Birthdays and More Waiting

Malone and I recently celebrated our birthdays. I'm 23 and hubs is 26. We're feeling old! Malone made me dinner, and gave me my favorite candy and Wii Fit! He spoils me. I'm so loving the game! Even if it tells me I'm old and "unbalanced." (This is referring to my coordination, not my mental stability! :P) I treated Malone to dinner at A&W and gave him Ticket to Ride Europe, Madagascar 2, new shoes, and his favorite candy. We also threw ourselves a big birthday bash and a bunch of our family and friends showed up! Thanks guys, it was crazy but fun!

On the adoption front, we are still waiting... and waiting... and waiting... Seriously, we haven't really had a problem with impatience through this whole process. But this is the most frustrated we've been. All that's holding our approval back is waiting on a signature. This is three weeks of waiting that we haven't been shown to potential birth mothers because of a little signature. Argh... I know we can't force things to go any faster, but now that we're so close we're just wanting it to happen NOW! I almost feel an urgency in the pit of my stomach. I'm really trying to be patient. But it is super hard. Our caseworker said she's hoping to have it done by the end of this week. Hopefully she pulls through for us! She's been really great so far, so we can only hope this trend will continue. Then we'll be off like a shot getting the word out! Do any of you have suggestions for how to endure this?

Superbowl PARTY!!!

My nephew was having his own Superbowl Party while us big kids watched the game. He was watching Veggie Tales on that laptop! I have to say, he's pretty freakin' adorable.
Check out our cute football shaped homemade oreos! My sister made them, but I gave her the idea for the shape. I'm the QB in our kitchen!
Just us. Like Malone's goatee? I think it's hot.
Check out our spread!!!
All of us... we were just a bit anxious to dig in to the food. This was about 15 min. before go time!

No, we are not football freaks. But, we do enjoy the occasional game here and there. Same goes for baseball, hockey, basketball, etc... Really the only sports events we get too crazy about are the Olympics and WORLD CUP SOCCER! (I can't wait!)

Anyhow, every year we throw a Superbowl Party. This year we kept it fairly quiet without a ton of people. We just had a couple of my brothers, their families, my little sister, and her man. No biggie. But we did have a TON of food. Seriously, I swear we could have fed all the Cards players as well as the Steelers. To say we overdid it a little is an understatement. But I guess that's kind of mandatory for the Superbowl. After all, we're Americans! ;) Anyhow, here are some pics.

P.S. I was sad that the Cards lost.

It's official now...

Today Malone and I were released from the nursery. (For those of you who aren't members of our church, we voluntarily serve in different aspects such as taking care of the very young children. AKA nursery.) It sucks because last week was the first week we had almost ALL of our kids at church and NONE of them cried. And let me tell you, that is a major accomplishment for six kids under the age of 2. The kids are all really getting to know us and feel excited about nursery. Of course, right when you really start to get comfortable and love the job you're doing, that's the time the Bishop (our church leader) asks us to do something different. Anyhow, I'm really going to miss spending Sunday with all of those kids. We've really fallen in love with all of them.

But now I get to try something different. The Bishop asked me to be the Literacy Specialist. Of course, I said yes and I'm excited for something new. I'm ready to get started, but I'm missing one important piece of the puzzle. What in the heck is a Literacy Specialist?

Truly inspiring

Birth mothers are so inspiring. I happened upon this woman's story (check it out at http://sethadamsmith.blogspot.com/2009/01/adoption-and-abortion.html), and I knew I had to share it with all of you. One of the most surprising blessings I've received from the adoption process so far is how much love I feel for these young women who willingly choose to place their children for adoption. Most of you know how emotional I can get. Well, I'm pretty much a mess every night when I kneel down and pray for the woman who will make our lives more complete. I can only imagine what she may be experiencing right now. I get downright worried for her. Anyway, we all have something to learn from these women. Check out this story, and others you can find on beta.itaboutlove.org.

