Our "twin" girls

Conversation from Heaven:

"Megan, you're my best friend."

"Evie, you're my best friend, too. I want to be your sister."

"You know we can't be sisters on earth, Megan."

"I know, but Heavenly Father says we'll still know each other. He loves us so much that He's going to let us be friends. We get to be with two families who live by each other! Isn't that exciting? We'll live in the same neighborhood and get to play with each other!"

"Wow, Heavenly Father must love us a lot, Megan. And He must love those families who are adopting us."

"See you on earth, Evie!"

"See you on earth, Megan... in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...."

And then our angels were born. Minutes apart. Here they are together:

(Eventually we'll get a picture of them awake)

Baby, I'm Amazed by You.

I'm sure I'm not alone. I'm not alone in the fact that I'm a new mom and I am absolutely obsessed with my newborn. Granted, the hubby is cute too, but the baby? She's just so amazingly ADORABLE. Okay, adorable is an incredible understatement. She's the cutest, snuggliest, most hilarious, beautifulist (if that's a word), baby I know. And she's MINE.

Here is a list of things that AMAZE me about my current life.

It is amazing to me how I never get anything done.

It is amazing to me how tired I am by 3:00 pm.

It is amazing to me how many diaper-pails full of diapers we have been through in 12 days.

It is amazing to me how curly her hair gets when it's wet.

It is amazing to me how I just can't take my eyes off her.

It is amazing to me that her little body is so perfect. She's got all the working parts.

It is amazing how much poo she can fit into one diaper... okay, how much poo can't fit in said diaper...

It is amazing to me how our lives have changed since her arrival.

It is amazing how I feel so accomplished if I can get 2 things done during the day.

It is amazing to me how many times I can write the phrase "It is amazing to me."

It is amazing to me that I think she recognizes me.

It is amazing to me that we were the recipients of such a miracle as this sweet baby.

It is amazing to me how much we love her, and we didn't even know her 2 weeks ago.

It is amazing to me when I think of her adoption story (two posts down if you haven't read it yet).

It is amazing to me how different her life will be with us, as opposed to the life she might have had.

It is amazing to me how much she absolutely needs us.

It is amazing to me how much we absolutely need her.

Baby, I'm amazed by you.

In My Daughter's Eyes

It makes me so happy when Megan is awake. She looks up at me with those adorable eyes, and I see my reflection inside them. It's one of my favorite things.

Megan's Story

Introducing Megan Roberts! (du-du-du-duuuuuuu... imagine trumpets). Our angel is finally here on earth with us. She arrived at approximately 4:15 p.m. on Thursday, October 8, 2009. She weighed in at 6 lb 5 oz, with a length of 19 inches. We had quite an adventure getting here, but she is well worth the wait. If you'd like to learn more about how she came to be with our little family, keep on reading. Here's one of my favorite pictures of our little treasure.

As you might know, Megan was the 5th baby presented to us for adoption. Every adoption "situation" in the past has seemed perfect. Every situation seemed ideal in every way, and it was heartbreaking every time we didn't receive a little one. It was really hard, and, unless you've been through it, you have no idea what it is like. Maybe it's something like a miscarriage; I don't know because I've never had one. All I know is that all the heartbreak and sad tears are being replaced. Our hearts are being sewn back together, and our only tears are tears of joy. Megan is the only baby we ever wanted. We didn't want any of those other babies; we only wanted Megan, even though we didn't know at the time. We call Megan our Black Pearl, because the name Megan means pearl. She truly is our precious treasure and we can't imagine life without her.

Here's another picture to keep you occupied as you read (because I'm far from done):

Megan's Story: We were in Virginia about 3 weeks ago attempting to adopt a baby boy. When it didn't work out, the Agency told us they had another baby for us. The birthmom is from Louisiana and was already in Utah waiting to have the baby, and she wanted the Agency to pick a family for her. She also didn't care to meet the family (which was GREAT for us, because by this point we were really sick of talking to birthmom after birthmom after birthmom...). So, we went home heartbroken from the little boy we never received, and had only an ounce of hope that we might get the next one. Megan would be Baby #5.

We waited around for her to be born , just going about life as normal. Luckily, I had already gotten baby showers (with boy stuff nonetheless) so we didn't have to worry about buying anything. We just waited. Then, birthmom was induced on October 8. Megan was born, and the Agency called to tell us she was here. Then we had to wait 24 hours for birthmom to sign relinquishment papers (giving up all parental rights). The wait was very hard, because if she didn't sign we would have to wait for yet another baby to come into the picture.

Well, we went to the Agency to sign our documents. While we were there, the Social Worker with us was beside herself because there was another baby girl born in Louisiana and they didn't have any adoptive parents for her. They asked us if we had money to go get a second baby girl, but, of course we didn't. Then she asked us out of desperation if we knew anyone that was paperwork-ready that might be able to fly out and get that baby. Well, we had some friends that have been waiting with LDS Social Services for 2 1/2 years, and so we called them and told them about the baby. They tranferred all their paperwork to our agency and they were able to fly out to Louisiana that same day and adopt the other baby girl!

