Preview...

More pics coming soon...

We finished our second-to-last foster class tonight! It was a doozy...Documention and Paperwork. It's hard to believe there's an entire class devoted to teaching us how to keep track of all of the paperwork, but there is! It's pretty serious, too. Kinda wish I'd been more awake. I'm pretty sure I remember about 30% of what she said. Most of it boils down to these three things:

1. No matter what your question is, the answer is, "It depends."

2. No matter the situation, do the following - in this order: call the agency, email the agency, document the incident in the daily foster notes, then call the agency one more time just to make SURE they know that we are keeping them informed. :)

3. Document EVERYTHING. Yes, seriously, everything. Child took medicine? Document. Child refused medicine? Document. Bought child a new sweater? Document. 

More Room Updates!!!

We made more progress on the room today! Bry is a man of action and he's worked so hard this weekend on the kids' room. I'm absolutely in love with it (and him) and I want to just sit and stare at the room all day! 

"After" Pics...Part II!

We're making some progress in the kids' room. And by "we," I mean mainly Bry. Let's face it - I contribute by handing him a few screws and going back and forth to the garage to find something called "needle nose pliers" or "the screw with the flat head," and other strange things he asks for. I have an incredible hubby, that's for SURE! 

Working on the room this weekend has definitely made this feel more real, scary, and exciting! 

Today we purchased the bed, white sheets, a comforter (which we might return - not really loving it), a lamp, Legos, and a few other items. We still have the bookshelves to put up and a few other items we'll need to make it more kid-friendly. 

Words cannot express how happy I am to see my books displayed again after 15 months being shoved onto one shelf in the office. These are all that remain of the 2,400 books (yes, you read that correctly) I had in my 2nd grade classroom. These are the books that made it into the "I absolutely can NOT part with these!!!" pile. Bry made a (silly) comment tonight when he mentioned maybe letting each child take a book with them if and when they leave our house. I tried not to laugh too loud, but I think he got the point...

We have been so blessed this month...our incentive pay from last school year was paid out this weekend - just in time to begin the remodel. God has been so good to us!!!

Here's a sneak-peak of the room so far! :)

"After" Pics...Kids' Room!

I must have won the husband jackpot. Seriously. When I went to bed a few hours ago, this room was empty. A few hours later, all the furniture was setup! Love you, Bry! We don't have the convertible crib/bed or toys and decor yet, but it's a start!!!

Changes are a comin'

These Lucy kisses were much needed after a long week...

Tonight's mission: IKEA shopping spree! We bought a bookshelf, a dresser, a nightstand, and a stuffed animal golden retriever. Our plan is to give every child who stays in our home their own little "Lucy" to take with them wherever they go! It'll also be great to show the kids the right way to pet and interact with Lucy on the stuffed animal version before they play with the real dog. :) 

Kids' room before the makeover...

After removing everything...

Bry working hard putting everything together...

"After" pics coming soon!!!

BCMT Part I: Complete!

First of two nights of Behavior and Crisis Management Training is finished! 

You might think otherwise based on the play dough creation we made together, but it was actually a great class and we learned a lot! 

Key take-aways from Part I:

- We're only allowed by law to use the BCMT hold if the child is about to harm themselves or someone else. 

- There are times that we play the role(s) of detective, coach, ambassador, and security. All of these interactions will either lead to trust and relationship building, or they will hinder the process. 

- Stress impacts every area of our lives. If we don't have a plan in place for dealing with stress, becoming foster parents only makes it more difficult. 

- We should each find an accountability partner who will help us stick to our weekly "stress-de-escalating" activities. 

- For the first few months (and possibly years), we have to ensure we're meeting the kids' physical and safety needs before expecting them to understand what it means to meet their emotional needs. Children progress through the hierarchy of needs at different rates, but we hope they'll be able to say: I have what I need and I am safe. Then: I am precious and I'm awesome. And someday we may be able to hear them say: I can do anything! 

- Be mindful of kids' cultural backgrounds, their memories, and their world views. We did an activity where we wrote words/drew symbols to represent some of our favorite things. After drawing and writing a few symbols, she had us draw a line to connect the two circles and stems around the circles. These became our own "rose-colored glasses" that we see the world through. The kids who come into our home will have their own "glasses" and their own world views. It's our job to love them and pro-actively reach out to find out what makes them THEM and help them feel special! 

By the way, yes, that is a picture of a pillow - it represents my most favorite activity ever: sleeping. I think I'll go do that now...while I still can before there are kids in our home! 

