Shhhhhh

Don't tell Derek....I just realized that I used his toothbrush twice today. Man, mine is the pink one, the pink one, the pink one....hopefully that does it.

He loves me...He loves me not....He LovEs Me!

Cooper picked me flowers for the first time. He was so excited to give them to me, like he had come up with best idea ever invented. Sure they were from the garlic plant, so the house and his hands smelled...yummy (?)... for a while, but it made my day. Maybe picking flowers for mom is the best idea ever invented.

They're in

The tubes are in. Corbin did great. We'll know if the Doctor did great next week (smile).

I was worried about keeping food away from him this morning, but our check in time was 7:30 am. soo happy it was early. We slept in (in Corbin time) and got ready to go in about 15 min. so no food was easy.

We had plenty of new books and stickers to play with while we waited, and thanks to Kara, one book we bought really prepared him. The nurse thought it was so great, she took it from me to show the Doctors in surgery. They are planning to order a bunch.

Waking up from the anesthesia was hard, but he didn't get sick so hurray for small blessings. He is feeling well and after only one dose of Motrin hasn't complained of any pain.

Now we just wait for our coming visits to see if his hearing comes back. I think it will. Our new challenge...to keep 'em dry. That's gonna be tricky.

Thanks

I have the best friends. You are all so faithful and positive. I just wanted to say thank you for the helpful comments you left on my last post. Thank You.

I feel lots better. I feel calm and not so stressed.

Going to the temple was just what I needed. I realized that I have been given a special blessing. That is, I don't feel jealous of anyone who is pregnant....ever. I really honestly never get my feelings hurt or wish it was me when other people can have babies no matter how easily they come to them. It's like a whole separate part of my brain that doesn't even compare our situation to theirs {or yours}. I am not sensitive about it at all.

I know that is a blessing from my Heavenly Father. One I had never thought about.

I love to hear that my friends are expecting and I hope that you never hesitate to share that news with me. I may not be able to swap breast feeding stories with you, but I'm fine with that, and I still want to hear yours (smile). I do know that no matter how a baby comes to your family there is always worries that everything will be okay, and that I totally get.

HomeStudy

I have wanted to write about our Adoption Homestudy Visit this week...but it's really hard for me to put into words how frustrating the adoption process can be and at the same time express how much we love it.

We love that we have two of the cutest boys we could have ever dreamed of. We love them. They are ours and we feel so grateful to our Heavenly Father for helping to guide their birthparents (who we love) to find us. To help them make the difficult {understatement} decision to place their babies with us.

But it is hard feeling like another child is so out of our hands. Right now it is in the hands of an agency that looses our paperwork and doesn't remember the things they have told us. In the hands of a {new,young} case worker who will only be in the office a couple days this month, so there is no way she can do anything to get our profile on line until October. October!

But we are glad that the Church has this agency. We love that the birthparents get to chose who their baby will go to, not just to who ever is next on the list. I love that when Corbin was born our case worker said a prayer in his office before putting our profile in the binder that his parents would be choosing from. I'm thankful for that.

I know that this really is all in Heavenly Fathers hands. I know that He knew our paperwork would be misplaced a dozen times, even after we had been told it was all in.

But this time is stirring up all the feelings that infertility {I hate that word} brings with it. It's just like wondering each month it the test will be positive. Only this time it's wondering if our phone call will finally be returned, did they get our last set of paperwork....."No, sorry" or "Oh we just realized we don't have -----"; So we try again next month.

For couples who have already gone through years of this disappointment it just seems like paperwork should be the easy part. And I hate feeling like I'm complaining about paperwork while there are girls, women, out there trying to decided to keep or place their babies. I know it doesn't compare, this is really not hard.

So we are going to the temple tonight. I just need to feel that peace. I need to feel closer to my Heavenly Father. I need His comfort, to know He is with us through this. I want to pray for the birthparents of our next little baby. {Who ever they are, when ever they are} I want them to feel his love and strength. I'm sure we both need it.

Friends

Cooper and I were playing on the floor today and he threw himself on me and gave me a big tight hug and said:

I or fin mommy

(I your friend Mommy)

Em keep oo save ba guys

(I'm keep you safe from bad guys)

I mommy fin Cooper

(I mommy friend Cooper)

Sometimes I just want to eat him up he's so sweet.

Can't Go Anywhere With Out My Little GPS

This is my little back seat driver.

He can get us to: Grandmas House, the Grocery store, Target, the Mall, Candace's House, The Speech Therapists, The Doctors, The Dentist, The General direction of the Beach and Disney land, Church, School, and I'm sure a few other places.

He has a map in his head.

My favorite is when he tells me to "keep straighting".

I think being all buckled up takes a little control away from him, but being able to help me know which way to go gives him a little back. I'm sure it will come in handy someday....maybe he'll be a taxi driver when he grows up (smile).

Isn't this about the cutest bike ever. Click on it. Maybe one of us will win.

September 8th @ 11am.

We have our Home study date! That means that the adoption paperwork process is about to end and we will be officially up and waiting....I mean looking...(faith is an action word right (smile)) for our next baby!

Ahh it has taken forever for us to get to this point. A lot has changed at LDS Family Services when it comes to adoption, and it has been a longer than we expected process to finish all we have to do on our end. But there is a light. Oh how I have prayed and cried and hoped and worked for the light. And it's here.

I know this is really only the beginning. Adoption is unpredictable but has been so good to us. We are so hoping and praying for another little blessing to come to us.

MONDAY

Monday we are taking away the Binky! For good, cold turkey,adios.

