Alex Potter Playing Quiddich

Alex played JV Soccer for Higley High School this winter. This is the best picture (not the quality, but the action)! He went up to head-butt the ball, while the other player went under him to get the ball. Alex ended up on the guy's shoulder who carried him for about 10 feet, then put him back down slowly. Hilarious! He had a great season, played all his games and we had fun watching him too! Go Higley!!!!

Dear Alex

My first born, Alexandre-Alex-Alehandro, has been feeling very left out because I didn't do a "special" post for him around his birthday. Since he is the only one of my children that reads my blog, I have no choice but to show him that I love him just as much as the others and dedicate this post to him.
That's it.









Nah, here is a little bit more for you Alex...
Alexandre was born on October 18th, 1993. That's a whole different century from my other kids, kinda crazy huh! I was barely 21 when he came along. I looked even younger. I was attending Phoenix College at the time and I looked 16. Since I was retraining water, I had taken my wedding band off and looked like a poor little single girl who got knocked up! I had a very uneventful 9 months. I had very short labor for a first-born and was too dumb to get an epidural. I thus gave birth to a healthy 9lbs 4oz baby boy with the help of breathing (what a joke), relaxation (good one) and a bit of Demerol (to take the edge off, my b...t). I stayed at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix (we lived in Maryvale at the time, in the west ghetto) for 24 hours , and then they sent me home, without instructions on how to take care of a baby when your mom lives in another country and you're barely 21! I don't think I slept at all (well, it feels like for 15 years now) because even when he fell asleep in his wind-up swing, I was too afraid to close my eyes and rest. He was such a beautiful baby, so big and adorable, so perfect! I was so amazed at what I had done, how such a miracle was possible. I was exhausted but happy. I've said many time that Alex saved me. I had move to the US 1 1/2 year prior to that, and I was very much homesick, very unhappy (although still madly in love with Reed, thus I stayed). I don't know if I would have "endured" if I didn't have Alex, I think I would have gone home, Reed would have followed me, of course, but then life would have been different. He was my little buddy and made me forget about ME!
We had 7 years with just him and us, a spoiled only-child. Very smart, very much aware of his intellectual abilities and very much running the show (still today). I have a lot of complicity with Alex, I truly enjoy hanging out with him (and I know he'll read this, but it's the truth), especially in the last months. He's growing, physically, of course, but more mentally. He's a typical teenager. How great it was to be like that, hang out with friends, talk about girls (well, it was boys for me, of course), joke, ROFLOL, be careless, clueless, haaaaa, it was fun ;) He has a good group of friends around him, they help each other stay in the straight and very narrow path that leads to adulthood. Time is flying by, and I know that in less than 4 years, he'll probably leave my nest, to conquer the world. I hope I will have given him strong wings to fly high above temptations, but freely where the wind takes him, and strong legs to land steadily and firmly on the ground when necessary.

Maddy -Maddou- a gift from above.

Madeline turned 8 on the 8th. But I haven't known her on this earth for quite 8 years yet: she came to our family on the 16th, all pink and perfect.

We had Alex pretty fast after we were married, but for some reason (well, I say "some" but it's because I have PCOS and don't ovulate), we weren't having any more babies. I cried everyday about that, I pleaded, bargained, asked for patience, got mad, everything...but the Lord has His own timing :) After a couple years of no success, we felt that we needed to adopt. I always pictured a little blond hair-blue eyed girl holding my hand and thus thought we would adopt a toddler. It didn't occur to me until Maddy was two, blue eyed, blond curly hair, that SHE was the one I pictured! We waited 3 years for her. We had our first appointment with LDS Social Services in December 1997. We turned in all the paper work (a book of info on us, our life as a couple and blablabla), and got certified in June 98 ...we waited and waited and waited.

Our social worker was a #!%!%%** that didn't do anything for us. We finally got picked by a girl in May 99. She gave me ultra sound pictures of her baby boy and told me she knew he was ours. She had him and kept him...'bout killed me.

Everyone we had talked to had been able to adopt after about a year...not us! After that horrible ordeal of losing that child -I say losing, because my heart broke the same way as if I had miscarried, and it took me a long time to forgive the birth mom, I understood why she kept the child, but not why she had to involve us in her process and hurt us so bad- we had other instances where we didn't get a baby, including one whacked chick who was knocked up for the 4th time, who's boyfriend was in jail and who wanted money from us! But none of them hurt as bad as the first one.

