Reese's blessing

I realized that I didn't take very many pictures at Reese's blessing so if anyone would like to email me some of their pics from the blessing....I would greatly appreciate it:)

I have been very excited for Reese's blessing for such a long time. I remember going to all my nieces blessings and I would just look at their moms with such admiration. They seemed to be the proudest mothers around. I couldn't believe it was my turn to be the proudest mom around, surrounded by all of our family and friends. I was also very excited for Ron to be able to bless Reese. It is always a special thing when your husband gives your child a blessing. It truly is a powerful thing to have many of the priesthood holders in your life surround your precious baby. Anyway, there was a part of Reese's blessing that has really stood out to me over the last couple of weeks. It said that "Reese came to our family as an answer to hundreds of prayers." I start to cry when I really start to think about how many prayers have been offered for our precious baby to come to us. Prayers offered day after day and night after night over the past 4 years have literally been hundreds of prayers. My heart was so full of gratitude as I looked around at all our family and friends and knew that they had prayed for her as well. And with all those prayers, I can say that she is the culmination of every single one of those prayers. In my eyes, she is perfect and I know she is a little piece of heaven. I am starting to understand how much Heavenly Father loves each of us more and more and I am grateful that He has given me this opportunity to be a mother.

After the blessing and everyone went home, I had the same overwhelming feelings of gratitude that I felt at my wedding. When you feel the spirit very strong and are so grateful for all that our Heavenly Father has blessed you with and the complete happiness you feel for your family. Nothing matters, but your family and you truly have an eternal perspective. I was trying to write down everything in my journal so I could remember all of these wonderful feelings that I had.

Reese and her cousin Teyla

Reese's best friend Nate!!

Our Church cousins:)

The day I have been dreaming of!!!

I can't tell you how long it seems that I have been waiting for this day! The day that we would be sealed to our sweet baby. I have felt that I would have an adopted child since I was in high school and received my patriarchal blessing. For the past 3 years, every time I would go to the temple, I would just imagine kneeling across the alter with Ron and our sweet baby. Many tears were also shed wondering if that day would actually come. Now, looking back on our ups and downs of adoption, I realize that I have learned so much and one of those things is that your children are not in your family by chance. They come to your specific family at a specific time and I am grateful for the adoptions that didn't work out because I know Reese is supposed to be in our family. When I think about all the prayers I had offered concerning the child we were to adopt, she is the accumulation of all of those prayers. Since the day I held Reese in my arms, this little 3lb baby, I fell in love and could not imagine our life without her. She has allowed me to be a mother and I just could not wait to be sealed to her for eternity.
We were sealed on Saturday, November 5th, 2011 at 2:30pm in the Bountiful temple. It was a beautiful snowy day and Reese was perfect! She took a 2 hour nap from 10-12:00 and then we left at 12:30 and she fell asleep again on the drive to the temple, which was perfect! When we got to the temple, we couldn't get her to take her eyes off the temple. She had her eyes glued on the temple and the chandeliers. I was so excited to take her inside and it was neat that everyone who saw us holding our baby inside the temple seemed to be sharing our special day with us. We dropped Reese off at the youth center and would not see her again until the sealing. The sealing was perfect and I thought Reese was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I started to cry as I looked around at all of our family and friends that have showed so much love and support to our family, but when they brought Reese into the room, tears started streaming down my face and it was the best feeling to have the two loves of my life with me that we could be sealed as an eternal family. As we walked through the temple with Reese, I think Ron and I had to be the happiest parents in the world at that moment. All dresses in white, in the temple, as an eternal family........doesn't get much better than that!!! There are a lot of things that are not very fun about adopting, but being sealed to Reese makes all the heartache worth every tear!
We are grateful for Ron's sister, Wendy, who held Reese during the sealing!

Family Pictures...

I was so excited to get our family pictures taken this year. It sounds so silly, but it is the little things that still mean so much to me. I have always loved looking at my friend's family pictures and couldn't wait until we could go do pictures with our little baby. Like I have said in a previous post, I just love "firsts" and this is our first family photo shoot:) Sorry this is a little bit of a picture overload, but there were just so many good ones to choose from. My friend Ashley, who I have known since Junior high took them and is such a great photographer. Here is her website www.milesofmemoriesphoto.com

Happy Halloween...

Every holiday is very exciting this year because we get to celebrate it with Reese. There is something so exciting about your baby's first. We were excited to finally be able to dress up Reese and do a little trick or treating. I have always loved watching my nieces and nephews dress up for halloween, but it was so exciting to finally have our own child to take trick or treating. It is funny how much I look forward to holidays now that we get to celebrate it with our little girl. I loved this little watermelon costume and our little watermelon!At our ward Halloween carnival.

Uncle Joseph and Reese

Kennedy, Kaiya, Kelsey, Kolby, Khloe, and Reese.....Isla was there also, but she was scared of Kennedy's nose.

Grandpa and Reese

Our Church cousins (Happy Birthday Luke)

Isla the SugarPlum Fairy

Kaiya the Candycorn

Kelsey the witch

Kolby the witch

Kennedy the wicked witch

Khloe the cute little witch

7 months old...

I can't believe Reese is 7 months old. The past 7 months have been the happiest months of our life. I am so grateful to have a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter. She is getting more and more of a personality each day and I love it. She is so much fun and I love being a mom. I didn't post any pictures of Reese rolling on the ground, but she is getting around these days. It is time to baby proof the house because she is rolling like crazy and trying to crawl. I actually think she might walk before crawling because she loves to walk holding onto our hands. Reese loves to watch football, especially with Ron.
I am not sure if it is the movement on the screen or what, but football entertains Reese more than any little kid TV show. Ron loves it!

Reese absolutely loves her jumper. She really is a jumping bean and any time she stands, she is jumping. She has done this a few times where she jumps so much that she wipes herself out. It is so funny because she will fall asleep and then her hand will accidentally hit a button and music will go off and she will start jumping again......I call it sleep jumping:)
She also likes to jump with her baby doll.
Reese loves riding in the car. It is pretty funny because the dogs just follow her around. They are her protectors. It is so cute when the dogs stick their noses close to Reese's face and she will just wack them with her hand and start laughing and the dogs seem to love it. Reese and I like to chase the dogs around in the car.


Reese is starting to teeth and chews on everything. She eats her hands, feet, and anything she can get her hands on. Ron was trying to read Reese a book, but Reese just wanted to eat it.
A favorite position these days.
Also, just for recording records.......Reese loves, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, peas, and loves to feed herself. She actually does really well at getting the food in her mouth.