The Men In My Life

December 19, 2014 will forever mark the day that my heart was captured by 2 men, instead of just one. How can you blame me?

Our placement took place at the local library.

We are proud to introduce Eli Bryant Johnson as the newest member of our family. He was born on the coolest day 12/13/14 at 6 pounds 2 oz and was 19 inches long. This tiny little guy has now been a member of our family for a little over 14 hours now and we have loved every minute of it.

All clean after his first hotel sponge bath.

Eli's Nursery

We've been working really hard to get ready for Eli. Yesterday, we finally finished his bedroom. We're really excited. Take a look:

This dresser used to be ours, but we threw some love and paint into it to make it Eli's. The orange handles and cream paint match the theme in the rest of his room.

Adam and I built the crate and coat rack in the corner out of a pallets. We bought the mirror at a thrift store and gave it some TLC. We're planning on using the picture frame on the dresser to hold pictures of both of Eli's families.

We bought these frames at the thrift store and transformed them for this arrangement.There is a matching orange and cream rug that you can't quite see in this picture.

Here's a closer look.

Adam helped me complete this project last night. We cut out our own vinyl and everything.

And this is another reminder that some in Ohio loves him.

Do you think he will like it?

Happy Thanksgiving

Adam and I always have so much to be thankful for, but this year our hearts are exceptionally full!

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my Grandparents, my parents, Abby, Nate, Locklynn, and a few aunts, uncles, and cousins.

I helped my mom make a green salad and green bean casserole. I helped my Grandma make delicious Stove Top Stuffing. My Grandpa doesn't like stuffing, but each year he takes a bite of it off my place. Thanksgiving would not be the same without that! 

 Adam made 2 lovely pumpkin pies from scratch.

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast... ya, I'm not talking about me and Adam, I am talking about a play we attended this weekend. We met my mom and dad and Nate and Abby at the theater to watch Adam's sister, Alesha, perform in the musical.

She was a member of the chorus and an enchanted table, but we pretty much thought she was the star!

Best enchanted table ever!

National Doughnut Day

Today was National Healthy Food Day... and National Doughnut Day. We chose to celebrate Doughnut Day!

Hmm... tomorrow is National Nacho Day!

Also today was "The Best Day Ever" Day in the Johnson household. We found out that for Christmas we will be given the amazing gift of a wonderful baby boy! Stay tuned!

Happy Halloween

We hope that you had a Happy Halloween! If you are ever in Utah in October, you should stop by Mabey Farms in South Jordan to pick up some amazing pumpkins. They have over 35 different kinds and their pumpkin patch was featured on the local news this year. The Mabey's are Adam's family. They are great people and have a great pumpkin patch.

We were lucky enough to have a Mabey Farms' pumpkin this year and look what we turned out:

Can you tell what it is?

We also have some Mabey pumpkins that we are hoping to turn into pies or other delicious goodies. We've only ever used canned pumpkin, but are excited to try using the real thing!

Farewell October

The end of October brings scary things like Halloween... and my birthday. This year I turned 28. Mostly people look at birthdays as a happy time of celebration. Lately, for a long time really, I've been making the mistake of using birthdays, holidays, and milestones to look at the past and future and dwell on what I don't have. For example I will think to myself:

" OMG, we've been married over 5 1/2 years and we still don't have any kids."
" We've been graduated from high school for over 9 years and we still don't have kids."
" So and so is pregnant again. Why can't that be us?"
" We've been trying to adopt for 3 years and still don't have kids."
" I'm 28 and I still don't have kids."

I think that this year has been especially hard with our recent failed adoption and our miscarriage that was almost 1 year ago. This year was almost the year that I had exactly what I wanted for my birthday! It becomes almost consuming at times. So, maybe you will understand why I was dreading my birthday as usual.

But you know what? It wasn't so bad. It was actually good. I felt the love of so many people. And thanks in part to "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" movie that Adam took me to see today (He came and got me off work early), I am trying to set a goal to become a better person by enjoying my life in the here and now and enjoying holidays and milestones for what they are. You guys gotta help hold me to it!

IN OTHER NEWS:

This week was Spirit Week at work. Monday was PJ/ Crazy Hair day. Tuesday was Zoo Animal Day. Wednesday was Decade Day. Thursday was Nerd Day. Friday was Halloween costume of choice.

Check me out on Zoo Animal Day:

I was supposed to be a leopard, but I think it had a little more of a mouse vibe going on!

And check out this:

I came in to work for Nerd Day/ my birthday later than usual because Adam and I had our home study update this morning. My awesome co-workers had this great surprise waiting for me along with a special home-made card and delicious cake. Stacey was so thoughtful to make me an oatmeal cake because she knows that I like oatmeal pie! The people in my life sure know how to make me feel special.

Boise Weekend

This weekend Adam helped with pediatric screenings for Shriner's at the ISU campus in Meridian. My mom, dad, and I tagged along for a weekend away. One cool thing we did was visit the Boise Aquarium. We got to feed salt water fish, touch star fish, and pet sharks and sting rays. I loved it! As a little girl, I wanted to grow up to be a marine biologist.

We also dined at a couple places from "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives." If you are ever in the area, check out Rick's Press Room and Westside Drive In. Yum!

Roller Coaster Month

The past month has been a rocky roller coaster in our lives. Among the usual hecticness of life, we had our adoption profile presented to a birth mom and she chose another family over us. Then, a week later we were matched with a birth mom, were packed and ready to fly out when the baby was born, had our nursery all set up, and then found out a couple of days later that the birth mother had decided to parent. Although this has been tremendously hard, a well timed Sunday School lesson taught us that we still don't have it as bad as Job because we've been surrounded by supportive friends and family. We can feel your prayers and your love. We're thankful for the gospel and the knowledge that it gives us on the importance of agency in this life. We can not begrudge this birth mother her agency when we know that we fought so hard for it in Heaven.

