Foster Family pictures

The end of October we had family pictures with Cameron's family, and it was a beautiful fall day. They were overdue--the last one was four years ago and 3 kids have been born since then. It was so great to be together as a family and make memories. I am so grateful for forever families.

Me and my handsome man

He would scream unless he was on the tractor so we worked with it

All the Fosters. Cameron is the oldest of 4 kids. His youngest brother is the only one single.

Can you tell this family loves John Deere?

Those poor kids :)

October

October has been a great month. The weather has been great and I love this time of year when the leaves change and fall. We had the opportunity to go to Island Park the second week of October and invited our friends, the Darringtons to go with us. We had hoped to take them to Yellowstone Park, but that happened to be during the time the park was closed because the federal government was shut down. Grrr! Instead, we played at the Foster cabin, visited the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, went to Mesa Falls and Sheep Falls, and ate delicious meals in Ashton (Big Judd's!) and West Yellowstone. It was a fun long weekend.
Since then, Cameron has been hunting, and I have been home making applesauce and grape juice, as well as going to visit my family while Cameron was gone. We also just had family pictures with Cameron's family last weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing how they turned out. Tonight we had our ward trunk or treat and our family picture above is from today!

 Jacoby and I watching the grizzly bears

 The wolves at the discover center. They were neat to watch

 Inside the gift shop at the discovery center

 It's nice to travel with friends cuz then we get pictures of all of us!

 Sheep Falls near Ashton and Mesa Falls

Jacoby was a good little hiker

 Mesa Falls is beautiful this time of year

The bathrooms were closed, can you believe it? I love what somebody wrote on the sign. 

I think 19 months is my favorite age yet

I have to share how much fun Jacoby is lately. He just turned 19 months old and he's a little sponge listening and imitating everything we do. He is saying new words each day and his regular words are becoming clearer. Just this week Cameron and I have both noticed that his speech has really accelerated. His favorite things to say and do this week:

• He Waves "bye-bye" and says "ba ba" whenever we leave the house or say good-by to someone in person or on the phone. He waves at me when I put him in his crib for bed. 
• When he's looking for one of us, he walks around saying "mama" or "dada" over and over
• He frequently gives big hugs and kisses. I lift him up and he says mama! and then gives me a big loud kiss on the mouth. 
• He says "I did it" pretty clearly and uses that phrase a lot. He sounds so proud of himself. He
• He says "Oakey" all the time when he's looking for Oakley or because he hears me call him. When hes in the stroller on our runs, I hear "no Oakey!" A lot.
• He gives Oakley hugs all the time and says "ohhh" softly and lays his head on his back. He does that to anything he thinks is soft or cute. 
• He says "want one" repetitively and points when he wants something 
• When my phone rings he exclaims "oh!" And brings my phone to me
• He finds all the flies in the house by exclaiming "buzz buzz!" And pointing. He tries to squish them and step on them. He won't stop exclaiming about the fly until I acknowledge it and swat at it. 
• He is trying to say grandma now but it sounds like mama. 
• He sees trains a lot and exclaims "too too!" 
• He sees trucks and planes a lot and makes noise for them

• He knows all the farm animal noises and its amazing all the animals he spots. His dog noise has switched to a panting sounds because that's what he hears more often at our house. 

There's a lot more he does but I can't write it all. I just really want to remember  this age and how fun it is to communicate with him now! He listens intently when I tell him things and I'm sure he understands more than we know. I love Jacoby so much and love being his mom!

What we've been up to

About a month ago, Jacoby finally started walking. He was 17 1/2 months, but hey he walked before he was 18 months old, which was my hope so he didn't have to crawl to nursery. This video is of him  when he took some of his first steps. I love that he walked right to Oakley. I've also posted some pictures of the last month or so. We have had so much fun!

 Eating s'mores up in the mountains

 Eating popcorn watching tv

 Cameron caught us sleeping in after a rough night after we got back from trek

 Playing at the city pool. I couldn't get a picture of him in the water. He's too fast.

 On Wednesday, the 21st, my brother, Braden, left on his mission. We went to the I.F. airport to see him off at 5:45 am! He will be such an awesome missionary. Jacoby loves him so much. Hopefully we can keep his memory alive of him.

