Adoption Update and Fundraiser

What a fun and interesting time that Jim and I are going through right now. Here is an update on the adoption stuff. We started talking to a set of Expectant Parents in mid July. The baby was due in the later part of August. It was exciting being able to send emails back and forth with someone who was considering placing their baby with us, however in the end it didn't work out. It was fun getting to know them and feeling connected and then there was discouragement when it didn't work out. Jim and I do know that our baby will come to us one way or another. Unfortunately, that baby was not ours. Our baby will come to us through the Lord’s will. We believe this with all our hearts.

In the meantime, we are keeping busy. I am busy with Young Women’s and work. Jim is busy with getting back to the gym and enjoying his new job at Insidesales.com. It is a great company and a fantastic change for us!!!! It is a bit strange not working at the same company but also a good thing.

We are mailing out pass along cards tomorrow. If you don’t get one from us, let us know. I have to admit that it is a bit strange having our faces on a business card, but we know that it is just another way to get our name out there! Please let everyone know that we are looking to adopt.

Some friends and family have asked how they can donate to help with the cost of the adoption. We have started a Puzzle Fundraiser. Those who want to donate to our Baby Adoption Fund will be able to purchase a piece(s) of the puzzle. When all of the puzzle pieces have been purchased, we will assemble the puzzle and then have the name of the person and/or family donating written on the back. We do not want you to feel obligated or pressured in any way to donate. When the puzzle is complete, we will have it framed between 2 sheets of glass. It will be amazing for our child to see all of the people who were part of bringing them home.

Here is a picture of what the puzzle will look like.

Puzzle pieces can be purchased for any amount and there are two ways to purchase them.

*Follow the link to use PayPal.  https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/send-money-online You do need to have a PayPal account but it is free to do so. Click on this link. Click send on the top left. Enter my email address: wenjens@comcast.net and the dollar amount. Click continue. It will ask you to sign in. Then you are almost done.  It will walk you through the rest.

*Send a check to our home address. 1612 West 10 South Pleasant Grove, UT 84062

Jim and I can’t even begin to explain how wonderful it is knowing how many people are praying for us. Knowing that we have so many people who love and care about us makes this adventure even better! WE LOVE YOU! PARENTS IN 2015 OR BUST! :)

Hello!

I thought that our lives were pretty plain but looking back on the last 2 weeks, we have so much fun! He are a few pictures of how things are going.

For a prank my team at work decided to wrap everything in my office in tinfoil! They also put 500 balloons in my office! As much of a pain in the butt it was, it made me feel loved. I know kind of weird but still. If you look closely, you can see they wrapped everything individually...my phone, my pencil holder, my files! Well done team!

The weather has been phenomenal so we pulled out the bikes and got started. We are so excited. We love the Murdock Canal trail but soon we will start biking up the canyon.

We have been playing cards with the Tiptons lately. Chelsey always has our water ready and nice spread of delicious treats. If we aren't doing that, Chelsey and I have a minor (major) addiction to Art City Donuts. It is a new-ish food truck that is in Utah County. They are mini donuts smothered in different toppings. YUM!

It has been a tradition to go to the Brent Brown Eater Basket Auction for the past 4 years. This year I was on the committee. We raised over $200,000 for the Provo School District. The funds go to the district to help supplement what they don't receive from the state. This year won something from the live auction. This basket was HUGE!! It had over $500 worth of gift certificates, not to mention 16 boxes of Girl Scout cookies!

Jim's mom and sister came down from Jackson Hole for the week. This is a picture of us playing cards one night. We love playing 5 Crowns. They were also able to go to a Families Supporting Adoption meeting with us. It was a good one. The panel consisted of birth mothers, adoptive mothers and grandmothers. It gives us such great support and understanding of the adoption world! We love it! My brother Ryan and his 2 boys also came to learn more about adoption.

This is Quinten. He is my brother Josh's son. He is freaking adorable! I mean all of our nieces and nephews are but he just cracks us up. This is a picture of him in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask. He was so excited!

This dinner was amazing. Roasted chicken, "Charone's Black Beans", cilantro lime rice, sweet white corn and avocado. My goodness it was delicious!

