"Everyone carries around his own monsters"

My monster, you ask?

A 10lbs little boy named Benjamin!

Who is currently, and thankfully, asleep in his swing.  Allowing his mommy(aka- me) some time to make herself a tasty dinner, watch a movie, and clean the kitchen.  And yes, that is all at the same time!  I'm even managing to get some blogging done!  

Honestly, it's Heaven! 

I am having a blast getting to know Benjamin!  He is an amazing baby!  Completely handsome, smiling up a storm, and winning over all the hearts of everyone that comes in contact with him!  And while we call him our little monster, he is normally very easy going!  But Ben has definitely found his voice and he loves to see how loud he can be.  And he loves to stand.  He gets the biggest smile, sticks out his tongue, screams, and then starts trying to bounce!  It's sooo funny!

Well, I hear my little monster starting to fuss, which probably means he wants something to eat.  So I'll leave you with just a few pictures.

Enjoy!

I know I do!!!

 

Since We've Been Home

 

 

 

We are loving having Ben home!  He is a very good baby.  He sleeps, he eats, he poops...he has mastered two out of the three.  It's amazing!  He has almost doubled his birth weight.  And he is meeting all of his milestones so far!

An impatient person plays differently than a more patient person.

I'll post more tomorrow, when I can get some good photos, but for now I'll leave it at......

BENJAMIN IS HOME!!!!!

“The helicopter approaches closer than any other vehicle to fulfillment of mankind's ancient dreams of the flying horse and the magic carpet.”

Ben has not been able to come home yet.  But we have been able to visit him at his foster mommy's house.  She is so kind and gracious to host us most nights!  We absolutely love holding his little snuggle butt, feeding him, and of course changing him.  He is such a content baby who loves to talk, grunt, and yelp at us. We are very excited for when he'll be able to come home with us.  This past week my parents were in town(totally pre-planned way before Ben even came into the picture- talk about a fun treat for them!) and so they got to spend some time with their first grandson.  We've been going camera crazy!  I hope you enjoy the photos!

Matt and I got a call from our case worker Jill in the early afternoon Friday October 8, 2010.  She had a situation that she thought we might be interested in.  Typically we only get a call about those situations when there is something special going on.  And of course this was no different. 

Jill told us there was a little boy about 3 weeks old, healthy as can be, but has a family history of dwarfism.  Now we are not the tallest people in the world, so we figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.  And as we thought about being presented the only thing that kept coming to mind was that there was NO REASON to say no.  I emailed Jill to let her know that we were good with everything and to let us know what happened.  Neither one of us thought that we would get another call from Jill.  Especially on Monday, the day they were presenting us.

But we did get that call from Jill, who told us that we were picked!!!  We were amazed at how quickly things seemed to be coming together.  The birthparents already had a court date to relinquish parental right set up for Thursday, just 3 days away!  At this point we were still scared that something would come up and the match would fall apart again, like the last time.  So we decided to play it safe and not say much to anyone about being picked. 

But I did take the time on Tuesday to go up to the office to meet the little guy.  He was sleeping when I got there.  And so I held him as he slept, he loved just being snuggled.  When he did finally wake up he wiggled, stretched, and moaned a lot.  I gave him a bottle and talked to him.  It was very nice.  I was able to ask Doug, the head honcho guy, some questions about what to expect.  I had a few of my prayers answered during that conversation.  And I walked away that evening feeling very confident about everything. 

We waited for Thursday.  We waited to hear about the court hearing.  We waited to hear if the courts accepted the relinquishment of the birth parents rights. 

But we didn’t wait long!  We were on the final stretch!  It was looking like a homerun!!!  The courts accepted everything!!  Our little guy was free to become part of our family!  Since then we’ve been busy with trying to name him (btw, we’re naming him Benjamin Eugene), sign documents, and getting ready for Ben to come home- which should happen in the next couple of days.

 

Benjamin Eugene

9/20/2010

6:16am

5lbs 11.9oz

18in

Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.

Every girl says she wants romance in her life.

But do we know what romance truly is?

Matt sure does!!

This is what Matt does to romance the lady of this dreams...

I have to admit that if we were cartoons we would definitely be in a Pepe Le Pew episode!!!

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.

