9 years of Wedded Bliss!!!!

So this week Troy and I will celebrate our 9th anniversary!! What a wonderful 9 years it has been. We have grown together as a couple. Troy is truly my best friend and I am so grateful for him in my life. We have moved away from family, bought houses, changed jobs, had 2 beautiful children, suffered infertility, depression, and death, and through it all we are closer than ever!! I have the best husband!!! So here are just a 9 of the many amazing things I love about my husband:
1--He is an AMAZING father!! The kids adore him. He always is playing with them, taking them out on daddy outings. He is always there to listen and love them!!

2--He listens when I have the need to chat his ear off at midnight even though he has to be up to work in the morning. (I have a tendency to be most chatty at night when the kids are asleep)

3--He is so smart and amazing at his job. He is constantly studying and trying to learn new things. He works so hard for us and for me to able to stay at home.

4--He is so funny!! He is like a big kid and loves to laugh and joke, make up little songs and dances to amuse the kids and me.

5--He is a great snuggler

6--He does dishes and vacuums regularly

7--He indulges my fantasies of living in Europe even though the liklihood of that happening is slim to none

8--He treats his mom, my mom, his sisters and my sister with such love and respect

9--He makes me laugh everyday, makes me feel important no matter what meeting he is in and I know that I always come first.

So here are some OLD pictures of us

This is our engagement pic. Don't we look so young? Thats cause we were!!
Here we are at our reception.Don't you love the 90's style dress and veil??
Here we are 1 year later after we were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple!! I was 5 months pregant with Tati, so my wedding dress was out of the question. It was a beautiful day that I will always cherish!!!

Favorite Photo Friday-Tanners Graduation

Tanner graduated from Preschool yesterday and did such a good job. He read a book and sang a song all by himself at the mircrophone. He was so cute and we are so proud of him!!! He loved going to preschool this year and can't wait for kindergarten. It is hard to believe he is getting so big!!!
Our family afterwards. Doesn't he look cute in his cap and gown? Next week Tati has a performance at school that they have been working on all year, she is excited and so are we!!

MOMS

I know it is late-but I wanted to write about great mothers. I have been so blessed with a wonderful mother. She is truly one of my greatest friends. She has always been there for me, even when I was a punk teenager and a real pain in the butt I am sure. She sat in a small PICU hospital room for weeks, sometimes months at a time to be with my sister when she was sick. She just is truly an amazing mom full of strength and love. I love how she is the best grandma ever. My kids just adore her. She gets down on the floor and plays with them, they do crafts and she always has something special for them when they come over. They love her so much and I love to watch them with her. She has some health struggles lately, but she hasn't let that keep her from being mom and grandma. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful mom-who taught me what it is to be a good mom.

I am soo lucky to be a mom. I just feeled so blessed that these sweet spirits chose me to be their mother. I could not ask for a better gift!!

Also I have been thinking so much about birthmothers this week and their selfless love and devotion to giving their children more. I am just so amazed at their courage and strength. I truly admire them so much. As your are going through this journey it is amazing how many people you already know have been touched by adoption and you just never knew it. I have a close friend who I found out placed 11 years ago, she has been so kind to share her experience with me and my perspectives about open adoption have truly been changed. She has a really good relationship with her daughters adoptive parents and they even came to the temple when she and her husband and their girls were sealed together. What a wonderful gift!!! My cousin is another example of a wonderful and courageous mother. I have always loved her and thought she was great, and now I feel so much admiration for her. She is awesome!! Now if you want to hear a great tribute to birthmoms you have to check out http://therhouse.blogspot.com this is seriously the best adoption blog ever!! She is a great adoption advocate!! You really should check it out-it has really opened up my heart to open adoption!! Her experiences are truly amazing!!

Putting yourself out there

So I have been wanting to write this post for awhile but didn't know how. Just 2 weeks ago we were made aware of a situation that my 2nd cousin might be placing her newborn baby for adoption. We told them that we would absolutely love to adopt her, but we have also been close growing up and knew that placing with a family member might be too hard for her. We knew that the chances were slim and didn't want to get our hopes up. She did decide to place, but felt that family was going to be too hard. Of course we understand and respect her decision and think she is so brave for choosing adoption.