For work we do something called Neighbors Make the Difference Day. Half of all of the branches at the company close at noon so that all of the employees can go and volunteer around our communities. This happens all across the country. I am very proud of this day. For the past 2 years we have went to the Orem City Cemetery. The cemetery has a war veteran's memorial and we go and clean it all up. It is such a great experience polishing the statue, picking weeds and planting red, white and blue flowers. Having 2 brother's who have been in the military makes it even more personal. God Bless the USA!!!

Here are a few things that we have been doing with the adoption. We had our home visit in mid April. Our caseworker said that we passed with flying colors. I think the big huge toy bin next to the tv maybe helped our caseworker to know that our house and ourselves are ready for kids! This diaper thing looks amazing! On April 16th we were officially put on the itsaboutlove.org website so that potential birth parents can check us out to see how amazing we are! :) That day went out and bought a car seat for the baby. It was one of the most exciting things! This whole process is just exciting. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are going to be bad days but for now it feels wonderful.

This is Jim and his dad working on the nursery. We have for sure been told to be careful about how many things we do to get ready for the a baby to come one day, but right now this really helps us feel like we are moving forward and not at a stand still. As of now the nursery is white, grey and navy blue. If we have a boy we will probably add some green or yellow. If we have a girl we will of course add some pink. :)

I absolutely love this quote. The best is yet to come. Always look forward, don't look back. Our next post will hopefully be about our adoption fundraiser that we are doing.....Think lots of pieces! :)

WOW how time flies!

I can not believe how quickly time goes by. In the last post I wrote about my baby brother Josh getting married...well, he now has 2 kids! It amazes me sometimes. We have so many exciting and interesting things that have happened in our life since our last post. Jim has changed jobs, I have had 2 major surgeries and the best part is that we have started the adoption process!!!! I am not sure how much I will get into all of the details. The pictures that I post will 100% not be in chronological order but you will get the idea of where we have been for the past 5 years.

This is Larissa. We met her through the Pemberton clan. The Pemberton's are amazing people and support us like we are family. This was when Lar and I went to a cooking show at Thanksgiving Point. I had never been to a cooking demonstration before and I really liked it. I want to start going to actual, hands on, cooking classes.

My mom and dad give us a trip every other year for Christmas. This is when we went to a place called Zion Ponderosa. It was so much fun. My whole family, all 23 of us (Josh and Missy had to work, think) stayed in the same house. The only part of the trip that I didn't like was going to the Grand Canyon...here's the thing, I have been to the Grand Canyon a few times in my life. It still looks the same as when I saw it the last time. Jim on the other hand loves it. I am sure we will be taking our kids there in the future. The next trip was going on a cruise to the Bahamas. I am sure that I will post some of those pictures later.

We have some AMAZING friends. We have had so many good times with them. I unfortunately don't have pictures of all of them but here are a few. One of the pictures is of me getting my legs waxed for the first time. YIKES!

I LOVE Halloween. Jim, not so much. He does let me have my fun though. He is (mostly, sometimes, begrudgingly) a good sport about it. I will change him, don't worry. One of these pictures is from going to Gardner Village with our friends Brandon and Kelsey and their twins. I love the atmosphere there. I can't wait to go with them this year. The twins, Olie and Indie, will be so much more fun this year! The other pictures are from Brooke and Jason Candland's Halloween party. We are really trying to talk them into starting it back up again this year.

Chris and Heather got married! We love seeing Chris so happy. Heather is such a good fit for him. I made all of the cupcakes for their reception. So good! I was actually pretty impressed with them.

Jim taught our nephew Quinten how to drive...haha! Quinten was so excited to be "driving"!

Went Black Friday shopping with Megan. I still don't know if I like it or not. People are crazy! We will see if this continues.

A fun day of being pulled around on my parent's side by side. I am not a lover of snow but this was fun! All of the nieces and nephews loved it! Now this is an activity that I can't wait to do with our kids someday!

We have decided that we like to go to fancy parties and try fancy food. We have been to the UVU Scholarship Ball a few times and also a UVU culinary arts gala. The food is extraordinary. Nothing like Jim and I are used to.

Jim loves to take pictures of me sleeping. What is so funny about me wanting to go to bed at 9:30? I love going to bed early and waking up early. Jim and I have started waking up every morning at 5:30 to exercise. It starts our day off so great. Jim has lost 47 lbs!! We want to be healthy! We are so ready for this!

This is how we travel now. A little bit of organized treats (thank you Pinterest) and our noise cancelling headphones! These pictures are from when we went on a cruise to the Bahamas. Like we needed more food on a cruise but it was amazing for the airplane ride.

