Welcome Ryker

In October my Dad's good friend let us know that someone he knew was looking to place her baby for adoption and thought of us (we are so grateful to Bob!) We passed along our adoption profile book and she liked us! Sandra told us that she was due January 31st. With Jax we had about 2 1/2 weeks notice and that was too long so this seemed like an eternity to wait. I figured with all the holidays we would be busy (we were) and the wait wouldn't seem so long but I was wrong. At the beginning of November we met with Sandra and her Mom Debbie to get to know each other a little bit and we got to see the ultrasounds of baby boy. She told us that her last baby was born three weeks early and could come any time in January. This was both exciting(less waiting) and made us a little nervous as we had the trip to Florida with Luke's family the first week in January. I would like to say that after our first adoption that we were old pros at this but that would be lying. I was still nervous that things would go wrong but I wasn't the emotional roller coaster that I was with Jaxon. I think that because the one thing I learned with the adoption of Jax was that Heavenly Father has a plan for us. Jaxon was his plan for Luke and I and if this new baby was part of the plan things would work out. We made it back from our trip to Florida without incident and got packed and ready to leave whenever we got the word.  Sandra told us she would be induced on Wednesday at her doctor's appointment so Luke, Jax, Baxter, and I loaded up the car and headed to Idaho. Ryker Allen was born 1/15 at 1:41 AM 8 lbs 3 oz 20in long. Little Ryker was born where my parents live which worked out really well as they were able to watch Jax while we were at the hospital for the birth. Our first sight of little guy was as they wheeled him by us on the way to the NICU. They were a little concerned about his breathing so they hooked him up to oxygen and some antibiotics.

 It was a little nerve wracking to see such a little guy hooked up to all that stuff and not really being able to hold him.

 Somewhere along the way to Idaho I noticed that I had a headache and a scratchy throat. As we were waiting for Ryker to be born I was feeling tired and achy. I just chalked that up to a long day of driving and staying up late. When they were taking care of our sweet boy in the NICU I kept feeling like I was going to pass out. Turns out I had the flu! Talk about the worst time ever to be sick. At about 4:30 in the morning I left Luke and Ryker at the hospital to try and get some sleep and spent a miserable two days on the couch while Luke stayed with our new little guy and my mom watched Jax.

Luke was amazing taking care of both boys. He took Jax to this fun trampoline place that he loved. I have an awesome husband!

This was the first time they let little guy get dressed. 

Visits from Grandma, Aunt Lindsey and sick Momma at the hospital.

Getting all ready to leave the hospital. Jax isn't even two but I forgot how tiny newborns seem.

Meeting big brother for the first time. "Nose!"

Uncle Jesse, Aunt Tiffany, and cousin Leah came to say hi.

My handsome boys.

This little stinker has taken to sneaking out of his crib (the big boy bed is being delivered this week!) and wondering around with his blanket on his head to make him invisible. Silly boy.

I love this picture. It perfectly depicts the big brother, little brother relationship in our house right now. The first few days after we brought Ryker home Jax completely ignored him. Then Jax started to love "baby brother." Now Ryker gets lots and lots of hugs and kisses from big brother :)

 

Ryker being born in Idaho was perfect for us as we got to spend time with both our families so they could meet our new little guy.

A Few of Jax's Favorite Things

Our baby is getting so big! I love watching Jax explore the world and he makes me smile every day. He is great at tormenting loving on Baxter. His favorite place to be is on his daddy's shoulders.

 He enjoys splashing around during bath time and trying to drink the water. He loves to watch out the window and be outside.

He loves to squeal, make loud noises, run around, give kisses, and to be the center of attention. He loves the credits of movies. We aren't sure if its the scrolling black and white words, the music or both but he gets mesmerized by the screen and dances (his dancing involves waving his right arm). His favorite books are "That's Not My Dinosaur..." and "Are You a Cow?" We read them over and over. He walks around all day saying "Da-da", "Daddy", and "doggy". When you try to get him to say Momma he just smiles at you like "thats a funny word". Such a fun cute little guy!



