Approved!

It took me much longer than I hoped, but our adoption application is finally approved. Feel free to check out our online profile at www.itsaboutlove.org. The Church has recently revamped this website and there are lots of great resources for women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy or couples considering adoption, as well as friends and family who want to support adoption.

If you want to see our profile or point someone to our profile, go to this link: https://www.itsaboutlove.org/ial/search.jsf and then search for Dan and Alisa.

Approximately 750,000 teenage girls (15-19) become pregnant each year.* And this figure doesn't include women outside of this age range who also find themselves in crisis pregnancies. We don't need more crisis pregnancies, we just need our society to think more positively about adoption and to recognize it as a positive third option to choosing to abort or choosing to parent.

If you know a young woman in a crisis pregnancy, let her know first of all that you love her and will support her whatever decision she makes. If you share a relationship of trust with her, you might consider letting her know about adoption or about our profile. And you never know when your positive attitude (or negative) about adoption might influence someone who is in a position to choose to place.

We appreciate all of you who hope and pray for us.

*statistics come from a report prepared by the Guttmacher Institute in Sept. 2006.

Lounging and Swimming

This isn't a very flattering photo of me (I know I'm stating the obvious), but I post it because of what Anna is doing. I had just finished running 12.5 miles (I'm training for a half marathon on Sept. 5) and while I was stretching, Anna decided to use my legs as a chair. And because I'm crazy in love with my child (most of the time), instead of making her get up, I told Dan to get the camera. AND I let him take a picture of me in all my sweatiness.
So, it's the end of the summer and I finally got Anna some floaties, water wings, arm bands, or whatever you want to call them. We took a Mommy and Me swim class in April and I've been trying to keep up our skills all summer. Anna's great about sitting on the side and leaning in to be caught and dunked by me. She's also pretty good about kicking her legs when I tell her to. But she has no idea how to do anything that resembles swimming and she's not content to float in her inflatable ring. She wants me to carry her around the pool wherever she directs and usually that is into the middle of a bunch of splashing kids. Then one day while we were at the pool, I learned from a friend that they have floaties for kids Anna's age.

Of course, it's the end of the season so I had to get a pair that Anna will grow into. I figure she's still small enough that I've got to keep an eye on her constantly anyway, so it's okay if they're a little big. She's pretty cute to watch because she doesn't understand the concept of floating on her tummy and dog paddling. Instead she keeps her body perpendicular to the pool floor and kicks madly to keep her chin and mouth out of the water. The kicking usually causes her to spin in circles, making it hard for me to get a photo of her facing forward. But most importantly, she has more fun in the floaties, she works harder, and she takes longer naps when we get home form the pool.

July and August Update

Geez, it has been a long time since I posted here. For the past month I have been working hard to finish our adoption application and I'm finally getting to the point where I have to wait for feedback before I can do anymore. I hope we'll be approved in the next few weeks.

Over the past month, Anna has started talking and signing more. I sort of gave up on sign language when she didn't seem to show any interest in it at nine months but then she started to actually do some of the signs a month or two ago. Of course many of the signs look the same. "More" and "shoes" look a lot alike, but if she really focuses, she can say "mo" and she usually only says "shoes" when we ask her to. Learning to sign "cracker" also helped her figure out where her elbow is, but most of the time she still likes to stand at the open pantry door, point to the top shelf, and cry rather than pat her elbow or say "cacka." Other favorite words include no, ball, purple, baseball, touch down (you can probably guess who has been teaching her those last two words), and "thank you." She can also make the sign for thank you and it looks like she's blowing a kiss, which I think is just too cute for words. Her first true word was probably "mom" and that's still what she calls both Dan and I. She can say "Da da" but if I point to a photo of Dan and ask who that is she says "Mom!" Ball was her second real word. It took me a long time to figure out that that's what she was saying at the pool. But she wanted the other kids' balls enough that she finally got the message across to me. She will also frequently pick up just about everything from the TV remote to a calculator to my cell phone, hold it up to her ear, say "hello" and then continue to babble. Of course, I think it's adorable, but I'm not biased or anything.

Here are some photos from the last month.

We finally went on a picnic up Provo Canyon. Anna loved the idea of sitting on a blanket and eating Pringles. Recently she's learned how to pull herself up onto a chair and a few times, she's made it on top of the table. So she's not to keen about sitting in her high chair when she could be dancing on a chair. But sitting on the ground outside and eating, now that was right up her alley.
Anna's also been working on going down the slide by herself.

We've been spending some time coloring, but I have to admit that several crayons have teeth marks in them. My pediatrician warned me that she would try to eat them, but she's so dang fast! I turn away for a minute and she's got a big hunk of purple crayon in her mouth.
Our ward went to see an Orem Owlz baseball game and Anna discovered root beer. I'm learning that if I don't want her to eat junk food, then I can't eat junk food, but despite my best intentions, I continue to be a bad example. She couldn't get enough of my root beer and eventually I had to hide it from her, because she was turning into a sticky mess.
This stream was ice cold, but Anna didn't care and my mom was nice enough to help Anna dip her toes in the stream. I'm glad grandma was there because I probably would have tried to prevent her from getting close to the stream and then it would have been a big kicking and screaming mess.

