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!

Swimming Lessons and Potty Training

Somehow that just seems to be the theme of my summer thus far. Let me report though that Sam has been consistantly dry now for over 2 weeks. It looks like we have made it. He seems to be very pleased with himself and that has led into him doing other independant things like putting his own clothes on (usually backwards) we are just so amazed at how grown up he has become. He told us a few nights ago when we were reading scripture stories that "Jesus likes it when I'm dry." Yes we are sure that is very true, Mommy and Daddy really like it too.

As for swimming lessons let me bring you back a couple months ago to Saturday May 1st Sam's very first swimming lesson. He hung white knuckled to the edge of the pool screaming his lungs out for 30 minutes for us to get him out of the water. It was a very hard 1/2 hour for Mommy and Daddy. In fact the instructor invited us not to attend the next lesson because kids seem to do better if their parents are't right there. I had just signed him up for swimming lessons all through June at the Mesa Public pools and I will have to tell you I was scared. I was going to be doing Toddler swim with Brodi and I just had this image in my mind of how awful this situation might turn out. To our great delight Sam and Brodi did awesome. Sam stayed with his class the entire time while I was with Brodi and seemed to really enjoy himself. Two months and I've lost count of how many swimming lessons later we went to the same pool that he had his first lesson at and I was amazed with Sam. He would purposely and for fun mind you drop pool toys to the bottom of the pool and then submerge his entire head in the water to retrieve them. I know this might seem small but this is absolutely huge for him. He LOVES swimming now and Brodi as always follows right behind Sam trying to do everything he is doing. She has yet to stick her own head in the water however in her mind that is just crazy. We are so proud of them they have come so far this summer. Thank you swimming lessons!

BJ's birthday

Here is Sam sporting an ice cream cake goatee.

Brodi also really enjoyed the ice cream cake.

Sam and Uncle Ty with matching goatees. Sorry Ty you will have to work on yours.

Sam and his best buddy cousin Sadie.

BJ's birthday was last sunday. As usual he wanted to keep things low key and simple. We went to his parents house to have dinner that night. He is pretty excited to be entering his mid thirties right now, 33, I don't think that is really midthirties, but whatever, he started telling me that I was in my midthirties after 31.

I am so lucky to have a BJ as my husband. He is greatest man. One of the first things I ever noticed about him was his goodnes and integrety. He has failed to disapoint me.In the 6 years that we have been together now he has remained the same way. Girls, I really won out when I married BJ. After nearly 6 years of marriage we have never had a fight, discussions of course but we just never fight. He has been so supportive of me throughout the trials that we have faced in our marriage. I am so greatful to have him and hope he had a wonderful birthday. He will be so embarassed that I am writing this on our blog but that's what he gets for being so incredible.

Welcome Baby Leah

This morning my sister Megan gave birth to her daughter Leah Marie Badger, and the best part of all was that I got to be there!! It was so amazing. Look at my sister's face. That is the face of a champ! She delivered a 9lb 2oz baby after being in labor for 26 hours without an epidural. Watching her made me just a little glad that IF I were ever to become pregnant doctors have already told me that natural child birth is not an option.

It was such an amazing experience. I am so glad that I got to be a part of it. My mom and sister Kish and of course her husband James were also there. Kish is a labor and delivery nurse so she was the expert. Megan was such an amazing pusher that Kish could have delivered the baby before the doctor got there. Welcome to the world Leah!!

Sam's haircut

Sam had been asking for days to get a haircut. He told me that his hair was just getting too big. Heaven forbid we bring back some 80s hair style so I obliged Sam and we went to go get a haircut at Great Clips. When a child actually asks for a haircut you just have to go (and his hair was starting to get too "big"). He is so good and sits so still. The woman cutting his hair said that he did better than most older kids. I have a suspicious feeling that he might like haircuts because he knows that he gets a sucker at the end. Brodi got her bangs trimmed and also sat so still. What our kids won't do for candy.

