We are 100% ready

So with the announcement comes the great prospect of people knowing and telling people and the people telling people and so forth. We are excited for everyone in the world to know! We want everyone to know how ready we are for 10 tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes. We are ready for bottles and sleepless nights. We are ready for little laughs, smiles and toots. For trips to the ER for a late night ear infection check.....for everything in the house to be a disaster because we are too busy taking care of and playing with our baby. We have waited so long that it seems like torture to have to wait longer. Praying that our baby finds us soon. Just saying!!

Now with that off my chest, I must say that I love this picture of my Tatum. She is my little peanut. She is my baby already and I am so glad. She has been saying funny things lately and has taken a liking to sleeping in her undies. Every day is entertaining with this one.

With General Conference tomorrow and Sunday I am anticipating some very welcomed council and some much needed spiritual food. It is wonderful to know that our Father in Heaven is going to have His prophet and counselors tell us the things that He wants us to know. Conference day is a good day. Not only is it a good day to reflect on what we need to be doing in our lives..... it is treat day! Whoo hoo! Looking forward to it so much!

We want to adopt!

Ok. We are ready. Shane and I have decided to try to adopt a baby and we are so excited!! It has been a long hard road to add to our family and without going into too much depth and detail it has broken our hearts a hundred times over that we have not been successful yet. We would love to be able to provide a sibling for our little girl and so this is the best thing ever. I can't think of anything better to do than to adopt. It just makes a lot of sense to us because I myself am adopted, my mom is adopted, my aunt is adopted and my two cousins are adopted. My family's lives have been so touched by adoption that everyone is very excited that we have decided to do this. My whole life I have wanted to adopt someone. We are so blessed to be able to have this opportunity to try.

We just finished our homestudy. Our link will be up soon and we are hoping that we can get some mothers and fathers who are considering placing their baby for adoption to look at our blog. We have a love that is already growing for our child's birthparents. Especially their birthmother. I just know she is going to be amazing. Here is our birthparent letter. It will be up on the LDS Family Services website very very soon:

Hello,

We are very happy that you are reading our profile. We are praying that you will have guidance at this time. Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know us a little better.

We have been married for 8 blissful years and love living life together. We both feel that eternity is not long enough to spend with each other. We have one precious daughter Tatum, who is five years old and wants to be a big sister very badly. As her parents, it has broken our hearts to not be able to provide her with that thus far. However, we have found hope!

Adoption runs in the family so it only feels natural for us to want to do it. Shelley herself was adopted from LDS family services and has had the best experience with being adopted. Her mother is also adopted. Her father's sister is adopted and so are her cousins.The subject of adoption and birth parents happens to be very close to her heart. We very much wish to have a relationship with our child's birth parents if that is their desire.

Shane is the most genuinely kind, caring person that I know. He is very patient, calm and happy. He is a go with the flow type of person and I just love that! He is such a sweet father and I love the way Tatum makes his face light up. It makes my day to see it every time. Although he is humble and would never tell you, he is freakishly good at everything he does. This occurs mostly in sports. It's unnatural! He actually earned the nickname Scooter in high school because of his speed. He is an avid mountain/road biker and participates in many races. Tatum and I enjoy going to them and watching him finish! I tear up almost every time. I am so proud of him. He also makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the universe. Being with my husband is always a pleasant experience and he is my best friend. My everything.

Shelley is the sweetest, charitable person I know. She gives of her time and talents so often to help and bless others. She is a very outgoing, outspoken person. She loves her family very much and would do anything for them. Shelley has so many talents it is tough to name them all. She has a very pretty voice and there is rarely a time where I don't hear her humming or singing a song. She was a swimmer throughout high school and now uses those skills to teach young children how to swim. She started making hair bows when our daughter was born and loved it so much that it is something that she is still doing. She has such a creative and artistic mind that her patterns and designs come naturally to her. She has fun playing dress up with our only daughter and is such a wonderful mother. I love her so much words cannot express it.

Tatum is a beautiful, sweet, loving and outgoing little girl. She loves animals, playing with her cousins and excels in gymnastics and music. If she could wish for anything in the world it would be for a baby brother or sister to love.

We hope that you will consider us as a family for your child. We know that adoption is not about saying goodbye, it is about having everyone come together for the success of the child. It is a blessing to all involved and we know this to be true.

