Sample Platter

I'm going to combine several different topics into today's blog, so you will be getting a little bit of everything.  Think of it as a sample platter from your favorite restaurant.  :)

We finished our foster parent training classes last Saturday!  We learned many things in a short amount of time.  The Hubs describes it as drinking from a fire hydrant.  

A majority of our paperwork is done.  In fact, enough of it has been completed that we were notified yesterday that we are rapidly moving toward the top of the homestudy list.  No joke, they told us that we are within four to six weeks of verification.  That means the state will have approved us and deemed us ready to receive kids into our home.  We are still trying to take that time frame in... are we really ready?!

On the subject of paperwork, I have decided that it is much like sleep for a pregnant woman.  Let me explain.  Although I do not have first hand experience of trying to sleep while pregnant, I hear it can be very difficult.  I have heard it said that your body is just getting you used to not having much sleep from here on out.  I do have first hand experience with the large amount of documentation that has been needed to receive our foster home license.  I am saying that the state is just getting us used to filling out paperwork for the duration of our time as foster parents.  There is going to be a lot to keep up with.  

I'm going to give my first "do not" advice to you as friends and family of foster parents.  Actually, it's more of a "don't expect us to..."  As we get to meet these precious little ones, we are going to be very careful about what info we share.  We are the guardians of them and their story, and if we don't pass the story on to you, then you don't have the pressure of also being a guardian.  It keeps you safe, us safe, and most importantly keeps the kids safe.  I know a lot of you are faithful prayers and we are jealous for your prayers, but please offer them on our behalf even if you don't know all the details of what we are dealing with or where our kiddos come from.  The Lord knows and we will trust Him with that!  

In my last post I talked about a video series that can help anyone interested understand the concept of Therapeutic Parenting.  There's some good info there.  I also included a sweet song by JJ Heller.  I'm loving her stuff so much right now... I can't resist sharing another one.  :)

My last soapbox of the day, I promise!  Love is necessary for what we are going to be doing as foster parents.  But love is not enough.  We are incapable of loving someone to the point of healing.  We will love them, yes, but we will also talk to them, listen to them, set boundaries for them, meet their needs, provide positive experiences and relationships, and do our best to parent them.  Our love is finite and fallible, but we know The One whose love is steadfast, unending, and perfect.  "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." 1 John 4:10  

A few pictures to finish off the sample platter today.  We've done more landscaping and had a couple of adventures.

Tim got to go camping with his family and caught this sunrise. 

A trip to the zoo is never complete without a little gator surfing.

Recycled pathway on the side of the house in the mud pit.

New light over the garage- one that actually works!

Finally filled in the hole with sod.

Recycled pathway in front of the house.

Got to throw a wedding shower in our backyard.  Fun times!

I'm not sure we can do anything the normal way.  And I'm ok with that.

Glad you were curious enough to read.

Honeymooners To The Rescue!!!

Whew!  If I don't blog today, it's quite possible I might not have the chance again until after we are finished with all our training.  Everything is going really well, there's just a lot involved!

Let me first say that we LOVE our agency.  They are awesome.  We have now been through two weeks of training classes, which have been super.  It has been overwhelming at times and a lot to process, but we are really thankful for this time of preparation.  The information is so beneficial and really has helped us feel equipped to be foster parents.  We have learned that all children in the foster care system have experienced trauma of some kind and our job is to try to make them feel loved and secure each day.  We've been learning strategies on how to handle the behavior that could come our way.  I could go into much detail, but really it's best explained face to face.  Plus, the more we talk about it, the more it gets ingrained into our brains.

Let's just say that "traditional" parenting will not be our goal.  This is going to be stretching for me.  I come from a you-should-do-it-because-I-told-you-to kind of mindset, but these children will not understand that.  I'm really excited to see how the Lord is going to use this to grow compassion and love in me.  The Hubs, with his lack of experience with children, now feels confident about being around kids because of the things we have learned.  And we both are excited to see the other being a mommy or daddy!

The worst thing about our classes is the chairs.  Yall, seriously.  After an all day Saturday class my tailbone was bruised.  I'm talking, I can't bend over and it hurts all the time.

