My Cute Date

Since Shay has the opportunity to work in the Mount Timpanogos Temple every Thursday night, I have the special opportunity to have "mommy and son dates" on those nights with Luke.  Tonight was no exception.  Tonight I took Luke to Kneaders.  As you can tell from the above picture, Luke LOVED his Pumpkin Man he got with his meal.  You can also see how he liked my cup of fruit better than his red grapes. :-)  After dinner we went together to purchased a Fisher Price airport and airplane.  With toys in hand we went back home and spent the night playing airplanes together.  It was SO much fun!  The airplane plays a song and each time it came on Luke would stop and start dancing to the music.  He cracked me up!  Mommy and son dates are so fun!  Feeling extremely grateful for this little one.  Shay and I are both looking forward to adopting again so that this cute little boy can have a sibling to love and grow up with.....a sibling to create fun memories and traditions with!  We look forward to opening up our hearts and home again as well.  Life is great!

Vacation Time!

Vacationing Time!

  Shay and I love to take trips together!  

This year we decided to trek down to Southern California and join my brother and his family in San Clemente, California.  We were excited to spend time with them and introduce Luke to the beach for the first time.  Since I grew up in Southern California, I was super excited!

Shay and I decided that we had better split our trip from Utah to California, since this would be the first road trip we would be taking Luke on, and we weren't sure how well it would go.  

So on September 7th, we drove down to St. George, Utah to spend some time with Shay's older sister Tiffany and her family.  It was perfect timing since it was Sam's birthday too.  Sam is Tiffany's youngest son.  She and her husband were able to adopt Sam at birth 4 years ago.  It is wonderful to see how adoption has blessed the lives of both sides of our families.  We have many cousins who have been adopted, and we know first hand the blessings that come with adoption!  

That night we were able to enjoy a wonderful barbecue dinner and birthday cake.  I was also able to hear to some really hilarious high school stories (Troy, Tiffany's husband, grew up with Tiffany and Shay so they have many friends and acquaintances in common.). 

  

  

9/8/15: Tuesday morning we got up, said goodbye, and headed out to Southern California. 

We finally made it to San Clemente late in the afternoon!  It had been six long years since we were able to visit Southern California together (...and we hope it will never be that long again)!  

The sky was SO blue and the palm trees so tall (Below is a picture of the sky).  I didn't realize how much I missed it until we arrived.....this place I called home for so many years!  Its beauty still takes my breath away.  Somehow, even in the "busyness" of it all, So. Cal. relaxes me in a way that no other place can.  I guess I will always be a Southern California girl at heart. 

First thing we did was unload our car and then head down to see the ocean.  

Below you can see the staircase that lead up to our beach condo.  It was located three flights up....which ended up being a huge bonus because it gave us a beautiful view of the beach and surrounding areas.  It also had a canopy of vegetation that surrounded the staircase going up to the front door which was SO beautiful!  After hitting the beach we returned to the condo for dinner, games, and family time.

9/9/15:  Wednesday morning we woke up and went to the beach!

Here you can see Luke hitting the beach for the very first time.  His favorite thing was digging in the sand with his shovel while playing with his awesome cousins that dote on him endlessly!   Everyone loved hearing Luke say the word, "Shovel" over and over again.  Since he is just starting to talk, the word sounds so cute!

Below you can see Luke with his favorite digging partner Kami.  We loved watching these two play in the sand together.  It was also fun to see my brother John teach his boys how to best catch a wave on a boogie board, etc. You can see him giving pointers to his son in the background of the below picture.

We also plan on teaching Luke how to ride a wave just right so that you can avoid being crushed.  He has learned to build some amazing castles. We hope he learns to love the beach as much as Shay and I do!

Unfortunately when we first got to the beach Wednesday morning, we were immediately approached by a lifeguard who warned us that there were hurricanes off the coast that were causing dangerous riptides.  He asked us not to boogie board and to stay close to the shore.  

At first the boys were super bummed and started to express their disappointment.  I didn't want the day to be a bust for them, so I taught them "Crack the Egg" (As pictured below).  

In all honesty, I told them a half-truth.  I made up the game on a whim.  They weren't too eager to try it, so I told them that I had played it as a little girl and that they would love it.  In truth, I never played "Crack the Egg" in the ocean, just on a trampoline.....so it was HALF true, right?  I just needed something to suck them into trying it and salvage the day!  Well, it worked and ended up being a blast.  We all laughed our heads off as we would get knocked over by the powerful waves that came in.  This will be a forever fun memory for me with these awesome kids!  You can see Shay holding on to Like further behind us to ensure that he would be OK.   

