Christmas 2011? Wow. This is sad...

I seriously can not believe how I have let time get away from me. I am SO behind! I HAVE to get caught up. PRONTO! So here is Christmas last year. Part of these are before I got my new camera so they are a little fuzzy. Bummer, right?

First is our annual Christmas party with Brad's side of the family. It's a fun tradition we love every year.

Here are Ty, Eme, Kassi, Collin, and Cambree with Santa.

Next we have Grace and Hailey. I'm missing some of the cousins. Oops!

Here is cute Kate with my sister-in-law, Kristen.

Kassi loved seeing Santa, so of course she had to follow him out the door!

On Christmas Eve, Brad's parents surprised the kids and invited Santa and Mrs Clause to their house. The kids were thrilled! But first we acted out the nativity scene.

Look at their cute faces when they saw Santa!

And then we all got our pictures taken with them!

Wendy and Troy with their kids, Brayden, Trey, Hailey, and Cambree

Brian and Cally with their daughters Grace and Eme

Kristen and Jesse with their kids, Collin, Ty, and Kate

Brad's brothers, Adam and Troy

Kassi with Santa and Mrs Clause

All the grandkids with Grandma and Grandpa

And our lil family

And Kassi was lucky enough to open some presents on Christmas Eve!

And now on to Christmas Day where I got a new camera, so the pictures are clear! Yay! Christmas was on a Sunday last year, so here is Kassi Christmas morning. (We had church at 9.)

After church we came home and opened gifts!

And then we went over to Brad's parent's for brunch and opened more gifts!

Kassi with Grandma and Grandpa

Kassi with Great-Grandma June

Then we went to my parent's and more gifts were open, but for some reason not as many pics were taken...I think I was pictured out at this point. I just feel bad because I don't have any pics of my parents. So sad.

So that was Christmas. Sorry for all the pics! On to 2012!

Home Study

Last week was our home study. For those of you who don't know what a home study is, (I sure didn't), it's when your caseworker comes to your house looks through it, and sits down to ask you more questions. Well, I had heard lots of stories about people's different experiences with their home studies. Anywhere from the caseworker goes through every cupboard and drawer in your whole entire house to they just walk from room to room and glance in. Well, I was very nervous, so I went to the extreme and cleaned every nook and cranny I could. We also had to have a fire extinguisher, carbon monoxide detector, and locks on all the bottom cupboards and drawers. It took alot of work, but we got it all done! When our caseworker came, I would say it was in between the two extremes. She looked in every room, even closets. We had to show her all our fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, our fire extinguisher, and all the drawers and cupboards that had locks on them. We also had to show her where we kept our medicines/vitamins. Anyway, after all was said and done, it was pretty painless, and now we are DONE!!!! Our profile will be up soon, and we couldn't be more excited!

Adoption 101

I have had several people tell me that I need to update my blog. And I know! It's been way too long since I have given the update on what's been going on in our home. Well, we are adopting!!!! Yay! Most of you probably already knew that, but for those who didn't, Surprise! Lol! We are actually almost done with the process. :) Let me brake it down for ya quickly, since most people are interested on how it is done. We are going through LDS Family Services, which has been AMAZING so far by the way. We initially went in for the orientation back in January to get more info even before our third round of invitro. We felt really good about it then, but still had 2 frozen embryos that needed to be used, and we needed to get that done before we were fully 100% invested in adoption. After we lost the baby in March, we gave it a couple months before the next step, which was getting a reference letter from our Bishop. Well, Brad is the Bishop of our ward now, so we had to get it from our stake president. Once they got that, our caseworker called us in and talked to Brad and I for an hour. Pretty much just getting to know us, and making sure we were mentally stable. Haha! After we met with her we paid our deposit and started phase 1 of the paperwork. Phase 1 included getting medical releases from Brad's, Kassi's, and my doctors, getting a background check, getting Brad's work to fill out paperwork, copies of our drivers licences and social security cards, (we had both lost our social security cards, so we had to go get copies of that,) birth certificates, (Brad had lost his,) marriage license, (yes, we had lost that, too,) and a fertility evaluation from my OB. We had to get 5 reference letters, fill out personal info about us, marriage info, info about Kassi, Brad's employment info, and church info(callings, etc.) Phase 2 was a doozy. Holy cow. They delve SO deep into your personal life. You have to give them financial documents, tax returns, etc, and insurance info. Then they ask you info about your parents. Their age, their address, their education, their occupation, their physical description, their hobbies/interests, and then you have to give all that info for every single one of your siblings. Continuing on you then have to do a matching sheet. For each of us. That includes the same thing that we just did for our family members, just a little more detailed. Oh, and then we needed to do one for Kassi. Then came the questionnaire. This was insane. There were 12 topics, and each topic had up to 6 questions each. These weren't yes or no questions. These were detailed essay questions, and it felt like it took FOREVER to answer them. But we did it! And I'm SO relieved. After finishing phase 2, we had 10 hours of classes we needed to take. So a couple weeks ago, Brad and I went on a Friday night and all day Saturday to the classes. They were so great! We learned a ton! Now we are in phase 3. That consists of your preferences, (age and race, and we will take any race in case you were wondering.) :) Then it asks you about birth conditions. I don't need to bore you with that, but it goes into detail about lots of diseases, deformities, physical and mental retardation, etc. There are 20 getting to know you questions, and this phase is where we write our birth parent letter, and do our profile. Also contact info, and where we upload a ton of pictures. There are a couple other things, but that's pretty much it. We are hoping to have our profile up in a couple weeks! We just need to write it and get our home study done. Hopefully I can post again before then. Things have just been so busy between getting all this done, church stuff, babysitting, and family. I hope you found this post very informative. LOL! Sorry it was a little boring. I will go into more personal experiences next time!

Justin and Jennica's Wedding

My youngest brother got married in December. It was such a beautiful wedding, and he married the best girl, ever! We are so excited to have Jennica in our family. We already love her so much. First, here is my beautiful Kassi.

Coming out of the temple. Don't they look so happy???? :)

Justin giving Kassi a hug. She LOVES her Uncle Justin!

Our lil' fam.

Kassi and Jennica's sister, Carly, holding the train.

At the reception. Justin and Jenn with the grandkids.

So, my camera is really old, and pretty much all my pictures turned out fuzzy. So so sad! But I still need to put them on here. Here are my mom and her step mom my Grandma Joan.

Our family

Heather, Laura, and me.

Us girls with my mom.

Me and Justin.

Laura and Kassi.

Me and my Kass.

Me with two of my brothers, Jordan and Jarom.

My four siblings. Aren't they good-lookin? ;)

My whole family. (Jordan's wife and kids weren't able to make it, though.)

Just the boys.

Justin and Jenn with my parents. Aren't they a beautiful couple???

I'm hoping to get more of the professional pics, but here are these for now. It was such a beautiful wedding?