Last Saturday, we went to the Mount Timpanogos Temple and had Zoe sealed to our family.  Later that day, Kirk blessed her, and we had dinner with our friends and family.  It was an awesome day.

The temple was absolutely wonderful.  We dropped the kids off in the nursery.  Zoe didn’t even cry when we left. (Although later, Robby informed us that she cried 1,000,000%, the whole time.  I guess she cried almost immediately after we left until she finally fell asleep for a few minutes.  Poor girl!  And poor temple workers that had to put up with her screaming!)  

The moment that they brought the kids into the sealing room was awesome.  They looked so beautiful in their white clothes.  Zoe was a little angel for the sealing.  She sat there and put her hand on top of ours and didn’t move.  She just stared at Kirk the whole time, holding perfectly still.  It was so cute!

The blessing and dinner were also wonderful!  Kirk gave a beautiful blessing.  We had lots of family and friends there.  It was nice to just enjoy everyone’s company.  Dinner went well.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and despite all my worrying, we didn’t run out of food.  Zoe was great through the whole day.  She didn’t get any time to nap, but I don’t think she cried once all day (except for the whole time in the nursery.)  Robby was awesome all day too.  He was a little overwhelmed but really happy with the temple.  He gave the opening prayer at the blessing, which was everyone’s favorite part.  It was short and sweet, but he said he was thankful that his baby sister could be sealed to our family, which was adorable.  He was also a great help and just a good kid all day.

I can’t even put into words how much the day meant to us.  It is so nice to finally have it over.  As of last Saturday, Zoe is officially ours in the eyes of the law as well as in the eyes of the church.  It is now no different than if she had been born to us.  It was kind of weird in a way.  From the moment I laid eyes on Zoe, I knew she belonged to us.  From the moment we brought her home, she has been a part of our family.  Our family would not be complete without her and I can hardly even remember life before she came.  The adoption finalization and the temple were amazing, beautiful, and wonderful, but they almost seemed  like reaffirmations of what we already knew, that Zoe is ours and belongs to our family.  I cannot express how much she means to me.  She is happy and fun and beautiful.  She brings laughter and joy to our family.  We love her with all of our heart and are so grateful that we can be with her forever.  I am so thankful for temples and for our Heavenly Father’s beautiful plan that allows us to be forever families. 

Here are a couple of pictures of Zoe in her dress.  These weren’t taken that day, but show the dress pretty well.  I was really happy with the way the dress turned out.  It was exactly what I wanted.

Here are just some of my favorite pictures from the day!

Our forever family!

My amazingly handsome little guy.

The cutest two kids in the world.

And Little Miss Zoe herself.

I am one lucky mom!

Thanksgiving was great.  I have so much to be thankful for right now: a wonderful husband who loves me and does more for me than I could ever expect, a son who makes me laugh and makes me proud every single day, a daughter that is the answer to prayers and truly brings so much joy to our home, parents who love me and are the absolute greatest, the best little sister who I am now able to spend so much more time with. wonderful in laws, a beautiful home, my husbands job which he loves and that allows us to have the things we need, great friends, and so much more.  I am so blessed and thankful for so much.

Thanksgiving was great.  We had it at our house.  My family and Kirk’s parents came.   We had good food (well except for the stuffing, I am still on a quest for the perfect stuffing recipe), and a lot of fun.   Then on Friday, I went Black Friday shopping with Emily.  That has become a tradition for us and I love it.  We are never too serious about it, we just go to have fun, but we were relatively successful this year, which is nice too.

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving.

Robby and Zoe with Grandpa

Our turkey, which was honestly the best turkey I have ever eaten, yum!

Robby made these cute little buckets for everyone’s napkins and silverware to go into.  He worked so hard on them and they turned out so cute!

Sometime before 8:00 am:  Robby gets up.  As a six year old, he is biologically unable to sleep in.  I don’t know for sure what time he gets up, but he has learned that he can go downstairs and do pretty much whatever he wants, as long as he is quiet and doesn’t wake up mom and dad.

Sometime between 8:00 and 10:00 am:  Kirk and I wake up.  This used to be closer to ten, but now Zoe typically gets us up earlier.  This week it was about 8:30 when she started making noise and insisting that it was time to eat.

10:00-11:00 am:  We eat a “homemade breakfast” as Robby calls it.  This consists of anything that involves more work than dumping into a bowl or throwing into the toaster.  This week it was pancakes with raspberries and whipped cream, yum!

11:00-4:00 pm:  This is the time to be productive.  We usually have a list of things we want to accomplish and this is the time to do it.  Unfortunately, productivity rarely happens for us on a Saturday, but at least we have good intentions.  Yesterday, instead of being productive, we decided to go see Madagascar 2.  It was a good movie and we had a lot of fun.  When we got home, since it was such a nice day, Kirk did manage to get the Christmas lights put on the house, Robby played outside, practiced basketball, and took some pictures for a school project, and I, well I managed to accomplish absolutely nothing.

Sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 pm:  We go out somewhere to eat “linner,” a combination of lunch and dinner.   We are creatures of habit and usually go to the same place, although sometimes we break tradition and eat somewhere else.

4:00-6:00 pm:  Since we are already out of the house for dinner, this is when we run any errands that need to get done.  Yesterday we went to Walmart to get Robby’s pictures developed and pick up a baby shower present.

6:00-8:00 pm:  Movie Night.  We try, once a week, usually on Saturday night, to have movie night.  We let Robby choose a movie to watch and we all watch together.  We also have some fun treat; usually I try to somehow tie the treat into the movie, although it doesn’t always happen.  It is something that we all look forward to.  Over the last few weeks we have been working our way through the Star Wars movies, so this week Robby chose Star Wars Episode III.  

Here are some pictures from this week’s movie night.

Our treats were brownies with Darth Vader on them.  They were very yummy.

Here is Robby, enjoying his brownie and very engrossed in the movie.

Watching the movie.  Even Zoe gets into it for a minute, although she usually sleeps through most of it.

And just for fun, here is a cute picture of  Kirk and Zoe.

I really do love Saturdays.  I love just spending the day hanging out with my family, without having to worry much about anything else.  I am sure that if we did things differently we could get a lot more things accomplished on Saturday, and we definitely need to get more done, but I like it this way.  Our kids are only going to be young for a short time, and it is so great to have one day a week that we just spend together.  I am always sad when Saturday is over and can’t wait until next week.