A little about ME...

I was tagged by the fabulous  Shannon to do a post all about ME!  I thought it was a really fun idea, so I am going to do her tag. First off 11 random things about me:

Your job is to post 11 random things about yourself

1. I graduated high school at 17 and was engaged at 18. I got married less than 1 month after I turned 19. Now that I look back on it, I think my parents were crazy to be ok with me getting married so young even though Shane is a wonderful husband. I would freak out if my kids wanted to get married so young. So glad I chose a gem of a husband!

2. I wear socks to bed almost every night. Even in the summer. My feet are always cold, and the socks help warm them up!

3. I take above socks off about an hour after I get into bed and throw them on the floor. EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT.

4. I love expensive purses. My sister in law Kim got me hooked on them and it's hard for me to carry a cheaper purse....not saying I won't, but she has ruined me.

5. I read all the time. I always have a book on my nightstand that I am reading (besides my scriptures). I just love to read. If given a day to do whatever I wanted, I would spend some of that day laying on the couch and reading.

6. I have been on an all cash budget for about 4-5 months and I love it. This was my idea because I didn't think I was doing a great job staying in my monthly budget so I instituted this a few months ago. Shane didn't want to do it, but he now loves it to! I go to the bank every two weeks on payday and get my two week allotment. I have it down to how many hundreds (not many), fifties, twenties, tens, fives, and ones I need. They always ask me if I am having a garage sale. When I tell them it's my budget money, I get a strange look like "why don't you just use your debit card??" Anyway-this really works for us. I still pay bills online, but anythings else is paid in cash.

7. I love eggs. I could have an egg everyday for breakfast. In college I perfected the art of making a fried egg. My roomates loved them, and now my husband and kids do too. Just let me know if you want it soft or hard and I can deliver!

8. I wish I was a better "Holiday" decorator. I mean I make our house look nice for Christmas, but I struggle with other holidays. I love holiday decor, but hate to mess with it. The getting it out, putting your everyday stuff away, packing up the holiday stuff again....ugh gives me a headache. Really though...I wish I loved it more.

9. I love a good treat. I have to have a treat everyday. I mean, I just do.

10. I love anything apple. Apple fritters, apple pie, apple turnovers, plain apples, apple candles, apple anything...it's so fresh, I just love it!

11. I've never met Shannon!!! I found her blog online a few years ago and was intrigued that we both had boys named Peyton and Connor, although her boys named are spelled differently than mine. She writes a lovely blog about her life, and is so inspirational about being a good mom, sister, wife, friend, mormom, and a great person in general. She has passed through Utah a couple of times, but we've never been able to meet up. She lives closer to me than she used to, so someday we will meet. I feel like I know her already, so it's pretty funny to me that I have an "online" friend that I have never met.

And answer these 11 questions (taken from Q and A a Day: 5-Year Journal )

1. Do you plan, or are you flying by the seat of your pants?
2. Today was amusing because _________
3. How hungry are you right now?
4. Bad news:  sugarcoated or straight-up?
5. How do you get out of a rut?
6. What are you a geek about?
7. What do you crave?
8. What was the last bad movie you watched?
9. Do you have any new friends?
10. You want a new _________
11. What makes you feel wonderful?

1. Do you plan, or are you flying by the seat of your pants? 

Somedays I feel like I am flying by the seat of my pants and so unorganized, but I would say in general, I am a planner.

2. Today was amusing because___________

I met a friend of mine at the park and we let our little girls play together. We used to be in the same ward and be visiting teaching partners, but our ward split, and we are now in different wards in two different buildings. It was fun to spend some time with her and catch up!

3. How hungry are you right now? 

Not too bad. I gained a few pounds over the summer, nothing crazy, but I would love to lose 5 lbs. I am back to doing Lose It on my phone, so I think I could pretty much always be in the mood to eat!!

4. Bad News? Sugarcoated or Straight-up? Straight-up. Just tell me so I can process it and figure things out. I would say I am a pretty up-beat person and tend to see the bright side of things.

5. How do you get out of a rut? 

Being able to talk things through with my husband, family, and friends. The girls in my life really keep and help me to get motivated.

6. What are you a geek about?

I am a rule follower. I get super bugged when I see others not following the rules.

7. What do you crave? 

Food. Always good food. Cafe Rio, pizza, Chick-fil-A, Arctic Circle, Wendy's.....I may have a junk food addiction!

