CHRISTMAS EVE 2010!

Steve and I absolutely LOVE Christmas. We love to feel closer to the Savior, spending time with family, and enjoying all the traditions that we share with both sides of the family. Steve and I starting the Christmas season by decorating our HUGE tree which we cut down off my Grandfather's property in the mountains. It was so big we had to get a little creative on how we were going to get it in our home since we live on the third level. But with the help of my mom and Larry we were able to get it up.





Then we were finally ready to decorate!!! I love Christmas trees. They bring me back to my childhood and all the fun memories and traditions of Christmas. It took me three hours to put 12 boxes of lights on the tree.


We spend Christmas Eve with Steve's side of the family. It is always fun! We have several traditions, but there is always something new every year. We usually sing, exchange white elephant gifts, eat, read of Christ's birth from the Bible, eat fudge made by Uncle Curt, listen to "Star Belly Snetches" quoted from memory by Aunt Jolynne, and of course laugh.

Here is Steve singing with his Dad, a few of his brothers, and one of his sisters. They ended it 'Buda Belly' style. Amanda won, it help's she is eight months pregnant.



Uncle Curt taught us all how to play a harmonica. It is a lot harder than it looks. With everyone playing (old and young) all at once we sounded..uh...harmonizing.



Even the grand-kids got into the music by playing their instruments.

Here's Jerry (Steve's Dad) reading the story of Jesus's birth.

It is also B-Rod's (Brodrick's) Birthday so we celebrate him for awhile with cake and presents.



Then we all start to open our white elephant gifts. Joylnne supplies most of them. We have so much fun trading and laughing. Someone ended up with just a bag of dried beans and others got really nice gifts. That is what makes it fun, you never know. Benja and Jon got me a picture of Steve dressed in a wig and his brother's old work out shirt that he wore to his brother's 40th birthday party. We all dressed like we were in the 80's. Steve went a little over the top. What can I say, I married a hottie!





We ended the night with Jolynne's presentation of "Star Belly Sneches". Remember it is all memorized.


It was a great Christmas Eve. I love reading of Christ and reflecting on his birth and what his life means to me. I love laughing with family and being close together. There is hardly anything that is better than this.

We are approved to adopt!

What glorious news!!! Our caseworker has been on and off the phone with me all week and we were told yesterday that we were finally approved to adopt! My heart was full as chills ran up and down my body. I quickly called Steve and a few other family members to share the wonderful news. But it didn't really hit me until I came home (an hour ago) and checked my mail. Inside my mailbox I saw a letter addressed to Steve and me from LDS Family Services. My heart began to race. I gripped the letter tightly in my hand and raced for my car. I instantly ripped open the letter and read the words, "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as an approved family for adoption of a child through LDS Family Services. Congratulations! We are excited for the possibilities that are now yours." The moment I have waited for and work so hard for had finally come. The dream of being a mother now tasted and felt closer than it has ever felt. As soon as I read those first few lines tears filled my eyes and I began to express in prayer how thankful I was to my Heavenly Father for all that He has blessed me with. I know that my Heavenly Father knows me, and I know that He cares about me. All those prayers were not in vain. Someone was listening, someone does care, and someone knows me and what I need more than I do. Words on paper cannot even begin to express the feelings I feel at this moment. I am overwhelmed! We are so blessed and so loved! God does have a plan for ALL of us, and I am so thankful to be His daughter. I look forward to someday when the time is right to be a mother. I pray almost hourly for birth moms. I admire their courage and the love that they have for their child. I have so many thoughts and feelings running through me but I would like to close this post with a poem I found today about birth moms.

She Who is a Birth-Mother
by Suzy Toronto

She carries within her a precious, precious life...
One that empowers her to give the unparalleled gift of motherhood
To another woman.

The choice is not easy.
Such monumental decisions seldom are.
The conflict raging in her heart tugs back and forth
As she struggles to let go.
Will her child really be better off?

She closes her eyes and lifts her face toward heaven,
And she says a silent prayer.

Then she catches the vision of a family.
A mom, a dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins...
All weeping with joy over this treasured infant...
The newest member of their family...
The miracle they thought they'd never see.

She softly begins to cry.
With a breaking heart and perfect clarity of mind,
A still-small voice whispers her thundering decision...
"It will not be easy,
But it is right."

*taken from the FSA Adoptive Applicant Handbook August 13, 2005 page 46

Family, Food, Fun and a Freaking Big Tree!