 My parents hugging Braden

 That same day, we drove to Swan Valley, ID and hiked to Lower Palisades Lake.

 Then we went camping in Alpine and Cameron went rafting on the 22nd down the hoeback. Jacoby got so dirty! The joys of camping with a toddler!

 I refused to put him to bed so filthy so this is our make-shift bath tub. We had a lot of fun but are happy to be home. 

Hope and Peace Amidst Heartache

In March of this year, we were approved to adopt again through a private social worker. I felt like I had been driven to get approved as quickly as possible and knew our baby was out there somewhere, possibly already conceived. We didn't announce this to anyone except our immediate family and I was vain enough to think that we would get matched quickly and bring home a baby and then surprise everyone.

Well, my plan almost worked. In April we were matched with a wonderful birth mother who was due with a boy Aug 30. It was perfect! We only waited one month to get matched and our two boys would be 18 months apart, just as I was hoping. We talked to our birth mother on the phone several times and got really close. She knew adoption was right for her baby and really liked us. She relocated to Kansas for the rest of her pregnancy so we got the church involved there so her 8 year old daughter could be involved with activity days. The primary president told the missionaries about her and they visited her a few times.Our b-mom was not interested in learning about our church and although we explained what we believed when she asked, we told her to tell the missionaries she was not interested and to leave her alone.

We were matched for three months when, on August 5, we were on our way to Wyoming for our stake trek. We had recently told our stake leaders about our situation because she could have gone into labor while we were gone so there had to be contingency plans made. We had been asked to be "Ma" and "Pa" for a trek family of 10 kids 14-18 years old. I had not even wanted to go on trek originally, because the dates were too close to her due date and I didn't want to leave Jacoby for a week a second time this summer.

I am so glad we agreed to go. On the way to Wyoming, we got a phone call from our case worker, who informed us that our birth mother wanted to choose another family to adopt her family who was not LDS. The case worker (who happens to be also LDS) tried to talk her out of changing her mind, but this b-mom was really botherered about some things the missionaries had told her about our church. To say the least, we were devastated. We had two teenage boys and another couple in our car with us, so we sat there and cried silent tears through the rest of the drive. It was just too good to be true how perfectly everything was working out, so I almost expected something like this to happen. Fortunately instead of having time to get bitter, we were on our way to a week-long spiritual experience. We got to be around amazing kids and leaders and learn about the sacrifices and suffering the pioneers from the Martin and Willie handcart companies experienced crossing the plains to avoid persecution for this same religion. THERE IS NO PLACE WE WOULD HAVE RATHER BEEN LAST WEEK. It was an amazing experience and we received so much peace and understanding during what could have been an awful time for us. I firmly believe that Heavenly Father knew what was going to happen and he made sure we were on this trek.

So now I am no longer trying to be secretive to the fact that we are adopting again and we can use all the help we can get. We are open to other races and the baby boy we were planning on for 3 months was afro-American. We know that the baby meant for our family will be a miracle situation just like our first adoption. Jacoby's birth mother is also sad for us and is praying for another baby for us as well. Even now that we are home and see the baby clothes and bottles that I have recently washed and sat out, I amazingly feel at peace. I am so grateful for the love of my Savior and Heavenly Father, who give such tender mercies to all of us in times of trial.

Summer!

We are enjoying our summer so far. Jacoby is still not walking but is as cute as a bug and at least I can keep up with him for now. He recently completed a two week "Aqua Tots" class where he and I got to spend a half hour a day getting used to the pool. He did pretty good after the first few days when he clung to me through the whole class. The end of June my family all ran the annual "To Bone and Back" 40 mile relay. Cameron is not a runner and said he is never doing that again, but hey he did it! Cameron left that week for ND but Jacoby and I got to go to Lava Hot Springs with Cameron's family for a day the next weekend and had a blast in the pool.  I went to visit my parents the first week of July to celebrate Independence Day and go to a class reunion. Braden, my brother was my date! It was fun. While in the I.F. area, we went to the zoo with my mom, Braden, Brianna, and all our kids. Jacoby absolutely loved it. He is at a fun age where he likes to make animal sounds.

 Lava Hot Springs

 Fireworks!

 Zoo!

 My "date" for my class reunion

 Playing with cousins at Grandma's