Picture Marathon

It's been a while since I've put any pictures on the blog. Here's a recap of our last 4 months. Why is it that many of our pictures are about snakes?

 We have a huge magpie nest in our backyard. There were baby birds and one baby kept falling out. Nate was sitting on the chair, which was on the table, to keep an eye on the baby bird.

 This was the first rattler of the season. For some strange reason, I really wanted to shoot the first snake. Nate heard the rattle in a bush and called for us. Dave was kind enough to pull the rattler out of the bush so I could have an easy shot. Here we are preparing the snake for his death.

 Dave and Nate just got a prairie dog. They are sorta cute, but not when they are in your yard.

 One day I went to put something away and found where Nate had put his boots away. It made me smile.

 Sadie got Dave's old 22 for her birthday. She was so shocked and sooooo happy. Ash was so funny about it. "I got a pellet gun and Sadie gets a 22!!!?????" Then Nate said "I  know what this means. When I turn 10 I'm going to get an ak47!" Yeah right.

 Sadie spotted a nice bull snake in our backyard.

 A trip to the Jelly Belly Factory with the Draper's!

 A trip to Uncle Mike's fire station. Nate was in heaven.

 All of the Walton cousins together!

 Jamie planned the cutest "unbirthday party" for all of the cousins.

 Going to the cemetery is always a highlight when we are in California.

 There have been some fun surprises that the old owners of this home left for us. We love these flowers in the pond.

 What a special treat it was for Dave and I to take Ashlyn to the Denver temple for the first time.

 We were honored to have my sister's sister-in-law bring her family out for a visit. We had such a fun time.

 Dave and the kids built a massive fire pit for some fun nights of smore's.

 Hiking to the top of the hill with the Draper's. They were on a hunt to find a snake. Shannon and I went on a long walk just to exercise and talk...and we were the lucky ones to find the snake! Shannon got to shoot it.

 Nate loves to dress Jack up. Jack is such a good sport.

 Since we homeschool, that "first day of school" isn't quite the same. We do have a wonderful school we attend once a week. Suddenly it hit me that it was the first day of school and I better take a picture! Ash starts earlier than Sadie and Nate so she wasn't with us.

 Our ward had a pinewood derby race on Labor Day. Smaug (Nate's bearded dragon) was showcased on Sadie's car. He didn't win the fastest award but he did win for most creative.

 Ashlyn's first snake she got to shoot!

 Sadie's first snake.

 It was an exciting Sunday morning when we found two rattle snakes back to back.

 Nate's not a big fan of Sundays. They are long and boring to him. On this particular Sunday after finding two snakes, Nate said "This is the best Sunday of my life." Dave skinned both snakes (the heart was beating for 40 minutes after it was shot) and also cooked them up to go with our dinner. Disgusting.

 Preparing to fry them up!

 Nate loved the snake and kept asking for more. Right after the blessing on the food Nate said "Dad, can you please pass the rattlesnake?"

 Ashlyn's face matched probably how mine looked when I tried my one tiny bite. It was gross.

 Last year Nate's birthday party was a Civil War reenactment. This year it was the Revolutionary War.

 Nate is putting the camel from Grandma Walton to good use.

 Dave is teaching Nate how to use the revolver to shoot a snake. Nate got him right in the neck.

Grandma and Grandpa with all of the Fishbein cousins.

A beautiful day for math

The girls made this beautiful strawberry cake with home made cream cheese frosting on Mother's Day. It was delicious!

 If only you could hear the sound that goes along with this picture. Sadie is doing her math lesson outside today because it's such a beautiful day. She was singing "The sun will come out tomorrow...TOMORROW, TOMORROW, I LOVE YA, TOMORROW!" She was belting it...all while studiously doing her math problems. And her sitting position really made me laugh. She has been known to fall out of her chair at dinner many a times because she sits in so many funny positions. I guess she likes to sit on the edge of the arm of the chair? Is that more comfortable?

Life on the Farm

 Sadie running around trying to collect Easter eggs.

 We got 21 chicks at the post office several weeks ago. They are much bigger now and are ready to go out to their coop this week. Nate loved setting one of the chicks up in his tractor that moves. Nate got such a kick out of pushing the "go" button and watching his chick have a ride.

 Happy Kids' Day! When I was a kid my parents had Kids' Day for us a few times. I have such fun memories of it. Our last kids' day was about 4 years ago so we were due for another one! It was fun to do a few things we don't normally do. Sadie's favorite snack in the world is chips and onion dip and we pretty much never have it unless there's a party or something like that. So we had that for our appetizer and strawberry lemonade (another rare thing around here). Dinner was lemon/blueberry/buttermilk whole wheat pancakes and a potato/bacon/egg dish.