As a child I moved around a lot!  Most people thought we were army brats, but we weren't.  And through out the years I have tried staying in contact with people that I've met along the way.  Sadly, I am awful at mailing letter through the US postal system.  (I am MUCH better at emails though!) And there have been friends that I've lost touch with.  But now with the wonderful age of facebook and blogging I am constantly searching to see if I can find old friends.  It always makes me happy to run across a familiar face!  

Well, just this past month I found an old friend's blog.  I still haven't gotten up the courage to email and say "hey remember me?" but that's beside the point.  The point is that one of her sisters is taking a stand, or taking a yoga pose, to help women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  

Yoga for Congo Women

You still have a month to check it out and SIGN UP!  The event is being held in Golden Colorado.  It will be recorded and broadcast ONLINE for those not able to attend but still wish to participate!  All 100% of the proceeds are going to Women for Women.

Here's a list of links to check out:

www.yogaforcongowomen.org

www.womenforwomen.org

Little Women And A Mom

Sometimes I wish I were a little kid again, skinned knees are easier to fix than broken hearts.

The adoption match has failed.  

We will not be bring home little Jack... 

Our hearts are crushed...

We feel a numb emptiness...

We are taking a break.

I don't know when I'll be back...

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known

Wednesday

3:06pm

My phone rings.  I'm jamming out to the radio while driving to Hobby Lobby, my most favorite store of all time.  It's not a number I have saved in my phone.  But I still recognize it.  It's Doug, the director of our LDS Family Services office here in Detroit.  I turned down the music.  Doug knew of a mother thinking of placing her son for adoption and wanted to know if we were interested in being presented to her. I pull into a nursery(gardening) parking lot to get all the details.  The situation is perfect for us so I told him to "Show Us Off"!

Thursday

Matt's not home so I go and see a movie to try to stop thinking about if the phone will ring.   BTW, Sorcerer's Apprentice is pretty cute.  And I'm pretty sure I failed not thinking about it...

Friday

Work, Work, Work.  9am to 6pm

I get home at 6:30 and as I'm turning the key to get into the apartment, the phone rings.  It's Matt and with only two words he gets my heart racing. "Doug Called"

We've been matched!  The birthmom picked us!!!

We are so happy, excited, nervous, and every other emotion you can think of having!  We will be adopting a little boy, who we plan to name Jack Patton.  He is one and a half weeks old and is a current resident of the NICU.  He was born at 32 weeks, or 8weeks early.  He is on the ventilator and will be there for a while.  Our little man is 4lbs, 8oz and 18inches long.  His birth mother is Hispanic and his birth father is African American.  We've been told that he already has a full head of dark hair.  We can not wait to meet him, which we do tomorrow!

We are frantically trying to get everything together and ready for when he can come home.  If anyone is interested in sending a gift we have registered at Target and will be registering at Babies R Us sometime this week. 

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

We had a wonderful Fourth of July!  Our apartment complex hosted a lovely carnival.  We enjoyed some elephant ears, fried oreos, and fried snickers!  We love carnival food.  Sadly there weren't that many rides...and nothing that we thought was worth the price.  The complex also hosted a grand fireworks show!  They shot off some great fireworks both Friday and Saturday night!  Since it was practically in our backyard we figured we'd walk down to the waterfront (we're on a lake!) and watch the show.  We were right under neath everything!!!  During the grand finale Saturday night we were showered with ash from the fireworks!!  We were that close!

It was AWESOME!!!

We really enjoyed ourselves.  And we're so glad that we were able to sneak in a couple friends to celebrate the occasion!  

WE LOVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!

In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death.

We Are Blooming!!!!

Soon we will be enjoying some tasty jalapenos!!!

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

It's Finals Week....

I'm stressin' out over here! 

30*40 Self Portrait of my Brain

That's right folks, a self portrait of my brain!!!  try that on for size! I had a heck of a time defining what my brain is.  I finally figured it out and this is what I came up with.

That is right folks, my mind is a giant maze!  A twisting, turning, get lost in it labyrinth! In fact I get lost quite often...

where was I?

Oh yeah!  

This bad boy is due in two days!  yikes!  And so I'm a little stressed out about getting it done on time.  It's also one of the reasons I haven't posted much in the last couple weeks. 

There is an art, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

Matt wanted to share some of his flying videos.  It's fun going through the clouds.  He almost always has his camera on hand to snap a few shots of the horizon.  The first video is flying in between a couple clouds and the second video is flying right through a cloud.

We thought you might enjoy!

PS. there isn't much to listen to, so don't feel bad about muting it as it can get a little loud.