Chrys' Shower!

I must begin this post with a little story we'll call, "Not sure if this comment will keep us from becoming licensed foster parents." I know, it's a long title, but hear me out...during our child abuse class on Thursday night, we heard a lot of heartbreaking information about the terrors these precious children have to endure. At one point, our facilitator began listing the characteristics of a typical sex predator, which included the following: 

- wants to spend long periods of time with the child/ren

- likes to buy gifts for the child/ren

- continues to ask the child's parents when they can babysit or see the child again

Well, I just couldn't hold my comment in; without giving it a second thought, I just shouted out, "This just sounds like the qualities of an amazing aunt." I thought this was hilarious, but it took people a minute to catch on...we'll see in the next few weeks if I've compromised our licensing efforts! 

Now, on to something else...

WOW. What a (full, non-stop, crazy, FUN, blessed) weekend! 

We started the weekend with a date night on Friday night at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. It was such a neat place! We'll definitely be back. http://drafthouse.com/dfw/richardson

Saturday morning began with CPI (safe child restraint) training for Bry and a meeting with a few teachers for me. After brunch, I headed to Plano for Heather Mitchell's baby shower. (Apparently one baby shower wasn't enough for one weekend - more on that later!) 

Saturday night Bry and I went to Matt and Jan's in Wylie to have dinner with the Weiss' and the Wilson's. It was such a great night! Two hours of laughing did something amazing to our bodies and our spirits. :)

This morning began with worship at Cross Bend; we hadn't been able to attend church in 2 weeks. Right after church ended, Jan and I kicked it into high gear and began decorating for Chrys' baby shower!!! 

Jan and I did a "Construction Zone" theme. It was so fun! Here are a few pics:

 

We played "The Price is Right: Baby Edition" with the items in this truck. The guests had to guess the price of each item, then Chrys and Josh took the truckload home! 

Jan did a fabulous job making the cupcakes and I had so much fun making the cupcake toppers. They said things like, "Baby Construction Zone," "Roadwork next 8 Weeks," and Bennett's sweet name, of course! 

One of the BEST things about the whole weekend was that Anie and MJ came up for the shower! I got to spend a few hours with my baby girl! 

The parents with the new grandmas! Chrystal's mom, Josh, Chrystal, and Jan (Josh/Bry's mom)! 

Josh all geared up in his "daddy diaper duty survival kit!" 

Yeah! All 4 of us! We can't wait to meet you, baby Bennett! You're already loved by so many friends and family! 

Lastly, Bry and I have officially decided to move forward with fostering classes, become licensed, and welcome children into our home if and when the Lord brings them into our lives. This. Is. Exciting!!!  

Session 5...complete!

This note pretty much sums up our fifth class (child abuse) tonight. It's a very serious topic, but we have to find humor somewhere to get through a 3 hour class on such a heavy topic! 

Lucy Lou

Long day. Hard week. Lucy keeps us going on days like this. :)

Take-Aways: Separation, Loss, & Grief Session

So, I've been writing a lot recently about how much we've learned about the foster world...thought I'd share a few things here. Here we go!

• "Many people expect kids to be happy that they have been rescued from abuse. This RARELY happens." (Yes, the word rarely is capitalized on the handout.) It's easy to have a "savior" mentality and think that the child should feel lucky or happy to be out of what most people would consider to be a horrible situation. The reality is that many kids do not even consider their situation to be "horrible" - it's simply their reality. All they know is that their entire world was just shaken up and they were separated from the only people they're familiar with and they're now in a stranger's home; most children will be very unsettled and uncomfortable for quite a while until they learn to trust that we'll meet their physical needs, and then eventually, their emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. This quote haunts me from a website I stumbled upon today, "The children who come into our care have suffered at least the loss of their parents. If this is not the first placement, they have suffered the loss of parent substitutes. Many have also lost the support of their siblings. They have been separated form the place they knew as home. They have also lost many of the things they owned. When we stop to think about how much they have lost, we find it amazing they are able to adjust at all. Some never do."
• Seems obvious, but we were advised not to make any promises about anything when kids are in our home. We should take every day one day at a time. This means not promising that the kids will be returned to their biological home OR that they'll be staying at our house.
• All foster kids will create their own coping mechanisms in their situation. Some kids will place the blame of the situation on themselves and think that if they behave really well, they'll be able to go home.
• It is illegal to poll for information when kids come into our home. We are allowed to offer to be a listening ear, but if they start talking in depth about their situation, we are supposed to wait to respond until the therapist is present.
• We should create a "Crisis Calendar" where we can track potentially challenging dates for the child - such as their mom's birthday, parents' anniversary, sibling's birthday, etc.
• The child shouldn't be the only one adapting to the new living situation. WE should also adapt and embrace the child's interests, culture, etc. We'll all change together! This is actually really exciting for both of us!
• God's Word calls us to be three things to these children: a protector (John 10:27-30), a provider (Phil. 4:19), and a guide (Psalms 32:8). They should feel protected in our home, see us as a source of love, excitement, play, etc. and trust that we'll provide the guidelines for a stable, loving home they may have never experienced before.