The "short list" of things we still need to do (and the reasons you may not see us for the next couple of weeks):

• rearrange two rooms so that we have a kid room and an office/music/guest room
• another week of training classes
• a health inspection by the city on Wednesday
• find a doctor and get physicals
• a fire inspection at a time TBD
• create a floor plan with escape routes
• make a daily schedule
• come up with house rules, consequences, and rewards
• read three books
• plus some other things I'm forgetting at the moment.

And all this needs to be done BEFORE they will do the homestudy for us.  We have learned that once we do the homestudy there is a processing time of four to six weeks.  After that we should be open for placement!

The only reason the above list is as short as it is, is because we have spectacular friends who gave up their Friday night for a baby-proofing party.  They made quick work of some of the stuff we have needed to do around the house.  Without a doubt we have THE best and most supportive friends and family around.  Before we go one step further, we have to acknowledge and thank them...  Thank you Karen and David for lunchtime debriefs, installing smoke detectors, the booster car seat, and the movie that will make me cry every time.  Thank you Josiah and Ashley for giving up your Friday night right after Ashley got back from vacation with a wicked tan to install bike hooks, secure pictures to the wall, move heavy furniture, cover outlets, and install a fire extinguisher.  Thanks Joel for letting Josiah borrow your drill, and by extension, letting us borrow your drill.  Thanks Jordan and Caitlin for changing doorknobs, making the pictures level, getting the desk through the door after taking the door off it's hinges, and figuring out where to hide the cleaning products.  I wish we could pay you in more than cookies!  Thank Rusty, Ali, and Ethan for bringing the saw over to cut some shelves, the mama talk in the back porch rockers, the bassinet, and diapers.  Thanks to everyone for the kind words, encouragement, support, and prayers.  We couldn't do any of this without you.  For real.

Hanging bikes = more room in the garage to store baby stuff.

Jordan changing out doorknobs.  Some needed locks, some didn't.

Ashley and Caitlin helping me sleep better at night, knowing a kid can't (easily) knock these pictures off the wall anymore.

David installing the first of three smoke detectors.  Are you up to code?

Don't you have to take the door off it's hinges for all desks to fit through?  Probably not.  They even have smiles on their faces!

Trying to put the fire extinguisher in a safe (and not too noticeable) place.

Remember that time Josiah put up the fire extinguisher in the kitchen and I bought the wrong size so we have to get another one?  Oops.

I kind of feel like we're moving.  Thankfully it's just a little bit of disarray that should quickly go away!

See?  Smoke detectors.

This was the list we started with on Friday night.  The shelves and books part will be done tomorrow.  Oh, and did I mention how thankful we are for Caitlin's help?!

 We're ready for more!

Glad you were curious enough to read. 

Need Some Sull? (Soil)

Spring is here, and so are some changes to the outside of our house.  There have been many slow difficult tasks involved, but there has been definite progress.  I was really hoping to have been working on other projects inside the house, but as these outdoor projects were time sensitive we had to do them first.  This is what our house looked like when we moved in:

Our main issue was that the sidewalk in front of our house (that connected the front stairs to the driveway) was preventing water from flowing away and instead sending it under the house.  So, step one was to get rid of the sidewalk.  Two borrowed (and both broken) sledge hammers, a pick ax, and a rented jackhammer later the sidewalk was gone.

Whew!  That was some hard work.  Next we removed the large bushes to the right of the steps and then I relocated the small bushes to the space around the tree in the front.

Let me take this opportunity to say that I have never planted anything in my life.  When plants are brought into my house they usually receive a death sentence.  But I've been trying really hard, so hopefully the plants indoors and out will make it!

The next thing we needed was dirt.  Lots of dirt.  As previously mentioned, The Hubs was working crazy hours, so this task was taken over by an ambitious Wifey.  2,000 lbs. of soil later, I was ready to plant new bushes.

The ground was ready, but as I know nothing about plants it took me a while to decide what kind of bushes to plant.  I'm also a bargain shopper.  I knew I wanted something that would flower and that could handle the heat, and finally found some Abelia bushes that will hopefully treat me right!  When I asked the man at the nursery if I could grow this type of plant, he asked if I could change a flat tire.  When my answer was yes, he assured me I could grow these.  Not really sure how the two correlate, but they already have these crazy shoots of new growth which is awesome.  Our neighbors have tons of beautiful plants and dug up three of something that I don't remember the name of for us to plant, too.

