1/30/14

How can YOU help?


We have been blessed with so many wonderful friends and family.  So many of you have asked what you can do to help us on this journey.  We are very thankful for each one of you.  

I will answer this question in two parts.  

Part 1: More about our journey:

We have submitted our application and are waiting to be contacted about our classes.  In the mean time, we are getting everything ready at home.  We are getting licensed for 2 children 12 months or younger.  Any gender.  Any race.  We could get as sibling group or 2 kids from different families.  

There are 3 different scenarios in this process:

1.  A child (or children) are placed in our home as a foster placement.  They will remain in our home until their birth parent does what the state requires of them and they get custody of their child again.  This could be a short time (a few weeks) or long term (over a year). 

2.  A child (or children) are placed in our home as a foster placement.  The birth parents lose rights and the child remains in our home and is adopted.  

3.  A child (or children) are placed in our home directly for the purpose of adoption.  

Whether the children are in our home for a short time or forever, there are needs that we will have throughout the process.


Part 2: How you can help:

1.  Pray!!  

 Most importantly, please be praying for us, the kids, future kids, and their parents/families throughout this journey.  These kids will be coming to our home under circumstances that are less than ideal.  Before you do anything, please pray.  This is the most important thing.   If you are unable to donate in any other way, that is ok.  Please just pray.  

2. Monetary Donations:

We will get very little notice (possibly less than an hour) when a child is placed in our home.  Until that moment, we will not know the age, gender, race, or any other details about the child(ren).  

We are trying our best to be as prepared as possible (preparing a space for the child, carseats, clothes, diapers, etc...) but the bulk of what they need will be purchased after they arrive.  

If you would like to help by donating monetarily, you can click the "donate" button at the top left column of this blog.  

3.  Reasons for donating:


  • We are going to be certified for 2 kids.  We will need to have duplicates of certain items before we can be licensed.  (cribs, car seats, etc...)  
  • Your donations will help greatly in helping us meet requirements so that we can be licensed.  


All that to say, our expenses will come in two phases: preparation and when the children arrive.  If you feel led to donate to our fostering/adoption fund, thank you.

Please pray first.  And if that is all you feel called to do, that is everything!  

 
Thankful.  Blessed.


Getting Ready


We have been trying to get our home ready for new kids.  A few weeks ago we moved G into E's room.  It's been going pretty well!  The first few days, they both were waking up pretty early, but they have both started waking up at around 8:00.  It's been so nice.

We can get our home ready.  We can buy cribs and carseats.  We can clean and safety proof the things that aren't already safety proofed.  We can attend the classes.  We can have our homestudies.  But even if we do those things, are we really prepared?  Not without Jesus.

There are days that I think I am emotionally ready for this challenge.  And days when I am terrified.  There is a strong chance that within the next 18 months, we will have 4 kids ages 4 and younger.  It will be different.  But it will be good.  Because Jesus is good.  And Jesus is the center of this.

My prayer is that Jesus will prepare me emotionally for this journey.

He will.  He already has.

Thankful.  Blessed.

Here are a few pictures from school yesterday and today:


 We have been working on this apple tree all week.  The trunk is her foot, the leaves are her hands, and the apples are her finger prints.  :)


 Dot markers! 


 She is really starting to be able to follow the directions on the card and build her letters!



 Tuesday we stamped apples with paint.  I drew stems on them and cut them out.  We used them today to make patterns.  It's so fun to watch her progress in her learning!


 She put the ABCs in order.  There are so many fun games we can do with these bean bags!


 Writing the letter A


 We read the story.  As I read, if she saw an A, she would use her yellow dot marker to put a dot on it. 


Apple seed counting and number matching. 

Thankful.  Blessed.


1/28/14

Snow Day!!!!


YES!!!





















(crossing fingers) Snow Day???


I will start by saying this, if it were up to me, it would be between 75-95 at all times.  I am not a "snow" person.  But, my sweet daughter has been praying for snow.  She wants it to snow so badly.   It is supposed to start snowing today.  Not much...but a lot for where we live.  She ever so patiently did school today.  I know that all she wants to do is play outside!!  Her sweet daddy took her to buy her some gloves and a scarf.  (If that tells you at all how seldom it snows here).

(Crossing my fingers!!)

On to school...  Today was a painting kind of day!  

But first things first.  Last week we "planted" seeds.  Click HERE to see that post. 

These were our results:

 
I love her reaction to her little plants!  
(Please pardon the blurriness.  I think I need to start using my actual camera instead of my phone).


For the first time, E counted to 100 by herself today with no mistakes!  She has to be looking at the numbers to do it, but nonetheless!  I am so proud of her!!  


We finished up our hand print flower project from last week.  She sure does love to paint!  :)

 
 We are painting an apple tree.  We did the trunk today.  She giggled the whole way through.  :)

 And finally, apple stamping!  We made a sheet of red, yellow, and green apples.  We will let them dry, cut them out and use them for all sorts of things!  (patterns, counting, etc...)


Thankful.  Blessed.


1/27/14

Ikea!


If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE Ikea.  Sometimes when we are bored, we go to Ikea.  Today was one of those days.


I am working on my desk in Evie's classroom.  I will do a more detailed post of our classroom/office/guest room when it is finished!  :)  

Thankful!  Blessed!

1/24/14

Routines


Michael came home with a clock for E yesterday.  A digital clock.  We covered up the minutes and she can only see the hour.  When it says "8" she can get up.  (Unless she has to go to the bathroom of course).  It is really working so far!  She came out of her room at exactly 8:00 this morning!  (Except for at 6:30 when she came out to go to the bathroom.  As soon as the door opened, I heard G yelling "Ma!  Ma!"  Ha.  He was ready to get up!  Thankfully he went back to sleep. 

Each day, we start with prayer, bible verse, and catechism.  

Next, we move to calendar, numbers, letter sounds, shapes, colors, and personal information (full name, address, phone number, birthday).  Most of these things are review.  

 Calendar Time.  She changes the day, date, month, weather, and season (when applicable).  We also sing the days of the week song and the months of the year song. 

This is Evie's finished creation book!  We had a really fun time putting this together!  Below you will see detailed pics of each page. 



Finally, she used a stamp pad to make her finger print and I helped her turn them into the letter g.  This was hard for her.  We'll keep practicing!  :)

Happy weekend!!

Thankful.  Blessed.





1/23/14

High Museum of Art


The first exciting part of today is that I dropped off our paperwork for fostering/adoption!  Yes!  So excited!!

Secondly, we decided to take a field trip to the High Museum of Art.  Every Thursday is Toddler Thursday. (Free with admission or membership).  There is a story and a craft.  Today was our first time.  E really enjoyed it.  We also took a trip around the museum and saw a painting by her Daddy's favorite painter.  Mark Rothko.  She liked it!  So much that she even licked the painting.  When her Daddy found out he said, "Has your daughter ever licked something worth a million dollars?  Mine has."  Ha.  Silly girl.  No damage.  No harm done.  

Here are a few pictures of our day....





Thankful.  Blessed.