Happy 10th Daveed...10 reasons I love you!

1. He's an incredibly "TALL drink of water" (6'8")
2. He's a huge human jungle gym to all children and a "baby whisperer" to the little ones.
3. He likes almost anyone and is perfectly suited for his job of working with the elderly and their sometimes less than happy families, because he has a huge heart!
4. He can handle our two rowdy boys after I've had a crazy day and doesn't mind giving me a break.
5. He calls me things like "hot cakes" and "sweet lips" even when he's aggravated, to diffuse situations.
6. He's an eternal optimist.
7. He's very hard working and is always focused when completing tasks.
8. He's open minded, non-judgmental, and doesn't hold prejudices.
9. He's very loyal.
10. He never stays mad/sad for very long...always quick to forgive me of my endless weaknesses!

Happy 6th Birthday...Ben-jamin!!!

Seriously people!!!

What happened to the days when you're candy was cleaned out before the kiddies stopped knocking? I guess with all the forclosures, this catastrophe was bound to happen! What to do-what to do???

Halloween...2009

Tonight we went to the elementary school where they throw the annual "boo-bash" and the kids got all hopped up on sugar and had a blast, and it's not even Halloween yet!

It's Autumn time, it's Autumn time!

Unfortunately, there are no leaves falling down where we live! We did, however, spend last Saturday in an area called Oak Glen where there were beautiful Fall leaves around and fresh apple cider, yumm! The boys bounced in the bounce houses, I ate mine and another persons share of apple and pumpkin pie and the boys had a blast picking out pumpkins. Oh...we also went in this very cool corn maze and actually got pretty lost. We all had a great time and the boys are already talking about next Halloween when we get to go back.

The boys first day of school...

Better late than never, right?
They were so excited to start their new school. Ben started Kindergarten and Will started a special preschool that just happens to be at the same elementary school that Ben goes to. It's been so much fun to see them talking about doing homework and all the fun they get to do there. In fact, the first time Ben brought homework home he was super dissapointed when he'd finished it all so quickly. We might have a super achiever on our hands.
I especially love this last picture. It's each of their interpretation of acting cool for the camera. Very cute!!!

More fun at Lake of the Pines

My parents are sooo lucky to live on this beautiful lake. It really is one of our favorite places to visit and we would love to live there one day. The boys have so much fun splashing in the water and digging in the sand. We're always there from morning till night going between the lake, the pool and the park that's right on the water. We barbecue there every night and are often some of the last people leaving.

The boys in mom's old stomping ground!

This summer we had some fun adventures! We went up to the lake a few times, went camping with my parents, and got to visit old town Columbia, CA which is a state park that is this cute little town, on the way to Yosemite, that is for tourists to be able to relive the gold mining days. It has a couple of real Saloons where we indulged in yummy Sasparilla, a blacksmith shop where the boys got horse shoes with their names stamped on them, and my favorite...Nelson's Candy Kitchen, which was my favorite place to go when I was a kid. It's candy heaven. We also went on an old wagon ride complete with bandits that tried to rob us of our gold and candy. The boys loved it!
We also visited and old shop that my grandparents used to own which used to be an arts n' craft gallery and is now a cute little tea house. My grandma was a really talented artist and my grandpa framed all of her work by hand.
I have many many memories of this sweet little town because my grandparents lived there, above the gallery, for years. We spent every fourth of July there competing in pie and watermelon eating contests, which I of course dominated, and three legged races. They also had a needle in the hay contest, horse shoe throwing, etc... They had this great parade that people would dress up in old fashioned clothes for. I think we might have even won one year thanks to my mom's killer seamstress skills.
Besides fourth of July, I have so many fun memories of panning for gold there and just exploring the town and the fun hills behind it.
Thanks mom and dad for taking us there so that my boys could enjoy some of the fun!!!

No SURPRISE... It's a(nother) boy!

As my good friend Stephenie would say, I'm "boy trapped". Aaaagh! Yes, we were hoping for a little pink around here to, hopefully, mellow things out a bit...but it looks like no such luck! Wild banchee boys for us, all around. It's a good thing we like boys around here!

