Thursday, October 22, 2009

Finally Finalized!

We flew to Utah this week to finalize Forest's adoption. What a feeling of relief and joy to know that he is legally ours. It's one thing to feel like a child is yours, but it's another to know that all the loose ends have been tied up, and your baby is yours completely in the eyes of the law.

Here's a picture of us with the judge, Tyrone Medley, who used to play basketball with University of Utah, by the way.



We also had a little shindig to celebrate and see family and friends. It ended up being more of a New York reunion for me, since a bunch of friends of mine from 20 years ago showed up. We've all gotten older, but everybody seemed exactly the same.


Aunt Sue with Forest. She's a surrogate grandma now that both of Forest's grandmothers are on missions:




Forest sleeps through the party




Friends




On the airplane home


Saturday, October 17, 2009

Again, Amen!

Elder Dallin H. Oak's address to BYU-Idaho students on Oct. 13, 2009.

"Religious Freedom"

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/religious-freedom


and a related article from USA Today which, ironically, illustrates exactly the kind of anti-religious feeling Elder Oaks describes.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-10-15-mormon-gay_N.htm

Monday, October 12, 2009

Forest Crawls & Gets 1st Tooth - Oct. 11, 2009

Forest is growing up so fast! Too fast. Yesterday, Oct. 11, 2009, Forest crawled for the first time and he got his first tooth, bottom right. A big day for a big boy!

Here's a video of him crawling:


A few recent pictures too:








Swine flu update:

It took us 2 weeks to all get over it and its complications, but we're mostly recovered. Rebekah ended up getting the beginnings of pneumonia and I ended up with bronchitis, but after some antibiotics, we're all good. Our friends from church were amazing bringing us dinner several nights in a row. I did feel badly for them, though, knowing they did not want to take the swine flu home to their families. And one family who helped us out a lot did end up getting it, so now they're going through the chain of illness. Sorry!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Quote of the Day

From my 4 year-old, Maija: "Mommy, I have to tell you about one thing that we can use. It's called Skecher shoes."

Me: "Did you see that on TV?"

Maija: "Yeah, and I thought we can use them because they light up when you stomp. And they have girl ones that I really like."

(Oh boy! Here we go. Marketing does work.)

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Swine Flu

Well, it happened. We all got the swine flu, except for Forest of course who seems to avoid all illnesses (knock on wood!) Rebekah has it the worst. As always with her asthma she seems to have breathing issues and lung problems. We had to take her to urgent care tonight because her breathing was getting so bad, and sure enough she's got an infection starting in her lungs, and on top of that she has an ear infection. Poor girl! I'm just grateful for modern medicine and knowing exactly what's going on with her and that there is medicine to treat it.

I ended up canceling my trip to NY this weekend. I couldn't leave a sick child at home while I go off to play. So that's the second 20 year high school reunion I'm missing... last year I missed my Hong Kong international School reunion (they combined it with the class of '88) and this year was Burnt Hills High School in Upstate NY. No, I didn't graduate from both schools in case you're confused. I graduated from high school in Hong Kong, but I had just moved there the beginning of my senior year from New York. Moving around as much as I did growing up, I get to claim many places as home.

With all of this going on, I'm still floating in the clouds that we've gotten a court date for Forest's finalization. We'll have just enough time to get everyone better before we leave for Utah. Despite the bumps in the road, life really is a blessing. I'm grateful to have 3 beautiful children to worry about and a supportive husband who helps me not worry too much. When I married Kent, my good friend Courtney told him, "You have no idea how many dead horses you're going to be beating." Ain't that the truth! Anyone who knows me, knows that it is.

Monday, October 5, 2009

We Got Our Court Date!!!

Yahoo! I'm so happy! Our lawyer called this morning and told us our court date to finalize Forest's adoption. It's October 21st! Now we can actually plan our lives and more importantly plan a date to be sealed to Forest.

I just barely got the call, but I had to blog about it right away!

Great way to start the day.