are all together in one place. I love seeing all of my nieces and nephews and being able to just visit with the whole family. Shawn just had back surgery this year so he wasn't able to make it :(.

This year we did it at Troy and Wendy's. It was perfect to be able to have our fire pit for roasting marshmallows and a big enough garage that we could eat in when it started raining :). We had horse shoes, ladder golf, the WII inside and for the kids all they cared about is the water; they played in the creek the WHOLE time. Zach and I go to Troy and Wendy's a lot; what can I say they are two of my favorite people, so to us it was a ton of fun to watch others see how fun their place is.

Wendy taught the kids to roast star burst; which I wouldn't try, and they went crazy, they thought they were the best thing ever. Zach I think roasted a whole bag of marshmallows by himself.

The kids roasting starburst

We decided to have everyone write a letters to my Dad and Mom to thank them for all they have done and the reasons we love them. My parents both thought it was for the other one so they were a little surprised when it was for both of them. We made Heather do all of the talking and explain how much they mean to us and why we did this for them, she wasn't very happy with us about that :).

The binder of letters

Mom and Dad reading their letters

On Saturday Zach made a 5 hour trip to go pick up Pal so my Dad could sit and enjoy the grandkids. Cayleb and J.T. kept him company though so it wasn't too bad he said. We just hung out at the house all day. It was kind of nice to just visit and watch the kids play.

Kabree meeting Pal for the first time

We had a lot of fun and are so grateful to Troy and Wendy for letting everyone come and crash their place.

It's Official!

We have officially been approved and are back on the LDS adoption waiting list. We started our paper work April 13 and just got approved today. So, please help us spread the word, tell anyone and everyone you know we are hoping to adopt baby number two and anyone interested can find all of our info on our adoption blog and through our LDS profile. The tough thing about adoption is it is all in other peoples hands, your case workers, friends helping spread the word and that one special girl that decides you are her couple. We feel so lucky for how great our first adoption went and are really excited to start our second adoption journey!

First Week of Summer

Kabree wanted to bowl too

Shay

Ethan

Gary

Zach

We have had a very busy week. Shay and Ethan came to visit for the week, well Shay is actually still with us ; ). We promised them we would do one fun thing a day and well it ended up being a little crazy but a TON of fun! We went the the pet store with the outdoor petting zoo so that the kids could ooo and ahhh over all of the cute little baby animals. Gary and Sally met up with us a day at the bowling alley. Kabree loved running around the whole place. She really wanted to run down the lanes but we wouldn't let her. After bowling we headed back to the house where Gary and Sally treated us to pizza. Then we played round of Sneaks.

Shay, Jessi and Kabree on our hike

Shay was scared Zach would smash her

Shay wanted a picture by the water ;)

Zach, Ethan and Gus

Gus taking Ethan for a run!

Our picnic

After church we decided to head up to the mountains for a picnic and a little hike. Ethan insisted on being the one to walk Gus, it ended up that Gus basically dragged Ethan the whole time so Ethan got a nice Sunday jog in : ). Kabree was in heaven being outside even if she was in the stroller for most of it.

Shay wanted me to make her toes

look like pink lemonade

Ethan making his shot

Shay is such a girl, she posed for the pic

instead of throwing the disc

Kabree loved watching the kids play

I had to threaten to get this picture

(at this point the sibling love was out the window

these two get very competitive)

This is the best pic I could get of Zach throwing

I tell him he looks crazy when he plays

Shay and I of coarse had to do our nails, I'm surprised we went as many days as we did before doing them. I got new fruit decals for nails so I've been making people let me experiment on them. So Shay said she wanted pink lemonade. After our nails dried we all played a round of disc golf. Zach wanted to try out a new coarse. Ethan and Shay would throw their discs and then run to find them just to hurry and throw them again. They did it more as a race. We got rained out so we only did 6 holes but the kids still had fun. Later that night Matt set up a fire pit in their back yard so we headed over to their house to roast marshmallows. Until we again got rained out, but the kids were pretty much done anyways so it was ok.

Jessi trying to teach Kabree

how to jump on the tramp

The girls helping Matt get the fire going

Chase, Libby & Shay

Ethan thought it was cool to burn them all

Libby showing us how yummy they were

Justice was mad Heather made him wait

Hanna wanted a pic or her eating her smore

Zach helping Kabree

We headed up for a quick visit to Troy and Wendy's this week too. Which means LOTS of really good food ;). Ethan stayed back to hang out with Chase but Shay didn't want to miss out on hanging out with Whitney. Shay and I made Whit do our hair for the day and we got to just enjoy being with Troy, Wendy, Whitney and Cayleb.

We have had so much fun and are excited to see what the next week ho

lds in store for us!

Whitney doing Shay's hair