Football & Family

Can you believe college football season is all but over? As many of you know, Michelle and I have always been big BYU football fans and always have bought season tickets. This year was no different, even though the commute is a lot longer from Syracuse and despite the fact that I'm in my last semester at the U. I guess that football games have been a significant tradition for our family, and the BYU-Utah games have been even more significant since they are always right around the time of our Anniversary. We were married during the U game in 2002, and I don't think that Ralph has forgiven me yet! :-)

There have been some fun memories associated with the "big game" and heading out for anniversary plans that night; including getting lost in a huge blizzard one year.

Well this year, we had no plans for going to the game until Cody & Jen got the hookup from his parents. I would like to take a quick moment and thank Cody's-Dad's-Boss. Thanks for making him work yesterday!

Yesterday as we were driving up to Rice Eccles Stadium, we remembered that 6 years earlier, the night before our anniversary, we went up to the same stadium to watch a football game. Greg was playing for the 4-A state championship, and hoping to give an anniversary present. After Greg and co. took care of business we had a nice meal with our parents, went home for the night and got married in the morning. What fun memories!

Well we couldn't think of anything more fun to do to celebrate our anniversary, than to go and be a little blue sunshine in a dark red storm. (okay honestly I could think of a couple more fun things, but this is a family-friendly blog). :-)

We had a great time! The crowd was very wild and everytime I walked anywhere I wasn't well received, but as the 3rd quarter was coming to a close, the crowd was quite silent and I think more than a few red fans were worried that some last minute herioics were going to ruin their night again. Well I suppose it wasn't meant to be and the night was Utah's. One great thing was that when the game was over, the crowd rushed the field and had a presentation, so we got out without any traffic problems and just drove right home. It was great. Well I guess we'll get them next year, go cougars!

I love you Michelle, thanks for being fabulous and being mine. These 6 years have been amazing!

Personality!

It is so much fun watching Sammy's personality develop. I can't even believe that in one month he will be old enough for Nursery (hallelujah!). Here are some of the new things that Sammy is doing.

Building "Forts" Sammy gets into these creative moods where he will pick a few choice toys and then take them to his special place and sit among them. He is very picky about what toys he takes into his "fort." And we've learned NOT to take the toys away from the fort for fear of retaliation (okay...crying hysterically).

Discovering "new" toys
After building a fort one day - Sammy realized the toy basket was a great thing to play with. He brought it over to me and we sat on the couch with the basket over our heads. The basket is kind of see through, so I would put my hand on the outside and pat it - and Sam would laugh and laugh and laugh and try to poke my hand from the inside.

Later that day - he picked up the basket and put it on his head and started walking around the house. The best part was when he walked into the fireplace and then he couldn't figure out how to turn around - so he kept bumping into the wall. After a couple of minutes of me laughing - started crying. I'm sure it would be frustrating to not get anywhere.

He's always had a love for shoes, especially mom's and dad's shoes. Here he is giving Mom's shoes a try. He didn't walk very far before he fell - but he got a big kick out of wearing these big shoes!

"Demanding" food
His newest trick is walking over to his high chair - pounding on the seat and screaming "Ahhhh!" I guess we taught him this one because we'd try to get him to open his mouth during feeding times by saying, "Ahhh." He also does this to the candy/cookie jar. He knows right where it is in the kitchen and will walk over to the jar and point and scream, "Ahhhh!" What a funny boy!

Feeding Himself
A MeSsY operation! He does great with finger food, but we've been trying to get him to learn how to use a fork and spoon. His cereal in the morning mostly ends up on his bib/pajamas. What fun to develop fine motor skills! (Apparently Sammy has a pushy Dad) :-)


We LOVE this boy so much!!!

Happy National Adoption Month!

A Novel... for my journal

Choosing Adoption is a difficult choice – for ALL parties involved. I don’t even want to imagine the multitude of decisions facing potential birth-mothers. There is just so much “stuff” involved.

For me, as an adoptive parent, it meant the death of a dream. It meant kissing goodbye the realization that I might never have the chance to “enjoy” my own pregnancy (ultrasounds, heartbeats, baby kicks, back pains, to name a few) or labor and delivery (hearing the babies first cry and seeing him all covered in gunk). It meant I wouldn’t get to join with God in the creation of life. It meant saying sayonara to the idea of looking into a face with similar biological features and wondering who he looks like more. It meant that my family would be “different.” We would have issues that “normal” families didn’t have to deal with.