Our sister-in-law took these pictures for us while we were playing "Crack the Egg."  The top picture is of us waiting for the waves to form.  The middle is of Luke's cousin, Michael, warning us that it's going to be a big one.  The bottom is of us getting violently "cracked."  

Luckily Shay insisted on being behind us with Luke.  

"Crack the Egg" will become a family tradition for sure!  

Great times!

Below you can see Shay and William playing Zim-Zam.  This was a favorite game of mine growing up.  When I was a child, my family and I would go beach camping almost every year.  We would set up Zim-Zam and play it for hours in our campsite.  It was fun to see the kids (and adults) enjoy it as well!  

Shay is not only a great dad, but he is a great uncle as well!

Luke crashed on the way back to the condo after his first trip to the beach!  

Too much fun can really wear you out!

9/10/15: We decided to visit Mission San Juan Capistrano in the morning before heading back to the beach.  It was gorgeous, but hotter than the underworld  The temperature was over 100 degrees.  We all were melting and wondering how the people lived there without air conditioning hundreds of years ago.  All the kids were ready to hit the beach after this tour!  Below you can see the gang together. 

 Cousins are the best!

San Juan  Capistrano has beautiful grounds--We highly recommend seeing it if you are in town!

Shay took tons of pictures of San Juan Capistrano.  Shay loves history and read every single word posted throughout the mission! :-)

After the mission we went to the beach and enjoyed the water!  We were able to boogie board and body surf.  The photo below is of Luke and his cousin William.  It was so cute that I had to capture it.  William had come in from boogie boarding and crashed on a beach towel.  Luke went right over to his buddy and laid down right next to him.  William immediately put his arm around him.  This picture melted my heart.  Luke has a special relationship with all of his cousins.  They just love him!  We are truly blessed with such an amazing family that loves us to pieces!

We decided to stay late on the beach that night.  That evening we watched the sunset on the ocean.  It was breathtaking!  My favorite picture is below.  Here you can see Shay and Luke together enjoying the last bits of sunlight.

We were able to barbecue hot dogs for dinner on the beach---heavenly!  We all sat around the fire well after dark telling stories and playing games.  

What a perfect day!  

Life doesn't get much better than this! 

9/11/15: Our plan was to go to Knott's Berry Farm, but the weather was too perfect not to go the beach one last day before heading back to Utah (It was SO hot, we would have been miserable walking around an amusement park).  Plus, Luke was loving the beach and we wanted him to get all of the beach time that we could give him!  

We decided to go to Corona Del Mar State Beach.  This beach is a family favorite of ours!  When I was 5/6 years old my family went to this beach almost every single day during the summer.  We would go with our long time family friends.  It is a clean, beautiful, family-friendly beach.  Due to the storms off the coast of California, there was a lot of seaweed washing up on shore.  My sister-in-law Nicole and her kids taught us how to break apart a certain part of the seaweed to search for starfish.  We found tons of starfish on our first day at the beach.  Below you can see Kami holding the biggest one that was caught during our trip.  She came running up, so excited, wanting to show it to me.  We took a picture of it to remember how big it was.  

I love this sweet beautiful little niece of mine!  

I loved watching Luke play with his cousins on the beach.  Here Luke is chasing after Josh.  Josh was chasing seagulls and Luke decided he wanted to chase Josh instead.  You can see how beautiful the water was in this video as well.

9/12/15: Departure day.   :-( 

We woke up and took a stroll with my sister-in-law Nicole on the beach one last time.  It was great to have the boys watch the kids while we enjoyed some girl time.  

The funniest thing happened when we went to rinse the sand off our feet at the beach showers.  I hit the button, the lower shower head turned on, and I stuck my feet in the water to rinse off the sand.  Nicole went to do the same thing, but accidentally hit the button to the upper shower head and got slammed in the chest with water.  

She screamed and we both started to laugh so hard!

After packing up the cars, 

we took family pictures by the gorgeous staircase leading up to the beach condo that we rented.

Definitely a beach-bum all natural look, which is perfect to help us remember our 

wonderful time in California!

We left with great memories to last a lifetime and a desire to return next year!  

The drive home was eventful.  Luke went through TWO outfits!  Yep, once we even had to stop and fix a major diaper blowout that caused me to spend a good 20 minutes in a gas station's bathroom cleaning it up.  Luckily, he did take three naps during the drive home.  I spent a lot of time posting pictures on Instagram and reading a book to Shay (We often will read a book to each other when we take a road trip.).

