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!

Off track and fall silliness

We are on year-round school here. It's a love/hate relationship. While I love year-round school for fun vacay breaks, and summers that aren't quite so long, sometimes it's hard to keep the kids entertained. This year, however we have done pretty good so far. Our 1st off track time was this fall and while we didn't do too many exciting things, we really enjoyed our time off. We made cookies, went shopping with Mom, ate lunchables, and took our annual trip to CORNBELLYS! Gotta love Cornbellys. My dear friend Katie and I have been going there for 3 years now with our kids and we have a blast. Some other happenings in the fall: I got a huge sliver in my finger tip while dusting our blasted oak entertainment center. Sounds like no big deal, but the sliver went in so hard it hit the bone and then went out my finger at a 90 degree angle. So basically going in one way and then out another. Oh mother-it hurt so bad. I really about went into shock. I went to my neighbor's house to see what to do and she tired to pull it out, but there was NO way. I started to go to instacare when I finally got a hold of Shane and he told me to come to their office and his buddy Mike (also a PA) would take it out for me. Wouldn't you know that was a day I hadn't showered-because I was cleaning and I looked like crap. Really-I did. Mike had to numb my finger which killed, and then break off a piece of the wood and pull the other end out. Shane didn't understand what the big deal was until he saw the sliver. Everyone in his office was like what the??? How in the world did you do that? Ummm-dusting. Keeping a clean house has it hazards. Another thing we've been working on this past fall is new hairstyles for Sadie. That girl has some HAIR! It is so fun to think up new ideas for her hair and be able to try new things as her hair gets a little longer. One other thing we did that the kids actually had a really good time with is an open house at our new hospital. In Oct. a brand new hospital opened up about 5 minutes from our house. They had an open house on a Saturday that Shane happened to be working, so I took the kids and they loved it. Life flight was there and they got to take a look inside the helicopter and an ambulance. We got to see x-ray, surgical rooms, the ER, labor and delivery. It was really fun for them. So my take on off-track: a fun time!!! Yeah for no homework!





Carson (Katie's son) and Connor
Noah (Katie's other son) and Peyton
Sadie and Mama
This picture does NOT do my sliver justice. You can't see it coming out the other side, but let me say. OUCH!
Sponge curlers for Sadie-they stayed in for about 30 mins

Here's the result-so curly!

I love this sytle, but it's somewhat time consuming, and I have to have Sadie sit very still. So not happening.
I love her!



Rochelle, Peyton and Connor in front of Life Flight
Here's Peyton in the ambulance. Connor did not want to get it.