Such a Special Service Project

During Girls Camp, We had the amazing opportunity to work on a service project that has very special significance for us.  All the young women (about 300 plus)  helped to create bereavement boxes to donate to the hospital.  This was not necessarily done in our boys' name, but it was their memory and our birthday project that promoted and gave the example for these special gifts.  We were so very honored to have our sons' memory be the example to promote such love and service for many others who will suffer so greatly. 

 Each of the young women took part in the project.  Some made the scrapbooks.  These books hold very sweet poems that brought peace and love to my heart when it was the most broken.

 My young women were especially sensitive and sweet during this project.  Each came and gave me hugs and showed their love, affection and support and cried sweet tears right along with me.  I have to be honest, I bawled with every hug.  Of course I was sad, I will always be sad and miss my babies, but there was an incredibly sweet spirit there as these Young Women worked to serve others that will have such a difficult road, and it just meant so much that the feelings simply could not be contained.

 They each put so much love into their projects and I am forever grateful for their service.  Even though none of these boxes were for me, I truly felt their love and service towards me as they worked to serve others.

 While some worked on the sweet memory books, Others sewed tiny blankets to wrap those most precious babes for their families to hold and cherish.

 I wish that there was not a need for any of this.  I wish a mother never had to know the pain and heart ache of losing a child.  But because this sadness and tragedy does happen, I am so grateful for people such as these beautiful young women who can give the gift of memories to women who will have only that... memories.

 Other Young Women worked on creating homemade bath salts to help those mothers find some comfort and relax after such a tragic experience.  These gifts, no matter how big or small, truly mean so much!

 Our oldest young women at the camp worked to put together all the items into beautiful boxes.  Within the boxes were the scrapbooks, the blankets, the bath salts, home made beanies (which some girls also worked on sewing) as well as a journal, pen, candy and a sweet, small stuffed animal. 

Together, the Young Women created 48 boxes!  It was amazing the power they held.  In just 2 hours, these amazing young ladies created one of the most memorable gifts that could be given to a grieving mother, and they created enough to touch 48 lives.  What a truly precious blessing.  I am so very grateful for my experiences at camp and this tender experience will forever engrave these wonderful young women to my heart.  Thank you ladies for your love, for your service and for your care.  You are amazing and you have no idea how much of a difference you have just made to so many women, and to so many families.  

I am also grateful that the camp leaders are allowing me to join them when we deliver these boxes to the hospital and that they have chosen to donate these gifts to the same hospital that took such good care of me after losing our sweet babes.  I am still constantly afraid that it will be as if my sweet boys never existed because their time was so short, but I am forever grateful for those that allows us to use their precious memory to serve and show love to others.  We will always remember you Ethan and Tommy and will work to be worthy to be your parents.  All our love to you and these sweet young women.  Such a blessed experience.

Girls Camp Fun

This year, I was privileged to attend Girls Camp with some amazing young women.  For those that do not know, Girls camp is a week long (4 days) church retreat for young women ages 12-18.  It is full of giggles, fun, spiritual experiences, life changing lessons, and dear friendships.  I went as one of the leaders.  Our group had 27 amazing young women.  I learned so much and hopefully taught some things as well.  We played silly games like "Big Booty" and "little Sally Walker" and I learned a new game called Ninja.  Yep, pretty much like it sounds.  You pretend to be a ninja and chop each others arms off.  Even the Bishop played!  lol.  He was actually pretty good at it.  We also went on a long and tough hike, completed the "enchanted race" challenges as a team, told scary stories, went on a snipe hunt, had many spiritual devotionals, shared stories and laughs and learned about our Divine Nature as children of a Heavenly King.  There is just something amazing about being in the woods, away from technology and the distractions of the world, and being surrounded with amazing bright and brilliant young ladies that helps to bring perspective to life, and brings about such a profound feeling of divine love.  I am grateful for the opportunity I had to go and to serve and learn to love these young women.  We had such a great time and I am glad for the new friendships and sweet memories that were made.

Oh Baby Baby!

All I can say is that We are so very blessed!  I am so incredibly pleased to share with our family and friends that thanks to the most amazing couple, we have been picked to adopt a BABY!!!!!  Can you tell we are freakin excited! Because we are and that is the understatement of the century!  Our desire for children has been so great and unfortunately we have been left wanting for far too long.  Our journey has been a difficult one to say the least, but we are so grateful for the light at the end of the tunnel.  We began our journey on the adoption road about a year ago, but shortly after beginning, we paused in our tracks.  For many reasons and reasons unknown, we just werent able to move forward with our adoption process and so we paused and waited and attempted a few more fertility rounds.  We just didnt understand why nothing was working, both in adoption or fertility.  Well, we now know.  In 2011, we picked up where we left off and sprinted down the road to complete our paperwork.  We seriously spent every free hour working on our paperwork and our adoption blog, trying to make it just right.  The average wait with our adoption agency is 2 years (pretty standard).  That was just far too long for us, so we felt we needed to help the process along and find our own baby.  We sought the help of family and friends to spread the word.  We also decided to post our adoption profile on a website called www.parentprofiles.com.  This is a website that advertises on the top adoption websites that appear when you google adoption.  One day short of our first month posted on this website, we were matched with the most wonderful couple and given hopes of a miracle.  Before this match, it felt as though the way had been blocked and doors had been closing all around us.  Now, the way has been cleared and everything has been so smooth and easy.  This amazing couple shares many of our feelings and thoughts on adoption.  This adoption is completely based on love and joy and will be a beautiful gift from amazing individuals.  How fast these two strangers have become dear friends and more.  We will share more information as the pregnancy progresses, but for now, things are going well and we couldnt be happier.  This truly is a blessing and we are so excited and grateful. 

Introducing Baby X as it is affectionately called until we learn the sex 

 Baby X is scheduled to join the world on February 9, 2012 in Florida.