Just so we’re perfectly clear about our intentions, our child will be introduced to Star Wars with Episode IV: The New Hope.

Our agency is often called to a hospital when a woman in labor wants to place her baby for adoption. ”Immediate hospital placement,” means we could get a call at any time.

Adoptive parents who are interested in this type of “instant” placement are required to work fast in order to be prepared to take home a baby with very little notice.

So, we’re shopping for car seats. Because you can’t leave a hospital with a baby without one!

During this process, we have realized that owning a cute, tiny Fiat 500 adds a certain level of difficulty. Gosh, Fiat’s are small! But, we have faith we will succeed and soon be posting a picture of our new car seat!

Jay inspects the knobs, dials and buttons on the back of a car seat in Babies R Us.

Elvis!!!

Oh yes, we did!

This year marks our five year wedding anniversary and we decided to do something memorable… We renewed our vows in Las Vegas, with Elvis.

The wait for a baby to join our family has been difficult. Seems like everyone we know is getting pregnant and having babies. We know we have to be patient, our birthmother is out there somewhere, we just haven’t met her yet… But still, waiting is hard.

Our trip to Las Vegas was a way for us to enjoy just being a couple. We both left our laptops (and our work) behind and focused our energy on each other. We dined at some amazing restaurants, walked down Las Vegas Boulevard and soaked up the sun. Oh, and we renewed our vows, with Elvis!

We figured if we’re going to Las Vegas for our anniversary, we should do it right. And Elvis just seemed, right. We had no idea that we would have this much fun. Elvis aka Harry, at the Graceland Wedding Chapel was a brilliant Elvis. As you can see in the video, it was all laughs! And we haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. We’ll definitely be taking our child to meet Elvis, maybe for our 10 year anniversary?

So here’s to celebrating more anniversaries and enjoying life to the fullest!

Jay and Staci at the bottom of the mountain after a fun day of skiing/snowboarding in Tahoe.

We drove up to Tahoe and spent the weekend with Jay’s sister, brother-in-law and our two nieces skiing and snowboarding our butts off.

Jay hadn’t been skiing since high school and I (Staci) had never been snowboarding before.  So we spent half of our first day in class learning how to control our speed and turn. Staci spent a lot of time on her rear end, but it was totally worth it.

The second day we were both able to ride the lift and tackle the green slopes. It helped build our confidence and we both felt pretty cool being able to make it all the way down.

On the drive back we talked about how much fun it will be to bring our child up to see the beautiful mountains and enjoy a day at ski school (or snowboarding school).

We can’t wait till next ski season! Hopefully, we’ll be a family of three and we’ll get to use the “parent predicament pass” and spend time with both our new baby and the mountains.

So this year, for her fifth birthday party, Staci went all out. The instructions were pretty clear, it has to be a dolphin, it has to be pink, and maybe there could be some sparkles and some swirls…

Pink, glittery dolphin cake.

Here are the instructions Staci followed to construct the dolphin cake. It involved two 9″ rounds, a ton of homemade frosting and this dolphin cake template. It really was pretty easy to create.

Staci loves baking and decorating cakes. She remembers all the fun times she and her mom had making birthday cakes for her younger sisters. In fact, Staci loved decorating cakes so much that her first job in high school was working at Baskin Robbins. It took her a few years, but she finally got promoted to cake decorator!

Use the comments below to fill in the blank.

Adoption means ___________.

Staci, Jay and Cody Monster on the cliffs overlooking the ocean near Bodega Bay.

We spent a few days up in Bodega Bay with our nieces to celebrate the new year. We rented an adorable cottage with a fireplace and a hot tub. Most of the time we sat around playing games and eating. On New Year’s Day we picked up some live crab and cooked our first crab dinner. This is going to be a new family tradition!

Dinner is served! Fresh crab and hot garlic butter. Yum!

It’s that time of year where we’re full of hope and good cheer…We know that our birthmother is out there…somewhere, and that soon we ‘ll have a baby to warm our hearts and our home. We feel very positive that 2013 will be our year!

Our nieces, Mia and Ellerie opening their gifts on Christmas day.

We made our annual trek to Benihana a little earlier this year – Christmas Eve instead of New Year’s Eve – and introduced some new friends to the fun!

On Christmas morning, we threw on our shoes and coats (over our flannel jammies) and sped over to Jay’s sister’s to watch our nieces open their gifts.

Watching Mia and Ellerie open their gifts and then playing with them on Christmas day was so much fun. Mia and Staci built a room for Barbie, complete with a working fan that they engineered! Staci and the girls played with Play-Doh and Jay taught Mia how to fly her new remote-controlled helicopter. Then, of course, the girls had to try on all their new clothes. We can’t wait to have this much fun with our child!

Our friends Bob and Margaret cooked a delicious dinner and we played card games while Cody Monster played with Bob and Margaret’s dogs Izzy and Ramsey.

We ended Christmas day by having a second dinner at Denny’s! We think this will probably become a new family tradition.