Goodbye to a Friend

We found out the sad news that a dear friend who was largely responsible for this:

{dating}

 and this:

{eternal marriage}

passed away on Saturday.

That man was Brother Paul Kelson, known to a lot of people also as Dr. Kelson. Our bishopric announced his death at the beginning of our sacrament meeting yesterday.  It was so sad and sort of a shock to me to hear. I had literally just seen him at church 2 weeks before, and he had made a point to come say hi to me, as he always did. I grabbed Collin's arm in surprise and he had the same look on his face I probably did! It then was awkward because I couldn't help but cry pretty hard for a few minutes as the news sunk in.... all the while worrying about stopping crying because I knew I had to stand up to be recognized for a new calling in a couple of minutes! Trite, I know, but I just hope to explain some of my grief.

The very first time Collin and I hung out was at Brother Kelson's house. It was the first time he flashed me his "tooth"! (you know what I'm talking about!) Brother Kelson was a high councilman assigned to our singles ward when I first moved to Boise. Collin was the Elders Quorum president so I guess they worked together a good amount. Tha particular time we first hung out was at the "Back to School Social" Brother Kelson hosted at his home each year. He had a big pool in the backyard and a huge front yard for all the singles to mingle. I remember seeing Collin in his swimsuit thinking he was some sort of body builder, ha ha!

Brother Kelson was a wonderful mentor to Collin, way more than me. We both credit him a lot for us getting together and finally getting married. You know the story that we had a few rough patches, and even broke up for good once before we finally got engaged. Well while I was back in Idaho Falls getting over Collin during that "final" break up, you know who was over in Boise talking sense into him and being there for him through all his tumultuous emotions: Brother Kelson.

Brother Kelson, who like I said is also Dr. Kelson, the orthodontist, did a TON of orthodontic work on Collin for absolutely free. He was such a generous man. He did a lot of repair on Collin's upper teeth and even supplied him with his "tooth," which has lasted about 9 years now, for absolutely nothing. He said it was just the "family discount" but I think he did that sort of thing for a lot of people.

We went on our honeymoon to his cabin!

The scene of the crime: our honeymoon destination in Pine, ID

We were broke with Collin just starting his teaching job and me halfway through school when we got married. We didn't have the time or the money to go anywhere "fancy" for our honeymoon. Somehow Brother Kelson knew about this, and offered his multi-million dollar cabin for us to have as our "destination." It was a wonderful weekend we got to spend there, soaking in the hottub overlooking the reservoir, riding the motorcycles into town, enjoying the DVD library bigger than our house....it was so nice and all out of the generosity of the Kelsons' hearts. His wife, Diane, is one of the sweetest ladies I have ever met. Of course my heart really goes out to her and their family right now.

Brother Kelson has continued to be a great influence in our lives, even after we moved out of the singles ward. He used to loan Collin's werstling team BBQ's to use for concessions free of charge. Then when we moved into our current ward almost 5 years ago, we found out we were in his stake, so we would see him pretty often at church. He and Collin continued to have some good talks and I was always happy to see him, and like I said he always made a point to say hi and make me feel just as special as ever.

We knew his health was deteriorating, even though he was just 67 when he passed away. It seems so wrong that someone so kind, giving, and wonderful would be taken from his family and the world so soon. I wish we had been able to say a goodbye, although if everyone whose lives he touched as much as ours wanted to do that, there never would have been time. He was a great example and we hope he can hear our prayers of thanks for all he has done for us.

Any of you who knew him, the funeral is this Saturday at 11:00 at our building, the Goddard stake center.

Chocolate Hair, Vanilla Care

For most of my peeps I talk to regularly it's no secret that I found a blog a while back that I absolutely love. Ever since Ashlyn came into our lives I have spent many a late night unwilling to tear my eyes away from the screen as I read hair blog after hair blog, true, but this one so far takes the cake! I stumbled upon it last summer and I tell you, never have I loved a blog so much. It's fab!

