Christmas pics

Somehow we woke up before Landon and James met him when he came downstairs.  We had the Christmas tree lights on, home made eggnog and cowboy coffee cake for breakfast which are Alba family traditions.  James grew up with breakfast pizza.  I think next year, we will make all of them.  And yes, James's shirt is on inside out.  It is just something he likes to do.  Why? You ask, I don't know, you will have to ask him.

 James put on the Santa hat, as he is the one who hands out the gifts (another tradition I grew up with) I was Santa for a long time when I was growing up.

 Landon was introduced to his stocking.  He thought it was pretty cool to keep grabbing things out of there

 Gift from Grandpa and Grandma Alba.  The cars were in his stocking

 WOW! How did all of that fit in that stocking you ask, well... some didn't :)

 The best part of the day, sitting back and watching Landon play with his new toys and enjoying the magic of Christmas with a child.

 We were in the kitchen and glanced over to find Landon checking out all his new cars and vehicles from his stocking.  That thing by his hip is a mushroom nightlight.  It is awesome!

 Vroom... vrooom....

 James's turn

 My turn, I LOVE white cheddar popcorn!

 Um... I honestly can't remember what this was except that it was candy... Not sure if I am excited or if something funny just happened...

 This was a gift for Landon from our friends little girl in Georgia.  She gave him the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD.  I highly recommend this to all parents of little children.  It teaches them the sound letters make among many other things.  It is a great cartoon and the song stays with you.  Trust me. :)  But in a good way.

 James got me a ladybug necklace.  

 Landon is chasing after a zu-zu pet (can't remember how it is spelled)

 He decided that he didn't like it running away from him and after this initial chase, would just carry it around with him.

 Landon got to hang our newest ornament (we get one every year) on the tree.

 The Noel ornament

 Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Marker's house

 This was the only few pictures I got because he wasn't at all interested in his presents.  He wanted to play and check out his cousins new toys.  I am hoping next year won't be so crazy...

 Landon has enjoyed his new toys so much, so glad to be able to watch him enjoy them.  

Landon decided that he really liked the scarf my niece made for me, regardless of the color and took it over as his scarf.  I couldn't resist taking the picture.

Family Home Evening disaster turned memorable moment awesomeness

One night for family home evening, we popped some popcorn (okay this was just under a year ago, I don't remember the lesson, just this moment) and somehow the bowl got upturned and went flying all over the floor.    I was so glad I vacuumed just before that!  So, we had a blast and ate the popcorn off the floor.  I am a pretty clean person, but now that I have a child, I realize how clean I used to be.  I keep a tidy house now, but the dusting doesn't get done anywhere near as often as I used to.  And our carpet now... well, it needs a good washing :)  It looks amazing in these pictures!

I can't even begin to say how much we laughed that night.  Good memories!

Random winter stuff

 Landon loves to help me clean the house.  Empty the dishwasher, vacuum, dust.  He loves it and so do I!

 Our home teachers came to visit and Landon always has a blast when the come.  He always sleeps good that night from the hour he spends laughing and running and being twirled around.  I don't know what will happen when he is too heavy to be thrown around anymore...

Look at the face

 Playing with the Home Teachers

 We had to buy a new microwave and we kept the box to play with for several months.  A lot of fun came with the box.  It eventually got so beat up, we had to say goodbye.  I am sure we will have another cool box like that one day.

Landon's cousin Bailey came over to play and they had a blast.  Can you tell by their tussled hair?

Crafty Mommy projects for Landon

About the time I stopped updating this blog, I got into the world on online tutorials.  I discovered that if you googled something and add the word tutorial behind it, usually you could find a blog or website, with instructions and tips on how to make things yourself and in the most inexpensive way.  I fell in love and started a crafting with Kista blog showing all the awesome things I made that we used daily.  Here are just a few I made for Landon to enjoy:

 Hooded Monkey towel.  Yes, I made this myself, not hard and he still uses it a year later.

 Little boy neck tie.  I took my husbands tie and turned it into Landon's tie.  I learned how to tie a neck tie, which took a few tries and a u-tube video.

A fabric crayon holder, I LOVE this.  My husband not so much because Landon loves to dump them out and if Landon doesn't pick them up, my husband has decided it is too tedious for clean up.  I think it is awesome though, because when Landon does clean them up, it taught him how to manipulate things for small openings.  

Anyways, if you want the links for these, just check out my crafting with Kista blog and they are there!