This was just a short list of notes from ONE session! I'll add more in the next few weeks. Off to bed...

100%

100%. That's how sure Brian is that he wants to become a foster daddy to our "maybe babies." I'm at about 92%. A few weeks ago, I was at about 10%. I don't know if I'll ever be more than 95% sure that I want to do this...I have to leave a little room for faith.

MJ's first bday party was today at YaYa's condo in New Braunfels! She was the cutest little cowgirl ever! I absolutely love being her Godmommy!!!

MJ loves these banana muffins! This was her outfit before the party started. 

Uncle Bear's Big Tex hat. 

The pastor came by to dedicate MJ to the Lord. Me (Godmommy), Jayson - Anie's brother (Goddaddy), Anie and MJ, the pastor, and YaYa and Hoot- Anie's parents. 

All dressed up and ready to party! Her shirt says, "This is my 1st rodeo!"

Cake smashing time! I ate more icing off her fingers than she did. She wasn't that interested in it. 

Ok, maybe she was. :)

Post-cake....MJ and Hoot. All messy and ready to jump in the water. It was a great party! 

Coincidence?

Total God moment happened this week.

While stuffing our faces as quickly as we could on Tuesday night before our fourth class began, we looked at the back of the room and noticed that Jason and Michelle Duke were at the sign-in table! J&M are friends from college whom we haven't seen in about 7 years! We obviously weren't able to catch up during the class, but luckily, it ended around 7:30, so the four of us met up at Starbucks for drinks and conversation. 

It was such a blessing to hear about their journey so far and to know that we have a support system and Godly people to partner with on our journey. I truly believe the Lord knew that I needed someone to encourage me to keep going this week. I have been having some pretty serious doubts about the whole fostering issue, but I know He'll make a way if we're called to do this work. 

We have purchased three books so far - two of which were recommended by our agency...The Connected Child, The Out-of-Sync Child, and a generic book about fostering. I'm sure Bry will have all three books read by next weekend...it'll be a success if I can finish one of them before Easter. :)

We had a little time to spare tonight, so we drove out to Ikea to dream a little about the "kids" room. We walked away with one $3.00 purchase - 10 animal finger puppets. It'll be so fun to use these during story time when we put some kiddos to sleep! 

As always, Bry keeps things really interesting! 

Classes 2 and 3 are under our belt(s)!

We had a long, but great, day yesterday. We had 6 hours of foster classes...the topics were Child Development and Communication. We went to Subway between the two classes to talk about what we learned, questions we still have, and where we're at with all of this.

We ended the day at Uplift's Dynamic Day in Dallas at the Gaylord Texan! It was so nice to get away for a night, have a nice dinner, and have time to reconnect and just TALK. We talked about the fostering classes by the pool, then over chips, salsa & guac at one of the restaurants.

Sacrifice or a Dry Clean Budget?

We went to orientation at the agency we're working with on Tuesday night. It was a pretty stressful day for both of us, and I was concerned that our unpleasant states-of-mind would impact our first visit, but we actually left that evening feeling encouraged and excited. Well, at least one of us. Brian seemed more determined and on fire to make this happen. I, on the other hand, started to feel the weight of the reality and the fear of the unknown stronger than I had before.

I feel like we're walking on a tightrope right now; we're going to fall one way or the other. On one side, we could "fall" into the fostering world and it would turn our lives upside down (in good and bad umm, challenging ways.) On the other side, we could "fall" back into the comfort of our current lifestyles. It's an interesting place to be...it almost feels like we're watching a movie about our own life and we're waiting to see what we're going to choose next. Do we choose chaos or comfort? Sacrifice or a dry clean budget? Runny noses and doctor visits or Netflix marathon Saturdays?

