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Joey plays for hours on end in our sand pile ....
We love that it can be a
1. Fire/Police Station
2. Restaurant
3. Construction site
4. School
5. Amazon Jungle
6. River
7. Antarctica (note the snow shovel)
8. Skateboard Park
9. Mountain Biking trail
10. Pirate Ship
11. An archaeological digging site for all sorts of treasures, including lost shoes and flip flops
12. I am sure there are more things it has been, the possibilities are endless

Our neighbors asked Joey to walk their dog for them. They paid him $5 for a 1/2 hour walk!!!! That is a lot of money for a 5-year-old. He loves saving his money -- there are lots of things he wants to buy. We have talked to our neighbor and negotiated a better rate of $1 a walk. $5 a walk seems like a bit too much.

Today was Joey's first Spring soccer game. He loves it! Joe is the assistant coach. They both have so much fun at practice and at the games.

We had a big family party this weekend for Julianne's Grandma. She turned 84. It was so fun to be with all our aunts, uncles, and cousins!

When you get old you get to do whatever you want. A lot of the great grandchildren wanted to eat the flowers off the cake. The mom's kept saying no....then they ask their G-ma (they call her this so they can differentiate between their own Grandma) and she starts cutting out the flowers of the cake for the kids. They were so happy!

Joey built this snowman today. It was really fun to have snow today. The kids in the neighborhood had all kinds of fun playing in the snow and throwing snowballs.

This is Julianne's brother Nate teaching Grandma how to play the Wii. It was really fun! Grandma was such a good sport.

Happy New Year!!!! We set off fireworks about 8pm so Joey could enjoy them. He is making a lovely fashion statement in his glow-in-the-dark Halloween PJs. He loves them and we couldn't convince him to wear his coat.

We went to Salt Lake City and enjoyed the beautiful Christmas lights at Temple Square. It was fun, but FREEZING! We were also able to go inside the Tabernacle. It is an amazing building. We also got to see the acoustic demonstration where they drop a pin, tear a sheet of paper, and drop a nail and without a microphone you can hear it perfectly even in the back. It was fascinating because we have often heard about that, but never experienced it for ourselves.

We went tubing during the day on Christmas Eve at Soldier Hollow. It was really fun for all of us! We went with Julianne's family and most of the cousins were there.

That evening we had a traditional Christmas Eve Dinner and we read the Christmas story from the Bible and sang a few carols.

It was nice that Joey wanted to go to bed early so Santa could come and the adults could stay up and play games.

Tonight we had our traditional Christmas party with Joe's family. It was so nice to have everyone there! We had a family talent show, Grandpa read from the Bible, and Grandma told "The Gift of the Magi" story and served her traditional spice cake.

We had a nice weekend. It was Joe's company work party in downtown Salt Lake City. They always provide a hotel room for us in the Downtown Marriott so it was especially nice to have a little get a way.

Joey stayed at his cousin's house. He was so disappointed to see us when we came to pick him up because he said we weren't gone long enough. I think that means he had a good time. That actually doesn't hurt our feelings and makes us feel like we should get away more often!

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun! Some of our family didn't end up coming because of illness, but we still had a good time.

Grandma brought these darling gingerbread kits to do with the grandchildren. They loved them.

Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays not only for the yummy food, but for the time we spend with our family and friends. We feel so blessed to be surrounded with such a wonderful support group of family and friends who love us.

We cleaned up our garden today. Yeah! We got one watermelon. The bugs got our garden earlier in the season, but we figured out how to get rid of them in time to get one watermelon. We will do better next year.

Today was also Joey's last soccer game of the year. Thank goodness they all got a trophy because winning a trophy is all that Joey could talk about after each game.

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving! We will be hosting most of Joe's family this year. We plan to go to Zion National Park and see a live Nativity with them.

Joe got to portray a story of his grandfather at a Dixie State College event this weekend. Joe's grandpa slept on the steps at DSC so that he could be the first student to register when it first opened.

This is a picture of 3 generations on those very steps.

We feel so blessed to have such a great family! We look forward to sharing our family with a birth mother and her family. We hope and pray that another baby joins our family soon!

We had a great Halloween. Our neighbors roasted hot dogs for the whole neighborhood. We love our neighborhood. There were lots of trick-or-treaters.

Our neighborhood had a Halloween Party. Some of our cousins were in town visiting us so they joined in the fun. We feel so lucky to have our family come and visit us so often.

Another great weekend spent together as a family. Joe took Friday off again and we visited Thanksgiving Point and saw lots of farm animals. They were having a Halloween carnival so that made it extra fun for Joey. We also went to the BYU Football game. It was cold and snowy.

We had a great weekend. It was Fall Break so no school on Thursday and Friday. Our cousins came and visited us so Joe took time off work and we visited and hiked Zion National Park. We also discovered a little ghost town called Grafton. It was really fun to check it out.

We went to our Families Supporting Adoption Group last night. It was wonderful! There was a panel of birth mothers who had placed their babies for adoption. It was a reminder to us how much love and respect we have for parents who consider adoption. It is hard to find enough words to express our gratitude. We talk often about the strength, courage, and love birth parents have for their children.