Thanks for getting to know us a little bit! We would love you to get to know us better at shelleyandshane.blogspot.com.

With Love,

Shane and Shelley

So. There it is! We are looking forward to the roller coaster and journey that adoption has to offer. We DO love roller coasters....isn't that the truth! Thanks to all of our family and friends for the support that we have received. You are ALL ROCKSTARS and words will never be able to express how much we love you. XOXOXO.

She would make the best, cutest big sister ever!

Soccer!

Last night was Tatum's first soccer game ever. She did GREAT! We were so proud of her. Lets just say that she got the best of both of us! I for one am NOT a ball sports girl. (My talents lie elsewhere!) I would daydream and jump around.....occasionally pick at the grass and duck when the ball came my way. Shane on the other hand was/is a superstar. In all sports. Period. Tatum was fast in getting the ball to the other side and was always in front. She still needs to learn the game and I thought she did pretty good for this being the second time she has been on the soccer field(the other one being a practice). There was tons of laughter and entertainment as these little girls scramble to "score" goals. The best was when Tatum wasn't paying attention at all during the game and was skipping around and staring at the kids doing chants and cheers. Reminded me of myself and I had to laugh. I could tell Shane was a little frustrated at first to see it but then he remembered she is only five. It was hilarious!

Shwiggles came to the game. She wanted to play so bad!

Hand. Some. I am a lucky girl.

Little Swayze took these two shots. I thought she did a good job!

This is Shane explaining to Tatum how the game is played. He is excited to take her to the park across the street so he can teach her how to control that ball!

Swayze and Tatum. Best girl cousins! These two are 6 months apart and love each other. Two peas in a pod! They even look alike! Crazy. Here's to a great soccer season......fun to see your kid run around and have so much fun playing a sport. I am crossing my fingers that she inherited her daddy's love for sports! GO Tateee bugs.

8 years baby!

On September 5th we celebrated our 8th anniversary! It is fun being married to this guy. He is the most handsome person I have ever met. He never gets very mad. He is patient. He is sweet. He is wonderful. He GETS me and I GET him. We go together! You get it right? Sappy, I know. I just can't say enough about how happy he makes me. I think it is so fun how much we like each other still after 8 years. I am so glad that I have eternity to spend with my husband. I have always said that eternity is really truly not long enough. I need an eternity of eternities to be with him. I love my Shane. Glad he's mine! Here are a couple of pictures of our anniversary day!

We took this little one out to breakfast with us in the morning. She is sweet. She is funny. WE love having her tag along.

This picture above was snapped by the smallest member of our family. She thinks she is big enough to take pictures now and so this is the one she took of us while we were eating breakfast. I thought she captured a good happy moment! Way to go Tatum. Too bad the light was shining so bright.

We had a really nice day. I wish that there were more pictures! There was shopping. Window shopping, we didn't actually find anything that we wanted to buy, but it was just nice to be together. My sister Megan and her husband Jeff picked up Tater tots and took her with them so that Shane and I could go out. We went to Lucille's BBQ. Pretty good! It was a simple anniversary.............just the way we like it!

Sometimes I feel like shouting "I'm in love I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!" (Elf)

Being married is just the way I pictured it 8 years ago. I thought I loved him then......wow do I love him now. Happy anniversary babe.

( I just re-read this post....and while it is ALL true.....I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Our lives seem too perfect and it is a little sickening!)

I would like to include in my anniversary post this cute lady. She was in a crazy car accident on our anniversary. They took her to the hospital and cut off all of her clothes! She is ok and just very sore. We are so thankful to Heavenly Father that she didn't get hurt. She came home in these cute paper scrubs! Love her. "Hey mom! Where is your fall risk bracelet?" Beeenow Beeenow!

Swim meets

This summer has been such a fun one! I wanted to make sure that I posted some of Tatum's swim meets. The first video on the top is of her first backstroke meet and she is the 4th or 5th one in. It is kind of hard to tell and I am kind of shaky in my videography....(hey I am getting better!) She did so great and surprised us all with her placing sixth overall the 6 and under division in backstroke. We were very proud of our little swimmer! She is only 5 this year and so for her to take a spot in the top 8 in the city is pretty cool. She also qualified in freestyle and breast stroke but made it to the finals in the backstroke. She loves swimming! GO TATUM!!! You are the cutest swimmer ever.

