The Perfect Date

Doug and I had the best date for Valentines! We drove up to Logan and stayed in the Marriott Spring Hills Suite. It is such a great hotel. Doug had flowers delivered to the room before we got there and they are so beautiful! We went to dinner at Le Nonna's which is the best Italian restaurant here in Utah. The chef was born in Tuscany and is amazing! I had crab stuffed ravioli in a cream sauce. Yummy! My friend in Logan, Annette, had Ellie stay there and so everyone was happy. We went to the temple the next morning and ate a great breakfast at the hotel. It was the best date ever! Good job, Doug! He is my forever Valentine. I love you honey.

The New Year

We had a great vacation in Minnesota visiting both of our families. We always enjoy late nights with the big screen at Jamie and Ryan's and playing Wii at John and Ann's and the games we play with everyone. We received a new game from Ann's family called Split. If you like card games, this is a must have! It is so fun. We taught it to my family and they loved it too. Ellie was a trooper, as always, traveling so far. We drive straight through the night and she hardly slept, but when we got to grandpa and grandma's she was ready for a fun filled day. She really loves her family! We had a wonderful time and we are always sad to leave.

Now we are back in the swing of things, Doug had his first week back at school and starts more classes for his program at Utah State tomorrow. Agh, another crazy semester is about to begin, but next year this time we will be DONE! With EVERYTHING! Yeah! He is such a great man working so hard to get more education and training to provide for us. We never take that for granted.

We are still waiting to hear about adding someone to our family. The girl we talked about last month decided against us. We thought we'd have a foster child by now, but we haven't gotten any calls so we are just waiting on that. No calls from LDS Family Services either. We will let everyone know when we do, until then we just wait.

We are excited for a new year! Everything is pretty much the same in our lives except for our church responsibilities. I now serve with the children as the Primary President and Doug no longer serves as the Young Men's President, but now works in Cub Scouts. Ellie turns 4 March 2nd and that will be fun. We are giving her a birthday party and she is inviting some friends! We are really looking forward to summer and all the fun that comes with it!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Foster Care

Well, we have been going through the process of adoption with LDS Family Services for a year and a half (no leads there), so last May we decided to start the foster care licensing process to see about growing our family that way. There is always a lot of paper work involved and interviews, home checks, special rules, etc. We got locks on everything that could possibly hurt anyone and even some locks on things we don't think could hurt anyone, but by law still have to lock up (ever heard of anyone having problems with laundry detergent?). We met a really great case worker through a series of events that could not have been a coincidence, and got licensed a couple of months ago. We just met a great girl on Monday and she is visiting with us to see if we would be a good fit for her. When children are older, they get to be in on the process to help them have a better experience. The state wants the kids to stay in one home and avoid disruption (which means they move to a different foster home) and this is one way to do that. We feel really great about her and get to meet with her again next week. It's so great to think we might soon be having another person in our family. She's older and it might not lead to adoption, but we have so much to give a child and it seems such a waste to not share it. It is very exciting for us and we pray for the Lord's hand to guide those involved, even if they are unaware they are being guided.
We look forward to seeing what happens in the next weeks and months and will keep you updated!

For Thanksgiving we are having our great niece Katie here, Megan another great girl and BYU student and our dear friend Steph. We love having the girls here and will miss our niece Jill who is off with a girlfriend for the holiday. Ellie loves having the girls here and has been waiting all week for them to come (which is a long time for a 3 year old!) She tells me they take too long. Katie came yesterday and it's already a party! I love to entertain and have good food, games and fun with my family. Thanks for coming girls! Doug is off for 5 days and it's awesome! Life is good. We are happy and trying to find ways to make others happy too.

Summer Fun

Wow! We have traveled so much this summer! We are back again from another vacation. My sister Jamie just finalized her adoption to her daughter Norah. It was so great and I am so glad I was there. As long as we were going to Minnesota we decided to stay a couple weeks. It was a long time away from Doug, but we really enjoyed seeing so much family! It was awesome! We saw Doug's sister Ann and her family, Doug's brother Tom and his family, my parents, sister and her husband and Norah, my aunt and uncle, cousin and husband to be, grandma, great uncle Billy and his granddaughter Danielle and my sister's brother and sister in law and daughter, and mom/dad in law. Whew! It was a blast. We went to mall of America, Como Zoo, Oxbow Park, played with friends, court date for finalization, games, and lots of fun. It was definitely time to come home, but we miss everyone already. We love MINNESOTA! We look forward to our time there as a whole family at Christmas.

We have more fun coming up as we plan for our trip to North Carolina and Washington D.C.


Norah! So stinking cute! She is a messy eater though! She is so happy all the time. Sweet baby girl. We love baby Norah. I just want to kiss her every time I see her! Love those cheeks!
This is Ellie and her friend Isabelle walking in a park. We love Belle!



Grandma and Grandpa Arlander at the zoo with El.

Como Zoo was beautiful. Ellie wasn't too interested that day, but we still had fun.


Ellie loves cotton candy!

Rochester Fair on the rides!

Mall of America with Grandma Dawn, Aunt Diane, Ellie and Carson
Jimette and I took a self portrait. It was so great to visit.

Schoonies

I normally don't blog to just one family or person, but Ashlie, I didn't get your email and I don't know how to get on your blog... so here's my newest email, which you might not have! theforsgrenfam@gmail.com
Look forward to seeing all that's going on. I wish I'd gotten it sooner!

Good News!?!

I don't know what this means yet, but I think it might be good news! I check our profile on LDS family services web site for birth moms to view every so often. I just like to see if someone could find us with specific criteria or how many people have viewed us to see if we are ever looked at. Tonight I was frustrated because I typed in criteria that should have brought us up for people to see. But no matter what I put in (eventually I just put our names) there was no profile to view. A light clicked, "hey maybe we're on a soft hold!" That just means some one is considering us and so they don't want someone else to pick us so two girls don't choose the same family. We might not be choosen, so it's just a soft hold. A hard hold is that we are choosen and when that happens they call. No call, so I am thinking maybe it's a soft hold! It's encouraging just to know people are considering us. I don't know if the reason we are not able to see our profile is because of this or not (when they did hard copies of profiles in the office they only let one birth mother look at you at a time so that's why I am guessing its the same on-line. Of course, it could be technical difficulties or whatever, so I called and left a message! We'll see:)

Blogs

I know I don't have everyone's blogs! If you don't see yours on my list on the right then let me know! I need Nicole's and Ashlie's for sure... Ryan I need yours too. And several others! Send me your link or email me, especially if you have a password or something in order to view it! Thanks everyone! I love keeping up with blogs!