Julianne was able to help out in Joey's preschool class this week. It was really fun and rewarding to be with those sweet children. We watched a neighbor's children while she went and volunteered at the elementary school -- her 1 month old and 2 year old. Joey had so much fun because he kept wanting to help and pretend he was the big brother.

It rained like crazy this weekend. It was nice to have rain because we really needed it. There were a couple of homes in our neighborhood that flooded so Joey spent a lot of Saturday helping get the water pumped out of their yards. Soccer was canceled and we also had to cancel our neighborhood BBQ that we had planned. It was sooo wet and Joey had so much fun playing in the rain.

Today was Joey's first day of preschool. He loves going to school. He has the best teacher!

Joey has also started piano lessons he tells us almost every day that he wants to play the drums, tuba, trumpet, violin, flute, guitar, and on and on. We have told him he needs to learn piano first -- especially to play the drums. Our nephew just started Jr. High and the band teacher would only let kids try out to play the drums if they had piano lessons. Joey seems to really enjoy them.

Joey had his first soccer game today. It was so fun for us to watch a bunch of kids chase the ball around a mini soccer field. All the kids seemed to enjoy themselves. We love this league because the teams are small, only 6 players per team, and they play 3 on 3 and don't keep score. Perfect for children learning the game.

Wow! The Summer is over it seems. Kids are back in school. Joey doesn't start preschool until after Labor Day. He is so excited to go back to his preschool.

We had a fun weekend with my sister and brother-in-law. They were in town because Sam coaches football and they had a game here over the weekend. We went on a picnic in the mountains. It was so great to have them here.

Joe's parents will be spending Labor Day weekend with us. We always look forward to their visits.

We forgot to take our camera to the Donny Osmond concert. It was an awesome concert! This month marks our 15th wedding anniversary. We feel so lucky to have each other and our wonderful son. We hope and pray for another baby to enter our lives soon. Joey talks about being a big brother almost every day. He often will ask if he can be the big brother of one of his friends siblings while we are waiting for our baby. It is really touching to know how excited he is to be a big brother and see the mental process he goes through in preparation. He tells us frequently the ways he can big a good big brother like: fix the baby's bottle, change diapers, share his toys, and babysit (ok this one will have to wait a few years, but we don't want to burst his bubble.)

We spent a week at Yellowstone. It is one of our favorite trips. We were there with our whole extended family. It was fun to relax, ride the four wheelers, read Harry Potter #7, see lots of wild life, and eat lots of good food. Summer seems to be coming to a close quickly!

We had a great 4th of July. We were able to spend a lot of the week with our family. We went boating, to a parade, had a new family picture taken with our whole extended family, watched fireworks, etc. This is a picture of Joe and Joey at Deer Creek.

Today was the last day of swim lessons for Joey! He loved them.

We had a great weekend at the Heber Valley Girls Camp. During the week it is only for girls camp, but on the weekends families and other groups can make reservations. We did the ropes course and canoing. It was really fun to spend time with our family. We feel so blessed to have such a great family.

We went on a hike and got a great view of Heber Valley.

Just another picture of the cousins having a fun time at the cemetery.

We had a great weekend spending time with family. Joe's family goes to the Salt Lake Cemetery every year to visit graves of family members. It is an event we look forward to every year. We always go to Aunt Heidi's after for a yummy dinner. This is a picture of some of the boy cousins having a good time.

Today was Joey's last day of preschool. They had a darling program that we were able to attend filled with singing and showing off all the things they have learned this year. The teacher ended the day with a fun swimming party with this great water slide! The kids loved it!!!! Joey will attend preschool at this same school next year. His teacher, Mrs. Morris is an excellent teacher!

Daddy and Joey went to the Fathers and Sons camp out. Joey was looking forward to it all week and his expectations seem to have been met. Julianne stayed home and got a pedicure. What a great evening for all!

We hosted the Birth Mother's luncheon last Saturday. It was amazing and fascinating to talk to these birth mothers. A couple of the birth moms had just placed their babies the first part of May!

The luncheon started at 11am and the last people left about 1:30PM. A couple of the women were expecting. One had chosen a family on Friday to place with -- she is due in August and another girl was still deciding on a family. She has some people in mind to choose that are friends of her family. Most of the women had placed their babies in the past year.

It was a great experience for us. In someways we don't have the words to describe it. It was such an honor for us to be surrounded by such great women.

We are anxious to have contact with our birth mother and get to know her hopes, dreams, challenges, likes, dislikes, etc. We will keep praying!

Julianne ran a 10K on Saturday. We also had family in town. It was a nice weekend. We have been working like crazy in our backyard to prepare our garden for planting.

It is warm enough to go swimming and so Julianne and Joey will spend the afternoon at the pool.

We belong to an organization called Families Supporting Adoption and we were asked to host a Birth Mother's luncheon in our home just before Mother's Day. We are so excited!

Last Saturday we had our neighborhood BBQ in our front yard. It was so much fun because all the adults sit around and visit and the kids run around from backyard to backyard playing.

What a great neighborhood we have! Today we had a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It was a lot of fun!

We are excited that our profile is now listed! Journaling on-line will be a new experience for us. More later!!!