You can check it out here if you want:
Chocolate Hair Vanilla Care

I love it because of many reasons: the hair care info, the tons of hairstyles, the whole "adoption" issue, but most of all, the actual chocolate baby with a vanilla mom. The majority of the site is about hair, yes, but there are some posts I have stumbled across in regards to many aspects of transracial parenting that I love. And I love this one so much, I want to share it with you!

Click here to read "An Open Letter to People Regarding Touching Chocolate Hair"

I think that letter explains a big issue really well. Before Ashlyn had much hair I didn't really get the whole "hair touching" issue. But it is in our faces these days. I'm talking random strangers at Target think it's ok to come by and pat her head. wtf?! Not ok with anyone, as far as I know. As with most of the "issues" we face being a multiracial family I try really hard to also chalk this one up to ignorance. But with something said so well as this letter I thought it was worth sharing for sure.

And if you're one of our friends that has patted my daughter's head in the past, don't worry you're not on my hit list or anything! :) I'm not sharing this to point fingers at anyone. I really just hope people can remember the point and maybe share it with others; knowledge is power and the best way to combat ignorance.

The Bag

Hey, remember how we got approved for adoption like 2 and a half months ago?? Yeah, nothing going on with that. Sorry if I got you excited about anything. ANYWAY, to be honest, I pretty much forgot about the whole adoption thing myself ever since we got approved! I guess I just knew that nothing would happen right away, and the whole fall/holiday season was so busy, it wasn't on my mind much at all. Plus, it makes a huuuge difference already having a kid. Especially on those days I am tearing my hair out--I am thinking it's a good thing I only have one!!

But now here we are in January. Infamous, in my mind, for being the most dull, cold, depressing, and generally never-ending month of the year. I mean, it's only January 12th today and it feels like Christmas was 3 months ago. Ugh.

I usually get on a pretty big organizing kick come January. Once that Christmas stuff comes down I just want to clean everything and get everything organized! And this year, along with all that, I have also been beginning to have in the back of my mind the thought that: "oh yeah, we are approved for adoption. Technically, something could happen any time. Maybe I should do something to try to prepare for it."

Enter The Bag.

I have really mixed feelings about this bag. Well, not the actual bag itself. If I may digress for a moment, this bag is awesome! It is black, which means totally neutral not only for girl/boy babies, but also for husband/wife, whoever is packing it around. It is big enough to pack lots of stuff for, say, a car trip, but not so bulky that you can't just throw your wallet in and take it into the grocery store. It has pockets for bottles/sippy cups, little pockets for everything from chapstick to sanitizer, and even came with a cute matching changing pad. To top that off, I bought it with a gift card. Oh yeah. Love the actual bag.

It's really what the bag represents: The fact that I am now actually thinking about the hypothetical, potential adoption we may have sometime in our future. Sometime. That's the fun part! (insert serious sarcasm here) Who knows when it will be?! Do you? Because I sure don't.

Before I started thinking about this bag, I really hadn't been thinking about this adoption (again, hypothetically speaking) much at all! And that was really a blessing! Because now that the bag is back in my life, guess what else is: The Wondering. Always, always wondering. Are any birth moms looking at our profile? Is anyone at all looking at our profile? When will a birth mom contact us? When will a birth mom choose us? How many failed placement plans will we have this time? Will we travel? Will someone local pick us? Will it be a girl? Will it be a boy? Will it happen before we have to renew our profile at the 1-year mark? What will I do about my job when we have a second kid? Will we actually even have a second kid? And on and on and on and ON!

I guess I should actually explain what I'm doing with the bag. It's nothing special, just slowly but surely packing it to have as a "just in case" if we are in need of go-to baby supplies on short notice. I'm packing it with things like a sling, bottles, a formula container, burp rags, baby wash and lotion, receiving blankets, a carseat cover, you get the idea. When I started this little project I thought to myself, "I'm just getting prepared for whatever happens; this is easier than having to frantically dig through boxes at the last second." But what I didn't anticipate is how much it would bring my longing for a new little baby into my mind! How can it not, when I'm sanitizing bottles and replacing nipples and bleaching onesies??