Independence Day

On the Fourth of July, I got an early start to my day participating in the Freedom Festival 10K with a few ladies from my ward, while my sister Katie and her husband Jack ran in the 5K. It's nice to go to races with friends these days. In the past I felt like such a loner. It was my first 10K and I felt pretty sore the next day, but all in all, I was pretty happy with the race, averaging 8 min./mile.

We decided to take a dip in the neighborhood pool. Anna loves leaning off the side even though we dunk her every time. Those swim lessons we took in April are paying off.

Ooh! Cheetos! This was the highlight of Independence Day: her Aunt Katie brought Cheetos to our family picnic and let her eat some. By the end of the evening I had Cheetos fingerprints all over me.

This was Anna's first time watching fireworks. We can see the fireworks from our front yard, so last year we put Anna to sleep and brought the baby monitor outside. This year, Anna wasn't about to miss the party, but when the fireworks started to go off, she started to whimper and tried to bury her head in my chest. Even though I am mostly selfish and didn't want to miss the fireworks, I eventually took pity on her and took her inside. But as soon as Anna realized that everyone else was still outside watching the fireworks, she pointed at the front door and whined. So we went back outside and she nestled herself between my legs. She was pretty rigid and tense and as soon as the fireworks ended she sat up and started to look for the Cheetos again.

Bathtime and Bedtime

Look at this kid, flossing her six teeth and at such a young age. Actually, I think she just figured out that the floss tastes minty and is trying to lick all the wax off.

Another not so great thing that Anna is doing these days is peeing in the bath water. I'm sure she's been relieving herself in the water from the beginning, but I never had to see it before. Ever since she started walking, she likes to stand up in the tub when I first put her in. As soon as her feet hit that warm water, she pees. It's just a little disheartening to see, but I'm getting used to it.

Lately, our nap time routine has changed a bit. Up until about a month ago, every time I put Anna to sleep, first we would rock in the rocking chair and I would sing her lullabies to calm her. Recently she decided she wanted me to read her books instead. Her favorite books are Counting Kisses by Karen Katz and Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox. I can almost recite both books, but they are teaching her her body parts. Already she anticipates the kisses on the nose and points to her nose.

Just this past week she started saying "hi." Now she likes to walk around the house saying "hi." I guess that's how she does things. Several months ago she walked around the house saying, "Mom?" and then for a few weeks it was "huh?"

Junk Food

I have tried to instill good eating habits in Anna. As my mom can willingly tell you, I was a picky eater as a child and afraid of most fruits and vegetables. It's something I'm still working on, but I don't want Anna to be like me. I guess I could only keep the junk food away from her for so long, especially since we're setting a great example by eating it ourselves. She loves Cheez-its and she likes feeding them to Dad too. And in the picture below, that's a chocolate Pirouette she's eating, not a cigar. In the photo above she's holding a rice crispy treat, but she didn't actually get to eat that. I just gave it to her to calm her down after she stuffed a Hot Tamale in her mouth. I was eating them at Bear Lake and she kept begging me for one. I knew that they would be too hot for her, but somehow she got one in her mouth. I think she took one from Grandma when she wasn't looking. We didn't even notice she had one until she started to cry and she spit it out. But when I tried to take it away from her, she grabbed it back and stuffed it in her mouth. Then she started to cry again and she spit it out. She did this one more time before she willingly gave up the Hot Tamale. Perhaps you can see the red all around her mouth from her Hot Tamale drool.

This photo has nothing to do with junk food. I just think it's cute. She didn't actually get to go for a ride since we didn't have a life jacket her size, but she was happy just to sit while the other little kids got on.

Family Trip to Grant Teton National Park and Yellowstone

This year we decided to take a trip with just our little family to Jackson Hole. While I was still in grad school, Dan and I had visited Jackson Hole when I presented a paper at a conference held in the area. We've been wanting to go back and we thought it would be a great place to take a little kid because she could be outside and no one would be bothered if she decided to be noisy.
These green chairs were probably Anna's favorite part of our trip. They sat right outside our room and were the perfect height for someone her size to climb into. If we tried to take her inside, she would cry and point to the door. As soon as we opened it, she'd be back outside in these chairs.
The first night we were there, we drove into the park at dusk to see some wildlife and managed to see a herd of buffalo including this one and two more who crossed the street right in front of our car. That night we also saw a buffalo calf with the herd. During our stay we saw some antelope, elk, and moose, including a baby moose with its mama, but no bears. Ironically our best views of moose came as we were driving through Star Valley. On our way to Jackson, we saw a moose standing near the road and on our way home we saw a baby moose and its mama eating from a tree right by the highway.
Unfortunately for us, it rained quite a bit while we were there. Everything was green and pretty, but it was hard for us to go on a hike if we thought it might dump rain on us. So we spent lots of time in visitor's centers, but we did manage to squeeze in one hike around a tiny peninsula near Colter Bay on Jackson Lake. This was Anna's first time in our new kid carrier backpack and she did pretty well.

On Friday we drove up to Yellowstone to see Old Faithful. Anna didn't much like waiting for it to go off. She wanted to push her stroller, which usually involves running into other people, or walk around, darting in and out of all the people walking around, which I didn't much like. But when it finally went off, she was impressed. We spent some time walking around looking at the other geysers near by before stopping to eat at a restaurant on Yellowstone Lake.

No one got much sleep since we were all crowded into one hotel room, but that just means that after a fun trip, we were ready to get back home to our own beds.