Welcome

We set up our adoption blog so you can get to know our family a little better. I started blogging back in 2007 and have kept up with it over the years. At the end of every year, we print off our blog for that year and give it to Daniel's mom for her Christmas present. She keeps all of her children's yearly journals in a notebook that we will get back one day to pass down to our kids. I try to keep it up to date as much as I can.


When we decided to start the adoption process, I decided to make an identical blog for birth mothers to read. Everything that I write about my family on our personal blog, I copy it over to my adoption blog. I understand that an adoption profile only gives limited information about us and we want you to have the opportunity to really get to know who we are and what we like to do as a family. Our adoption blog will show you who we were even before we adopted our boys. Feel free to read as much as you want or click on the links up above!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Sweet Deals

Daniel's parents came back to stay with us on Friday night after returning from a wedding. The next morning we got up and headed to REI. We got there about 20 minutes before they opened and the line was all the way to the back of the building. Both Daniel and his dad love this store. They were having their big garage sale and this was Daniel's dads first time to attend one since they don't this store in Oklahoma. REI has an amazing return policy and you can basically return anything anytime but they don't put anything that is returned back on the shelf. Instead they sell it at their quarterly garage sale and you can get some great deals. We ended up spending about $250 but it would have costed over $1000 if we were to buy it all brand new. Here are some of the sweet deals we got....

-Daniel got a Columbia 3 in 1 jacket (normal price $230) we paid $20
-Roof bag (normal price $200) we paid $50 (Now we will have more room in the car and are planning on taking our first road trip this year. We usually fly everywhere but driving would be fun with kids)
-Wheeled Duffel Bag (normal price $189) we paid $50 (We bought this huge bag to take with us when we adopt again since we usually end up coming back with twice as much stuff)
-Deuter Kid Comfort II carrier (normal price $239) we paid $50 (this one is for me since Daniel already has one and it was brand new with tags)

We got a few more smaller items too. This was probably the best we've ever made out at their garage sale.


On Monday, we decided to go rent a carpet shampooer because our carpet was looking really bad. Both of our boys had acid reflex and would spit up all the time and then their sippy cups would always leak on the floor when they would leave them on their side. Sometimes I find them shaking their cups upside down to pour out their milk or juice all over the carpet. I'm a very clean person and these spots of the floor were driving me nuts! So Daniel spent his day off of work cleaning the carpet and I spent my time doing lots of laundry (6 loads) and shopping for our boys.

We had a great New Year's weekend and we are so excited to see what 2012 has to bring this year!
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