It's not that I feel like I'm inflicting some sort of self-torture, by any means. I am loving the stage we are at in our little family right now. I finally feel like Ashlyn and I have a really good routine down, I feel like I am balancing my work schedule around spending time with her, and most of all we are just having a really good time as a family. I am not sitting wishing my days away for more. But still, it's hard not to feel that pull of wanting a baby in my arms when I'm working on The Bag. And it is taking a lot of my self-control to not get insanely frustrated, again, with the fact that I can't just pick when I want to have a kid, try for a few months, and be successful. Wishing for that will never get me anywhere, I learned a long time ago. But it doesn't change the fact that I sometimes do wish there was an easier way!

So for now, I will keep slowly but surely putting my little baby things into what will hopefully someday be another little baby's bag. I know we were prompted to start the adoption process when we were for a reason, and that knowledge is really keeping me going at some moments. And I also figure that patience must still be something I need oodles of work on, since practicing patience generally seems to be the story of my life! (revise that to say "trying to practice patience!")

Color Run

{Super old but I keep forgetting to post this!}

I participated with a group from our ward in the Color Run back in October! It was one of those things we signed up for like 2 months in advance because we thought it would sell out... which turned out to really be a big joke that it could sell out because I'm pretty sure there were like, as many people as the entire population of Boise there. :) I had mixed opinions about it, and I really think that's just because it came at a time that was really busy for me with my job --right in between the private ensemble concert and sonatina festival, both of which were very time consuming for me--, and also the fact that I had a pretty decent race season through the past 6 months already with 3 5K's and a 10K just 2 weeks before. I think after that 10K I was ready to just take a break from running, but I had to wait until after this, so it was really just timing that made me not-super-thrilled about it.

Before: all clean and white!

 That said, it was a fun time! I am not a morning person at all and it was reasonably cold out, so I wasn't exactly in the mood for all the "craziness" first thing in the morning (which is definitely all my fault!), if it had been at like 8:00 at night I think I would have been in hysterics and really having the time of my life.

The concept was a cool one, but the execution of the race was pretty poor! I was thinking they need to plan better for the kind of crowd they expect. The biggest annoyance for me was that they had like, half the people they needed to be tossing the "color" on everyone. We would run like half a mile then literally have to stop and wait, standing still, in a line to walk through the "color zones" to get all prettied up. Granted I wasn't looking at this as a serious running race (thank goodness, because that would have been really annoying....), but still run-stop-run-stop is not fun in my opinion. I think they should re-label it the Color Walk or Color Celebration or something else if they're really not going to have a way for you to actually RUN the whole time, you know what I mean? It was also kind of a joy-killer, getting all pumped up and running and then having to all of a sudden stop and wait. wah-wah.

And one other thing that is again just my own circumstances, I had to pee the ENTIRE time! They really didn't have very easily accessible restrooms at the start line and I was too worried that I wouldn't be able to find my crowd again if I ventured over to them.... so I just held it the whole dang race. That may have helped me run a little faster in the running areas!

We didn't stick around long at the whole "end of" celebration, which probably would have been fun to do, but like I said it was a really busy weekend, a friend and I were trying to hit up Boo at the Zoo, our ward Halloween party was that evening, and there were like 50 other things going on that made it kind of stressful rather than relaxing, unfortunately! Again, all personal stuff for me, but contributing factors I guess!

After: Ca-razy!

I don't mean for this post to be super-complaining! It was a fun time! I was just not in the best mood for it I guess. In the future I think I'll wait till it gets closer to sign up just to see what my schedule will be. But I love the girls I was with and it was a fun way to get out and get some exercise that morning! And if it comes at a warmer time of year and possibly not so early.... I am totally in! I'm glad I did it and especially with these ladies!