Salem, OR with the Keck family

Hangin out with cousins Avery and Auria in beautiful Salem.

Hangin out at "Lake of the Pines"

Our favorite place to spend the 4th of July and one of our favorite places, ever! They have a fun carnival with games for the kids and lots of good food to eat right down by the lake and then at night they have a great fireworks display that they shoot off over the lake. We love it! And, of course, we love to spend time with the Wright's and the rest of my side of the family.

Ben's preschool graduation... Kindergarten here we come!

Surprise, It's a...BABY!

So, we were starting to talk about talking about trying to get pregnant at the end of the summer when...SURPRISE, our minds were made up for us. I'm officially 3 months pregnant, due at the end of January. I haven't been feeling very well lately, but we're very excited for the upcoming addition to our family.

More fun on our trip to the beach

Fun at the beach with friends...

We had so much fun at the beach on Saturday (over Memorial Day weekend) with our good friends Tanner, Kate, Lizzie and Shad. We played in the sand, swam in the warm water and ate yummy food. They used to live right across the street from us, so the boys (and Kate) have pretty much "grown up" together and are very close little buddies. Thanks for letting us tag along guys!

My big boys as babies... A (belated) Mother's Day retrospective- It's a long one!

I realize it's cliche but the many mother's that warn you how time flies by when watching your children grow, do nothing to prepare you for the actual experience of seeing it happen so quickly. I really do feel like it was just yesterday that I had two babies tugging at my ankles, crying for their turn to be picked up...having to learn that mommy could only (safely) hold one of them at a time. So much of their little years were spent with me in "survival mode" always feeling a bit harried and wondering if I was ruining my children because I couldn't always provide for both sets of needs at the same time. To be totally honest, we all spent a lot of time crying. Them because they didn't yet understand their lot in life was to have to share, almost, everything. And me because, like I said, I struggled trying to feel like I could provide for both of their needs without going crazy. You'd think I had a zillion kids, but no there are just the two of them, though I have said many times that I count each one of them as two...because they both have very intense personalities, lol, each in their own way.

How it all started... We struggled for years to get pregnant. Four years to be exact, and that was with many attempts at fertility treatments. Never an explanation, we just never got pregnant. Then one day we just decided that it was time that we look into adoption, and from there it all happened pretty quickly. It took a while to get all the paperwork filled out but after we had everything submitted, the wait began. We both say that it felt like forever, but really it was only four short months later that we got "the call" from our social worker telling us that a mother had chosen us. As I listened to the details I was in shock that it was really happening, but as he told me that she was having a boy and that he was half Caucasian and half Cambodian... I was a little surprised. Surprised first because we had never talked about the possibility of our son being Asian, although we expected the probability of a baby of combined ethnicity, we had never considered that combination. The reason why I'm even explaining any of this, is that the main reason for my surprise was at how natural and right everything felt from the moment he started telling us about OUR baby boy. We had known for a long time that we wanted to name our first son Benjamin... and here he was, FINALLY coming to us. Our Benjamin! Or Benji-Dave as we would soon come to know him by.

So there we were just enjoying being parents to this BEAUTIFUL baby boy when all of a sudden I started noticing that I was having quite a bit of lower back pain and I was taking a lot of Ibuprofen with none of the typical "results" that would usually follow "that" lower back pain, so after a few days of this it occurred to me that maybe I should take a pregnancy test. So I picked one up at the grocery store and casually took it, sure that it would be negative...like all the many others, and to my huge surprise it was positive. Off to a barbecue to meet David with this big secret that I had to keep until later when we could be alone. The funniest part about telling him was that he didn't believe me. He had the same reaction that I'd had earlier when I saw the positive test results... dugh, I didn't know you could get a false-positive? We had waited for so long and taken countless pregnancy tests, all coming back negative and all of a sudden and out-of-the-blue it was positive. We were in a bit of shock, to say the least! And very excited! Me for the short term, sadly, because I got very sick very quickly and there's nothing fun about feeling like you have the flu for nine months. Let's just say I was excited about the baby, but not the pregnancy, which was difficult emotionally because all I'd ever wanted was to be pregnant and, at times, I worried I was being a bit ungrateful for the great blessing that was coming our way. Hormones can be tricky things, especially for the women in my family!! Luckily, Ben was an exceptionally easy baby and was, mostly, content to just lay on the ground next to me playing with toys and talking and singing with me. We had a lot of nice bonding time laying there on the carpet or in my bed suggling and coohing at eachother.

