Look What I Can Do!!!!!

Christian has learn how to pull himself up in his crib. We had to lower his crib to the lowest setting.

Christian in the process of pulling himself up in the laundry basket.

I did it!

I was surprise Christian could even pull himself up to the flour bucket.

Christian thinks about walking.

Christian can walk with only holding onto one hand.

A Forever Family

On August 30, Christian was sealed to us in the Bountiful Temple. What a great experience to be with the people I love so dear. We had about twenty-three friends and family in the temple. It was great to have so much support . We are glad to have Christian legally and spiritually ours. Here are some great pictures to share such a great event.

The Cute Little Trouble Maker

Christian is in the stage were he likes to get into everything. I know it will only get worse. Here are a couple of videos of Christian doing what he does best, keeping mom really busy.

Christian loves to unload the diapers. Unloading the diapers is his favorite job to do in his room.

When I need to do something for a few minutes, I will open our DVD cupboard and let him take all the DVDs out.

Christian loves to play with the blinds. We tell him no no but he will continue to pull on them until we have to move the blind so that he can't play with them.

He is so cute right now but I am sure tire by the end of the day. He is one active little boy. Christian has to be moving all the time. He will walk in his walker but his favorite thing to do is be on the floor, picking things off the floor. I can't wait until he is out of this stage. I will also post a blog about all the things Christian can do but I need to get a couple more pictures before I can post.

Finalizing Christian

On August 25, we went to the Court to finalize Christian. We had quiet the experience. Our court time was suppose to be at 9:00. Our attorney was late due to bad traffic. Since Chris and I are new to this court thing we did not understand what was going on. Our attorney really couldn't help us either because he couldn't hear what was going on and he is blind. We finally caught on that the attorney was suppose to go up and approach the judge. I wanted to make sure this was correct so I asked our social worker from the adoption agency, if that was the case. She said, that our attorney just need to approach the judge. I asked her if she was late to something because of the lateness of our case. She said, really rudely that she had a life to and we need to get this over with as soon as possible. Once we were up, our attorney couldn't still couldn't hear. Finally my mom asked if she could come up and talk to our attorney to help him hear. This was a big help and our case went through rather quickly after that. The judge said, to the social worker that he was absolutely appalled at the cost of the adoption. My mom, Chris, and I wanted to say we agree but we decide we would keep our mouths shut.

I wanted to mention that our attorney is also my great uncle. It was really nice for him to do this because he wanted to do if for pretty much nothing. We did pay him because it would have been a lot more money without his help. Thanks for Kent for his great help in getting Christian finalized.

Christian kept putting his hand on Kent's hand. It was so cute.

Kent wanted to hold Christian

Us in front of the court room. We didn't know that we could take picture inside.

This is my favorite picture.

After Christian was legally ours, my mom took us to lunch to celebrate. We went to Sizzler. Christian sure liked the potatoes my mom feed him. After lunch, Chris, Christian, and I went to the zoo. We had a great time. Chris really enjoyed it because he hadn't been to the zoo since he was a kid. These are the great pictures Chris captured at the zoo.

We were really lucky we went to the zoo when we did because the white alligator is on loan at the zoo and is only there for one more month. We enjoyed our encounter with the white alligator.

Chris was really lucky to get this picture because the Elephant wasn't being too friendly at first. All he wanted to do is put his back side toward us. I told Chris just forget about taking a picture, at that moment the elephant decided that it was ok for us to get a picture of him.

It is hard to capture a smile from Christian. Chris was able to do it.

The bear decide to come greet us.

I like this picture of the zebras.

I also like this picture because it looks as if the turtle is smiling.

This picture is great because Chris took the picture just as this monkey was sticking out his tongue.

The baby orangutan was sure cute again. He hung upside down to get his blanket wet and than brought it up to suck on it.

After the zoo, we went to find a suit for Christian to wear at the temple and also for his baby blessing. Doesn't he look like a little man.

Christian visit to the Children Museum

My sister Cheree, her children, Christian and I went to the Gateway Children's Museum. All the children had a great time.

Christian decides to try the carrots.

Baby will you drive my Car.

Madison and Christian on the horse.

Look a Christian Monster.....with horns!!!

The little construction worker

Building a city.

Kaden and Christian on the Crane

Christian decides to surprise me and stand up in the wheel borrow. He is growing up so fast.

Christian in the boat. He decided to stand up in the boat too.

Christian in the hut. I think he likes it well enough to live in it.