This Face

Now that I have a self-facing camera on my phone (I'm sure there's a more official name for that!), it has meant lots of fun with Ashlyn, who somehow already seems to know how to photobomb! It is so cute. She always makes the same face when she first sees herself on the camera, the 2nd one in this set. (These would be collages but I can't figure out how to do a picmonkey collage with pics I just have saved in picasa and not onto my computer?! I hate computers.)

And also I had to throw a few of these in (would also be a collage if possible, humph.), I use these reading glasses time to time when I remember.... my eye dr. suggested using them with my contacts in while reading. (that all was a special side note just for you!) Anyway, I keep them in my night-stand drawer and even though it's "off limits" someone just can't resist every once in a while. She will bring them right to me and ask me to put them on, then she stumbles around laughing at how funny everything looks. They are super not-strong and I hope they aren't ruining her eyes when I let her do this?! She looks HILARIOUS.

A Little Visit

On our way home from our Christmas-Utah trip, we stopped to visit Aunt Candy and Uncle Beard in Ogden. Or actually, technically speaking, Washington Terrace. But come on. Ogden making fancy  names for itself is not gonna change the fact that it's Ogden! ha ha!

Anyway, I just had to post the pictures to give you an idea of how awesome Ashlyn can be in posing for pictures! 

Nice. 

And as for this one....

Tara we need to work on our self-posing skills! What are we even looking at? Not the camera obviously! wtf! 

Ring-it en ing-it

You have to be in my family to understand that post title. Orrrr... you have to have seen The Chipmunk Adventure like 500 times like I have. Either one. :)

We had a fun New Year's! I have to admit I was in a pretty grumpy mood leading up to it, therefore my expectations weren't that I would have much fun. The day we got home from our Christmas trip, I  came down with a big cold, and so did Ashlyn (boo on whoever of our Utah family members that gave it to us!). So we both had gross noses and hard times sleeping. I think mine was worse than hers, which I will take any day but it still stunk being sick. I have to say I was singing high praises to NyQuil, love that stuff so much. Thankfully the colds only lasted like 3 days, although it was bad enough for us both to miss church, so the weekend seemed kind of weird. I was finally feeling a little better on NYE (isn't it SO annoying when people use that abreviation?! I had to give it a try. Yep, makes me feel like I'm 13 yo. (that is short for years old in case you're wondering.)

so I spent my day working out, running errands to get food for the evening, cleaning, and cooking. I was just grouchy because I was tired, still not feeling that great, and just wishing we weren't having people over. But we had made plans with some friends and I'm SO glad we didn't cancel on them! It turned out to be a way fun night! We ended up not having as many couples able to come as we thought, so it was just 6 of us and we had a really good time. Our friends the Linds and also the De La Cerdas were who joined us, and we did some TV watching, and lots of dorky game playing! I laughed so hard I cried MANY times during the night, which to me always means I had a lot of FUN! 

 We did pour ourselves some sparkling cider (in the *blue solo cups*-one of the jokes of the evening-) and toast and watch the ball at midnight! Then got back to our hilarious selves and the games we were playing! It was a fun night, and Ashlyn (and little Addison, who got the pack n play in the piano room) slept through all our noise!

New Year's Day I really wanted us to do something fun as a family, since it was Collin's last day of Christmas Break (boo on that short break this year) and also because since I had been sick we hadn't done much but sit around for the last few days, unfortunately. So we decided to brave the 10-degree temperatures and go to the Botanical Garden's Winter Garden Aglow.

 It was fun! I was again being a poop that day and wanting to cancel, just because it was so cold. But Collin knew better and insisted we go, and I was so glad. We just wore our snowboarding clothes, and Ashlyn got like 20 layers loaded onto her little self! She rode in the stroller for a little while and ooh- and ahh-ed at all the lights, even pointing out the (usually wrong, but at least names of) colors along the way. 