For us, it meant walking away from logic, ie: Doctors (who weren’t helpful anyway) and putting our faith in the Lord that He would guide our family to our home. The birth of a new dream.

We really hadn’t tried very many medical treatments. We knew I had PCOS – but none of the doctors could tell us how to treat it. (They all just said, “Try clomid and relax. If you’re just patient it will happen. It really depends on how long you are willing to wait.” Umm, excuse me Mister Doctor sir. Have you EVER been in this situation before? No! So you probably don’t realize that is NOT what we want to hear right now, thank you very much. We’ve been “waiting” for three years. Something is WRONG!) I can’t even begin to explain the frustration we felt toward the medical community! Think of the last time you were frustrated at something and then times it by ten. It was SO aggravating!!!

We went to a specialist in SLC who told us that we should consider in-vitro. Hmm, $10,000 for a 20% one-time chance of getting pregnant? (FYI, “normal” couples have a 25% chance each month of becoming pregnant – it’s amazing ANYONE gets pregnant). I’m not the gambling type, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the greatest statistic. So…after enough with the doctors - we started contemplating adoption.

We thought about it for many moons. Adoption is expensive. With LDSFS it’s 10% of your combined yearly income, not to exceed $10,000 and there are thousands upon thousands of adoptive couples waiting. With other agencies the cost can be anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 minimum. But…if you wait long enough, you are 100% sure to get a baby. After thinking it over, we thought a 100% chance was better than a 20% chance for the same price. However, we still weren’t completely sure about it.

Our decision was ultimately made in the temple. One early morning in October 2006, Dave and I went to the Bountiful temple for a sealing assignment. While waiting for everyone to arrive, the sealer, Brother Leishman, began asking the couples questions to get to know us.

He looked at us and said, “So…who’s at home with the kids?”

Dave and I looked at each other and then answered, “We don’t have any
kids.”

To which he immediately replied, “Well adoption is good too.
The sealing power is amazing. It allows adopted children to become ‘as if
born in the covenant.’ What an amazing plan the Lord has for ALL of his
children.”

I was in SHOCK. I was in AWE. It was such a direct answer to prayer. I knew immediately that adoption was the choice the Lord wanted us to make. We decided to put further medical procedures on the back burner.

We began the paper work. I should say, we were immediately buried in paperwork. It took us several months just to answer the 44-question questionnaire. Ten pages (12-pt-font-single-spaced-each-spouse) and 3 references (2-sided questionnaire that the agency mailed to our contacts) later we could sign up for the “classes” offered by the agency. We didn’t really know what to expect from the classes, but it was an eye-opening opportunity that I wish EVERYONE had to experience. We learned about birth mothers (“without them, there is no need for YOU”…Ouch. Say goodbye to my pride!). We learned about infertility (“only 5% of adoptive couples end up having children biologically after they adopt”…Ouch. Not the greatest of chances). We learned about openness (“contact with your birthmother anywhere from emails to home visits”…sigh – if we were “normal” we wouldn’t have to deal with that). We learned about race and placement and making yourself stand-out (you mean this is a competition?). With all the sarcasm aside, our eyes were opened. We realized what it would take for our family to have a baby. We realized that our lives really aren’t our own to lead, but that we should follow closely behind the Lord and His will.

After 8-weeks of classes, a thorough home-study, interviews with our case worker, letters and pictures put together for potential birthmothers and waiting for agency approval, we realized what we had gotten ourselves into. It was a whole different way of putting a family together. A way that felt right for us.

We also realized we are not alone (see my sidebar for a handful of other adoptive couples) which brought with it great amounts of JOY. As Alma said in Mosiah 18

“ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and
are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort
those that stand in need of comfort.”

What a difference a friend who understands makes!!!!

The answer to our prayers came quickly. We didn’t have to wait long before our sweet Sammy was loving placed in my arms. We are so happy to have made the difficult choice of Adoption. One that we will happily make again in the future.

(If you missed the earlier installments of our adoption story, read them here and here.)

Super Halloween Night

Happy Halloween! We hope that all your halloween's were just super. We had a fun night. It felt like we were just running here and there, but all in all it was a good time.

We started the day going to get some shots for Sam. What kind of parent chooses to get their boy his shots on Halloween? Yeah we pondered that question for a bit, but I guess we figured that if you start off bitter the sweet would seem sweeter? Maybe that's just what we told ourselves...