8. What was the last bad movie you watched? 

Hummmm.....We watched The Adventures of the Wilderness Family a couple weeks ago for family movie night. I loved it, but Shane kept pointing out all these inconsistencies in the movie that made me think "yeah that doesn't make much sense," but I still enjoyed it!

9.Do you have any new friends?

Yes!! I have recently become better friends with my new visiting teaching partner. We have known each other for about 1 year, but are becoming better friends, and it's been fun to see how much we have in common.

10. You want a new ______? 

Set of furniture for our basement. I would love a big, comfty, leather sectional. It would be great to be able to lounge down there as a family and have room to put up our feet. I also could stand to loose the plaid hand-me-downs.....although I am grateful for anything at all to sit on!

11. What makes you feel wonderful?

Knowing that my Heavenly Father loves me and has a plan for me. I am so amazed by times when I have really struggled with a problem and then circumstances change and everything works out as it was suppose to. I didn't choose to be infertile, and sometimes I really struggle with that. I can't deny all of the wonderful things that have happened to us because of infertility. I have 3 of the most wonderful children I could ever hope for, and the experiences we've had as they have come into our lives....I wouldn't trade those for anything!

The Chewies 2012

I married into an awesome family! They are so fun to be around. We look forward to everytime we can all get together, which isn't too often since we all live anywhere from 1 hr to 8 hrs away from each other. Usually it's Christmas and 4th of July. The last few years we have added "The Chewies". It was the idea of my brother in law: Adrian. AD was 11 when I married Shane, so he is essentially a little brother to me. We seriously LOVE AD and his wife, Serene. She is a saint because she not only puts up with, but supports AD and all his craziness-which we love! My kids LOVE uncle AD and he is more like a big brother to them. So back to THE CHEWIES. Basically AD thought it would be fun to do a NCAA bracket challenge each year for the family. He does a ton of work to get us all signed up on ESPN.com with a private group. After each round he sends the most hilarious e-mails about the teams and how everyone is doing in the tourney. His nickname for the challenge is: THE MAESTRO. Totally fitting. 

So it has become tradition that we host The Chewies each year. I love welcoming our family to our home! It's so fun to host and be around everyone. AD comes up with prizes for everyone, the most coveted being: THE LIFESIZE CHEWIE. This year Chewie had to travel from Denver, since Kim, Shane's sister won last year, and the winner gets to keep Chewie displayed proudly in their home for 1 year. So, she had to pack up Chewie and bring him to SLC. Security had to open up the box and check the contents. They gave Kim some weird looks when she said the box contained a lifesize cardboard cut out of Chewbacca. Un-huh. Ok lady, whatever. To make matters worse he got lost again going back to Denver (because she was a repeat champ and got to take him back with her-lucky girl). Thankfully, Chewy was recovered by the airlines and delivered safely to her home, where he will reside in all his glory next to their lifesize cutout of Michael Jordan-true story. 

Anyway, back to The Chewies: 

AD planned a basketball shootout, a football toss, a KFC dinner, and finally the awards where the current and prior winners sang "We are the Champions" by Queen. I tell you: AWESOME FAMILY!!!!

The kitchen junk drawer

My-oh-my! There are so many treasures in our kitchen junk drawer. Doesn't everyone have a junk drawer? Well we do-for sure! It is Sadie's new treasure box. She just loves to pull a stool up to the drawer, climb up on the stool and go through all the pretties. I love how grown-up she is looking in these pictures. She will play quietly (sometimes not a good thing) for 30 mins or so just going through the junk drawer. I can't believe she is almost 2!

4th of July 2010

We had a great time as always going down to Moroni for the 4th of July. I have been running lately (shocking, I know), so Kim and I ran the 5k fun run. Kim had a hurt knee, so I know she couldn't go as fast as she would have done, but we did it in 29:02, which was a personal best for me. I am really loving running and I might even say it's becoming addicting. I really look forward to my next work out! Here are some pictures from the 4th.

Connor's preschool graduation

Last night Connor had his preschool graduation from Miss Heidi's preschool. He has been so lucky to have two great teachers-Miss Heidi and Miss Marianne for the past two years. He has loved preschool, but is very excited to go to kindergarten in the fall. They had the graduation at one of our local libraries. The kids sang the cutest songs and put on a darling program. At the end when we were saying goodbye to Miss Heidi and Miss Marianne, I started to cry a little bit. These two ladies have loved Connor. They have been there 2 and 3 days a week for our family for the past two years. They celebrated holidays, birthdays, a new baby, and numerous other events that have been important to Connor. I will miss them!!! I joked that we needed to get together for lunch. Connor met a few really cute boys in his class that he has had playdates with. Connor is for sure our very social child. Hopefully he won't be too lonely without all his preschool friends over the summer.