 Then we let her out to check things out.... and she was off! This kid never stops running if she doesn't have to. She loved shouting WOW at all the lights and running from place to place! She also liked to run into the little tent where they serve hot cider and wave and say HI! to all the people in there. She definitely slept good that night, after all that running!

Christmas Christmas Christmas

I was going to title this post "Christmas Day," but we sort of had 2 Christmas days this year so it's just plain Christmas. Our first Christmas day --on the 22nd-- was sort of spur of the moment, and it was initiated when we started packing for Utah and realized that we didn't want to pack ALL our Christmas stuff down there and back! I know, it's so sad. Like, the ultimate First World Problem. TOO many presents to fit in the car! Wo is me! 

Anyway, my parents, who are always so on top of things, brought our Christmas gifts with them when they came for Thanksgiving! (that actually meant I had to be on top of things and have their gifts ready too!) They were pretty big packages so we figured we'd open them here, and it was a good thing because we really ended up with a packed car! (again with the f.w.p!)

Ashlyn has really figured out how to open presents! Although it's more "fun of ripping the paper" enjoyment than actual "there is something for me inside this" enjoyment, which is fine with me!

 She got so many fun things from Grandma and Grandpa! Her favorites that day were the little finger puppets of different animals. Even now I am still finding them all over the place, she loves to stick them on her fingers and walk around. So cute. She also got some playdoh, and a little toaster and food set and a cute little apron! (see below!)

Mom and Dad were so nice and got us a new card table and chairs! (Some of you remember the Pumpkin Carving Incident of 2010.... when our old card table collapsed, taking the pumpkins with it!!) I was so excited about that. They also hooked us up with a bunch of food storage and some other handy emergency necessities. I guess I am getting old because I get really excited about that stuff.

Ashlyn was my "helper" in the kitchen after our mini-Christmas, I was busy getting breakfast stuff ready for the ward choir and packing up the Christmas treats for our trip! I. love. this. apron!!!

Loves to boss Lucy around when she's on her leash. Our dog is such a good sport!

Big stuff helping Mommy!

That night was our ward Christmas party. It was a long-ish sit down dinner that was served. Thankfully I had the genius idea to bring Ashlyn's little high chair! I'm so glad I did because there is no way she would have lasted more than maybe 10 minutes if we were trying to just hold her on our laps or in her own chair. We had a good time chatting with friends and some delicious food!

OFF TO UTAH....

So I already posted about pre-Christmas Sunday and Christmas Eve.... so now here we are at actual CHRISTMAS!

We had a late Christmas morning! We were amazed that by 9:00 Ashlyn was still sleeping. But when  I went to check on her lo and behold.... she wasn't asleep at all, just laying in her crib playing with the cool new glow-bug that Nana had given her on Christmas Eve! Who knows how long she had been up!? So funny. 

It was late enough that we figured we better feed her breakfast before we actually did all the presents and stuff. So we just took her straight to the kitchen and had breakfast first.... so it was like 10:30 by the time we actually started the whole Christmas morning thing!

I don't have any action shots of her first seeing what Santa brought because I was taking a video. But it was pretty funny. When she first saw her little shopping cart with the Yo Gabba Gabba characters in it, she was all of a sudden really hesitant and shy about it! What?! Ashlyn?! It was cute. I think she was weirded out by the fact that there were 4 adults all just sitting around staring at her and trying to get her excited about her new presents. But she warmed up pretty quick and finally actually started touching it... then picking up the little guys...then finally pushing the cart all around! 

Santa is pretty proud of {her}self, this has been the #1 toy since Christmas day!  I {I mean, Santa} knew it was a good call getting something for her to both "put stuff" in and "push" everywhere!

Big smile says it all! 

Loaded with all her Christmas loot!

