The Tale of Despereaux Mouse

I REALLY want to see this movie. And read the book.

(Cami & Melissa, I'm sure you can figure out why this would be on my list of movies to see other than the general "it looks like a good, wholesome movie".)

When I was little, my family called me Mouse. See if you can tell why...

And then there were 8!

Congratulations to the Makely Family!! Tiffani (Emily's sister) had a baby boy last night. He is child number 6 in their family. We are so excited! We love the Makely's and can't wait to meet the little guy. As far as I know, he is still nameless. They are going home from the hospital probably today so I guess he'll have a name soon. According to Ephraim (kid #4, age 4) the baby's name is Racecar. I'll update with pictures and his name once I know it.

The Makely Family: Richard, Tiffani, Faith (12), Malachi (9), Hope (6), Ephraim (4), Gideon (2)

Flashback Friday - Life Without Air Conditioning

Our air conditioner was not working on Wednesday & Thursday and it reminded us of a few years ago, in our first LA apartment, when we didn't have central air/heat. We had a 10+ year old window box unit in our dining room. It cooled down the dining and living room quite well but the bedrooms and bathroom were off through a hallway and we were on the second floor so for about 2 months during the summer, the bedrooms were disgustingly hot. After a couple of weeks of trying to cool them down using all the fans we could get our hands on, we decided it was a futile effort and just started sleeping on the living room floor on the mattress from our fold-out couch. The couch itself was miserable to sleep on so we just put the mattress on the floor and would lean it up against the wall during the day. It wasn't too bad but we were REALLY excited when we found out that our new apartment had central air that we wouldn't even have to pay for. So for the last few days, I've been thinking about the good ol' days back in our cute Chandler Blvd apartment when we were both freshly out of college and all of our furniture was handed down or bought at DI. We were brand new to the whole LA experience and miserable with our jobs but loved our new "grown-up" life. Good times.

Babies!! And some other thoughts...

WE LOVE BABIES!!!

Ok, so if you know us at all, you already know that we both love kids more than pretty much anything else you could think of. And we're not too picky about who's kids either. Children are a wonderful, beautiful blessing and we LOVE them! Pretty much all of them! Yes, we know that they are stinky and fussy and needy and really mess with you sometimes, but I'm sure NO parent that reads this can say it's not worth it.

On that note, I got to babysit Kaleb yeserday. He is a 6 week old little guy that belongs to some of our good friends here in LA, Jake and Kristen. We love the Stevens family and Kaleb is awesome! I may steal him soon. I think newborn is my favorite stage of babyhood and I don't think I could ever get sick of tiny little wiggly babies. Kaleb is no exception. He cracks me up. If you check out his parents' blog, you'll find lots of pictures of him in all his glory, but I did manage to snap a few pics. Note the mohawk. It's fantastic. And no, his parents don't comb it that way, that's how he came out, which makes it ever more fantastic.

I'm sure several of you are wondering where we are at in our "efforts" to have a little one of our own so to put things to rest, here's the scoop. We are at the end of what our insurance will cover as far as infertility so for a few weeks now we have been thinking and praying and fasting about what the next step we will take is going to be. The problem here is that there are a few really good options thanks to our connections and the fact that Farmer's is offering the employees a totally new package of coverage starting in Jan. And, we found out last week that Farmer's is starting an international rotation program for the Actuarial students. It is an opportunity to live in another country (somewhere in Europe or maybe Australia) for 2 years and network and learn and teach with employees from Farmer's parent company, Zurich Financial. It sounds like a fantastic opportunity for Brent, career wise, but it's not definite that he'll get a spot since they are only taking a few people.

So new dilemma, if we apply to the international program, where does that put us with trying to start our family? If we chose to move out of the country, would that be putting career instead of starting a family? How would this work? What do we do?

Well, that was how we felt last week. We have now decided (thanks in part to the Cooke family and the Family Night and the long discussion we had) that we don't have to choose just one option. Heavenly Father has put all these things in front of us and so we are just going to do as much as we can (fill out adoption applications, find out info on our new insurance/invitro, apply for the relocation, etc). We are going to do our part, and see what Heavenly Father comes up with as the answer for our family. The more we do, the more chances we have for success. And who knows, maybe we'll end up doing a combination of thing like invitro in England, that is where it all started you know.

Anyway, now you are up to speed. We appreciate all of the support our family and friends give us. We are doing really well and feel really positive about the near future.