We love family, California and vacationing.

Thanksgiving Point

Today we were invited to attend the Thanksgiving Point Farm with a friend of mine and her little girl, Grace.  I jumped at the chance and brought along my wonderful niece Hallie as well (She was hanging out with Luke and me and were so glad to have her around!).

Below is a couple of pictures of Hallie and Luke looking at the turkeys.  As you can see, it is hard for me as a mama to get a chance to hold Luke when friends and cousins around.....but that is OK!  They all love him and want to be with him, I can't complain.  I love it!

It was so fun to see all the different types of birds there in all their splendor.  We even saw a male peacock spread out his feathers and vibrate them.  Luke was so excited to see it!

This is a photo of Luke's friend Grace.  I am so grateful that she is one of Luke's friend.  She dotes on him and is always willing to help him out.  Another bonus is that Grace is adopted as well.  We feel it is such a blessing to have friends that have adopted children too.  It will be such a bonus for Luke to be friends that were adopted as well!

Luke loves the "Production" center at Thanksgiving Point.  It is a area where kids can learn all about the process of getting fruits and vegetable from the plant to the grocery store.  Luke loves anything with wheels (He is ALL boy for sure) and immediately got on the tractor all by himself when we walked in.

LOVE his smile....he is so happy!

 Definitely a wonderful day at Thanksgiving Point!

Our "New Year" Miracle

2014

was one of the most life changing, 

happiest, beautiful times of our lives!

Meet Luke

 Luke was born to Shanae.  

Shanae is our angel birthmother and Po Thu is our angel birthfather.

We love each of our birthparents with a love that is so deep and real that is is impossible to describe!

We are so grateful, and feel so blessed, that both Shanae and Po Thu want to be part of Luke's life!  We feel adoption should be as open as the birthparent(s) feel is healthy for them and for the child!  

Winnie, Shanae, Shay, 

and Luke at the hosptial: 

Winnie, Ph Thu, Shay and Luke in our home:

It has been a beautiful journey with both of these amazing individuals and we really enjoy the time we have when they come to visit all of us!

At the hospital, Shanae's step mother was so awesome....right before we walked in the room to see Luke for the very first time she asked if she could take pictures for us.  

I handed her my ipad and said sure.  

The picture below is of Luke being placed in our arms for the very first time.  

It was instant love, gratitude, happiness all rolled into one!  

LDS Family Services has the slogan, "It's about love." Having gone through this whole adoption process with Luke, Shanae, and Po Thu we couldn't agree more!  

There is more love that goes into the adoption process than I ever imagined

and it is such a very special journey!  

This is picture of Shay's mother holding Luke for the very first time:

 This is Winnie's Dad holding Luke for the very fist time:

This is Winnie's mom meeting and holding Luke for the very fist time:

So grateful we had the opportunity to have Luke join our family!

 Feel so blessed to also extend our love to two amazing birth families!  

Life and adoption are so much better than we could have ever expected!

We are hoping and praying that we will be able to take this adoption journey again!  

We feel our family is not quite complete and that it is the right time to share our story again and open our home up to another child.   

We would love to have another amazing, wonderful, loving adoption journey with a birthparent(s). 

We would love for Luke to be able to have a sibling that he could grow up with and love!  

If you feel you are someone who might be interested in learning more about our family, who we are, etc......
or you know of someone who might be contemplating adoption......

please feel free to contact us at:

 shayandwinnie@gmail.com

or visit our adoption blog:

Shay and Winnie
Hoping to Adopt


P.S. The reason why the posts have ended where they do is because we have set up a private Instagram account with our birth mom.  We post all pictures for her there and keep her in the loop.  We send pictures to Luke's birth father. We are more than willing to open up our lives further to anyone who feels that we might be a possible adoptive parent match for them.  Just let us know.
Thank you! 

Easter 2015

We were really excited to celebrate Easter this year with Luke!  Last year he was only four years old and really didn't understand anything that was going on around him.  This year we knew he would.  We got ready by purchasing items......we went a bit overboard!  We couldn't get all of his treats into his duck Easter basket his grandmother gave him. :-)

We even bought edible grass so as to not have to worry about plastic getting into his mouth.  

Of course Easter isn't complete without a few new outfits to sport!  

Had a blast picking out some outfits for Luke!

It was also fun getting Shay's basket ready.  

When I was in Costco looking at videos for Shay a lady told me that the recently released movie Into the Woods was excellent.  I thought, "Great, we both haven't seen it so it will be a win-win movie!"  UGH!  Should have asked more questions about the movie!  I liked the move.....but Shay not so much.  At least Shay humored me in watching the whole thing....even though he does not like musicals!  I told him I owed him big time.  He laughed and just gave me a kiss!  I am so grateful to have such a great husband!  

