Our pre and post Turkey Day festivities!

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful!
We couldnt have the annual TURKEY 2K with my family because it was just too cold. We did have a great dinner together and my cousin was just back from his mission. We had so much fun playing games, watching football and the girls all got manicures. We went over to Jeremy's parents house in the afternoon. It was good to chat with them and play card games there, we just couldnt eat anymore food by then. We never remember to pace ourselves and end up stuffed.

My mom works with a girl that was cleaning out her garage and didnt want this train table! Owen was so excited to help put Jeremy put it together.

These are a few projects I have been needing to get finished for a while. I finally got them finished. It was a long night but I really like how they turned out. This was just a plain wooden board with Howdy cut out of it. I cut rope and hot glued it into place. A little staining and it was finished.

These pictures are part of a cute treasure map I bought for Owen's cowboy birthday. I cut it into pieces and glued it onto 3 blank canvas's I got from Roberts. I put some stain on those too so they would look older. The board I painted and roughed up a bit with a hammer and some nails. I think the neighbors thought I was crazy beating it the way I did.

This was the board before I painted and distressed it. It was only $2 at DI! Love it!

We saw this cute hat at the mall on our after Thanksgiving Shopping day. It was super cute and the boy does love GEORGE but it was $25. Is it just me or is that steep for a hat??

Jeremy got his ear biopsy done the day before Thanksgiving. It was perfect timing so he could give it a few days before having to go back to work and wear a headset all day.

It looked really gross the first day but then it has gotten better looking every day since.

The doctor called yesterday with the results and it came back benign. Thank goodness. They said it was a enlarged blood vessel. Strange but, as long as its harmless. It's not going away on its owen and took out a large chunk for the biopsy, now it looks worse. So we are waiting to hear back from the doctor if they want to just level it out so its even or remove the whole thing in a bigger surgery. Poor Jeremy.

Owens first time seeing Santa. He looks so little! Oh how the time has flown!

The Santa this year was super cute! He really looked the part and was so sweet to Owen. I thought it was cute how he is looking at him now just like he did back then! If you take your kids to go see santa make the trip to fashion place mall. Its worth it for a good santa!!

We also met with our new adoption caseworker with LDS this week.

We were hoping to finish our home study this month but it looks like that wont happen. We have individual interviews next week and then we will have the home study hopefully in the first few weeks of January. We are getting closer but it is still feels like a mirage right now. At least we can use these next few weeks to work on preparing for our home study.

There are too many updates for this title....

Jeremy has this weird thing on his ear.

It started out as a red bump back in August. I actually thought it was a mosquito bite the first time I saw it. It has gotten bigger ever since. Its even going kinda numb at the biggest part. Now there is 2 well defined bumps there. We have been to the dermatologist to have it checked and we thought for sure they would do a biopsy. She wanted to wait and measure it for record. The doctor seems to think it is due to Jeremy's head set at work but we dont feel the same. We will give her the benefit of the doubt and try it. For those of you who dont know Jeremy had a tumor the size of a cat removed from his abdomen when he was 9. It was pretty scary! It was attached to his spinal cord and they were able to remove it all with no cells left. Our primary care thought this might just be a cyst and wouldnt be something to worry about. But when we reminded him of Jeremy's medical history he rethought that and told us to get it checked just to be safe. I guess we will see if it really does go away switching ears with the headset at work if not I guess there will be some slicing and dicing.

Our adoption work is finally moving forward! We finally got Jeremy's employment verified. It was quite the ordeal his work doesnt just fill out forms like a normal employer would. There is a whole website dedicated to it and it was a lengthy process. It's done now though thank goodness and we can move on towards our home-study! We are waiting for Jeremy's divorce decree to come in the mail and then we are basically ready for the home study. I have been cleaning like a mad woman! I guess all those years of spring cleaning with my mom should have rubbed off on me better I wouldnt be in the situation I'm in now. ha ha. I HATE TO CLEAN!

We went last weekend and took some family pictures we are hoping to use for our adoption profile. What do you think? What numbers do you vote for?

Keep in mind the adoption people said that bright colors stand out in photos and we want something to catch peoples eye as they are looking through profiles.

#1

#2

#3

#4

This is what we call an Owen sandwich, we do this kind of hug a lot at our house!