Our month of November started off great with a family trip to the Temple. We asked everyone in our family to come to the Temple with us so we could pray and think about those wonderful birth mothers out there. Also, we were praying as a family to get the right child whenever the Lord sees fit for us. Unfortunately, not everyone could make it, but we still had a pretty good turn out. Those that could not make it said that they were there in spirit. Jerry and Virginia (Steve's mom and dad), Larry and Claire (Amanda's mom and step dad) and Steve's Aunt Jo Lynne were all able to make it, though. It was a great night together. We went out to Chili's before hand and made sure our tummy's were happy as well.

Okay, enough of the fun and feel good stories, I have to share a truly crappy one. On my day off I (Steve) went to the bathroom as normal, but when I flushed nothing was going down. So I plunged and plunged and nothing happened. So what else would I do besides flushing it again right? So I flushed again but there was no stopping the poo water from overflowing the toilet and water falling onto the bathroom floor. So my first thought was to take off my socks because it was going to get wet and messy(hahaha). Then I stood on a short stool so my feet wouldn't be in the crappy water. Eventually there was about 1.5 inches of poo water on the floor and soaking into the carpet, then I finally shut the water off. I tried to do it as fast as I could, but it was overflowing like nothing I had seen before. Long story short, the maintenance guy came over and sucked up the poo water with his shop vac (gross). Then the carpet guy came over and took care of the carpet (awkward).

One of the best dates I have been on with Amanda Kate was when we recently went to Shrek, The Musical. We went out to eat at Tokyo Joe's before hand and enjoyed some good Asian cuisine. The Japanese soda machine spelled Pepsi backwards though. Its okay because we are in America and .001% of people can read Japanese. I could read it though, it was pretty funny. It reads (sipep). Too funny.

Then we took the light rail for the first time to downtown Denver where the musical was. This musical was my favorite one ever! Okay, it was also the first professional musical I have ever been to as well, but that is beside the point. It was funnier and better than the movie, and the movie was pretty good. Lord Farkwad and Donkey were hysterical, Shrek and Fiona were pretty good as well. Anyways, I could write about this date forever but all in all it was definitely a night to remember with my beautiful wife Amanda Kate. One of the 3 little pigs read us a story as well. Oh boy, what a treat!


Then last night after a hard day's work of preparing for Black Friday I came home to the biggest freaking tree I have ever seen in an apartment. Wow is all I got to say. Look at the size of that thing.... How did it get there? Amanda Kate!!!!!!

Halloween, Turkey, Snow, Japanese Food and Grandparents

Another busy and eventful few weeks. Steve and I were talking the other day and we decided that life is just fun. We can always look at life as hard and full of trials, but we have been blessed for the last few months to see our lives as the glass half full. Of course our hearts are still set on adding to our family and adopting children, but we really do not have much to complain about. Steve has a great job, I have the opportunity to go back to school, we have the gospel, and we have an OUTSTANDING family. What more can one ask for! We are greatly blessed.

We celebrated Uncle C's (Steve's uncle) birthday which falls right before Halloween. Everyone that lives within a few hours was there. Jon and Benja with their three kids, Josh and Amanda (who is pregnant!!!), Virgina and Jerry, Curt and Betti, Aunt Jo and Uncle C, Steve and I, and a few other friends of Aunt Jo and Uncle C. We had fun stuffing our faces with fantastic food and watching Uncle C open his many many gifts. I think he has enough superman items to last the rest of our grand kid's life times. Betti always seems to pick a theme which makes the party, superman was this years theme. Most of us were in costumes so on top of our already unique family we had two bikers, a referee, a witch, a Hispanic banana, a beautiful cow girl, a transformer, Cleopatra and her husband, two people from he early 1900's, and of course SUPERMAN. After eating we all played games. The biggest hit was painting each others faces. Aunt Jo bought a whole bunch of face paints and we got to paint our partner's face and then they had to guess what was painted on their face. I think all of our sides hurt by the time we were done laughing. Some were very creative and well done, and others...well let's just say others were very...'colorful'. Steve was nice when he did mine. I was a Hawaiian football player (He had to tell me, I couldn't guess it). I pick to make Steve's head into a Jack-O-Lantern because it was the only thing I could think of that would allow me to cover his whole face in paint.


