500 Buckets

We have a little project. We are collecting little precious objects and putting them in two clear buckets. Things that we love and things from those we love. Our hope is to give one to our birth mom one day and to put on in the nursery.

I’m making a little journal list of everything that goes in the bucket. Our collection is varied and awesome already. We have rocks from my parent’s front yard. A mini race car from my nephew. Mint tins from a brother. Three pennies representing our birth dates and anniversary. An Indian arrowhead from our dear friend. We also have a root beer barrel candy because Josh loves those things. He becomes giddy when he finds them in a store! The goal is to collect 500 items that all tell a story or relate to a loved on. It’s our bucket of love!

Why 500? Well you might not know but every waiting adoptive couple can check their “stats.” They can see how many hits they’ve had on their profile. When we started the project we’d just hit 500. Through some Internet magic our hits have increased more rapidly than before since then, but I’m like the number 500 so we are sticking with it! 500 is a lot to begin with, it could get out of hand pretty fast. Then it won’t be a bucket, it would be the barrel of love. Not necessarily bad, just heavy!

I’m suddenly reminded of that song “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent. 525,600 minutes. I’m imagining this gigantic Bucket of Love! Yes we’ll stick with 500.

We’d love to have you contribute! Send me an email and I’ll shoot you our address. Send us two of the same item, one of each bucket.

Guest blogger: Future Grandma Robin

One Determined Santa

I will never forget the year Ellen and Josh came to spend the Christmas holiday with us. I was amazed when one relatively small suitcase produced a wide variety of packages, including a rather large and rather heavy rectangular box. Nevertheless, all were placed dutifully under the tree by Josh. Ellen has long since been banished for touching, rattling or sniffing Christmas packages. Why? It is practically impossible to surprise her!! She has some second sight about what is inside a wrapped package. However, this year was to be the year. Josh, her special Santa, had decided that there was going to be at least one gift that would be a total surprise.

Christmas morning brought with it that general sense of chaos. Among all the ohh's and ahh's, there was an occasional shriek of an unexpected surprise. Ellen enjoyed it all, but pretty much knew what was coming before the ribbons were cut and the paper shredded. Josh watched her with a sly smile on his face. He had retrieved the rather large, rather heavy rectangular box and hid it close to his side. As things began to wind down he pulled it from it's place and set it before Ellen. She startled a little. She certainly hadn't forgotten about the box, but he seemed so sure of his surprise it made her wonder. They decided to play. "What is this, Josh?" she demanded. "I guess you'll have to open it, in order to find out. Don't you know what it is?" he replied. Ellen fell into a little pout. Josh loved it. "Go ahead," he said, "pick it up, squeeze it, shake it, give it the sniff test." Ellen's eyes narrowed as she gave his face the once over. "Oh, you think you are so sneaky, don't you?" Josh gave his familiar chuckle. "Maybe so, but you haven't got a clue what's inside there and you're never going to know until you open it up." Ellen scrunched up her nose and puckered her lips. She thought about it for a minute and then said, "Fine. I'll open it."

The ribbon and bow was detached. The paper ripped to shreds. The box opened and it revealed----a telephone book. Unimpressed, Ellen pushed her eyebrows together. Josh pretended not to notice. "Telephone book----always a helpful item around the house. You can find all kinds of things in the yellow pages." Ellen laughed. She started to flip through the pages--a little in the front, a little in the back. "What?" she demanded. "Keep looking." Ellen began to turn the pages again, this time more carefully. It wasn't until she made a complete, determined search that she found a small cube that had been carved into one section of the yellow pages. And in the cube was a small box and in the box was a velvet box and in the velvet box was a lovely ring.

At last! A shriek of unexpected surprise. He had done it! Santa Josh had totally surprised his Ellen.

Guest blogger: Future Aunt Stacie

My name is Stacie. I am Ellen's sister. I am married to Dustin and we have two children Tate, age 8 and Jill age 5. (Well almost 5.)

My favorite thing about Josh and Ellen is all the time they take to be a TERRIFIC aunt and uncle. My children adore them and it is easy to see why. Let me tell you some of our favorite things!

Josh and Ellen have a steady income and try to be generous. Keeping that in mind, they choose to use their time and money enjoying their family! Every time we are together, Josh and Ellen see to it that we do plenty of fun things for the kids. We go to the zoo, aquarium and children's museum. They seek out places where they can have FUN with their nieces and nephews. And it's not good enough to just go to the "kids places" they are in there making the magic happen. There is not a display at the children's museum that Josh and Ellen have not explored with the kids! They figure, what is the fun of pretending to be a newscaster if you aren't doing it with your nephew?
They believe you are wasting your time at a park if you are not pushing a swing, catching someone at the end of the slide or taking your turn being "it" for the game.