These will be on our profile too! I guess a lot of birth mom's out there like to see Halloween photos. I hope this one impresses someone out there! :) I love that Owen's mask gives him teeth again and I love Jeremy's bandanna it looked awesome!

Jeremy and I had a Halloween party with Owen and his little friends from the neighborhood. It was super fun and the kids had a blast! I love Halloween!

Super bad moment in parenthood: We are at dinner with Jeremy's parents and Owen takes a bite of something he doesnt like and he says: Son of a _____. NOT awesome! We told him that is not a word we ever want to hear again and that it was a very bad saying. He asked a few minutes later if he could say: "Goodnight nurse".......that one we will let slide!

WE HAVE BEEN BUSY

A few things we have been doing lately:

Owen played his last soccer game of the season!

He made his first goal and ran around the field with his arms out like a REAL Salt Lake player :)

He finally got the rules of soccer: no pushing, tackling, or touching the ball.

Jeremy and I made it to the temple twice last month!

Jeremy started a new schedule and got a new supervisor at work. There is a gym at his work and his new schedule allows him to go before work starts. He is loving starting his day out with a workout!

We got new cell phones, which i don't think has happened for about 2 years. They are a bit high tech for me but we are loving all the things that are available on the phones. The touch screen is not something I thought I would ever like, but I DO!

Owen thankfully has not lost any teeth this week, that's huge for us!

Owen's teacher told me that he is a wonderful example to the class and a fabulous student...

I teared up. Nice things said about a son will always make this mom tear up.

We have homework every night. Something new to us. It is going really well and Owen is starting to read to me some words at night. AWESOME! I really hope he continues his love of books and becomes obsessed with them just like me!

Oh

and

there

is

this

little

thing

ADOPTION!!

We have been thinking about it for a long time. Ever since they told us we shouldn't have any more kids. I never felt like it was fair to bring another child into our lives when I wasn't sure I would be here for Owen. There were a couple times when I thought I was doing better and we asked if they would write a letter for us that my health was good enough to raise another child to adulthood. The answer was always no.

But when I got the biopsy good news in June we both looked at each other and just knew that was what we were supposed to do.

We looked around at a few agency's but they went from moderately expensive to down right robbery. I don't know how people do it without a rich relative or a money tree in the backyard.

Our first and obvious choice was LDS Services.

They are I think what every LDS couple wanting to adopt looks at first.

The waiting list is what made us go looking for other options, we had heard from many of our friends that it could/would take years for us to have a adoption through them.

The social workers are only part time which makes it tough to get things done, but we really couldn't afford the other agency's.

We also met all of the requirements at LDS but one.

When the doctors told me that having another child would not only endanger my health but the baby's as well, we were told children were not recommended and we should do everything in our power to make sure that didn't happen. Doctor terms for have your tubes tied or get a vasectomy.

We had to get a letter from the specialist who told us that statement.

ENTER PROBLEMS!

One doctor told us to get it from the current specialist since it was three years ago, and would have more Merritt coming from them. That doctor of course said it would have to be the other one and round and round we went for about 3 weeks. It seemed impossible. The doctors were out of town, said we will call you back and then wont, or said No your not on our insurance anymore. My current specialist wrote a letter but it didn't have the wording they needed it to have.

It all came down to that letter. Without the specialist writing it LDS had no choice but to see Jeremy getting the vasectomy as voluntary sterilization and that is not allowed. They could not accept us as clients.We were at a crossroads.

I told Jeremy I was done fighting with Doctors about who said what and when. That if LDS didn't want to see our situation for what it truly was then there was nothing we could do.

It was a daily struggle for us to know what to do.

Were we just not taking the hint from upstairs that this is not the path I want for you, or was it our test to see how much we really wanted it. Every single night we sat up and talked about how we had confirmation in the Temple that this was what we were supposed to do, but why all the struggle?

The only glimmer of hope was the first specialist I saw in 2007. He had been out of town during the bulk of the letter incidents. We were waiting to hear back from him. But honestly I didn't really have much faith.

Silly Me.

If you ever have a moment where it seems your faith is gone. PRAY. It works, I assure you!

The next day I got a call from the above specialist and his nurse read me the letter he had wrote over the phone. I started crying. It was word for word what LDS was needing it to say. That was another confirmation that we are on the right path!