Steve's mom, Virgina, also was able to come and visit us for an evening while Jerry was out of town. It was fun to have time with just her and eat. After eating and talking she showed us how to make sopapillas. They were so good!


And if our last few days had not been adventure enough Jon, Benja, Brayton, Steve, and I all went out to an authentic Japanese restaurant. It was an interesting experience. The company was great, and the food was good...until it came to the three random side dishes. Each meal came with three country side dishes. Not wanting to eat anything that I didn't know what it was, we asked our waiter-in-training what the sides were. He replied, "They are random". Needless to say, our random side dishes were hardly touched, even by Steve. We enjoyed eating outside, it was a beautiful day. Who would have thought that we would be eating outside in November, in Colorado.




Steve and I topped off the rest of the day, continuing the Japanese theme, and toured and shopped in Sakura Square near downtown Denver. Steve even bought a Japanese children's book that explains all of the celebrations and holidays they celebrate in Japan. Steve wants to teach our kids some Japanese and a few of the traditions. He loved serving his mission in Japan and he misses the people he served.


The second week of November we usually celebrate Thanksgiving with my grandparents. They live in South Dakota during the summer months and then during the winter they live in south Texas. They have never been a fan of the cold. It was fun to all get together...and what a surprise, eat more food! My dad, Judy (his wife), and Micah all flew. Meghan, Steve, Eli, and I all drove together. The almost 8 hour trip was long but we had fun. Anytime I get sister time, Eli time, and I get Steve in the car for longer than 30 minutes you know that it is going to be fun...well at least memorable.

Gram (my grandmother), is a wonderful cook. Although she has one tradition that not everyone is a fan of, but it is tradition so there is not a lot we can do. Gram likes to make giblet gravy. So we always tease each other about the giblet gravy. Thinking back on it now, even though we all hate giblet gravy the first Thanksgiving after my grandmother passes will be a sad one; and I know we all will be missing her giblet gravy.

Here is gram cutting up the giblets to put in the gravy.


Here is my dad holding Eli and playing high five!


Here is Micah (my brother) and my Uncle Mike. We think that they look like twins!


Here is my dad carving the turkey and Meghan, Micah, and I are all hovered over it to eat and fight over the turkey skin. You could call us the three poultry vultures. We know that turkey skin is not healthy but it is tradition to eat it while it is being carved.



I think my favorite thing to do with my grandparents is to play cards. My fondest memories with them are the many hours we spend playing Gin. I have so many bonding memories playing cards with my dad, Gram, and Poppa Dale (my grandfather).


It was a fun trip! I am glad that we got to go! I love my grandparents very much and I treasure every moment that I have with them.




Here is a picture from our porch of our first snow! Winter is coming ready or not!

Rockin Out the Rest of October

The last part of October has just flown by! I can't believe the Holiday season is just around the corner. I love this time of year, it is full of family, food, and traditions! Both Steve and my families have traditions, but we are always ready for new things as well.

The fall weather has been beautiful. Steve and I have taken several bike and picnic trips to enjoy it! We have found a gorgeous trail only a few miles from our house. This last trip we took Steve packed up a picnic and we had lunch near a bridge! It was fun to have a small get-a-way and spend some fun time together. It is one of our favorite dates.





Monica my cousin was able to come and visit us. Steve and I have not seen her since our wedding. It was so much fun to catch up with her! We did so much while she was here. After spending one day with us in Lakewood we drove her up to Loveland to see the rest of my family for a nice trip and mini reunion. All of my family on my mom's side was there. It was fun to get the cousins together again.

With Monica we went up to our Colorado cabin to have lunch and take a girl hike! The boys stayed at the cabin and did whatever boys do. The girls had fun talking, walking, picking flowers,swapping memories, and teasing each other! It was nice to have girl time!





Steve and I also enjoyed having more Eli time! We can't get enough of him. This picture of Eli and us is actually taken where Steve and I had our first kiss. We love the Colorado Cabin.

And of course we can't have the cousins get together without our traditional cousin pyramid picture. I still think we will be doing this picture even when we are all in wheel chairs!





It was sure fun to have Monica here. I look up to her in so many many ways! I am glad to be a part of this family.

Steve and I are preparing for Halloween. A friend of Steve's sent us some real Kimonos from Japan! Steve and I will use them as our Halloween costumes if we can figure out how to tie them. Steve and I will not be the only ones in style. Check out our side kicks!



Steve and I are so blessed to have such a great family, and to have each other. I would not trade it for the world!

