Expecting the Unexpected

 

 

Life is sure to never be dull with three boys!  Ours are now eight, six, and two and a half respectively and keeping me on my toes.  My dad was one of three boys and I feel like I am beginning to better understand his childhood better.  When he told me stories about the things he did growing up, I thought they were all crazy.  Now, I'm seeing history repeat itself...

It is All For Him



The past two weeks have been tough.  I mean really tough. 

It started when our two year old came down coughing on a Tuesday.  Jack was doing okay, but by Friday, Ethan was coughing so hard that he was crying and didn't want to go to school.  He is the kind of kid who is so tough that when he sliced open his foot playing barefoot basketball at the neighbors (we did have a discussion later about how this is not a good idea) he had to be carried home and left a trail of blood behind and he never once cried.  He never complains so when something is this bad for him, we listen. 

Why We Should Read the Bible First



Before I start, I want to admit that I am totally guilty of this so I'm including myself in this question:

Why is it easier to read a book, blog, magazine articles, or devotional than it is to turn to scripture when we are looking for spiritual nourishment?

I Am, Too!

 



I have a dear friend, Jennifer Hendrick Davies, whom I'm incredibly proud of!  Jennifer and I met a long time ago in junior high and we have been friends since.  She is such an amazing woman of God and has been like a sister to me, encouraging me and just being there despite the fact that we are on opposite coasts!  Given all this, I am so excited to share that she has written a book!

Foster Parenting: The Birth Parent Challenge

I've had something on my chest for a long time.  A really long time.  And I was once guilty of it too.

Judgment of people whose kids are in foster care.

I used to think, "Seriously?  How could you let stuff get that bad that someone had to come take your kids for their safety?  Don't you even care?"

I was wrong.  They do care.  They care tremendously and most of the time are deeply ashamed to be in this situation.  Most birth parents of foster kids love their kids intensely and want them back.

The problem is that we tend to look at the situation as an outsider; we see it at face value and don't look deeper.  It is easier to think they are radically different than accept that we might be in the same situation if our circumstances were different.

In The Jungle Part 2

When I did our baby's nursery with the glow in the dark starry night mural on the ceiling, I was inspired to revamp the rest of it.  I've had the jungle theme since our now eight year old was a baby, but I really became inspired when my kids told started singing the "In the Jungle, the mighty Jungle" song.  I wrote about the ceiling mural and how to do it here in the first post about the nursery, but I still didn't show the whole finished product.  I was absolutely thrilled with how it turned out!

 

 

Obviously, this isn't a crib anymore.  Jackson figured out how to pull himself up and flip his feet over the rails so we transitioned him to a toddler bed.  I was so sad though!  It is just a tangible reminder that he isn't a baby anymore!  Anyways, I found the letters spell his name at A.C. Moore and painted them with the undiluted paint from doing the wash for the ceiling mural.  I loved this bedding from Target, but sadly they don't have it anymore.  They do have some other cute jungle themed sets that are pretty inexpensive.  We had quite a few stuffed animals that fit the theme so I set those out to decorate with.  Jack Jack loves his giraffe from my mom, although they occasionally are on the outs and Giraffe has apparently committed some travesty according to my two year old and is not allowed to be on the bed.  Two year old problems...

One of my kids' favorite songs is "In the Jungle" which is basically what inspired our nursery so it seemed like the logical choice to use that for some word wall art:

Getting Our Feet Wet

Embarrassingly enough, I actually kinda sorta forgot about my blog for a while.  And by a while, I mean for about 6 months...

These past few months have been challenging and amazing and truly demanded all of my attention.  At the time of my last post, we were in process of getting licensed to be foster parents.  Not long afterwards, our license was granted and we got our feel wet really quickly when we were placed with a precious nearly one year old little girl for two months within weeks.  I can honestly say that giving her back was one of the hardest things I have had to do and I'll probably write a post about it all later.  Our county is swamped with Child Protective Services cases right now and I recently heard that there are over 500 kids in foster care here.  Almost immediately, we started getting calls for other kids.  The week we were placed with our current foster daughter, I got four calls asking me if I would take kids.  I'm only licensed to be able to take one child right now, otherwise I probably would have more.  It is probably a good thing though, since I really have my hands full at the moment with our three boys and our sweet little infant girl whom we have had for four months now.  I can't really give details about her, but she has some major health issues (thankfully doing really well!) and taking care of her and working with social services has become really like a big part time job.  Our boys are all doing great and absolutely love her and are passionate about what we are doing.  I dearly want to raise them to be men who see the needs of others around them and are willing to step up and do something about it.  We try to shelter them from the bulk of information about the situations we are involved in, but it is important they grow up knowing that others are far less fortunate than us.