It's Final!!!

We finally had the court hearing for Brodi's adoption, so she is officially Brodi Michelle Watkins now. We are so excited to have her as a permenant member of our family!! She keeps us busy but is such a sweet girl. She constantly makes us laugh as I think she is half prissy girl and half tom boy. She loves trains almost as much as Sam, except that she will lay them on their sides and cover them with wipes so that they can go night night. She and Sam also have developed a love for the Wicked soundtrack and will actually sing along to the songs. We just love our little girl. She has our hearts wrapped around her little finger.

We are planning on having her sealing around Thanksgiving.

Yeah our new little family. Brodi was not too happy in the court room.

Here we are right out side of the courtroom. Everyone is much happier.

My 4th of July date with Sam

In the 7 years that I have lived in Arizona I have never braved the heat to watch fireworks on the 4th of July. Last year we were at BJ's parents cabin and saw them in Payson in a nice cook park which was lovely and also instilled a love of "boom booms" for Sam. So this year we decided that we better stick around town instead of heading off to the cabin and we wanted to take Sam to see the boom booms so for the first time we went out to brave the summer heat (For those of you not experiencing our Phoenix summer, around this time of year it is so hot that it just never cools down, it will be over 100 degrees at midnight). Earlier in the evening it became very apparent that if Brodi stayed awake until the fireworks she would not be enjoying them, so BJ volunteered to put Brodi to bed and Sam and I took off to the Apache Junction fireworks. I was very pleasantly impressed. They put on a pretty good show. There was a lot of traffic but it really wasn't too crowded and it wasn't even very hot. Sam didn't like how loud they were because they were literally going off right over our heads, but once I told him that he could put his fingers in his ears he seemed to really be mesmerised by the show. The very best part of the evening wasn't the part when Sam decided to announced to the world the anatomy lesson that we have been working on about what part of his anatomy that he has that I don't, he even used the correct terminology (what is it about 3 year old that seem to find the exact wrong moment to display their knowledge about such things). The very best part of the evening was right before the fireworks started Sam nuzzled into me and said, "I just love you so much Mama!" and then gave my arm a little tickle. It was a magical night. Some girl better thank me someday for raising such a wonderful son, but not for at least 20 years....maybe 30.

This is our awesome parking spot. We ended up finding a spot in which we were the very first car in a long line of cars parked on the side of the road. When we were ready to leave we were able to pull right into the stand still traffic and not have to wait to get into like all the other cars behind us.

Sam already to see the boom booms.

Mommy and Sam. I just love you so much too Sam.

And of course the fireworks.

Famous last words

Several months ago BJ's mom asked us, "So do you think you will try to adopt any more children?" We answered one would just really have to fall into our laps to do it again. Let me explain our answer. We more than anyone know that we have been immensely blessed in the area of adoption. We have great testimonies that Sam and Brodi were placed in our lives for very specific reasons. We know to that they came into our lives so easily. People wait for years to adopt and Sam and Brodi in so many ways literally fell into our laps. When you certify to adopt there are a series of classes that you have to take. They were offered two times a year when we were certifying. It just so happens that the day after Sam was born the series of classes that we were supposed to take started. The instructors went around the room and had everyone introduce themselves as well as telling where they were we were in the process of adoption. Some of the people in our class had been waiting for 6 years for a baby to be placed into our home. When it was our turn we kind of sheepishly said that we had been certified for 1 month and our baby was just born last night. Despite all of our blessings adoption is hard. For those of you who have never adopted I don't think we can explain the emotional roller coaster ride that adoption puts you on. The highs are so high and we have never been happier or more excited, but also the lowest are equally low and we have never been so sad or disappointed when things don't work out right. After having Brodi placed in our lives we had a feeling of contentment. We had a boy and a girl. The American dream right? We were going to give it a year or two, maybe try some more infertility stuff, but we were ready then to get off the adoption rollercoaster ride, or the very least take a break from it then determine in a year or so what we should do or if we should just count our many blessings and be content with the two beautiful children that have come through our lives. No one could fault us for that right? We even went as far as calling our caseworker to make sure that our adoption profile was frozen. (With LDS family services you have an adoption profile of yourselves on itsaboutlove.org for birth families to view when you are actively seeking an adoption. When you have it frozen they take it off line. Adoption birth control.) We have since learned that thankfully we are not in charge of our lives.

Let me set the stage for the next part of the story. BJ and I decided that we need to have a kid free weekend with each other. We had some airline points that were going to expire soon so we thought why don't we pick a place we have wanted to visit and just go. For the second year in a row we picked the Bay area. One of BJ and I's favorite things to do is look at real estate. Dorky we know. Our first day we drove around the Sacramento area just looking at houses because that is just what we like to do. I had called a couple of messages to get the prices on the houses full well knowing that the realtors would be trying to call us to see if we wanted them to represent us in a house that we had no intention of buying. Thus I had been ignoring some unfamiliar area codes. We were on our way to check in to the hotel and BJ got a call from an unfamiliar area code and answered it. Little did we know that it was a call that would change our lives forever. The caller introduced herself as Jenni a caseworker in Georgia who was working with a birthmother there who had seen our profile on itsaboutlove.org absolutely fell in love with it and would like to start communicating with us. With the dumbfounded silence on our end of the phone she added, "You aren't frozen are you?" BJ said, "Well we thought we were." We told her about Brodi. Since we thought that our profile was inactive we hadn't updated it in over a year so there wasn't a word about her. Through talking to her further we told her that Brodi wasn't a newborn adoption and it was through a private attorney and we figured out when this new baby would be born she would be almost 2. She asked us if we would be interested in pursuing another adoption. We looked at each other and knew we felt the same way, "Yes, we would." We then drove to our hotel laid on the bed and for the next hour stared at the ceiling and occasionally muttering really intelligent things like, "Wow" and "Did that really just happen?" Luckily since I wasn't answering my phone she had left a message on my voicemail so we did have some physical proof that we somehow didn't make the whole thing up. We had an overwhelming feeling that this was no accident and we needed this baby to come into our little family just as much as this baby needed us.

Over the next few weeks we started to email the birthmother in Georgia. Through our emails we started to learn what an amazing person she is. She was attracted to our family because of our love of our open adoptions. BJ and I flew to Georgia last weekend to meet her. As with our other birth families we totally and completely fell in love with her and her family. During our visit with her she officially asked us to be the parents of her son! As with our other two children we could not be anymore humbled by birth families trusting us enough to be the parents to their beloved children. We are so excited to be able to bring this new little boy into our lives. He is due on July 22 so we have reached the point when he really could come any moment. We have started our own emergency suitcase so we can fly out to Georgia just as soon as we need to. We are so grateful for this new addition to our family. We are also so grateful that Heavenly Father is looking out for us and the needs of our family and knows what we need more than we know ourselves.

Phone pictures

I was just going through some of the pictures on my phone and came across these gems. Sometimes pictures on my phone get forgotten but they are really great because they are the ones that are so spontaneous that you don't have time to get the actual camera.

Sam told us this week "I loved trains, and trucks, and airplanes!" That's our boy! You have to look pretty close at this picture which is really rather clever. He made a train. He put 2 toy bins together is obviously sitting in one, but notice the front of the train. He put him red steam engine in front! I also just love with the poor phone photo quality you can see the action of him saying "Choo, choo!"

Brodi thinks Sam is one of the coolest people there is. She constantly follows him around and tries to do what ever does. Unfortunately Sam doesn't always appreciate this. In this picture Sam really wanted to have the hood on his jacket on. You may be wondering what Brodi is doing. The next picture will tell it all.

She wanted to have a hood on too!