We played the flour game and Sade had to dive for the dime!

We played the fishing game (this is one of the games I remember playing at Kids' Day as a kid). Dave was a pretty tough fish to catch back there.

And we ended the night with a family dance party - one of our favorite things. One of the prizes Nate got during one of the games was a kite. He was so determined to fly that thing. Here he was trying to fly it from the stairs. Later on we noticed he was gone. He had gone up to his room where there is a deck outside his bedroom door. He was hanging his kite over the deck. We were all dancing...and looked out the window and saw a kite floating in the air. It made us all laugh to see his determination to get the kite flying!

One sunny day, the kids and I went rattlesnake hunting. I prefer to be on the offensive, so we decided to go on a hunt. I brought my gun and the kids brought pocket knives and sticks. And a shovel, too. We didn't find a snake but we sure looked! I guess it wasn't hot enough yet. 

We loved having our good friends from Missouri visit us over Easter weekend.

The snake hunters...preparing for battle.

We found these boots for Nate at the consignment store. Nate loves wearing his cowboy boots all around.

These pictures do not do this little story justice. We had a dental school BBQ with 4 families that we went to school with that have ended up here in Colorado. Nate and this cute little girl, Ella, had so much fun talking to each other that night. The top picture is how they looked most of the time. She was leaning in, and then he was leaning in. All smiles the whole time. I tried to get them to look at me for the picture but they were both a little shy about it.

It was such a treat for us to have a visit from Grandma Bowen, Grandma and Grandpa Walton, Brittany and Sam! Nate just loved having Grandma Bowen here. We all did!

Nate wanted a silly face picture with Grandma Walton! We loved having them here!

It was so precious when Nate quietly walked up to Grandma Bowen and said "Want to play a game with me?" I'm not sure that was Grandma's first choice of activity but before I knew it, there was Grandma Bowen walking with Nate to the game cupboard to pick a game. She sat and played with them for a long time. Such a special thing!

Ashlyn and Sadie's choirs had a big end of year performance last night. Ashlyn's choir did Newsies and Sadie's choir did Annie. I like the picture above of Sadie when we were just testing out the curly hair and outfit. It looks more like Sadie without all of the makeup!

They were supposed to wear loads of makeup for the big show. Ash had so much fun being a Newsy and Sadie loved having a little solo for Annie.

Dave and the kids have been working hard on the chicken coop. We've had so much snow that it's taken a lot longer to get it done! Those chicks are ready to go outside!

Dave and Leland have been having quite the fun trying to eliminate the prairie dog species in our yard. It's cute to see them walking around with their guns.

Nate and Jack are such good buddies.

Getting our chicks at the post office.

Ashlyn and Sadie dressed up for their end of year speeches in class. Sadie was Mansa Musa and Ash was Confucius. They had to dress up as their character and then give a speech in first person and at the end the class guesses who they are.

Adoption "Situations"

Learning the ropes of adoption seems to be equivalent to learning a new language. Every new step is completely new territory for us. So much to learn.

We finally got 100% approved with Act of Love agency a week ago.

In this next stage, the term "situations" is a big deal. If the agency has a birthmom that seems to match our criteria, then they show us her situation. A "situation" is everything they know about the mom, including all sorts of details about her parents, siblings, grades, ethnicity, health, drug use, ETC. It is packed with as much information as possible. Included in her situation, is an itemized list of the cost. Each adoption costs a different amount. It depends on if she needs help with housing, food, medical costs, counseling, etc.

We read over the situation, and have to decide if it's a situation we would be comfortable accepting. After we sign some paperwork, the agency sends the birthmom a handful of adoptive family profiles (including our story, pictures, etc) and the mom gets to choose a family. Once we are chosen, we are considered "matched". Then we wait for the due date. And prepare to sign 100 other forms once the baby is born.

Today we got our first SITUATION. My heart stopped when I saw the email come through. I was so nervous/excited/anxious to read about this mother. Dave was on the phone with me so I read it all to him. This baby is a girl due in June. The downside about this situation is that the price is incredibly high. The mom needs all sorts of financial help. The problem is, if the mom changes her mind, a huge chunk of the money we would pay (we pay it all up front, once we are matched) we could lose. All of the money that goes towards her living, counseling, medical, etc, and that is used, never gets returned to us. It is a pretty big chunk of change to risk losing without having a baby to come home with us.

But most of all, there are no bells ringing saying that this baby is the one. So we will be patient (try, that is) and wait for the next situation to come along.