Our prayers have been answered and we are officially signed up to go forward with adoption!

Ever since then it has been so fast! We got a caseworker. We had our initial interviews.

This weekend we are going to a mandatory class for adoptive parents. One more thing we must complete before a birth mom can chose us. I didnt think we would get in since it was just a week before the class that we got officially approved to begin. If we had not gotten into this class we would have had to wait until January for the next one.

Not so bad you say but nothing moves forward until you have completed this class. We have completed so many of the forms in our packet in the last week. We still have to go through the adoption committee and have them approve us after our background checks come back but I hope all the bumps in the road are behind us.

What seemed impossible is now a very real possibility for us. Yes there is a long way to go and of course a girl has to pick us out of a million families out there.

We are so excited to continue with this new adventure in our lives and hopefully welcome another member into our House of Hams

xoxox

Fall Family Fun!

Our Owen has been in kindergarten for almost a month now and he is loving it!

He has a great teacher that is everything I could ask for, she is patient, speaks softly, and makes everything exciting. This was at lunch after his first day, I made the crown like 5 minutes before he got out :) Owen did have some mishaps in these first few weeks:

He cut his shirt with the scissors

He cut his finger on purpose the next day, there was blood and i hope he wont do it again!

He pushed someone and ended up in "think about it time"

He got his first kindergarten girlfriend :)

This is the must have shot of the first day of kindergarten. Owen is so tall! He has grown 1 1/2 inches since his birthday in May. I hope we can keep him in these levis until Christmas.

Jeremy's little sister went through the temple this weekend! Jenn and Shane have been married for 2 years and worked really hard to get to this day. It was wonderful. We had a lot of family in the area that could come to the session and sealing with us. Jenn and Shane stayed at our house and that meant Owen was in our bed, he loved that!

We did a session just a week ago with Jeremys parents and then got to go again with Jenn and Shane. It was really nice to go twice in one month. We will definitley try to get there more often!

The newly sealed couple!

After some much needed rest from our morning at the temple we had a wonderful family dinner at a local park. There was good food and family that showed up to hang out with. It was a little hot when we got there but then when the sun went down a little the playground was perfect. Owen got to play with his little cousin Jaymee. She is at such a fun age!

On Sunday Jenn and Shane came to our ward. We had great lessons and it was nice to be there with family. Owen was even good for his teacher...AMAZING!

After a quick lunch we went for a drive up to cascade springs. It has always been a special place for Jeremy and I. That is where he proposed to me. Owen had so much fun and the fall colors were so pretty!

This is the exact spot where Jeremy popped the question! I am such a lucky girl to have him as my husband!

This boy never stops running!

We are pretty stylin in our shades!

Jeremy and I have been working on something big these past few weeks. It has not been going well and its hard to know what to think about it. I will post more about that later.

We have a new favorite sport!

Owen started soccer last week and he really loves it!

The coach is super nice too. She used to work with Jeremy at the Verizon store in Salt Lake.

Owen was very excited about his jersey it is #5! 5 has always been a special number in our house. Owen was born on 5/5/05 and just turned 5 and he lost 5 teeth this year so far.

Owen has always been a fast runner and he loves running up and down the field. Although the little league they are on the field is super short! It is cute and easy to watch all the action.

Owen feels pretty cool when he gets on his shin guards

This is Owen sitting out for a minute to let some of the other kids have a turn. As you can see his face is really red and his was a sweaty mess but he loved every minute of it! The best part for me is that practice is the first 20 minutes before each game so I don't have to run around more than I need to during the week. Yahoo!

School starts next Wednesday. I took him for the kindergarten aptitude tests today. He did really well on certain things. Letters, numbers, counting, sounds that letters make. He did wonderful on puzzles. The things I wasn't prepared for were things like him knowing the different coins. Maybe that is just my view as his mom I hope the teacher thinks he did great too!

What we did this summer!

I took Owen to the circus for the first time! The elephants were a big hit! Notice our boys sweet smile.....that will drastically change by the end of this post :( I miss this smile!

We played Tball for the first time. It was so fun to watch him run after the ball, Owen has quite an arm on him. Owen is the one with the red/black transformer hat on in the back row.

Jaymee girl turned 1! Owen is lucky to have a cousin as cute as her!