The Big "1"

November 23, 2009-Sadie Lynne Kjar turned 1!!! As I was looking back on our blog, I realized I never wrote out her adoption story, so since this is her 1st b-day I thought I would record it for her.

Mid-Nov 2008 we met with our social worker and we were getting so frustrated that nothing was happening with our profile. I mean nothing. Not once had we been looked at. This was frustrating because our worker told us our file looked great, we did not need to change a thing, we just needed to find a birthmom. We had even put our profile on a national registry and were paying $50 a month to have it on their website. Our cute social worker-Kris (who we also used for Connor's adoption) suggested we call hospitals and dr's offices to see if we could bring in our profile for them to show in case they had a patient that requested adoption information. Those both led nowhere. Shane spoke with a co-worker that is a social worker and she also couldn't help us, but said her friend worked in labor and delivery and she would pass along our info. Well that basically came back as they NEVER have a birthmom come in that hasn't made a birthplan and chosen a family, but she would keep us in mind. Another dead end, or so we thought. Nov. 24, 2008. I was at home puttering around in my PJ's. The usual-doing laundry, cleaning up the house. Peyton was a school and Connor was playing at Dillon's house in back. Shane called me from work and it was about 12:oo in the afternoon. Shane made small talk for a few minutes and then asked me how I would feel about a 1/2 caucasian, 1/2 hispanic girl. I said yeah, that would be ok. I was thinking in my mind, maybe he knows a co-worker who knows someone who is pregnant. This may be a long shot. The next word out of his mouth blew me away. "ok-well we may be getting one today". To say I was shocked and excited would be an understatment. I quickly got Connor squared away at the neighbors house and took off to meet Shane and our social worker at the hospital. We had lunch with her and she explained the situation. Sadie's birthmom had come in the night before and had given birth and wanted to place her for adoption, but hadn't chosen a family. We were thrilled that we were given the opportunity to adopt Sadie. We had to wait until she was 24 hrs old before her birthmom could sign the relinquishment papers. We left the hospital and came home to get the boys situated with Shane's aunt and uncle (Pam and Wayne). My parents were in St. Louis visiting my aunt and uncle and Shane's parents don't live near us. It was my Dad's birthday on the 24th-so it was a fun b-day present for him! We bought Sadie's birthmom a Willowtree angel statue and wrote her a note to express our gratitude to her. Since we had a couple of hours to wait, we went to dinner and went to the mall to get Sadie some bows for her hair. At around 7:30 that night we got the call from Kris that the paperwork was signed and we could come over to the hospital and sign our portion and go meet Sadie. It took about 20 mins to sign everything, and then we were led into the nursery. Sadie looked like an angel! She was so tiny with the most dark hair you have ever seen. The nurses had combed her hair into a cute curl on top of her head. I was a little in shock and it felt weird to have 2 social workers and nurses surrounding us as we met our daughter for the 1st time. Of course there were tears and we couldn't believe how lucky we were, but to be honest I was still in shock. Luckily for us the hospital was not full so they let me have a room (which we were never billed for) to stay the night with Sadie. There was NO way I was going home and leaving her at the hospital. The pediatrician wanted her to stay until the next day. I remember holding her the hospital room and calling family and friends to share our wonderful news! So many shocked reactions! That night I kept calling her Gabby or Gabriella to see if that name fit. It just didn't-as much as I loved it! The next morning Shane came with the boys to meet her and take us home. When they got there, I expressed to him that Gabby wasn't her name. We also loved Sadie and Sophia. I said to let the boys choose. Shane has since told me that was fine by him since he knew they would choose Sadie. We got released from the hospital and brought our little Sadie Lynne home. The next few days were a blur of food, gifts and visitors. We were and are so blessed to have such great family and friends to support us and celebrate the unique way our family has come together.

So, one year later and Sadie is 1. I can't believe how fast this past year has gone. Sadie is a pure delight. She is so happy and has brought such a calm into our family. She has everyone wrapped around her little finger and we love it! I know she looks opposite of me and I wouldn't have it any other way. I am proud and honored to be her mother. I love you baby girl! Happy Birthday!