Last year we had a "Positive moments" jar where we would take a paper and write our biggest blessings of 2014 on. Then on New year's Even we emptied it as a family and read those papers again. Here's what we had:
Annie takes Susan to St. George for a special Valentines present (2.14.14)
Surprise visit from the Jeffery's and the Olsons. Early bday celebration for Annie's 30th (3.20.14)
Nancy comes to surprise Annie for 5 days (4.12.14)
We get licensed as Foster Home with Hope and Home (4.28.14)
California vacation to thee beach and Disneyland with the Olsons and Mom and Dad (5.1.14 to 5.6.14)
We have our first foster placement! Her name is Hailee Dae Boedeker. She is 5 years old. She's an amazing little girl and fits right in our family. (6.18.14)
We take Josan and Hailee on a trip to Grandma and Grandpa for the Fourth of July weekend. This is Hailee's first time on a plane. (7.14)
While in Nevada, Adam accepts a job offer in Draper, Utah with Gild. We're moving back. (7.3.14)
We list our house and get an offer (that we accept) 3 days later. Although saying goodbye to Hailee is heart breaking and one of the hardest thing we've ever done, we feel it is the right thing to do for our family. The closing -and moving- date is July 29th (7.11.14)
We move back to Utah (7.29.14) and officially get in our first ever apartment (8.1.14)
Josan starts year round kindergarten (a couple weeks late). Although he finds it hard, he is doing amazing (8.11.14)
Annie reach one of her goals twice and runs 13.1 miles (10.14)
Annie reach one of her goals twice and runs 13.1 miles (10.14)
Both Adam and Annie receive strong separate answers to "Let things go" and trust Heavenly Father with the future of our family (11.6.14)
Josan, our amazing big boy, turns 6. We have a nice party and surprise him with a cruise (11.22.14)
After a bit of negotiation, we go under contract on our future house (11.27.14)
We fly out to Puerto Rico on November 27th and go on a cruise (11.29.14 to 12.6.14)
We have an amazing Christmas at Mom and Dad's (12.25.14)
We move into our new house (1.2.15)
So yeah...we definitely have a lot to be thankful for and we know it. But it was still nice to read those moments again. Most of them made us smile. Some others made us cry a little. Our saddest one was for sure to read about Hailee. We still miss her sweet face all the time!
Something we were not thankful of was to go back to our -cold- apartment. Whatever we would set the heater to, it didn't get pass 62 degrees at best. Just one more reason to be happy to get in our new house!
TIME TO MOVE!!
We've had SO much help to move this time! We got the truck and the first half of our stuff in Eagle Mountain, then got the rest in Farmington and unloaded everything at our new house. It took us about 7 hours from start to finish. Some people I had never met showed up to help. Some others gave us some of their vacation time so they could help. When we were unloading the truck I was told several times to just stand in the door and tell people where to take what they were carrying. That's quite against who I am but that's what I did. After about 45 minutes of doing a whole lot of nothing i went out to grab a box or 2 expecting to see half of our things still in the truck. But it was all empty! Everything had been unloaded. I couldn't believe it. We are forever grateful to every single one that took a load -literally- off our shoulders.
We also got to surprise Grandpa Wood for his 89th birthday. It was great to see everyone!
I'm not sure if that makes us oldsters or what but we love to play games! We do that as often as we can!
This was our first dinner just the 3 of us in our house!
Josan snuggles less and less as he grows. So we steal love out of him when he's asleep!
First day of school (take 2)
The boy started school again after the Holidays so he wasn't too thrown off. His new teacher had talked to the others about "the new friend" and they were all super excited to have him there. He made friends right away.
It wasn't much easier to send him off the second time around.
Trying to have some fun while doing some much needed car cleaning
More game time!!
This time it turned a bit like a zoo...;)
Cant get enough of my handsome little dude
Savanna's birthday fun
Remodeling sucks! Well, sometimes. But when you're on a tight time frame it's pretty bad. On top of being a full time mom I worked 40 to 50 hours a week on the main floor. That was pretty intense. And it's not even 100% done yet!
Thank goodness we had A LOT of help!
Mike is THE best! And we were lucky enough to have him help us a ton!
This is quite bitter sweet. Josan now OFFICIALLY (no more attempts) sleeps in his own bed. He's 6 years old so there really shouldn't be a bitter to the sweet right? But him being our baby as well as our big boy, it sad not to be able to snuggle him ever anymore now that he's out of our bed...
Infertility sucks but my girl friends don't! I'm so lucky to have them!
We had our first go at playing Cupid and took these 2 out on a blind date! It was so fun!
Adam's work team
Came upon these serious gems! The first one is my mom's parents when they got married, the second is Grandma Darleen as ayoung woman and the 3rd one is my mom (second kid from the right) and her 3 siblings
I just love this. It reminds me what we are all worth...