Summer Time!

The last couple weeks have been a lot of fun. I've been out of school and working as a legal intern for Monsanto. It's a great resume-building experience, I get paid as an intern, and I really enjoy it, so it's good all around.

We've gotten to go on a bunch of walks together, have picnics, sit out front and watch the fireflies, play games and have fun. It's a good break from the school-year grind. We have all really loved the time together without worrying about school and homework.

Rachel has really loved playing with her dolls and polly pockets.

On Wednesday morning Jonice was sitting with Rachel and she noticed that a piece of her hair was sitting funny. She looked a little closer at it and saw that it was several inches shorter than the rest of the hair. Jonice asked Rachel, "Did you cut your hair?" Rachel dead-panned it, not saying a word. Jonice pressed her a little and she 'fessed up, saying, "I did it yesterday when you weren't paying attention to me, but I threw away the piece of hair." Jonice and I had just had a conversation about how lucky we were to have made it five years with no hair-cutting incidents. I guess we spoke too soon. So on Thursday Jonice cut Rachel's hair.

Yesterday we went "swimming" at a friends house after work. Rachel had fun. Then we went to a farewell party for a couple of friends who are going to Germany for almost a year to study.

Today we celebrated Rachel's fifth birthday, which is tomorrow. Pretty crazy. We got up (relatively) early with her and opened her present that we had given her, a Fisher-Price dollhouse. She is really excited. Then she went shopping with me to get the supplies for her party this afternoon while Jonice got some cleaning and cooking done. We had a barbecue with a bunch of friends from the branch we are in and one of my law school buddies.

Enjoy the pictures.

St Louis Zoo

On Saturday, after 3 weeks of nearly constant rain, it was finally nice out. So we all went to the zoo. Here are some pictures.

Big Sister Loves to Help

Rachel loves to have Asher around. She is constantly "checking on him" when he is asleep in his crib, and she usually wakes up when he starts crying for his 8AM feeding and runs into our room saying "Big sister's here, Asher. It's ok, big sister's here." She has asked if she could feed Asher, and so we've given her a shot at helping out a few times.

Pictures of Asher

For everyone who doesn't yet know, we found out about ten days ago that we had been selected by a birth-mother who wanted to place her baby with us. It happened so quickly that it was quite a shock to both of us ... as you know we've been thinking about adoption for a long time and have struggled for years to help Jonice get pregnant, and then almost as soon as we completed the paperwork we were selected.

We met with the mother, Hannah, on Tuesday, May 4. It was a pretty awesome meeting. We got to spend a couple of hours with her and her parents and her little boy Asher. We left the meeting hopeful but cautious about getting too excited. On Wednesday our caseworker emailed and let us know that Hannah had made the final decision and wanted to give us the baby on Sunday.

What a wonderful Mother's Day gift, one we will always be grateful for. Yesterday we went and met with Hannah again, and though we know she made and kept the hardest decision she will likely ever make in her life yesterday, we are so glad and amazed by her selflessness.


We got to bring Asher home yesterday, he's a beautiful boy and we love having him as part of our family. This experience has really opened our eyes to the love that these young mothers have for their children. Remember them in your prayers, and ask God to bless them for their sacrifice.