 Picture above shows where I hid Shay's basket (Under the sink).  In my family, while growing up, we woke up Easter morning having to find where the Easter Bunny had hid our baskets.  I loved looking for my baskets as a child so we are going to care on this tradition in our home.

Shay, of course, spoiled me rotten!  We both LOVE the Lord of the Rings series.  I got the hobbit along with yummy candy.  I love how Shay spoils me and makes me feel so special all the time!

The next few pictures are of Shay and me trying to get Luke to sit still and take an Easter picture.  He wasn't very cooperative!  Putting him between his toys, candy and clothes turned out to be a bit problem.  Shay and I would take turns trying to get him to stop eating the edible grass or pick up a toy.  We definitely were not too successful! :-)

We love his silly smiles and faces found in these pictures!  Below is the best we could do!  

It was such a fun day.  

It was also a special day!  We got to go to church and remember the Savior and His infinite love for us all.  We both feel such gratitude to our Savior for him birth, life, sacrifice and love!  May we never forget how much He loves us and cares for us!  

Happy Easter everyone!

Happy Little Boy

1/31/14

Luke is 7 days old!  He already interacts with others.  Here you can see him smiling.  We love him to pieces!  He is always putting a smile on our faces!

Christmas Eve 2013

Hands down the star attraction is my sister's new baby girl.  She decided to come in with a bit of drama into the world and spent 2 weeks in the NICU.  She is now a month old and not even quite 7 pounds.  She is so tiny.  We all fight for the opportunity to hold her.  She is absolutely beautiful!

As you can see here with grandpa:

She loves to be held!

 Of course when I turned around I found her older sister like this:

Apparently there was something in the cupboard she wanted.  Look at that guilty look!

Shay, my brother, mom and I went to hang out in the front room and chat.

When we came back we found my dad and baby sound asleep.  Apparently we were partying too hard!

Keeping with my sister's husband's side tradition.....all presents were arranged under the tree to perfection.  Each present was adorned with a bow.  The kids were overly excited for Christmas to come.  We often found them sitting in front of the tree looking for their names on the presents!

The tree looked absolutely.  My mother decorated it while my sister was in the hospital. 

After a wonderful dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, bacon wrapped beans, pear salad, and homemade rolls (Yummy!  My family members are amazing cooks and it makes holidays wonderful!), we sat down and read the Christmas story from the scriptures.  It was the first time that we have read about the birth of Christ with electronics.  It was a new tradition.
Below you can see my sister's husband and two boys!  We all had a good chuckle when my sister's son on the far right asked, "What about the wise guy?"  Up to that point we hadn't read about the wise men and he was concerned we skipped over "him!"  We all thought that was so cute ("The wise guy!")!  It still makes me laugh out loud now!

I love that all of my siblings read and discuss the true meaning of Christmas each year with their kids.  Shay and I keep this tradition alive in our home and look forward to sharing this tradition with our future children!

As a child, I loved that every Christmas Eve my parents had us kids bring out our scriptures and read about our Savior's birth.  It always brought such a wonderful feeling into our home.

When we would finish reading the scriptures, our mother would always hand out PJs to us kids.  This tradition hasn't changed....well, except that my mother now gives PJs to the grand kids instead of the adults.  The grand kids love them!

My youngest brother was down for Christmas as well so as a Christmas surprise Shay and I got him Christmas PJs.  

As you can see below he was super excited! 

Mainly because of the pictures found all over his PJs.  My family LOVES "A Christmas Story" movie!  Below you can see the PJs up close: 

Shay and I got on our "Christmas PJs" and took a picture with him.
We love fun PJs at Christmastime!

The kids LOVED the PJs my mother brought them:

Another tradition I had when I was a kid, which my sister still does, was being able to open one gift on Christmas Eve.  I was one of 5 kids so my mother and father had us choose names secretly.  The name you got was the person you were to buy a Christmas gift for.  

My sister's children picked names this morning and we all went to the store.  My sister's oldest girl asked if she could go shopping with Shay and me so that she could find the perfect gift without her brother seeing.  We had a blast shopping together!

Here is a picture of her with her new stuffed bear she got from one of her brother:

She looked up at me and said, "THIS IS THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!"

We love spending time with family and making wonderful memories together!  

Can't wait to get to bed and see what Santa brings tomorrow!

Merry Christmas all!