4 kids - 1 week - Placement #2 begins in 1 hour

Well, we did it...we let go of our first placement - 3 kiddos who have forever changed our life!  We learned so much from them and are very thankful that they were our first kids.  We will love them forever and pray for them to have a peaceful return with their birth parents.

This morning, in about an hour, our second placement will be arriving.  He is a 4 year old little boy who speaks Spanish and English.  My husband already speaks Spanish and who knows if this will be my chance to finally learn it!

So now the tables have turned...it used to be 3 girls and 2 boys in the house and now it will be 2 boys and 1 girl! LOL:)  I don't know what to expect on a lot of different levels.  This placement is going to be SO different than our last one.  The biggest difference is that we don't have to have anything to do with reunification services, or so they have told us...we'll see how that goes.  Of course we'll always have to deal with the behavior following any visits, but we won't have to see all the interactions and get frustrated on those adult levels.  We'll just get to love on the kid!!!  So we shall begin a new journey and see where it leads us.

Please join us in praying for the lives of our 3 kiddos who are home now and the 1 boy who will be experiencing new emotions being moved into a place he doesn't know.

The Rollercoaster Returns!

We are going to meet a 4 year old little boy on Friday to see if he will be our next placement!  Yes, you're right we still have our sibling set of 3 kiddos in our home and we are already taking calls on a next placement:)  I'm not willing to pass anything up when I get a call!  In April when we very first heard that our 3 kiddos were going home, we took a call seriously about 3 boys, but we decided (with the Lord's obvious prompting through my husband) that we needed to focus on our 3 we currently have.  Thank you Lord for not letting me sink my heart into those boys and keep it deep in the heart of these 3 we have because we are SO thankful for the time we have been blessed with.  We started with a 7, 5 and 2 year old and right now they are a 7, 5 and 3 year old who have all made HUGE accomplishments since we've had them!!!  It has been so fun and encouraging to spend the time with them we have.

BUT...

We heard they are going home VERY soon so it's almost time to move on and we've already gotten a couple calls.  From the beginning this little boy has had my heart and the other sibling set has gone a different direction before we were even able to have it be part of our considerations.  Was that God too? ~we'll see:)  We are happy to go through the process and see what our future holds.

We will not be involved with reunification efforts again like we were this time and I think we are both really looking forward to getting rid of that emotional headache.  Although I'm sure there will be other new headaches we will discover, but that's all part of the "local community/state court system package" we have knowingly signed up for.  I still feel called to this specific avenue for our potential adoptive kids. 

Hmmm...well, here we go!  The kids are officially having their first long weekend with their bio-mom in over a year...this weekend.  We are so happy for them and pray this transition will be smooth and peaceful and quick, they have had to hang on for too long.  We are going to miss them when they finally leave, but they are headed in the right direction.  We've already gotten calls about next placements:)

Birthdays are Precious

What an unexpectedly BLESSED day!  My heart is SO happy right now, it's filled with a Joy only JESUS can give!  Today was the first time I've ever celebrated a birthday of a child of my own (well my own foster kid) and what a Joy...now I know why so many moms spend so much money on their kids' birthdays.  Well, I didn't spend hardly anything, but it's easy to see why they get so carried away.  The feeling you get from bringing such special celebration to a life can easily be forgotten when it's only done once a year and you could easily think you had to have spent a lot of money to make that happen right?!  Wrong!  Today's birthday party was planned, put together, attended, enjoyed and over - all within 8 hours - AWESOME:)  I haven't been planning anything more than a simple family cake and dinner for the last couple days, but all the sudden today as I was putting the cake in the oven and looking around the kitchen I suddenly realized I had plenty of what I would need for dinner and then some so why not invite some of our kids' friends.  We don't let the kids have sleepovers or spend much time with friends because we live so far from their friends and we don't have enough time to really establish friends in our immediate area because of their crazy life schedule with visits, etc.  So we invited only two families, both have kids that our kids have spent significant time with AND they were both able to come!!!  It was so awesome and the kids got along great and ate well and let the parents chit chat which hardly ever gets to happen either!  We had so much fun and were just so excited to be able to spend some precious catch up time with the adults too who we have missed so much...thank you Lord for a precious day and the excuse of celebrating a beautiful life to make it happen!!!