Our New Discoveries!

I have made a new discovery that has changed my life...LIQUID FABRIC SOFTENER!!! My whole life I have never used liquid fabric softener, I have always just used the dryer sheets. Well the other day I decided that I would try it! Holy Cow have I been missing out! My clothes, sheets, and towels are so soft! I didn't even know clothes could be so soft. This discovery was like having Christmas in October!

Steve also made a discovery. We bought a pumpkin caring kit that you buy new every year because you feel like it is a waste to save for a whole year. (We finally started saving them this year; it seemed to silly to throw them away.) Anyway, Steve and I started to clean and gut our pumpkin. Steve asked me to get him a spoon to help and I handed him the orange scoop that has teeth on the end from the tool kit. As I handed it to him his eyes got wide. He turned to me and said "this is what this orange thing is for". He started to use it and said over and over "wow this is neat, this is so much better than a spoon!"



Yes, it is the simple things in life that excite us!

Life is just speeding by!!!

It seems like I just posted a few days ago and here it is almost a month later. Steve and I are enjoying our time that we have with each other. Both of us are busy with school, work, callings, and other responsibilities that we don't have as much "us" time as we would like, but then again, we never can have enough "us" time. Last week we drove to Utah for a very quick visit. We left for Utah late Wednesday and got in really late. We were there all day Thursday and then left EARLY Friday Morning. Even though it was a short trip we had lots of fun. Steve and I LOVE to take road trips with each other. I think some of our fondest memories we have had together have come from driving in the car. We can laugh, cry, talk, and laugh some more. We especially loved driving through the mountains, the leaves were just starting to turn. It was gorgeous!!!


Thursday was chalk full of activities! We started off going to Ikea with Heather. We picked up a book shelf and a few other things. You cannot go to Utah and not go to Ikea. This was the first time Steve and I went. We couldn't believe how big this place was. There was even a day care place to drop you kids off (you could tell we were in Utah). Anyway, the book shelf we go was just a few inches to big to fit in the backseat of our car or the trunk. So we had to reclined the front passenger seat all the way back and laid the self on top of it. It took up the whole side of our car. So the person not driving had to ride in the back. Needless to say we go some pretty funny looks on our drive back to Colorado. After our Ikea trip we meet up with Danny (Steve's brother) and Jordan (our Nephew...who just got his mission call for Mexico City, Mexico!!!) at Jay Dogs. I am usually not a hot dog person, but those were fantastic hot dogs. I think it is all in the "special sauce".


It was fun to hangout and see Jordan, Heather, and Danny and quote "Dumb and Dumber" lines. If you are in the Calley family you have that movie memorized! Then we went to the Provo Temple and did a session.

And after we went through a session we dashed off to Steve's Mission Reunion. It was fun to meet some of Steve's mission companions, friends, and his Mission President and his wife. It was hard for me to picture then as being missionaries at one time, all they did was tell stories of the "goof-off" times they had. It was fun to hear stories that Steve "forgot" to tell me about. After the reunion we went out for Ice-cream with his MTC companion who was his favorite and his wife.


I had meet them before and Steve has always kept close contact with them. We decided that we are going to take a cruise with them maybe next summer. They can get us a deal on tickets. It would be so much fun to go on a cruise and they are such a neat couple that it would be fun to go with them! After a late ice cream run with them, we went back to Danny and Heather's and talked for awhile. Then we fell asleep for a few short hours before hitting the road back home to Colorado! I can't believe how much we fit into one day. I have loved every trip that we have taken. Family vacations and small trips in between are a must in our family!

This weekend we went to our CORE training. It was our adoption class that we had to complete before we can become approved. We still are not officially approved for adoption yet, but we have just a few weeks away! We cannot be anymore excited! We will probably be approved no later than Thanksgiving! Steve and I are very ready to be approved! Although we still crave to have kids enter our home, I would not say that we are "baby hungry" anymore, but more excited to help a birth mom provide a safe and loving home for their child. We got to meet a birth mom and the training and I really enjoyed seeing adoption through her eyes. I have always prayed for birth mothers, but since the training my prayers have become more fervent and more frequent. I have a special place in my heart for all birth mothers. They are really putting their needs, wants, and sometimes their reputations on the side to best meet the needs of their baby. What an unselfish act adoption is! Adoption is a divine process, designed by our Heavenly Father. He does have a plan for everyone. No one falls through the cracks!