Our Weekend Adventure

  The girls were dropped off at around 9 am on Saturday morning.  Their foster parents stayed for a little while to help ease the separation but they didn't seem to need much easing into our home.  They took right to the boys and followed them around everywhere.  Once their foster parents left we went to the park for a little while and decided to go to the zoo for a couple hours before lunch.
  They had such a wonderful time.  It was so fun to experience their first time at the zoo with them.  Our boys are used to seeing each animal for 30 seconds and moving on but the girls were fascinated with each animal and wanted to soak it in.  It was so special to see their joy.  We of course had to go to the "Dino Dig" and it seemed this was also their first time putting their bare feet in the sand.  It was so wonderful to offer them even simple pleasures like feeling sand between their toes.
  We came home, ate lunch and sat down for a rest while the little one took a nap.  Then we sat down and played with Kinetic sand.  That stuff is amazing!  They played with that for hours.  Then we had dinner together and finished the night at the park.  It was a nice day full of memories.
  All day long we heard from the boys "they are so cute" "can they be our sisters?"  It was so cute.  They instantly connected to each other. So we all talked and decided that we want them to be a part of our family. We called the on call social worker and told her our decision.  They were able to stay all weekend and now we will be planing a court date so we can officially put them in our care as our foster placement.
  The first night was a little rough.  There were tears at bedtime which would be expected and the the older one woke up at 3 and then again at 4.  Sunday we hung around the house for most of the day with the exception of Travis taking Sawyer to the doctor for an ear infection and then we all went over to my parent's house and spent time with my whole family.  Sunday was a bit of a wake-up call for us and the decision we made.  It is a bit overwhelming but we will get it.  We are now parents to 4 children and we are having to re-learn that we need to watch the little ones at all times.  I'm not as young as when I had the boys and my body feels it each night.  It will take time to figure out a new routine but I am grateful for it being summer break to figure it out before school starts. Last night we had the same difficulties at bedtime and tears but the girls slept all night.  Sawyer on the other hand was up in pain with his ear.  I'm hoping soon we will all be sleeping through the night again.
  The girls are just so precious.  The older one "M" is almost 4 years old and the little one "S" is 2-1/2 years old.  They have beautiful curly blonde hair that I will have to learn how to fix and big brown eyes that will melt hearts.  They have sweet natures...most of the time and "S" loves to scream.  So if you hear us in the store just smile and give us a hug.  We probably need it.  This is going to be a new adventure and we are looking forward to it.  It is a learning curve for us all but are grateful to love on these little girls for as long as we are able.  There are no current plans for them yet so we have no idea about reunification at this point. That will come as more court dates are assigned and I will let everyone know.  Please continue to pray for our family and our transition time.  Also, please pray for the girls that the courts will decide the best and safest place for them whether that be with us or with their birth family.  Thank you all again!

The only picture I can share right now.  

Certified Baby!!

  Last I had written I was waiting impatiently for our social worker to come to do her walk through and make sure our house was in compliance.  Well, that had to pushed out 2 weeks and she was finally able to come out June 19th.  The walk through went great and we only had a couple of minor things we needed to do such as putting those plug thingys into the electrical outlets and putting latches on cupboards.  I thought it was funny that our social worker said, "you know..like what you would do when you are getting ready for your own kids".  I told her I never put plug thingys or latches when my kids were little.  She agreed she never had either.  But I understand the need to be extra careful in these situations, so we rushed right out and got what we needed so we could get done with the home study.

  My social worker called me up yesterday (Thursday June 26th) to tell me she was working on our certification and it should be done Friday and we will just sign papers on Monday.  Then she says, "but the real reason I'm calling is..." All I could think of was that the county didn't approve us for some reason.  "I have 2 little girls age 2 and 4 that I want to tell you about."  What?!  Wait!  We're not even certified yet.  I had imagined this taking months to find 2 little girls that fit our match.  I was speechless (and most of you know that doesn't happen often). I let her tell me about them and the limited information she had on them.  I said I would call her in the morning after I talked to Travis.  We discussed it and decided we were definitely interested but would like to meet the girls if we could.

  Well, the girls are coming for a visit tomorrow morning and staying the whole day with us.  I am so excited and so nervous at the same time.  I am grateful for the chance to see their interactions with us and the boys.  The boys are so excited for "sisters" to come over to play.  I have tried to carefully explain what we are doing tomorrow so the boys will hopefully understand when the girls have to go home.  If we feel they would be great in our family they will move immediately.  This could mean we would be a family of 6 by the end of the weekend/beginning of next week.  

  Please pray with us as we open our home and our hearts to these 2 little girls.  We are praying for guidance and discernment in this fragile situation and we could use all the extra prayers you have to give.  I will be back soon to share how the day went.  Thank you for supporting and praying for our growing family.  

  The boys picked out swimsuits for them.  Sawyer picked out for the older girl because they are both the older siblings and Hudson for the younger one because they are both the younger siblings.  Hudson had to get the one with a bow on it. 

 

And as of today, we are technically certified foster parents.  Six months tomorrow since we started the process of filling out forms and 2 years since we attended our first foster/adoption workshop.  We are finally here.  

 

Nesting

I am in full on nesting mode.  "But you're not pregnant" you might say.  You are right, I am not pregnant but I am expecting and so excited.  Having a home that we have only lived in for less than 6 months and feeling the need to frantically get the whole thing ready for more kids is driving me slightly crazy.  I just can't do it.  So I need to get real.  I've decided to just work on the kids' rooms.  If I can just get them painted all the rest will come. But the decorating is the fun part and I can't even do that because I don't know age or gender of the children coming.  So I spend my nights on Pinterest seeing how I can make my color scheme work for boys or girls.  We did say that we preferred sisters age 0-3 but in the world of God making families, it is almost never what we "prefer".  We know that we will get placed with the children who are perfect for our family if we just trust that God will take care of it.

  Why am I so frantic?  We have our final walk through in 3 DAYS!! I can't believe we are already here. Our social worker approved us at our last meeting and is working on our home study which we will sign once complete.  After that and our walk through we will be officially certified.  That just seems so surreal.  Life has been so crazy that I haven't really thought about it all that much.  Now writing it down along with the mad dash to get our house finished it has really hit me.  Once we are certified the timeline is unknown.  We said that we are willing to be respite care providers while we wait for our children.  Respite care providers take care of foster children for a few days so their foster parents can have a few days away, or travel for work.  Whatever the need may be.  Within the foster care system there are rules to who can care for foster children over 24 hours.  Being a certified home we would be able to offer that to other parents.

  So after Thursday we wait to hear from our social worker to sign our home study and then we just wait to hear of a potential match for our family.  I really appreciate having gone through surrogacy before doing this process.  Surrogacy is a hurry up and wait process just like fostering to adopt.  You get all your ducks in a row and then just wait.  I hope I've become a more patient person in all of this.  I also think it has helped prepare myself and my boys to understand that families are made all different ways.  They understand that mommy has carried babies for other families and now other mommies have carried babies for our family. We have interesting conversations and I just love how they want to learn more and are so excited for this too.

  Well, off to get my kiddos to bed and finishing painting one room.  The patience thing may be getting a little better but the procrastination has not.