As the time got closer to Will's birth I remember feeling very protective of our family time and my one on one time with Ben because I knew that it was going to be short lived and I wanted to enjoy it to it's fullest. In fact the night Will was born, we were sitting on the couch snuggling as a family and I remember thinking that it might be one of the last times we spent together just the three of us and I really soaked it up. I had no idea how right on those thoughts were because soon after putting Ben to bed, my water broke and Will was born 3 weeks early, to the day. I hate to admit this, but I called my little sister crying because I wasn't ready to have him... I still had projects that I hadn't finished anticipating that I would at least go full term, if not over since this was my first pregnancy. I got over the sadness quickly and was just excited that Our William Evan was coming. The excitement was farely short lived because the contractions came on quickly and strongly and were every 3 minutes for the next 12 hours and I wasn't even dilating...aaagh!!! They wanted to give me pitosin but wouldn't give me an epidural, because I wasn't dilating, so I said "no thanks"! Then finally in the last hour I dilated from a 2 to a ten and he was born very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that I was yelling for them to get the doctor because I felt like I couldn't keep him in...tmi? (I was born with NO ONE, but my mother, there because of the same scenerio. My dad left to get the nurse, who'd gone to get the Dr. and they all came back to my mom snuggling me on her chest...what a woman!) Anyway, I do have to say that I was shocked to see this beautiful baby boy with the most RED/COPPER hair I'd ever seen. He was soooo cute, and still is to this day!!!

It was amazing to see Ben's sweet reaction to his new brother when his auntie brought him to the hospital for the first time. He was so curious and tender, and while the tenderness wore off pretty quickly, to be replaced by more normal brotherly affection, he has always been Will's ultimate protector. Just like any older sibling, Will is pretty much his possession to do with what he wants and Will is, almost always, game. As Will has grown, they have become equals in many ways and are buddies, wrestling partners, boxing mates, trouble maker companions, and best friends. I try very hard to let them be boys (sometimes contrary to David's opinion) but I also want to always instill in them a kindness and respect towards the other person so that they grow up being true friends, not just the other persons punching bag. I also don't want there to be a "bully/victim" relationship which I'm finding could easily happen if we're not very careful.

Being a mother is both INCREDIBLY rewarding and INCREDIBLY challenging! You never anticipate something like one of your children being diagnosed with autism or for other's having a sick child...or worse yet, losing a child. But I have learned, and continue to learn, that with Heavenly Father as my companion in this whole process, everything is possible...not easy, just possible. And a lot more fun! I love being a mother! It's very different than what I'd always anticipated. All the "typical" things that worked with all my nanny kids, don't seem to work with my kids...but that's OK, because I do have the guidance of the Spirit, and trial and error. I'm also learning to be more forgiving of myself. That's been one of the biggest lessons that I never knew I'd have to learn as a mother...to forgive myself for not being more of the "ideal" mother that I'd envisioned myself being, and I continue to learn it everyday. I know that sounds a little pathetic. (To be completely honest... with all those years as a nanny, I kinda thought I had it down) I'm just so grateful to know that my Savior will make up for my weaknesses and that Heavenly Father will multiply my efforts and help my kids to not end up being total "whack jobs" because of me! LOL! I'm also so grateful to the many amazing mother's that I have as examples! I couldn't do it without you!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE my two boys! And look forward to all the crazy (FUN) years to come!!!

(Too much) fun in the tub!

Left the room for 30 seconds, to get clean underwear for them, and the jets went on and the bubbles, and trouble, started flowing!!!

We love hanging out in gradma and gradpa's backyard!

Between all the wrestling, tickling, simon-says, frisbee throwing and other fun activities...we had a great time visiting with grandma and grandpa!!!

Having fun with dad!

We love our Grandma!!!

Having fun with mom!