HaPpY bIrThDaY to Us!

J.D. and I both celebrate our birthdays in April.  J.D. on the 15th and me on the 21st.  We celebrated at home for J.D.'s birthday on April 15 with a classic strawberry cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.  Cheesecake is J.D.'s favorite! We served it at our wedding reception instead of cake because it is his favorite!  We went to a Jazz v. Mavericks game at ESA in Salt Lake on April 16.  We splurged a little bit on the tickets but it was hands down the best basketball game either one of us had ever been to- EVER!!
 

From our corner of the arena- but closer to the floor than our seats were. 

7 periods- that's 3 OT for the Jazz to beat the Mavericks- AMAZING GAME!!

We had to get a picture outside after the game- not a fantastic picture but you can tell we were happy after the WIN!

We celebrated my birthday between April 21 and April 22 because I had to work on my birthday.  J.D. went to Sweet Tooth Fairy in Draper and picked out a tasty selection of cupcakes that we have enjoyed for several days.  He even made dinner on Sunday night for us.  What a good guy!

JD and I met up with my sister and her family and our cousin and his family in Salt Lake for breakfast which just happened to be on my birthday.  This is only the second time I have seen my cousin's little boy (in green).  He was two days old the last time I saw him and he is just as cute as ever.  My sister's little guy "R"(in orange) wasn't so sure he liked his Aunt Miss holding another little person.

Even though I had to work on my birthday the girls I work with helped me celebrate too.  I work on the mom/baby unit at the local hospital so our supplies are limited but I work with incredibly creative women (as you will see below).

This is my birthday crown and sash.  The crown says "B-day girl" and the sash says "Do a jive I'm 35".  I refused to wear the hat while doing rounds but I did wear the sash for one set of rounds luckily my patients had a sense of humor.

We know how to have a good time and if I couldn't be with my family I'm sure glad I got to be with my friends. 

Things we like to do

We enjoy spending time in the mountains- camping, fishing, having picnics, hiking.  We have been fortunate to enjoy a vacation each year.  This year it looks like Southern Utah hiking and camping is going to be the winner.  We enjoy at least one Utah Jazz game each year. I’ll admit it J.D. has turned me into a Jazz fan.  When we are just hanging out at home we like watching Chopped and are huge fans of Big Bang Theory, if you haven’t seen it you need to watch it HILARIOUS, or simply just work on various projects.  Melissa enjoys crafts and is starting to re-do furniture and J.D. works on web development projects.  We are currently taking on our biggest project together as we search for our dream house and turn it into our HOME!

Welcome!

We are so thrilled to be building our family through adoption and encourage you to click around our blog and get to know us better. 

This journey with adoption has not been without tears but mostly joy!!  We are excited to finally have our paperwork, education classes and home study complete and to begin the search to find our child and/or children.  We continue to attend Families Supporting Adoption chat nights each month and reading to educate ourselves about the journey ahead.

Our dream is to have an open adoption with our child's birth parents and their birth families.  We believe a child with more people to love them and cheer them on in life can only be a good thing.  However, the level of openness that we will have with our birth families will be dependent on their level of comfort.  We only hope that we can have an open dialogue to find the happy and comfortable place for everyone.

We have heard more times that can be counted that families built through adoption are built through word of mouth.  If you have found our blog and you know of someone that is considering adoption or if you are considering adoption we are WAITING FOR YOU to contact us or pass along our information.

Adoption Phase 3 Complete

This is my favorite picture. I can't wait to have a little to pull in a wagon!
These are a few of our pictures that we had taken for our adoption profile. We love how they turned out! Thanks to Kristen at Shadtree Photography for capturing exactly what we were looking for.

Just this morning I finished and submitted our letter to expectant parents for our adoption paperwork. We just have our home study left to do and we will be approved and expectant parents can look at our profile and hopefully want to know more about us...and place their baby in our home.
I never anticipated writing a letter would take so much time but it is hard to express everything you want to and tell someone you have never met....ever how great you and your spouse are.
I had to keep reminding myself that this really is in the Lord's hands and He has a plan for us and our baby and our birth parents and only He can make it all come together like it is supposed to and no matter what we say in our letter He is the one in charge.
So grateful to be done with that part and ready for the home study to be done so we can be approved. I am waiting to order pass along cards with our information on them until we get approved and need to get our adoption blog started and finished. Still plenty to do. We are enjoying going to the LDSFS chat nights and learning more about adoption and others adoption stories.

Until next time...

Christmas and End of Year Wrap up

2011 has been quite a year at the Nielson home. We started the year with high hopes that our fertility treatments would make us parents by year end. We ended the year nearly done with adoption paperwork- yes, we will be parents but not the way that we ever anticipated. We are so grateful for the lessons this year has taught us. We have learned to lean on our Savior and learned much about ourselves and our marriage. We are definitely better together.

JD is still hard at work at DHI Computing in Provo. He is such a good provider for our family and puts every energy into everything he does. He is still the financial clerk in our ward and enjoys his calling. I was so touched when we went to tithing settlement and Bishop Lawyer just raved about him and how much his dedication to his calling helps him in his calling as bishop. He said it takes a lot of pressure off him because he knows he can count on J.D. I about burst with pride because I know that he wants to do everything he can to fulfill his calling and serve our Heavenly Father.

