Summer Fun......

What doesn't say summer like a bathing suit, sparklers and rain boots??


* I am posting this picture here for a summer fun contest.....wish me luck....or you could go vote for me!!!

It is official....

as if he was born to us.....Jason Alan Galbraith was officially adopted yesterday, July 29, 2008 The hearing took place in Kingston Mo. at the Caldwell County Courthouse. Our lawyer was Drew Davis and he has been amazing to work with. We were blessed to have some family there with us also. ( Jenny and Ron Doan, Wayne, Cindy, Sarah, Jacob, Hyrum and Gabriella Galbraith) It was a special day for sure. Jason made lots of suggestions (in baby talk of course!!) and was pretty much the star of the show and he knew it!! The realization that everything is final really hit me while I was testifying and I was just flooded with such emotion....good, happy emotion. We are so grateful and blessed that Jason has come into our lives, and can NOT imagine life without him.
We know that Heavenly Father has a plan in mind and we are so glad that we were where we needed to be and that his birth Mama was where she needed to be, for our lives to connect the way they did.....When I contemplate all that had to happen for Jason to be a part of our family I am amazed and it just strengthens my Testimony even more.

a sneak peek.....

just a small, tiny really, sneak peek into our little front porch performance we got. it was a great memory maker, and us mom's laughed out loud, which may or may not have resulted in a few little tears shed. :) good times indeed. we are lucky to have a grama with an amazing array of costumes!! more to come later.....i am exhausted, and just trying to get through the rest of this week without falling apart.....i am afraid court tomorrow will put me over the edge! :) in a good way of course! i can't wait. i am so excited.

Mr. Handsome

weighs 20lbs 2 oz
and is 28 inches tall
h/c 17 3/4

and he is still the most darling little guy ever!! i love that he cracks up at me and literally laughs out loud. i love his smile. i love his calm, laid back personality. i love his bright blue eyes. i love that he is trying to walk. (seriously taking 3-5 steps at a time!!) i love that he love loves his daddy. i love that he loves his brother and sisters. i love that he sings himself to sleep. i love that he climbs up and down the stairs. i love that he stands at the door because he wants to play outside. i love that dances every time that music is either playing or someone is singing. he is just an all around perfect baby......and obviously i love him to pieces.

we are really excited to tell you that we will be finalizing everything on July 29. (the best bday present ever)

*his birth mama sent him this adorable outfit....he is so lucky to have two mama's!!

Chinese eyes...

This is Katie's favorite thing EVER.....she gets to wear makeup. And the first thing she tells the director when we walked into rehearsal on Monday night was, "look, my Mom made me look Chinese....cool, huh!!" It was pretty funny. Anyway here is a close up of my little actress. I will hopefully get a few more Thursday night.....

Get your tickets....

We are getting down to the wire....the performance is this weekend and we only have one more dress rehearsal to go. I am not going to lie, I will be very relieved when this weekend is over, but there are definite things I am going to miss. I do enjoy the people I have gotten to know and the time I get with Katie on our "dates".....I think Katie is really going to miss mostly the late night Sonic runs....the drinks the cheeseburgers the fries.....

I have really enjoyed being involved with community theater again, after all these years. The Play is really coming together...FINALLY, and I am pretty sure we will be ready by Friday! :) I am not sure how, but I got roped into doing the sound for the play.....SERIOUSLY...the. sound. I am a little freaked out by it....but we have practiced enough, I am mostly, kind of, maybe confident that I will be fine once Friday night comes!! :)

The last night I can reserve tickets for people is Thursday, so if you want any let me know....if you don't get them early it will be first come first served, and they have been known to sell out.....also even if you get tickets early you need to come early to get a good seat as they do not reserve seats. The cost is $7.00 a person. Let me know if you are interested!


* a blogging side note....after this crazy week and weekend I hope to get back to a regular schedule of blogging....I have a ton of things to blog about, so be patient.....I have some good stuff coming....maybe!:)

(one more little note....Katie is second on your right of Anna....in the picture, in a burgundy outfit)

Craziness....

We have been a very busy bunch over here this past little while...So, I think I should give you a quick recap of what we have been doing....

Last week:
Emma came to town....and we are loving every minute of it. She has been an enormous helper. The kids just love her.

Swimming lessons....9am-11am 5 days a week X 2 weeks.....this is the last week of that!

Play Practice.....4 days this week and 3 days next week, with the performance on the 25, 26 and 27th.....WOW!