My son Tate was once cast as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz. I was really struggling with finding a costume for him. Aunt Ellen to the rescue! Ellen is a talented seamstress and she made the best munchkin outfit you have ever seen. Pants, vest and matching tie! Tate looked so good, that Jill even had to take a turn trying it on. We also had a year were we struggled financially. We weren't sure what we were going to do about the upcoming Easter holiday. Uncle Josh and Aunt Ellen sent us brand new Easter Sunday church outfits for both Tate and Jill! Jill spent the day asking people if they wanted to see her "twirl" and then spinning around in her cute dress.Personally, I think that Josh's greatest attribute is his caring nature. The guy would literally give you the shirt off his back if you asked. Say you need help and Josh will be the first one there. My sister Ellen is very loyal. She has got your back. When it feels like the whole world thinks you are crazy, Ellen says, "You want this? Then let's go get it!"

My family has been truly blessed by having Josh and Ellen in it!

Full Moon Rising

I have a dear friend who I always call on the full moon and howl with. It guarantees we talk once a month and let’s be honest, howling at the moon is fun! If my phone rings on the full moon, no matter where I was, I was howling!! I’ve howled some embarrassing places, but hey friendship rules over manners when it comes to shopping at Walmart, am I right?

With all the giggling this tradition has caused, I decided to share it with my nieces and nephews. It may now be one of my favorite aunty activities. Partially because I’m bad at following the calendar so I never know when the full moon is going to be so it is always a fun surprise but mostly, these kids are simply awesome!

Usually I get to chat with my sister or brother first, a little warm up if you will, and at some point I’ll say, “So it’s a full moon…..” They round up the troops and I get put on speaker phone and from states away we howl and howl! Now here is the awesome part, I get to talk to the kids. I learn things this way things that surprise even Mom & Dad. One niece told me she is going to grow up and have 80 kids – 10 boys and 70 girls. Hefty plans for a 4 year old! The other niece thinks her tap dance costume looks like a cheetah. I told her it was a jungle out there and she said, "No, it's a tap dance costume." This stuff is golden!

Yesterday was technically the full moon, but there is still time…go ahead, call the family! Release the howl.

Boom, boom, boom!

I'm going to start with a family story that is currently on going. My younger brother is getting married in two weeks! It's all very exciting! This couple is solidly awesome. So we've been asking how we can help, what we can do to help in this process and then last night we got the email. We have been recruited to be in a flash mob at the reception! Awesome!

Check out the choreography here: http://youtu.be/fH82_EDkJ8A

After the wedding I'll try to upload the video!

You have no Power over me!

I was talking with an adoptive mother asking her some questions about the whole adoption process. I was laughing at myself about the projects and strange goals I make to keep down the weird anxiety I feel during this wait period. And felt relieved to know, she did it too!

Then I realized one thing that triggers my anxiety is this blog. I stress over it! Am I saying the right things? Am I saying them the right way? I think I’ve made the importance of this blog out to be something WAY bigger than it is. As such, I’m totally going to get all informal and do a series of blogs on family stories.

In my family these stories are told around the dinner table after the meal is eaten but before clean up beings. We all sit around the table, swap stories and laugh. In Josh’s family they are told on the couches in the family room on Sunday nights during treat fest! Josh’s aunts all bring some sweet and everyone gathers around and the giggling beings.

However you’d like to picture it, this is your official welcome to the family!

Pass Alongs, Postcards & Peeps! Oh My!

Our pass along cards arrived and we are very happy with them! The art work was donated by the great artist behind http://www.themodernpolkadot.com/. Go check out her stuff. You can tell she has quite the flair for life just by her designs, we’ve never met but I’m quite enamored with her. She has a swagger I enjoy. Watch the mail loved ones, you should be receiving some soon. We ask that you carry these with you. If the moment is right, share one. If you see a community board, pin one up. Grass roots marketing campaign folks! We also ordered some postcards! See I tend to throw away small cards, but postcards I hold on to forever, something about it being bigger makes me keep it for months and months. I still have Christmas cards on my fridge, it's a problem I know. I’m hoping I’m not the only one with this disease. They look like this:

I love the design on the front. This was also custom made for us. I’ve been overwhelmed by people’s generosity and kindness. Months ago when this was all beginning Josh and I were talking with N.Eve at church about our desire to design t-shirts and do a fundraiser. We chatted about few designs over giddy nursery children and she offered to help us. People, she is amazing! We threw out a ton of random ideas and she designed us this heartwarming image of hope that appeals to everyone. It has become a mantra in our life. I'd really love to get a canvas print made to hang in our home. (Check her out here http://www.etsy.com/shop/nevedobson)

Lastly, I love this time of year. Spring is in full gear! Spring in AZ means 80 -90 degree days, baseball, and our annual Peeps competition. We challenge family and friends to create something using Peeps as their art medium! It is always so fun to see what our tribe comes up with. My mom said she had a dream about what her Peep entry was supposed to be! Challenges are being thrown out right and left. I think it is going to be a hot competition this year! Want to play? Email your entry to us at josh2ellen@gmail.com by April 13th.