I don't tell the story of the two girls very well, but it's pretty amazing. You see, my friend Christa and I have worked together in Scouts for the past year, we have both been teachers and we're pretty good friends. I always wanted them to get a baby first, because they've been waiting so long, and they're just so wonderful. Also, a couple weeks ago, our Relief Society President in our ward asked all the sisters to pray for those of us that couldn't have children. She said she knew those blessings would come to us if everyone prayed. And, you see, if we hadn't gotten Megan, we wouldn't have been signing papers at the moment we did, and the agency wouldn't have asked us if we knew anyone that could take this other baby. And, get this- the two baby girls were both from Louisiana (although ours was born here), they were born within 30 minutes of each other, they're both little black girls, and they were adopted by two couples who live right around the corner from each other. Coincidence? I think not.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. We all think we know what we want, and we think we know what we need. We think we know best. But, we don't. The Lord does. These past few months were so tough, getting our hopes up for baby after baby after baby. I had a really hard time understanding why we had so many failed adoptions. Now I see that every one of those failed adoptions had to happen for us to receive our precious Megan, and for our friends to receive their precious little girl. It amazes me. I never would have thought that the Lord had something so grand in the works; I never would have thought that we would help be an instrument for someone else to have a family. It is so incredible, and I'm so grateful that it happened this way. We couldn't be happier for our friends, and of course for ourselves.

Here's Megan, one more time. I know you were dying for one more picture. Isn't she just the most beautiful thing?

We still can hardly believe she belongs to us. She was 5 years in the waiting, and she is more-than-5-years-worth-the-wait. Granted, she's been keeping us up all night and we're extremely tired, but we don't mind. It's a treat for us to be able to love her and take care of her. We need her just as much as she needs us. What a wonderful thing.

Aliens & Softballs

Autumn is coming. Leaves are turning red, grass is turning yellow, and my green thumb is growing pale. With a season of gardening behind me, I'm not sure I've come out wiser. If anything, I've only been able to laugh at my attempts to aid in our family's food storage.

On Tuesday I spent a couple hours ripping out half the garden. I filled the big, black garbage pail thing with corn stalk, green bean plants, carrot tops, and nastified, bug-ridden what-used-to-be-watermelons. It's a nasty job, but, hey, someone has to do it. Among all the ripping out, I grabbed a little produce.

Here are half my carrots (the other half are still in the ground). You probably can't tell, but most of them are only about 3 inches long, followed by a long, stringy tail. This is beacuse I didn't till the ground deep enough so the carrots couldn't grow. If you use your imagination on the bottom row, right side, you can picture little eyes on the carrots and the whipsy tail, and see little aliens. (well, maybe normal people can't see them; only "special" people like me)

And here are my two watermelons which didn't get devoured by grasshoppers and who-knows-what-else. The bigger one was the size of a softball, and the other one was smaller than a tennis ball. They were both yummy-looking inside and very sweet, but the texture wasn't what I had hoped. We didn't eat more than a bite.
The one thing I ignored this year was my poor strawberry patch. It looks nice from a distance but is overgrown, infested with snails, and yielded about 2 strawberries this year (both of which were eaten by snails). I suppose the strawberry patch will be my added project in the Spring.

This year I planted the following things: corn, green beans, watemelon, carrots, rhubarb, butternut squash, zucchini, cucumber, tomato. (I will only be planting the bolded veggies next year.)

I guess you could sum up my garden the way a hot Mormon boy sums up a not-so-hot Mormon girl: my garden veggies have "such sweet spirits."

Painting tools are cool

Before we moved into our house 3 years ago, the previous owner planned on two-tone painting the whole place. She never finished painting the upstairs after our offer was accepted (and I don't blame her!). So, all of our bedrooms upstairs look very shabby with 10-year old eggshell-finish paint. I'm no fan of eggshell; I prefer the shinier, more washable "semi-gloss" finish.

About a month ago, my mother-in-law helped me paint the nursery. We painted it a neutral tan-ish color so it would work for either gender. It turned out very well, but seems rather boring to me now that I have color in other bedrooms. Someday when there's a baby in that room, I'll put up some gender-specific curtains and it'll make the room much cuter. I don't have a "before" picture, but here's the nursery. (We painted the wall with the window, and the wall to the right of the window.)

Then, this week, I began painting the other rooms upstairs. We went with the "only-paint-one-wall"-thing. We're a fan of color splash. The rest of the walls really need to be painted white again, but I'll have to leave that for another time. The vaulted ceilings make it a very daunting task...

Here's before & after pics of the guest room. Jared essentially picked out the peach-ish color, and I think it turned out really well! Nice and bright (although the picture doesn't do it justice).

And, here are before & after of the Master bedroom. I think the color makes the room look a million times better. Now, the window treatments stand out. Jared thinks it looks a little "girly," but he's okay with it. After all, he is married to a girl.

Lastly, I had to put in a picture of my two new favorite painting tools. The white thing in the picture is a paint liner for the paint tray. (This means you don't have to clean out the paint tray, and the liners are only 60 cents at Home Depot!). The red thing is a Paint Edger. (This means you don't have tape all the walls and windows!). I'm all about making my life easier. I'm sure my ancestors would scoff at the idea of spending an extra $2.50 for painting supplies, but hey! Time is money, and saving 4 hours of taping/cleaning is worth $2.50 to me!