Farewell 2013

How do so many things happen in such a short amount of time? This year has flown by faster than any I can remember and I have a feeling things are nowhere near slowing down. Is this what children do to you? I am hoping that with our more concerted photo taking efforts we'll at least have something to show for the passing days.

We finished off 2012 with a bang. First we celebrated our third wedding anniversary with the LDS missionaries. Our anniversary landed on a Sunday and the missionaries needed feeding. They joined us in our traditional anniversary meal of oranges and Bush's Baked Beans.

We attended a couple holiday parties, including a "Dessert First" hosted by some neighbors. Two things we love - good food and good friends.

Right before Christmas we took a little trip to California to celebrate the wedding of Sarah's oldest niece. It was fun spending time with so many family members and fun spending time in California during December. We got to tour the grounds of the Capitol building and were impressed with the number of oranges on all the trees.

 We spent Christmas morning with Sarah's brother's family that were visiting from California. As tradition requires, we lined up on the stairs in our red night shirts.

Then with the New Year we hosted a dinner party, serving our friends black eyed peas for good luck. Sorry, but friends are more photogenic than a pot of beans.

It must have worked because we definitely had a rewarding year. We began it by applying to adopt a child from Korea. We got matched and excitedly anticipated bringing home a boy after a year of paper work and waiting, but then a month later found out that due to some legal changes in Korea's adoption policy we were no longer considered a match. That was hard to accept, but went forward with remodeling our basement to make space in an upstairs bedroom for children.

We also took foster parent classes knowing they would help with any parenting opportunity that came our way. We had no idea how quickly that would happen, but in June we had about a week's notice that we were matched to adopt a baby girl born right here in Utah.

Joyce's birth parents were wonderful to work with and we will always love them for the miraculous gift they chose to give us. We met them for dinner before Joyce was born and then were able to visit after as well. We went back to the hospital the next day to have lunch with them before they signed placement papers. We are still just in amazement at how miraculous and wonderful our whole experience has been. Joyce's adoption will be finalized after Christmas and we will then have the opportunity to be sealed to her in the temple for all eternity.

As many of you know, it was only a few days later that we discovered we were expecting another baby. I spent the first month in denial and very overwhelmed - much of it due to the lack of sleep that comes with a new born, not to mention the hormonal changes of being pregnant. Joyce is expected to have a brother born the first week of March 2014.

Joyce has seriously been the best thing to happen to us. She is easy going, rarely cries, smiles at everyone she meets, and has brought us immense joy. The first time she really cried was at her two month checkup when they gave her shots. It only lasted half a minute, but it sure broke my heart seeing her so sad when she is normally so happy.

People in the ward were so excited for us we had multiple offers of baby showers. Here she is posing with the oldest member of our ward, a woman who turned 100 this year. Everyone offers to babysit for us, and at church there are always open arms happy to take a turn holding her. That will come in handy when I have two to juggle!

My mom was so excited by our good news, that the night we met Joyce's birth parents and were officially "matched," she went right out and bought all the essentials. She came over after 9 pm, arms loaded like Santa. Here she is with her good friend Patty, whose kids were also adopted and were my friends in high school.

Every time we go out people stop us to comment on Joyce's cheeks or eyes or smile, saying she is the most beautiful baby they've ever seen. We can't argue with them. Here she is ready for a day of running errands.

For my birthday Joyce and I visited Bret at work.

Before all the baby excitement we managed a quick trip to Idaho to visit my sister's family. Since Bret had never seen the Spiral Jetty before, and it's one of my favorite destinations, I insisted we make a pit stop there.

Afterward we had a picnic along the trail called "The Big Fill." Bret's favorite part was the hike. It goes alongside the historical path of the Transcontinental Railroad. While walking along the trail Bret was intent on finding lizards - a favorite pastime from his childhood. He saw lots of lizards, but even more exciting he chased down a snake and caught it!

We did eventually make it to Idaho and enjoyed a weekend of playing on the farm with the nieces and nephew.

We also attended Women's Conference at BYU with Bret's mom. Later in the summer we attended Education Week at BYU with both of his parents, managing to take turns going to classes and spending time with Joyce.

Besides remodeling our basement in the spring, with the assistance of a friend, we cut down a few overgrown Aspen trees that were growing too close to our home. In fact, you may recall in last year's update that one of them put an ugly dent in our new car when I was backing out of the driveway.

Then in the fall, after some failed DIY home repairs, we were faced with the need to remodel the other half of our basement. A new bathroom with more headroom, and new flooring in the bedroom were long overdue, even if we hadn't anticipated doing it this year. I know the finished product would make a better photo, but I'm more into documenting the demo than the construction apparently.

One of the highlights of our summer was attending a dude ranch with Bret's family. Joyce turned two weeks old while we were there and she was definitely the most popular guest. The staff was always happy to hold her during meals and activities. That is, when the rest of the family wasn't fighting for a turn with her.

We finished out the fall with celebrating Halloween with our new cute little mouse.

And on that note, we wish you all the love and happiness that we've been blessed with this last year. We look forward to many more cute baby photos in next year's update.