California Trip

BJ and I were able to get away to California just the two of us for Memorial Day weekend. As much as we missed Sam and Brodi we had so much fun as we tried to squeeze everything we could in 4 days. Our first day we kind of just bummed around the Sacramento area and watched a late movie, yes my friends it started at 8pm and didn't get out until AFTER 10pm. Gone are the days when we would go to movies that started after 10pm.
Saturday we went to go see Wicked, my Mother's Day gift from BJ. What can I say, it was wicked awesome. We absolutely loved it. We stayed the night with Michael and Mallory and it was so good to get to visit with them.
Sunday we did something we rarely ever do, we went on a whim. We thought Yosemite isn't too far away and neither of us has been there, lets go. The problem with whims to state parks on holiday weekends is that they tend to be crowded. Luckily we stopped to get a map of at Mariposa about 1 hour away from Yosemite. We were informed that nearly everything in the area was booked for the weekend but luckily they found us a room in a vary quaint motel called The Mother Load Lodge. If we thought of it as more staying in a cabin for the night it wasn't too bad, small, but clean and at least we had a roof over our heads. Yosemite was fantastic. It's one of those places that pictures will never do it justice. The other problem with whims is that you don't always have the right gear. We hiked to a waterfall with a bunch of granite boulders in flip flops. I have pretty tough feet from my days in Samoa and living in flip flops in AZ so I found it was actually easier to hike in bare feet. I did get some funny looks.
Monday we were off to Sacramento and saw that they that a Train museum. We just had to go there in honor of Sam so we took a ton of pictures of all sorts of trains. We had so much fun and can't wait to go again sometime. Sam and Brodi had a wonderful time with Nana and Papa while we were gone.

Two cute kids

Here are just a couple of pictures of our cute kids.

Sam with his new sunglasses. You really don't get much cooler than this.

Brodi's bedhead. I love how Brodi has one ponytail sticking straight up. It always reminds me of a little bunny rabbit. Such a cute little girl.

Last Day of School

To commemorate Sam's last day of preschool I had to share this cute video of him reading one of his favorite books. This is a book we read together every night so I know that he has it memorized but not too shabby for a 3 year old. We are so proud of our Sam. He has made so much progress this year. It seemed like just a little while ago that I was posting about his first day of preschool. At that time he still had a speech therapist coming to the house and was picking up a lot of words, but still had a really basic vocabulary, our lover of the alphabet is now quite a talker and reads some sight words. He can also write his name. Such a smart kid. We are so proud of you Sam!!

Fathers and Sons Outing

BJ here. In our church they have an annual event called the Fathers and Sons Outing. It is a camping trip where all the boys go camping for a night. There are many doctrinal reasons for the celebration, suffice it to say that it is a lot of fun each year.



Confession: I haven't been to one since before my mission (circa 1996). Sam did so well on our trip to San Antonio this year that I decided to take him on the campout. I was a little nervous because this is not only his first Fathers and Sons but his first camping trip ever.



He ended up doing great. When we got there we setup the tent and let him sit in his little camp chair and after about a half hour he said he was ready to go home. it was 4:30 in the afternoon. I reminded him that we had to wait and go to sleep first. He was disappointed until he saw several groups start making fires and then I knew that he was all boy. All he wanted to do was walk around and check out the fires. Heaven help his future scoutmaster.

Here are some pics. The first one is him in our tent.

After playing in the tent for a while we ate dinner. He thought it was pretty cool to eat in the back of my truck. I stopped at Wal Mart and got a bunch of candy and decided to let him eat as much as he wanted. He ended up getting a small stomachache at dinner so I had to put it away much earlier than I thought I would.

Then we played with fires for a little while.

Then, after the sun went down and we gobbled down our dutch over cobbler is was time for bed. It was cold up there that night (mid thirties) but Sam did well. He woke up a couple of times and said he was cold (he kept wriggling out of his sleeping bag). I put him back in and kept putting his hat on. This picture is what I woke up to in the morning.

And then in the morning we played with some more fires.

Thanks for coming with me Sam. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Mother's Day

Typically for women who deal with infertility problems Mother's Day can be a pretty touchy subject. We have known now for 5 1/2 years that unless some gigantic miracle happens (we are talking Abraham and Sariah type miracle, hopefully BJ would not be asked to sacrifice that child) we won't be able to naturally have our own children. I think that there always is a little twinge of sadness that accompanies this day for me now. I once read a quote that says "My infertility resides in my heart as an old friend. I do not hear from it for weeks at a time,and then, a moment, a thought, a baby announcement or some such thing, and I will feel the tug-maybe even be sad or shed a few tears. And I will think, 'There's my old friend.' It will always be part of me..." I have always identified with that quote. At the beginning I thought that infertility would never be my friend, but it has, it makes me who I am today. It makes me appreciate and love the 2 wonderful children that I have been blessed with that call me "Mommy" all the more. On mother's day I can't help but reflect on the many mothers and grandmothers in my children's lives. I think my children are the luckiest kids in the world to be so blessed with so many incredible women in their lives. We love you all. We love the women that we may have never met that love our children from afar. Mother's Day has come to mean so much more to me than a reminder of my infertility as I think of all the love and sacrifice that has been shown to my children in making me a mother. Thank you and Happy Mother's Day!!!

