One Year Anniversary

I'm taking a break from detailing our Utah trip because it's our forever family anniversary. Today, one year ago, Dallin was sealed in the temple to Zane and me. If you want to read the original post about that day then click here. Maybe it is because it was just a year ago, but I can't let this day go by without celebrating when we were sealed together as a family. A year ago we went to court on the 22nd to finalize the adoption, then on the 23rd we were sealed, and finally on the 24th Dallin had his baby blessing in church. What a fantastic weekend.

In celebrating this day, I had to pull out my favorite adoption CD, "Chosen: Songs of Hope Inspired by Adoption" and listen to my favorite song, the song we listened to non stop a year ago on the way to the temple. It is sung by one of the women in my Families that Support Adoption group, Elizabeth Brown. The song is about waiting patiently for God to answer our prayers and turning over our trials to Him. It was a hard lesson to learn for Zane and me to give up control to God and to wait patiently for His plan and timing to come forth. It was a lesson well worth learning. The chorus is:

All that's been promised

All Heaven offers

Everything I could ever need

If not today

Then surely tomorrow

If I can keep the faith

If only I can wait

Patiently

At the temple that day, we felt like all that God had promised us was being fulfilled. God's answer to our prayers was better then we could ever imagine. If keeping the faith during hard times means blessings like Dallin in our lives, then we will gladly do again whatever we are asked to do.

What Every Mom Needs to Know If You are Taking a Roadtrip with an 18 Month Old

If you are planning on taking a road trip with babies, then here is your need to know list:
(We learned this the hard way after taking the 24-hour road trip to and from Utah for my Grandpa's funeral.)

1. Practice with your toddler before the trip watching TV, lots of TV. Expose them to so many different age-appropriate shows that they are addicted to watching movies. Although your doctor, and really any good mom, does not agree with this, it is a must if you are traveling on a long road trip.

2. As you practice watching TV, teach your toddler to use ear phones. If you try ear phones for the first time in the car, then they will pull them off and probably break them. Without earphones, the whole car gets to enjoy the beautiful sounds of Sesame Street, Barney and Curious George over and over and over again!

3. Along with practicing watching TV, watch lots of movies. In a 24-hour road trip, it is much more enjoyable if the toddler can watch a Disney movie. This entertains for two hours versus 30 minutes and the adults enjoy these too (somewhat). Since a toddler's attention-span can only last a few minutes, practice makes perfect. Remember watch a lot of movies at home. (Again, doctors and any good mom would disagree, but movies really would have made the car ride more enjoyable.)

4. Buy lots of movies before the trip (although if you are following the above rules you will have a nice collection and probably a couch potato, unhealthy toddler.) If you only have one Barney movie, one Sesame Street movie, and one Curious George movie, then you are likely to go crazy and have the movies memorized!

5. Having another kid in the car provides more entertainment for your toddler. It is best if this kid is older so that when the toddler falls asleep, they can put in their earphones, watch a movie, and let the toddler get the much needed sleep (and the adults get a reprieve.) If you do put two toddlers together, they will entertain each other. The down side is, that there will be no sleeping in the car. When one falls asleep, the other wakes them up within 30 minutes. No sleep equals screaming!

6. Buy earplugs for yourself. At some point there will be screaming because your toddler will be so excited about this new experience, they will not sleep!!! If the toddler isn't sleeping then no one is sleeping (except my dad who can sleep through Dallin poking at his glasses and saying "eye.")

7. Do not under any circumstances (even if your doctor has told you to) take away pacifiers before a trip. A pacifier, or plug, is a must for long trips. If you have rules such as pacifiers can only be used during sleeping, throw that out the window. Pacifiers must be used at all times so even if you are in the process of breaking the habit, give in. It is the best and only way.

8. If you are traveling with a group, switch adults around especially grandma (and grandpa too if he is awake). The car with a four year old who watches movies with earphones and a sweet angel princess should not have grandma to themselves. (I'm not bitter or anything.) :)

9. Actually, scratch number 8. Put all the babies in one car with one person, and everyone else in the other car. Rotate the person and driver who are with the babies out after a couple of hours as they will have a massive headache.

10. And finally, insist on driving. Driving means not entertaining one year olds for 24 hours. People who insist on driving make you feel like they are doing a favor for you, but really, they get the break from non stop entertainment.

