Sunday, January 12, 2014

Christmas 2013!

Christmas 2013 was a blast. We spent Christmas with the Taylor family on the 23rd. The whole family went to Smitty's for a breakfast dinner, then headed over to Tami and Larry's to open presents. 

Sadie and Briggs!
Cree and Mikey
Christmas is so much more fun with little kiddos running around. We are STOKED to have our first Christmas with our little guy this year!
 Cree gave me a nice make-up brush kit.
Tami and Lar, just the day before, got back from a 2 week cruise through the Panama Canal. She was darker than Cree!
Matt's amazing XS Christmas sweater. 
We got Briggs his first golf set!
Matt and his little brosef

All the Taylor kids spent the night at the parent's house. Christmas Eve, we flew down to Texas!
Our first stop was my Grandparent's house for a delicious Mexican feast.

My Uncle Joe and Uncle Bob. They are THE best dressed men I know!
Love them!
Dave and his Cowboys!
Matt, my Uncle Kev, and Grandpapa. Matt and G-pa had matching shirts!

My dad picked us up from my Grandparent's and we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with him and my sister, Taelor. My dad surprised us with an I-pad mini for Christmas! The night was spent watching Taelor play Grand Theft Auto, I played on the I-pad, Matt played Castle Clash, and my dad downloaded music while I played him a variety of 1D songs and secretly filmed his reactions to the songs. Hilarious! 
Dad and sis
Christmas afternoon was spent at my mom's and Daves. Of course, we had our traditional Mexican food lunch! 

Michael and his intrusive camera.
We celebrated Uncle John's 50th b-day, too!
Lisa, Dev, and Michael
It was Edy's (my aunt) idea for us all to wear tacky Christmas outfits. I think Gavin, the black snowman, won the most creative prize. Edy wanted him to wear white sweatpants, too, but Gavin wasn't havin it. 
This kid can solve a rubix cube in 50 seconds!
Our White Elephant gift was the Top/Bottom towel. It's so you don't dry your face with the part you dried your bum. :)
Wits and Wagers!!!
Granny's new treadmill...
...because the kid in the green Minnie v-neck broke her old one running on it like a mad child.
Ha!
LOVE MY CRAZY FAMILY!
My mom is a really good photographer.
Edy and I styling Matt's hair to look like Harry Styles from One Direction.
And then Edy snapping a picture. Or maybe 7.
But the lighting wasn't perfect, so we did ten more. Matt secretly liked it. :)
Lily and her Minnie dress. 
Then it was time to open gifts from my parents. They hooked it up like normal!!!
Where are you, Dave?!
My favorite gift of all was in the box. My mom put almost all of our home videos on DVD's!!! I LOVE to watch old home videos, and have been begging her to put them on DVD's for years! She put a LOT of work into that gift! Matt loved watching the same video 5 times. ;)

A couple days after Christmas, our friends from Idaho, Ali and Marilee (who recently moved to Texas) came to Houston! We took them to Pappadeux's, our fav place to eat! My cousin, Lisa, is the manager there, and hooked us up!

Later that night, we all snuck in to the Texans practice dome! The door was open, lights were on, and not a soul in sight. The only ball we found was a soccer ball, so we played around for a little and explored the rest of the compound.

We also tried to sneak into the Dynamo stadium, but they lock their doors over there.

And to top it all off, I took my sweet friend Sarah's engagements. I LOVE her and her entire family!!! We have been buds since 5th grade, and I love that she hasn't changed! I also get to shoot her wedding August!!! :)
 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

High Hopes!

We are pretty excited for 2014!

Matt and I were talking about one word that described 2013 for us.
We came up with "perseverance." We thought it may sound a little dramatic, but it fits. We had lots of positive experiences in 2013 like vacations, making new memories with both sides of our families, and good health. But with the good, came the hard.

We were expecting to do IVF this month, like tomorrow actually. The billing department at our doctor in Utah said with all extra procedure costs, embryo freezing, etc, etc it was going to be about $4,500 more than what we budgeted and definitely couldn't afford. That was hard.

I have been researching like a mad woman different ways to get the word out about our adoption and to fundraise. This week, we created a profile with a company called "Adoptimist." It's a resource for birthmoms to help find adoptive couples like us. You can check out our cute profile here: https://www.adoptimist.com/adoption-parent-profile/7062

We are also signed on with an adoption advising company that takes our profile to pregnancy crisis centers, hospitals, adoption attorneys, and other agencies to help spread the word. Their average placement times are from 3-5 months which is really quick!

*Correction*
Our adoption fundraising page is:
                                                       www.adopttogether.org/thetaylors
All donations go directly to us, and the company does not take a percentage, which is way nice!
We are hoping we can raise at least half of the money for our adoption, and have the rest paid off by the time the baby is 5 ;) Jk.

We are hoping with these things going, we will get a baby soon! Please, please, please keep us in mind if you hear of anyone considering placing their baby for adoption. We are SO excited to be parents, and THIS will be the year our dream comes true. I just know it!

A friend of mine who is a social worker told me this advice which I have been literally clinging to each day, "You will be healed at the sight of your sweet baby."

This video is a testament to what my friend said. If you haven't seen it, it's truly amazing and very well done.
I love the part where the dad says, "Anytime I think of adoption, I think about my spiritual adoption--about how Jesus went to infinitely greater lengths to adopt me into the family of God. What a privilege it is to live out some of the truths of the Gospel."

When you think about adoption in this way, it doesn't seem so foreign. We are all here because Jesus Christ laid down his life for all of us to return to live with Him again.
Adoption connects us all.

And for now, we will persevere and keep smiling along the way. :)