The Story of Jaxon

So..we had been trying to start a family for a while and things were not working out the way we had hoped. We were moving around a lot for the end of Luke's rotations and it was hard to get in to see a specialist. When we finally did, that started a long process of tests and procedures. The end result was that we wouldn't be able to get pregnant. I was devastated and I was mad. I was mad at God for not answering our prayers the way I wanted. I was mad at everyone around me who was getting pregnant so easily. I felt like a failure. I was unable to do the thing that women were made for and I felt like I was letting Luke down. I felt like Heavenly Father was saying I would be a bad mother. Over the years my attitude has slowly changed. It is still hard sometimes but I am much more positive about things. 
We decided that adoption was the way for us to have a family and that was a whole other frustrating process. We tried to go through LDS Family Services and they told us they had too many people in Colorado to help and kept trying to divert us to a different agency. After a year or so we decided to try a new agency and we are so glad we did! I felt at peace. This was who we were supposed to be with. We were with Adoption Center of Choice since the beginning of this year. They would call every week-ish telling us they were showing our profile to a prospective birth mother. This was great! Things were finally happening!! I knew that it still might take a while but as long as things felt like they were moving I could be mostly patient. February 19th we got a call that a mother and her oldest daughter liked our profile and they would let us know if we were the right family before the week was out. I was a nervous wreck. I was jumpy at every phone call and text hoping it was the agency with good news. February 21st they finally told us that she had chosen us and her due date for the baby boy was the beginning of March. Both times they talked to us we were at work and I was worthless for the rest of the day. I pretty much had a panic attack (in a good way)! I was so excited and so nervous at the same time. So much to do, so little time and so many things that could go wrong!

I didn't want to tell anybody in case she changed her mind but we told our parents and a few people from church. It was such a hard thing to keep secret. I wanted to tell everybody that we were finally getting a baby!! Especially when I went to a cousins baby shower. I felt a little bipolar. I would get really excited and and go crazy looking at baby stuff then I would get really sad thinking that it possibly couldn't happen. Poor Luke.

We got to talk to the birth mother three times before we went out for the birth. She told us that our profile had been her favorite and then her 11 year-old daughter also picked out our profile so she felt we were the right couple. We thought that was pretty cool. She told us a little about her history and her 4 daughters. She let us know that she was having a scheduled C-section on March 13th. We planned to drive out to Minnesota on the 11th and meet her the day before and be there for the birth.

Those were the longest two and a half weeks of my life. It seemed like such a short time when they told us and then it just dragged on and on. I was definitely glad the wait wasn't any longer.

On the 10th we were all ready and packed up to drive out in the morning. Just as we got into bed we got a text saying that she was having pain and was going to the hospital and they would keep us posted. A couple of hours later they told us that she was being admitted and they were going to do the C-section. We were definitely disappointed not to be there for the birth but we drove 14 hours to Minnesota and still managed to be there to meet him on the day he was born.

Jaxon Cooper was born March 11 at 2:01am. 8 lbs 11 oz 20 in long. He was the most perfect thing I had ever seen. I picked him up and never wanted to put him down. The nurses were really excited to show us his full head of hair and kept telling us how big his feet were.

Jax had to stay in the hospital until his birth mother was discharged so we visited them both over the next couple of days. The birth mother also had to wait 72 hours after the birth before she could sign the papers so mostly we tried to be patient in our hotel room. This is the first picture of our new family!

We were told that due to paperwork and things we could be in Minnesota for up to three weeks. Our work people sent us off with tons of snacks for us to eat while we were stuck in a hotel. Although we missed Jaxon's birth it actually worked out pretty well moving things up faster. Our lawyer was very proactive about getting everything done and we were able to leave Friday the 15th. We were so excited to take our little guy home. We started home Friday afternoon and ran into a snow storm and had to stay the night in Fargo. We made it home Saturday night and came home to this...

Some friends from the ward decorated the house for Jax's home-coming. Everybody was so excited for us and so excited to meet him. This was his first meeting with Baxter...

We have been waiting such a long time for Jax to come into our lives and he is definitely worth the wait! Heavenly Father truely answered our prayers with this beautiful little guy and we could not be more happy.

The Story of Us

This is the story of us as told by Courtnie. I met Luke through my roommate. They were friends before his mission and she brought him over to our apartment a few times. Each time Luke would introduce himself and say "I haven't met you before." I quit correcting him after the third time he did this. He will also deny that this ever happened.

After hanging out for a few months I knew he was the one! I just had to wait until he realized I was the one. Luke had an internship in Michigan over the summer and invited me to visit him for a week. He took me swimming in Lake Michigan. It was very, very cold! As I was getting ready to walk into the airport he told me he loved me. All week he had been trying to get me to say it first. I had kissed him first so I wasn't doing this as well! He was having a good time tormenting me. When I was flying home I thought finally! This could go somewhere someday. The day after I got back home Luke called and asked me how I felt about getting married. I was so shocked it literally took my breath away! After he got back from Michigan he proposed in person. He took me down to St. George and we went hiking to the top of Angel's Landing in Zions' National Park. After we got good and sweaty we had our lunch where he had written me a nice romantic note and then he proposed to me (with the ring of my dreams) and I said yes! Of course the camera was mostly dead so we only got 2 pictures and not of us together. After we got cleaned up we went to see My Fair Lady at the Tuacan. I married a great guy!

