Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We had a lot of fun and were grateful for the chance to spend time with family and friends. Santa was very generous to Abigail and Eden, they got a lot of really fun toys that they have already enjoyed! I will post a few pictures of Christmas morning in the next day or two.

Cousin Fun Day / Gift Exchange Dec 17, 2007

Almost every year, we have a Cousin Fun Day in Dec. where we make gingerbread houses and at least one other craft. The girls LOVED making "frosty's house" as they called them.

Here is Eden with her finished project.

Abigail's house proved to be structually unsound when she fell on top of it!

This year we combined the Cousin Fun Day with the Cousin Gift Exchange. (All of the 30+ cousins draw a name on Thanksgiving, and then they buy that cousin a gift.) Abigail kept begging to open her gift and was so excited when she finally was allowed to!

Eden, on the other hand, took advantage of the surprise Santa visit (Santa showed up at the front door to visit with all of the kids) to sneak off and open her present. I was to busy taking pictures of Santa, and then I turned around to find Eden with her present pretty much all the way opened!

Both of the girls got Simon Says Sit and Spins, they LOVE them!

The sit and spins have provided hours of entertainment! YEAH!!

A few more fire station pics

The pictures in my previous fire station post were from Summer, I finally put my pictures on my computer, and thought I would add a few!

Seeking to Adopt

Just to put a bug in everyone's ear . . . we are certified to adopt again. We keep hearing about networking, so we are trying to let as many people know as possible!!

We adopted Abigail and Eden back in 2005, and it was such a great experience, we can't wait to do it again!

We are currently certified in Mesa at LDS Family Services, but will soon be transferring all of our info to UT. If you know or hear of someone who is considering placing their child for adoption, please give them our info. Prospective birth parents can get to know us on our blog, view our profile at www.itsaboutlove.org (search profiles for AndrewAndAmanda1), they can e-mail us at andyandmandysfamily@hotmail.com, or they can contact our case work Larry Draughon at LDS Fam Services 480-968-2995.

We are hoping and praying that we have another precious child in our lives soon, until then . . . life is good!

Mommy - Daughter Disneyland Trip November 2007

(Snow White remembered the girls from our trip in Sept., kind of fun!)

I decided to add some pictures from previous months, since I am just starting this blog!

The week after Thanksgiving, I took the girls to Disneyland. Tell you what, it was interesting being at Disneyland all alone with 2 three year olds! It was a lot of fun though!

We went to Disneyland back in Sept. Abigail was a little nervous during that trip. Every ride we went on, she had her hands on her cheeks so that she could cover her eyes in a hurry. This trip, she did a little better. I did have to hold her to calm her down during Bug's Life (she was screaming, really loud!), but for the most part she did o.k. Eden doesn't get as worried about things as Abigail, but she has her moments. It amazed me at how many new friends the girls made. In every line, they made friends with whoever was standing near them! One little girl even made her dad follow us to the next ride we went on. There were tears when we had to tell that friend goodbye! (Also, we saw probably 10 sets of twins during our trip, crazy)

By far, their favorite 2 rides are Buzz Light Year Astroblasters and It's a Small World. We went on each of those rides at least 5 times in the 4 days we were there! (They also love the Tiki Room)

It was a fun, but tiring trip. I am not sure if I will attempt that again until they are a little older!!

My sisters, sister-in-laws, mom and I all go on "Sisters Trips" every other year, I am excited that I had my first "Sister's Trip" with the girls!

The Fire Station 12-14-07

Abigail helped out of the fire truck



Eden helped out of the fire truck








We took a trip to the fire station this last Fri. It was a play date with some of my sisters/sister-in-laws and non-school age kids.



The girls had a blast. The last picture is (L to R) Abigail, Lexie (Jared and Dianna's daughter), Eden, Brynn (Tiffany and Carter's daughter), Zachary (Sabrina and Tom's son) and Jacob (Summer and Trevor's son).




We will miss these play groups when we are in UT, but hopefully we will be able to go to a few of them through out the year when we are in AZ on vacation.

Blog, blog, blog

Well, we finally joined masses and have started a blog!! Being busy with kids and moving, it will be interesting to see how this blog takes shape!

As most of you know, we are in the process of trying to move to UT. Kind of crazy!! This will be our last Christmas at our AZ home, it's kind of sad. However, we are excited to see what the future holds in UT!

I will be back on in the next day or two to add more pictures . . . until then!