If only I had my camera on me when we tried out the sprinklers for the first time this season.  Apparently we jackhammered into one of the pipes and had a geyser.  I thought it was rather entertaining, but it took Tim a while to come around to the funny side of things.  He got it all patched up and now all we need for the front to be finished is some sod to cover the rest of the dirt.

If you made it this far, I'm glad you were curious enough to read.

Thanks

This holiday season, we have much to be thankful for.  We wanted a way to display all the blessings in our life, so we have had a Thankful Tree at our house.  It's a very simple craft I got off Pinterest, but it has had much meaning.  We were able to write down things we are thankful for and also asked visitors to our home to do the same.  Here's a few things that made it to the tree.

The last picture is of a zebra ornament Tim's dad brought to us from a recent mission trip to Rwanda.  We are glad our families have the desire to share the love of Jesus with others around the world and that they have all made it back safely from various trips.

When I told The Hubs that we are going to have to take down the Thankful Tree soon to make room for Christmas he said, "What? Are you not thankful during Christmastime, too?!"  I love the giggles he brings to me.  :)

Thanks for being curious enough to read.

Is Your Refrigerator Running?

You know the old prank call gag where you dial a number and ask someone, "Is your refrigerator running?" And when they answer, "Yes," you cleverly say, "Well go catch it," and proceed to hang up the phone?  Well, if someone tried to prank me right now, my answer would be, "Yes!  It's even running in my kitchen!"  Ever since we moved in to the house our refrigerator has been (running) in the garage.  But while I was away this past weekend, The Hubs surprised me by moving it in!  Hooray for the recipient of 1,738 husband points!

Read the story behind that lucky number 13 here.  

Making A House A Home

Our house has really started to feel like home, which is a wonderful thing!  We've added several personal touches and I figure it's time for a Pinterest edition of the blog.  For those of you who don't know, Pinterest is a website that allows me to take other people's clever ideas and replicate them at my house.  It has helped immensely with decorating our new home.  I have been able to incorporate things that have meaning, are functional, and look good!  So, not much to say, but lots to show this time around.

One of the first things we did after semi-finishing the kitchen floor was have an Olympic party, of course!  We celebrated the opening ceremonies with some of our married friends- each couple got to choose a country to represent. Can you tell where we were "from"?

If you have been in my home in the last three years, no matter where I was living at the time, you have probably seen these frames.  I found them at an antique store and bought them for a dollar a piece.  They were empty.  And for quite some time, remained empty on my wall.  I received much grief over this.   But I finally decided what to do with them.  I put burlap on the back and a clothespin on the burlap.  This way, I can easily change out what is in the frame.  This was  what decorated the wall throughout the Olympics.  

First Pinterest project- card board letter from Hobby Lobby, drew design on with pencil, then made design with hot glue and painted.  Ta da!

Obviously, my projects do not go off without a hitch.  This next project was really simple, but in the process I splatter painted my dining table, and yes, that's my computer up in the top left corner.  Oh dear.

This is the date night jar I made during the splatter paint episode above.  Another Pinterest idea... the jar, not the splatter paint.  The stick are color coded with dates based on money, planning required, and where.  It is a fun way for us to be spontaneous, which I love!

This was actually a gift.  Tim's best man, Max, currently lives in Abu Dhabi and got to come home for a visit over the summer.  He brought us this impressive sand are that we now proudly display in the living room.  It also helps me remember to pray for them while they are so far from us. 

Thank you, Pinterest!  I had been trying to figure out what to do with my mess of jewelry and finally saw this beauty.  The best part about this project was that it was so simple I started and finished in the same day!  Plus, we have a fun owl friend in our bedroom now.  :)

We got a grill!  Tim's parents passed their grill down to us.  This happened several weeks ago, but we just recently used it for the first time.  Naturally, I'm taking the picture through the blinds to avoid West Nile.  It's no joke around here and the mosquitos love me, but always leave Tim alone.  

I got brave because I wanted a better picture.  This was actually Tim's first time as grill master.  I'm happy to report that he has quite a future ahead of him.  Dinner was great!

The current use of our frames in the living room.  I took down the British flags and now we have this lovely display.

This was our first official housewarming gift.  It was a bit of a joke from one of my coworkers, but how could I not hang that up in my kitchen?!  

We still have a long way to go, but it's nice to call this place ours now.  Glad you were curious enough to read.