Our nephew Chandler has started to be intrigued with flying. Jim couldn't be more proud. This was Chandler's first ride in a helicopter. It was a HOT HOT HOT day so he got a bit queasy. Overall he was so happy!

Jim's grandma Harvey passed away. It was very bittersweet. It was really fun getting to know his Aunt Ruth , Uncle Mike, Uncle Curtis and Aunt Becky better. Jim drove to Arizona with his dad for the funeral. Jim's brother Gene and his wife Mary drove from Louisiana as well. Jim loved playing with the nieces and nephews!

I am now in the Young Women's Presidency. I started out as First Counselor and now I am the President. My bestie, Megan, was the President and when they moved I was put in as President, such big shoes to fill. Kelley Friden is now the First Counselor, Chelsey Tipton is the Second Counselor, Brittany Warnick is the Beehive Advisor and Holly Adams is the Secretary. We have so much fun with the girls. They crack us up on so many levels!

Nieces and Nephew galore! We have such good times with these kids, some of which are not so little anymore. Tyson is in one of these pictures with a beard! He is graduating this year and moving to Las Vegas to go the Las Vegas Art Institute. He has such a strong testimony of Christ. It blew us away the first time we heard him bare his testimony of Christ. So great!

Just our Mr. BoBo. I don't remember which kid was over but they felt like Mr. BoBo needed to be playing with a toy truck as well. When we have kids over they know exactly where to go first because we have a big toy box full of toys! Jim's collection of Chevron cars are in there and they are definitely a favorite!

A good friend gave me my first Edible Arrangements for my birthday and I loved it! I was so excited. That is one of my most favorite foods on the planet, pre-cut fruit!

Jim's brother and sister in law, Chuck and Emi, live in Japan. It is really hard on the brother but they have been able to visit a few times since moving there. When they come home there is so much to do. We go to baseball games, eat good food, go shopping and pretty much just enjoy each other's company.

Uncle Glenn and Aunt Lynn stopped by for a visit. We really wish we were able to see them more!

During one of Chuck and Emi's trips home, they went to Jackson Hole to see Jim's mom and sister. They went to a geyser while they were there.

Jim picked up golf awhile ago and recently got me into it. It is so relaxing for me. I am terrible at it but it is so much fun. I found this ball while we were out on the golf course one time. It reminded me of the Pepsi globe so I had to pick it up and keep it. My dad works for Pepsi.

This was my second surgery. Because of some problems I was having, I had a hysterectomy in August 2013. It has been such a blessing not being in pain all of the time. It was a necessary thing that needed to happen. It really helped Jim and I solidify that we needed to adopt. It was for sure a turning point in our journey to have a child. We are beyond excited to be in the thick of the adoption process. Bring on the babies!

This was a pretty significant day. This was the day that we turned in our adoption application to LDS Family Services. My heart gets all warm just thinking about it. I know that there are going to be hard times but with those hard times comes the incredible opportunity to have a child! I wish I could put into words what we are feeling right now but it is impossible! Pure joy!

Just an adorable craft that Jim made for his mom when he was little! Isn't he adorable!!

During my recovering from surgery, Jim's mom and sister came down from Jackson Hole and we went and got pedicures! It is one of my most favorite things to do! It is so relaxing.

Don't you love Jim's bedhead!

This is at the Jensen Christmas party. My brother Josh decided to paint his beard white. Then for their Christmas presents from Ryan's family, Chris and Josh got matching Duck Dynasty onesies. They look awesome!

For the past few years Jim and I have taken the week between Christmas and New Years off work. We just relax, go to movies and do puzzles. I know, what are we 80? But we love them. This is the worst puzzle that I have ever done. I have never put a puzzle away without finishing it until this one. One day we will conquer it!

I, 100% married my dad and I love it. This is my dad and Jim sleeping during a movie. Like father in-law, like son.

He is such a handsome devil! He still, after 12 years, makes my heart go pitter patter! Smoochies!

This is one of the pictures that we had taken for our adoption profile. We had never had our pictures taken professionally before. It meant so much to us. We were finally getting things in order to have a baby! This process has been incredible so far. We can't wait to continue to share more of this journey with you! Keep checking back to see updates on where we are in life and where we are in our adoption journey!