Then one day (and I will cry writing this), I received a call from the agency. They said they possibly had a baby, they were looking at 4 couples, not deciding yet, but there was a legal issue and wanted to know if we were interested. It sounded a bit strange, but I went along and of course, we were interested, but they wanted us to think about it over the week-end. On that Sunday, I was very upset, I felt that that little boy (the case worker never corrected me when I said "he") would not be ours again, that the b-mom would pick another couple again and so forth. On the Monday at 9:00 am, I called the agency and found out they were closed, since it was January 15th, Marin Luther King Day. I figured that it must not have been that serious or they wouldn't have told me to wait over the week-end. On the Tuesday, I called them again first thing anyway, not expecting too much. The intern (our great case worker was out of town, thank goodness, I always felt that he would have messed things up had he been there) took forever to come back on the line when I told him that of course, we would love that baby! He said "oh, great, okay, hmmmmmmmmmmm, hold on..." Then he came back and said "are you sitting down?" "Yes" shakily..."We have a baby for you" "Oh my gosh, it's a boy right?" and then he said "no, it's a girl" (at this point in my life, I didn't know I would become fertile-myrtle and have tons more kids, so I thought that might be my only hope of having a girl). "She was born on Monday the 8th, 6lbs 8oz, 19 3/4 inches and she is soooo cute". I paged Reed right away and he called me back. I told him the best news any expectant adoptive parents can ever receive. He was speechless. He came home right away, after telling his boss the news, who gave him the rest of the week off. We called our dads. Our serious, strong minded fathers both wept when they heard the news of their grand baby, each on the other side of the world. We then had to rush to Walmart. After our first experience with adoption, we didn't want to have anything ready for a baby. I had kind of given up hope, and we had gone back to doctors at that time. So we bought tons of stuff, and people probably thought we were nuts because I wasn't even showing yet ;) We then picked up Alex from school, he was in 1st grade. He had been praying daily for a baby. I told him he was a big brother, he asked me "is she cute?". I assured him that she was gonna be the most beautiful baby girl in the world. We had to be at the agency at 2:00, to sign a bunch of paperwork. We left Alex with my friend Christy and went to get Maddy. After a very long hour of paperwork, we heard a baby cry..."she's here" we were told. We went in the other room where the foster family was waiting for us. They were crying a little, said she was a very special little girl. I felt a little bit bad for them, but not that much! Then they finally handed me my daughter: she looked so familiar, I knew her, she was mine.

Giving birth is amazing, a miracle. Having someone give you a child has no words for it. I never met her birth mom, she wanted a closed adoption. I love that woman, with all my heart. I pray that she is happy and knows deep in her heart that her sacrifice to fulfill my happiness has been recorded. She did more for our family than she will ever know, and when I'm old and finally go back to my Father in Heaven, I will meet her (or wait for her) and hug her and tell her.

Bonne Annee 2009

Happy New Year!!!!!
Bonne Annee!!!!!!!!
We had a party at our house last night, we have a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures of our "real" friends who showed up (hmm, yeah, I didn't have time to take a picture of Melanie, but she came too, so you're a "real" friend too Mel :). We stayed up till midnight and so did the kids! We all rushed to bed after that and were all sound asleep by 12:07 I'm sure...I remember being able to stay up soooo late. One time, my friend and I went clubbing and stayed till 7:00 am, the sun was up and people were going to work. That was the old days, when I was young, dumb, careless and jobless...now, I'm a bit less young, a bit less dumb, a bit less carefree but still jobless if you don't consider 5 kids being a full time job (but I do). Oh well, we still had fun last night

Here are the party poopers who didn't want to play games or eat junk food

Here are some real party animals, drinking hard (lemon water) and eating junk

Here is the old vs the young, Ales beat Bishop badly, of course, but I love our Bish jamming though!

And poor little Maddy had a late night, too many goodies and suffers a "hang over" if you can call it that way! I didn't believe she was sick, thought she was just faking it so that she wouldn't have to clean, but after a few hours, I took her temp...she had 103!!!! Ooops, darn it, no "mom of the year" award for 2009 for me again, I already blew it after 12 hours into the year!!!!