We went 4 wheeling for Memorial Day and Owen shot a 22 for the first time. He was listening so carefully to my dads instructions.

We went to the Bean Museum with cousin Jaymee

we made sure to get good and dirty!

We lost our first tooth about 2 days before his 5th birthday. He was so excited and proud of himself for being brave! The tooth fairy was a fun new experience.

Then the one next to it about 2 weeks later. This one didnt come out so easy and he decided tooth loss was over rated. Although still excited about the tooth fairy.

Then the top 2 got yanked out at the Freedom festival in downtown Provo on July 3rd. As you can see the other 2 that came out are starting to come back in already. This was horribly traumatic for him and if you want to read the whole story you can check it out on the blog list.

This one on the far right is gone courtesy of a punch by Owens friend.

I didnt think a kid could lose so many teeth in such a short amount of time. One thing we do know is that the Hamilton family does nothing normal. At least he is in line with that. Owen will be starting school in just about 2 more weeks. I cant wait to take his picture for the first day of school!

This is my cousin Molly and her bridesmaids at the wedding! Molly is always beautiful but that day she really looked amazing! I hope every bride looks and feels the way she did on her special day. I made the bracelets the girls are wearing too! I love them and wish I had thought to make one for myself :)

We have been trying to make the most of what is left of summer at our house. Lots of outside time, eating otter pops all day long, going to the pool and playing with friends. That last one is really driving me nuts though lately. It seems like Owens friends are here no more than 5 minutes and they are fighting. I hear tattling all day long! "You cant be on my team",......"then im not going to be your friend anymore",....."Owen is not sharing".....ugh! It just too much some days. I try really hard to let them work it out on their own but I find myself jumping in. I dont know how he is going to survive kindergarten. Owen does really great when he is playing with just one kid but add more into it and watch out. He grabs things without asking. Purposly knocks over things his friends are playing with. I suppose its what kids do but it really bothers me. I feel like that is more of a 2 year old thing instead of a 5 year old thing.

Plus this one family of kids on our street is super loud and they do not have good manners. The other day the one little boy came over and he smelled SO strongly of poop I sent him home the minute he walked in the door.

Lucky for us we have not had any teeth knocked out for a while and hopefully we can go a long time until the next one!

Owen is getting really excited for school and asks me everyday if its time for him to wear his new clothes yet! His backpack looks really giant on him too. I am pretty sure I will be crying on the first day of school. I have no shame in it. Although i do hope i make it to the car before it comes out. :)

Jeremy and I have our 8 year anniversary this weekend.It has gone by so fast! Who knew i would know this man most of my life and now be spending eternity together! Owen will be sleeping over at my parents so we can have a night to ourselves. It will be nice to spend time together and remember the day we got married! Jeremy has been working so much overtime to help us build up a savings. We have some wonderful things in mind for the future, more on that to come!

Funny things in our lives lately!

Owen: I asked him to go upstairs after we had finished breakfast and get dressed for the day. He had on long sleeve and long pant pjs on. He came back down with shorts and a short sleeve shirt on top of his pjs. I asked him why he did that? He said I want to be like you and wear my pjs all day.......yeah he meant my garments! Poor kid! I had a good laugh about it though!

Jeremy: I had this cute white shirt that had pink flowers on it in big print. Well I was blowdrying my hair getting ready for the day and Jeremy came around the corner and said you look like a GIANT rose. Yep i changed pretty quick after that. He apparently meant it as a compliment but i didnt really like being refered to as Giant anything!

Nicole: A couple nights ago i had a strange dream that a bad guy was after me and to get away i had to jump over a stream. I made it across but hurt my leg in the process. Well in the morning when i woke up my leg hurt but i didnt think much of it. When Jeremy called on his first break he said , can we talk.I said sure and he says to me why did you jump over me last night?! I laughed so hard i guess i was sleep jumping or something. I jumped almost clean over him from my side of them bed and kinda landed on his legs. He tried to ask me what was wrong but i didnt hear him because of my earplugs. I guess i stood by the bed for a minute went in the bathroom and then came back to bed. FREAKY!!

I guess i scraped my leg on our bedframe when i jumped. Poor jeremy i think it really freaked him out! Hopefully that was the end of that.

Today was rough

So today was rough.