Going for a walk

At a yard sale this week I found one of child harnesses shaped liked animals. We have been contemplating getting one for Brodi because we know she would like to get out of the stroller more and walk around but she will often wander off on her own. There just seems something wrong with putting your child on a leash. We got Sam a harness last summer when we went to Yellowstone last summer so that he wouldn't fall into a geyser or something and every time we put it on him he wouldn't walk he would just lay on the ground for the sheer indignity of the whole thing and we ended up carrying him the whole time. I ended up returning it because it had really never been used. I think that's what has kept me from attempting one with Brodi, however, she was the one that discovered it at the yard sale and she loves it. She gets a little irritated when she can't walk away as far as she would like but really doesn't seem to mind it. It is really nice to know that we can let her have a little more freedom, but still keep her safe from getting lost, or stolen, or hit by a car, or whatever else we parents worry about. She knows that someone is suppose to hold the tail of the harness so she is giving her self a little walk around the house in this picture. She did cry when we made her take it off to go to bed, poor baby.

Preschool Day at the Zoo.

This week Sam's preschool class went on a field trip to the Zoo. Sam was so excited to go to the Zoo with Miss Janelle and his school friends. I knew that he liked Miss Janelle, his teacher, but until the zoo trip I didn't realize how much he loved her. He wanted to sit by her on the train instead of me. I'm not sure how I feel about him having this other "woman" in his life. :) He also loves our mother's helper Miranda and most of the time BJ and I come home he says, "No Miranda stay, you go." I guess it sure does beat him crying every time I had to leave. Brodi will still cling to me when I go so at least I get a healthy amount of guilt for leaving from that. We were thinking about finding a preschool that is a little closer next year, but after seeing how much he loves his teacher I think we are going to stick with where we are.

Sam with all of his school friends. Most of his class is made up of girls.

You can't really see him in this picture but behind the zebra that is eating is a baby zebra that had just been born that morning. He was so cute.

What Zoo trip is complete without a train ride.

Sam and Miss Janelle.

What in the heck are these used for? (Heaven knows not for the purpose intended)

Potty training Sam has been a very long, long, long ordeal and still not accomplished. He started being interested in the potty last summer and since he was still pretty young we didn't totally push it yet, then last fall we rocked his world with a new sister and everything went shall we say, down the toilet. We are starting to get closer to accomplishing this feat once again so his underwear has been pretty accessible. Brodi has been fascinated by it, although she can't quite figure out what it is used for.

Are they shirts?

Are they bracelets?

Are they socks?

We'll figure it out someday.
(For all those who may be concerned the underwear shown in these pictures are clean, and quite frankly have probably never even been worn.)

San Antonio Trip

For Spring Break we decided to go on our first road trip with 2 kids. We were pretty anxious about it because we were going to visit my sister Kelli in San Antonio which is a 2 day car ride from us. The kids did so much better than we expected and we had a great time visiting cousins that we don't get to see very often.

Here is Brodi all ready to go.

Sam too is ready to drive 15 hours as evidenced by twisting his hair and sucking his thumb. He's going into his happy place.

We usually don't eat fast food too much except on trips, so here are Sam and Brodi at one of our many fast food stops.



We broke our trip up into 2 days. We stayed in Las Cruses the first night. Sam and Brodi were so glad to get out of the car.

One of the reasons that we kept Sam happy was promising him that at our hotel that night we could go swimming because in the hotel description it said that there was a pool. What we didn't know was that they pool was outside and had been drained for the winter. Sorry kids.

Ok you have too look really closely right under the tree in this picture. There is faint S a m. This is the first time I've ever seen Sam actually write his name. He knew that he could type his name because he loves to use my Blackberry memo app to write his name, but I was quite impressed that he could actually write the letters as well. Smart kid.

Two cute kids on the front porch of Cracker Barrel.

The San Antonio zoo has a really great train that goes around Breckenridge Park. He is in his element. In the words of one of his favorite books, "Trains, trains, trains, I love trains."

Naps are so tough for kids on trips. Believe it or not Brodi will be dead asleep within 5 minutes of when this picture was taken. All it took was the gentle rocking of the train.

This is how Sam took most of his naps during our trip. The poor kid missed the Zoo, the Alamo, and Kalin's baptism.

Here we are on our boat tour of the Boardwalk. Sam was pretty impressed by the boat ride, but not nearly as much as the train ride the day before.

At my sister Kelli's house Brodi found a really cool fort. She and her cousin Adria had a wonderful time shutting each other up in the dog kennel.

We found one of the best ways to entertain Brodi during the driving on the road trip was to hand her a sticker every few minutes. She would then decorate her legs with them.

One of our last fast food stops.

For sometime now I have come to realize that all of the commercials for products to reduce fine lines and wrinkles are geared towards me. How in the heck did I arrive in my mid thirties. Try to ignore my crows feet in this picture (if you can) and look at cute Sam.