So after some shots, and a quick stop at the community center for an early vote, we were ready to start our evening festivities. Okay so seriously?! Sammy has already had way too much candy and we haven't even started the day. Of course the doctor's office gave him a candy bar, as did the Wal-Mart cashier, and the Quizno's cashier. At least the poll place had some good sense and didn't offer the poor guy some more sugar!

Oh well, let the sugar infestation continue, First stop Grandma Pond's:

Visit to Grandma Pond

I don't know why we didn't get a picture of Sammy with Grandma, but we didn't. Her legs do cameo when we went to go visit grandpa, but for some reason we didn't think to get a picture. I guess we at least had the camera with us, so that is a start. This next threesome of pictures is kind of an omen for how the day will progress: Happily eating candy, and then when it is gone, bring on the whinery!

Ah well, it's Halloween.. Even Superman has his weaknesses, and apparently there are few things worse than coming to the end of a delightful bag of M&M's.

Visit to Grandpa Pond

Next on the flight list for the super man is a visit to grandpa. Grandpa was at work and we didn't want to miss him, so we thought we would take him a couple treats and give him some happy Halloween wishes. Earlier in the day we got him a king size snickers and Sammy was excited to fly in and grant some sweet wishes.

A quick sidenote, Sammy recently got a new pair of shoes that are a size too big. Occasionally he trips up on the larger than life shoes...

As we were running to Grandpa's office, the carpet monster jumped up and tripped Sammy. Yep, he did a little spin and landed hard. So instead of a fun smile with a candy bar in hand to greet grandpa, it all fell apart and he screamed in pain. Don't worry we came prepared, and quickly broke him off a piece of that Kit Kat bar (how many has he had today, ugh we are bad parents!)

Also to cheer the little guy up, Ralph offered him a CEO position. He was only on the clock for a few minutes, but come on, the guys handling our wonderful financial institutions make a Mercedes a minute; so we are trying to figure out the payment deserved... Here is Sammy hard at work -- looking at some plans and relaxing in the important seat.


Here is a video of the Tricks and Treats received from Grandpa.

Next on the flight plan was a trip to Grandma & Grandpa Droge:

Visit to Grandma & Grandpa Droge

The Droge home was decorated fun. Dad put a picture of his mutilated hand (taken by the doctor right before the surgery) on the front door as decoration, and it really set the halloween mood. Joseph had a vomiting Jack-o-Lantern which was hilarious as well.

superman with his super grandparents

At this point in the evening, Sammy has figured out exactly what is in these buckets, a whole lot of goodness! The perfect part in Sammy's mind is that wherever he goes, he has the effect of people wanting to feed him. This is actually not just a Halloween spectacle. I swear day in day out, complete strangers ask if they can give this boy food. Does he look hungry? Or is it just so fun to provide nourishment and enjoyment to cute little faces?

Here is a clip of some tricks and Sweets at Grandma & Grandpa's:

Trick - or - Treating!!

By quarter to 6, we were finally home and ready for some trick-or-treating. We didn't go out with Sammy last year, so this was a first for both parent and child. Michelle decided to stay home and pass out candy, so I took the little superhero around the block. We ended up being out for about an hour, and by that point Sam was completely exhausted.

He did pretty good though. After a couple houses he figured out the whole idea of grabbing a piece from their bowl and sticking it in his bucket. The funny thing is that even though we only hit a few houses, he still made out like a champ because they would let him do the grabbing. Of course he wouldn't grab just one, but because of the before-mentioned phenomena of wanting to feed the child, they just thought it was darling! But honestly like anyone would take it back from a tiny superhero.. a 15 year old hardly dressed up maybe, but certainly not a first-timer who doesn't know the rules yet!

Many times as Sam was about to grab some candy, he hesitated for a little while because of the distracting outfits that everyone was wearing! I guess as a little boy you just aren't expecting a werewolf to be holding out a bowl full of candy. The funny thing was that Old Man Hendricks and Old Woman Hendricks didn't slow Sam down a bit. He knew exactly where he was and went right in the house to play games...

Here we are getting ready to go:

Dinner & Relaxation

Well finally the night came to a close (and finally this post is coming to a close). We had dinner and relaxed and watched Sam eat yet more candy. When bed time finally came calling, he was completely pooped. What a fun but exhausting day!

Before bed, we took a picture of Sammy with the pumpkins we carved. All of these came from our garden this year!

Happy Halloween!!