There was just a little part of me that really hoped that she would pick us, and I was a wreck for days. So how do you not get your hopes up when you are putting yourself out there? I mean this is really the first situation we have been in where we said "hey we would love to adopt your baby" so it is all really new, but hard. I am sure many adoptive parents have felt this same thing when starting out on this journey. Does it get easier? Do your hopes get raised everytime you know you are being considered? It is just such an emotional roller coaster. You really have to make yourself vulnerable and you can't say hey pick us and not get a little attached to that baby and situation.

Sorry this is really just a rambling post-but I wanted to get my thoughts down somewhere. We are grateful that she even considered us and know that she had a tough choice to make. We hope that one day the Lord will bless us with an extrodinary birth mom who will bless our lives by making such a courageous choice to be parents to her sweet baby. We truly have come to love and respect birth parents so much-they are amazing!!!

Tanner turns 5!!!

Last week Tanner celebrated his 5th birthday. It is hard to believe that he is getting so big. He is going to be graduating from preschool and going off to kindergarten in the fall. Its way too crazy. So in honor of his 5th birthday I am going to tell you five things about Tanner

1.He has a memory that astounds us. He doesn't forget anything. He whomps me regularly at matching games. We call him our little elephant because of it.

2. He is a total crack up. This boy is sooo funny. Sometimes I am just amazed at the cute and funny things that he comes up with. On his bday he woke up when his dad was leaving for work and put up 5 fingers and grinned at us, then went back to sleep.

3. He is all boy. He loves Power Rangers, SpiderMan and Star Wars.

4. He told his Preschool teacher that he wanted to be a "Jedi" when he grows up. He knows more about Star Wars than I will ever know, and gives me a run down and who is who whenever we watch it.

5. He is the most loving little boy. Even though he is growing up so fast he still loves to snuggle mom and give me kisses. He loves his big sister like crazy and can't wait until she gets home from school.

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful little man-here are some pictures of him through the years.

Please Pray

Without going into too many details.. My cousin had a baby on Thursday and is facing some struggles. Please keep her and her sweet little girl in your prayers as she and her family face this trial.

Thank You
Jenn

Favorite Photo Friday-Happy Bday Lynzi

Today would be my sister Lynzi's 26th birthday. She passed away nearly 7 years ago from rejection of her transplanted heart. My heart aches when I think of her and I miss her everyday. Lynzi was so strong and dealt with so much in her short life. What an amazing example of courage and faith she was to me. Through all her trials she always loved the gospel and when she got sick she was preparing to go through the temple. I was blessed to be able to do part of her temple work not long after she passed away. What an amazing and wonderfully spiritual experience it was.
Lynzi loved sports, especially basketball, she loved Star Wars, loved collecting things. She took such pleasure in the small joys because many of the bigs ones we all experience she knew she might not ever have. She was one of the biggest tom boys I have ever known and her and Troy loved to play nintendo together or shoot hoops in the driveway. Lynzi adored Tatiyana and loved her as her own. Tati was only 8 months old when she died and doesn't remember her much, but oh how loved she was by my dear sweet sister. One of the last things she asked for before she went into a coma was to see and hold her "baby". What a wonderful memory for us to have of her and to tell Tati about. It is sad that my children don't know their aunt Lynzi, but we try to talk of her often and tell them about her. I know she is their guardian angel. I think Tanner must have known her in Heaven as he talks about her all the time and knows things about her that we have never told him. How sweet are these little ones so recently come from our Heavenly Fathers presence?? Lynzi always wanted a baby brother and what fun she would have had playing with Tanner. These are the things I miss, her knowing my kids and that wonderful sister relationship. I am so grateful to have had her for 19 years.

This picture was taken about a year after Lynzi died. Tatiyana is loving her picture, it is so sweet. She is looking at her with such recognistion. This bottom picture is so very special to me as it is the only picture I have been able to find with Lynzi holding Tatiyana. It was taken just a month before she died and I truly treasure it.
I love you Lynz with all my heart and we miss you so much.