Taking a new road on our fertility journey

Well, obviously I am not pregnant.  :)  We did a round of In-vitro Fertility and Inter Uterine Insemination and neither took.  While our Dr. says that we have unexplained infertility, I have been thinking about adoption a lot.  It was one of my thoughts before Landon was conceived through IVF, along with Foster Parenting and Surrogacy.  Then we checked the mail one day and in it was our benefit package for the coming year telling us that our insurance that provided fertility benefits was going to be tossed and the other plan they were offering would not have any.  We took that as our answer, and we got our son through the miracle of science.
Now it looks like adoption is our answer.  I have been having a hard time with not being pregnant each time.  Not because of the normal reasons for not getting pregnant, but because I felt so strongly that it was what we were supposed to do.  And it didn't work.  So I am starting to second guess what I felt.  Did I make it up?  Did I just decide that was what I wanted?  Then I think about how I felt when it happened and how I even fought with those thoughts and feelings for a few months (I mean, who wants to get pregnant that way?!)
I have had a hard time thinking clearly lately (about how to get this next spirit into our family), and that was very frustrating.
We went to LDS Adoption Services to chat with the Adoption Supervisor this Tuesday.  I was a little nervous to tell you the truth.  When we sat down in the waiting room, they had a book there about the song that was written called "From Gods Arms, to mine to yours" and I didn't cry, but I felt a little tug at my heart.
I didn't really have time to look more, because just then our Adoption Supervisor, Rob, came around the corner to introduce himself.
We went back into his office with Landon, yes he came, and I am so glad that Rob has three children with a current two year old.  Instead of trying to keep Landon in our laps, Rob played with him and included him on the family visit.  It was so nice not to have to worry about what he was getting into. He even tried to answer the ringing phone.  Rob was great, he told Landon that they needed a receptionist for weekends if Landon was interested.
While we were there, I started to realized that my thoughts weren't cloudy anymore.  We went over the paperwork, shared a bit about ourselves and Landon and he told us lots of stories about the past babies and placements.  It was a good experience.
I started the paperwork yesterday and I am so glad that James had to fill out paperwork for his background check, because it will be so helpful to pull from some of that info.  I just filled out a few forms and there are so many more :)
We are waiting for some money to be paid to us from James's employer for some overtime he worked about a year ago that fell through the cracks.  Interestingly enough, it will be just enough for the deposit that we give before we can get started.  I was thinking about that.  We have been trying to get this money for several months and for at least two months, everything has been approved, but no money.  James thinks that they are just waiting for the fiscal year before he gets the check.
I was thinking about this as we were on the way home from our visit with Rob.  If we had gotten that money, we would have just put it on credit cards and after paying for the two fertility procedures, we wouldn't be able to come up with the deposit.
God has a plan my friends!  And I am so glad, even though it is so hard sometimes when you have no idea  what it is!  When I think about the disappointment of not getting pregnant with the fertility treatments and the money we lost in the process, I realize that if we had not done that, and lost that money, we wouldn't have ended up here.  Now we get to experience the miracle having getting a child, not from science, but from humility, love and walking close to the spirit.
I have to say, this is really hard, and we don't have a wealth of money to bring the numerous children into the world for the large family that we wanted.  But I am blessed to have to go through these journeys.  And now you get to wander the paths with me!
Okay, I know I am about a year behind on updates.  Life just zooms by!  I will be better.  I especially want our birth mother to be able to read this and get an idea of who we are.  Well, mostly me but I think I will have James start doing some posts now too. That will be fun!  I don't know if you read his version of Landon's birth, but he certainly has a way with storytelling.  I need to record him one night when he tells bedtime stories, I could make money on children's books if I wrote them down and did some illustrating.
Okay, stay tuned, a year of stuff coming your way!!!

An Answer

Okay, so I know I have ridiculous amounts of updating that I have been neglecting with my oh so many new projects and all that good stuff, but I feel that I need to get this written down so that I don't forget that it happened.
Last Sunday, on the way to church, I knew that we didn't get pregnant last month, and that this week we would have to start our next fertility treatment.  James and I decided to try one last time and then start the adoption process because we don't have any money to throw away on procedures that might not work, but we know that adoption will work for sure.
(I think it is funny how we are not supposed to gamble, but man, trying to get pregnant this time around sure seems like I am in Vegas at the tables!)
Anyways, I was having a hard time accepting it all.  I had just spoken to my cousin the day before and we talked about how many kids we wanted to have and now we are both in our early thirties and if we still wanted that many kids, we would have to take no breaks with pregnancies and have our last ones in our forties.  Bleh, who wants to do that?!
So, with all of this weighing me down (literally), we took our seats in church and I sat there, feeling weighed down (chest so heavy with sadness and frustration) it was hard to breath.  Then the speaker, a mother given the topic of having a happy family and home gave a great talk.  I was listening and then she said, "I felt inspired to say this, so I am going to:  To all those out there that are widowed, divorced with children, cannot have children... "  That got my attention.  She went on to say that basically the only way to fail is to give up.
How many times have we heard that in our lives?  But this time, the chest heaviness lifted and the tears came right as she said it.  So, I am taking that as an answer to my prayers.  I still don't know which way to go, how to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat of getting our family here to earth, but I know I can't give up.
I wish I could say that this makes me feel stronger, more sure, but really I little fragile.  Which is why I thought that I would sit down and type this out.  I don't want to forget that Heavenly Father might not have sent me mail this time in answer to my prayers, but he did send me a sweet sister that listened when she felt inspired to add something to her talk in church.
(And yes, last time, we received mail in answer to our prayers :)

Not this time...

We got the results of the pregnancy test yesterday.  We are not pregnant.  James and I spent most of the day in shock, as we were not expecting this to be the case.  The hormones had even started to make my body change as if I were pregnant to the point of not being able to wear most of my clothes (and making us think we were pregnant and were having twins, since I didn't get this big until the 4th month of first pregnancy). 
I am trying to stay positive and pick myself up as quickly as possible from this disappointment.  Needless to say, I understand the importance of grieving and am trying to make sure that I undergo the process, but also try to stay away from anything negative that can turn the grieving into depression.  I know that we were supposed to do this.  I don't know why we didn't get pregnant, but hey, I am sure Abraham didn't understand why he had to sacrifice his first born either.  I keep hoping that like Abraham, the Dr.'s office calls and says," Ooops!  You are pregnant, we just gave you someone else's results!"
When I thought I was pregnant, my biggest worry seemed to be:  How will I love this baby as much as I already love Landon?  How can your heart be that big???
Well, in not being pregnant, I now know the answer.  A piece of my heart seems to be missing.  The baby we have not yet had brought into our lives already has a place that I didn't know was there.  I hope to meet this child soon, that has had such an impact on my heart already.
Heavenly Father, give me the strength to continue on this journey.  Thank you for sending Landon to our family.  We are so incredibly blessed to have him in our home.  Please bless our home with more children as James and I are so eager to have a large family.  (I wouldn't even mind if they all come at the same time :)