Eggs Glorious Eggs

*So I decided to rewrite this post, it didn't like how long it was. Here is the abridged version.

After 2 years of having an egg free kitchen, Corbin has officially out grown his egg allergy!

Last night I made scrambled eggs for dinner, both Corbin and Cooper had no idea what they were looking at (poor deprived kids (smile)). Recognizing the confusion on Corbin's face I asked him what he thought it was.

Hmmm "butter popcorn with marshmallows inside" was his answer.

I can see his point. Yellow, fluffy...later he decided they were just "Marshmallow Power". I kinda like that. Long live "Marshmallow Power". Yippee we can have eggs again!

Hmmmmm

Hmmmmm is the sound that Corbin hears in his left ear all day long, hmmmm. Isn't that sad. It must be so annoying, like when you have a cold and your ears plug up and you feel like your head is in a bubble. I hate that.

Corbin needs ear tubes. I don't even know if I just said that right. I'm still trying to learn about this. He has fluid in one ear that is effecting his hearing so the ENT says he needs tubes.

Do any of you have any experience with this. I have no idea what to expect or how to prepare him for this. I'm not even sure what kinds of questions to ask the doctor and our next visit is just a few days before the procedure. I don't know how it will effect his daily life or how long he will need them in. The ENT says keep your ears out of the water the pediatrician says just wear ear plugs, neither of those sound great.

If any of you have any advice or know anything about it I'd love hear it.

2 Down

Corbin is off to his second day of Kindergarten. This morning taking him to his classroom I had to run to keep up with him....so I would say that so far he Loves Kinder!

Here is the traditional 1st day of school photos at the front doors, ours and his new classroom.

Finding a book

Reading the book on the carpet

(thinking I can do this, I can do this, I'm okay, I can do this)

Corbin said on the first day of school he:

read stories

colored- "teacher says don't scribble"

did ABC's

practiced writing circles and lines

had a snack

played on the monkey bars

didn't move his apple, it stayed up. (that means he was a good boy)

Most importantly he

HE RODE THE LONG BUS HOME

Three other little kids got off with him all from his same class. I didn't even know there were kids his age in our neighborhood. They all really wanted to play at each other's houses yesterday, I love that he is making new friends.

Cooper missed Corbin. All morning he kept asking for him and wondering around calling out his name. I also found him laying on the floor looking at Corbin's bus chart from preschool, just laying there saying "Corbin I miss you". So sweet.

And I have to say I did great. I took my friend Kori's attitude that Kindergarten is a fun new adventure and thought about all the excitement he was going to have instead of thinking about how I'll miss him and worrying about how he will get along with out me. And it work. I left without crying (not that crying is a bad thing, I did plenty with preschool) I did have Cooper there with me when I dropped him off yesterday so if I started to feel sad I just gave Coop a kiss. So that helped too.

We love Kindergarten.

The Beach Boys

Just wanted to post a few beach pictures before summer ended. We have been having so much fun going to the beach this year.

Corbin loves the water and loves the boogie board. He loves finding sand crabs and running and splashing around.
Cooper on the other hand still feels more at home in the sand....holes to be specific. If any one had abandoned a hole with in view, Cooper would spot it and take it over as his new seat and then just chill.

This one is just some proof that I was there too.

I'm Not Ready...

The count down till kindergarten is on.

I'm a little nervous......but I want Corbin to be excited, so we made a chain. That's just what we do around here.

I can't believe school starts next Wednesday. We are packing all the fun we can into the next few days. If you need us we'll be at the beach (smile).

HapPy BirThDay CorBin!

Corbin tuned 5 last week. On the day of his actual birthday we went to the beach. He has so much fun playing on the boogie board and jumping around in the water.

The next day we had his official party. This is the first year that Corbin invited friends to a birthday party and he was very excited. He knew just what he wanted...A Darth Vader Bowling Party.

His friends were all so darling. We started with a game of Star Wars Bingo while we waited for more kids to show up...(if anyone out there is thinking of doing a star wars party I'd be happy to share the game boards I made). They all had so much fun bowling and were so cute cheering for each other.

Of course Corbin thought all the gifts were fun too. He played with everything when we got home and did a great job saying thank you to his friends all on his own.

Making a bowling alley a cute place for a birthday has hard be we tried.

The Blowers on the chocolate cupcakes were a big hit.

One of Corbin's presents was a Darth Vader costume. It took him a little bit to warm up to it. When it comes to costumes I really think that Corbin believes that it is Darth Vader's actual clothes or maybe that people will think that he is the real Darth Vader, It makes him a little nervous to wear them at first. But once it was on he didn't want to take it off. He even slept in it that night.

I hope that Corbin had a wonderful birthday. We are so lucky to have him in our family! Man do we love this kid.

THE END

The best $2.50 I have ever spent.....

Cooper loves these sunglasses.

One fish, Two fish, Green and Blue fish

We are having lots of fun in the water this year. Corbin loved swimming lessons and is getting all around the pool with out floaties. Cooper took a little longer warming up to the whole pool thing but he loves it now too.

I love how exhausted the kids get from swimming and how easy they are to get to bed after a day in the sun and water. Ahh I love summer.

Happy 4th!

Hope you had a great 4th of July!

2 just kicked in

Cooper turned 2 May 1st but being 2 has just kicked in. Last week while he and I were driving around he started practicing his "No". This is what I heard, all cooper... "yes" "NO", "yes" NOOO", "YES" "no", "yes" NNNNOOOO", "yes" "no", "yes" nnnOOOO" and on and on. He was trying out all different ways to say "no".

Say a little prayer for me....