Reunion Time

On Wednesday, we started our journey to our reunion. This reunion for my side of the family was by Pinedale, Wyoming. Since Chris got off work at 5:00, we decided it would be smart for us to go only half way. We stayed at the Wyoming Inn at La Barge, Wyoming(population 431). We were somewhat concerned that we would find our night's stay a disasterous experience, but everything was just fine. By the time we arrived, Christian was so ready to get out of the car. He kept giving me kisses, almost like he was saying thank you for getting me out of the car. While we were unloading our luggage, we had a chance to talk with the guy next door, named Larry. Larry, a Schawn's man, talked to us about our adoption, and we talked a little bit about the Church. Larry said he was a jack-Mormon; He smoked outside his non-smoking room and mentioned drinking coffee with his breakfast. Regardless of these habits, we could tell religion meant a great deal to him. Larry teared up when we mentioned that the adoption has helped teach us that we are all brothers and sisters. He was very friendly, and even took the time to knock on our door and let us know our car's interior light was left on. Once we got in the motel room, Christian was excited to play on the floor. Christian did pretty well for his first motel experience.

On Thursday, we finished our journey and got to the reunion spot around 10:30am. Once everyone was there, we at lunch. At 1:30, we played Steal the Flag. Everyone had a lot of fun. I have to say that my team won. Chris and I were on opposite teams. After Steal the Flag, the women in the family went into Pinedale for a special get away activity. Tiffani taught us how to make these really cute scrapbooking books. While we were gone, the men played some games with the children. One of the games was a beard making contest. My brother Nathan had to get into the fun. Here are the pictures:

Nathan

Ashley

Analiese

Camille

Tyler

Madison

Jacob

Kaden

Rachel

That night we had dinner and then we had a little fire side. We had skits, stories, songs, and a little spiritual message.

Smooth and Creamy.......I love it on my blog

On Friday, the men went fishing while the women played with the Children. Melanie and Sarah came up with a cute treasure hunt, played sticker tag, made pet rocks, and sang songs. Once the men were back we had lunch. We had a funny picture contest. Kaden won for the kids and Chris won for the adults. We then all played games. Some played shuffle board, fumbley pegs, and Settlers of Catan. My favorite game was fumbley pegs. This game is a lot like spoons. We might have pictures of shuffleboard being played, as it was one of the most popular reunion pastimes, but Chris protested my doing so, much to his later regret. After the games, we had dinner and then had our little fire side again. After the kids were in bed, the adults played more games. It was alot of fun.

On Saturday, we had a devotional and then had breakfast. We then got ready to go home. After every thing was clean and packed, we played Mafia. We all enjoyed this game and would have played it more if we didn't have to go home.

I wanted to show two other cute pictures:

Partners in crime

Christian's future partner in crime, Luke

08/10/2008 No good title for today.............

I apologize up front for the title of this blog. If you are anything like me, you find it mildly annoying when vague, almost cheesy titles are used for things blog entries or chapters of books or what ever. So today, rather than use a title like: "Some Recent Thoughts" or "Latest News", I simply elected to use the date and state there is not a good title, because that is my fact and feeling today.

Today is another Sunday. We went to church. I got a new calling. I am to be the Scoutmaster for our local ward/neighborhood. I have known about the change for sometime, and in a recent conversation with a co-worker expressed some of my anxieties and hesitancy in participating in Scouting. My co-worker asked me why I told them I would do the job when I was not very excited about it. I thought for a minute......what do I say? Then I proceeded to explain that everything in the church is done on a volunteer basis, and so you do what you are asked to do and do your best with it.

I will do my best with the Scouts and I am sure that we can have fun I am just not sure how good I will be in getting them their rank advancements and merit badges, as I was awful at this as a kid.

I am not a shining example of explaining my beliefs, I know, but have tried to mention my participation in the church in casual conversation. My personal feeling is that here in Utah most people are aware of the LDS Church and have an opinion about it, either positive, negative or neutral. Most of my co-workers, from what I have observed are of other faiths or not religious at all. Nevertheless, these people are awesome and are my friends. I admit I am passive in sharing some of my beliefs, but I just don't want to be a fire hose, when a sprinkler is needed. I do however try to live my ideals, and I think those who I work with see that.

The subject came up at work some time ago that we should ban all discussion of religious activities at work. I hold this idea as counter-productive to building understanding between individuals of varying backgrounds. I rather share the opinion, that all people, of whatever religion or philosophy should be free to express themselves, and we all need to learn to tolerate such and ideological environment.

As Heather mentioned before in the blog, Christian's adoption will be finalized on August 25, 2008. This means we can have him sealed to us in the Temple. My belief as a Latter-day Saint is that families can be sealed together for eternity through the authority of the Priesthood. We have chosen the Bountiful Temple for the sealing location and this great event will take place on August 30, 2008.

I decided I would post a few of my experiences today because it was the second Sunday in a row that either a lesson or talk heavily referenced Elder M. Russell Ballard's recent article in the ensign "Sharing the Gospel Using the Internet". Of course that is not the only reason, but I found this an oddity and thought I should include something along those lines in this blog.