On Saturday Owen and I were at my grandma's house. He had been playing fetch with the dog and thrown it into the bushes/flowers at the corner of her yard. The dog went in to get it but didnt bring it back. So Owen went in to get it. He came out running and fell down on the ground crying. I knew something had bit him i just didnt know what. Turns out it was a bee sting. A really big one! Poor kid it was right and the ankle. My grandma and I got him settled down. He seemed pretty ok after a few minutes and went off playing with the dog again.

The next day when i checked it the area was a bit red and sorta puffy. I thought it was kinda strange but it had been so long since he had been stung i couldnt remember if he did that the last time too.

Last night about 2 am he woke me up and said his leg hurt and he couldnt sleep because of it. I got him back into bed and turned on the light to look at it. There was a red circle around the bite and it was warm and hard to the touch. I felt so bad for him! I got a pillow and propped up his leg so it wouldnt rest on the sheets and got a cold pack for it. I drew a line with a marker to see if it had gotten bigger in the morning and he seemed to go back to sleep pretty quickly.

This morning it wasnt as red more blotchy really but it was still warm and hard. So I called the doctor so he could check it out. He said it looks like the infx that had been starting was clearing its self up already. Just to watch it and let him know if it gets worse or doesnt resolve in a couple days. Good to know but still sad.

So after the doctor we came back home and he played with friends in the house for a while. Then i sent everyone home and told Owen we were going outside to run through the hose and he could invite one friend back to play. He chose his friend Kevin and we headed outside.

I put the sprinkler under the trampoline and went to get some sun on my lily white legs at the other end of the yard.

The boys played really well for about an hour. Then they started play fighting. I walked over and told them they had to stop or Kevin would have to go home. That someone was going to get hurt if they didnt stop. Well Owen was the one to get hurt. No sooner than I walked back to my towel and laid down did I hear Owen screaming. I turned to see what had happened and he bent down to pick something off the tramp and ran over to me screaming!

IT.... WAS..... A..... TOOTH!

Kill me now! Really???

Apparently Kevin had punched Owen in the mouth and knocked it out. That kid really IS toothless now. There are 3 missing on top and 2 missing on the bottom.

I called Kevin over to show him how sad Owen was and made him apologize. Then I sent him home. The whole time Owen is screaming. I finally got a chance to check out his mouth and made sure it had not done any more damage than the tooth. He was okay just bleeding pretty good. Make no mistake this tooth was NOT loose and in no way ready to come out. I got him cleaned up and gave him an otter pop. I figured that was the best way to make it feel better.

Owen ate it just fine considering the loss of another tooth and decided to go jump on the tramp again. I was just getting into my book and I hear screaming again.

This time a bee sting on the knuckle.

It was too much for this poor kid. He was screaming so loud and hyperventilating too. That was it for our outdoor fun for the day.

We went inside and since we were both sweaty and Owen still had blood on him and otter pop juice we jumped in the shower to rinse off.

As i was washing his hair and he has his eyes closed he reached for me and fell hard on the side of the tub. Like if I fell i would have broken a few ribs. MORE screaming.

At this point I am pretty sure the neighbors are gonna report me for child abuse.

I got him out of the tub and checked him over. Once again he seemed ok. Nothing broken or blood. Thank goodness.

It has been a very long day filled with bad accidents and I am so glad its over. Im sure Owen is too.

Lets hope tomorrow is a better day, lets face it though its gotta be better than this!

Toothless

So this weekend started off great. We took Owen downtown to the Freedom Festival. He saw the bounce houses and wanted to get on! This one turned out to be really sad for us. See that net that is tied up with string? It wasn't that way before. Jeremy made them tie it up after Owen went down and caught his two front teeth in it. He got to the bottom and was crying so hard he couldn't talk. I walked over and lifted up his lip to see where the blood was coming from and his two front teeth were gone!!

It was really sad and bloody! He was crying really hard for about 15 min and then after he had some ice it got a little better. As you can see from this picture there were two giant holes and we both felt really bad for him. Both of his bottom teeth had fallen out recently and as you can tell they are starting to grow in already. We called the dentist and he told us the top ones usually dont start to fall out till you are at-least 7. So it will be a long 2 years without teeth! Poor Owen even has a lisp now and wants us to call him TOOTHLESS just like on the movie: how to train your dragon. He was super brave what a way to spend the weekend!

