California

During Christmas break this year we went to California with BJ's parents. We are holding out as long as we can before Sam and Brodi discover Disneyland so we did more San Diego type things while we were there. We went to Sea World, San Diego Zoo, and the Wildlife Zoo. The very most important thing about California is that they have trains. Better yet, they have trains that go along the beach. Right before Brodi moved in with us we took Sam to California. This is the fateful trip that Sam discovered trains. We were crossing over the tracks when a big Amtrak passed by. He just shook the whole time it passed. We thought that it scared the day lights out of him, but instead in ingrained a devotion to trains. To this day about 90% of Sam's conversation centers around trains.

Here is Brodi wishing that she could swim with the seals.

This is how Sam viewed most of Sea World.

Brodi ran into a pole and got a bloody nose. She was more concerned that Daddy was bleeding than that she was hurt.

Sea World had Polar Express in 3D. Here we are waiting for the show. Ultra cool Sam.

We are so awesome. Love Brodi's glasses upside down.

This orangutan was enthralled by this lady.

The kids really wanted the orangutan to come see them.

Brodi was not so thrilled being stuck in the ice with the seal.

Here we are on a train outside San Diego Zoo. Not so comfortable being 7 months pregnant.

After waiting in line for an eternity it is finally our turn to ride the the Safari train at the Wildlife Zoo.

This is the Ding, Ding, Ding (railroad crossing if you don't speak Sam) that started it all. A year and a half prior to this picture Sam saw his first train.

Waiting for the train to go by. We kind of have wimpy kids. This is how they view movies in the theater. They are too loud.

Christmas Program

The time has come that Sam is in totally cute Christmas Programs at preschool. Sam chose to be Joseph in their little Christmas Pageant. He was so excited. Here are a couple of pictures of his costume and his class

Here is Sam as Joseph.

I'm not sure what Sam is doing here, but it sure looks like he is praying so I had to snap a picture of it.

Here is Joseph with Mary. FYI, this little girl has decided that she would like to marry Sam. Hopefully there heights will even up a bit if her wish comes true.

Here is Sam with his whole class. There isn't anything much cuter than kids dressed up as nativity characters.

After the program the kids got to decorate gingerbread houses. Brodi who can't wait until she can go to preschool was so excited to get to join in with all of the other kids.

Sammy is so cool.

Sam has developed such a funny personality. He loves to make "statements" with his clothes. For instance he loves to wear unmatching shoes and when ever he wears these pajama bottoms he likes to pull them up as long as he possibly can. I'm not sure what statement he is trying to make.

Updates

So I will be the first one to admit to this fact, our blog is terribly, terribly, terribly out of date. We do know the last thing we blogged about is Brodi's adoption hearing, a lot of things have happened but we have yet to blog about them.

Let me get you updated by taking you back to July which is a good time because that is in fact the last time I had posted. One of our last postings was to announce that we were going to be adopting a baby. Well as we were waiting for the call to fly out to Georgia when Elijah was born I (Shannon) was waiting for something to happen which any woman will tell you you don't want to have happen when you are on a trip. As things were a few days late BJ and I started to entertain the idea of what if I was pregnant. We had been there and done that so many times that we were very sure that I was not, however, when things still didn't start I found a pregnancy test that had been expired for 2 years and told BJ I was going to take it just to ease my mind that I was in fact not pregnant. Something happened with that test that had never happened before....it was positive! Mind you this was Sunday morning and we were getting the kids ready to go to church so we finished getting the kids ready and took off wondering if we had a false positive because the test had expired 2 years ago. As soon as we got back home we headed off to the store (we figured if our ox had ever been in the mire, it was right then.) We got back home and took the test again and sure enough it was positive.

After the second test we hugged, jumped up and down a bit, and then looked at each other and thought what are we going to do? We told the birthmother of the baby that we were going to be adopting the next day. We all had a very important decision to make? Was it really in Elijah's best interest for us to adopt him knowing that I was pregnant and not knowing how my pregnancy would be. Also when he was only 8 or 9 months old we would be bringing home another baby. Would any of the children have enough attention? How would Sam and Brodi do? They would be the ones who would have the least attention. In weighing all the options we made a mutual decision with the birthmother that it would be in his best interest to go to another family. It was one of the hardest decisions we had ever made as a couple but it was the only thing that would bring us peace. He went to a wonderful family in Georgia who did not have any children yet and who had just gotten certified to adopt in Georgia. We are so grateful that he has a wonderful parents and that he is doing very well. We love that little boy, but do know that this was the best decision for him.

We are now a little over 17 weeks along. I am finally starting to feel better for the most part. I have become very efficient at throwing up so I do it without much notice several times a week but thank heavens I don't feel sick constantly. Everything to date looks good and my belly keeps expanding, so I think that we really are pregnant!! We know that this is such an absolute miracle. We were told that in order for me to become pregnant I would have to have a donor egg with IVF. This pregnancy is a complete miraculous accident.

It has been very fun the past couple of weeks with Sam and Brodi because with my expanding belly I think we really have convinced them that there really is a baby growing in there. Sam said to me the other day while looking at my tummy, "Mommy your baby is getting so, so, so, so, so, so BIG!" I had to laugh because he has no idea how big I am going to get before the baby is ready to done. Both Sam and Brodi will come up to me several times a day and kiss the baby. Sam will even put his arms around my tummy to give the baby a hug. They are very cute about it and are so excited to have a new baby to come live with us in March.

Here are the pregancy tests. When they first came up positive we had to double check to see if we were reading everything right.

It's official. We are pregnant!!

These are from our 12 week ultrasound. Look, there is a baby in there!

Little legs.

Little arm.

Meet baby Watkins.

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.