Amber and Lucas Taylor

 Holding Kellen. Oh, how we long for him.

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On Sunday Lucas had to speak in church despite the fact that he had almost no voice due to being sick for the entire week. (He is just now starting to get back to feeling normal and it's Wednesday.)
The end of the week leading up to Sunday he kept trying to think about what he would say when he got up but he had a hard time settling on anything.
He usually goes to his YSA ward, and I go to the family ward. However, whenever he conducts the meeting or speaks I want to go and see him. This time, I'm sure because he didn't know what he would be saying, he said it would make him nervous if I was there.
Even though that is adorable, I only kinda honored his wishes.
I joked that I might try and sit where he wouldn't see me or know I was there, but since he sits on the stand he can see every seat.
When his meeting was about to start I sent him a text to wish him luck and tell him I knew he would be amazing.
Then I got dressed and went to his church building.


I can't stand not being there.
If you have heard him speak before you'll understand.
He is a wonderful and powerful speaker.
I had to be there.


So I hid in a back room until the meeting had been started about ten minutes.
Then I tiptoed into the back of the auditorium (their ward meets on the College campus) and hid in the curtains where I could hear the meeting. haha.
Groups of kids came in late and see me standing there and they would stand there too, as if I was waiting for the right time to go in. haha.


I would whisper "oh- go ahead. I'm hiding." I got some weird looks.

When Lucas got up to speak he shared a beautiful testimony. He talked about how important it is to have courage to come closer to Christ and follow promptings we have to rid our lives of things that do not bring us closer to the Lord. He shared a personal story of choosing something he liked to do but gave up, not because it was a bad thing to do, but because it was not necessarily a GOOD thing to do. He bore his testimony and closed his talk.

Since he was sick his voice was cracking and would randomly go out while he was talking. That didn't keep the spirit from reaching me back in my hiding spot :)

When he finished I peaked my head out of the curtain and saw him on the stand and gave him a thumbs up and then went back into the hall to find a seat and wait for the meeting to end.

He wasn't mad I came, he laughed that I hid in the back. I didn't not want to make him nervous so I didn't want him to know I was there until after. haha He told me he didn't know what he was going to say until the minute before he had to stand up, and even then some of it he just said as it came to him.

I cannot do that. He's great.

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In other news, we started researching adoption and fostering. It is still early, but we have both felt okay about it. We feel ready to grow our family, and though grief is still there it is slowly becoming less all-consuming. Every day we still wake up wanting children. We miss our babies, but we know they are safe and happy. We know they are all around us and they dont want us to be so sad. Thinking of the joy having kids in our home will bring is healing.

If the Lord needed our children to come to us through adoption or fostering to adoption, then we will be ready no matter when the time is right. Even though it is soon to start the process, we want to be ready for whenever the kids who are meant for us need to be here.

Lucas said he wasn't ready until last night when I mentioned it and he said something just "clicked."
He knew he was ready to start the process.
He wants to be a Dad with children here and we both know that nothing will change the love we have for Molly or Kellen, so why not now?

We are nervous but excited. While we were lying in bed lest night we talked for a second about how life is so unpredictable. Where will we be in 3 more years? How will our family have changed then? What trials will we have been trusted to shoulder? What blessings will we be blessed to experience and obtain?
We know now that we can never know what is coming our way, we just want to be ready.

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We have a "Christmas Elf" this year.

We do not know who you are, but thank you for thinking of us!

We love you.

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I  have laughed a lot the past couple days.
I laughed while wrestling with Lucas.
We laughed while sitting on the couch talking in weird voices to each other.
As usual we laughed at Moose.
I laughed at some of the funny videos people send me.

This morning we laughed at Moose. He crawled up on the couch next to me and got comfortable.
Comfortable for him is not what you would expect and it looked so funny! He sat there for a long time so we snapped a picture. hahaha! Oh, Moose. You're so cool.