Anyway, on to happier things, we were able to celebrate Locklynn's 2nd birthday with him yesterday. We sure love that nephew of ours! Right now he is into airplanes so he had an airplane themed party with a donut hole cake.

As is standard with birthday parties, we sang a rousing round of Happy Birthday, which resulted in tears. Poor guy, our voices must be pretty bad. :)

Despite our tough month, we have good things coming up. I have the privileged of attending Women's Conference at the conference center next weekend with my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and niece. General Conference weekend is also coming up and Adam and I will be spending a weekend in Boise soon.

Labor Day Weekend

We had a great Labor Day weekend. I hung out with my family and Adam spent most of his time hunting with his dad. We got an early start to the holiday weekend when Lockie came for a sleepover Thursday night. It was his mom and dad's anniversary so he hung out with us. We ate dinner, had some ice cream, and watched a little bit of his favorite Frozen. Lockie's mom and dad forgot his toys, so I dug some of our stuffed animals out of our hope chest for Lock to cuddle with.

As you can see, we are still "selfie" challenged.

Locklynn did a really good job for us. He did have a tough bedtime though. It was his first sleepover ever without one of his parents. In the morning Lock helped us pick some veggies out of our garden.

I was sure sad to have to let his parents take him back and go to work!

American Adoptions

This year Adam and I decided to begin pursuing adoption with a new adoption agency. This ended up being a timely decision because our current agency, LDS Family Services, will no longer be offering full service adoption agency services. I believe we began the process in May and our family goal was to be done with everything by the end of May. Well, we officially became active the last couple of weeks and we feel very optimistic and excited.

American Adoptions Profile

Our adoption fund needs to grow significantly with this new agency. One sad thing about losing LDS family services is that their adoptions were subsidized. Adam started a fund raising web page for us.

You Caring Fund Raising Page

Keep following our story. I think that there are exciting things in our future!

Utah Weekend

A couple of weekends ago we went to Utah for one of Adam's cousin's weddings. We were honored to be able to attend the Jordan River temple with them and watch as they were sealed together for time and all eternity. I am so glad that I am sealed to my best friend forever too.

That weekend we were also able to watch one of our 5 year old niece's soccer games. Hilarious!

I'm convinced that I would be an AWESOME soccer mom and Adam would be a great soccer coach! We cheered so loud. At one point our niece was the goalie. The coach told her at half time that she would be putting her in. Adam told her that if she kept out all of the goals, he would buy her an ice cream cone. Then he took her out to the goal and showed her what to do.

She kept out all of the goals (some of the balls just bounced right off of her) and ended up with a nice ice cream cone at the end.

After the game, a quick ice cream cone, and a quick lunch, we all went to Seven Peaks and had an awesome time. Then when Adam and I headed back to Idaho we stopped to visit his Grandpa who seems to be doing so much better. We also grabbed some delicious juicy peaches at a fruit stand. Yum! I'm so sad that the summer is coming to an end and that Adam went back to school today. However, he is one step closer to bringing home the bacon! Love him!

In Touch With Our Inner Child

This was the weekend in which we got back into touch with our inner child. We stayed up LATE reminiscing, talking about everything under the sun, and giggling with 2 of Adam's sisters until 2:30 am! The lack of sleep was so worth it! Then, just 8 hours later, we played hard on a giant water slide. A lot of the kiddos liked to pile onto Adam's back to ride down the slide. He probably had even more fun they did!

Catch of the Day

Adam loves hunting and fishing. The last few years he has had to choose between hunting or fishing and hunting usually wins out. This year he decided to splurge and do both. On Saturday he went out for an early fishing trip and he was pretty pleased with his catch!

2 printers and a net full of aluminum cans! A pretty successful day, at least for our recycling fund!

4th of July Weekend

My mom and dad went on an Alaskan cruise with my grandma and grandpa. They were gone from June 29th until today. I missed them like CrAzY!!! However, we were able to have fun with the rest of our family. Here are some of the things that we did:

We had fun at the 4th of July parade.

We played around the river and enjoyed the fireworks.

We watched hot air balloons fly off as the sun rose above the Teton Mountains. We also got to walk inside of one of the balloons.

We played on an awesome playground.

We went went shooting.

We did all this and more in 1 weekend! We sure have a busy summer ahead of us!

My Grandpa

Last weekend my Grandpa turned 80 years old.

Then

Now

Dear Grandpa (or Bebo as I used to call you),

The world is so lucky to have had you for these past 80 years and I feel so blessed to have had you as my Grandpa! I really think you are the best grandpa that a girl could ask for and I have looked up to you for my whole life. I love how you can talk to absolutely anyone. I love that you are always there for your family. And, I love that you are always willing to share your opinions and share of yourself.

Grandpa, I really admire how you are willing to serve anyone and everyone. I myself have been blessed by bags of flour, pounds of hamburger, as well as sacks of potatoes, onions, and garden vegetables. Thank you. 

Adam and I are also eternally grateful for the support you have given us throughout our adoption. We hope to someday be as good of parents as you are! You are such a great example in everything that you are. 

I am so thankful for the 27 years of memories that I have been able to share with you. What other girl can saying that her grandpa hid things like tissues or golf balls in her shoes or stole Stove Top stuffing off of her plate at Thanksgiving? I’ve also learned so many things from you. I’ll never forget that soy sauce is made from grasshopper spit, raisins are dead flies without wings, and tapioca is actually frog eggs.

Love Always,

Your Grand Daughter Katie

P.S. Have fun on your upcoming cruise to Alaska. I would have loved to experience that with you, but I look forward to hearing all about it once you get home!