We did have some great bbq's with both of our families and lots of fireworks. It was not really that hot this weekend either and that made it so much more enjoyable! I love the 4th of July it one of my favorite holidays. My sister and I took Owen to the parade too. He thought the bands were really cool and the BYU cougar. Everything else was blah to him and he was bored.

I love watching the Vets roll by in old cars though. There was a car rolling by with a lot of Vets in it and this sweet old man in front of us with KOREA on the back of his hat stood up and saluted them. I totally teared up. I cant help being choked up at things like that. I am so grateful we live where we do and have all the freedom we have because of men and women just like that.

The path we travel

The path we have been on for the last 3 years has not been as smooth as the above picture shows. There have been many ups and downs along the way. Moments we have been very grateful for and moments we wish we could forget.

They all have been leading us to the place we reached today!

I got my liver biopsy results back and they are so good!

The doctor called this afternoon herself to tell me the good news.

When I answered the phone I thought it would be the nurse like always and when I realized it was the doctor I got really nervous that it might be bad news. I asked her how she was doing today and she said,"almost as good as you!" It brought an immediate smile to my face! She told me that the biopsy showed NO evidence of cirrhosis. The only thing it showed was a small amount of scarring and a slight fatty liver. Both can be completely resolved with continued diet and exercise. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! It was so wonderful! I told the doctor thank you!!! She said it had made her day too and congratulations!

I will still go back in August for one more round of blood work and to discuss going off the short list of medications they have me on. But that is basically it!

We are so thrilled and look at the last 3 years with amazement.

To come from the dark places we have been to where we are now is such a big transition. Through all of it I feel like keeping a good attitude has helped so much. I don't know if I could get to where I am today without having a positive attitude about it all. Going to the temple and prayer have helped us so much. Keeping those eternal things in mind through all this did not make decisions easier but they did put a sense of comfort into it.

I am so glad that we went through the trials and came out with a good sense of faith and self reliance before I got the good news. It made it so much easier to deal with and know that come what may Heavenly Father has everything under control. My story is not in the very scary category's of cancer survivors and people that have had a child pass away but, I know how it feels to be told you will not recover from this and come out knowing no matter what I will. Some of you out there think wow she has a new lease on life now, how wonderful I wish I had that.

Truth is I knew it the moment they told me I would indefinitely need a transplant. I found my strength and faith before all this good news so it is just whip cream on top! Thanks to all of my great friends and family out there who have supported us and kept us in your prayers.

Miracles DO Happen!

x0x0x0

Summertime is awesome!

We have been having so much fun in the sun! I got a cheap pool for the backyard and we have been in it everyday since! Owen has little friends knocking at the door at 8am....that part stinks but its great to have summer back! My flowers are all sprouting up and look so pretty in my front yard!

My niece Jaymee had her first birthday and it was so fun! We took her with us to the bean museum. She is at such a fun age!

Owen is still playing tball and getting much better at it. He is staying in his section and will stop at the base instead of running a homer every time he is up to bat. I think his favorite part is really the treats at the end of every game, boys they love the treats!

Jeremy is still working crazy hours he usually gets about 70 per week. But when he is off we play hard! For Memorial Day we went 4 wheeling with my family down by the sand dunes. We didnt brave those, we went a little more north of them where there is tree's and lots of sagebrush. It was a perfect day! We had so much fun on the 4 wheelers and Owen got to shoot a 22 for the first time. I think he thought he was pretty cool to shoot with the boys. Jeremy is looking forward to another trip with just the boys in july. I dont mind since that gives me a night with the girls!

We decided with all that has been happening with my liver it was time for another biopsy. The last one was 3 years ago and since it is really the only definitive way to tell if the cirrhosis is gone we decided to go ahead. That was before I learned they dont put you out. YIKES! The place they are sending me does conscience sedation......all i hear when they said that was still awake and able to hear them talk about " hand me the needle." I thought calling the place to ask some questions would help me reason what was going to happen. I told them I was coming for a Liver biopsy that i was nervous and had some questions. The lady said, " I DONT BLAME YOU." Do we say that to someone??? Needless to say it didnt help me feel better and I havent got much sleep since. I dont think I will until its over. Its Thursday morning so I dont have to wait much longer. It will be nice to have the results back and find out what really going on with my inside.