Follow the above rules and maybe your long road trip will be better then ours!!!

Zane Turned 30!

The impromptu vacation to Utah for my grandpa's funeral meant that Zane celebrated his birthday with his family for the first time in many, many years. This was probably the best present ever which was good since our last minute leaving meant I hadn't finished buying presents and his surprise party (which was suppose to happen the day we left) was cancelled. Zane is the second youngest of 8 kids, so we are a pretty big group altogether. They are all close and love hanging out together. Moving to Texas meant that Zane misses out on a lot of camping trips, paint balling, and other silly thing his brothers and brother-in-laws think of doing (like letting Zane's older brother tazer each of them. I think they were proving how manly they are. I thought it proved how much wiser women are since we all refused to do it.) I'm glad we were able to celebrate with his family especially to see how happy it made Zane.

Trying to light candles out doors in the wind. We gave up eventually.

Blowing out whatever candles were lit. Dallin was very excited.

Group pictures of all the cousins

Zane's family minus his sister's family who live in CA, his mom who was on vacation, and a couple brother-in-laws.

Luckily, no one blew our secret and so when we returned, I rescheduled Zane's surprise party. We had some troubles with this too and thought our cover story (my brother pretending to take Zane to a movie then happening to stop over at our Bishop's house for the party, was pretty lame), but Zane bought it and was surprised. We had a great time swimming and eating. Thanks to the Little's for letting us come over!

So Zane, we all love you and hope you had a great birthday month! You are the best husband, dad, son, brother, friend we could ever ask for!

A Great Man

I'm a little late in posting this, but it has been written in my mind for a couple of weeks now. My grandfather passed away a few weeks ago. He has been ill for awhile, but his health deteriated quickly even more over the last two months. I think we all were grateful that he was finally able to return and continue his mission on the other side. My grandma wanted his funeral to be a celebration of his life, and that is what it was. My grandpa was a great man.

We saw him last in April on our last visit to Utah. I got to know my grandpa a lot better as an adult when I went to BYU for school and then on vacations back to Utah with Zane. He worked with special education and education, especially behavior management, were his hot topics. I enjoyed talking to him about my job and ask his advice on behavior problems I dealt with in the classroom. He also loved talking about politics, and a couple times we would watch the O Reilly Factor at night together when he would visit us in Houston. I also enjoyed talking about the gospel with him. When I was in college, we would usually come up to SLC and watch conference with my grandparents. I will always remember my grandpa being full of wisdom.

Recently, I have enjoyed watching my grandpa interact with Dallin. Grandpa loves watching the children and interacting with them. He had a hard time moving around a lot, but he loved to just sit and watch the kids run around him!

I did another post before on my grandparent's talents, but again, my house is full of their work. My grandpa is an artist, and when you come into my home, all the paintings and sketches are his. Dallin was lucky enough to get one of himself too.

I'm sure the reunion in heaven was wonderful between my grandpa and his family that passed on before him. I can also bet he is hard at work teaching the gospel. His legacy lives on in his grandchildren and great grand children.

My mom (in white) with her mom and brothers and sister.

Sit ups

After watching his mommy (my sister Haley) do sit ups all the time, Caleb started doing them. Whatever Caleb does, Dallin follows soon afterwards. In the video, Zane blames the boys ability to do sit ups on Haley's and mine excessive exercise, but in reality, I think you can tell by Dallin's form that more sit ups need to be done in our house! :)

Future Soccer Player

We have predicted before that Dallin will be a swimmer and basketball player, and now the latest is soccer. He loves kicking the ball around with his daddy and his cousin Drew.

Dallin's New Words

I can't believe how exciting it is when kids start learning new words. Each new word brings cheering and then performances for anyone who will listen as you show off your kid. This video is Dallin at 16 months showing off right before bath time (Dallin is almost 18 months so I'm a little behind in blogging.)

Dallin's favorite words at this point were: daddy, bus, milk, book, and ball. He really likes milk and book because of the k sound at the end. He emphasizes it making it sound German. Dallin rarely says mommy unless he is crying. When he sees me, I'm daddy too, which brings laughter to everyone around us when he points to me while I'm playing the organ in church and yells "daddy!" at the top of his lungs.