Trying out the fancy little doodler

 It was fun opening the rest of our presents! It was pretty quiet since it was just Collin's mom, his brother Tyler, and the 3 of us. Ashlyn had like triple the presents anyone else did, and she was perfectly content to play with each thing as she got it, so it took a while to get through them!

Reading the new books

Snuggling the new baby

Lucy of course got some presents too. She actually snuck one of her's out from under the tree the night before and had half-eaten it by the time we found her with it! (it was a raw-hide candy cane) But she also got a bully stick and a new collar...fancy!

Snuggling with Daddy after the busy morning

Collin and I were both spoiled as well! We set a super-low budget for each other this year because well, it was stupid to do much Christmas shopping after we seriously just got a new car, new phones....and something else that I can't think of right now. But we were really feeling the need to not spend much. Collin got me some new snowboarding pants (finally, my own! No more using his brother's old baggy ones!), and a new crock pot!  I gave him a new back pack and some new school clothes. I know, we are soo exciting.

Snuggling with Uncle Tyler (he is showing off his "grinch" pj's)

So much fun!

We didn't even do each other's stockings this year. so. lame. But I didn't miss it. We did fill up Nana's stocking and that was really fun! And somehow there ended up being some treats in our stockings anyways! :)

This is Lucy's Christmas Model pose. She wanted you to see her fancy new collar. Especially you, Dad.

I had to put this on here because I literally had a hard time throwing away my old Crock Pot! (on the right) That thing has been with us for over 7 years of marriage... and has cooked us hundreds upon hundreds of meals! It's a busy family's best friend! So long, farewell! And I'm excited about the new one!

Checking out some of the presents

I *tried* to get a mommy-Ashlyn picture. Haven't we already gone over how these never work out? This time I was wishing the *photographer* might have used the zoom perhaps a bit.... but well, whatever.

For the rest of Christmas day Ashlyn took a nice long nap during Christmas dinner.  Morgan's family came back down from Tremonton for dinner and then stayed through the rest of our stay, so Ashlyn had lots of cousins to play with all the time! The following day all the girls (minus Ash of course) went to Les Miserables! It was so great, and fun. I am hoping to go see it again. I wish I had gotten a picture of all of us there! Anyway, we did lots of Lifetime movie watching (I love this tradition at Nana's!), eating WAY more than anyone should, playing games, and having lots of great times!

Christmas Eve

We got to Saratoga Springs late on the 23rd, so the next morning when we got up it was Christmas Eve! 

Collin's family's tradition for Christmas Eve is a huuuge traditional Mexican meal. Everything from nachos to refried beans and rice to chile relleno. So yummy! Then we had a little program where we (well, the kids, which thankfully didn't include me) dressed up as nativity characters and sang a bunch of Christmas songs. It was pretty fun! (Ashlyn was napping through all that so she missed the festivities)

Ashlyn was in H-E-A-V-E-N with so many cousins, aunts, uncles, and Nana around to play with her!

Cuddling (or making an escape effort) with Nana

Snuggling with Uncle Beau

This is the huge nice new "apartment" we got to stay in for the first time! This is just the upper floor...it's as big as our house! No we didn't sleep on that old mattress. 

The stockings were hung....

Had a BALL on the stairs. She is so good at them now. Although Collin did once bruise himself bigtime diving when she started tumbling down them.... so still a little sketchy. 

We also had a good time getting Lucy some exercise on the stairs! One at the bottom and one at the top, we would take turns calling her and she would run up and down every time.

In pure heaven with Scotty and Aiden! These guys took good care of her! I love this picture!

Saying hi to Tienna

Opening some Christmas Eve presents! 

This is the best shot I got of her Christmas PJ's! She's not one to sit still!

After all the festivities and when the big crowd (there were 23 people at dinner!) filtered away, we had a great night watching Lifetime Christmas movies with just Collin's mom and Tyler! Love those cheesy movies! Then it was off to bed so Santa would come visit!