I went to Nauvoo with Amber on Tuesday last week....a short (long) day trip.

Took the girls to the doctor...Katie got eye drops and antibiotics, Annie got her stitches out.

Canned 42 pints of apricot jam with my friend Brandi....ok, seriously, can you even believe that?
I am SO not a 'canning' kind of girl...I guess I am now! I had a total blast. We were both in shock that we were doing this without our mother's help. The next day we canned two batches of strawberry jam!

While I canned with Brandi the kids swam in her pond....and LOVED it! They were so funny....they wanted to go back and swim there again!

Over the weekend Seth and I canned 17 quarts of green beans from our garden. That was a little scary for me....I was sure I was going to blow up the pressure canner. :) Everything turned out great and every jar even sealed! Woo hoo! I was very excited about that accomplishment.

Oh yeah and we shredded and froze a ton of zucchini.

And we had a barbecue with the Galbraith's for Mason's birthday....(at Ammon and Cindy's house)

That is basically my life in a nutshell. I will be busy until the play is over and things will settle down. I am sure life will still be crazy...just not AS crazy!!

Oh yeah, and we have ONE more supervisory visit before we finalize our adoption!! I can NOT tell you enough how excited I am for that!! The hearing will be on July 29.....(hopefully)

Then we will get to go to the Temple!! Let me know if you want to go with us so I can try to plan around your schedule....

Have a great day....I will get some good pics of the King and I practice tonight and post them tomorrow!!!

Swimming lessons.....

Jared, Katie and Ella are all taking lessons at the Hamilton Pool this year. They will go for two weeks 5 days a week, and they have been doing great!! Jared's teacher was trying to get him to dive, which he is really good at, but is convinced that he can't swim in the 12ft....he says, 'Mom, I can dive in the 6ft....just not the 12ft.' hahahah, so we are working on that!! :)
Anyway, life has been extremely busy lately and I don't see it slowing down the rest of the summer. I am kind of sad that July is almost over......because that just means August will fly by and the kids will be in school again!! :(


The King and I is going very well.....we are on our last week of practices.....CRAZY! We were at practice last night until 11pm. But it is all worth it. Katie is really loving it and it is so fun to be a part of it. The experiences you get from being part of a production are just amazing.....it's like a team/family combo! My Mom and Natalie came last night to help sew costumes, and it was such a HUGE help. We are so close now and I am not sure they realized how behind they are in that department. So thanks Nat and Mom....you are saving us from costume he**.....seriously it is that bad. :) (or at least could have been!!:)

Big Tom's Firework's SHOW!!!

(and Nate, too!!) I should probably call it the Big Fish Fireworks show.....anyway, the show this year was the BEST ever....Tom and Nate had everything set up so well that it was perfect. No dead space at all....and they had a few EXTREMELY loud, (that i am pretty sure weren't legal!!?) fireworks that about made me wet myself.....i begged them to warn next time....:) Seriously, it was loud!! But we had a great time.
Katie's eyes started swelling about 3 hours before the party, and i couldn't get her into the Dr. till this morning.....she will be fine. She has some crazy infection that may have been made worse by the pool. (all the kids started swimming lessons yesterday) Anyway, she's now on drugs and will eventually look normal again, and I hope that nobody gets sick by her......sorry in advance if you do, and i am sure i will have extra drops if you need them! :)
Oh,and the other exciting news is that Emma is here!! Wahoo! We were so excited to see her....she has grown up so much and looks like Megan' s mini-me! She is seriously a doll, and we are so excited to have her stay with us!! (thank you Amy for loaning her to us!!) This is pretty much it for my recap of the night....it was good, it was fun, it was even good-fun. If you missed it, shame on you. You missed a good time!! :)

That first picture....not a good quality one...but shows the crazy set up they had going!! the second picture, isn't Grama so cute?!? poor her....she held Katie....:(
the third picture, is Noah and I think it is cool. isn't he getting huge? fourth pic, is the loverly Emmer's and Jason. (he has a new best friend...lucky me!!!)

Sparklers....

Uncle Tom and Aunt Wendy brought an impressive amount of fireworks this year.....and the kids made out like bandits!! They got especially lucky because Tom brought each one of them there very own parachute firework, that actually drops an army man.....cool stuff. Then they hit the jackpot with all the sparklers! Wendy,Shawnie and Shawnie's friend (our trusty firefighter/EMT) made sure that the kids did as many as they wanted, and the kids LOVED it!! Ella was a little nervous at first.....but i think those boots gave her enough confidence and she was hooked! We had such a good time!