Here is the video of city finals. She is in lane 5!

Two YEARS?

Well it has been two years since my last post. How sad! It breaks my heart to think that I have neglected our blog this long. So what has happened in the last two years? While we are still the same little family of three, our lives have drastically changed. We have moved, had a wedding, lots of new baby cousins, 8 chickens, a hamster, a guinea pig, two summers of swim lessons, two years of Tatum being on swim team, tons of gymnastics, six birthdays total( Can't believe we are both going to be rockin in our 30's in January!!) a handful of trips to the happiest place on earth, the passing of my beloved grandparents, a very scary hospital stay...so happy she is healthy and doing well now. Tatum started Kindergarten a couple of days ago and can read thanks to Miss Rita Lyon's preschool. She is doing great!

I am going to post some pictures of some of the fun things we have done in the past two years worth noting and while we did have our computer crash with a BUNCH of our dear pictures on it, I still managed to scrounge some things up. So while I have a small team working diligently to get our precious pictures out of our hard drive.....here are some that I found lying around.

This is the most handsome guy I have ever seen. Period.

For my birthday Shane and I went to LasVegas. It was fun to walk the strip and see all the sights. There was so much to see and do........Bellagio water show is pretty cool!

Our self portraits are so funny!!

We went to Tucson to see Matt, Allie, Nash and new baby Maisy. This was at the hotel pool!

The best part of these pictures are that they are right after Tatum found the freezing cold water jug and while Uncle Jake was laying out taking a nap Tatum poured freezing water all over his chest. It was one of the funniest things I have seen in a while...pee pee diaper takes the cake in my life for funny moments......refer to an old post and you will see where she gets it from! My little stinker.

Just hanging out poolside together:) :) :)

You can see Tatum posing and Daddy swimming laps.

On May 28th 2010 my sister Allie had a beautiful baby girl that we call Maisy Lenore. Here she is with her favorite Aunt all wrapped up in the blanket I made for her. Precious. We love Maisy girl so much.

Tatum's first year of swim team at 4 years old! She loved every minute of it and did so well. We were very proud of our little ham. She thinks she is so big!

This was a very very sleepy haircut. It was so sweet she was nodding off the whole time. She must have been so relaxed while Auntie Megan was cutting her hair. It was amazing.....she just fell asleep!

Kami Tatum Lauryn

Water day!

Needs no words.

This picture is of Shane helping our little girl boogie board for the first time ever in Carlsbad.

I DO love those sandy little toes that belong to a sandy little girl........and my handsome husband below.

What.......................

A POSER!

Oh my goodness. She is too much!

Legoland

A sicky girl with her tray of ramen noodles and sprite from Sonic. I think there is not one thing that I would not do for her when she is sick. When she doesn't feel good it is WHATEVER she wants.

Maisy Moo! Two months old.

Tatum and Toby. That dog loves that little girl! I found them curled up together and thought that I ought to take a picture of that!

Tatum still has a very healthy obsession for ponies and horses and makes sure that she tells us she wants one almost every other day. Oh boy!

Helping Aunt Meggie open her presents.

Bridal showers are fun for the flower girl too! Tatum is good at opening presents.

See this kid is a pony magnet. She wants to have a horse someday. She tells me all the time. I told her that if she wants a horse someday that she is going to have to marry a cowboy!

Tatum in her dress ups(note that her cheetah is wearing a dress up also) and Toby the lion dog. You can usually find him lying of the back cushion of the couch.

It's too sunny to smile!!

My little sister is married now. Wow. Megan and Jeff Allen. Cutest couple ever. So proud to call her my sister! Glad to have such a fun and goofy brother in law Jeffy!

Cabin trip! Most of us there.( We were missing Cody and Ashley) It was a complete zoo but pure bliss. We went on a walk in the park and fed the ducks at the lake. Above the kids are in the loft..... their favorite hang out.

Feeding the duckies!

Dress up with cousins......just a random day. I thought it was so cute they way they put the outfits together. Quite the fashionistas if I do say so myself. The feather mask is Kami the bride is Tatum and the pink hat sunglass girl is Grace.