It's 8:00 and all is well!!!

So... there really isn't much going on in the life of Malone and Brittany so far this week. I keep anxiously checking the mail every day as soon as I get home from work just HOPING to see that adoption approval letter. Of course, it's only been about a week from our home study so this anxiety is a little premature. But try telling the little butterflies in my heart that. Trust me, they don't listen. What can I say, the little buggers are punks! Anyhow, I'm really hoping it will come by the end of next week at least. Wouldn't that be an amazing birthday present? Oh yeah... that's a major hint. Our birthdays are coming up! Mine is the 5th and Malone's is the 9th. We're getting old!

For randomness' sake... I'm currently watching The Biggest Loser. For those of you out there who are also fans of the show, don't you think the background music is a TAD melodramatic for the situation? Seriously, you'd think they were writing music for a World War II movie or a soap opera. It's quite humorous. In our house we like to make up words to the music that go something along the lines of "Oh my... look at... his man boobs!!!" or something else equally as obnoxious.

So... I guess I'll leave you with that wise and inspirational thought...

We passed!

Today was our home visit with our caseworker! It was pretty relaxed, it only took about 15 minutes. Basically, I just took her on a tour of our apartment and showed her all the safety features of our apartment. I showed her where we have our fire extinguisher, carbon monoxide detector, and all of our smoke alarms. I showed her where we keep our cleaning supplies and medications. It was really simple and easy! And... we passed! YAY! Now we just wait for our caseworker to catch up with the BIG supervisor so he can sign our paperwork and we'll be approved! Our caseworker told us that we have a really good profile. She said that our paperwork sticks out amongst the other couples' paperwork because we were so personal and funny. She said that she honestly feels like we'll probably get chosen quickly because we did such a good job of being honest and giving a good picture of our personalities in the profile! (Notice all the exclamation points in the post... I'm excited.) That was really nice of her to reassure us because I've been so nervous that nobody will want to choose us. Anyway, I'll be anxiously checking the mailbox every day waiting for the approval notification. Don't worry, you guys will be among the first to know.

Inauguration day

I watched today as President Barack Obama was sworn into office. I couldn't pass this historical moment up without saying that I am proud to live in a country that can lay aside the racial discrimination of the past. Although I don't agree with all of President Obama's ideals, I am glad that today a big step has been taken in the efforts of equality. I also think this is a big step forward in the acceptance of multi racial families because President Obama comes from a mixed race family. Thank goodness!

Some adoption profile pictures

At Yellowstone National Park

We make hot cowboys! (To be kosher, should that be cowpeople?)
It's over three years later, and we're still madly in love.

In Nauvoo, Illinois you HAVE to eat fudge, and go on a wagon ride.
This is at an amazing park near where we're from.

One of our handmade chairs. Malone cuts them, and I paint them.
Malone is the most tolerant hubby, and I was VERY bored.
Malone sporting his occasional goatee at his brother's wedding.
Just us. Our life is just normal. But we love it.

One of our trips back to beautiful Nauvoo where we were married.
We have a tradition of making a Haunted gingerbread house for Halloween. This year's was patterned off the Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris.

Hard at work in our home office grading his students' papers.

Malone has a real talent for woodworking. He made this clock by hand!
We were so lucky to walk together for graduation. It was a big day!
Us at my brother's wedding. It was so cold!
One of my many plants I "rescued" from Wal-Mart.
A recent family picture.
Us at this year's corn maze/haunted forest.

We love to cook together!

One of my three Christmas villages. (Help! They're taking over!)

We love playing games together and with our family.

We love to spoil our nieces and nephews. This was taken at the zoo in St. Louis Missouri.

Christmas 2008. Christmas is my FAVORITE holiday, I always go all out.

So these are just the pictures we have on there for now. This spring/summer we plan to update the photos with our spring/summer hobbies of camping, biking, going to the lake, swimming, fireworks, etc... Can you tell I'm excited for it to get warm again? :)