I am still working at American Fork Hospital in the Maternity unit. I LOVE my job! I get to be with new moms and their babies during those first precious days of life...amazing! I have learned so much about caring for a new infant which will come in handy...someday. I have also made some wonderful friends since I started working there. I am so grateful for these awesome women. I love working at night but it sure has sent my sleep patterns into a tailspin. I'm starting to get a better handle on switching from nights to days when I have days off. I also got a calling as a family history worker in our ward. I am thrilled to have this calling and look forward to doing more of our family history and doing temple work for my family members.

We are in phase 3 of our adoption paperwork. This phase is when we make selections about a baby regarding health conditions and such and more information to introduce us to birth parents. We are wrestling now with the letter that we need to write for our profile to tell more about us. It is only difficult because it is the first look into our family that anyone sees and we want it to be the right feeling and words. We will be attending adoption training classes that LDSFS hosts the first weekend in February and once we are done with that and have our home study done we will be official and our profile should go live on itsaboutlove.org. Hopefully by Christmas next year we will have a new little bundle in our home.

Santa found us this year for Christmas and I think he may have emptied most of his sleigh in our living room. He dropped off several movies, books, new scriptures, a Kindle Fire, gift cards, handmade journals, candy and much more. We had a simple Christmas dinner because I had to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas this year. We made up for the low key Christmas buy celebrating in high style for New Year's Eve.

Christmas morning has never been a good look for me but I look my "best" here because I just got home from work.

We decided to go all out for our New Year's dinner and had crab legs and rib eye steak. It was so yummy! Santa gave up The Big Bang Theory on DVD for Christmas so we hung out at home and watched it most of the day and actually ended up toasting and kissing at 12:12 because we were so wrapped up in the show. Yeah we are party animals like that. We did make sure to have donuts in the house (grandma Sullivan's tradition) to bring prosperity in the new year and plenty of sparkling cider (one of JD's favorites) to toast to a new year.

We are looking forward to 2012 and everything that is ahead of us in the new year.

Lights at Temple Square and The Nutcracker

We decided this year to go see The Nutcracker at Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City. We also had a gift certificate to stay at The Anniversary Inn and we still hadn't seen the lights at Temple Square so we made a nice weekend trip out it. It was a wonderful weekend and reminded us again why we are encouraged to continue dating your spouse after you get married.

We got to Temple Square just in time to see the Nativity.

I love this Nativity scene on the reflecting pool by the temple. I only wish there would have been snow- there is just something so magical about snow and light with all of the Nativity scenes around Temple Square

These are just spectacular to look at. I love the sparkly lights and the magical feeling of Christmas. It is wonderful to see how each country depicts the same story in their nativity sculptures.

I didn't take any pictures of them this year (except for the two that are in the picture above) because our camera battery died but I love the luminaries that are around the plaza near the Church office building. I took a closer look this year and noticed that each luminary has a word associated with the holidays (Peace, Joy, Merry Christmas, etc) in a different language and at the bottom it has the language and what it means in English. I think I've missed it in the past because there has been snow and I can't wait to go back next year.

Our last stop at Temple Square was "Our Spot". We have come back to this spot every year in December. It is is the exact spot where we got engaged. We were there on the exact date this year, December 18. I can't wait to see how this picture changes over the years. This year definitely wins hands down as the coldest, so far.


After our stop at Temple Square, we drove to The Anniversary Inn and checked into the Presidential suite. We forgot to take pictures of the room but loved that it has its own deck that we could see the city lights from. It was a beautiful view. The inversion was terrible but I loved that we could still see the city lights. I think we will book that room again sometime. I loved reading through that comment book they have in the room. Everyone raves about the service, beauty of the room, etc but my favorite comment was from a couple that was there celebrating their 50th anniversary. They wrote "we loved the room but the shower was a little hard to get out of for us old folks." Hilarious!! I have to admit that I LOVE the waterfall shower- we decided we would love to have one in our home at some point.

The next day we spent the good portion of the day looking at houses in Layton and Kaysville. Yes, we are in the market for a home. We didn't find anything during our day but did have fun looking at homes and learning more of what we are looking for in a home and the things that we both like. We will mostly likely end up purchasing a home in Salt Lake county but we haven't found anything yet.


We enjoyed dinner at Biaggi's at the Gateway in Salt Lake City (our favorite) before going to The Nutcracker. Neither of us had ever seen it and we both loved it. We had fantastic seats but it was a little bit cramped for my 6' 4" husband so we scoped out where we would be more comfortable next time we go to a show there. While the show was fantastic and I loved being there with J.D. my favorite part of the night was watching all of the little girls in their beautiful dresses and seeing the smiles on their faces as they watched the magic on stage.

Witnessing an Adoption Placement

As we are nearing completion of our adoption paperwork and the reality of what is ahead starts to come more into focus I have become more emotional about the reality of adoption.  My heart is full and my mind is still trying to wrap around what I witnessed last night at work. I had the privilege of taking care of a birth mother and her baby and witness the placement of this tiny beautiful baby. Last night it became so crystal clear to me the bittersweet emotions that take place during a placement. I watched this young woman place this new baby in its parents arms and give it one last kiss before I wheeled her outside to go home. It was a tender moment and I am not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears as I watched it happen.