While thinking about these things this week, I've found myself getting upset (ok, maybe even a little resentful and angry) about this "choice." I KNOW that ultimately, it is not our choice - God will guide us towards the path for our family, whether that is fostering or something else. However, even though I know it isn't our choice, I've still felt very uneasy about the whole thing. Part of me wishes I could just be like one of those wives that finds out she's pregnant...she didn't really plan for it, but it just kind of happened. She doesn't really have a choice...in that moment, she's a mom. I feel like in our situation, we get to be a little more intentional about the decision. Even if the Lord ultimately makes the choice, we also have time to sit and think about the decision.

I don't really want to think about the decision. I kind of wish life had just happened and I could just be a mom. Okay, if I'm being really honest, I REALLY wish I didn't have to think about it.

Status: We're going to keep moving forward and PRAYING hard while taking classes and preparing for the home study. Our first two classes are this Saturday. :)

Plug Protectors

I'm not sure why we thought we could walk into Wal-Mart and just figure out what baby products we'd need, but yes, that is what happened tonight. I thought it would be exciting to go "baby shopping" for the first time, but it was actually pretty overwhelming. And tiring. We decided we needed to get out fast...we were both becoming progressively sleepy and hangry (hungry-angry - yes, it's a thing.)

Now that I think about it, it is pretty silly to think we'd just know what to buy. We walked the aisles 3-4 times before deciding on ONE purchase. Yes, just one - a 24-pack of plug protectors.



First baby-proofing purchase!

I'm hoping that I'll be more confident about purchasing different items once we have a better idea about the age range we're comfortable accepting into our home. For now, we know that we'll definitely need these plug protectors...even if it's just MJ and Bennett who will be crawling around the house.

We've been reading a lot over the last few days about FMLA leave for foster parents. We didn't realize that we might be able to qualify for this. I have setup a meeting with our Director of HR on Tuesday to find out more about how this would work. From what I've read here, it sounds like we could take up to 12 weeks of (unpaid) leave if we receive a foster placement. We were under the impression that FMLA leave was only for birth/adoptive parents. This could be a game changer, people! :)

I came across a blog post this morning called, "The Top Ten Signs You're Ready to be a Foster Parent." She writes:

Here are my thoughts on if you are ready to be a foster parent…
10. You don’t mind your entire life being an open book. Literally. The moment you decide to move forward with foster care your life is documented over and over again.
9.   Being finger printed doesn’t scare you.
8.   You are able to free up your schedule to attend hours of training, some relevant and some not-so relevant.
7.   Having access to extra clothing, diapers, baby items, books, toys, etc is very helpful. Sometimes the agency will provide them, but many times it‘s what you have on hand.
6.   You are able to be flexible. Very, very flexible. Even after a year, it still surprises me how quickly situations change and children are always caught in the balance.
5.   You have a strong support system. Having a good case worker is awesome, but having a group of friends who you can call when you need to laugh or cry or vent is priceless.
4.   You understand that while you are paid a stipend while you care for a child, it will not make you rich, and you probably spend more than you take in.
3.   You can listen without judging. You will instantly learn more than you wanted to know about a situation, and it can be overwhelming.
2.   You are able to not gossip about the child that you are caring for. Even little ones hear more than we are aware, and it‘s so important for them to know that they are in a safe place with people they can trust.
1.   You can drop everything at a moment’s notice when that phone rings and be ready to go.  When a child needs a placement it generally happens within 24 hours, often times sooner.

I highlighted in yellow the things that I think we're ready for...#7 (highlighted in pink) is the one we haven't figured out yet, but I'm sure we will soon...and the three highlighted in blue are the things I'm still unsure of. These are the things I'm still praying about. I want to be flexible, non-judgmental, and able to be ready to go at a moment's notice, but realistically, we're not even close to being ready yet. I'm sure things will fall into place quickly if the time comes that we both feel like we are being called to this, but as of right now, I can't say we're 100% ready for all 10 things on this list.

We're basically counting down the hours until Tuesday night when we can finally learn more about the agency near our house...I really, really, really, really, REALLY want this place to work out. We'll see what God has planned.

I'll finish this post by showing you a pic of something I'm absolutely in LOVE with. If we do find that fostering is the direction God has for our family, I will definitely want to steal this family's idea of a fostering photo session. If you can't see the card well enough, the signs say things like, "Growing in my heart," and "Waiting for you." LOVE. THIS. :)