Fashion!?

this was ella's idea of 'dressed with shoes on' for fireworks....i am pretty sure we all got a kick out of this outfit. is that wrong? i know, i think it's cute now.....will it still be in 10 years? doubt it...but i'm hoping it will!! :)

Ashelyn Ann....her blessing Day

Hillary made this gorgeous dress, and used some lace from Misty's wedding dress. It was so beautiful....Hillary you do an amazing job. Ashelyn was so sweet and hardly made a peep.....that last picture she was hungry....:) and she may or may not be flashing gang symbols!? (kids these days....sheesh!)

We had a nice visit at Jake and Misty's house.....It is such a great house. Misty already has it looking perfect. She has it decorated so cute. It was nice to be able to hang out with everyone. We missed those who weren't able to be there.... it was a beautiful, HOT day....thanks Jake and Misty for having us!!

check out her adorable bracelet....i made it for her....[true story]

is it time yet, Mom!?!?!

We heard that a LOT while we waited for the Fireworks show to start!! :) But, the city of Cameron did not disappoint. It was a great show. Perfect weather, too!!
Jason even loved the show....Seth was worried he would freak out, but he laid right next to me on the blanket and he drank his bottle and watched....it was so cute. He even fell asleep towards the end. :)

The Parade....

Katie and I were in the Cameron 4th of July Parade this year, for the King and I. We had a great time waving and handing out flyer's. It was the best though, when we walked by my family and we had our own cheering section!! haha, it was really fun. Katie was such a trooper too! They had a trailer for the kids if they got too tired to walk and [Katie even wore really bad shoes for walking] but she wanted to walk. After the parade we went to Natalie and Erinn's house for a barbecue. YUM! We had a blast! Natalie made some way cute ice cubes [she used red and blue Hawaiian punch] we used as ice cubes with sprite....they were so cute! After we ate the guys watched a movie and Natalie and I sewed.... it was fun. We also killed some time playing football in the front yard.
Finally around 9:30pm we walked down to watch the city fireworks show! It was spectacular! The kids loved it! I always get such a kick out of watching the fireworks....they are so beautiful. They had some new ones this year that were so slow and sparkly.....they were my favorite. After the finale they lit a firework that was an enormous BOOM.....Jared said 'Dad, did you feel that?! That made the wind move over my face.' It was pretty funny, cause it was a huge boom. (how dumb do I sound.....i don't even know what any of this stuff is called.)
Anyway, we had a great time and a great Holiday! Thanks Natalie and Erinn for hosting such a great party!! I didn't get hardly any pictures, but that was kind of a nice break from that, too!!


did you notice our t-shirts?!?! my brother Jake made those for the play......pretty cool, huh!?

Keep your eye on the Grand Old Flag!

"Your a grand old flag , your a high flying flag, wherever in peace may you wave....your the emblem of the land I love, the Home of the free and the brave. Every heart beats true for the red, white and blue, where there's never a boast or brag."

....memories of Mom belting out this song, not just on a holiday, but whenever we see the flag. I would write the end of it, however I am sure I would mess the words up, worse if I haven't already!! :) I hope you are having a great time wherever you are. Go barbecue and shoot off some crazy fireworks. I know we will!

one more thing....

this is a picture of us when we were kids....(as in sarah, natalie, hillary, alan, jacob and josh...i think darrell was pulling us) This picture Grama Fish had on her blog and I just thought you might like to see it. (i told you my Mom would go all out.....)

I remember being so upset that I had to be a BOY....Thomas Jefferson, and Natalie was Ben Franklin....hehehe...Hillary was the lucky one who got to be Betsy Ross. What great memories!!

Far West Parade....

this was our second Far West Parade we were in, on July 4th 2005. We had a great time duplicating a float I was in as a child. (when I was in it though, my Mom made us wear spray painted pajamas, made to look like a spacesuit, and I just remember thinking i was gonna die cause it was so hot!!) Definitely a fun memory!! Anyway, this particular year they had a theme, and the theme was the Unites States....we picked Texas (for obvious reasons...heheheh) and Annie got to be Miss Texas. It was the only way we were able to convince her to participate!! hahaha!! What fun memories....I wish I could find the picture of us in the rocket when i was young.....(and that my scanner worked.)
Have a great weekend. I look forward to the coverage of your holidays, and can't wait to see what you all did to celebrate!!