Before we left for our trip to Disneyland we had a little ice cream and cake party with Tatum's favorite friends....her cousins! Just a couple of shots with some very dear people in them. Can't believe she is FIVE!

We decided to do something different and fun as a family. We went to Disneyland all dressed as the characters of Snow White for Mickey's Halloween party. It was loads of fun with great trick or treating and a crazy dance party.

I think Shane is thrilled to be wearing the prince costume that I made. He does make a handsome prince. Tatum was princess Snow white, I was the villan (insert evil laugh here)....the Evil Queen.

The end of a fantastic night and One. Sleepy. Girl.

Happy 5th birthday baby girl! I can't believe you are five years old. Feels just like yesterday they placed you in our arms for the first time. You are so precious.

Just waiting for the shuttle.

Got to see RAPUNZEL!!

Ok. So this picture of Tatum is right after she had her face painted. I had no idea she would make such an adorable kitty. She was so happy and loved it....... until it started itching which is when she asked if we could go on Splash Mountain so the water would wash it off. Smart girl!!

Here is the picture of us on splash mountain. It totally makes me laugh so I had to put it on here. It was late and we were tired from an all riding spree.We caught Taters mid blink in both of the pictures so it looks even worse. Too funny!!

Halloween princess fairy. So sweet and innocent. Sometimes I wish that I could freeze time just for a little bit. She is growing up very fast and I need her to slow down!! Such a sweet princess fairy.

Halloween night at the ward party. Tatum decided she would be a fairy princess instead of snow white again.

Ma Ma Ma and Pa Pa Pa!! Just would not be Halloween if we didn't go trick or treating there!

Girl poses and boy poses. This is something they conjured up themselves. Pretty clever if I do say so myself!

My good learner!! Getting so smart in this picture.

Mother & daughter on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving. I have a beautiful mother and sisters.

Tatum fell asleep after the Breinholt family Christmas party just like this with her new Maximus that Grandma and Grandpa gave her.

The highlight of Christmas....the Rapunzel wig that got returned because it got "tangled" on the first day!

Shane makes the very best chocolate chip cookies. It was so cute that he shaped a cookie in a T for Tatum!

This is such a sad sight. Tatum was in the hospital due to stomach trouble. It was so hard to see her hooked up to the I.V. So hard to see them stick her in the arm. So hard to see my baby get a spinal tap. So hard to see her in pain. They did every test under the sun. We never did get any clear cut answers but in the end the biopsy of her stomach said that she had inflammation in the stomach lining. She had GERD when she was a baby. They don't know why she didn't feel like eating but they fixed the problem and she is doing pretty good now. She adds new foods to her diet all of the time( and discards old ones......but who's counting!) and we are making great progress. She is very healthy and we can't ask for more. We are just glad that hospital stay is BEHIND us.

Bridget, Emma and Swayze came to visit Tatum while she was in the hospital. She was very glad to see them! By the time they came she had started to get better and was going stir crazy. Such fun friends. We love them!

Toby? I am so sorry. This is the price you pay for us......Tatum needs a sibling.....I know. You are such a trooper!

We painted this sweeet sign for my mom's birthday. If you can't read it it says Happy Birthday PATTY WHACK! Sometimes I like to call her that. Happy birthday Nama Pat.

Boy poses and Girl poses! Nash and Tatum.

They have started this when we take pictures of them.

Me, Shane and my little brother Jake a.k.a. JXTC.

My sister is gorgeous. Matt you are too.

Maisy and her FAVORITE Auntie. This girl makes me so happy. She is such a good girl and leaves the bows I make for her on her head most of the time. What a sweetie.

Being an air bender.

Allie, Shelley Jake, Megan Nash and Tatum....missing one brother....Chase!

Took Tatum snowboarding for the first time. She did awesome! Can't wait to ride all over the mountain with her someday. I need a girl to ride with!

Here we are. One happy family.

So there it is. Two years in a nutshell. I have to say that it feels great to be recording life again. Watching our daughter grow into this wonderful little being is such a humbling and beautiful experience. I don't want to forget anything that happens in our lives. It's perfect. I can't help but be so thankful for the things that the Lord has blessed us with. We are very fortunate.

Dug up one last video. This is Tatum singing her song on Christmas Eve. It is a hard one to watch because I can't hold the camera straight! So I am including the second take at the other family Christmas party!!