Lake Michigan

 Angel's Landing



Logan Temple

As told by Luke: My friend introduced me to her roommate Courtnie and after we had done a few things as a group I realized that Courtnie was awesome. We started dating and really enjoyed spending time together. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I realized I wanted to marry her after I went to Michigan for a summer internship. We spoke on the phone every day and she flew out to visit for a week. One day I asked her if she had thought about marrying me. Turns out she was interested, so we continued to talk about it. In July we considered getting married in August, but her mother strongly objected, so we decided on October.

We officially got engaged in Zion's National Park at the top of Angel's Landing. I made us some bag lunches exactly as Courtnie liked, and put a note in her bag with a romantic expression of love and while she read it I dropped to one knee and displayed the ring. Of course she said "Yes!" and after a sweaty hug and kiss and a tasty lunch we climbed back down and told everyone the good news.

We got married at the Logan Temple and had a nice luncheon with our family and friends. I skipped college classes Monday to extend our weekend honeymoon, then it was back to school. As a wedding gift we got a honeymoon cruise down the Mexican Riviera. 

We Love to Travel

We love to find new places to visit. Here are some of our favorites!

 Both Luke's and my family came to visit us while we were living in Hawaii for one of Luke's school rotations. We did some island hopping and got out of rainy Hilo (where we were staying) to enjoy some sunshine.

 In Alaska (another rotation) the boys did some halibut fishing and my family did our best to find my grandpa a bear (otherwise he said the trip would be wasted :)) as we explored the glaciers and forest.

 My favorite place is Disneyland! Luke had never been there before and he was a good sport. I wore a princess crown and Luke wore an Indiana Jones hat to get into the magic.

The best value for a vacation could be a cruise. We learned to love them on our honeymoon and took our second to the Caribbean. We drove to Texas and stopped to see the San Antonio River walk before departing. We went swimming with the sting rays (kiss them for 7 years good luck!), and visited the ruins of Tulum.



While living in New Mexico we got to see a lot of Native American history. Our favorite were the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde. It was cool to actually go inside the ruins and explore. We were a little misled in a hike that we thought would be short but just kept going and going. It was pretty though! 

 

A lot of our vacations are tag-along trips with our parents. Here we are at the ruins of Chitchen Itza in Mexico with Luke's parents. We were sad they wouldn't let us climb to the top but it was so hot we might have passed out.

We get to drive by the beautiful Tetons and Teton National Park any time we go visit our families. Sometimes we stop to take a hike or try to find some of the wildlife. Here we are at Jenny Lake with Courtnie's family. We only stayed still just long enough for the picture while mosquitoes were eating us alive then ran for it.

What a beautiful and interesting world we live in! Hope we can explore more of it.

Here we go

I swore that I would never be a blogger (my life is pretty normal and boring) but here I am! This is because we are trying to adopt :) and this is a good way for birthmothers to get to know who we are. So here we go:

My husband's name is Luke. We met in college through a roommate. We "non-dated" (I define this as not knowing if we were boyfriend and girlfriend) for about a year watching movies, playing games, lots of laser tag (he even gave me a fat lip hitting me in the face with his laser gun) and having lots of fun. He asked me to marry him after we hiked to the top of Angel's Landing in Zion National Park. Of course I said "Yes!" and we got married over a weekend in October, 2007 (My only wedding diva moment was that I refused to have a winter wedding!).

My name is Courtnie. When Luke and I got married he was finishing Pharmacy school. I had already graduated and was working as an X Ray technician. Luke's final year of school was clinical rotations and he wanted to travel all over so we did. We went to Northern Idaho (my favorite), Washington, Alaska(so beautiful and rainy), and Hawaii (so beautiful and even more rainy!).  It was a lot of traveling in a short amount of time but it was tons of fun!

Luke works for the Indian Health Service which took us to New Mexico after graduation. That was a totally different world for us. There was nothing green anywhere. Lots of red rock and dust. We did lots of hiking and Luke had a group he went paintballing with. I have a cousin that lives in Albuqurque and we went to visit them fairly often. They took us to the Balloon Festival. My favorite experience in New Mexico! 

We wanted to be a little closer to family so we left our wonderful friends in Gallup and moved to Wyoming! We bought our first home and are enjoying the adventure.

I have always wanted a puppy and since we now have our own house we finally adopted Baxter in August. He is seriously the cutest dog ever! And though he eats shoes and tissues and chapsticks, we couldn't imagine our life without him! So much engergy, so much fun.